The News

Slightly funny, a bit scary; maybe not pure truth but definitely worth a hit.

What We Call the News | Send To Friends | Funny Animations at JibJab

Focus

I have arrived at this decision through some hard-fought self-actualization. There was such a solid response to the post, The Rebirth (which if you haven’t yet read, please do so) due to its overflowing enthusiasm and originality that the post Guess Who's Back was a tad on the boring side…maybe. Okay, Guess Who’s Back was definitely news worthy, but it was quite the typical piece one could find almost anywhere (not openSermo worthy).

At openSermo we are still discovering our proper footing (live 1 month); considering our free time or lack there-of, we now realize we must focus on the quality of our pieces and not quantity of pieces. Forthcoming we plan to only write about the topics that are mentally busting from the seams. This new strategy will cause us to have an infrequent and sporadic posting schedule (case now?), perhaps only a few posts per month (a few hard to deny amazingly good posts per month). So please do not despair, we are finding our way.

This is our pledge and I hope you feel it…

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Guess Who’s Back

Not that he actually ever left, but as of today, founder and Chairman Michael Dell, following the resignation of Kevin Rollins, will assume the position of Chief Executive and dive back into the day-to-day operations at Dell Inc. ("Dell"). Insiders and stockholders are hoping Mr. Dell, with his oozing charisma and vision, can usher in a new era, helping breath fresh life into a company that had sales of $56 billion in fiscal 2006.

Speculation of Mr. Rollins ouster has been in the air for months. Throughout his tenure Mr. Rollins did prove to be a valuable asset, most notably devising a marketing strategy that created separate units to target Dell’s separate markets (healthcare, big business, etc.), helping Dell achieve dominance in the 90’s. But every dog has his day and after the 2006 embarrassments (atomic laptop batteries, HP surpassing Dell in PC sales, missed growth in laptops etc.) combined with semi-flopped growth ideas (one of which was Mr. Rollins strategy to utilize Dell’s lean-mean-fighting machine of a supply chain and powerful Brand to expand into consumer electronics) combined with a flagging stock price for the better part of a decade proved to be enough for Mr. Dell to show Mr. Rollins the door.

Mr. Dell is back and that’s great but the question still remains: Can Michael Dell teach his 23 year old baby new tricks? Acting as chairman Mr. Dell did negotiate and close on the acquisition of Alienware last year, a smart move up market (this won’t make a dent in sales, but it will help margins a bit and give increased efficiency to Alienware, which I may add was badly needed). Mr. Dell also had input on the roll out of Dell’s XPS line of computers, another move up market in search of higher margins. I bet Mr. Dell probably had something to do with Dell's decision to finally carry AMD based machines. That’s one huge party Dell arrived super late too, being all gung-ho about their monogamous relationship with Intel (ooops!). Mr. Dell also believes there are still a ton of efficiencies to be wrung out of their direct-to-consumer business model.

Whatever ushering in Mr. Dell does, I do wish him and his crew the best of luck. Dell is still a giant in the commoditized market of PC’s. On one hand, growth prospects are still very attractive internationally (think BRIC), although competition with the likes of Lenovo, HP and Acer (wait, did someone say Acer?) will continue to be brutal. On the other hand, driving growth inside America will prove extremely difficult considering the degree of PC saturation, but hopefully increased efficiencies and new product offerings will help deliver this needed growth at home.

Michael Dell is back. And at this point all we can do is wait and see...

openSermo extras - Interesting things on February 1st.

(Disclosure: Ethan Bloch has no affiliation, nor does he posses any material investment (ex. Common stock) with Dell Inc.)


Update: It seems as though this so called monogamous relationship between Dell and Intel wasn't so legit. It has recently been reported that Dell was receiving what amounted to billions of dollars a year in rebates from Intel to stay away from AMD. Shareholders have filed for class action status against Dell for misreporting these rebates in what they allege was illegal and for lying about the condition of operations as insiders sold off billions in stock.

The Rebirth

Broadcast News is dead. The three-letter News broadcasting houses that were given the right to educate and inform the public have lost, lost, lost their marbles, forgotten their roles and ran askew.

