text:
Is the supply chain ready to be social? And, if so, how do companies begin the journey? What steps do they take? Watch this lively discussion as Lora Cecere, Altimeter Group engages in dialogue on the topic with Lisa Shambro, Executive Director of the Foundation for Strategic Sourcing (F4SS) which is focused on the development of best practice standards in the extended CPG supply chain between contract manufacturers, secondary packagers and brand owners.
The Social Supply Chain Webinar with Lora Cecere and Lisa Shambro from Altimeter Group on Vimeo.
The three key benefits sensors can offer retailers for using IoT to drive loyalty.
The implications of Twitter turning off the tap for one of its biggest data partners.
At its annual conference, Marketo launches real-time, automated messaging capabilities for mobile apps, along with new advertising and IoT tools.
Why the competition between the big marketing cloud vendors shouldn't be the focus of their clients.
In this 1-hour webinar, industry analysts Susan Etlinger and Rebecca Lieb share their latest research on Content Marketing Performance.
Does Facebook's restriction on its huge data sets serve the public interest?
Oracle announces long-awaited web, data, and commerce integrations for its Marketing Cloud, highlighting its big ambitions for a unified offering of all its enterprise platforms.
The impact of IBM's partnership with the Weather Company and its mammoth investment in IoT.
A look at the growth of Beacon devices and their impact on consumers.
Facebook is emerging as an even bigger threat to YouTube by announcing some attractive new features for its video platform.
Five definitive use cases illustrating how companies can use sensors to enhance customer experience.
A look at the digital ethics and privacy conversations from this year's SXSW conference.
How leaders can make the most of the biggest digitally-focused event of the year.
Why won't Apple focus on the actual use cases for Apple Watch instead of how it looks?
I recently partnered with Genesys to explore the state and future of customer experience (CX).
Sprinklr is taking on the marketing cloud bigwigs with the release of its Content Lifecycle Management platform.
The reasons you need to attend Internet of Things World.
We match up Hillary Clinton's actions against our social business governance framework.
The CEO of Altimeter Group has a new book out which contains essential guidelines for how leaders can engage employees and customers on digital channels.
What leaders need to do to earn the trust of their employees and consumers in the digital age.
A new law banning the collection of personal information in South Africa could influence legislation in other countries as well.
What social media teams need to do to get tweets showing up in Google search results.
How companies can use the Internet of Things to create experiences that benefit both the brand and its customers.
Customer experience is meant to be evocative, not reactive, and the current state of call centers isn't helping.
A list of essential do's and don't for vendors and their PR teams.
The implications of the Internet of Things is so much more than the immediate value of a shiny gadget that connects to the Internet.
A new startup called Locket is revolutionizing the way we use our mobile lock screens by turning it into a content and messaging playground.
DonorsChoose shows how simple targeted emails can produce great engagement across all digital channels.
A new book by Charlene Li tells today's leaders how to start engaging their employees on the same digital channels as their customers.
NYT- and WSJ-bestselling author Charlene Li guides business leaders deeper than ever before into the uncomfortable and ever-changing terrain of the digital era.
Here's the first, crucial step every organization needs to take before formulating its content strategy.
This year's results have troubling implications for the technology industry.
The Internet of Things is the next big channel of engagement for brands, yet most of them still find it difficult to get on board.
The digital trends and practices that require the most attention from business executives this year.
We answer all the questions we couldn't get to during our webinar on the mobile-only customer experience.
In this one-hour webinar, Susan Etlinger shares a framework on how to 1) extract insight from data and 2) in a way that engenders trust.
A look at the future of advertising in a world where the channels to view them are rapidly changing.
In this 1-hour webinar, join Jaimy Szymanski and Brian Solis for a discussion on how organizations can approach mobile design strategy through the lens of an evolving connected customer.
If you're making the trek to Austin in March, we hope you'll catch up with the Altimeter crew.
A look at what we give up and gain when we allow our lives to be turned into sources for data.
How content marketers can take advantage of the new partnership that allows tweets to show up in Google search results.
Successful IoT strategies the consumer product world can learn from B2B enteprises.
Sprinklr will be looking to its new COO to convince enterprise leadership of social media's importance across the entire organization.
Brands aren't the only ones who must adapt to a mobile-first audience.
Takeaways from all the advertising we saw on Super Bowl Sunday.
Here are five data questions about the Super Bowl that we'd like the answer to.
With a slew of new features, Facebook could be taking up more space in the video marketing mix.
This month, we welcomed Omar Akhtar as our Managing Editor, a role that we created to shepherd exciting new initiatives at Altimeter.
Microsoft's cool new gadget could be a powerful tool in the hands of a business.
The inevitability of a mobile-only customer experience will have a big impact on how brands create and deliver content.
Why it's not enough to simple be present on every digital channel
This week, the Altimeter team quietly moved from San Mateo to our new location in downtown San Francisco. We're excited today to make the announcement official!
Highlights of what the Big Boulder Initiative accomplished in 2014, and its plans for the new year.
The essential steps you need to take to start building your customers' mobile experiences.
A look at the best new startups to graduate from Alchemist Accelerator, an accelerator for enterprise collaboration tools.
Things you need to know before you consider spending on Snapchat.
CES 2015 showed that companies are building too many devices, and not focusing enough on the the value they can provide through connectivity.
Before you hire an outside agency to help your content marketing efforts, here are a few key questions you need to ask yourself.
Consumers will soon demand mobile-only experiences from the brands that engage them. Our report identifies the steps companies can take to start thriving in this new reality.
This document is just a first step toward setting context for the many disruptions of ubiquitous and complex data, but it includes preliminary frameworks to help us examine these issues in more detail.
Charlene Li and Jon Cifuentes share research on how leading organizations use social and digital technologies to create holistic employee engagement strategies that drive business impact and cultural change.
We evaluated the US Congress according to our social governance framework, and the results weren't great.
The increasing number of collaboration tools is overwhelming employees. Here's why companies need to simplify.
What you need to know about Facebook's newly launched workplace collaboration tool, and the impact it could have in a highly competitive space.
These last few years have been an interesting ride. As fun as it has been, it is the next few years that will be the most telling and also transformative if all goes according to plan.
There is an elephant in the room when it comes to the Internet of Things. There is a critical element inherent to just about any IoT application that hardly ever sees the light of day in industry coverage of the topic.
Predictions? Humbug. Never done 'em, never will. As a research analyst, predictions are antithetical to my methodology, which is research followed by analysis.
In my last post, I discussed some themes for 2015, one of which was an imperative for us as an industry to get serious about digital ethics.
In a late 2013 study, Gallup found that only 13% of workers actually feel engaged at their jobs. What's worse is that 63% of the workforce is not engaged at all.
What will 2015 bring marketers? Rather than look into a crystal ball, we have only to look at the present.
When I published the first in a new series of reports exploring the state and future of Digital Transformation, it was almost the antithesis of a typical technology report.
I'm not generally a fan of annual predictions; they always remind me of a carnival in which you're encouraged to "pay no attention to the man behind the curtain"; you almost never win the giant teddy bear.
Content marketing is hot, but it is not solely created by, inspired by, or used by marketing.
The story of the blind men and the elephant originated centuries ago in the Indian subcontinent. In the well-known parable, each man has limited context and therefore believes the elephant to be something different. One feels the trunk and thinks it's a fountain. One touches the ear and thinks it's a fan. Others think it's […]
Employees are disengaged at work, and organizations have been exploring how social and digital technologies can address this problem.
For most of digital marketing's relatively short history, personalization has been the ne plus ultra of sophisticated marketing.
Content. It's not just for the marketing department anymore. These last few months I've been researching how organizations are forming, and benefitting from, what my co-author Jessica Groopman and I are terming a "Culture of Content."
In this 1-hour webinar, Ed Terpening and Charlene Li share research on how successful organizations scale social business strategy and manage social media risk through a formalized governance system.
Companies recognize one of the big opportunities related to the proliferation of consumer channels and devices is to gain deep insights about their customers. Join Janrain and me this Wednesday for a conversation about the opportunities and challenges related to customer data and identity
In our latest research report, "A Culture of Content," my colleague and co-author Rebecca Lieb and I present a framework for how organizations of any size can establish, evangelize, and foster a culture of content.
We can all pretty much universally agree that with native advertising comes the obligation of disclosure and transparency.
In our research and client work at Altimeter, one of the most misunderstood issues we see is social business governance.
When Facebook announced last week that it will soon become more difficult for brands' page posts to appear in the news feeds of their friends, fans, and followers, the outcry was predictable.
Facebook is working on a new offering called Facebook at Work, according to the Financial Times.
Charlene Li and I are pleased to offer you Altimeter's latest research report focused on Social Business Governance.
Every day, there's seemingly yet another disruptive trend that emerges out of nowhere which affects consumer behavior and the future of everything along with it.
What goes into creating and fostering an organizational culture of content? As an analyst that's the topic I'm currently researching.
What goes into the marketing process today, and what technology is required? Will a "Marketing Cloud" help coordinate efforts and drive efficiency? What are the alternatives?
We're in the final stages of a new research report that is looking at the hot space of social selling, exploring how this nascent but quickly evolving approach to the sales process is being used by both sales and marketing teams with both trepidation and success.
