This is just a short 90 sec video that we whipped together for a TV show I did, so I thought it would be fun to share it here.
Download it and watch it with your windows media player. Hopefully I will have lots more pics and video to come
There is nothing more fun than handing someone a check for 1mm dollars and watching that person fall over on the floor and not be able to stand up. Have them try to get up, gain their composure, and then fall right back down again…
On the flipside, I haven’t had many jobs tougher than eliminating people who are closer than they will ever be to that much money. They obviously weren’t happy about it I wasn’t either. It was far harder to do than I ever imagined.
The show is, and was designed to be, far more Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory than any reality show on air to date. I guess I thought I would be Gene Wilder and stand by and watch the golden ticket holders eliminate themselves one by one. As it turns out, the one thing I couldn’t do was stand by and watch. I kept notes during the shooting and thought it would be fun to consolidate and share some of them here.
Before I selected the final 16, Ispent a lot of time with the producers going through the thousands and thousand of applications. Each had to pass all kinds of psychological and legal screening. (don’t want to put an axe murderer in the house). Each went through multiple levels of interviews. By the time I had picked the final 16, I thought I had a good feel as to who each person was, and what I could expect from them in the house…
Its one thing to think you know someone from watching tapes, or 30 minute interviews, its completely different when they walked through the door of the house and I realized that the game was on, and within about a month, one of their lives was going to change forever. 15 would head back to work after the game. One would have the choice of not having to work…
The 16 contestants quickly went from taped talking heads telling an interviewer what was important to them, and how my game could change their future, to my responsibility. My responsibility to make sure I gave the money to the right person. But first I had to decide how to pick the right person.
In the real world, no one really keeps score. When you apply for a job, there isn’t a scoreboard in that interview room and you look to see where you stand. It’s up to you to convince the interviewer to move you forward or not.Even after you got or lost the job, you never really know how close it was with the competition.
None of usever know when our next challenge or opportunity is coming or how it will present itself. There isn’t a schedule that tells us wereally should pursue that idea we have, or that now is that time to step out of our comfort zone and go for our dreams. As much as we would like to believe its true, we never really get the chance to select our future from a menu. We cant just choose “Millionaire artist, living on a beautifulranch by the age of 25″. We can only dream it, then compete with ourselves and others to try to make it happen.
The game I designed works the same way. The 16 contestants never know exactly when they are being tested or how. The challenges I throw at them are open ended to make sure that rather than all doing the same thing, they all have to think on their feet and shine on their own.
It’s not easy for them. It’s not easy for me.
The first day, everyone feels like they have what it takes to walk away with the million dollars. Then the tests and challenges come. They start to realize that the game is always on. They have to be on. They have to compete. They have to recognize who their competitors are and how they are going to stand out. For some, it’s also the recognition that its not going to be easy, and may not even be possible to shine purely on merit. But with the odds of winning 1mm dollars improving by the day, it doesn’t take long for some contestantsto set aside shining and push forward with what I politely called “gamesmanship”.
Fortunately, I have cameras on all of them all the time, and can hear all the conversations. The first cut wasn’t too hard, the 2nd was. It was too soon to kick someone else out, but there were elements of the game that incorporated luck. Good luck for someone always means bad luck for someone else.
Next blog entry I will start to talk about some of the challenges.
Thanks to Bob Young for writing what we all were thinking…
http://www.azcentral.com/sports/cheapseats/0527p2main0527.ht…
for more reference…
http://www.blogmaverick.com/entry/7817259725070137/
and to add to the data at the bottom of the above post, in this last game that Bob Young writes about, there were 4 free throws shot in the first half. All by Shaq.
Minnesota didn’t shoot their first non-tech free throw until Wally took 2 with 4:31 to go in the 3rd quarter…
and for a little more…
http://www.blogmaverick.com/entry/6314322554475298/
and Flip Saunders says the crew missed 33 calls in Game 3…
http://sports.yahoo.com/nba/news?slug=knight-tompowerskgneed…
and just for more fun from a previous blog entry, since it is relative to Bob Youngs column….
