Bad Ad Copy, or Just Bad Proofing?

The Swash product has a decent offering; and the company's monopoly or revenue stream is likely to be from the cartridge refills for the "refreshed" scent. For the convenience it offers, it will probably save you a lot more over time versus sending clothes out to be professionally dry cleaned. Although, the ad doesn't say that the product actually cleans; so a consumer might think they're refreshing it and thousands of dead skin cells still clinging to it.

2014-10-03, Swash ad on NBC.com

Talk about ad copy #fail.  This is the first that I've seen in quite a while where the ad copy proofreaders failed to see this one. The product reviews feed looks like it is specific to that ad. Gotta love default text, except when it is shown like this to a national audience.

Best Features of iOS 8

This was a tough post to write. I really had to think about what the best features that came with iOS 8, even after shuttering many of the new functions. What can I say. I like the minimalist approach to what I allow the phone to do.

Podcasts App:  Under 'Settings', if you want to preserve the battery life, you'll want to refresh episodes manually. Podcasts are MP3s, so the more you have on your device, the more it'll take up in your native storage. Fortunately, you can also stream from the app without having to download any of the episodes. The "featured" and "top charts" shows the top subscribed to podcasts.

iCloud Family Sharing: Have not activated this yet; not sure it'll be all that useful at the moment.

Time-Lapse option for Camera - Maybe this will work better than the panoramic option that I can't get to work right. The concept videos look nice though.

Battery Usage by App - Shows a percentage used in the last 24 hours or last 7 days. I don't know what I'm doing other than checking the time, but the Home & Lock Screen shows that it eats 9% of the battery. Even with the cache cleared, I'm not sure why Bing hogs 747 mb of device storage. Compare that to Chrome which uses 162 mb or Safari with 130 mb. 

Hey Siri - only for the truly lazy. Siri still eats up battery power like candy; so, it's best to use her if you are connected to a wired power source.

Bold, Italics, Underline in Notes - I have not noticed this before the update. But now when I copy/paste from a website to Notes, some of the formatting stays.

There doesn't seem to be any way to disable the default view from showing up as 'Recently Taken' and 'Recently Deleted' folders for the Photos folders.

iOS 8 Update

It took quite some time to get around to updating to iOS 8 because I had more than 2,000 photos on my phone and the update says it needs at least 5 GB to download. I had to archive the photos off the phone (sadly, this means I have to use a second machine to do this instead of eating up 1/5th of cloud storage), and then individually select photos to delete them off the phone. I'm sure there is a better way, like a batch delete? I have not found it. After manually deleting 1200 photos, I had enough storage space on the iPhone 5 to download the update. Seriously, I have to tap onto each photo just to delete it? Double ugh.

I even let the download run overnight. WTF would add an "Install" prompt to the download. I mean, why would you want to just download the update and not install it? Anyhow. The actual update took a lot longer than I thought it would. 46% adoption rate from iOS 7 to iOS 8 isn't terrible. It would probably be higher if the update wasn't filled with bloatware.

I don't think I want to upgrade to the latest hardware version. The iPhone 5 is large enough, even with the rugged case I have it in. I think I'll wait until the 6's durability issues are resolved.

Canada's anti-spam laws (CASL) and its impact on US marketing

Here are the top 10 elements of Canada's CASL anti-spam legislation and its impact for US companies marketing to Canadian citizens:

• CASL applies to all commercial electronic messages (CEMs) sent to Canadian electronic addresses. This includes emails, text messages, and social media messages.
• CASL requires that you obtain consent before sending a CEM to a Canadian resident. Consent can be express or implied.
• CASL requires that you identify yourself and your business in all CEMs. This includes your name, physical address, and email address.
• CASL requires that you provide a clear and conspicuous unsubscribe mechanism in all CEMs. This means that recipients must be able to easily unsubscribe from your mailing list without having to contact you.
• CASL prohibits the sending of CEMs that are false or misleading. This includes CEMs that contain false or misleading information about the sender, the content of the message, or the purpose of the message.
• CASL prohibits the sending of CEMs that are unsolicited. This means that you cannot send a CEM to a Canadian resident unless they have given you their consent to receive it.
• CASL prohibits the sending of CEMs that are excessive. This means that you cannot send too many CEMs to a Canadian resident in a short period of time.
• CASL prohibits the sending of CEMs that are harassing or annoying. This means that you cannot send CEMs that are intended to annoy, alarm, or inconvenience the recipient.
• CASL prohibits the sending of CEMs that contain viruses or other harmful content.
• CASL provides for significant penalties for non-compliance. These penalties can include fines of up to $10 million for individuals and $100 million for organizations.

