Synonumb

Is a Network Effect Rocketing Apple to the Stratosphere?

2012-02-15T13:45:00.002-05:00

One of the big goals of any social networking site is to create an environment that engenders a "network effect," where all the right design elements come into play to attract the attention of a diverse audience and leverage the global scale of the Internet to create exponential growth.

Example: Facebook's uncluttered design and sharing applications created a network effect that sent it racing past MySpace to become a virtual vortex for all social media.

I think we might be witnessing something tantamount to a network effect in business with Apple the last several months. Six weeks after a holiday season in which Apple racked up all time highs in iPhone and iPad sales, the company is seeing a continued surge in sales as friends and relatives come in contact with these devices and are seduced by Apple's form and fun factors.

My wife got her first iPhone (a 4S) over the holidays and she has fallen in love with it. Siri is like a new friend. A recent dinner party we went to turned into an iPhone seminar when all the women began comparing features and apps. She later felt like she needed to apologize to the host for waylaying the evening.

My daughter, who has been using Android phones for years looks at her mother's phone and says, "Wow."

Because the seemingly limitless functionality of the iOS was somewhat overwhelming, my wife decided to take a user's class at the local Apple store. The class began early in the morning, before the store opened to regular customers. When they opened the doors for regular business, she was there to witness a mob scene. There were no new product announcements, it was just a regular day of business.

Apple stores generate more sales per square foot than any other store in the world, and the company is building new ones around the world at an unprecedented rate. According to some data, average transactions at the Apple store have risen to between $280 and $380 dollars when new products are released. Their most profitable product is the iPad, which doubled in sales over the holidays.

Of course, that's just the result of Apple retail stores. Apple's online web store is the third largest behind Amazon and Staples according to a Forbes survey. Most iPhone sales take place through AT&T, Verizon and Sprint. And the iPhone, iPad and iPods are also available in other retail outlets such as Best Buy and Target.

Apple computers are becoming a smaller and smaller slice of the Apple pie, yet Apple profits doubled in its latest report — iPhone 4S and iPad accounted for 72 percent of those profits.

Siri is obviously a game-changer. The artificially intelligent personal assistant software is both liberating and entertaining. It's the main ingredient driving iPhone 4S sales. Fifty percent of iPhone 4S buyers were upgrading from another iPhone. By including functionality like Siri in the iOS, Apple has created unprecedented brand loyalty in the cell phone market, where typically owners will upgrade to any phone that gives them the best bang for the buck with a new contract agreement.

Holiday sales weren't hurt by Blackberry's network flameout either. Blackberry users accounted for 25 percent of the iPhone 4S sales. Today, it was reported that Apple passed Samsung Electronics Co. in the fourth quarter to become the world’s biggest smartphone vendor.

The iPad is expected to get Siri when the next version is announced in March. So you can expect another stampede at Apple Stores.

But there's more. The death of Steve Jobs has brought worldwide attention to Apple's unique corporate culture. Walter Isaacson's biography of Jobs has remained at or near the top of the New York Times best sellers list since its debut in late October 2011.

In the book, Isaacson clearly outlines how Job's philosophy created a design-predicated company culture that puts the goal of building absolutely perfect people-products ahead of profit motivations. This mandate for craftsmanship stands in revolutionary contrast to most corporate business practices, but it's becoming clear which philosophy customers respond to better.

The book raised some questions about how well Apple will be able to continue the magic with Jobs gone, but dispels any notion that Apple's industry-shaking success is a fluke. Even more so, the book makes it clear that Jobs focused the waning years of his life on leaving Apple with the right governance and a clear blueprint so that its unique business methodology would be his legacy to the world.

It's beginning to look like the convergence of all these elements might propel Apple into the business stratosphere at a jaw-dropping rate. Millions of shares of the stock were sold and bought at all time high prices within a few hours morning. The stock streaked past $525, gaining three percent and pulling the entire tech sector along with it.

Maybe a vision of Apple's future was what Steve Jobs saw on his deathbed, when his sister reported that his last words were, "Oh wow, oh wow, oh wow!"

Happy New Year

2011-12-31T18:14:00.004-05:00

Hope everyone has a good 2012!

Onion has local news format down pat

2011-12-12T11:00:00.000-05:00

Chessmen a caricature of 800-year-old society

2011-11-18T10:03:00.001-05:00

Chess pieces were an allegory of the social order in the 12th Century and each of these chessmen is a wonderful caricature. As an editorial cartoonist, I am really drawn to this wonderful artifact from the past.

Obama Blames Excess, Bankers Get out of Jail, Pass Go and Get $200 Bazzillion dollars

2011-10-17T10:44:00.001-05:00

These days, I read the newspaper and shake my head. In his Martin Luther King memorial dedication speach, Obama said: “Dr. King would want us to challenge the excesses of Wall Street without demonizing those who work there.”

Really? This is the change-agent everyone voted for?

So it's not about who needs to be held to account; who the government hasn't even bothered to investigate yet, let alone prosecute. It's not about fixing the hole in the dike that was opened by ill-conceived Congressional legislation in the first place. "Excesses" are the culprit. Gee, what are we going to do about those?

Let's keep on treating the symptom (unemployment) and not the disease. Let's let capitalism and the middle class waste away from a cancer within why don't we. We can continue to play politics with the few thousand jobs government is capable of creating and bury our heads in the sand like ostriches. We can console ourselves by dutifully repeating after Ben Bernanke in responsive reading and hope that Wall Street excesses are a thing in the past. The last thing we want to do is inconvenience or point fingers at people who work on Wall Street. Surely they see the error of their ways.

Really? This is Mr. Hope?

More like Bob Hope.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, and buried on page 4, Medicare yanks licenses and gives them right back.

Dirty Minds in Charge

2011-10-14T13:44:00.000-05:00

The image on the left has been making the rounds on the Web.

The image on the right is the way I saw it.

Henry Ford was no Steve Jobs

2011-10-08T12:48:00.003-05:00

Henry Ford (left) invented the assembly line, Harely Earl started America's love affair with the car.

Over the last few days, I have heard one talking head after another compare Steve Jobs to Thomas Edison and Henry Ford. I'll agree with the Edison comparison, but Henry Ford? This shows how little, even to this day, the business press and business leaders understand Jobs' contributions to Apple and the world.

If you want to compare the evolution of digital devices and automobiles then Henry Ford was similar to Thomas J. Watson, founder of IBM. True, by inventing the assembly line, Ford made automobiles affordable for the masses, and Jobs designed a computer for everyday people, but even that analogy is a stretch because Ford's automobiles were manufactured as strictly utilitarian transportation machines.

Jobs' was focused on revolutionizing computers for everyone by making them user friendly. He took, what was universally regarded as a utilitarian device and made it a playful and intuitive creative tool. No, if you want to look for a game-changer like Jobs in the automobile world, then consider Harley Earl the head of GM Design in the 1940s and '50s, who is generally recognized as the father of automotive design.

At the time Earl joined GM, Ford was the dominant automaker. All cars were manufactured with few variations, and any upgrades or innovations were made by engineers on the assembly line. Earl changed all that by convincing GM President Alfred P. Sloan that design should come first. GM Design ultimately became the company's most powerful division, dictating manufacturing and marketing strategies for all GM brands. Earl's many innovations, style initiatives and flamboyant marketing techniques made GM the largest automaker in the world, and started America's love affair with the car.

America waited with baited breath for GM to roll out the new body-style every couple of years, just like they do for Apple to announce the Next Big Thing today. Henry Ford on the other hand, once rather famously said, "People can have the Model T in any color — so long as it is black."

I wrote a feature article about Harley Earl in 2007. You can download a pdf file of the article and learn more about him by clicking here.

Apple: Don't miss this opportunity

2011-10-06T09:50:00.000-05:00

Rerelease this ad with one more icon at the end.

2011-10-05T14:54:00.003-05:00

I blog about this cartoon, which I did for the Palm Beach Daily News in October of 1993, in this week's Cartoonistry column. It's all about some of the reasons other than Halloween that people tend to get the creeps in October. I guarantee you that, by the end of the article, you'll be feeling a little paranoid. Bouahahahahaha!

Occupy Wall Street Only The Beginning?