“The game last night game came down to the final shot. Sac had a foul to give. Their coach tells the players to foul with 3 seconds left. We know it.The players know it.Everyone on our bench knows it. It’s basketball strategy 101. How in the world could the officials not know it? Peja intentionaly fouls Dirk. They don’t call it. “
And not to say thatI was paying attention to this issue before…. but this is from an AP reporter overhearing me referencing a previous conversation I had with our media guys prior to this game starting….
“Frustrated by how the first quarter was called by official Dan Crawford and crew, Mavs owner Mark Cuban screamed to the scorer’s table, “What did I tell about Crawford? Terrible.” Maybe it worked the Kings didn’t have a free throw in the second quarter. … “
Just for clarification, my comments didn’t have an impact, I was referencing my observations of Mr. Crawfords style of officiating and the lack of free throws in the 2nd quarter, regardless of team, confirmed it for this game.
Finally, I do have to give credit where credit is due, and disagree with Bob Young on 1 item in his column. The officials are finally calling travelling. Starting with our game against Sac, they have rediscovered the ability to see players shuffle their feet and switch pivot feet. The world has not collapsed and the players seem to have adjusted nicely. Anddads everywhere are breathing a sigh of relief not having to explain to littly johnny and sally why they can’t do that in their games….
What does this all mean? Not a darn thing because it obviously is complete coincidence…..
Thanks to Bob Young for writing what we all were thinking…
http://www.azcentral.com/sports/cheapseats/0527p2main0527.ht…
for more reference…
http://www.blogmaverick.com/entry/7817259725070137/
and to add to the data at the bottom of the above post, in this last game that Bob Young writes about, there were 4 free throws shot in the first half. All by Shaq.
Minnesota didn’t shoot their first non-tech free throw until Wally took 2 with 4:31 to go in the 3rd quarter…
and for a little more…
http://www.blogmaverick.com/entry/6314322554475298/
and Flip Saunders says the crew missed 33 calls in Game 3…
http://sports.yahoo.com/nba/news?slug=knight-tompowerskgneed…
and just for more fun from a previous blog entry, since it is relative to Bob Youngs column….
“The game last night game came down to the final shot. Sac had a foul to give. Their coach tells the players to foul with 3 seconds left. We know it.The players know it.Everyone on our bench knows it. It’s basketball strategy 101. How in the world could the officials not know it? Peja intentionaly fouls Dirk. They don’t call it. “
And not to say thatI was paying attention to this issue before…. but this is from an AP reporter overhearing me referencing a previous conversation I had with our media guys prior to this game starting….
“Frustrated by how the first quarter was called by official Dan Crawford and crew, Mavs owner Mark Cuban screamed to the scorer’s table, “What did I tell about Crawford? Terrible.” Maybe it worked the Kings didn’t have a free throw in the second quarter. … “
Just for clarification, my comments didn’t have an impact, I was referencing my observations of Mr. Crawfords style of officiating and the lack of free throws in the 2nd quarter, regardless of team, confirmed it for this game.
Finally, I do have to give credit where credit is due, and disagree with Bob Young on 1 item in his column. The officials are finally calling travelling. Starting with our game against Sac, they have rediscovered the ability to see players shuffle their feet and switch pivot feet. The world has not collapsed and the players seem to have adjusted nicely. Anddads everywhere are breathing a sigh of relief not having to explain to littly johnny and sally why they can’t do that in their games….
What does this all mean? Not a darn thing because it obviously is complete coincidence…..
Thanks to Bob Young for writing what we all were thinking…
http://www.azcentral.com/sports/cheapseats/0527p2main0527.ht…
for more reference…
http://www.blogmaverick.com/entry/7817259725070137/
and to add to the data at the bottom of the above post, in this last game that Bob Young writes about, there were 4 free throws shot in the first half. All by Shaq.
Minnesota didn’t shoot their first non-tech free throw until Wally took 2 with 4:31 to go in the 3rd quarter…
and for a little more…
http://www.blogmaverick.com/entry/6314322554475298/
and Flip Saunders says the crew missed 33 calls in Game 3…
http://sports.yahoo.com/nba/news?slug=knight-tompowerskgneed…
and just for more fun from a previous blog entry, since it is relative to Bob Youngs column….