According to Wikipedia, "marketing is the process of communicating the value of a product to customers, for the purpose of selling that product (goods or services.)" But that is what marketing used to be
Social selling has become a hot topic. Organizations in every industry are working feverishly to leverage social platforms and social networks for a number of reasons
As we didn't have time to answer all viewer questions after the 2014 State of Digital Transformation webinar, we've included our responses to the top inquiries here.
In a moving talk, she explains why, as we receive more and more data, we need to deepen our critical thinking skills.
Marketers are struggling with a customer journey that has become more complex than ever. The journey is difficult to track across channels and devices. The infographic below illustrates the modern marketing cycle…
I crossed an item off my bucket list when I gave a TED Talk at TED@IBM on Sept. 23rd. The event was part of the new TED Institute, which partners with companies to create TED-curated events.
Altimeter and Capgemini Consulting to Collaborate on Thought Leadership, Research, and Global Consulting
For our latest report, Altimeter Group partnered with LinkedIn to study the importance of relationship building among the most socially engaged companies on LinkedIn. We found that, by using social technologies to improve relationships, businesses witness incredible results.
We're excited to announce today that we've formed a strategic alliance with 7Summits — a social business agency specialized in creating online community experiences.
Now more than ever, content must be recombinant. This means a critical component of content strategy is the ability to rapidly dissemble, reassemble, reuse, repurpose, and remodel discrete elements of digital content.
This week, Facebook re-launched Atlas, the ad platform it bought from Microsoft last year.
Content Marketing: How do we do it globally?
Altimeter's recent research for its report, The 2014 State of Digital Transformation, uncovered that investing in new digital technologies (social, mobile, big data, cloud, etc.) doesn't always equate to uniting those efforts around a common vision supported by an updated, integrated infrastructure.
Yesterday, Oracle's new CTO Larry Ellison kicked off OpenWorld. He focused significantly on the cloud. How are the two themes related?
Ten years ago today, I wrote my first blog post, entitled "Blogging as a State of Mind."
Altimeter Group is planning to publish a research report this fall on how businesses are enabling sales organizations with social media tools. We will be discussing the markers for social selling transformation, best practices on training and governance, and a snapshot into the suite of tools available as marketing and sales organizations are pushed to […]
As part of our open research process, I would like to extend an invite for your input, feedback, case examples, or any other insights you'd like to contribute to our upcoming research around the Internet of Things.
Today, we're happy to officially announce the launch of our new site, designed by digital marketing firm Bluetext.
A genuine culture of content goes far beyond enabling and empowering content creators outside of marketing.
In this one-hour webinar, Brian Solis shares research on how businesses explore digital transformation, including results from a 2014 survey of leading digital strategists.
We're pleased to announce that Susan Etlinger, Brian Solis and Rebecca Lieb are each speaking at this year's event.
While most of the tech and business press focused on the functionality of the Apple Watch (digital crown, battery life, taptic engine, yadda yadda…) discreetly milling around the event were the fashion press, invited by Apple's new fashion and design team.
In this 45-minute webinar, analyst Rebecca Lieb shares best practices for your content marketing software selection process.
Digital Darwinism is a fate that threatens most organizations in almost every industry. Because of this, businesses not only have to compete for today but also for the unforeseeable future.
Our research found that the content marketing space is rife with challenges, both internal to the organization and externally across the ecosystem. The following infographic helps visualize this struggle.
How should content be measured and analyzed? Let us count the ways (or at least begin to).
How should content be measured and analyzed? Let us count the ways (or at least begin to).
I follow the Maker Movement as a consumer, analyst and also as a maker. What is the maker movement?
Businesses today are met with unique challenges and opportunities that necessitate pause. For years, management models were developed to optimize the pursuit of business objectives.
How much does content marketing cost? Tough question, right? So let's break the question down a bit to try to simplify it.
We recognize that existing RFP templates cannot be retrofitted to the task of soliciting content marketing solutions due to a number of specific challenges.
Pervasive technology fundamentally changes how people communicate, discover and connect. With smartphones and tablets serving as digital appendages, we focus on small screens throughout our day, every day and in all we do.
In this one-hour webinar, analyst Susan Etlinger explores the phenomenon of "TV Everywhere" and shares findings from her recent report, Data Everywhere.
Lately I've been doing a ton of work around the content marketing vendor landscape: conducting research, as well as helping clients ascertain what their technology needs are and pinpoint the vendors that can solve their problems.
There's a lot of talk about the future of work… Technology is indeed connecting us in ways that improve communication, discovery and connectivity.
What's a digital newsroom? Seems like such a simple question, until you start pondering the potential answers.
Today, I'm proud to announce the release of Altimeter Group's second report on Digital Transformation. This new report is aimed at executives and digital strategists to help them (you) further understand the state of digital transformation as you plan your next steps and investments.
It's no corporate HR secret: the greater investment made into employees, the greater the ultimate reward back to the company.
How teens use social media and why it matters to you. Generation Z = (Today's Teens, Preteens and Children)
Michael Brenner has long been a recognized leader in content marketing in his role as VP marketing at SAP. Very recently, he joined content marketing technology vendor NewsCred to head strategy for that company…
In this one-hour webinar, analysts Andrew Jones and Charlene Li share how insights can be gleaned from social media.
During the past several years, the television industry has changed dramatically, spurred by device proliferation, changing distribution methods, and the increasing popularity of social media.
Murky research collided with lazy journalism last week to create a torrent of #socialmedia + #advertising = #fail link bait.
Silicon Valley is more than a place, it's a movement. While many debate where the "next" Silicon Valley will gain prominence, the point that many onlookers miss is that innovation is at the heart of the crusade.
By now, you've probably heard that data scientists at Facebook recently published a study in The Proceedings of the National Academy of Science…
Social Media Examiner's 2014 annual Marketing Industry Report found that while 97% of marketers use social media in their marketing efforts, only 37% are able to measure the ROI of those activities.
Modern marketing requires deeper customer understanding to drive meaningful engagement. With social media — and the abundance of social profile and activity data — brands can glean this insight to identify and better understand prospects and customers throughout the customer lifecycle.
Today, I'm happy to announce the publication of my research report, Leveraging Social Identity: Know and Engage Customers Better to Build More Valuable Relationships.
In this one-hour webinar, Rebecca Lieb will share findings from her recent research report on how content marketers should select content marketing tools.
Twice a year, we publish our planned research agenda. You can see the first half of the year's agenda and what's already been published here. Today, we're excited to announce our planned research for the remainder of the year.
This month, we need your help with two reports that will be publishing in July. We're fielding two surveys – on social business governance and employee engagement.
You know about ad stacks, right? Get ready to say hello to the next big thing in content marketing technology: the content marketing stack.
Our new research report, The Content Marketing Software Landscape: Marketer Needs & Vendor Solutions, published today to help marketers navigate the tangled and complex content marketing software landscape.
Salesforce just announced the release of its Social Studio, an enterprise social relationship platform.
Thank you to everyone who joined us for Tuesday's webinar on Digital Transformation. We had an excellent turnout from around the globe and received a lot of great questions throughout Brian's presentation.
Today Sprinklr is announcing the availability of a paid media offering as well as a $40M in series D funding led by Iconiq Capital (which notably manages money for many of Facebook's early employees, among others).
A key factor to creating and delivering a great customer experience is the ability of a company's workforce to modernize, use new technology platforms to connect with each other and customers, and most importantly, adopt a new mindset of openness and transparency.
Marketing has changed substantially in the past few decades. With the proliferation of CRM, ecommerce, cookies, loyalty programs, etc. marketers have more customer data than ever.
IBM officially joined the Marketing Cloud battle today, with the news that it is acquiring marketing automation vendor SilverPop.
"Digital transformation" isn't a trendy moniker to signify an increase in technology investment. It's a renewed focus on the customer and the human side of business.
To learn more about the state of social media command centers, Altimeter Group spoke with three organizations — MasterCard, eBay, and Wells Fargo Bank.
Late last year, I started wondering about social media command centers. Salesforce had launched one, as had Brandwatch, but I wondered: were they really still relevant? Were companies investing in command center deployments, or had interest subsided since their heyday in 2010?
When Google bought Wildfire for $350M, it took many by surprise. What did Google want with a Social Relationship Management company? Google is in the ad business, not the SRM business.
Your refrigerator has a message for you — and no, it's not that you need more orange juice– it's an ad for belly fat pills. Thanks, Refrigerator. This post was originally posted on Wearable World News. The original can be found here.
Rebecca Lieb shares findings from her recent research report on real-time marketing, including the top 6 use cases, the benefits and risks, and 12 best practices.
At the most basic level, the Internet of Things (IoT) is connectivity between people, processes and things. While this is as vast as it sounds — spanning all industries, the enterprise, and consumers — one of the central-most challenges facing…
Two things: To stay competitive with (or arguably ahead of) the giants in the social world—Salesforce, Adobe, and Oracle—Sprinklr needed to build out its analytics capabilities. Sprinklr's customers increasingly need custom consulting services, especially for implementation and training.
It's almost that time of year again: Altimeter's analysts are mapping SXSW plans and schedules. Making the trip to Austin this year are Brian Solis, Susan Etlinger and Rebecca Lieb.
Large enterprises are rolling out social media at scale – and training and education for employees is critical. Well-developed social media education programs can help companies achieve business goals by reducing social media risk and activating employees for engagement and advocacy.
