Instalanche Hangover

Yesterday, The Scratching Post got a link from Glenn Reynolds' Instapundit for our post on a marketing strategy that could be driving the New York Times' repeated violations of national security laws. In one day I picked up 3200 hits. Traffic is still coming in from that link. Additionally, when Glenn links to you, lots of others do, too. Those secondary links drove my Technorati and TTLB scores way up. Lastly, I made more money from Adsense yesterday than I have in the entire time I've been blogging. Today, the temptation to find a follow-up post was tremendous. It was an Instalanche hangover.

When I sat down with my coffee in front of the PC with my Maximum Leader in her office suite next to me, I wondered what I could find to repeat that success. Looking at the sitemeter traffic statistics, it seemed reasonable that 5-10% of those Instavisitors would come back to see what new pearls of wisdom I had to offer. Could I find a hot new topic that I could examine in a novel way using my experience in business? LGF, Captain's Quarters, Instapundit and the rest were all running off in various directions with thousands and thousands of potential hits for me if only I could tempt them into another link. How could I repeat my success?

Here's what I came up with.

If you're new to this site, take a look at the links on the right hand side and pick one. Check out their blog. They are some really cool people. Later today Jacob the Syrian Hamster will post an anthology of his favorite articles for the week from some of their blogs. In the meantime, let me leave you with this.

Our Maximum Leader rolling in catnip.
Jacob hoping for more playtime and seeds.
Sunset over Pacific Beach.
Old friends who just met.
Technorati tags: write from your heart

Ring Girls for the Kos - TNR Fight

Our brand new friends at the Blue Crab Boulevard keep asking for cute ring girls to adorn the boxing ring wherein Kos and The New Republic are going at it. In an effort to please, The Scratching Post's crack research staff, consisting of our Maximum Leader, K T Cat and Jacob the Syrian Hamster, have found them.

We apologize for the small pictures, but in the interest of saving bandwidth for our dial up friends, we decided to go with these. For gorgeous, full-sized photos of these liberal hotties that both Kos and TNR would swoon for, just click on them.




Technorati tags: projectile vomiting blindness

Bravo, Wells Fargo!

In the middle of the firestorm over AOL's horrific practice of bullying customers into staying, I'd like to post a contrast.

Yesterday I called Wells Fargo Bank to get some help linking my new checking account to Quicken. I got to a customer service rep right away. She walked me through the process pleasantly and completely. Then she helped me review my account and cancelled a $3 monthly payment I had been making for a service I wasn't using any more.

When I told her how I had been charged a $40 fee for overusing my savings account due to the fact that my ATM card hadn't been linked to my checking account and I had unwittingly been making purchases out of savings, she refunded my $40.

Wells Fargo rocks.

Technorati tags: wells fargo bank

The Full Tux

It's catblogging Friday! Here's our Maximum Leader in a perfect tuxedo pose. Click on the picture for a really nice full size version.



Be sure to visit the Friday Ark and the Carnival of the Cats this week.

Technorati tags: cats tuxedo catblogging

Compromising National Security as a Marketing Strategy

Being a marketer by trade, I tend to see everything through the prism of marketing. To me, the recent article by the New York Times that revealed classified details about our efforts to uncover the banking connections that sustain global terrorism can only be explained as a marketing effort.

If you haven't seen it yet, Hugh Hewitt, Powerline, the National Review and Instapundit all have excellent summaries of the subject.

The New York Times is in a steep dive. Its circulation is dropping, its stock price is dropping, its gross income is flat and its net profits are declining 5-10% per year. All of this in the middle of an economic boom.

5 year chart of NYT stock price.
On its surface, the most recent article uncovering classified information doesn't make any sense at all. For one thing, it's an article about banking. Other than business types like myself, banking articles are MEGO articles. (My Eyes Glazed Over.) It doesn't break any new ground at all. The administration said repeatedly that it was working to roll up Al Qaeda's financial network. There is no question that it is legal to do so. The NYT article simply publicisized the classified details of a legal program that was known to exist.

In exchange for this, the risk of government court action is very real. Knowingly revealing classified information is a crime, plain and simple. The fact that the NYT was repeatedly requested by the government not to reveal these secrets condemns it further. Why would you print such an article?

I suggest that the NYT is hoping, praying, begging the Bush administration to take them to court. That stock price drop is no fluke. The NYT is an uncompetitive product. Unless they change consumers' attitudes, their revenue will continue to drop.