“The game last night game came down to the final shot. Sac had a foul to give. Their coach tells the players to foul with 3 seconds left. We know it.The players know it.Everyone on our bench knows it. It’s basketball strategy 101. How in the world could the officials not know it? Peja intentionaly fouls Dirk. They don’t call it. “
And not to say thatI was paying attention to this issue before…. but this is from an AP reporter overhearing me referencing a previous conversation I had with our media guys prior to this game starting….
“Frustrated by how the first quarter was called by official Dan Crawford and crew, Mavs owner Mark Cuban screamed to the scorer’s table, “What did I tell about Crawford? Terrible.” Maybe it worked the Kings didn’t have a free throw in the second quarter. … “
Just for clarification, my comments didn’t have an impact, I was referencing my observations of Mr. Crawfords style of officiating and the lack of free throws in the 2nd quarter, regardless of team, confirmed it for this game.
Finally, I do have to give credit where credit is due, and disagree with Bob Young on 1 item in his column. The officials are finally calling travelling. Starting with our game against Sac, they have rediscovered the ability to see players shuffle their feet and switch pivot feet. The world has not collapsed and the players seem to have adjusted nicely. Anddads everywhere are breathing a sigh of relief not having to explain to littly johnny and sally why they can’t do that in their games….
What does this all mean? Not a darn thing because it obviously is complete coincidence…..
You never quite know in business if what you are doing is the right or wrong thing. Unfortunately, by the time you know the answer, someone has beaten you to it and you are out of business. I used to tell myself that it was ok to make little mistakes, just don’t make the big ones. I would continuously search for new ideas. I read every book and magazine I could. Heck, 3 bucks for a magazine, 20 bucks for a book. One good idea that lead to a customer or solution and it paid for itself many times over. Some of the ideas i read were good, some not. In doing all the reading I learned a valuable lesson.
Everything I read was public. Anyone could buy the same books and magazines. The same information was available to anyone who wanted it. Turns out most people didn’t want it.
I remember going into customers or talking to people in the industry and tossing out tidbits about software or hardware. Features that worked, bugs in the software. All things I had read. I expected the ongoing response of “Oh yeah, I read that too in such-and-such.” That’s not what happened. They hadn’t read it then, and they haven’t started reading yet.
Most people won’t put in the time to get a knowledge advantage. Sure, there were folks that worked hard at picking up every bit of information that they could, but we were few and far between. To this day, I feel like if I put in enough time consuming all the information available, particularly with the net making it so readily available, I can get an advantage in any technology business. Of course my wife hates that I read more than 3 hours almost every day, but it gives me a level of comfort and confidence in my businesses. AT MicroSolutions it gave me a huge advantage. A guy with little computer background could compete with far more experienced guys just because I put in the time to learn all I could.
I learned from magazines and books, but I also learned from watching what some of the up and coming technology companies of the day were doing. Its funny how the companies that I thought were brilliant then, are still racking it up today.
Every week a company called PCs Limited used to take a full-page ad in a weekly trade magazine called PC Week. The ad would feature PC peripherals that the company would sell. Hard Drives. Memory. Floppy Drives. Graphics Cards. Whatever could be added to a PC was there. What made the ad so special was that each and every week the prices got lower. If a drive was 2,000 dollars last week, it was $ 1940 this week. For the first time in any industry that I knew of, we were seeing vendors pass on price savings to customers.
The PC Limited ads became the “market price” for peripherals. I looked for the ad every week. In fact, I became a customer. I was in Dallas. They were in Austin.
I remember driving down to pick up some hard drives that I was going to put into my customers PCs. I had no idea up to that point, but it turns out that they had just moved from the owner’s dorm room into a little office/warehouse space. I was so impressed by this young kid (I was a wise old 25 at the time), that I actually wrote a letter thanking him for the great job he was doing, and…I’m embarassed to say now, I told him that if he kept up what he was doing he was destined for far bigger and better things.