One question Altimeter hears frequently is "What's next?" A better way to ask this is "What should we care about?" Often with emerging technologies, there is a disconnect between what people are excited or care most about versus what they will actually invest in.
Digital, Social, Content Strategists: We want to hear from you! Would you be willing to participate in our latest survey? Click here to get started: http://bit.ly/1bK8TRE Wondering how other organizations are mapping their customer journeys?
Last week, Charlene Li, Ed Terpening, and I hosted a webinar on how large enterprises — like ARAMARK, Aetna, Kaiser Permanente, RadioShack — are rolling out corporate social media education, and why.
Take a look around our site today, you might notice a very subtle change. We've seen a lot of change in our industry, not to mention at Altimeter, since we started five years ago. It felt like the right time to refresh our brand.
Facebook may be losing teens (/the cool kids), but contrary to some beliefs, 2014 will not be a dire year for the company.
Real-time content synchronization between offline and online media has become the darling of social TV, frequently serving as its very definition for companies looking to marry traditional and digital marketing experiences.
As we launch into 2014, the analysts at Altimeter each pulled together a compilation of trends and issues they are watching closely this year.
Customer attention will continue to fragment in 2014, making it harder than ever for brands to engage with customers. But it will also be the year in which brands capitalize on a largely untapped opportunity presented by social media…
As digital channels operate increasingly in the 'now,' all marketing organizations must consider to what degree they will function in real-time, and even define what real-time is relative to their operations and marketing organization.
Miss our recent report, The State of Social Business 2013? If you're looking for a cheat sheet, here's a visual of the key findings: The graphic below shows how companies are formalizing, organizing, and growing their social media efforts. For example, three out of four large companies now have a dedicated social media team — […]
Miss our recent report, The State of Social Business 2013? If you're looking for a cheat sheet, here's a visual of the key findings: The graphic below shows how companies are formalizing, organizing, and growing their social media efforts.
Last year, we asked companies about their top social strategy priorities. The second top response was "Developing Internal Education and Training." Yet, when we surveyed companies earlier this year, we saw that only 38% had any education program in place, beyond ad hoc efforts.
In the past year, social data has continued to wend its way into organizations of all types, from large enterprise to small business to media and entertainment and the public sector. We've seen use cases far past marketing into product and service quality, entertainment programming, customer service, fraud detection and a host of other examples.
Last month, we published our report, The State of Social Business 2013, based on data and analysis from four years of Altimeter's annual digital strategists' survey. Today, we're happy to release the data charts from that report, in a downloadable, easy to share PowerPoint presentation that you can take and inject in your own presentations.
If you're a marketer who has evaluated native advertising offerings, then you're likely already familiar with Facebook's suggested posts, Twitter's sponsored tweets and hashtags, or sponsored content on any number of online publications.
Each year, Altimeter surveys social strategists and executives, and shares our findings and analysis in Open Research reports. In our most recent report, we looked at our survey findings from the last four years, 2010 to 2013, to share our analysis of the state of social business.
On Tuesday, Sprinklr raised $17.5M in series C funding. That follows additional rounds raised by other enterprise social media management vendors in the past year, including: Spredfast raised an $18M series C in February, Hootsuite raised $165M in its series B in August, and HearSay Social raised $30M in its series C in September. What […]
The concept of using game mechanics to achieve desired outcomes may not be new, but to many brands, the use of gamification across the enterprise to drive business value is gaining speed. In our latest research, Altimeter has found that gamification is quickly evolving to become an important component in many organizations' internal and external […]
I am thrilled to announce the promotion of Andrew Jones to Analyst at Altimeter.
Adobe Marketing Summit and Oracle OpenWorld both took place recently. It's another month until Dreamforce, but I expect similar announcements to be made there.
Co-written with: Susan Etlinger, Rebecca Lieb, Andrew Jones, Linda Saindon, Brian Solis, and Ed Terpening The not-so-long awaited Twitter S-1 is out and now the intense scrutiny begins.
What is native advertising and, by extension, what is it not?
Jeremiah Owyang will be leaving Altimeter Group at the end of September to start a new company focused primarily on his passion for the Collaborative Economy.
Not since the legislative debate over spam back in the early part of the millennium has a digital marketing term been so riddled by obfuscation and misunderstanding as native advertising.
As the founder of a small business, I know that the hiring and departure of each and every person makes a huge impact of the firm — and that this is an evitable part of the business.
In this report, industry analyst Susan Etlinger demonstrates how leading organizations are deriving actionable intelligence from a holistic view of social and enterprise data.
In this webinar, they discuss the seven factors that successful social businesses share and how their strategies are designed to deliver business value.
I've taught more than 300 professionals Social Business through hands-on workshops, and happy to announce new workshops from Altimeter Academy focused on Content Marketing and Social Business Analytics.
I spend a lot of time reading and thinking about social data: what it is, what it isn't, how to measure it, where it's going.
In this 1- hour webinar, industry analyst Jeremiah Owyang presents his research on the business disruption, and share examples of companies that are already moving into the Collaborative Economy.
Altimeter analysts Charlene Li and Brian Solis proudly introduce their new book The Seven Success Factors of Social Business Strategy. It was written to help readers learn how to better align social media strategies with business objectives to deliver real results and ROI.
In this webinar, Altimeter Group's Charlene Li and Brian Solis review the six distinct stages that organizations move through as they evolve their social business strategy.
Five years ago, I started a company. At the time, it was simply just me deciding I wanted to do something different. I learned it was by far the hardest professional decision I have ever made, to strike out on my own.
This report defines the Collaborative Economy, looks at companies that are already moving into this space, and provides a framework, the Collaborative Economy Value Chain, which companies can use to help rethink their business models.
Watch this webinar with industry analyst Rebecca Lieb, to explore scalable organizational models for addressing content needs across the enterprise.
By now you've more than heard about Yahoo's massive $1.1 billion acquisition of Tumblr. The deal is done, another Internet entrepreneur and early employees become multimillionaires, Marissa Mayer's Yahoo earns a new shot at digital relevance, and hundreds of millions of Tumblr users go about their Tumbling life as if it were just another day.
This post originally appeared on my Altimeter analyst Jeremiah Owyang's Web Strategy Blog By Chris Silva and Jeremiah Owyang, Industry Analysts at Altimeter Group Last year's over hyped skydiving was replaced by down to earth by grounded product enhancements.
Watch this webinar and learn how prepared your company is for social business.
More than a handful of brands publish more content now than a major media property such as Time Magazine did 25 years ago.
Over 30 Technologies Have Emerged, at a Faster Pace than Companies Can Digest. If you think social was disruptive, it was really just the beginning.
We all gathered amidst the rain and clouds at Facebook HQ, 1 Hacker Way, Menlo Park, CA to see what would be unveiled. A new flagship Android phone, tailored toward Facebook users? A new branch of the Android OS? A groundbreaking partnership?
SXSW Interactive—or what I like to call it, "Geek Mardi Gras"—is over, and the dust is settling.
It's been a week since SXSW 2013 and here at Altimeter Group, we've had a chance to reflect on what we saw. Check out our coverage from analysts, consultants, researchers, and even media. We'll be updating as more coverage comes in.
Technologies are Emerging at an Increased Rate –Making Tracking Harder than Ever SXSW is no longer about disruptive technologies being launched, instead, it's a mainstream, it's a mainsteam festival, actually) and digital leaders at today's large corporations are already present, and you should be too.
Is SXSW for Business or just a Boondoggle? That's the wrong question. More than ever, I heard more folks debating if SXSW was good for business, or just a big party.
In its latest research, Altimeter Group's Charlene Li and Brian Solis uncovered a distinct gap between organizations that execute social media strategies and those that are truly a "social business."
My colleague Brian's blog is abuzz with comments about mobile strategy, so key to success he urges readers to "[f]orget about social media," at least for a moment. Brian's comparison of social to mobile is apt, both began as fragmented, bootstrapped efforts, then social got the attention of the CMO.
Yesterday's Burger King brandjacking was an important reminder to brands and their agency and software partners about how vulnerable social media accounts are.
Last week, Jeremiah and I published Altimeter Group's first "short doc," focused on in-depth case studies that illustrate how large brands are managing complex, distributed social media programs.
That Time of Year is rapidly approaching: "Will you be there?" "Are you speaking?" "When are you in town?" The Altimeter Group analysts attending SXSW 2013 next month are Jeremiah Owyang, Brian Solis, Susan Etlinger, Chris Silva and Rebecca Lieb.
For the last few years (see 2012 data). This analysis is a bellwether on how brands will spend on an integrated experience for the year.
Businesses may be seen as having a "successful" social strategy by virtue of citations in case studies and speaking at conferences. But, by far, the best metric of success is concrete examples of how the organization creates business value via social technologies across multiple departments and dimensions of their business.
Altimeter continues to grow with the addition of Ed Terpening as Senior Consultant, where he will be leading Altimeter's client engagements and develop Altimeter Academy the company's new training offerings.
It's a nightmare scenario. You get a frantic text or call from a co-worker that someone tweeted a tasteless joke or profanity from your corporate Twitter account.
One of the major themes in our research this year is Adaptive Organization. As we think about what makes organizations adaptive, it's not just the tools and services that they embrace but also their ability to adapt to change to stay in touch internally and to reach customers and prospects proactively.
