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I’m an unashamed Oklahoma Sooner football fan. Missed 1 home game in the last 8 years (We lost to Oklahoma State. I remember where I was when I watched it from afar.).
Obviously, I’m thrilled the Sooners got the nod over the Texas Longhorns to represent the Big 12 South in the Big 12 Championship game in Kansas City this weekend.
Consensus opinion is that if the Sooners win against Missouri Saturday, they will advance to the National Championship game against Floribamada.
But I’m not so sure that’s a given.
The difference between OU and Texas in the BCS is THIN. VERY THIN.
What if OU wins, but they do it in a very non-convincing way. 3 or 4 turnovers. Bad defense. Pull out a squeaker at the end against #20 Missouri.
Is it possible that poll voters would be so unimpressed with OU that they’d rank Texas higher in the last pre-bowl poll? Absolutely.
And if they did that, is it possible that Texas would edge out OU in the BCS? Seems darn possible to me.
I picked up this Scosche USB charger from Target over the weekend. Plug it into your cigarette lighter and you can charge 2 different USB devices at the same time. That means I can keep my iPhone, iPod and Garmin GPS charged with very few headaches. It was $21 at Target, but you can order it from Amazon for $15.57.
The upside of the Target version is that it also comes with a wall charger with a single USB outlet.
When I upgraded to 2.2 firmware on my iPhone, I couldn’t delete emails from the Gmail account on my phone. When I tried, I got an error message saying the email couldn’t be moved to the trash.
If you’ve run into the same problem, try this:
1. Go to Settings
2. Go to Mail, Contacts, Calendars
3. Tap on the email account that’s giving you problems.
4. Tap Advanced.
5. Tap Deleted Mailbox.
In the ‘On My iPhone’ section, Trash should be checked.
6. In the ‘On the Server’ section, tap any folder.
7. Then tap ‘Trash’ in the ‘On My iPhone’ section again.
That should solve the problem. Let me know in the comments if it doesn’t.
Thanks to Peter Shankman for bringing #Motrinmoms to my attention. It’s the top trending term on Twitter right now–meaning, there’s a huge amount of buzz on the subject.
So what’s the deal? Motrin produced an ad (currently still on the front page of Motrin.com) that completely sent LOTS of moms into orbit with offense. I’m not a mom; so I was unclear on the source of offense after watching the ad.
Then I watched this:
Makes more sense now. Best I can tell, it’s not that Motrin said anything directly offensive. It’s that they chose to speak on behalf of ‘baby toting mommies’ in a way that exposed the fact that they didn’t know what the hell they were talking about.
The ad should have ended with a disclaimer that ‘No Baby Toting Mothers Were Consulting During the Making of This Commercial.’
So moms were understandably offended when a company attempted to speak on their behalf and just, well, completely screwed it up.
Instead of appearing concerned and compassionate, Motrin ended up looking condescending and uninformed. Oops.
A few thoughts:
1. I would hate to be the ad agency that produced this. Like, I’d REALLY hate it. At the end of the day, they’ll likely take a bigger hit than Motrin. Motrin’s core business is making pain medication, and there are lots of demographics they DIDN’T upset that won’t ever hear about this.
The agency on the other hand is going to take a huge hit to their credibility in marketing research. The ad was actually really well done from a technical standpoint. It was catchy and unique. But catchy and unique don’t matter if you offend the very people you’re trying to market to.
Any new business pitch this agency does that includes their marketing research is likely to ring hollow for quite some time.
2. WHY IS THIS AD STILL ON THE FRONT OF MOTRIN.COM? This has only been going on today (Sunday), but if there’s been enough time to produce a 9+ minute YouTube video about this, you’d think somebody could have yanked the ad. Does Motrin not have anyone subscribed to Google Alerts, TweetBeep, etc?
3. It’s a really, really, really good idea to listen to your customers. I’ve definitely made the mistake of plowing ahead in a direction I thought customers wanted only to find that if I’d just asked, I would have realized I was dead wrong. Answering questions no one is asking is a fast track to frustration and not-so-happy P&L sheets.
Britain’s ‘Telegraph’ reports that online bookmaker Paddy Power allows you to place a wager on whether or not God exists. The current odds are 4-1.
The article reads:
A spokesman for Paddy Power said that confirmation of God’s existence would have to be verified by scientists and given by an independent authority before any payouts were made, however.
A few thoughts:
1. What counts as ‘God’? A friend of mine asked me the other day, ‘Are you convinced that God exists?’ I replied, ‘Yes, depending on what you mean by “convinced” and “God.”‘
I know the bet is meant to be tongue-in-cheek, but scientific verfication of the God of the Bible seems like a nearly impossible order. Science might (miiiiiiiight) be able to demonstrate that some kind of intelligence independent of the known universe probably exists, but I can’t see that science can get any closer than that.
2. it seems downright impossible for science to disconfirm the existence of God. Some (many?) philosophers may argue that ‘God exists’ is logically inconsistent with propositions like ‘Evil exists.’ Since ‘Evil exists’ seems like an uncontroversial proposition, it would follow that God necessarily doesn’t exist.
But that’s a philosophical argument, not an empirical one. I have no idea how science could provide empirical evidence to prove the non-existence of God. Enlighten me if you know how that could work. I have no clue how.
3. If I were a betting man, my money would be on Paddy Power never having to pay out that money either way. (Of course, if I were a betting man, I’d realize that’s a dumb bet since it would never actually have to pay out in my favor…)
Last thing:
The article says:
Paddy Power’s book on the theological topic was only opened this year, but the notion that it is a good idea to gamble on God’s existence was first put forward in the 17th Century.
The French philosopher Blaise Pascal argued that although God’s existence cannot be proven through reason, it makes sense to have religious faith since a person has everything to gain – an “infinitely happy life” – and nothing to lose by doing so.
That’s a reference to ‘Pascal’s Wager.’ Anybody know why Pascal’s argument doesn’t work as an argument for why we should believe in God’s existence?
I downloaded the Livestrong app this morning, and it took all of 2 minutes for me to fall in love. Chances are fairly high that I may propose to it by the end of the week.
It tracks your calorie intake, exercise and weight.
The food database has over 450,000 items–even my favorite brand of peanut butter crackers.
The app syncs with the Livestrong.com site so you can access it either on your phone or your computer.
It’s a 5 star app, but the fact that it’s also free makes this one of the best iPhone apps available.
I have nearly 7,000 audio tracks in iTunes. A 57″ HDTV. A dedicated media room. A ridiculously cool studio setup. A DVD collection of several hundred discs.
But I know virtually nothing about home audio. Just north of zippo.
Anything I have in the way of audio equipment was picked out for me–or at least with a LOT of assistance and advice.
I randomly ran across the website for Entertainment Solutions in Cincinnati. I don’t live in Cincinnati, and how I ended up at the site is quite immaterial, thank you very much.
Very simple site. Nothing crazy.
But I was struck by their company tag line:
‘We Won’t Let You Make a Mistake.’
Perfect.
My guess is they recognize that most people buying a home audio setup are thinking at least a couple of things:
1. ‘I’m about to spend a lot of money.’
2. ‘I have no idea what I’m doing.’
3. ‘I hope I don’t screw this up.’
Most people (myself included) aren’t interested in a top of the line, my-home-theater-is-worth-more-than-my-car setup. They don’t necessarily care about champagne sound if they have beer ears.
But they don’t want crap either.
Turns out there’s a HUGE gap between an off-the-shelf surround sound setup at Sam’s Club and a Batcave Home Theater.
Within that gap is a lot of room for mistakes.
Very simply and directly, Entertainment Solutions says, ‘We won’t let you screw it up.’
Question: What mistake are your prospective clients afraid of making?
Question: How can you communicate that working with you means they don’t have to worry about making that mistake?