2011-09-25T16:57:00.000-05:00

A very interesting and provocative opinion piece from The Guardian with a global historic perspective that we don't often see in American media.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2011/sep/25/occupy-wall-street-protest?newsfeed=true

Jobs was great because he understood that we all create

2011-08-25T21:48:00.000-05:00

O.K., I think it's great that ArtInfo called Steve Jobs the DaVinci of design and then set about to list 7 Ways Steve Jobs Changed the Visual Arts Forever, but they blew it when they used the premise just to name-drop a list of trendy contemporary digital artists. Steve Jobs (and Steve Wozniak) actually gave us the greatest art tool since the brush.

I remember first learning about the new pixel painting and font programs of the Mac in 1984, when business magazines were full of articles pooh-poohing the usefulness of computers for the everyday consumer and the idea that desktop computers would ever catch on. "They're just glorified adding machines," was a common refrain, "few people will spend $2,500 to own one."

The two Steves, however, understood that human beings are innately creative. Give them a way to map a screen and save a file in pixels; give them the ability to see typefaces, images, white space and a whole page exactly the way it would come out of the printer, and they would create.

A screen shot from MacPaint

The original programming behind these innovations was developed at the PARC research division of Xerox, along with the mouse and other things. But the two Steves, took these principles and made the connection to you and I when they introduced the first computer for all of us ... the Mac. The first art programs that were ever made available to consumers came pre-installed.

I started producing digital art at this time, along with a lot of other professional and amateur artists. We came to realize, very quickly, that the computer was emerging as the most powerful and versatile art implement ever invented ... far from just a glorified adding machine.

Though I have since come to miss the tactile sense of a brush and am wary of mental shortcut habits that I have developed using computers as an artist, I still believe the digitizing of art is universe-altering ... a creative space that doesn't exist within the boundaries of reality, yet is capable of addressing the mind through all our senses. After all, digital technology is still in its infancy. We have no idea where it will lead. Well, perhaps one man does: Steve Jobs. I hope he remains with us for a while longer yet.

Deficit Attention Disorder

2011-07-25T09:18:00.002-05:00

My cartoon in yesterday's Palm Beach Daily News.

The only possible excuse the GOP and Dems can give for their missed opportunities and posturing is, "It must have been the heat." Otherwise, we'd all be convinced that this risky and deleterious right-up-to-the-last-possible-instant debt ceiling brouhaha was about maneuvering for the greatest campaign advantage with the least political fallout.

The harsh reality is that, even if and when they do reach a deal, we're still left with a jobs vacuum, unfair trade practices championed by our own major corporations, mounds of debt, budget-busting entitlement liabilities, governments worldwide that can only move in the direction of austerity, a broken banking system, worthless property rights, valueless currency and a dysfunctional and obviously compromised Congress dominated by two private clubs that are forever scrapping for the largest part of a rotting slice of pie.

How they can continue to call this a "recovery" is beyond me, or any of the rest of the American public. But they obviously don't seem to understand that we're onto them or, in their hubris, don't care.

Nothing Fuzzy about this retelling

2011-07-19T13:04:00.000-05:00

Fuzzy Nation by John Scalzi
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I thought I'd found another great writer in John Scalzi. I'd read the Old Man's War Series, The Android's Dream, even Biz Agent to the Stars and couldn't get enough. But then I saw his latest offering. My first reactions was to think, what kind of a nitwit would decided to retell H. Beam Piper's classic original Fuzzy tale like some jazzed up movie remake? But I read it anyway. I like Scalzi's work that much.

Boy was I rewarded with a great tale. It is a more scathing and in-depth indictment of today's corporate culture than the movie Avatar. And Scalzi's protagonist Jack Hollaway is one of the strongest characters I've read in years — more devious and edgier than Slippery Jim diGriz.

I definitely recommend that readers overcome any misgivings they have about changes to Piper's classic and read it. And, you can bet that I'll be looking for the next thing by Scalzi out in print.

View all my reviews

A good book

2011-07-19T12:32:00.000-05:00

Is there any other kind by Gene Wolfe?

The Knight by Gene Wolfe
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Wolfe is a unique writer. Especially in this series. He not so much tells you the story as lets you discover it through eavesdropping on the conversations between his characters. Very little descriptive scene building, no exposition ... he forces your unconscious mind to supply all of this between the lines. Thus, one becomes deeply and inextricably engaged.

The way Wolfe is extolled as today's penultimate literary genius in the cover blurbs on his novels might put some readers off. But he lives up to it.

View all my reviews

Can Trump actually drive a pacecar?

2011-04-13T12:15:00.000-05:00

Donald Trump was asked to drive the Pace Car at Indianapolis (see http://bit.ly/eoDvdQ). Many people are wondering, can he even drive? Funny. I actually touched on this subject when I was sketching out ideas for a daily cartoon strip about Palm Beach back in the ’90s. One of the characters, Ronald Rex, was based on Trump.

CLick the image to see it larger.

Pixar takes a ‘Brave’ new direction

2011-03-31T11:07:00.000-05:00

Pixar has never shied away from taking artistic risks with either their groundbreaking animation or the emotional depth of their stories. It looks like they are at it again.

Stunning New Concept Art from Pixar's 'Brave' - iamROGUE.com

Collection of earlier B&W editorial cartoons up on my portfolio

2011-03-23T13:47:00.001-05:00

From 1992 through 2001 all of the editorial cartoons that I did for the Palm Beach Daily News were hand rendered in Lamp Black watercolor. After that, I have done them as digital illustrations using paint software and a WACOM tablet. I have just added a group of example cartoons from the black & white period to my portfolio. The art has its own unique quality and there were also some great stories during this period. Check it out.

Editorial Cartoons (the black & white years) on the Behance Network

Take a little trip to Saturn

2011-03-18T22:07:00.000-05:00

5.6k Saturn Cassini Photographic Animation from stephen v2 on Vimeo.

The new Chevy Vortex concept car

2011-02-23T16:22:00.000-05:00

Chevrolet CEO Daniel Akerson announced the new Chevy Vortex concept car that has a propulsion system that doubles as a wind power generator.

Not really, but I like the blog this image came from.

Great use of cartooning

2011-02-19T12:32:00.000-05:00

This is a great use of cartooning as illustration to add an extra dimension of understanding to a complex topic. This particular RSAnimate presentation is also very pertinent to the role that social networking is playing in toppling autocrats and dictators right now.

RSA is the Royal Society for the encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce an historic organization that has been at the forefront of applied science for 250 years.

Madame Peripetie on the Behance Network

2011-02-07T16:36:00.000-05:00

I joined the Behance Network in order to build a new portfolio of my work. But I have come to realize that the site is probably the best place to discover amazing talent from all over the world. Here is a perfect example, some work entitled Dream-sequence from German photographer, Madame Peripetie.

Click this link to visit Dream-sequence on the Behance Network

Funny New Animated Edtoon by Mark Fiore

2011-02-02T11:16:00.002-05:00

Confabulous Digital Art

2011-01-24T12:07:00.000-05:00

I love it when art forces the viewer's mind to perceive new realities and invent new contexts. Everything is familiar about this, and nothing.

Circular Confabulation from QNQ/AUJIK on Vimeo.

More work from New Age proto-Shinto video motion graphics group QNQ/AUJIK can be found their Web site.

My new online portfolio...

2011-01-11T13:15:00.000-05:00

Apple ceased supporting remote Homepages hosting which I had been using for my online portfolio, so I looked around for an alternative and found Behance, a form-based portfolio builder connected to a community including social networking applications. Great!

I've done a lot of widely varied types of work, from graphic design, to illustration, to photomontage, to creative direction, to editing and writing ... both in advertising and publishing ... so, it took me a while to redo all of the various sections. But it's nearly done. Take a look.

About the only thing left to post are samples from 18 years of editorial cartooning for the Palm Beach Daily News.

Fast facts on an historic (West) Palm Beach Home

2011-01-04T23:10:00.029-05:00

Photo: Palm Beach County Historical Society

This photo of my great-grandfather, George Wells Potter's, home was featured in a recent Palm Beach Daily News article as an example of early Palm Beach architecture from the period just prior to Henry M. Flagler's arrival. It is actually one of the best examples of the work of George W. Lainhart, who built many of the early Palm Beach homes in the 1880's and '90s. But it was not built on Palm Beach island.

The caption under the Palm Beach County Historical Society photo is correctly dated as being taken in 1893. That was the year that George Potter married Ella May Dimick and built her a new home on the other side of Lake Worth, in West Palm Beach, after selling his 160 acre Palm Beach homestead. It sat on a ridge about 150 yards up from the shore, overlooking the lake. The Trump Towers occupy the location today.