Advertising and media are converging. The results will disrupt how companies must deploy their marketing efforts.
The volatility of social data and the pace of change mean that tried-and-true measurement methods are no longer enough. Social data is different.
Request: We want to hear from you. Tell us on your blog or website how the Sentient World impacts your business (positively or negatively), and we'll cross-link to the conversation.
In the wake of the Samsung/Apple trial verdict the news is crawling with hyperbole about how disruptive the verdict will be to the mobile OS ecosystem, specifically Android's momentum.
Social media is the modern Pandora's box: it has had a meteoric rise as a tool to interact and engage with customers, but also a dark underside exposing companies to new types of risk.
Google announced Google+ for Enterprises today with Hangouts integration into Docs and Calendar as well as administrative controls such as default posting to only within the company.
Real-world case studies of best practice training programs are discussed, as well as outcome-oriented training strategies that will keep all levels of employees engaged.
Thanks to all those who helped us make our #AGMobileUP Tweetup a success last night in Boston. We had a great and varied group of attendees hailing from agencies, mobile startups and the VC community as well.
What we found was that social media is the modern Pandora's box – It has great value but almost two-thirds of companies we surveyed say that social media is a significant or critical risk to their brand reputation.
We talk a lot about screens these days, so much so that for me to type the word "table" without appending a "t" onto the end has become somewhat of a difficult task. That said, there's much talk about how it's important to converse with customers across the multiplying number of screens we interact with […]
Everyone talks about the challenges of measuring the revenue impact of social media, but how are top brands actually doing it? And are they successfully measuring ROI?
In the late 20th century, when the commercial internet was in its infancy, there was no end to the griping about "silos." Back then silos referred to That Which Is Digital and That Which Is Not Digital. The gripe (from the digital side of the equation) was that the not-digital team got all the budget, […]
Want to learn about Formalized Social Advocacy Programs? An embedded recording is below.
Altimeter Group continues its blog ring in July and August to deepen understanding of our three research themes. The next theme of focus is the Adaptive Organization.
I spent yesterday morning at the Google I/O developer conference and, aside from people literally skydiving into the event – the news was largely tech-related and heavily mobile. Google made announcements of its new Nexus Tablet, the JellyBean aka Android 4.1 OS and home media sharing features of its new Nexus Q device.
Below is a 15 minute video which encapsulates Altimeter's themes on the Dynamic Customer Journey and the Sentient World.
Today marks the publication of Altimeter Group's newest enterprise mobility research report, authored by analyst Chris Silva.
The run-up to Facebook's IPO reminds me a bit of a wedding: everyone's attention is on the big day (expected to be Friday May 18), without much regard for the weeks, months and years afterward.
A new software category has emerged to bring performance marketing to social channels.
In a stunning early finding of interviews with nearly a dozen social media agencies and software providers, I'm seeing a new trend: Social media agency of record (SMaoR) are now moving into advertising buying.
Taking the Enterprise Mobile – We're Researching It
Did you miss today's webinar with Charlene Li and Chris Silva talking about the proper foundation for mobile business? If so, please see a full replay of today's content, available on Vimeo.
Curation is taking over the digital content scene. With related applications and platforms multiplying, the act of collecting and sharing content has become second nature for most of us.
The potential for social influence is enormous on both sides of the equation. Services that rank and identify "influence" open the door to new opportunities for businesses to cultivate mutually beneficial relationships with digital tastemakers and authorities.
Even though the topic of social media ROI may sometimes seem like an endless game of Whack-a-Mole [see previous post], there's plenty of evidence to suggest we're inching ever closer to accountability.
As an analyst and research firm focused on disruptive technologies, our clients and others frequently ask us what we are paying attention to and what we are researching.
Have you read my report, "Make An App For That, Mobile Strategies For Retailers" yet? If so, and you didn't have a chance to tune into today's webinar, I want to share the content with you to use, share and discuss.
The Altimeter Group will be present at SXSW Interactive festival to research, interact, and share our insights on disruptive technology at this year's 2012 SXSW in Austin Texas.
In 2011, the US hit a milestone — more than half of all adults visit social networking sites at least once a month. But when it comes to using social-networking technologies inside organizations, many business leaders are at a loss to understand what value can be created from Facebook-like status updates within the enterprise.
So content is the new black (and some 270,000 exact-match results for that phrase on Google suggest it's at least a deep, deep indigo).
So content is the new black (and some 270,000 exact-match results for that phrase on Google suggest it's at least a deep, deep indigo).
There's been a rash of news stories recently with headlines so misleading it's hard to believe they passed editorial muster. Yet a quick search of Google News reveals no less than five articles with ledes very much like this one: P&G to cut 1600 staff after CEO discovers digital media is free.
As an analyst and research firm focused on disruptive business trends, our clients and others frequently ask us what we are paying attention to and what we are researching.
Research Agenda Q1-Q2 2014
This week, Altimeter (myself and Andrew Jones) hosted a webinar stemming from the the recent report on Social Media Proliferation, which you can download the full report on this blog post.
2011 was the year of the mobile shopper, so why aren't retailers doing more to serve them? Today Altimeter Research has published its latest report, Make An App For That: Mobile Strategies For Retail.
Get account control now –or risk a career of continual social media sanitation. To match the growing consumer adoption of social media, many companies have launched social media efforts with little planning.
Sales and operations planning processes are 35 years old and are currently experiencing a renaissance. The redefinition of the process powers growth and improves resiliency in the face of increasing volatility.
If you have a website, a blog, or even a Facebook or Twitter presence, you are a publisher. Think like one: build a digital content strategy that embraces words, images and multimedia to systematically enhance consumer engagement and conversion rates.
The End of Business As Usual explores each layer of the complex consumer revolution that is changing the future of business, media, and culture. As consumers further connect with one another, a vast and efficient information network takes shape and begins to steer experiences, decisions, and markets. It is nothing short of disruptive.
As mobile becomes the leading means for users to interact with brands, content, and one another inside of organizations, simply "getting to mobile" is not strategy enough.
What's a crises? We did analysis on the list of social media crises aka "punkings" to find out what went wrong, why, and what should have been done.
Wherever I go, the question I hear most often is this: "What is the ROI of social media?" Even though most companies we've surveyed have a brand monitoring solution in place, few have yet to crack the measurement code. It remains one of the most stubborn challenges for the social business.
Charlene Li sat down with Ken Blanchard, the author of The One Minute Manager, on the morning of June 21st, 2011 to discuss how leadership is being affected by social media.
Is the supply chain ready to be social? And, if so, how do companies begin the journey? What steps do they take?
Engage! examines the social media landscape and how to effectively use social media to succeed in business—one network and one tool at a time. It leads you through the detailed and specific steps required for conceptualizing, implementing, managing, and measuring a social media program.
There's more to disruptive technologies than social to watch. In fact, we're exploring a variety of new disruptive technologies, to see how they impact business, culture, and customer relationships.
One question I frequently get is "How much should I be spending on social media?" The answer, of course, is it depends. This report looks at how 140 Social Strategists spent on social media in 2010 — and their plans for 2011 (read report).
Last quarter, Altimeter hosted a conference on The Rise of Social Commerce, in which we release a research report based on interviewing dozens of companies who are integrating ecommerce with social media.
This Social Media Decision Maker Must Choose One of Two Career Paths. This emerging role is critical to the success of social media programs yet, most Social Strategists and their programs lack maturity, with only 23% of Social Strategists having a formalized program with long-term direction.
Download our paper and presentation below, and register for a webinar with me and partner Jeremiah Owyang on Wednesday, December 1 at 11 am PST for a webinar on the Rise of Social Commerce. Registration at: http://bit.ly/rscwebinar. Meet the new shopper. Underneath the keys of the keyboard, they are shopping in a new way. Unleashing […]
Altimeter Group conducted research, and gleaned input from 34 vendors, agencies, and experts, to determine success criteria and develop a roadmap for Facebook page best practices.
Social technologies are disrupting traditional business models, and the analyst industry is no exception.
While numerous social media measurement technologies exist, no single tool can adequately measure and provide insights for all social marketing activity.
In Open Leadership, Charlene Li offers the next step resource that shows leaders how to tap into the power of the social technology revolution and use social media to be "open" while maintaining control.
"Be Open, Be Transparent, Be Authentic" are the current leadership mantras — but companies often push back.
I conducted the first of four Webinars on the ideas around "Open Leadership" and am making available the slides as well as a video recording. This Webinar laid out the reasons why open leadership is inevitable and required because of the adoption of social technologies.
We finally completed our final third webinar in our social strategy trilogy. It's been great sharing our insights and widely releasing it to the community, and I hope you enjoy this final segment.
This webinar follows Altimeter Group's recently published open research report: Social CRM: The New Rule of Relationship Management, which covers 18 uses cases of social CRM.
Social and CRM: How Companies Will Manage Their Social Relationships Over the last six months, I've been working closely with Ray Wang who is well known in the CRM space as an expert. Coupled with my focus on social technologies we did a deep dive on how our worlds are intersecting at Social CRM.
Jeremiah Owyang and I held a webinar entitled "Developing A Social Strategy" that had over 495 participants asking very insightful questions — we had a great time sharing the information and got new ideas on how to develop our thinking as well.