The impact of CASL for US companies marketing to Canadian citizens is that they must comply with the law in order to send CEMs to Canadian residents. This means that they must obtain consent, identify themselves, provide an unsubscribe mechanism, and avoid sending false or misleading, unsolicited, excessive, harassing, or annoying CEMs. If a US company does not comply with CASL, it may be subject to significant penalties.

5 Lessons Learned About Leadership and Change

Last night I got to meet Phyllis Campbell, chairman of JPMorgan Chase's Pacific Northwest region at WSU Vancouver's MBA Stakeholder Speaker Series event. The evening's audience were graduate students of WSU Vancouver's accounting and MBA programs. I was able to ask her the rolodex question (who gets into it and why) and the mentor question (how did you find your first mentor).

Phyllis' lessons learned from the WaMu - JPM Chase transition:

1. Instill a sense of urgency
2. Create a common vision or purpose (JPM focus is on their customers and community; what they stand for)
3. Get the right people on the bus (even when some people don't want to be on that bus)
4. Communicate early and often (email, newsletters, etc.) and be willing to meet with stakeholders (employees, customers, community leaders) whether they like you or not
5. Model the culture and values of the organization - JPM culture is Doing 1st class business in a 1st class way; then things will happen; walk the talk that you stand for

Home Depot Black Friday Ad - In Spring?

Recycling of the November/Holiday Winter ad pricing theme? Poor ad planning? No one running their email marketing department? It is rather curious why any retailer would use the Black Friday phrase in a season other than after Thanksgiving day. Even the US Post Office knows that Mother's Day weekend is the busiest parcel shipping "season", which outpaces Black Friday. What do you think? 

2014-04-03 Home Depot Spring Ad

The Myth of Organic and Sustainability Food Marketing

The use of "organic" in food marketing is highly unregulated outside the US and the word "sustainability" is un-standardized and means both wild and farm raised. The USDA, a government agency that regulates agriculture in the US with the intent of protecting consumers, has guidelines about what can be labelled as organic but is so understaffed that labeling abuses are all too frequent and unenforced. And, the harvest standards are different across the many segments of the food industry, from meat production to fresh produce to fruit to fish and seafood. 

The current USDA definition of "organic" is:

"Organic is a labeling term that indicates that the food or other agricultural product has been produced through approved methods that integrate cultural, biological, and mechanical practices that foster cycling of resources, promote ecological balance, and conserve biodiversity. Synthetic fertilizers, sewage sludge, irradiation, and genetic engineering may not be used."

"Organic" is not the same as "natural", even though by a plant or animal's chemical structure it is. And, it certainly does not mean that fertilizers aren't being used to cultivate the food source. A farmer can feed GMO soybeans to his chickens and produce organic fertilizer from the dried chicken droppings; which is then tilled into the soil to produce more food. Can it really still be considered organic? Of course, because we're only looking at the end product and not the whole process of how that product gets to the market.

The myth of sustainability is that if we (as farmers/gatherers/food producers) use herd management best practices, this food source can be harvested indefinitely. If you think that eating buffalo meat is healthier and better for you because it's a leaner meat than beef, and you eat it because it isn't raised on a farm, think again. All buffalo meat in the US is farm-raised and the herd is roughly 500,000. All wild, free-range buffaloes in the US exist only in environmental and government preserves--and hunting these is a crime. 

Our greed and growing appetite for consumption fuels these myths.

Think you're supporting a small food co-op, family farm, or responsible food producer? Take a look at this infographic and see who owns these popular organic food products.