It was also the year that George Potter and George Lainhart founded the Lainhart & Potter Building Materials Company. Potter's new house was their first project. They built a tramway nearby to offload the materials. and that tramway served the new company when they took on their next job; providing lumber and materials for Henry Flagler's Royal Poinciana Hotel.

I remember this house well. I visited my great grandmother Ella there many times as a child. Right at the entrance, in the foyer, was a large display case filled with a museum-quality shell collection that fascinated my sister and I. All of the shells were lined up on wide shelves and labeled with their scientific names.

My grandmother was born in this house and grew up in it. She would often speak of watching Flagler's Whitehall being built across the lake when she was five years old from the third floor dormer room windows as she played with her dolls.

The house and property remained in the family after my great-grandmother died, but sat empty on the lakefront for a good decade before it was torn down sometime around 1967. Over the years, the property had become increasingly valuable due to waterfront development and the taxes were eating my father and his sister alive. They had two choices, either sell the property or develop it and sell it for more later.

Unfortunately, there was no interest in the historical value of the home at the time.

My father, an architect, decided to develop the property with a motel that he designed himself. I was with him and my grandfather as we cleared the house of remaining furniture and fixtures before it was to be demolished. Up in one of the dormer rooms, my grandfather leaned on a closet wall and it fell through to reveal a secret storage area filled with china.

I was standing by my dad's side, watching, as the old house was torn down. I'll never forget how he laughed when the wrecking ball literally bounced off of the house. The demolition company had to call in heavier equipment to tear it down and it took them much longer than expected. The house was made out of Dade County Pine which has a sap that turns into a composite-like material with age ... harder than concrete. The corner posts were made out of 8" X 8"s, and the walls were framed with 4" X 4"s.

They don't build them like that anymore.

No. It's conformity that killed the cat.

2010-12-20T11:45:00.000-05:00

My most standards, recycled homebuilder Dan Phillips seems like the quirkiest guy in the room ... until you hear him talk about his guerilla construction philosophy. Then, you realize he's the sanest man on the planet.

And now for a little North Polarization

2010-12-08T13:21:00.003-05:00

This cartoon originally appeared in an earlier Synonumb post, but fits here too. Click the image to enlarge.

My wife and I are Palm Beach County Floridians who have friends in Alaska. On several occasions, we've had the good fortune to travel across the continent and see how the other half lives. It's quite different.

During the brief few months of spring and summer, Alaska explodes with the cycle of life, death and renewal. It should be no surprise that this is also deeply ingrained in culture of Alaskans. Many of them mount expeditions to net copious amounts of salmon and hunt deer, caribou and moose. All of these require special licenses.

Having a successful hunt requires a great deal of preparation and effort, and one doesn't always come away with the prize. But when you do, it provides the healthiest meat anyone can put in their mouths. Stocking up also helps defray ever rising heating fuel costs during the long winter months.

In particular, it is hard to bag a caribou. They usually can only be reached by packing deep into the wilderness. If you manage to find, and then have the skill to kill one, you must then pack hundreds of pounds of meat back out — definitely not like a trip to the grocery store.

That's why this recent very popular blog by Aaron Sorkin on the Huffington Post is the pot calling the kettle black. Infinitely more "snotty" than Sarah Palin's defensive quip, it is utterly hypocritical. But worse, it is blatantly designed to increase polarization and perpetuate intolerance toward the diversity of American's culture.

I'm not a big fan of Sarah Palin, but she is an Alaskan. Heck, a lot of Alaskans don't like her politics or her grandstanding either, but the last thing they would criticize her for is bagging a caribou.

How To Explain It To Your Parents

2010-11-30T14:09:00.001-05:00

This video from Dutch designers Lernert & Sander is one of a group of nine conversations where Dutch artists explain their work to their parents.

In this case, Arno Coenen tries to explain the artistic statement behind his beer brewing to his father. It is a clash of subversive ideas vs conformity, passion vs reason and then ultimately degenerates into the intransigence of the familial power structure.

I find it utterly delightful ... laughed out loud in parts, because it reminds me of conversations between my son, Adam, and I so much.

12 minutes with subtitles. Watch it in full screen mode for readability.

How to explain it to my parents - Arno Coenen from Lernert & Sander on Vimeo.

More of the series How to explain my parents from Lernert & Sander can be viewed on Vimeo.

Leslie Nielsen not Drebin for me

2010-11-29T12:25:00.001-05:00

No doubt about it. Leslie Nielsen can be thought of as the American Peter Sellers. He earned his place in comedic hierarchy by playing clueless characters in spoofs like Airplane and the Naked Gun series during the latter part of his career.

But I'm sorry. Every time I see a Frank Drebin clip, my subconscious mind won't let it pass without recalling this film. It must have made a big impression on me at an early age. I guess Nielsen will always be Commander John J. Adams of the United Planets Cruiser C-57D for me.

Given Nielsen's obvious dry sense of humor, I'd bet they had a blast on the set while making Forbidden Planet ... especially the way it reeks of 50's-era veiled sexuality.

It's interesting to note that the film seems to have made a big impression on Spielberg as well. This trailer is remarkably similar to the opening titles for Star Wars.

Pilgrims and Indians Cartoon for Thanksgiving Buffet

2010-11-24T08:00:00.000-05:00

I did this cartoon for the Royce Hotels in the mid-1980s. It ran in newspaper ads for Thanksgiving day buffet promotions in various hotel restaurants.

The Royce Hotels were a chain of upscale suite hotels run by West Palm Beach, Florida based Servico Corporation. They were mostly located near major airports and geared for the high-end business traveler, but also featured high-energy nightclubs and upscale restaurants that pulled customers from the community at large.

Back in the days of mostly black and white newspaper advertising, grabbing attention and getting traction from an ad could be difficult. I often used humor and a little extra white space to great effect. You can check out more of my designs for Servico Corporation here.

It's A Book - By Lane Smith

2010-11-22T22:25:00.001-05:00

For your listening pleasure

2010-11-16T13:57:00.000-05:00

Creative people are usually multi-talented. Here's a guy who was a RISD graphic design student when he started a little band.

We suck lizard squeezings

2010-11-08T12:41:00.000-05:00

Editorial cartoon animator Mark Fiore's story is the perfect parable of artistic insight and courage. He stopped doing traditional editorial cartoons for the San Jose Mercury News in 2001 in order to present Flash animated cartoons on his own Web site.

Who knew that this could be a path to success? Well, most of us did, but few took the risk.

Just nine years later he became the first cartoonist to receive the Pulitzer prize for a submission that was entirely comprised of animated editorial cartoons.

BWT, our whole lives and all of our fortunes are entirely based on the sucking of lizard juice. Who knew? Well, most of us do. But typically, Mark Fiore was the first to clearly articulate it.

A Rolling Stone gathers no respect

2010-10-28T11:55:00.000-05:00

Rolling Stone guitarist Ronnie Wood typically gets no respect from the press or critics when it comes to his visual art. The usual attitude (conceit) is that he doesn't deserve serious consideration because he is looking to trade on his name.

In the case of this recent article about losses in Wood's London art gallery Scream, the reporter asserts that Ronnie has "has developed a new passion for art." Nothing could be further from the truth. Wood was a student at Ealing Art College, considering a career as a theatrical set designer, before music intervened — first with The Faces and then The Rolling Stones.

I had the pleasure of interviewing Wood about his art over the phone in 2006 for an article in ValueRich magazine. His agent warned me that Wood doesn't like it when an interview is supposed to be about his art but all the questions end up being about the band. I assured the him that I'd keep it on course, but he needn't have worried.

Wood couldn't have been a nicer guy over the phone, and we hit it off right away. Halfway through the interview I realized the conversation had ceased to be an interview and was just two artists swapping ideas. He volunteered stories about his early days as a musician on his own. He seemed genuinely reluctant to finish the call when his wife reminded him they were late for a dinner date.

It turned out to be a great story. You can download it to read as a pdf file by clicking this link.

A Starbucks meeting that lead to a really great job

2010-10-27T15:53:00.004-05:00

During a prototypical napkin-scribbling meeting at Starbucks in the summer of 2003, I was contracted to help establish the publishing division of ValueRich, Inc. in West Palm Beach, Florida, and launch ValueRich magazine.