In 2009, a subset of the marketing-focused chapters were published as "Marketing In The Groundswell."
Putting the Public Back in Public Relations is a crucial guidebook for helping brands navigate the social economy, while enhancing your career and future in the process.
In this book, leading search optimization expert Rebecca Lieb brings together more than 50 absolutely crucial facts and insights decision-makers must know to drive more web traffic through better search engine placement.
Groundswell is required reading for executives seeking to protect and strengthen their company's public image.
Now Is Gone seeks to help businesses embrace Social Media intelligently. Readers can learn if their organization is ready, how to begin, the predominant participation is marketing approach that other businesses are using, social media marketing strategies, and general social media insights.


text:
slaytanicgemini's Profile
My Reviews & Blog
I tried so hard to get the money for the Phoenix show tonight... not gonna happen! this sucks knowing they are a 2 hour car ride away and I can't make it.. even if I couldn't get in the show I would be happy with sitting outside the theater and just listening because that place can't contain the ,earth shaking sound of SLAYER LIVE!!!
Join us in our cause to stand unified in our celebration
of metal music and let us prove to the rest of society that
we too have a voice.
Who is SlayerSlayer is a band from California. Their music has come to
epitomize Satanic speed metal music in the latter half of the
20th century. Their 1986 album, "Reign in Blood" is one of the
single most influential metal albums of all time, typified by
the modern classic "Angel of Death".
How to Celebrate* Listen to Slayer at full blast in your car.
* Listen to Slayer at full blast in your home.Read more

subset: commoncrawl


text:
Get on the list for product trends coupons and special offers.
Pack of 3 comfy bralettes that are made with a soft and fresh SkinFuse™ fabric, a seamless technology that minimizes seams and uses only the highest quality materials.. Elastic underbust band provides support and lift. Ideal to wear all day long.
Your review has been successfully submitted
There was an error while submitting your review. Please try again.
Questions? Please call Customer Service 1 800 657 9107 for assistance. > Was our size chart useful?
To avoid altered measurements wear a fitted panty.
You have two options to choose the size of your panty
These boyshort panties give you complete comfort while seamlessly smooth into your skin. They are made of SkinFuse™ a soft, stretch fabric. The elastic waistband and leg bands adhere to your skin for no ride-up. Wear under tight-fitting pants.
How comfortable, I have never felt so comfortable with a boyshort, I normally wear thongs, now I don't want to take these off.
2 out of 2 found this review helpful. Did this review help? Yes No
excellent for whatever occasion very comfortable and they don't ride-up, sexy
These boxers are the best and you can't tell that they are under your clothes and they are super comfortable.
5 out of 5 found this review helpful. Did this review help? Yes No


text:
New technology probes the functional unit of nervous transmission.
New technology probes the functional unit of nervous transmission.
Neuroscientists are automating neural imaging and recording, allowing them to monitor increasingly large swaths of the brain in living, behaving animals.
Two studies provide insight into the genetics of the disorder and show again how complex it is.
A pair of one-act chamber operas takes the audience inside the world of imagined sound.
The publisher of The Journal of Neuroscience has laid out plans for an open-access, online-only journal for brain research.
A new study purports to show that post-learning caffeine consumption can improve memory, but some scientists are not convinced.
Bacterial genes aid tubeworm settling; pigmentation of ancient reptiles; nascent neurons and vertebrate development; exploring simple synapses; slug-inspired surgical glue
Neuronal precursors are partially dismantled during early development before they find their fate.
Are Dolphins Really Smart?, Newton's Football, Outsider Scientists, and We Are Our Brains
A guide for doing in vivo microscopy on neurons in the mammalian brain


text:
Cassie's Garden Grapefruit Body Wash
- Overview
"C" isn't just for "clean." Our Grapefruit Body Wash is an all-natural castile soap that's rich in Vitamin C. Its refreshing grapefruit extract has unique phytochemicals that promote healthy skin.
- Body wash.
- No parabens, sulfates or heavy metals.
- See Dimensions + Care for ingredients.
- 8 fluid oz.
- Made in the USA.
- Details + Dimensions
- Overall product dimensions: 2.5"diam. x 6"h.
- Weight: 8 fluid oz.
Lather a small amount on a sponge in the bath or shower.
Natural spring water, saponified oils of olive fruit oil, avocado oil, sweet almond oil, blood orange oil, grapefruit extract, aloe barbadensis leaf, xantham gum, vitamin E, radish root ferment filtrate, rosemary leaf.
- Shipping + Return Info
Most purchases are shipped from our Distribution Center by UPS, to arrive in your home within 5-7 business days of order receipt.
Shipping Rates
The shipping rate varies depending on your order total and shipping options. View Shipping Rates and Options
Next Day Delivery
For an extra charge of $17.50 per address, we can arrange for rush delivery to most destinations.
Return Policy
We take great pride in the quality of our merchandise. If for any reason you are not happy with your purchase, you may return the item(s) within 30 days of receiving the order for a full refund of the merchandise cost. After 30 days, we will replace or refund your purchase against manufacturer's defects ONLY. Please note that we cannot accept returns on mattresses, monogrammed/personalized items, special order upholstery items and special order rugs, one-of-a-kind rugs, or on items damaged through normal wear and tear. We also cannot accept returns of final-sale items, which are identified by a price ending in .99 or .97.
For further assistance please call our customer service department at 1.888.922.4119 or send an email to firstname.lastname@example.com


text:
Apr 26, 2015 at 21:02
. Please
1 Hour
1 Day
1 Week
1 Month
Login with username, password and session length
Maximum Grilled Steelers Forum
Steelers Forums
Top 12 Steeler Moments - ESPN insider David Flemming
Pages: [
Go Down
« previous
next »
Topic: Top 12 Steeler Moments - ESPN insider David Flemming (Read 574 times)
Lennar Homes Consultant
Old School Member
Karma: 2858
Posts: 1,785
Mr Jack
Top 12 Steeler Moments - ESPN insider David Flemming
Jan 31, 2011 at 10:37 »
1JANUARY 2009: Here's how Deshea Townsend described to me what it felt like to experience, from the inside, James Harrison's epic interception return in the Super Bowl against the Arizona Cardinals.
"I went from the lowest of the low to the highest you can get in sports in about one second on this play. We were in zero coverage, which means no help, so you know the ball is coming out hot, right away. The Cardinals lined up in a stacked formation with Larry Fitzgerald on the inside and Anquan Boldin on the outside, and when they crossed I got picked. So I'm chasing and pushing through and trying to see what's happening and in my mind I'm thinking my guy is wide open and that I just gave up a huge touchdown in the Super Bowl.
"Harrison was supposed to be blitzing. If he had rushed on that play that area is wide open and, boom, it's a touchdown. But he told me later he just felt like he couldn't get to Kurt Warner so he dropped back instead and Warner threw the ball right to him.
"When he caught it and we made eye contact I was like, 'give it to me, give it to me.' I'm a DB, we all do that after every interception. But his eyes were saying, 'hell no.' When he wouldn't give the ball to me, I took off looking to block somebody. All week in Tampa leading up to the game, coach Mike Tomlin kept telling us about how when he was the defensive backs coach with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers they returned two picks for scores in Super Bowl XXXVII. So he kept yelling all week, if we get a pick he wanted all 10 guys on somebody helping out. You get coaching tips like that all the time but to actually see it happen in the Super Bowl? Amazing.
"There were so many tiny little things like that. And they all had to happen exactly right. Warner was the first one to appear and I wanted to explode through him but he kinda jumped back so I had to guide him to the outside and luckily Deebo (that's what we call Harrison) cut inside. Boldin had the best chance at him but he ended up fighting with James Farrior and took himself out of the play. The tight end, Leonard Pope, was right behind us but he jumped and landed on Ike Taylor instead. I stayed on my feet through all that and, I didn't even know it, but that held up Fitzgerald and forced him to go to the outside, where he actually ran into a player standing on the Cardinals bench. If he doesn't get held up for that one extra split second, Fitzgerald makes the tackle at the 5-yard line instead of the goal line and it's just a long return, nothing more. At that point, a linebacker came flying in to make a block and his leg hit me in the chest, like a karate kick. Everything is going crazy. Your mind is racing. The noise is unreal. I watched the rest of the play from the ground, thinking, 'keep going, don't stop, make the end zone.'
"He made it. Now we're a part of history. It's not just one of the greatest plays in Super Bowl history. It's also a pure example of Steelers football."
2AUGUST 2003: Ever wonder what it would be like to win the lottery and hire a band like Pearl Jam to play your annual backyard barbecue? That's about the only way I can describe one of the must-see events of NFL training camp: the Steelers' night practice held at a high school field in Latrobe, Pa.
You park in a gravel lot. The Steelers file out of yellow school buses. The smell of grass, hot dogs and Iron City in the air. Fans on rooftops and hanging from every inch of wood and metal bleachers. Gun-metal dusk skies. The crackle of the PA speakers and the crunch of shoulder pads and helmets. I know this has nothing to do with the playoffs, but the Steelers' night practice in Latrobe is truly one of the last places on earth where big-time sports mingles so easily and openly with small-town America.
