Tag Archives: ads

What Annoys Jeff this Week?

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1. Wasting my goddamned time. Sometimes things happen that are unavoidable. Life can’t always be expected to run like clockwork. I get it. That said, when standard procedure ends often as not in a week’s worth of work ending up in the trash bin, I’m not sure that’s really the best possible use of resources. Look, I get paid whether I split the atom or fling spit balls, but on average I’d rather spend my days doing have some semblance of value. I mean I’m going to keep taking your money either way, but it seems like everyone would be better off if there was something more to show for the time other than half finished powerpoint.

2. Websites with ads that automatically play music or video clips. Stop it. Just stop. I will immediately close the offending screen. You will never get my business because your marketing is obnoxious and distracting. Be subtle. Build a great product. I’ll happily buy your stuff then – maybe even pay a bit of a premium for a premium product. I don’t care how good a widget you make is, though, if you insist on assaulting my senses just to get me to look at it.

3. The Office of Personnel Management. I like to think if I were as ragingly incompetent at my job as whoever is responsible for network security at OPM is, I’d be on the street looking for a job right now. Seriously, though, losing 25 million (and at this rate probably more) individual social security numbers and other identifying information about employees, their friends, families, college roommates, childhood neighbors, and former employers is really an extraordinarily impressive accomplishment. I’m sure I appreciate the free “credit monitoring” and all, but if we could make some heads roll I’d at least feel a little better that someone, somewhere was being held accountable. I’d ask for the immediate initiation of hostilities of the nation or group responsible for the theft, but it already feels like that’s just a bridge too far for the asshats running the show in the District.

Why we blog…

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I got an email this afternoon from “a new media agency headquartered in the UK” wondering if I was “interested in selling advertising space on jeffreytharp.com.” The sender promises that advertisements would be unobtrusive and that they can pay an annual upfront payment for the advertising space. While the email does track back to an IP address in Uxbridge, England it’s safe to say that it qualifies as one of those sounds too good opportunities.

The truth is, I’m not blogging for advertisers. I’m not blogging to sell banners or to generate click-throughs or even to climb in the Technorati ratings. Mostly I’m blogging because I think I can turn a pretty phrase now and then and it seems that people are kind enough to humor me by reading it on a regular basis. If I happen to sell a few of my own wears in the process, so much the better – but this blog isn’t now and never will be written for the sake of generating a few pennies of advertising revenue. The complete lack of a coherent campaign for selling my own book should pretty much tell you where advertising falls on my list of priorities.

I think everyone that blogs harbors some kind of secret dream of being the next breakaway hit… and while it would be incredible to be on the receiving end of millions of hits a day, if I get there through the merits of the written word, that’s awesome. If it take shilling for some advertising company, well, I’ll keep my day job (at least 4 days a week) and enjoy the 20-30 people who check in around here on a regular basis.

What Annoys Jeff this Week?

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1. The telephone. Once again, for those that didn’t get the message the last time, at any given moment there are probably 5-10 different ways of making contact with me that don’t involve my needing to answer a ringing telephone. Facebook, email, text, Facetime, IM, certified mail, fax, telegram, smoke signal, and semaphore, are all perfectly acceptable methods of reaching out to touch someone. Regardless of whether I’m at the office or at home, more often than not I’m doing at least three things at once… and regardless of how important I think you are as a person, the chances of me stopping all of those things to focus exclusively on a phone conversation are slim to none. Translation: You’re going to get a better and more thoughtful response when you send me a text or an email. On the phone, the best you’re going to get is an occasional “uh huh,” and a “what?” now and then when I get distracted by whatever else I’m working on. So please, can we all agree to reserve the actual phone calls to legitimate life and death situations?

2. Facebook advertising. I know I have a love-hate relationship with Facebook, but lately I can’t get past one or two items down through my newsfeed before finding myself looking at some kind of poorly designed add or “sponsored” post. I’m not dumb enough to think that Facebook should be providing their service for free, but I really do wish they’d find some way to make the ads slightly less obtrusive. All the current iteration of ads seem to do is interrupt the general flow of the page and make me wonder how long it’s going to be before enough people are sufficiently annoyed to start heading to the door. I really do believe Facebook is a valuable utility, but they need to do a hell of a lot of fine tuning to make the current brand of in-your-face marketing at least palatable. Until then, I’ll just make it one of my own small personal missions not to do business with any company that spends dollars running these craptastic social marketing spots.

3. Time management. Just because I’m not freaking out, don’t assume that I’m not busy. In work, as in most things, I have a method to my madness. If you watch carefully, between 8AM and about noon, there’s a flurry activity as I clear out whatever ridiculousness showed up in my inbox overnight. After lunch, there’s a bit of a lull, where I can actually catch up on longer range stuff, read the stunning number of memos and policy letters that we publish, do research, or work on PowerPoint. Starting again around 2PM there’s another flurry of email and phone calls as people try to get things off their plate before going home at the end of the day. If I’m sitting, staring intently at one of my monitors, you can go ahead and assume I’m either a) trying to read for comprehension; b) trying to decipher something higher headquarters wrote in a wholly misguided effort to “be helpful”; or c) trying to compose an articulate message that easily comprehensible by all who receive it. What I’m not doing is sitting around, being bored, and looking at lolcats. Usually.