People who see all sources of information as equally good will, in time, drop those that cost money. I no longer subscribe to any newspapers at all. I can get everything I want on the Internet for free. The NYT has to make clear it's value proposition to the consumer. My bet is that they are positioning themselves as being the only news media large enough to uncover government scandals. They are appealing to the fear that in their absence, government agencies will run wild with corruption and deceit. The San Diego Union is currently running just such an ad campaign.

The New York Times does not have an efficient advertising channel to get this concept in front of the public quickly and easily. If the Bush administration takes them to court, the entire country will have it propped up in front of them day and night until well after the trial is over. All of the usual suspects will rally to their defense. The ACLU, the MSM news channels, other newspapers and the Democratic Party will broadcast that concept morning, noon and night. In one fell swoop, the NYT will execute a marketing campaign that it hopes will change consumer sentiment.

In order for the NYT and the other newspapers to survive, they have to change the public's perception from this:

"If I don't support big media, I will still be able to get my information from other sources without cost"

to this:

"If I don't support big media, there will be no one left to watch the government and all of my civil liberties will slowly erode away."

I can't think of any other reason to have printed that article.

Update: Thanks for the link, Anchoress! For those of you stopping by, please have a click around. I've had a really fun week blogging and I think you might like some of it.

Update 2: Zounds! An Instalanche and a Powerlinelanche! I'm not worthy! Thank you both. If you're visiting for the first time, please have a click around. We do posts on business, religion, cats, humor and politics. If you have a sudden twitch in your hand and accidentally click on the left hand column, I won't hold it against you. :-)

Update 6/26/06: Follow up post here.

Technorati tags: msm nyt profit classified banking

An Odd Week at The Scratching Post

The Scratching Post is a blog built around business and marketing observations and our weekly World of Good (WOG) posts. This week we tried a surreal combination of the two that didn't even garner a peep. Normally our WOG posts get multiple links and hundreds of hits. This one didn't even get acknowledgement off of the links emailed to the WOG Squad. It was so ignored, in fact, that it made me wonder if the email had gone out at all. I never received any error messages, so I think it's safe to assume that everyone got it and just bailed as soon as they saw me describe it in the email as weird.

And weird it is. I got a bizarre inspiration and decided to write a post juxtaposing Disneyworld with Hamas. The contrast, to me at least, is obvious and striking. The ultimate in clean-cut fun versus a group that is cannibalistic in everything save diet. I might as well have written about weather patterns on Mars. In fact, that might have garnered more attention from the NASAphiles out there. This one simply vanished as if it had entered the Bermuda Triangle.

I can't say I'm disappointed since I knew it was a risky thing to do. I'm just surprised at the lack of any response at all. Perhaps the thing is so weird that no one knows what to make of it at all. Sort of like when you go into a friend's house and he has a sculpture of a nude woman frying bacon in the middle of his living room. It's so bizarre that you can't think of anything to say that isn't insulting and so you ignore it.

I've discovered that asking for comments is usually a fruitless thing to do, but I think I'll do it one more time. If you'd like to look at that WOG post, you can find it here. Is it so weird that you can't think of anything to say?

File Me Under 'R' for Rodent

You can't believe how much research work is done here at The Scratching Post in order to make sure our Maximum Leader's blog posts are accurate and insightful.

When's my coffee break?
Filing, scurrying, climbing the human's shirt to perch on his shoulder and scan the office for more papers, stuffing seeds in my mouth, scurrying some more, creeping through the files...

It's all in a day's work for this office hamster.

Be sure to visit the Friday Ark this week.

Technorati tags: office hamster

Thursday 13, Summer Fun Edition

Thirteen Fun Things About Summer in Words and Pictures

1. Summer block parties in the neighborhood

2. Shorts and aloha shirts

3. No homework for the kids

4. Sleepovers in the middle of the week for the kids

5. Leaving the windows open all night

6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
11.
12.
13.


Get the Thursday Thirteen code here!

The purpose of the meme is to get to know everyone who participates a little bit better every Thursday. Visiting fellow Thirteeners is encouraged! If you participate, leave the link to your Thirteen in others comments. It’s easy, and fun! Be sure to update your Thirteen with links that are left for you, as well! I will link to everyone who participates and leaves a link to their 13 things. Trackbacks, pings, comment links accepted!