3FEBRUARY 2002: At the NFL combine in Indianapolis, I sat down for a long talk with Steelers director of football operations Kevin Colbert, who gave me a rare look inside the team's tried-and-true method of roster building. In the era of parity, when draft order, schedule strength, free agency and the salary cap all conspire to prevent dynasties, the Steelers seem to return to the playoffs every season. They do this with a personnel blueprint nearly every franchise has tried to duplicate: by getting as many as 10 pairs of eyes on every draft prospect, they are able to pick exceptionally well, with few big mistakes, and restock their roster each fall with young, talented and cost-efficient players who perfectly fit their schemes.
4MARCH 2001: One of the Steelers' trademarks, at least from a front office standpoint, has been their ability to make tough personnel decisions, even when it comes to beloved players. Pittsburgh simply does not overpay for marquee free agents, but more importantly, I think, the Steelers don't allow emotional attachments to sway roster and salary-cap decisions -- this is a lot tougher than it sounds. Football is an emotional game, and to get players to lay it on the line for you, to sacrifice for the greater good, they first have to feel like the franchise has their back. But at the same time, you have to balance that with a cold, hard businesslike approach to the salary cap.
A perfect example of this is linebacker Levon Kirkland. A second-round pick out of Clemson in 1992, during nine seasons in Pittsburgh Kirkland became the heart and soul of the Steelers' defense. He made a couple of Pro Bowls and I still say, to this day, that he was the best player on the field in Super Bowl XXX -- and if the Steelers had beaten the Cowboys, he would have been the game's MVP. But when his cap hit outweighed his performance, the Steelers didn't hesitate, cutting him loose.
Before the Seattle Seahawks picked him up, I met with Kirkland at a Gold's Gym near Charlotte at a time when the pain and shock of his release was still fresh. Kirkland is built like a washing machine, a very intimidating 6-foot-1 and 275 pounds, but he was remarkably open and candid about the human side of the Steelers' rather cold, cut-and-dry approach to aging, expensive players.
EnlargeAP Photo/George Widman
Levon Kirkland anchored the Blitzburgh defense.
He got the news while driving on the highway and had to pull over to the shoulder to let it all sink in. When I pushed him to describe what it felt like, he recalled the creepy scene from "Fatal Attraction" when Michael Douglas breaks it off with Glenn Close and she's just sitting on the floor of her apartment, seething and staring off into space while flicking a lamp switch back and forth from burning light to cold stark darkness.
I've seen him a few times around Charlotte since his playing career ended. The last time we bumped into each other he didn't say anything, but just re-enacted the scene from "Fatal Attraction:" face twisted in mock pain, a far-away stare in his eyes, mindlessly tugging that imaginary lamp cord -- on and off, on and off -- until we both cracked up.
But, to this day, I've never seen or heard a better description of what it's like to get tossed aside so cruelly by a team, a city and a franchise you gave your blood, sweat and tears to for a decade.
APRIL 2006: Still a bit groggy from the jet lag and, OK, one too many Feldschlosschens at the futbol match the day before inside Stade de Suisse, I tipped the room service guy five francs, poured myself a vat of espresso and clicked on the telly just in time to catch the lead story at the top of the hour on the Swiss equivalent of CNN.
With my back to the TV this is what I heard, " ... frauch-n-something ... David Fleming von ESPN ... "
Reporting for a story in ESPN The Magazine, I spent a week zig-zagging across Switzerland with Ben Roethlisberger and his family -- in a dizzying, engrossing whirlwind of fondue, French wine, breathtaking natural beauty, clocks, lederhosen, yodelers, Alphorns and Swiss hospitality sweeter than chocolate -- as the Steelers QB investigated his Swiss heritage.
Part of the trip was a tour, by scooter, around the amazing town of Bern, home to a magnificent clock tower that is the pride of the entire country. It is said that as a clerk nearby, Einstein kept time by the clock's chimes while working on his Theory of Relativity.
Anyway, long story short, while investigating the inner workings of the clock I somehow managed to get locked inside. Roethlisberger had gone out just before me so I yelled to him for help. He'll be discreet, I thought. He won't draw any extra attention. This won't turn into an international incident or anything.
And then, from the other side of the thick green door I heard, "Oh man, I think it's Fleming. Fleming's locked in the tower! Come back. We need a key! Sweet. Hey, wait, everybody get your cameras ready. Hee. Hee. Hee."
And so, this is how I came to be the lead news item on Swiss television. The footage of me getting released from the clock tower and sheepishly rejoining the group, my face as red as the Swiss flag itself, ran at the top of the hour, every hour, for a full day. It wouldn't have been so bad, I suppose, if at the end of the footage Ben hadn't turned to the Swiss TV camera and said, "Ladies and gentlemen of Switzerland, for the record, that's David Fleming of ESPN."
6JANUARY 1998: Weather and work conspired to keep me in Pittsburgh for 11 straight days between the Steelers' 7-6 win over the New England Patriots in the divisional playoffs and Pittsburgh's subsequent 24-21 loss to the Denver Broncos in the AFC title game. I'll admit that there were more than a few times when it felt like I was living inside the outtakes from "The Shining." But for the most part it was every bit the dream-come-true scenario: I gorged myself on room service, pay-per-view movies, Steelers practice, film study and the outstanding food, bars and live music on the South Side of the city. I also discovered that Pittsburgh is home to Mister Rogers and Andy Warhol (as well as Rusted Root). And by the eighth day, I was 20 pounds heavier, completely out of clean clothes and a big fan of the 'Burgh.
7JUNE 1998: I was living in New York at the time, but to give you an idea of what legendary Steelers center Dermontti Dawson is like, when I flew to Kentucky to interview him, he insisted on picking me up at the airport because he was worried I might get lost. Between 1988 and 2000, Dawson quietly ruled the NFL while elevating his position to another stratosphere, doing things with his rare combo of size, speed and smarts that most centers can still only dream of. To me, he is the epitome of what a Hall of Fame player should be: an ambassador of the game who absolutely dominated his position during the course of his career.
I'm not sure ever I've met a more talented, dominant, down-to-earth player. If I were a professional athlete, you'd have to drag me from the game kicking and screaming, but as soon as Dawson felt age and injuries diminished his performance, he walked away with no fanfare and zero regret. Looking for an interesting anecdote or something even remotely scandalous, at the end of our interview I insisted on meeting his pet Rottweiler, who was chained up in the garage with the kind of thick, steel cable you use to tow railroad cars. On cue, this massive, muscular mess of saliva, teeth and paws ran over, knocked me down, stood over me for a second and then licked my face until I needed a bath towel to dry off. Yeah, that was Dermontti's dog, all right.
8JANUARY 1995: By the time I found him down on the concrete turf of Three Rivers Stadium, after the San Diego Chargers had upset the Steelers in the AFC Championship Game, San Diego quarterback Stan Humphries was lying flat on his back, staring into the snowy gray sky above and screaming at the top of his lungs in celebration. Across the field, and on the opposite side of the spectrum, a limp-legged and dangerously distraught Steelers defensive back, Tim McKyer, who had given up the game-winning 43-yard TD pass to Tony Martin, had to be dragged off the field by teammates. During the Steelers' improbable run, it was the only time I saw McKyer with his mouth shut. See, the Steelers were in command, 13-3, late in the third quarter, and after a 15-year drought, this quirky, ragtag, loveable collection of players thought they were about to return Pittsburgh to the Super Bowl. Then Humphries went to work, throwing two long TD passes, and in the final two minutes the Chargers' defense somehow managed to turn the Steelers away with a remarkable goal-line stand. This one hurt -- bad. You could tell. It was as close to actual heartbreak for a team and a town as I've ever seen.
9JUNE 1995: During the offseason I spent a few days with Steelers All-Pro linebacker Kevin Greene at his modest home in Alabama, and what I remember the most was (1) the homemade chicken casserole we had for dinner and (2) the family portrait hanging in the basement that made Greene look like a member of the Brady Bunch -- only not quite as cool. Greene, with that Thor-like blond hair hanging out the back of his helmet, would go on to become one of the larger-than-life characters of the resurgent Blitzburgh defense, as well as the third-leading sack master of all time (with 160 "baggies," as he called them). A one-time semifinalist for the Hall of Fame, he is now the linebackers coach of the Green Bay Packers. And even though he threatened to hunt me down and twist me into a pretzel if I ever told anyone about that photo, I figure the statute of limitations has run out by now ... I hope.
EnlargeJoseph Patronite/Getty Images
Kevin Greene was a dominant player for the Steelers.10JANUARY 1996: The Indianapolis Colts were trailing 20-16 with the ball at their 16 and little time left in the AFC Championship Game, so I figured it was safe to leave the Three Rivers press box and head down to the field to watch the postgame festivities. But, of course, by the time I worked my way under the stadium and out to the sideline, Indy QB Jim Harbaugh had the Cardiac Colts down to the Pittsburgh 29 with less than 10 seconds to play.
For the second year in a row, the Steelers' trip to the Super Bowl would come down to the final drive. Like Forrest Gump, I somehow positioned myself behind the photographers lined up on the right side of the southeast end zone. And sure enough, Harbaugh launched a high spiral to Aaron Bailey that was batted away by Randy Fuller at the last second, but not before time seemed to stand still as the ball almost came down to rest in the lap of another Colts receiver, who had been shoved down to the turf. I was literally 15 feet away as the Colts' receivers fumbled for the ball in a kind of dreamlike state before it bounced in and out of their hands and rolled to the ground. Game over.