Thankfully, respectable News sources still exist, many of which do a great job delivering quality content through the print and online mediums; but in terms of a quality TV News broadcast, good luck (Clearly the sources aren’t the problem, the News agencies are doing their job quite well, it is the delivery that’s terrible ie. three-letter News broadcasts). If one combines these respectable News sources with simple News aggregation (Google News), Digg, digg-a-likes, cautious Blogosphere navigation and Blog aggregation (Technorati, Techmeme), a very healthy News diet can be achieved (the more the merrier). The issue here is the tens of millions of people who still rely on a TV News broadcast as their main, if not sole source of information (things like this help one sleep at night).

It is understandable that watching a TV News broadcast is less taxing then reading and digging - not changing anytime soon - so here lays the predicament. The solution lies in a new form of TV News broadcast. If TV News broadcasts were delivered in a similar light to Pardon the Interruption, you would have a wider viewer base that’s better informed and maybe even engaged in some self thought (not saying they’re not today, but saying they’re not today). Granted there are many topics you can only sexy up so much, and others that would be just plain wrong to sexy up, there is still plenty that could be done to create a more engaging, fulfilling and informing News broadcast. It would be very difficult however, for any three- letter News house to try and create this internally. These three-letter TV News broadcasts still draw millions of viewers and in turn don’t feel any pressure to change; they feel no sense of urgency.

Screw urgency! We need something more. This something more will be done by outsiders, from the ground up. Considering the low cost of current technology used to create and widely distribute video, now is a riper time then ever for the birth of new News broadcasting (a rebirth). Another rebirth has been full steam ahead in the text based realm of News delivery; visible in the services I previously mentioned (which are just a few). But video is the cake to eat all cakes. Intelligently delivered engaging news, in video format which is and will continue to become easily consumed on any medium one sees fit, is king!

A video podcast like Diggnation is proof of what’s to come for more mainstream audiences. Diggnation does a tremendous job of staying entertaining, getting a point across, and at times proving educational. Unfortunately Diggnation isn’t going to replace the any o’clock news anytime soon (I know), but it does give us hope. In order to rebirth broadcast News for mainstream audiences the delivery needs to spread this reenergized enthusiasm and color of opinion onto a vast array issues and world on goings, while still housing enough acceptance standard deviations to remain widely viewed (coming soon).

Help push the rebirth! We here at openSermo challenge you. Talk it up with your friends and family and get their opinions on the current state of the three-letter broadcast. Feel free to share your thoughts, opinions or ideas concerning this tragic state in our comments. Please get informed, think for yourself, tip well and hopefully one day we will have something to proudly call, our broadcast News.

openSermo Extras – January 19^th , other important moments in history.

The Story

Sometime not long ago, Ethan had an epiphany of sorts. A realization in fact, that mainstream TV news broadcasts blew fat elephant trunk. Come to think of it, Ethan didn't even watch any broadcast news, because every time he built up the courage to tune in, it was the same rubbish, “Blood, death, top of the hour...thanks for tuning in...hope your day was good!" These dreadful fear mongering robo anchors with their poor reporting metrics have overwhelmingly infected our TV news broadcast arena.

Ethan was sick of the fear mongering robo anchors, poor metrics and puppets. So instead of just sitting on the sidelines and complaining, Ethan decided to create his own Network, one that would help school the world and aid the broadbased present day rebirth of the News (small goals). This so-called rebirth has been growing strong as of recent, fueled by low barriers to entry, cheap computing power, widespread broadband and a bunch of creative potatoes (to be discussed in an upcoming post) who are making a bunch of creative services and products. All that was left was a name…

It was a name and not just any name Ethan needed, but a most sticky name. A sticky name that would help convey his corest intentions: lively, engaging, all encompassing discussion about blazing issues and world on-goings; active and open participation; the avoidance of trifling conversation (mouthful?). But Ethan was having difficulty discovering his shiny sticky meaningfully intelligent name; he kept wandering back to the two words open and discussion. But openDiscussion was not nearly sexy enough. So Ethan spent a few minutes perusing the internet's Latin dictionaries and stumbled upon 'Sermo'.

Hooray! And openSermo was born.

Coming Soon...

Please stay tuned as we prepare for go-live.