View More Thursday Thirteen Participants

Technorati tags: Thursday+thirteen

No Vampire Attacks

Thanks to our Maximum Leader, there were no vampire attacks last night.

K T keeps watch for vampires.
She went out many times last night to make sure they stayed away. I checked the newswires this morning and could find no sign of vampire attacks. Well done, K T!

Explanation here.

Technorati tags: vampires cats

World of Good Blogburst, Kindness Makes You Rich Style

In concert with other blogs, The Scratching Post publishes a blog entry each week about acts of kindness called The World of Good (WOG) Blogburst. A full description of our WOGs can be found here.

Today’s World of Good post is a deviation from what we’ve done in the past. This time we focus on how good deeds can make you rich and how hostility makes you poor.

Walt Disney Corporation has an annual gross income of 31 billion dollars. A large portion of that comes from their theme parks. One of the biggest reasons Disney theme parks are so successful is that they have made acts of kindness and good deeds an integral part of their corporate culture.

Is anyone still reading this? Any time some blogger goes on about “corporate culture” it’s a good bet that at least half the readers have clicked away. :-)


Disney is determined to make money. They make money when you come to visit Disneyworld. One of the biggest reasons you go back to Disneyworld for more visits is that the employees are nice people. They keep the park clean. They give you directions with a smile. They go out of their way to make your visit fun.

These nice people are helping make $31,000,000,000 per year for Disney. Kindness pays.

Quality Digest Magazine has an article describing this. Kotler and Armstrong’s classic text Principles of Marketing describes Disney’s approach as well.

The real Disney magic lies in the company’s obsessive dedication to “make people happy”…The company orients all of its people – from the executive in the corner office to the monorail driver to the ticket seller at the gate – around the customer’s experience…The job of each cast member (Disney shorthand for employee) is to enthusiastically serve Disney’s “guests”…They are taught to be enthusiastic, helpful and always friendly. They learn to do good deeds, such as volunteering to take pictures of guests, so that the whole family can be in the picture. Cast members are taught to never say, “it’s not my job.”

Contrast this with another world famous organization.

Recently, Hamas was elected to lead the Palestinian government. Their opponents, Fatah, have had disagreements with Hamas. In typical fashion, they are resolving these disagreements through violence and bloodshed. Recently, members of Fatah attacked government buildings and destroyed large portions of them.


They wrecked their own buildings.


What’s the result of their approach? Gaza and the West Bank have an annual gross income of about 2.5 billion dollars, or about 1/12 of what Disney makes. Kotler and Armstrong’s text claim that the theme parks make up 30% of Disney. That means the theme parks alone make more than 3 times as much as all the Palestinians put together.

Many arguments can be made against comparing these two entities and drawing any conclusions at all. Allow me to rebut them with this.




Is there any question that kindness pays?

We have done many other World of Good posts and we urge you to explore them further here.

Technorati tags: kindness disneyland profit hamas

Greaarrrggghhhh!

Aaaaaauuuuggggghhhhhh!

#!@&*(@&#*)!@! Blogger won't upload photos. Again!

All I can say is @&E(#$@&(#&@(!!

The weekly World of Good post has to wait until I can get the photos inserted.

Greaaarrrggghh.

Technorati tags: Greaarrrggghhhh

Tripped Up by Baggy Pants

Lawman, I'd love to see your comments on this one!

There's a hilarious article by Serena Ng in today's Wall Street Journal on young criminals getting tripped up by their baggy pants. Here are some of my favorite sections:

Just about every other week, Jim Matheny, a 41-year-old police lieutenant in Stamford, Conn., says he gets into foot chases with youths. He says it's getting easier to capture them because they can't run fast or far in those loose jeans.

"When I catch them, I tell them they'd do much better if they had pants that fit," says Lt. Matheny, who says he has had to help hold up the pants of his suspects while patting them down to search for drugs or weapons. "It's like: 'Hey dude, buy a belt and save yourself some trouble.' "

...

Ill-fitting pants aren't suited for jumping, either, as Noah Donell Brown of Hendersonville, N.C., learned. The 24-year-old tried to leap over the counter of a Subway sandwich shop during a robbery attempt, but he stumbled and came crashing down in front of several startled store employees. Mr. Brown, armed with a gun, got up and fled into a nearby residential neighborhood as the police were notified.