The Steelers were back in the Super Bowl -- barely.
11OCTOBER 1997: Even on his best days, linebacker Greg Lloyd wasn't much of a talker. After the Steelers' exceptional scouting staff found him in the sixth round of the 1987 draft out of something called Fort Valley State, Lloyd, who would go on to become one of the greatest draft steals ever, took to wearing a T-shirt that read "I wasn't hired for my disposition." And by the time I caught up to Lloyd in the dark, crowded, crumbling locker room of Memorial Stadium in Baltimore, the once-dominant linebacker who gave Blitzburgh its nasty swagger had been struggling with a bum knee for more than a year and reporters, PR guys, even teammates warned me to give him a wide berth.
Earlier that year, in fact, at an American Bowl game in Dublin, Lloyd had called Irish people rude. He had flipped off a reporter, told another one to "eat s--- and die," threatened to place-kick another and had actually shoved a Russian television journalist working for a Pittsburgh station.
At that point in my life, however, I had already been cursed out by the best. I mean, you could teach an entire linguistics class based on the white-hot, rancid lava stream of explicative terms Reggie Jackson once filled my face with. So I stepped right up to him, introduced myself and asked Lloyd (did I mention he was a black belt, too) how he was doing.
And you know what he spat back at me?
"I'm doing fine, man," he said.
Actually, he wasn't. In 1994 he had 70 tackles, 10 sacks, one pick and five forced fumbles. He was everywhere, including the Pro Bowl and the All-Pro first team. I remember watching him in pregame warm-ups, the way he used to skip all the stretching and drills and just pace, back and forth, back and forth, like a caged animal waiting to pounce. Opponents used to call him Lloyd's of London because when you played him, you had better take out extra insurance.
But by the time I had caught up to him, he was a shell of his former self, jumping offside all the time to try to get an edge on the pass rush. I mention Lloyd because, as you watch the game next Sunday and hear everyone talking about where this Steelers defense might rank in history, don't forget the guy who put the bite back in Blitzburgh.
12NOVEMBER 2008: Here's what I wrote for a cover story on the Steelers' top-ranked defense.
"Walk inside the Steelers' training facility and you will find five Lombardi Trophies shimmering in a glass case outside the team's executive offices. But if you continue deeper into the building, and the heart of the franchise, you'll come across a lesser-known relic that's even more significant to this year's defense. It's a floor-to-ceiling black-and-white photo of the first points ever scored by Pittsburgh in the Super Bowl -- a safety by the Steel Curtain in a 16-6 win over the Minnesota Vikings on Jan. 12, 1975. At the bottom of the picture, Hall of Fame linebacker Jack Lambert growls into the face mask of a prostrate and clearly frightened Fran Tarkenton, the Vikes' elusive quarterback who was supposed to be unstoppable. The picture is a reminder to all that when it comes to offense in the NFL, nothing can ever be considered invulnerable or innovative until it's survived the ultimate test -- the Pittsburgh D."
Thirty-six years later, the Steelers are still on top of the NFL and the outcome of the Super Bowl still comes down to that same theory: How Aaron Rodgers and the Packers deal with the Pittsburgh defense will, more than likely, determine the outcome of the game in Dallas.
As well as the next chapter in my seemingly never-ending Pittsburgh diary.
"He'll just smile and be cordial out there. Then he'll kill you."
--Aaron Smith, Defensive Lineman, on Troy Polamulu
Old School Member
Karma: 5208
Posts: 1,664
Master of the figure-four leglock
Re: Top 12 Steeler Moments - ESPN insider David Flemming
Reply #1 on:
Jan 31, 2011 at 13:13 »
Thanks for posting, but how are some of these the top moments in Steelers history? Maybe I just don't get the article but I really could have gone without reliving Tim Mckyer getting torched this morning. Or the AFCC loss to Elway. I guess what I'm saying is that list sucks.
Old School Member
Karma: 3979
Posts: 2,194
Re: Top 12 Steeler Moments - ESPN insider David Flemming
Reply #2 on:
Feb 01, 2011 at 09:30 »
Quote from: Merman1983 on Jan 31, 2011 at 13:13
Thanks for posting, but how are some of these the top moments in Steelers history? Maybe I just don't get the article but I really could have gone without reliving Tim Mckyer getting torched this morning. Or the AFCC loss to Elway. I guess what I'm saying is that list sucks.
Nah, Merman, he was posting his top 12 moments of covering the Steelers. His personal faves, not the greatest of all time.
I'm still the one with the boobs.
Brownstains can suck my Member
Karma: 1580
Posts: 685
Re: Top 12 Steeler Moments - ESPN insider David Flemming
Reply #3 on:
Feb 02, 2011 at 14:26 »
God I love Greg Lloyd.
"If you make every game a life and death proposition, you're going to have problems. For one thing, you'll be dead a lot."
Old School Member
Karma: 5808
Posts: 4,895
Re: Top 12 Steeler Moments - ESPN insider David Flemming
Reply #4 on:
Feb 02, 2011 at 22:16 »
God I love Greg Lloyd.
My son and I were just talking tonight about the NFL Films video on Lloyd. "I heard all these parents yelling 'Oh Little Johnny.' And I said, 'I'm gonna knock lil'Johnny on his ass. Because he's not good."
Interesting insights from a guy who, once again, has never been a favorite of mine.
In SBXL, Big Ben played a pretty awful game. He came back and played great in XLIII. In XLIII, our defense certainly laid an egg in the last 20 minutes. Here's to hoping they come back with an amazing performance in XLV.
We have traded Christ for the religion of Christianity.
Pages: [
Go Up
« previous
next »
Jump to:
Please select a destination:
Steelers Forums
=> Steelers
=> Draft
=> Gameday
General Forums
=> Free Range Topics
=> Politics
=> Site Information & Comments
Sports Forums
=> Fantasy
=> Other Sports


text:
Share & Connect
"Everytings Irie" Jamaica: Preservation Health...
Approximately a 40 minute drive from Montego Bay or Negril, smack dab in the heart...Twinkies Make a Comeback through New Ownership
Hostess is close to celebrating success as a handful of their popular snack brands,...Las Vegas: Chain Restaurants to Check Out
Las Vegas, the city of excess, offers any and every type of food you could ever think...More Garbage on Your Food Shelves than Your Landfills
How much do you know about the food you eat? Consumers are starting to open their...Tips For Your New Year's Food Resolutions From Spice...
San Francisco, U.S.A. -- Every New Year's millions of Americans commit to eat smarter...Enjoy The Best Tasting Healthy Meals With Fast Food...
Windsor, England -- Collecting fast food coupons helps you, not only to save money,...A Rare Dinner Experience With "Iron Chef Sakai"
Los Angeles, U.S.A. -- Local celebrities and more than 220 members and supporters...OpenTable Reveal Top 100 Best Restaurants in the U.S.
San Francisco, U.S.A. -- As we reflect on a fabulous year of fine dining, OpenTable,...Moshi Monsters Invade McDonald's Restaurants
New York, U.S.A. -- Starting December 14, the monstrously popular kids hit, Moshi...India's Caffeine Dreams Get Bigger with Starbucks...
Tired of sipping on sweet, milky 'chai' at the local tea-stall? Are you interested...Spice Islands Unveils Interesting Thanksgiving Dishes
San Francisco, U.S.A. -- The traditional Thanksgiving turkey and holiday ham are driving...Penn Brewery's Winter Seasonal Beers For 2012
Pittsburgh, U.S.A. -- Penn Brewery has announced the release of its winter seasonal...Café Amisha Bar Pizzeria - Italian Intimacy on a Platter
"Mi piace Cafe Amisha" - Why toot such terms of endearment for an Italian restaurant...McDonald's Introduce New Cheddar Bacon Onion Sandwich
Philadelphia, U.S.A. -- Beginning October 23, McDonald's customers in the Greater...SupermarketGuru.com Celebrates 100th Food Program
Santa Monica, U.S.A .-- On October 17, SupermarketGuru.com celebrates its 50,000...


text:
Submit News
Obama's Decision to Punt on Oil Pipeline Pleases Almost no One
Jason Mick
November 11, 2011 5:40 PM
comment(s) - last by
Captain Orgazm..
Nov 17
Recipient E-mail
Sender E-mail
Anti-pipe folks say he's just "kicking the can" to boost election hopes, pipe supporters say he's killing jobs
In one fell swoop the President of the United States (POTUS) Barack Obama managed to infuriate Canadians and Republican U.S. politicians alike. Those are typically mutually exclusive feats, but his decision to bow to activist pressure and shelve the development of a critical oil pipeline is drawing criticism from both sides.
I. To Oil Sand, or Not to Oil Sand, That is the Question
Dubbed the Keystone XL pipeline, the pipe in question was supposed to stretch 1,700 miles across the U.S. plains, transporting process oil sands crude -- a low to mid-grade crude to U.S. refineries in Texas for procesing into fuel (the initial removal of sand would occur at local facilities in Alberta).
Currently the Alberta tar sands are underutilized due to insufficient refining capacity. Meanwhile refineries in Texas sit idle due to insufficient domestic oil supplies. The pipeline would have remedied both problems, pumping the equivalent of 700,000 barrels a day (249.2m barrels a year) into the U.S. market.
