The Over/Under On No Season

The NFL lockout and the impending NBA labor strife are a way for these industries to test their value to the general public. These sports leagues are responsible for billions of dollars in revenues for players, owners, businesses, coming from spectators. At least as long as there's actually games to be played.

Sports leagues like the NFL and NBA started as mere pastimes, without competitive foundation; as a sport matures, competition becomes a bigger driver to play, over recreation. Further maturing sees organization enter the sport to regulate competition; later on monetary incentives are increased (e.g. prize money; appearance fees), drawing attention from people outside the sport, the spectators. If the attention becomes big enough, if the exposure is intense enough, spectators will become addicts to the sport in question.

What the leagues are hoping for, is that they are too big to fail, or more accurately too important to ignore. The leagues and owners behave on the premise, that the public will simply have to accept there not being a season this year, because the public crave NBA/NFL so much, any season that does get played afterwards, is immediately flocked to. Both leagues would be acting rather differently, if their fans do not come back when the lockout ends, because they have found something else to do. It is the risk these leagues take, if they prove to overestimate their value.

It is not an unrealistic view. All the public sees, is multi-millionaires bickering with multi-millionaires about billions of dollars, which 99 percent of the fans will never see in their lifetimes. Also most people will have limited money available for frivolous consumption (such as visiting a sports event), especially in this unstable economy.

But the NFL lockout is here, so obviously BOTH the NFL players and the NFL owners think they can actually get away with it. All the while the media is crying foul, pointing to disappointed fans, and troubled businesses. The NFL have facts on their side; revenues in the league have never been higher than the last three years. Demand for the NFL product definitely exists.

So currently the fans have little to work with but hope. Rich people fighting over money is not something the average fan can influence, unless he is willing to take drastic measures, such as going cold turkey, go into rehab or find something worse. My guess is, and I suppose it's the NFL's as well, the average fan is not able to. Just like people coming back (to some degree) to NHL after their lockout in 2005, the expectation is that people will come back to NFL after this lockout.

The NFL is a bit like a beautiful woman, who knows all too well she is. No matter what terrible things she does, you'll always loop back around to see her. And here, she will not put out. And there will be no season. Just because she can. Just because THEY can.

Lost Opportunity

Spotify has always been a must-have app and service, streaming music to your desktop, or - if you're willing to pay a fee - to every mobile device you have. Their Free service served a great purpose, providing a set number of hours of free listening per month. If you were willing to limit your listening to your home computer and stay under five hours or so per week, you could listen to whatever you wanted (as long as it exists in the Spotify database) into infinity.

Now that is going away. The Free service will still be free, the free hours will still be there, but the infinity part will not. All songs will be limited to five plays lifetime per user.

Considering Spotify had a slightly bewildering business model - one where people were actually wondering how Spotify could actually make money - it should be expected that additional constraints would be introduced at some point. In the battle between content demand and supply, I surmise supply has dealt demand a sharp blow. Well Met, though.

Truthfully, my interests would be best met if people wouldn't steal my money all the time. Spotify fulfilled a need for occasional music listening of hard to find tracks, and new song discovery. I suppose that's something that I could potentially pay for.

Bad thing's even if I could pay for it, I am not able to. For a large number of tracks some music label has determined it should not be sold in my country. It's the same with DRM, and region locks, content for some reason cannot be transported across borders. Which is ridiculous, since I don't suddenly stop liking a piece of music if I pass customs.

That's why I liked and used Spotify (and before Pandora). I want the option of listening to ANY music I like, regardless if a music label made a business decision not to release the track in my region. If I have to pay cash for it, that's fair, but GIVE ME THE CHOICE.

With Spotify moving its business model with limited plays, my choice is somewhat hurt. In practice I may not actually reach the upper limit on borderline tracks, but for some others I might, and if those are tracks I can't get here, I feel screwed. And so should the music artist (after all they've got a listener here, a potential buyer, and they cannot sell here - that's just lost dollars).

Scariest Text Message You Ever Will Get

You know I have to write about this...

So basically right across the street someone shot up the local shopping center, killing at least six others, and apparently shooting himself.

Now I wasn't in the area at the time, I just noticed the huge amounts of police cars and ambulances driving up. Probably the only time apart from the WTC attack that you can get a scary text message like this: "TURN ON THE TELEVISION". No additional explanation.

I feel for the victims' families and friends.

I must admit though that my first reaction was hoping nobody I know personally was at the shopping center at the moment the shooting happened. Apparently a lot of other people had the same reaction, judging from the crowds, and the interviews.

Emotions Run Free

As the day progresses a number of typical human interactions appear, which are rooted in emotion rather than rationality:

• curiosity, people coming out and trying to look into the shopping center to see what's going on. Only to get turned away by the police.
• sorrow, or at least a declaration of feeling sorry for the victims
• disbelief, "how can this happen in our small town"
• emotional trauma, especially for the people who were actually there

The need for explanation is clear; "how did this happen", "who did this", "why"; and then not getting any because the authorities are still trying to find out; and if people don't get explanation, they invent an explanation. That's how rumors start.

Then within no time at all, somebody put up the race question. For me it is the sad state of modern society that this continues to be a valid justification for prejudice. I have to say the media were extremely quick to disarm the argument, by describing the shooter as a young white male. To me it is a clear signal of the immaturity of society, but also a display of strong awareness of the media what people needed and how.

I Value Who Tells Me Which Facts

People praised the municipal government for their use of social media (i.e. twitter) in informing the people. We should be careful in this. These are channels, which are easy to misuse, easy to introduce noise to. For pure news casting the new media are good enough to tell me something has happened - although I'm a bit on the fence about particularly sensitive subjects.

About the why, the how, and the details I don't want the local neighborhood youth tell me. That's for the police and the mayor to do. That's their job, and responsibility.

Keep following the proceedings on twitter @gemeenteaadr, or on the municipal government website.

Moving Targets

Recruiters want to know what kind of superstar you are, so everybody sends in resumes how awesome their past and present roles are. Because if it is not superstar-worthy, why bother inviting them over?

Applicants then inflate their roles and responsibilities, fluff their achievements, and try to fool the recruiters into thinking "this guy is Superman, we need to hire him pronto".

Of course recruiters now do their background checking, using the social media to their best advantage. And new applicants are doing their best to use the social media in the way it suits their value the best.

It's basically the case of nature versus the mousetrap. Someone invents a better mousetrap, nature comes up with a better mouse. So too are LinkedIn and Twitter; recruiter finds new tools to determine a candidate's value, the candidate finds a new way to artificially increase his value.

And in the end both sides have more work to do...

Example of Brand Prejudice

In the West Hyundai is known primarily for its cheap, small cars. People living on a tight budget will find it's the only car they can afford to drive. Rich people don't choose to drive a Hyundai, at least not if they want to impress their other rich friends.

The image of Hyundai in the west is low budget, cheap. It's alright to have if there's nothing better to upgrade to...

In Korea Hyundai is The Brand. Part of a huge Jaebol (similar to conglomerate), Hyundai produces not just cheap cars, but big luxurious cars as well. And not just cars per se. Clothes, household appliances, industrial products. Korea's got the biggest and most luxurious department stores, and they are branded Hyundai. In Korea Hyundai is king, and everybody aspires to have Hyundai in whatever shape or form.

Funny how a brand can be nothing in one part of the world, and be everything in another. Remember the Eddie Murphy movie 'Coming to America'? Same thing. One person's floor sweeper might be another person's prince and ruler.

So all in all, don't jump to conclusions; don't judge a book by its cover.