Police didn't have to work hard to arrest him. As Mr. Brown tried to scale a picket fence in someone's backyard, he caught his pants, according to the police department. He was found dangling upside down, his pants at his ankles and tangled in the fence.

I'm still laughing!


Stop it, Serena! You're killing me!

Technorati tags: crime slacker baggy pants

Focus, Focus, Focus!

I just finished reading, or at least thumbing through the majority of, Napolean Hill's Think and Grow Rich. If you look at recommended reading lists for business, this title is almost always there. Back in the day, Mr. Hill was commissioned by Andrew Carnegie to find out what successful people had in common. One of the things he found out was that they had an almost monomaniacal focus on a single goal. They picked a subject and excelled at it.

Last week I got a first-hand demonstration of how and why that works. I was asked to sit on a panel that determined which three to five of twenty science and technology proposals would be funded for next year. Our own organization had a proposal in the mix and so did those of some of the other panelists.

Our proposal was very well received and scored well. It placed fourth out of twenty and five projects ended up getting funded. Ours was not one of them. The problem was that the first and second place proposals were in the same topic area and were clearly superior.

Why was that?

The winners had focused on the subject, in this case, laser communications. While all of the presentations were technically sound, the others referred repeatedly to other work they were doing with lasers. We were more generalists and our resume was old and nearly out of date.

Napolean Hill's research indicated that people who pick a topic and focus on it succeed more often than those who don't. Success builds upon itself. With every project you do, you gain more skill and make more connections with others in the field. The more skill and connections you have, the more proposals you win. Soon you have a national reputation and win proposals based on your name alone.

This graph shows the concept.


People who focus on a subject continually improve. Dabblers improve when they work in the area, but their skills atrophy when they don't. As time goes on, they fall behind and simply cannot compete with those who have focused.

Technorati tags: career competition business

The Feline Theocracy Grows Ever Stronger!

There are those who doubt the power and might of the Feline Theocracy. Let their doubts be cast to the winds and let them rejoice with us as we add yet another theocratician to the rolls of the Theocracy!


Aloysius of Catymology is hereby named the "Poet Laureate" of the Feline Theocracy. He has kindly provided us with an entertaining description of himself here.

Welcome, Aloysius! The Offical Artist of the Theocracy, Justin, produced this handsome graphic. Feel free to use it on your blog if you'd like.


Technorati tags: feline theocracy

Customers Participate When They Feel Like It

One of my favorite business blogs, the Customer Evangelists, has a post talking about a new model for customer feedback based on using the web. I'm going to try to apply this to blogging in particular.

It's a new model being proposed by Jim Nail and the folks at Cymfony, an analytics company that measures and interprets consumer-generated and traditional media.

In a previous post on the Customer Evangelists blog, they discussed the 1% rule. 1% of your readers will contribute to the development of your product. The Wikipedia was held up as a measurable example of this. I'd say that number is about right. If you look closely at the comments on any blog, excepting those posts linked to by the big blogs like Instapundit, you'll see the same names in the comments over and over. When asking for opinions, you will get theirs, but very few others.

While the comments in the blog give you an idea of what your friends are thinking, it's the traffic summary from tools like sitemeter that give you more. If you look at sitemeter, you can see which posts are generating secondary hits. That gives you a complete cross-section of your traffic. If the customers liked your product, they continued to surf around on your blog to see what else was there. If they didn't, they bailed out. I posted about this earlier. Comments are a less complete measure of customer satisfaction.

I would also argue that comments are dominated by a particular subset of Myers-Briggs personality types. My bet is that EJs (Extroverted Judgers) provide the most comments. The reader has a firm opinion and wants to express it to everyone. Confirming that would be an interesting experiment to run. In any case, I think that the online world gives you market analysis tools that far surpass traditional ones. While the comments are still instructive in describing thought processes, the ability to capture actual behaviors is a bigger breakthrough.

Technorati tags: customers marketing business

This Week in the Theocracy

Preliminary Catwa: Please send Niall some words of encouragement. He is going through some very trying times right now and a little kindness might ease his heart.

Hail and well met fellow truth-seekers on the information superhighway of enlightenment! Rest your tired psyches for a time and celebrate the wisdom and wit of the Feline Theocracy. It's time for me, Jacob the Syrian Hamster, loyal beadle of the Theocracy, to lead you through another selection of our favorite posts of the week from all of the theocraticians.