The U.S. uses 19.15m barrels/day, so the new supply would offer approximately 3.7 percent of the domestic demand. While that may sound trivial, it would allow the U.S. to potentially entirely drop one of its more hostile sources of foreign oil, such as Venezuela (806,000 barrels/day) or Iraq (637,000 barrels/day).
Aside from the
direct savings in life and financials stability
that could yield, the pipeline also offered more benefits. According various studies the construction would create between 5,000 and 20,000 jobs. It would also give $5B USD in new tax revenue.
The pipeline could completely eliminate American dependence on volatile Iraqi oil, a dependence that has cost the lives of many American servicepeople. [Image Source: Dalje]
Like everything in the world, though, there was a perceived downside for these gains. First, the pipeline would likely cross through personal property dropping local value. Second, it could potentially elevate local risks of toxic oil spills -- a major public fear in the wake of the
2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill
Last, but not least oil sands require a more intensive separation process than standard oil. The cost of getting all that sand out is a 10 to 30 percent emissions hike in greenhouse gases [
]. As you might guess, the amount of emissions is tied to the cost of the refining process, so the final number would like be closer to a 30 percent increase, than the lower estimate.
However, that emissions hike occurs largely at the extraction level, meaning that as long as Alberta finds
to sell/ship its crude to, the emissions hit will be taken, regardless of whether that someone happens to be the U.S. It's unclear whether the pipelines environmentalist adversaries realize this and are just morally opposed to being involved.
Recent studies have shown that in the last decade
global temperatures flatlined
, even as greenhouse gas emission continued to rise. Yet many environmentalists and their powerful political allies remain convinced that the long-term trend will be continued warming. Many of these parties predict a doomsday "runaway warming" scenario, in which soaring temperature amount to mass humans deaths.
Groups like 350.org, Bill McKibben, Bold Nebraska's Jane Kleeb, and Friends of the Earth decried the potential environmental (mostly global warming) impact of the pipeline and threatened to drop support for President Obama if the project was granted a speedy approval. If these groups sound familiar, they're among those who attacked the POTUS on
his support of modern nuclear power
-- pressure that the President Obama caved to in the wake of
Japan's Fukushima nuclear accident
Further threats to the project came from the Republican-controlled Nebraska State Senate, which
looked to take legal action
[PDF] to block the pipeline. The state senators were upset about the oil pipe crossing the state's key water supply (aquifer).
It didn't help that the State Department received
a complaint
[PDF] that the pipe operator TransCanada (
) -- the pipeline company -- had a business relationship with the "independent" contractor hired by the State Department to conduct the review. The pipeline supporters saw their attacks on the President regarding
insider actions with "green" firms like Solyndra
turned back on them.
Reports of
robocalls erroneously indicating public support
also have been circulating around the blogosphere, damaging the momentum for approval.
II. POTUS Caves to Pipe Critics, "Kicks the Can" to 2013
As an apparent result of these cumulative protests the Obama administration has
punted the approval process
two years out. The State Department announced this week, that approval "could be completed as early as the first quarter of 2013."
The key words there are "could" and "2013". The State Department primarily blames the Nebraska state government, commenting, "Given the concentration of concerns regarding the environmental sensitivities of the current proposed route through the Sand Hills area of Nebraska, the Department has determined it needs to undertake an in-depth assessment of potential alternative routes in Nebraska."
But it's seems likely the decision also had something to do with the Obama administration fearing the loss of votes in the upcoming 2012 presidential elections.
President Obama faced enormous pressure, even from his own staff.
Department of Energy
Secretary Steven Chu (Ph.D) was reportedly fearful that the project would kill alternative energy jobs and investment. He pointed to a
Cornell University
study, which
that the project would result in net job loss due to a negative impact on the alternative energy sector.
A Cornell University report broke with most analyses, claiming the pipe would cost jobs.
[Image Source: Cornell University]
III. Obama Receives Most of the Punishment, Little of the Praise for Choice
Ironically the move is earning the President less support than he may have hoped. While Daniel Kessler, spokesperson with Tar Sands Action,
, "This is a major victory. It's a testament to the thousands of people who came out to protest in the streets, and we think the president responded to that," other critics scoffed at the decision.
Glenn Hurowitz, a senior fellow at the activist think tank Center for International Policy, writes in a piece in
The Huffington Post
, "This is an extraordinary achievement for the thousands of grassroots activists... [but] I'm a little dismayed at suggestions that this kick-the-can decision means environmentalists will enthusiastically back President Obama in 2012. Is the price of an environmentalist's vote a year's delay on environmental catastrophe? Excuse me, no."
Meanwhile opponents are pointing their barbs primarily at Obama, overlooking the activist and local political action.
American Petroleum Institute President Jack Gerard, "This decision is deeply disappointing and troubling. Whether it will help the president retain his job is unclear, but it will cost thousands of shovel-ready opportunities for American workers."
House Speaker John Boehner
(R-Ohio) was even more pointed
, "More than 20,000 new American jobs have just been sacrificed in the name of political expediency. By punting on this project, the president has made clear that campaign politics are driving U.S. policy decisions -- at the expense of American jobs."
In short, as with many of his recent actions President Obama finds himself receiving most of the punishment, but little of the praise for actions he set in motion. In trying to walk the tightrope of pleasing both sides, he has badly slipped -- many anti-pipe advocates are reprimanding the President for merely shelving rather than killing the decision, while the pipe's supporters are attacking the President for shelving the product.
President Obama faces criticism from all sides for the way he punted on the pipeline approval. [Image Source: JEWEL SAMAD/AFP/Getty Images]
TransCanada is disappointed, but hasn't given up on the pipe. It's sunk $1.7B USD into steel, which will now sit in warehouses for two more years. Company president and CEO Russ Girling optimistically comments, "We remain confident Keystone XL will ultimately be approved. This project is too important to the U.S. economy, the Canadian economy and the national interest of the United States for it not to proceed."
One poll [
] found 85 percent of Americans to strongly or moderately agree with taking advantage of oil sands. The poll was sponsored by the American Petroleum Institute, but it was conducted by the respected Harris Interactive agnostic metrics firm. If those numbers are even close to reality, the president may be in trouble should he be pitted against
a strongly pro-oil sands candidate like Ron Paul
If the U.S. chooses not process Alberta's oil, there's already someone stepping up to the plate to take its place -- China. It's
looking to pour billions
to building an alternate pipeline to west coast of Canada for affordable shipping to Asia. The only thing standing in its way? You guessed it -- local property holders and environmentalists in western Canada -- who are apparently just as eager to block the project as their American counterparts.
The U.S. State Department
CNN Money
The Huffington Post
remember me
This article is over a month old, voting and posting comments is disabled
RE: And let's not forget...
BS. I live here too (for real that is, who knows where you live) and there's no cover up. Everyone knows about it, I saw the floating baffles in the river that were used to contain it, more or less, and it didn't end up being a big deal. Take your enviroactivism elsewhere.
"We shipped it on Saturday. Then on Sunday, we rested." -- Steve Jobs on the iPad launch
Related Articles
Study "Proves" Warming Occurred, Pundits Seize Chance to Bash Skeptics
October 24, 2011, 8:20 PM
Solyndra CEO Resigns, Clip of Owner Bragging About Gov't Handouts Surfaces
October 13, 2011, 7:01 PM
UC Researchers Produce First Quantitative Estimate of Fukushima Radiation Leak
August 16, 2011, 11:47 AM
FedEx CEO: "Addiction" to Foreign Oil is Costing the Economy, American Lives
May 20, 2011, 8:37 AM
Obama Fights For Nuclear, Environmentalists Label Him a Shill
June 19, 2010, 12:35 AM
Latest Headlines
Newly Discovered Costa Rican Glass Frog is Kermit's Doppelgänger
April 22, 2015, 11:26 AM
Researchers Hope to Find "Exotic" Lifeforms Inside Crater of Dinosaur Killing Meteor
April 14, 2015, 8:47 PM
Mathematician's Sociological Formulation May Explain the "Hipster Paradox"
April 14, 2015, 1:13 PM
Cool Science Video: This is What a McDonald's Burger Looks Like in Your Stomach
April 7, 2015, 1:43 PM
Fraud Artist Engineered Stunning UK Jailbreak Via Typosquatting, Email
April 4, 2015, 2:57 PM
Food Chemists at Italy's Barilla Claim to Have Perfect Instant Noodles w/out Frying
March 26, 2015, 4:25 PM
More Headlines
Most Popular Articles
Worst Kept Secret -- $35 Million Anonymous Sharing App Startup Shuts Down
April 30, 2015, 7:33 AM
Microsoft "Welcomes Developers" to Its New "Edge Browser" (Codename: Spartan)
April 29, 2015, 7:25 PM
China's Tencent Gets in on the Kardashian Empire w/ $126 Million Glu Investment
April 30, 2015, 8:28 AM
Windows 10 Build 10061: A Quick Review
April 27, 2015, 10:57 AM
Report: Apple Pulls the Plug on Apple Watch Store Launch
April 16, 2015, 3:18 PM
Latest Blog Posts
Sceptre Airs 27", 120 Hz. 1080p Monitor/HDTV w/ 5 ms Response Time for $220
Michael Hatamoto
Dec 3, 2014, 10:32 PM
Costco Gives Employees Thanksgiving Off; