Close, but no Cuban cigars: Alas, my career as a Mavs fan, which started with such promise, has ended (at least for this season) with a thud. The Miami Heat won the NBA championship 4-2 tonight with a 95-92 win over Dallas. Exciting game and, with a couple of exceptions, an exciting series.

Technorati Tags: mavs

Advice to speakers: In my life, I’ve heard thousands of speeches. I’ve written hundreds (I once worked for three years as a speech writer). And I’ve delivered dozens — perhaps more. Tonight, a friend named Jim Brown told me that a priest once gave him this advice about making a speech: “Be good or be brief. Be brief and they’ll think you’re good.”

Amen.

Subway tunnel advertising: Apparently, they’ve been around several years, but earlier tonight, I saw a “subway tunnel ad” for the first time. I was on the DC Metro Red Line between Metro Center and Judiciary Plaza, glancing blankly out the window into darkness when suddenly a 15 second Lexus ad appear in the void. As I wasn’t expecting it — I’d never even heard of the medium — it was a surreal and (speaking entirely as a media and technology geek) one rather slick gimmick. I looked around, eager to say to someone: “Geez, did you see that?” No one else in the car seemed to even notice, however. Jaded city-folk. According to the Metro’s website, the ads are handled by a company called Submedia LLC. Here’s a Quicktime video of a Dasani ad that will give you an idea of what it’s like to look out a subway window and see a video ad appear. After I see it a second or third time, I’ll probably be describing it as wall spam — but for now, I’ll let the novelty and gee-wiz factor impress me.

Technorati Tags: advertising

x%$&ing Maverick post: I’ve been traveling or in a bubble since Sunday, so I didn’t even see Game 5 (except the score) nor heard of the follow-up controversy (although, I anticipated there would be plenty of it). Mark Cuban explains his computer broke in Miami (thus the lack of blogging) and explains his use of certain words after the game. Should be an interesting game tonight. I haven’t had time to look around (except for this Miami Herald piece Hudge emailed me) but I’m sure there will be some record-setting fines, as well.

Update: Mark Cuban’s computer is working. He used it to blog that the Miami Herald piece is fiction.

Technorati Tags: mavs

Meg Whitman on Skype (and her visit today to Capitol Hill): I’m at the NFIB Small-Business Summit this morning, where eBay’s CEO Meg Whitman has just spoken. (NFIB.com story.) Recently, there has been much written about how Google and others have approached Capitol Hill. As a very close and longtime observer of the advocacy arena, I must give major kudos to Meg Whitman for getting it — at least when it comes to lobbying for some business-related concerns of lots of “power sellers” on eBay. (I can’t speak to their efforts on other fronts.) Someone at eBay has realized that it’s a waste of time to reinvent the wheel when groups like NFIB, an organization of over a half-million members, is already working on some specific issues (one specifically: the ability for small businesses to form inter-state purchasing pools of health insurance) that eBay knows are critical to their growing numbers of small business sellers and buyers. So, Whitman is spending part of the day visiting Capitol Hill with NFIB small business owners (and, unlike a recent high profile tech celebrity who visited Capitol Hill, Meg Whitman is dressed for success).

One interesting sidenote in her talk: She mentioned how eBay is working on creating “a new type of e-commerce platform called ‘Click-to-call’” using its acquisition of Skype. “Click to call” will “help small businesses that aren’t served by eBay’s core services,” she said, including landscaping firms, travel agencies or real estate brokers. “The eBay model doesn’t work very well for them because they rely on lead generation rather than routine transactions to build their businesses. Each job is different. And both sides need a direct connection. A lot of information needs to be shared before (they) can close a deal. So we think Skype can take the friction out of this process. Instead of bidding for an hour of a gardener’s time, you can simple click and call a landscaper for a customized quote. This will allow a whole new segment of small businesses to take advantage of the internet.”

(Disclosure: NFIB is a client of Hammock Publishing. Oh, yes, and another disclosure: I sell stuff on eBay. Later: I thought of other ones: I have Skype and Paypal accounts.)

Technorati Tags: ebay, nfib, skype, smallbusiness