Filed under: Events, Hawaii, Honolulu, Media | Tags: ashton kutcher, Hawaii, Honolulu, ing direct cafe, mufi hannemann, polygon, social media club, twitter
Friday I dropped by the monthly meeting of the Social Media Club Hawaii. The highlight was probably the leadoff presenter, Dan Zelikman. His Twitter insights were not new by any stretch, but he has a very engaging presentation style that made the content come to life. Plus a ton of good examples to back it up.
A couple interesting tidbits from the night:
Mufi Hannemann has nearly 700,000 followers on Twitter (love the poorly executed Photoshop by the way – his head is a polygon!). That’s not quite Ashton Kutcher territory, but getting there.
Big City Diner uses Twitter to broadcast a secret password that gets people discounts and free stuff. So simple, so smart.
One final word about the venue: ING Direct Cafe=marketing genius.
Filed under: Activities, Family, Hawaii, Kids, Sport | Tags: AYSO, goal, soccer dad
I have officially joined the “soccer dad” demographic. Today was Taiyo’s first game in the AYSO five-year old league. Unfortunately the other team had one of those kids with two older brothers who play soccer, so he shredded Taiyo’s team’s defense like lettuce. However, I am proud to report that Taiyo represented with two goals of his own. It just so happened that one of those was in his own net…
I’ve never really been a fan of nihonshu (sake). This was probably due to the bad introduction I had to it. One too many OneCup hangovers, I guess. Later I got into shochu, and it became my Japnese beverage of choice. I would only drink nihonshu if it was offered, and then only grudgingly.
The other night I had a nihonshu to jolt me out of my indifference. A friend was kind enough to bring by a bottle of Kubota Manju, which is perennially rated among the top nihonshus. It went down so easily, before we knew it we had polished off the bottle. Which was a shame, because it seemed like something to be savored in small doses.
I tell you what, though. The next morning I woke up not with a OneCup hangover, but feeling clearer-headed and looser of limb than I had for weeks. Truly a well-balanced brew.
It was a busy week, but you’d never know it from all the bookmarks I racked up on delicious. This is but a sampling:
Spent nine years in Japan, but never became well-acquainted with the concept of chindogu.
I do so love me a good ‘ol bluegrass jam.
Toyota’s Global Marketing Division was once a client of mine, so this came as a surprise – though not in retrospect. They have been ineffectual for years, so this is actually a good move.
Wacky, yet touching animation.
I noticed this week that major media outlets like ESPN and WSJ are cracking down on employees with authoritarian Twitter policies. I’m actually siding with the corporations on this one. When your business is distributing information to the public, you’ve got to manage all the channels.
Ridiculously talented information designer. How does one get paid to do such stuff?
Amazing clip from Russia’s Got Talent (who knew?). I had the misfortune to watch a couple episodes of America’s Got Talent a few weeks ago. We got no culture. America’s a big empty suit.
Way back when, early on in the 2008 election (which probably must have been something like 2006), a phone conversation with my mom meandered into politics, and she told me I had to read Barack Obama’s Dreams from My Father. At the time I was doing my best to buck the tide of history, supporting the totally uncool Hillary Clinton. And I sort of bristled at the suggestion, because it sounded like my squandered youth was being unfairly compared to Barack’s well-spent early days of soul-searching, community service and leadership. As in, perhaps I could take a few hints from this fine, upstanding man.
Well, perhaps I could. As noted on the cover, one of the primary themes of this book is race. Barack’s insights into the issue of race in America have been well-documented and praised, and I won’t go into that here, in part because I found some of the other themes more interesting: the search for identity, the significance of family and the broken American society. The first two I could relate to on a very personal level as someone who grew up as an Army brat, with extended family scattered across the US. It struck me, as Barack describes his voyage to Africa, that black Americans are not alone in being cut off from their heritage. Most American families would be unable to trace their roots back to a country – let alone a town – of origin. And though Barack does not state it explicitly, it is this sense of displacement that contributes to the fragmentation of our own culture. He tends to romanticize the pastoral scenario in which people were connected to the community in tangible ways through their work and thus understood their place in it.
It’s a pretty rich book, dense with nuggets of ideas and an accurate portrayal of not just a man, but a country and its people.
Wanted to make a quick comment on a rebranding effort I noticed by way of my inbox this week. I maintain a meager and modest web presence – which is in dire need of its own rebranding, I have to say, and have used Network Solutions as my host for a couple years now. Never thought much about their brand – probably not a very good sign – but I somehow had the impression that their services were more stable and userfriendly than the last web hosting service I used.
Well, it’s safe to say they’ve gone full-blown branded. Not sure that their new visual identity really says all that much, but they are definitely dialing up the customer-centric approach that is so hip and trendy these days (that I touched on in my presentation last week).
Sometimes we all need a sip of our own koolaid.
Last weekend I was out bobbing on the waves with a friend who works in construction. He’s spent the past year putting the finishing touches on the Trump International Hotel in Waikiki. As is common with many Waikiki “hotels”, some of the units have been sold to private individuals, condo-style. According to the authorities, all available units were sold out by the early afternoon of the day they hit the market.
But now, some of these future owners are up in arms and filing lawsuits over the possibility that they may not be getting full value for their investment. Are they complaining about the quality of the units, or the building materials? No, they are pissed because the developer may not get final clearance to use the Trump name on the building.
I mentioned this story to my construction worker surf pal, and he said he understood how they felt. It would be like buying a Mercedes Benz without the logo. So there you go. Brand is by no means rational. But it certainly is real – especially when it’s convinced you to drop 1.5 million on a condo.
