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	Phil's Blogservations Monday, October 28, 2002 Posted by philgomes 7:04 PM Issue Of Press Bias Gets Renewed Focus: I'm glad the political bias in the press—liberal or conservative, actual or imagined—is getting another look. I'm hoping this means that media consumers are getting more thoughtful about the news that they read. One could argue that this makes life difficult for a PR guy, I suppose, but this kind of critical thinking does make for a better world to live in, overall. News media insider Bernard Goldberg fired his shot with Bias and, with characteristic vitriol, Ann Coulter weighed in with Slander. Now Jim Kuypers, a Dartmouth professor, has taken a look at the coverage of some very controversial events and how the media has framed them. Kuypers takes particular issue with the Associated Press, since its content runs in so many newspapers and Web sites. Thus, he allegedly contends, the majority of public opinion is shaped by a handful of journalists. Now there are three books on this topic that I have to pick up! My reading stack is getting big enough as it is. I'm currently re-reading Aristotle's Rhetoric (the parallel-page Greek/English translation) and just cracked open Scott Adams' The Way Of The Weasel. Friday, October 25, 2002 Posted by philgomes 3:44 PM Moving On: November 1 will be my last day at Phase Two Strategies, capping three years of service—to the day—at the firm. Watch this space for further updates. Thursday, October 24, 2002 Posted by philgomes 7:43 PM EETimes On The "Lethal Recovery": EETimes' Ron Wilson offers some excellent commentary on how the economic recovery—real or prayed-for—might take shape. In short, "size matters at the dawn of the 'lethal recovery'" Meaning? Well, consolidation will reign—in the electronics industry and elsewhere. Mr. Wilson offers some interesting picks for which companies they think are going to be acquisition fodder in the coming years. Among the article's many astute points: This time there is no obvious candidate for the next big thing. No existing technology has the combination of novel utility, wide appeal and lack of infrastructure or financial barriers that, taken together, would spark rapid growth. And with public, corporate and individual debt all at epic levels in the industrial world, the financial freedom to pay for the next big thing appears to be lacking, even if it should suddenly appear. Wednesday, October 23, 2002 Posted by philgomes 1:03 PM If There's One Guy Who Needs To Set Up A Blog... ...it's Andy Rooney. Tuesday, October 22, 2002 Posted by philgomes 2:05 PM SFSU Lecture: I have been invited once again to give my semi-annual lecture on public relations at San Francisco State's College Of Extended Learning. It's a wonderful opportunity and I very much enjoy teaching. Posted by philgomes 12:54 PM Desperately Seeking Hannibal Lecter: According to The Washington Post, Fox News' Rita Cosby reached out to imprisoned serial killer David "Son Of Sam" Berkowitz to offer some kind of analysis about the recent series of sniper shootings in Washington DC. Remind you of anything? "The answer isn't on those cheap shoes, Clarice." "Your personal story and spiritual growth inspired me to write to you," Cosby wrote to Berkowitz. Wow. Not a day goes by when I don't tell myself, "Wait a second! Before I do this important thing, I must consult the expertise of someone who thinks his dog was once telling him to kill people! What was I thinking!?!" "Quid pro quo, Rita. I tell you things, you tell me things." The DC cops' strategy eludes me. They invited the sniper to leave a message, but said message was garbled so they entreated the sniper to call back! Julie Landry likened the police's approach to a the kind of "missed connections" personal ad that you find in the classified sections of alternative weeklies and such. You: a delusional, narcissistic sniper. Me: a desperate cop, tired of searching the streets for "the one." You called the other day, your voice trembling with dark secrets. I could have talked for hours, but your voice trailed off, leaving me more desperate than ever before. Please call back. Let's get to know each other better. "First principles, Clarice. Read Marcus Aurelius. Of each particular thing ask: What is it in itself? What is its nature? What does he do, this man you seek?" Wednesday, October 16, 2002 Posted by philgomes 7:35 PM The Real Storage Conundrum: Analysts and pundits in the tech industry love to hold forth on the problems facing the data storage industry. George Gilder talks of the "storewidth" issue, or the need to have faster access to