I kept on doing business with PCs Limited, and Michael Dell kept on doing what he was doing. I dont think he really needed my encouragement, but i have since told him that I thought his weekly full page ads with ever declining prices, changed the PC industry and were the first of many genius moves on his part.
Michael wasn’t the only smart one in those days.
One of the PC industry’s annual rituals was the Comdex trade show in Las Vegas. Every November, it was the only 3 days I knew I would get away and get a break from the office. It was work during the day. Visiting all the new technology booths. Trying to get better pricing from vendors. Trying to find out where the best parties were. If you could believe it, back in those days, the number one party was the Microsoft party. I sold some Microsoft products, so I could get in.
One particular year, I was on my way to having a memorable night. I had met some very, very attractive women (I swear they were). Got them some tickets to come with me to the big party. All is good. I’m having fun. They are having fun. Then we see him. Bill G. As in Bill Gates dancing up a storm. I’m a Bill Gates fan, so I wont describe his dancing, but he was definitely having fun.
At that point in time, Microsoft had gone public and Bill Gates was Bill Gates. If you were in the business you knew him or knew of him. The girls I was with were in the business. Long story short, I went to the bar to get some drinks for all us, I come back, they aren’t there. Come to find out the next day, Bill stole my girls. As I would learn later in life, money does make you extremely handsome. 
Bill G also taught me a few things about business. Put aside how he killed IBM at their own game by licensing PC DOS to anyone that wanted it. What MicroSoft did to knock Lotus 1-2-3 and WordPerfect off their thrones was literally business at its best.
At that point in time, software was expensive. WordPerfect and Lotus 1-2-3 both sold for $495 and their publishers were proud of that fact. In order to be able to sell Lotus 1-2-3, you had to go to special training to become authorized. How crazy does that sound now going to a special class to be able to sell a spreadsheet. WordPerfect wasn’t quite as bad, but they had their own idiosyncrasies as well. Meanwhile, Microsoft was on the outside looking in. Excel, Word, Powerpoint were all far down the list of top sellers until lightning struck.
Microsoft decided to go against industry protocol and package those 3 programs as a suite and offer them as an upgrade to competitors’ products for the low, low price of 99 dollars. Of course you needed to have and use Windows for it to work, but in a time when people were buying new PCs with every dramatic increase in power and decrease in price, it was a natural move for us at MicroSolutions to sell the bundle. It made the effective price of the PC and software together far, far lower. We loved it. It also taught me several big lessons.
Always ask yourself how someone could preempt your products or service. How can they put you out of business? Is it price? Is it service? Is it ease of use? No product is perfect and if there are good competitors in your market, they will figure out how to abuse you. It’s always better if you are honest with yourself and anticipate where the problems will come from.
The 2nd lesson is to always run your business like you are going to be competing with Microsoft. They may not be your direct competitor. They may be a vendor. They may be a direct competitor and a vendor. Whatever they may be to your business, if you are in the technology business, you have to anticipate that you will in some way have to compete with Microsoft at some point. I ask myself every week what I would do if they entered any of my businesses. If you are ready to compete with Microsoft, you are ready to compete with anyone else.
Watching the best taught me how to run my businesses. Along the way I taught myself a few things those come next blog.
I was contacted by the FCC and asked for any ideas I might have about accelerating the transition from analog to digital TV. Since anything I write to the FCC is on the public record anyway,I thought I would share it here…. I haven’t talked much about HDTV in this blog, and its about time I started!
I do have a solution for the FCC for the transition to HD and gettingback theTV broadcast spectrumthat is cheaper, far simpler, and would accelerate the give back faster then anything so far proposed, and I’m sure no one has thought of it.
More than 70% of homes already have Digital TV monitors. They are called PC monitors. All have RGB input, and 100% of them work with HD programming as well as digital programming and with conversion analog programs. CRT based models sell for under 200 bucks now, and can be had for 99 bucks in some cases. Companies are dumping them to make room for LCD.