As an aside, I spent quite a bit of time trying to find the old theme song to "This Week in Baseball", but was unable to do so. I found people claiming they had a CD with it and I found the name and composer, but I did not find the file. Thank you, MLB. I'm glad you're protecting that song from malicious downloads while you allow a radioactive, DNA-spliced, drug fiend like Barry Bonds to break all of the game's most cherished records.

I can't wait for the NFL season to start.

Ahem. On to the posts, this time in no particular order.

Our Holy Ambassador to the Court of the Mainstream Media, Peggy Noonan talks about the real problem the Democrats have in enunciating a platform. They've succeeded. Here's my favorite part of her post.

One can argue about why the Democratic Party no longer seems to have a reason for being. I believe the reason is this: They have achieved what they set out to achieve in 1932, when the modern Democratic Party began. They got what they asked for, achieved what they fought for. They got a big government that offers a wide array of benefits and assistance; they got a powerful federal establishment that collects and dispenses treasure, that assumes societal guidance.

Our Kight-Protector and Defender of Yarn Balls has a great joke posted specially for the Theocracy.

Heidi, resting comfortably on our Protected List, posts a book recommendation and a touching anecdote.

Happy Julie, Holy Scholar, goes all Jack Kerouac on us.

Holy Scholar Georgette will bring tears to your eyes on this Father's Day.

The Archibishop of Texas, Laurence Simon, has a YouTube movie of Nardo dealing with one of life's most difficult questions.

Feline Empress and Mother Superior of the Holy Order of Ocean Whitefish shows the "profressional" wrestlers at WWE how it's done.

Abbess of the Priory of Small Princess shares a trauma with all of us.

Ogre, our Monsignor of the Breweries, has one of the coolest optical tricks I've ever seen. You have got to try this one.

Holy Scholar Mark Shea weighs in with an absolutely amazing video.

I'm starting to lose track of who I've done and who I haven't. We'll go down the list from here on in.

The Grand Almoner of England, mirroring a personal journey of my own, has some wisdom for everyone in their careers.

Sister Jane of Perpetual Purring reviews Ann Coulter's new book, Godless. As an aside, I really don't understand the controversy at all. The Jersey Girls jumped into the political ring, itching for a fight. Ann punched their lights out. What's the problem?

Our Official Artist, Justin, has a post worthy of the World of Good. You always knew he was a great guy, didn't you?

Tossed about on a sea of troubles? The Anchoress has a post for you.

Holy Scholar Eric Scheske has some funny stuff here.

Finally, our Court Jester posts a conundrum for science.

Thanks to all members of the Feline Theocracy for sharing your talents and interests with us for another week. My life is richer because of it.

Technorati tags: feline theocracy

Homestyle Dog Food?

I went grocery shopping today and on the way out of the store, I saw a bag of "Kibbles n' Bits - Homestyle" dog food.

Just what would "Homestyle" dog food look like? A slurry of mildly rotting leftovers pulled from the fridge mixed with stale bread and some dog kibble?

On second thought, I don't think I want to know.

Technorati tags: dog food

Fantastic Photos

Rick Lee is an amazing photographer with a blog. I hope he doesn't mind, but I am going to give him a link through one of his photos. Click on the photo to go to his blog.


Photo reused without permission.

Technorati tags: photography photoblogging

Making Long Flights Tolerable

I travel quite a bit for work, typically coast-to-coast. Six hours on an airplane is no fun. I have finally found the secret to making the time fly by. Music and SuDoku. I've got my Rio Karma loaded up with 4400+ songs and my New York Post SuDoku book. I put the Karma on shuffle and work the puzzles. I have no idea what song will come up next and the puzzles keep my brain occupied. The flights go by quickly.

I also have all of the IMAO podcasts, Mark Steyn interviews from the Hugh Hewitt Show and James Lileks Bleatcasts on the Karma, too, so there is really a wide variety.

Another nice feature is how little I need to unpack from my carry-on luggage in order to do this. Headphones, Karma, book and pen. Everyone else is dragging out laptops and huge novels and I'm able to stay compact and keep my leg room for my legs. Way cool.

Just thought I'd share.

Technorati tags: travel sudoku mp3 flying

A Tonic for the Weary Traveller

Look who is staying near me to make sure I don't get lonely after coming back from a long business trip.



Thanks, Maximum Leader.

Check out this week's Carnival of the Cats.

Technorati tags: catblogging travel