staggeringly high volumes of information. Others warn of when the "superparamagnetic limit" will be reached—the point when the charge required to store a bit on disk is so slight that walking the drive through a warm room would corrupt your MP3 collection. But now (horror of horrors) The Financial Times wonders what we're going to do when we run out of Greek superlative suffixes to describe storage capacities! Everyone knows about megabytes, from "megas," Greek for great. Most people know about gigabytes (Greek for "giant") and some have heard of terabytes (Greek "monster"). Soon, the next couple of degrees of size increase in computer storage capacity—the petabyte and the exabyte—will also be commonplace. Then what? James Huggins offers "zettabyte" and "yottabyte" as post-exabyte options. This looks pretty apocryphal, but the "yotta, yotta, yotta" nod to Sienfeld is somewhat appealing. Nevertheless, the FT article says that "heptabyte" and "octabyte" are good candidates. Suppose that proposing the "Phillibyte" is too much to ask? Tuesday, October 08, 2002 Posted by philgomes 6:57 PM A Publication Dynasty Remembered: What a &$#*ing week... First, Forbes' editorial supplement for the "digital age" folded, taking ten staffers along with it. Then today came tales of Upside closing its doors and Red Herring selling itself to itself in an incredibly shrewd gambit to get out from under real estate obligations. The New York Times and The San Francisco Chronicle offer further details on Upside and Red Herring. Plenty of bad news all around. I got an email from former Upside Associate Editor Kent German with the subject head "Bye-Bye Upside." Sad to see, since Upside offered an unusual blend of technology business reporting coupled with gleeful irreverence. I was looking forward to seeing how the magazine would take shape under the guidance of ex-Line56 editor Lester Craft. Now, alas, one could only imagine. On my last visit to Upside, I witnessed a stunning tableau of technology publishing deflation. My colleague Kristin Ely and I stopped in to pick up some copies of then-editor Jerry Borrell's excellent Silicon Valley retrospective issue. (SRI's CEO was featured.) When we walked into the lobby, we saw that the office was mostly empty. There was a large-screen, super-thin plasma television—easily $15,000 or more—on the wall. The TV was hanging about 30 degrees off-kilter and mewling out a static-filled Bloomberg TV broadcast. Somehow, in that moment, that entire display drove home what I always knew intuitively—that the bubble was an unsustainable fluke and that the inevitable correction had yet to run its course. However, amid all of this negativity, think for a minute about the dynasty that these magazines represented as a triumvirate of technology business publishing. Upside was founded by Rich Karlgaard (now Forbes' publisher) and Tony Perkins (founder of Red Herring) during a cab ride with William F. Buckley. To preserve this bit of publishing history before Upside's site shuts down: It was December 1986. The great William F. Buckley Jr. (yep, that one) had arrived in San Francisco to debate George McGovern at the Flint Center in Cupertino. Tony Perkins and I were asked to pick up WFB at the San Francisco airport and escort him to his hotel. WFB strode off the plane wearing a navy blazer over a navy sweater and necktie. It took us five minutes to load all of his bags and boxes--clothes, a small library of papers, magazines and books, and the newest Epson portable—into the back of the Cadillac stretch limo. Once inside, WFB leaned way back. "Tell me—what accounts for this miracle called Silicon Valley?" he asked. During the 10-minute ride, we talked feverishly of chips, software, Stanford, venture capital, the 1978 capital-gains tax reduction and wild-eyed, long-haired kids with dreams. WFB listened and nodded. At the hotel, Tony and I helped him with his bags. We had stepped off the curb when WFB came jogging after us. "One more thing," he said. "Is there a magazine where one can learn more about this Silicon Valley?" Tony and I shrugged our shoulders. "Nope," we said. WFB looked disappointed, but then suddenly his eyes brightened: "Then you must start one." - Rich Karlgaard, Sept. 19, 1997 This provided the seed from which Upside, Red Herring, and Forbes ASAP germinated. Karlgaard and Perkins also founded the venerable Churchill Club, Silicon Valley's premier public affairs forum. The Churchill Club is doing very well and I'm confident that Red Herring will weather the storm. Trust me...You wish that you had this kind of success rate. 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