The only challenge would be getting ATSC tuners to attach to them.
ATSC, stand-alone tuners can be purchased for $399 full retail today. That’s unit 1. You can get the price down quickly under 100 bucks no sweat. Or you can play off cable vs. satellite and offer RGB converters for 100 bucks or less to connect to the back of Set Top Boxes that don’t already have them.
So you can have the spectrum auction, borrow against the money to buy down the cost of the tuners, place the tuners and adapters in the marketplace, and away we go. More importantly, you also have the political capital that allows this effort to dovetail with placing computers and conquering the digital divide
Of course the NAB will freak out, saying that people will hate losing their analog TVs, however that can be dealt with. Put an SVHS output in the new tuner and you could watch the digital programming through a 49 dollar VCR, DVD or on a TV that supported SVHS, and with a little bit of work, you could do the same with composite output.
Make sense?
If the league hadn’t fined me $500,000 dollars I would let this little note just slide by and not mention it. Given their reaction to my comments suggesting that this individual could not manage a Dairy Queen, I find it relevant to mention that he has since had a career change.
The former NBA head of officiatingleft his position at the NBA to becomean assistant football coach at Bloomsburg University in Pa.
I wish him all the best in his new career and wish he would have started it sooner. It would have saved me a lot of money.
m
Before the season started, I made a comment to Pat O’Brien of Access Hollywood that I thought the volume of media coverage of the Kobe Bryant trial would result in higher TV ratings for his games and for the NBA in general (turns out I was right). USA Today ran a headline saying that I said, “rape was good for NBA.” Which I never said. USA Today knew that this headline would gather attention, so they went with it.
The media jumped all over it and made the headline, rather than what I said in the story. It was picked up everywhere. Access Hollywood jumped in the fray and proactively sent out copies of the tape, using out of context sound bitesthat played to the coverage of the USA Today headline. Access Hollywood and USA Today got what they wanted: free advertising. Hundreds of thousands of media impressions quoting or referencing USA Today, Access Hollywood or both.
The question I had then, is the same question I have now? What is the goal of these media outlets? How do they define what is “newsworthy.” It sure appears to me that the news media has evolved from “all the news that is fit to print” to “How much free publicity can we get from this story?”
We are now in an era where media searchesfor stories that will generate media coverage of the story. Stories are written not for the value they bring the readers, viewers or listeners, but rather the volume of coverage they will bring.
Which leads me to the coverage of Kevin Garnett’s war metaphors. Maybe you think his comments comparing his perspective on Game 7 to war as inappropriate, maybe you don’t care. That is not the issue to me. My question is the role of the media.
They all stood there with their recorders on as KG spoke and tookin his comments. Did a single person standing around him ask him if he was sure he wanted to go on the record with those comments? Did anyone jump in and remind him that some might consider the comments insensitive? Thatmaybe he wanted to recant or go off the record so the media wouldn’t quote him?
Lets think this through. If the problemwas that families of those serving our country would be offended by the comments, why didn’t a single media member put the feelings of those people above their need to have a headline?
Everyone in the media has a “headline generator” in their mind when they are doing an interview. They are never surprised by the headlines. They knew exactly what would happen. They would write the story, and the headlines would be KG’s war metaphor. Then KG would have to apologize, and that story would be carried worldwide. The story about the story.
And what about all the newswires that distributed the comments to every media outlet in the world and the outlets that ran, read or presented those comments? Where was the sympathy for the families that KG is accused of not having? If these comments are so insensitive, why run them? What KG said was heard by not more than 15 people. He didn’t put out a press release.
If someone standing with a microphone in KGs face was insulted by the comments, he or shecould have said soand KG could have apologized to them. Beyond the media in the room, if the family of a service member is upset because of what they read, saw or heard in the media, why isn’t the company or person who distributed the comments responsible?
It’s typical media hypocrisywith asad conclusion. We say it not because there is information that we feel our customers want to know, but rather becauseall of media has become so self-serving that a new media quid pro quo has evolved. You run our vapid stories with attribution and we will run yours.
2007-02-22 04:38:10
