From my last post there was a comment at the bottom from Corwin that went like this:

“You really need to upgrade to two monitors - it’s saved my keyboards’ ALT and TAB keys.”

I’d never actually considered that before, I suppose it does stand to reason though that more something gets used the sooner it will break down. I mean, just look at any of the Reds pitchers…

That got me thinking about all the times I’ve had computer hardware go bad, for any reason, not just overuse. I had a video card once that decided putting horizontal lines across the screen every inch was a good idea. There was that notebook I had for work years ago that burned out an internal battery leaving the machine unbootable. I’ve had more modems than I can count just stop working for no good reason.

(Well, unless you consider the fact that modems just suck in general as a good reason.)

My favorite of one of all time though is a 3.5″ floppy drive that got killed in college by a snack cake.

Seriously. All right, I’ll explain, but first a bit of background.

When I was in college my senior year I lived in a house with a bunch of other guys. The majors broke down something like this:

Computer science (me)
Computer science/math (Chip)
Physics/computer science (Honk)
Psychology (Cap’n)
Latin and Greek (B)

Yep, that’s right, Latin and Greek. Don’t let that fool you though, today he is some kind of computer security administrator at, well, let’s not give away the name, a giant international paper company.

Cap’n could care less about computers but he was into video games so that made him all right in our book.

Anyhow, one afternoon, for reasons that escape me, we had several different computers in various stages of pieces all laid out on the living room floor. We also had a metric ton of junk food, including the bounty of our latest Coke raid at the grocery store:

Honk was washing down his Coke with a Ding Dong when one of us insulted him about something or another. In retaliation he threw the tin foil wrapper of the Ding Dong at the insulter. Now, being in physics he should have known that something with so little weight could never actually make it across the room to hit a target. Instead it slowly floated toward the floor until it landed directly on top of a 3.5″ floppy drive that had been taken out of a computer.

And then it sparked.

*Cross heart and holds up scouts’ honor fingers* I swear it did, I saw with my very own eyes.

What followed was a chorus of:

“Did you see that?”
“No way!”
“Does it still work?”
“You &#*$(#@!”

We put the computer back together and lo and behold the drive never worked again. In fact, you could say, “Ding Dong, the drive is dead.”

Thankyouverymuch. I’ll be here all week. Make sure to tip your waitress.

Yesterday that was a Slashdot article referencing a Computerworld article by way of a Yahoo News article that basically says if you have a freaking huge monitor then you are more productive.

And cooler.

And funnier.

And all the chicks will dig you.

(Well, the article didn’t *exactly* say that but I’m sure it’s implied.)

Naturally the study it referred to was sponsored by Apple who just so happens to have a line of Freaking Huge Monitors that they will be more than happy to sell you for a cool two grand. One of the guys I worked with even joking sent an email asking to get one citing the productivity increase it will cause. The reply from the guy with the checkbook was “It’s ordered and will be here tomorrow. I expect to see the stated productivity number increases this week.”

Translation: I call your bluff, I have a full house, whaddya got sucka?

Needless to say, I wouldn’t expect him to have a package from Apple sitting on his desk anytime soon.

I know a lot of people here at work use dual monitors, typically a main LCD and an older CRT that the LCD was replacing. When I got the new Macbook Pro I tried doing a dual screen for a while using the built-in LCD and another monitor but I noticed that nearly all the time the external monitor just had a blank blue desktop on it staring accusingly at me.

Now, if you are planning to use the aforementioned article to try to weasel a new monitor out of the powers-that-be you can really stop now. Seriously, sometimes plausible deniability is a good thing. It’s a big internet out there, there’s lots of great stuff to read. There’s even lots of crappy stuff to read. Now might be your big chance to find some of that stuff.

Still with me? Ok. I warned you.

For me, the built-in LCD would have a zillion windows open but through the magic of Expose and Command-Tab I never really found myself wanting for more space or using that bigger monitor. I can hear the cries of anguish now, the gnashing of teeth, the shaking of fists. And if you’re a manager reading this and want to use it as evidence with which to deny a new monitor order, remember, I’m an idiot.

Seriously though, when I first got the notebook I made the conscious decision to try to adapt my work style to the size of the built-in screen so that wherever I was (desk, conference room, conference) I had the same user experience. Basically, I didn’t want to find myself in the situation where I was moaning about the screen size of the awesome laptop because I had gotten used to a big external screen. I figured that would increase the likelihood of whomever I was moaning to grabbing said notebook and bludgeoning me to death with it.

So, if we really read between the lines and pull things out of context, you could say that I am deathly afraid of big monitors. And I figure whatever productivity I currently have has to be better than what I would have whilst dead. At least I certainly hope…

Marketing and advertising are things that for whatever reason I’ve always found terribly interesting. I’m not sure if it is because of the dynamic of trying to make something appealing to the masses or because it is a medium that plays toward a five second attention span. Not that I’ve ever been accused of that mind you. Wait, what was I talking about?

Bad puns aside, I’m not going to wax philosophical on what can be done to market a product or make some grand statement about how to make your company bajillions of dollars by following my simple plan that I invented while broke living out of my tiny one bedroom apartment.

No, today I’m going to talk about the single most brilliant job of marketing I’ve ever seen because it involved making the product stand out in a situation where it normally simply sells itself.

What I’m referring to is Captain Spacemen selling beer at a baseball game.

First, here’s a little background. About five years ago I was in Denver visiting a partner’s site with the previously mentioned Jeff Amfahr for Digineer. It was late September and the Padres were in town to play the Rockies so we headed downtown to catch the game. Not that it was much of a game, both teams were something like 20 games out of contention. The highlight on the field was Ricky Henderson playing left field right in front of our bleacher seats. He didn’t care at all about the game and was instead posing for pictures and interacting with the crowd. This was WHILE play was going on remember, it was that type of game.

But the event of the night, and the purpose of all this, was our introduction to the beer vendor at Coors Field named “Captain Spaceman.” Now, the old Captain looked like he’d lived a colorful life but he was certainly no dummy. In fact, he was a marketing genius. What he did was he had a pile of business cards with his picture on it and his cell phone number. He told us whenever we needed another beer to call him and he’d run over get us a couple. Pretty simple idea huh? We kept an eye on him all night and bought a couple of beers apiece from him. Through the use of some business cards and phone he was taking orders from the entire outfield, and if I had to guess, he was outselling the other vendors something like six to one.

I even found a picture of him online at someone’s flickr page:

Captain Spaceman

He’s even taking an order in the photo, and you can see his impact in that Brett stopped him to have a picture taken. I don’t actually know Brett, he looks like a nice guy who is having a good time though.

So here’s to Captain Spaceman, if you ever want to see some great product marketing go catch a Rockies game and buy a beer. You could probably even expense it as a seminar in diverse group advertising. (And you’ll get a beer and baseball game out of it. Score.)