The Election Y'all

I have never been so truly and honestly moved by the political apparatus of this or any other country as I was last night. The sense of community and the unadulterated feelings of hope and joy as myself and a myriad of other New Yorkers watched the election results roll in was truly incomparable. Unfortunately these feelings were muted by cynicism and sad to say, realism, bred from the last eight years of shady politics, stolen elections and general disillusionment with the political process.

Beer in my hand, smile in my face, I was happy to say and see last night that the process can and does work. Both as a Caribbean / African-American male and as a citizen of the world I swelled with pride as I watched President elect Obama make his acceptance speech. I truly believe this time heralds good, or even great things to come and I salute all those who helped make this happen and hope that in time those that railed against the idea of Obama come to see that this man is truly of and for them.

Coming from a non religious individual ‘God Bless America and God Bless the World”

brandtags.net bum out, but not quite rant

So, I just happened to randomly be researching Noah Brier, as I completely blanked on his name and my curiosity was especially piqued, because I saw who he worked for, and had just had a rather enjoyable, informal meet and greet at Naked Communications last week.

Anyhow, after satisfying myself that I remembered the name from likemind, during looking through his website and reading across a number of his projects, lo and behold I came across brandtags.net (http://www.brandtags.net) and was immediately crestfallen.

For a short while now, as I've confided to several friends, I've been thinking about launching a similar sort of site. I first thought of the idea after reading the Wired magazine article about the Big Word Project (http://thebigwordproject.com/) and started racking my brain (passively) for relatively simple, yet smart ideas that could catch on big and earn revenue from multiple streams all the while engaging with the concept of Web 2.0 and general community, or even moreso, consumer interaction, feedback, and definition.

My idea of this brand perception project was one that would have resulted in more data being mined, and also provided for more brand interaction/feedback, but would basically, and I stress basically, be the same concept. While I don't think this is going to 100% preclude me from still launching my idea as I believe I could do some really interesting and great stuff with it, it has taught me one thing, which I continually preach and don't always practice and that's 'Just Do It'.

Yes, I know NIKE came up with that a long, long time ago and don't in anyway intend to claim to have been scooped on that too, but it is without a doubt a very true call to action. In the spirit of the last lecture, my life policy of 'No Regrets', and all other things telling us to act and act swiftly this is yet another example of the importance of making moves and not sitting and planning every aspect of something until you look up and it passes you by. Anyhow, kudos to Noah Brier and if all goes well look for my 'retort' in the next year or so.

Breaking News

Ok, so I just noticed something while watching a breaking news special on MSNBC regarding a fire at an assisted living complex in West Bloomfield, Michigan. Why are the senior officials who are all supposed to be running or at least supervising operations doing extended interviews with multiple news stations?

I don’t know about you, but it seems to me that if the news is still breaking, that is, the event or crisis is going on you should be working towards averting, containing, or at the very least trying to handle the crisis and not answering banal, trite questions from news anchors.

And don’t think this is an isolated incident either. In fact, this actually triggered my memory of news coverage of almost every single incident where something messed up is going on. I know the news is important and I’m the last person that lives in any sort of bubble, making a constant and concerted effort to keep abreast of current events around the world, but hey trust me I can definitely wait an extra 5-10 minutes, or even a whole couple of hours if it means shit’ll go right instead of someone getting hurt, dying, or things just generally not going as well as they could have if someone was doing their job instead of sounding or looking pretty for the camera.

Oh, and btw…I turned back to MSNBC a couple minutes later and while only smoke was visible on like one floor before, now the entire building is covered in flames.

Good job.