Is it the Whiskey or the Wine?

The Sound LA had their "A-Z Week" gimmick goin' on this past week. War's 'Cisco Kid' hit the airwaves on Tuesday. I couldn't get enough volume out of my speakers - it was just phenomenal. The simplicity of the lyrics, the repetition, the phenomenal bridge. It was all there. Check it our for your self:

Mitchell Powers (an old friend – smart guy) once told me that some important person (a beat poet I think, but I'm not sure - it was long time ago we had the conversation) said "music is the only art form you feel inside your body." Because of the fundamental way sound works, sound waves can actually be felt hitting your nerves, creating a unique, body-wide sensation. Years later I brought this little tid-bit up to my wife, the visual artist, and an argument ensued of visual vs. aural arts. I'm not going to go down that road because you can't really compare the two artforms and well, I'm only thinking about the audio arts right now.

So back to War and music that get's the blood brewing. What is it about music that stirs us so?  And as a marketer, can we find that special elixir and bottle it? You may have read Malcolm Gladwell's article on "making hits" using a "The Formula."  Or you may have read the research on "Purchase occasion influence on the role of music in advertising." I'm going to take some to look into this – will be back to discuss! In the mean time, if you have some thoughts/ideas/leads, I'd love to hear about them - please leave your comments.

The VA forray

I've made first attempt at a Virtual Assistant. There are so many articles out there that I can't even begin to list them all (but American Express has a nice article on "9 Tips for Working With a Virtual Assistant").
I've ended up working with oDesk for this particular project. oDesk allows you to post a job and then have thousands of VAs apply for the task. My task was to go through a list of 75 websites, collecting links and data from each. Simple enough. Within one hour I had 9 responses, ranging from $0.89/hour all the way to a whipping $5.65/hour. Not too bad.
Ultimately I'm going to try someone from the Phillipines. She has been very nice, has blessed me many times, and even thinks I have a great name because it's in the Bible. Now that's salesmanship - butter me up and bless my eternal soul.
On the plus side, my VA has already started, even though oDesk hasn't "authorized" my account (they have a crazy credit card authorization process that must be a response to some crazy Nigerian spam ring). Good to see the VA world knows that execution matters.
We'll see what happens tomorrow. In the mean time, I'm going to watch Fletch.

The Big Lebowski

Now that I'm 4 years in to my LA experience, I've been thinking about the Big Lebowski a lot. A whole lot. And watching it. It's been very exciting to realize I work next to the diner where Walter tells the Dude he can get a toe. I live next to an In-N-Out Burger in North Hollywood. The Coen Bros. live in LA and so do I! The similarities never end.

SOoooooooo...

What the hell is the movie about? I mean, it's gotta be about something, right? One of the truly best parts of the movie is how it leads you to believe, to truly know, there must be more to the story of bowlers and ballers, artists and nihilists, and jerks and jerk-offs. A quick Google of "What is The Big Lebowski about?" shows I'm not alone. The New York Times and the academics are even in on the act.

The trials and tribulations of fixing smell fouls

So on top of everything else going on in the world, I'm exploring the world of 4-Hour Work Weeks. Needless to say I'm skeptical it will work out well, but every time I think about it I get all giddy inside.

It seems like a fun journey and a good way to learn the ins and outs of marketing, the interweb, and all things business.

First up is testing the muse. So I've got this idea. Some of you know about it. Most of you don't. But the book says to first set up a page to test out the feasibility of the idea. Will get back to you once I have some data back from the AdWords testing.

The virtues of putting it on the roof

Not everything has to be dealt with right away. Some things can be dealt with in time, and some things need time to be dealt with, and with time some things are just done. This third case is of the utmost importance - you have to know when to let sleeping dogs lie, when not to jump, when to just sleep on it.