All I Want Is A Normal Life

Splat directed me to a very fine website that gives the simplest weather report ever. I’ve subscribed so it sends my phone a text message every morning at 7:00, which is right about the time I already know if I need an umbrella (because I’m usually sitting outside enjoying coffee). So maybe it’s not all useful, but at least it’s a bit of fun and I can write about it on my blog.

Umbrella Today

This just popped into my inbox:

subject: brain scans, no waiting!
Hello all -
Please join us as we check out a technology that allows our brains to be scanned for “engagement” in response to anything we want to test. Advertisements, shows, games, special fx, bring whatever you want this interesting insight into, and we will strap ourselves in and give you some subconscious feedback.

At Sands Research, an El Paso, Texas-based company, scientists-turned-marketers are monitoring the brain activity of individuals in a lab setting to determine which television and print advertisements spark interest — and which fall flat.

“There’s a whole lot of science behind the process, but basically we can quickly give marketers feedback on whether an ad will click with consumers, at what point a commercial begins to generate a response and how long that engagement is sustained,” says company founder Stephen Sands. “We measure engagement.”

This technology is not new, but this mobile unit that allows for quick testing is, and may be of interest to you for research, marketing testing, or anything else you can think of. Bring your friends, and bring your brains.

www.sandsresearch.com

I don’t think I have to tell you how ABSOLUTELY RAD this is. Just take FIVE minutes and evaluate the possibilities for this… no… that’s too long. Remember the mood knob from only a few days ago? This is like the mood knob, but involuntary, which makes it sinister and dark in the same way that the mood knob was friendly and filled with sunshine. Perhaps this mind-reading machine would say that you find engagement from things that you’d rather no one knew you found engaging (blow up dolls and creepy cartoon characters are mine) or you’d become aware of engaging things that aren’t healthy for you to be engaged with… but are drawn towards (17 year olds, in my case).

My evil marketing brain is working overtime on this one.

In case you missed the original post, it’s here: omg the large super-collider is going to destroy the earth.

“If the world should blow itself up, the last audible voice would be that of an expert saying it can’t be done.”
– Peter Ustinov

That came in from my iGoogle quote feed this morning. It sure sounded applicable!

For updates, click here: Has the Large Hadron Collider destroyed the earth yet?

While watching the news this morning, this phrase made me jump up and literally run for my computer so I could blog.

Side note: that makes me sound really into blogging, which I’m not actually. I only started this blog a few days ago and I’m always looking out for things to blog about, which is sometimes hard for me, since I have relatively little personal drama and I don’t get out all that often. And I think I would bore myself to tears if I blogged about work… which brings up an important point: I don’t think anyone’s actually reading this blog and I have no illusions about the noise-to-signal ratio of the blogosphere, so I don’t think anyone actually ever will. I don’t mean this in a self-depreciating way, but I’m just not interesting enough and I keep going on these long tangents… so back to the entry

Sharp now promises that their new LCD screen television will change your life! When I think about the potential impact of this “life-changing box” (their campaign, not mine), I think of re-arranging furniture in the living room, decreased money in my bank account, and, of course, the required re-prioritization of my life to focus on the holy television, not on things like getting in shape for the Wilderness Travel Course (eyes on the prize, Violet). I mean, I’d have to commit to spending 42 hours in front of the television to make the cost of the television worthwhile (based on my hourly pay before taxes)… most people, even more! Now, looking at that, I think “ok, that’s only 10 hours less than one hour per week, which is probably what I spend there now,” but we’re talking about re-prioritizing those hours away from other activities intentionally. Bleh!

On the other hand, through the power of a high-definition LCD Sharp television, I could watch the Travel channel and virtually visit hundreds (if not thousands) of places I’ll realistically never go, to get to know millions of people I’ll never meet in person. I could learn new recipes from the Food network (and hang out with my TV crush, Anthony Bourdain) and watch things get exploded on the Discovery Channel. I don’t watch TV as candy, I watch it intentionally (omg, thank you, Tivo!). So I’d experience a richer television experience from watching on this mammoth, gorgeously rendered television. None of these things are really like doing the real thing myself (taking cooking classes, visiting South America, and, most excitingly –and most likely to happen near, around, or on me– making gigantic explosions), but who has time to fit all that into life and work a 50 hour work week? So, in those ways, I guess it would enrich my life. *

I couldn’t believe that the blogosphere wouldn’t be up in arms about this, so I decided to do some quick searches to see what other people are saying about the television that will most definitely change your life (see above for ways it would change life). First, I found that the Sharp website is crashed. I found but was unable to access the press release about the box, so we’ll have to count on my shoddy memory to include Sharp’s announcement here. But second, not that many people blogged about the slogan, which is kind of Suckville. Are people so apathetic about their marketing?

Anyways, here are some highlights:
• Change your tv, change your life: “Research shows that television viewing is below average in enjoyment for the optional activities available to us.” (Dave Shearon) Dave seems to have a pretty cool blog (bookmarking it!) about goals, culture, and leadership. But his post on the Sharp campaign kind of leaves me feeling like there’s more there… Dave, how would owning a Sharp television change your life? What would you gain or sacrifice?
•
Sharp will change your life? “The marketing strategy revolves around a very large claim… their technology changes your life, I assume for the better although they don’t say.” (Mediamentalism) This post talks about how the slogan, paired with their other campaign about how green their products are, is really misleading. The LCD technology is a cesspool of toxins and Sharp is just jumping on the green-is-the-new-black bandwagon.

… and that’s about it. Sweet Jesus, that’s depressing. Are people really so complacent that a slogan like this doesn’t even cause a blip of outrage in most people’s critical landscape? I mean, if there’s something to blog about, a million people are out there blogging about it, but essentially two critical articles?! Eh, personal rant aside, I thought more people would write about it.

And I guess today, my television did change my life in some small way. It led me to write this blog entry and look at other blogs to research it. It led me to think about things in a more critical way. It led me to be late to walk my dog, who is currently reminding me by growling sullenly on the carpet.

I’d better go back to the default world and get my pup some exercise.

* I started out by writing this post as a rant against the campaign, but as I wrote, I realized that there are both costs and benefits to this television, as implied by their campaign. It’s the old genie-in-the-bottle situation… you get what you wish for, but it may or may not be what you really wish for.