Day Job

An aspect of consulting which I find fascinating is learning about what other people do for a living. Doing internet project work for different companies allows me to peer thru a temporary portal into the daily working life of someone from a different industry. Ultimately what we learn is that we are all facing the same archetypal challenges every day, whether we are a doctor, an electronics technician or a drug dealer. But every trade has it's own set of secrets.

I've recently devoured some media on this subject. Check out the stuff below to learn how to spy on other people's day jobs.

Online magazine The Morning News has a great article by Seattle writer Matthew Baldwin called Tricks of the Trade. "For every occupation, there is a catalog of secrets only its employees are aware of—such as how waiters with heavy platters know to look straight ahead, and never down."

I loved reading "Gig, Americans Talk About their Jobs" which is 650 pages worth of 3-page stories, each from a different profession. Learn the secrets of a Wal-Mart greeter, a bookie and a smokehouse pit cook, among many others.

Of course, Studs Terkel did an amazing job of chronicling people's work lives as a historian, writer and expert interviewer. Read his fabulous book, "Working: People Talk About What They Do All Day and How They Feel About What They Do". Listen to an NPR story about the 30th anniversary of the book, including some of the original recordings Studs made.

And remember, next time you see someone at work (no matter what they are doing) understand that they know something you don't. But maybe if you ask them nicely, they'll tell you.

Transnational Blueblood

I wonder if people outside the industry find this as hilarious as I do. Who cares. Just take a peek at his comics to see the raw truth about the world of modern advertising and marketing. CAUTION: plenty of naughty language. Cutely blunt.

Definition: Kludgy and Kludgier

In internet studio terms, a kludge is a sloppy, messy ball of code. A kludge is a software application that was slapped together with little thought of planning and with no respect for the best practices of a mature industry.

Web developers often inherit code from previous, long-lost developers. When a new developer begins working with new code, some kludges work and others don't. A working, functional kludge is one you don't want to touch for fear you'll trip on some code and the whole application will come crumbling down. Most kludge applications are not documented so you'll always need to reverse engineer everything.

SWAG Stories

"Once a jolly swagman camped by a billabong,
Under the shade of a Coolibah tree,
And he sang as he watched and waited till his billy boil,
You'll come a Waltzing Matilda with me."
- Waltzing Matilda by A.B. Paterson

What is SWAG exactly? Traditionally it referred to the cloth bundle a transient Australian vagabond might carry, filled with his clothing and belongings. For our purposes here, let's talk about a contemporary definition meaning the free stuff given away to those in (or near) the internet industry. I'm talking about promotional items, branded souvenirs, marketing giveaways and what we sometimes refer to as "tchotchkes" (Yiddish for "trinket").

There are many definitions and derivations, some of which are:
Marketing speak: Samples, Wearables And Gifts
On the industry floor: Stuff We All Get
Slang: Shit We All Git
Jaded veteran: Some Worthless Advertising Gimmick
Production studio: Scientific Wild Ass Guess

SWAG is one aspect of the internet industry that makes it all worthwhile. When a colleague shows me some new piece of SWAG they just received, it is usually because the gift is either really great or, alternatively, uniquely horrible and ill-conceived.

I've received these trinkets over the last 15 years and have kept many of them. T-shirts are probably the most common variety of SWAG, but the gifts are often of higher value. When we started MountainZone.com to broadcast content to the outdoor sporting industry, we hoped the gifts would begin to roll in. Oh, and roll they did. We received free condo stays and lift tickets from WhistlerBlackcomb resort, branded jackets from Warren Miller Entertainment, and free meals at local Seattle restaurants. Perhaps the greatest SWAG item I ever received was a limited edition K2 "Tricky Glow" snowboard (see photo). They made 750 of them and mine is stamped #666. And yes, it does glow in the dark. Because I need that.

We've all seen the bad gifts, too. What does it say about a company when you use their branded pen and it runs out of ink in a day? What about that key fob/flash drive that looses your data? A couple years ago I attended a medical technology conference and I was given a pen that barely wrote, but I kept it because of it's kitch value. It was promoting a collection agency and claimed they could, "get blood out of a stone." The ink was red.



I am constantly fascinated by how language and words mutate and develop. The term SWAG has a twisted history of spellings, derivations and origin stories. Explore for yourself and derive your own conclusions, I'm too busy playing with my branded plastic toys!

Wikipedia has a deep history of SWAG.

A similar spelling, Shwag, is often used to reference marijuana of questionable quality.

Another spelling is Schwag as used on the new website Start Up Schwag. This is the place to go to get branded T-shirts from the internet industry.

Some internet industry folks are taking photos of their loot and posting them for all the world to see. For example, Yahoo! employees have begun collecting SWAG from their company and photographing it all.

So, before you say, "I Survived the Dot Com Crash and All I Got Were These 3,000 Lousy T-shirts" remember that you are part of history! Join me in saving photos of these items for history to view. Send me photos and, if I get enough, I'll start an online SWAG museum.

They Promised Us Convergence, an UPDATE

Back in June I published a list of companies that are blurring the line between TV and computer. (see original post) The march toward convergence continues as evidenced by the companies below.

iFilm was acquired by Viacom in 2005 and "is a leading online video network, serving user-uploaded and professional content to over ten million viewers monthly."

Blinkx apparently has over 14 million hours of searchable video and major partnerships with dozens of media companies. Read more about the partnership with RealNetworks (and the competition with Windows Media) in a post on Beet.tv.

The Interactive Television Alliance is "an independent trade association representing the broad interests of the entire ITV industry."

Seattle-based BuddyTV has all the info you'd ever want to know about your favorite TV shows.

For a great article on the marriage of search and TV content, check out John Battelle's post "TV and Search Merge".

Of course, BitTorrent is still going strong as some users continue to ignore the strictly legal channels and just trade huge files back and forth.

Hulu is NBC Universal and News Corporation’s joint video venture, still in private beta. They have some huge plans, which is probably why they just left iTunes to go it alone.

UPDATE: One for the Money, Two for the Showbiz

Back in April I posted a roundup of companies who provide tools and services which help content creators distribute and get paid for their work. More companies continue to emerge...

A comprehensive list of video content companies has recently been assembled. Blogger Scott Kirsner posted "Getting Paid: Sites that Help Makers of Film and Video Make Money."

Triond is "a comprehensive publishing service that enables users to publish quality content of any type while maximizing its revenue-generating potential."

Associated Content is "an online publishing showcase where everyone - from experts and enthusiasts to amateurs and professionals - can become a Content Producer and submit original material on virtually any topic."

MetaCafe says, "if your video has what it takes to entertain people, we want to license it and pay you for every view."