The nationally distributed Wall Street financial magazine introduced small-cap and micro-cap public companies to a readership of company executives, investment bankers, fund managers and investors. It also contained plenty of stylish and adventurous lifestyle material for its mostly affluent readers.

After producing the first two issues from my studio, I joined the company as Editor-in-chief of the publication and also served as its brand marketing creative director.

I just put a portfolio page up for the project on Behance. Follow this link to check it out.

Obama Whitehouse a la Gilbert & Sullivan

2010-10-22T10:38:00.002-05:00

I don't care what side you butter your political toast on, this is fun.

And there is no messy clean-up

2010-10-21T09:55:00.000-05:00

David Hockney explains why the iPhone and iPad inspire him.

Summer Illustration Special Prices

2010-10-20T14:13:00.002-05:00

I just ran across this old postcard art from 2008 on my computer. And do you know what? In this economy, I'll still do these prices.

Click image to view full size

The Serendipity of New Technology

2010-10-20T10:43:00.000-05:00

New technology and entrepreneurial ideas don't always follow the expected path when users get a hold of them. This Wall Street Journal video offers several good examples.

Just a few of the tidbits within:

iPad is emerging as the go-to devices for working with special needs kids
Young smart phone users are not using their phones to make calls.
New phone etiquette: It's considered invasive and rude to call someone directly, text instead
IE9 is taking an HTML5 path. Hmmm, isn't that what Apple iPad caught all that flack for?

Ze Frank on emotion and the Web

2010-10-17T12:15:00.001-05:00

I first became aware of Ze Frank when he was doing his Web video show in 2006. He was a manic personality whose head filled the tiny video frame as he delivered witticisms with machine gun-like timing.

Frank was attracting a huge audience on the Web long before I discovered him though. He was given a Webby award for the best personal Web site in 2002, when few people even bothered to build personal Web sites.

The video show, by its own design, ended exactly one year after it was started, but Frank continues to keep his loyal fans involved by collaborating with him and each other in clever projects, and linking to other delightful stuff on the Web.

I find it interesting that one of the Web's earliest personalities is still one of its biggest phenomena. Frank is an artist. The Web is his medium. And the connection he has with his huge audience is an emotional one.

There is a lesson in this for all of us who are furiously drawing flow charts that link Web sites, blogs, social networking feeds and Twitter, in the hopes of finding a magic combination that will generate a Network Effect. The technology itself is not a starting point. The Web is long on technology but short on attention span.

The secret for reaching people is still the same as it was pre-Internet. Ze Frank's success has always begun with empathy for his audience. This allows him to produce participatory performance pieces that build on the emotional connection to delight and fulfill.

His July, 2010 program is now featured on TED Talks, and he just posted it on his Web site. Enjoy.

Ze Frank's blog:

ze's page :: zefrank.com: TED Talk :: Emotion on the Web

Oct, 17 Palm Beach Daily News Editorial Cartoon

2010-10-17T10:39:00.000-05:00

My cartoon, which appeared in today's edition of the Palm Beach Daily News (The Shiny Sheet). The issue is devoted to a preview of the upcoming social season and this year's Palm Beach Centennial Celebration.

We will of course be inundated this year with celebratory fanfare related to railroad baron Henry Flagler, who brought the railroad and the rich to Palm Beach; "architect" Addison Mizner who brought preposterous Mediterranean Rival buildings and "golden years" of high-society excess. But when you think about 100 years ago, most of the island was little more than a jungle ... and the mosquitos could carry off small animals and children.

You can comment about this cartoon on the Palm Beach Daily News Web site here.

You can order a print here.

The Presidential Gleam in Donald Trump’s Eye

2010-10-13T14:59:00.001-05:00

My Cartoonistry column in the Palm Beach Daily News today was devoted to Donald Trump's media blitz last Tuesday where he floated the idea of running for President over most of the broadcast and cable news outlets.

This is the second time that he's flirted with the idea. My cartoon from February, 2000 was included, and I tell the story of how things turned out for him that time.

I think he might be seriously considering running again. His television appearances followed almost the exact same script as 10 years ago ... except that he seems a little more outraged at the state of things in Washington. Plus, I mention a few reasons why toward the end of my column why he might be in a much stronger strategic position should he decide to do so this time.

Can't wait to find out. He is one of the most provocative and entertaining Palm Beachers I've ever had the good fortune to do cartoon about.

McCain's campaign: A case of bad brand strategy or something else?

2008-11-04T17:55:00.004-05:00

John McCain's presidential campaign is being critically analyzed by many professed marketing professionals, pundits and political strategists as an example of unfocused and inept branding. This resounding one-note tune coming from many corners is a pretty clear indication of how easy an opinion it is to adopt. Rather than jump on the bandwagon, maybe everybody should step back and consider what the candidate faced from the outset.

I’m not so sure McCain could have done any better running as the nominee for a party that is as badly fractured and ideologically bereft as the Republican Party today. The irascible candidate's campaign has been universally portrayed as one Hail Mary pass after another, but what were the alternatives?

Not true to his brand? After the primary lesson learned in 2000, he co-sponsored several bipartisan bills that were directly aimed at dirty party politics and the toxic ethics environment on Capital Hill, but to little avail. Once Bush won his second term, McCain took the only path left available to him for the nomination in a thoroughly rigged primary system, he sucked-up to the GOP leadership. So much for Maverick.

Maybe if he’d picked Lieberman as his running mate, he’d still be the Maverick that centrists were looking for. Maybe he could have pulled from both left and right of center. But, he’d have been abhorred by his own party for the choice, and GOP turnout would have flagged on election day. Truth be told, the Palin choice really did energize rank and file conservatives, and probably got him the best possible results.

No, I think the branding story is all Obama’s. He’s the one that broke the Dem leadership’s hold on their equally-rigged primary system. He was the perfect storm of charisma, a well executed brand marketing campaign and a new approach at fund raising and event packing using social media. Of course, he also had lots of help from the new convergence of television programming and the Web, an anti-Clinton party coup by the Kennedy’s, a really unpopular outgoing president and (like I said) an ideologically bereft Republican party.

One thing Obama should keep in mind though, should he win tonight. The election is basically a popularity contest. After the inauguration it will be a different game altogether. Teddy is on his way out. The Clintons aren’t done yet. And social media has proven time and again that there are difficulties translating its massive online energy potential into real world results.

Question: Is it a bailout or bail out?

2008-09-24T14:47:00.006-05:00

CLICK ON IMAGE TO ENLARGE

The pending Wall Street bailout looks like a $700 billion dollar public works program for Wall Street investment bankers and fat cats. For instance, who's going to manage all of the foreclosed property while the government is holding the paper and the situation slowly (ostensibly) works itself out? According to the Paulson plan, the same Wall Street firms that got us into this mess in the first place.

Do you get the picture? Led by a Treasury Secretary who until very recently was one of those Wall Street fat cats, Capital Hill (wonderfully ineffectual institution that they are) is about to risk our tax dollars, and the financial future of generations, and become an angel investor with the same greedy profiteering firms that flushed billions of investor dollars down the toilet with absolutely no qualms (collecting huge fees every step of the way). And it is quite possible that local businesses will get cut out of even doing the scut work in favor of the few merged commercial/investment banks left standing.

Congress is being sold on doing this to create liquidity so that credit will be freed up for the entire economy. But it's clear that the entire economy is being viewed based on the health of Wall Street, i.e. big banks, big funds with big corporate shareholders and big international interests. The effects of this deal will reach down to Main Street alright, but instead of trickle-down benefits, it will be the tendrils of greed. Has there ever been a clearer indication of the status of small business in Washington D.C. and than this?

Wassaap Wall Street?!! ... One year later.

2008-09-19T17:43:00.005-05:00

CLICK IMAGE TO ENLARGE

Believe it or not, today (September 19th) is the one year anniversary of the day I finished illustrating this cartoon for my Managing 2 Laugh feature in ValueRich magazine. At the time, Cramer was pitching fits on television for Fed Chairman Ben S. Bernanke to wake up and smell the impending subprime meltdown. Bernanke was, in a word, "detached" concerning the whole thing and held out for quite some time before he eventually started cutting rates. But after that, continued to cut them with abandon. Today, he's going around saying he's got $800 billion at his disposal if need be to bail out failing Wall Street institutions. Which is, of course, exactly what the third character in my cartoon wants. Back then, the Investment Banks and Funds were mainly lobbying Washington to have their $ billions in profits classified as capital gains rather than income. Now, they have Congress exactly where they want them ... soiling their pants, and are in line for bail outs at our expense.

Ah, life is so full of irony.

This Just in: Sarah Palin Shoots Lovable Moose!

2008-09-11T11:53:00.015-05:00

CLICK IMAGE TO ENLARGE

In the last week, I have received numerous e-mails from friends, and friends of friends about Sarah Palin. Some of them are hysteria and some of them hysterical.

They have brought to my attention: a forwarded letter written by a fellow Wasilla Alaskan who knows Palin, a list of books Palin wanted to ban from the Wasilla library and various compromising photos. A quick check of Snopes.com, and apparently the only e-mail out of the bunch that wasn’t faked, was the one with the letter from her fellow Wasillian. In fact, Sarah Palin is currently the number one focus of Internet urban legends on Snopes.com. Obama need not worry though, he is number two.

I’m not personally a fan of Palin. But all these thoughtless chain e-mails are beginning to annoy me. Thoughtless? Yes. Aside from the simple fact that I am being spammed by my own address book contacts, it seems like the amount of critical thinking and responsible discourse disseminated on the Web is reaching an all time low, and it bothers me.

Magazines and newspapers are falling on hard times as ad dollars migrate to the Web. Television news programs have become just as polarized politically as the two parties. So, many of us are turning increasingly to the Internet as a source for information.

But why not focus on the Photoshop fakers and disinformationists as the problem rather than Internet users? Simply because ubiquitous software allows almost anyone to easily create fantasy from reality, today. It would be virtually impossible to stop the flow.

Why would we want to curtail humor and parody anyway? Some really great humor and commentary is being generated with Photoshop and and creative video and music mash-ups. It’s an emerging phenomenon that has the potential for helping to bring about that ground-up change Senator Obama has been talking about. Politicians can disdain the media, but they better not disdain the masses.

For some really great insight into this, go to a recent blog entitled Photoshop for Democracy by Henry Jenkins, the Director of the MIT Comparative Media Studies Program. He has included some funny examples collected from this election. By the way, I highly recommend his book Convergence Culture: Where Old and New Media Collide. An updated paperback edition is due out October 1. It's a fun read that will really get you thinking about the new world we live in.

O.K., so I'm asking everyone to use their bullshit detectors and exercise good judgment about spreading fraudmail. But what is the fine line between parody and a fraud? Take this photo of Palin for instance. It’s a Photoshopped fake. Many people would think it's pretty funny if they saw it on The Onion Web site or in MAD magazine. Context is important, however. Passed around and published out of context, this photo looks like an entirely believable image. Given a new context in an e-mail message, it could easily be turned into a smear. We can’t and shouldn’t stop the creative videos, images and writing. But we can, and must, be skeptical of them in every context except parody.

The great promise of our culture is that everyone can creatively exercise their right to free speech. But we need to realize that there is no such thing as passive audience anymore. We are participants. Therefore, all of us must begin thinking a little like journalists — do some fact checking and clearly label and attribute doctored images and fictitious writing as such if we pass them along.

To put it more simply: If you're the type of person who would normally spread false rumors about people you don't like, then go ahead and send any kind of e-mail you want. It's your prerogative. But if you wouldn't normally behave that way in real life, why do it with an e-mail?

If we all work together, we can take our inboxes and search engines back.

Good Web sites for fact checking:
Snopes.com
Factcheck.org
Feel free to leave additional Web resources for fact checking in comments.

Democrats: it's time to channel Howard Beale

2008-08-27T10:34:00.005-05:00

It's the dawn of the third day of the Democratic National Convention, and so far we've seen a parade of Washington politicians patting themselves on the back while saying, "vote for Obama."

Where's the CHANGE in this inside-the-beltway perspective? Where's the HOPE in this self-indulgent display? Is Barack Obama receiving a show of respect and admiration from the rank and file of his party when the speech writers and candidates endorsing him seem more concerned with allaying what they imagine are the fears of borderline bigots and voters mired in status quo thinking than taking on the opposition, or the issues?

My advice to Obama ... Start channeling Howard Beale. Imagine this scene happening today, with Obama's social networking, e-mail, mobile text and blogging connections added to the network coverage at the convention.

Do you want to win the election Obama? Right now, John McCain is doing a better job of saying, "Washington is broken" than you are. It's time to stop gazing off at some vision of grandeur in the distance and presenting CHANGE and HOPE as platitudes.

Go ahead Barack, let us know it's O.K. to be mad as hell. Tell your D.C. cohorts on the floor that their constituents are not going to take it anymore. That once you're sworn in, THEY'LL be the ones changing. That they can forget partying with glamorous celebrities, junkets in corporate jets and clubish glad-handing in the cloak rooms while legislation remains gridlocked by partisan floor fights. Tell them to cease patronage up and down the ranks of the parties and open the way for new blood. Tell them we're tired of gerrymandered primary elections and that they can give up on any ideas of future political dynasties until what's broken with energy, social security, health care, foreign policy, taxes, trade, etc., etc, is fixed. What are they going to do, take the nomination back?

Tell them you're the new CEO of "Mad as Hell." If you do this, you'll win the general election in a landslide.

The News: It's cheaper to cover Britney

2008-08-15T00:51:00.004-05:00

Alisa Miller is head of Public Radio International. Last March she gave a brief talk at the TED conference about how and why the US news media is reporting less information than ever about the world around us. The scene she paints is pretty shocking. But those of us who are journalists, know how much worse things have become in just the few months since this talk was given.

007: I'm So Happy

2008-07-14T17:14:00.004-05:00

Unfortunately, this widget does not have the trailer on it. You'll have to click through to the Web site to see it ... but it is worth it.

James Bond finally kicks ass again. Roger Moore is just a bad memory, and all is right with the world.

WALL•E: One short roll for a robot, one giant leap for animation

2008-07-11T08:58:00.014-05:00

Take a few minutes to play with this widget (especially the videos). It's very cool.

I went to see WALL•E with my niece recently and loved it.

Once again, PIXAR has moved the bar higher for feature animation. But even though WALL•E is currently doing well at the box office, I have questions about whether or not it will enjoy the same kind of blockbuster box office success as Finding Nemo, The Incredibles, the Toy Story movies and Monsters, Inc. The reason? The basic plot of the movie and its experimental nature might narrow its audience appeal.

The plot? Humans have vacated the Earth, which is in a toxic, uninhabitable state, and left behind Waste Allocation Load Lifter Earth-class (WALL•E) robots to clean it up. Seven hundred years have passed, and the Earth is still in terrible shape. Only one single WALL•E remains active, but the little guy has developed an inquisitive, childlike personality that makes him a special survivor.

Meanwhile, the errant human race is vacationing on a super-luxury space-liner where robots wait on them hand and foot. Everyone has become obese and indolent — and they have forgotten all about the Earth.

The original builders pre-programmed the space-liner to send a periodic Earth probe to look for plant life, indicating that humans could return. The probe, EVE, arrives on Earth and lonely little WALL•E falls lenses-over-treads in love with her. But EVE finds a living plant and must return to the mother ship. WALL•E stows away and, well... I shouldn't say much more except that he is a catalyst that changes everything.

Outside of the little robot's love story, the plot is conceptually based on extrapolations of the extreme ultimate consequences from pollution, global warming and a consumerist society. Don't expect kids under nine or ten years of age to fully comprehend. Also, the only dialog spoken during the first half of the film consists off two words, "WALL•E" and "EVE." This could prove attention challenging for some.

On the other hand, the little WALL•E robot is the strongest character PIXAR has developed to date, and highly entertaining to watch. As a result, the movie is a hilarious visual romp. The hour and 37 minute film is very, very innovative — experimental even — in structure and execution and demonstrates PIXAR's absolute mastery and leadership in animated features.

The first half of WALL•E is essentially a silent movie. The characters owe more to Buster Keaton, Charlie Chaplin and Tom and Jerry than any modern influences. The Sound Effects division has an unprecedented responsibility to carry the plot forward along with the character animators. This was an incredible creative risk that ultimately paid off from a purely artistic standpoint. The film is chocked full of slapstick humor and amazing imagery. One feels totally immersed in the fantastical settings of a decrepit earth and fully-robotic luxury space-liner.

WALL•E and the other robots are cute and funny. The animated humans are even cute in a creepy kind of way. There are lots of pratfalls that will make you laugh out loud. So, I could be wrong about narrower audience appeal. I hope so. I'd hate to see PIXAR's creative minds fettered in any way because of a disappointing box office.

Rain's Unbound Reality

2008-06-23T11:39:00.004-05:00

This Duo Corde Lisse act, entitled This Unbound Reality was performed by Rain Willson and Erin Carey at the New England Center For Circus Arts, as a part of their 2008 Professional Track Training Program. Rain (with the lighter hair) is my daughter.

On this week following Father's Day, I find myself thinking about how much my kids inspire me. When they were young, it was easy to subscribe to the idea that they should take their cues from me and follow my example. Boy, am I glad that they were both too independent for that. I'll confess that, all too often, I've forsaken my best ideas and dreams as an artist for the most expedient path ... the best "logical" career move. My kids on the other hand are both heading full-tilt toward making their dreams a reality. I'll write about my son some other time, but let me tell you why Rain is such an inspiration to me.

Rain started in theater at the age of nine. She was in Equity performances of The Sound of Music and Will Rogers Follies at the Jupiter Theater (formerly the Burt Reynolds Jupiter Theater). Later, she auditioned and was accepted to the Palm Beach County School of the Arts, where she spent her middle and high school years. She spent the summer vacation of her junior year studying at the Circle in the Square Theater on Broadway.

There were many instances where she would audition for a play, or to attend a special program and she was not selected. In fact, she was not originally accepted for the theater program of the School of the Arts, but made it into the choral program. She had to audition again the following year, and succeeded. Acting is probably the most discouraging career anyone can imagine. Through it all, Rain has maintained an "anything is possible" attitude. "No" is not a deterrent. If anything, rejection just makes her more determined and creative in how she achieves her goal.

After graduating high school, Rain attended the College of Santa Fe in the performing arts school. When she came home for her first Christmas holiday, she told us she was disappointed in her courses. Unfortunately, Rain felt like she wasn't progressing because her high school training had been of such high quality. But then the A&E cable network ran non-stop Cirque du Soleil performances on New Year's Eve. Rain was captivated by the aerial performers. She told us that she was going to become an aerialist.

Rain is a beautiful singer and graceful dancer, but she was never an athlete. I had watched a behind-the-scenes documentary on Cirque du Soleil that showed how excruciatingly difficult the training was, and how heavy the competition was among the best circus acrobats and performers in the world for a part in one of their shows. Many of these people came from circus families and had been training since they could barely walk. Rain wanted to start at age 19. I wanted to try and dissuade her from what I thought was a futile and Quixotic dream, but kept my comments to a minimum. I've come to learn that whatever Rain sets her mind to, she does.

In just a few years, Rain has built her strength and stamina to an amazing degree. She has worked and paid her own way to study at first rate circus schools in Bristol, England and Brattleboro, Vermont. The above video is a performance from the later.

Most aerialists don't have voice and acting training, and so Rain is getting some recognition for the added dimension she can bring to a part. She is also showing a great deal of choreographic ingenuity with her own routines.

But best of all, she dreams big and then makes it happen, no matter what the obstacles. Go Rain.

To view the entire full length act from the video above and others please visit Rain's website.

Once More Into the Breech

2008-06-11T13:30:00.005-05:00

Find more photos like this on FOLIO: MediaPRO

Well, I've done it again ... joined another work-related social network. They are an awful lot of work for the small amount of business I get out of them. Hopefully someday it will all add up to a great big network effect.

In all fairness, MediaPRO looks to have potential. It's sponsored by FOLIO, which is a stalwart association in the publishing industry, and it's growing fast. If you're involved in publishing at all you should check it out. At least come take a look at some of the stuff on my profile page.

Mac vs. PC Ads Don’t Benefit Apple

2008-06-05T12:19:00.004-05:00

I’m a marketing and advertising designer by profession. Now, I certainly don’t travel in the rarefied circles of Apple’s longtime advertising agency TBWA Chiat/Day. My clients have always been small businesses and regional corporations. But I still think I have a right to offer constructive criticism about the Mac vs. PC commercials. I’ve spent more than half of my career working on Macs and have a deep affinity for the Apple brand. Heck, I’m a stockholder.

The problem is that ever since Vista was launched almost two years ago, Apple’s Mac vs. PC spots have mainly been about how bad Vista is. With only a couple of exceptions, Apple technology and software have been ignored, and the advantages of using a Mac have only been implied by the PC guy’s pratfalls, goofy schemes, afflictions and general trials and tribulations with Vista.

Wake up Chiat/Day. Americans love underdogs.

Why is it that the PC guy, played by actor John Hodgman, gets to chew the scenery and create a lovable character while the Mac guy, played by actor Justin Long, has had little to do but stand around with his hands in his pockets? O.K., we get it. Vista sucks. But I remember when the Mac guy was smart and hip because he could do the most amazing things with complete aplomb. Do you realize what an indolent prig you’ve turned him into? He’s representing the Apple brand! Not good.

I suggest that you take a look at some of your earlier spots when the Mac guy actually had some nifty lines and business. You barely covered the waterfront of Apple computing benefits before you got off track. While you’ve been preoccupied with dissing Vista, Mac OS X, the iPhone, iTunes, the iPod and AppleTV have matured into a new universe of digital lifestyle connectivity. It’s not like the Mac guy has a lack of cool things he can do.

Just a little advice from a street-level design guy.

Politics: Barack's Mother's Day Wish

2008-05-10T01:59:00.006-05:00

CLICK IMAGE TO ENLARGE

It's been interesting watching Hillary Clinton's relationship with Barack Obama as the Democratic Primaries evolved. Do you remember how she acted like she was the only adult in the room during the first debate? That didn't stop his meteoric rise though.

So next she got kind of weepy and played the martyr with the press, complaining about how she always seemed to get the first question. Still, even though she got a little traction in Massachusetts, New York and Tennessee, he pulled ahead again.

So she decided to open a can of whup-ass on him and call his values and friends into question. But still to no avail.

I know it's just politics: trying to find something that resonates with a group of voters. But darned if there aren't some definite similarities to how mothers often cope with their children growing from helpless infant to willful tot, rebellious teenager to self-assured adult. And it brought to mind this cartoon for Mothers Day.

Considering Hillary's latest tactics, if Obama had a Mother's Day wish for her, it would probably be this.

The word for the day: PEHDTSCKJMBA

2008-05-09T10:01:00.002-05:00

What with all the non-stop politics, Disney Lolitas, heartless juntas, etc. we're bombarded with these days, we have to cherish our whimsy when we can get it. A Tom Waits summer tour? I had to share this. You can get the tour dates here.

Finance: Palm Beach Mansions, Get 'Em While They're Hot

2008-04-26T10:39:00.005-05:00

Click Image to Enlarge

Recently, there has been an interesting confluence of stories in my community that caught my attention and prompted me to do this cartoon for the Palm Beach Daily News. I’d been hearing rumblings that lenders were beginning to foreclose on various people after extended periods of non-payment with little or no repercussions.

Last week, the Palm Beach Post, ran a front-page story stating that the number of foreclosures in March had nearly quadrupled over the previous year. Almost on cue, I began seeing reports on CNBC of hedge funds that were buying blocks of financially distressed property at 20 or 30 cents on the dollar.

Meanwhile on the island of Palm Beach — that enclave of the rich and famous where billionaires regularly buy and sell mansions in the $40 to $ 75 million range — the real estate market has never been better. In fact, it’s booming. It’s not unusual to see several announced sales in this price range per month. Most recently, former Goldman Sachs partner John Thornton purchased an oceanfront mansion built by billionaire businessman Sidney Kimmel for a reported $81.5 million. The house had only been listed for a short time, and Kimmel got his asking price.

All this got me to thinking: Hmmmm, Fed steps in to back hedge funds and investment banks … and foreclosed properties mean write-offs galore for mortgage issuers. How low do they have to go before they can reasonably get out from under their position? And flush funds can’t wait to buy at bottom feeder prices. Could this be what’s prompting a flood of new foreclosures?

My grandfather had a Palm Beach construction company during the Great Depression. They were kept quite busy building houses on the island at the time. But wages were so low that he would cook a big pot of fish chowder on the site for his crew every day. For most of them, it was the only hot meal they got.

You know the old saying, “The rich get richer” … and we pay for it with inflation and taxes.

Politics: Magic Realism and Presidential Politics

2008-04-23T16:20:00.010-05:00

CLICK TO VIEW FULL SIZE

How about this? Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton are both saying that the popular vote should determine the Democratic presidential nominee. How weird is that? The idea is certainly not in the rules as laid out by the DNC, or in the laws on the books in fifty states, or in the constitution of the United States.

Obviously, they have their reasons. Obama is most likely worried about the recent hue and cry that, even though he is a mathematical shoe-in for the nomination, he “can’t close the deal.” Should the superdelegates buy this argument and fall back to more familiar territory — two decades of Clinton party leadership — he’ll point to his lead in the popular vote and say they shouldn’t cheat the voters. Hillary on the other hand, really only has one chance at making a case to the superdelegates to be the nominee; if she casts the primary vote totals in the framework of a national election. Even this doesn’t supply her with a supportable position unless Florida and even Michigan's popular vote totals are included. To heck with the fact that both states' delegates were declared null and void by the DNC.

The television landscape is even more bizarre. Cable anchors periodically explain that the nomination is based on the delegate count. They'd be remiss not to mention it. But then they'll spend the next two hours interviewing dozens of talking heads about every possible scenario of which candidate is ahead of the other based on popular vote, exit polls, demographic groups, uncounted superdelegates, endorsements and whether the candidate is elite, effete, female, black, bitter, truth challenged, yada, yada, yada. CNN has actually trotted out three specious popular vote scenarios, all with different results.

Focus Pocus

The definition of Magic Realism according to Encyclopedia Britanica is “a … literary phenomenon characterized by the matter-of-fact incorporation of fantastic or mythical elements into otherwise realistic fiction.” Yep. That pretty much describes the way the Democratic primary process is being foisted on us.

Let’s see if we can get on the same page here. For the first hundred years or so of our history, the political parties in each state selected their delegates and representatives at party caucuses. Primary elections are a relatively new innovation, introduced (ironically) by Florida in 1904. As originally conceived, primary elections bind party delegates to vote along the same lines of the results. But in the last thirty years, the national Democrat and Republican parties have made significant changes in their processes to better insure control over the outcomes of the primaries. With gerrymandered districts, select early primary states, superdelegates, delegate apportionment and a host of increasingly arcane party rules, the road to the conventions are an unholy mess. Small wonder that it's blown up in the Democrat's face this year.

Jefferson's Genius

Thomas Jefferson said,“A democracy is nothing more than mob rule, where fifty-one percent of the people may take away the rights of the other forty-nine.” As a key framer of the Constitution, he firmly believed that each state should have a sovereign and self-determining government and that the federal government should be limited in scope to matters pertaining to trade and national security. The Federal government was devised as a caucus of state congressional and senate delegates, administrated by the executive branch.

In my mind, there is no more compelling an argument for Jefferson’s rectitude than what we have witnessed over the last year. As we have watched the Democratic and Republican primaries unfold, each state has had a very distinct personality, with its own priorities and issues. What better way for these candidates for our highest national office to get a first-hand education about the people of America? Unfortunately, unless they are being disingenuous, these lessons seem to have gone over the Democratic candidates' heads. If you suplant nomination by delegate with nomination by popular vote as they are now both suggesting, the primaries become a national election and you marginalize each state’s political primary process and weaken each state's party influence on the national committees.

We are used to the Clintons saying whatever is expedient to suit their purpose. But it’s most definitely a strange assertion for Mr. “Bottom-up Change” Obama to make.

Politics: Obama’s Rocket In Your Pocket

2008-04-15T09:08:00.006-05:00

If you mainly follow the primaries on TV, you probably were mystified and amazed by Barak Obama’s overnight meteoric rise to frontrunner status in February. After all, he was only duking it out with Edwards for number two in the January primaries — a position that in past elections might mean you’d be a contender in four more years but would only amount to “also ran” for the nomination. The next thing we new, he all but swept Super Tuesday and had almost delivered the “coup de grace” to Clinton’s campaign before the month was out.

The most hallowed political pundits were caught scratching their talking heads. They stammered and shuffled their papers in confusion as they tried to wrap their party-position debates around the fact that 4,000 rabid supporters were showing up for stadium-held Obama rallies while a few hundred were showing up for Hillary in a civic center — or the fact that Obama was out-fundraising Hillary ten to one — or that large chunks of the Clinton’s much vaunted political base were falling into Obama’s camp.

Even if you were Web savvy, you still might have been wondering if it all couldn't just be chalked up to Obama’s charisma and speaking ability. But if you are one of the many who have recently welcomed social networking and mobile convergence into your day-to-day life, you recognized immediately what Obama’s secret weapon was. Those huge Obama rallies were really Obama flash mobs.

Yes folks, it’s not about the black candidate or the female candidate. Nor is it looking like it’s about the most experienced candidate either. It’s about whether or not you tweet. A tweet is what users of Twitter do. Twitter is a social network for cell phone texting where members can subscribe to receive brief mass text messages from each other. And yes, Obama has a Twitter profile with lots of subscribers. Every time he tweets that he’ll be speaking somewhere, thousands of his subscribers get the message. When they tweet that they are going to attend, thousands more get it.

Twitter is only part of the huge, interconnected Web 2.0 infrastructure though. Obama’s campaign is participating in all of the large communities, many of which have their own texting applications. Plus, he also operates his own text message subscription list on his campaign Web site. My.barackobama.com also offers virtual cell phone banks where volunteers can help get the message out. For the Pennsylvania primary, you can volunteer to put in some time calling as a representative of Women for Barack Obama and Veterans for Barack Obama. A similar virtual bank was responsible for 5,000 calls in Spanish prior to the Virginia primary, where Obama got over 50 percent of the Hispanic vote — a shocker for Hillary and those pundits, again.

And, as we continue to watch the election on TV — commentary after punditry, segment after breaking news story — it’s obvious that broadcast journalism still only barely understands the implications. They still don’t get it. But Obama does.

Drue Kataoka of the Valley Zen blog caught an excellent video where Barack Obama himself was discussing some of the strategy behind it. Watch and listen …

Did he say something about social networking having implications in government? Hmmmm ... stay tuned for more astonishment.

Subprime programming is now our reality show

2008-04-09T14:56:00.008-05:00

Click image to enlarge

As editor of ValueRich magazine, I did a full-page cartoon series called Managing 2 Laugh. A recurring character in the series was Jonesy the Insult Wall Street Bull, a send up of Robert Smigel’s Triumph the Insult Comic Dog from the Conan O’Brien Show (I’m a big fan). Jonsey’s job was to basically point out the myriad insulting ways Wall Street, the financial media and government typically stiff-arm small business.

The most recent Jonesy episode was illustrated in August of 2007, when most of us were just beginning to get a whiff of how serious the subprime mortgage fiasco could get. CNBC and many other financial media outlets were still shining a rose-colored light on the whole thing, with the exception of Jim Cramer who famously exploded in Erin Burnett’s face over inactivity from Fed Chairman, Ben Bernanke and comments made by St. Louis Fed president William Poole. “He has no idea how bad it is out there!”

You could see all the sides lining up to play it to the hilt. Cramer, who claims to be on the side of small investors, was spitting and screaming for an investment bank bailout. Of course, as he actually said on the air, a big reason for this is that he was “getting calls” from buddies within the big hedge funds and banks.

These are the same hedge funds and investment banks who provided a speculative market so that mortgage companies and commercial banks could easily absolve themselves of application vetting risks by reselling the loans. They were already lobbying hard in Washington to keep tax breaks on their incredible profits. All they had to do was call their lobbyists and tell them to quickly change the pitch to “save our homes.”

Poor Ben Bernanke, who had just taken over from former Fed Pope Alan Greenspan, was caught in the middle. Being new to the position and anxious to establish his own gravitas, he probably figured he’d push back against cries for action from these large special interests, but as we now know, that wouldn’t last long.

Believe me I’m no market expert. But human nature being what it is, I saw the train coming down the track … hence this cartoon.

It’s interesting to look at the cartoon now and see where we are today … The once reticent Fed has now pumped so much money into the economy that we might as well call the dollar the peso … Bear Sterns is being acquired for cents on the dollar with government backing … former Fed Pope Greenspan crying, “It wasn’t me.” The repercussions keep a poppin’ every day.

And where does this leave us middle class small investors? Who knows? If I had to bet, my wager would run counter to what they’re saying on CNBC right now, that the market is bouncing off the bottom and we’ll be making a comeback sometime within the next year. My bet would be that, right after the election is over in November, all the Fed’s unaffordable propping up is going to go away and the bottom is going to drop further than ever. Think about it. What incentive will there be to keep it going? Wall Street’s positions will certainly be covered by then. We’ll have a new regime in Washington who can’t be blamed … human nature.

What do you think?

I think it’s time to blow the C harp and sing the blues. Xcuse me while I whip this out:
Whaaaaa-awhaaaaaa
We saw this train a comin,’
Comin’ down the track.
Now that it’s done got here,
It’s hard to push it back…

Palm Beach, Trump and Butterfly Ballots

2007-08-21T12:48:00.003-05:00

I have been the freelance editorial cartoonist for the Palm Beach Daily News, commonly referred to by the locals as "The Shiney Sheet," for 15 years, producing one cartoon a week on the Sunday Editorial Page. In that time, I have held several "day jobs," including working as a desk editor for the publisher of the National Enquirer, American Media, on everything from a Soap Opera fan magazine to the, recently deep-sixed Weekly World News. In that period I also have redesigned and launched several other mag titles under contract, and am now the Editor in Chief of ValueRich magazine

Even though the editors of PBDN want me to stick to "local" stories, I have lampooned a lot of events and personalities that you might find familiar.

Palm Beach residents include outrageous personalities like Rush Limbaugh and Donald Trump. The town is a targeted landing pad for funding Presidential political campaigns, and lately a lightning rod for political controversy. We even had one lady who registered her dog to vote. Perhaps this craziness is because Palm Beach is located firmly in the Devil's Triangle. I don't know. But "Crazy" is the its middle name. I live in Palm "Crazy" Beach County, Florida.

This provides me with no end of material, but also plenty of embarrassment. One time my wife and I were visiting friends in the south of France. It was their national election day, so they invited us along to their polling place while they cast their votes.

I thought the French voting system was unbelievably outdated by our standards. I was busy trying to keep a smile off my face while watching them make their choice on a piece of color-coded paper and stuff it in the top of a slotted wooden box.

Then our friends decided to introduce us to the entire room full of voters as their "visitors from Palm Beach." In unison, everyone shouted in a thick French accent, "Ohhhhhh, Palm Beach! BUTTERFLY BALLOT!" ... and proceeded to laugh their asses off.

Now that my 15th anniversary as the Shiney Sheet cartoonist has arrived, I figure the time is right for a book. The newspaper wants to do some special features as well. The publisher blogged about my work yesterday.

Stay tuned, I have plans to gather an audience online, solicit comments and make you part of the process as I piece together the book over the next month or so.

Read the Palm Beach Daily News blog:
PBUpd8
Sorry. They only make their content "free" for seven days, so this blog link will only last until August 27, 2007.

Jon Stewart gets it. That's obvious in this Craig Newmark interview

2007-02-27T15:28:00.000-05:00

I was laughing like everyone else and then I couldn't believe my ears. The power of decentralized organizations actually became the subject on the Daily Show. Jon Stewart gets it. He and Craig Newmark, founder of Craigslist, could have been quoting from one of the new articles due to come out in the next issue of ValueRich magazine.

The article is a book review of The Starfish and the Spider: The Unstoppable Power of Leaderless Organizations and interview with its authors Rod Beckstrom and Ori Brafman

In the Starfish and the Spider Beckstrom and Brafman offer some very eye-opening stories about decentralized organizations throughout history and in our time. These include the Apache tribe, Alcoholics Anonymous, eBay, al Qaeda, Napster, Craig Newmark's own Craigslist and many more.

The whole point is that organizations which open their decision-making up to the entire group are nearly impossible to destroy, and typically very successful.

Of course today, the increasingly Web 2.0-ized Internet is becoming the ultimate decentralized environment. In the interview, Brafman, Beckstrom and I get into a discussion about how this can really be beneficial to small companies. They have researched the principles of decentralization to the degree that any small company owner who reads their book will come away with concrete ideas of how to use elements of decentralization to their advantage.

Don't miss it.

My message to David Neeleman and every other CEO out there

2007-02-22T16:10:00.000-05:00

My message to David Neeleman: Now that you've got the JetBlue channel up on YouTube to apologize to your customers, use it more often and keep vlogging.

No doubt Mr. Neeleman has turned the negative press of the last week into a positive new outlook about JetBlue for most people who have seen this video.

After the era of "personal branding" and celebrity CEOs in the late 90s, many people tend to think of company CEOs as arrogant and aloof. If more company leaders sent out sincere messages like this, no matter what the news ... good or bad. That would change quickly.

David has been blogging on the JetBlue Web site for six months. Most of his blog entries read like announcements or press clippings from his journeys around the various JetBlue destinations. But none of them make the sincere and personal connection that this video does.

Sometimes, great ideas come out of near catastrophes. Not every CEO has Mr. Neeleman's charisma. But this message was not designed to be charismatic. It was a heartfelt talk with his customers.

I think every CEO of a micro-cap or small-cap public company ought to consider using this powerful medium to speak about their hopes and dreams to customers and investors. Forget the stiff financial presentations and interviews and get out your videocams. It's a new world.

Small-caps in South Beach... Now that's sexy!

2007-02-21T17:21:00.000-05:00

It's 33 day's until the next ValueRich Small-cap Financial Expo in Miami (March 27-28, 2007) and I can hardly wait.

ValueRich Expos are very high energy, financial networking events that feature 50 small-cap public companies to an audience of roughly 1,000 buyside and investment banking professionals. The CEOs and management teams of the companies are available non-stop at office-like exhibition areas throughout the event and they also make Web cast financial presentations.

Beyond that, we have plenty of lavish networking and social activities. This year, we're taking the whole group to the famous Shore Club at South Beach. The Florida Marlins Mermaids will be on site throughout the event ... last year it was the Dolphins Cheerleaders (see myself and my beautiful wife Kayla with them above). And we will have a special guest actress who is our new iValueRich.com spokesperson on site as well.

If you are an investment banker, fund manager, money manager, institutional investor or public company officer, you owe it to yourself to join us in Miami ... even if it is just to see how it's possible to really create excitement and results around micro- and small-cap companies. And make some great connections and have a good time, of course.

Getting Off the Bus with Web 2.0

2006-06-12T13:08:00.000-05:00

As I was driving to a meeting to go over the development progress of our Web 2.0 community Web site for Wall Street and Micro/Small-cap public companies, I was thinking about the swift changes going on with Web site technology.

We are incorporating social networking (a la MySpace), but with lots of additional tools to accomplish public company capitalization and market awareness. We firmly believe that this is exactly what the industry needs ... particularly where micro- and small-cap public companies are concerned.

Wall Street has deeply ingrained private club-like traditions of going through established gatekeepers. While this "business as usual" works quite well for large-cap companies it is very inefficient at creating any energy around, or interest in, the smaller companies.

On our Web site, these companies and Wall Street investment bankers, brokers, fund managers, research analysts, qualified investors, etc. will be able to connect in an open environment based on Web 2.0 social networking architecture and channel those connections to accomplish their specific business objectives using our tools. They will realize significant savings and increased economies of scale.

These are not socially hungry teenagers though. Our biggest challenge is convincing skeptical professionals, who don't like to waste time, that it will be worth their online efforts to build a strong network and participating in the various news feeds, deal boards, blogs, etc. in order to create more business.

So, as I drove to the meeting, I began thinking about the difference between the old Web of just a few years ago and and what it is becoming today. The changes are fundamental from the user's standpoint. It is not a question of whether to get involved with this type of Web activity in business, but when ... and for a business that is based on connections, like public company finance ... the sooner the better!

So I asked the question: how do you describe the difference between the old Web and the new? That's when it struck me: up until now, using the Web has been like riding the bus. Everyone is treated to pretty much the same experience. You have to go where everyone else goes in order to get where you want. Specific sites, pages and file types may be interactive, but the user experience is passive where overall structure was concerned.

On the other hand, Web 2.0 will put everyone in the drivers seat of a fleet of bespoke vehicles, kind of like having a garage full of Ferraris, souped-up SUVs, speedboats, a mega yacht, a business jet and more. Just pick your ride, turn the key, feel the million userpower engine rumble, start using your customized dashboard full of gadgets, and the world is at your fingertips.

By the way, the ValueRich Web community will be the Ferrari.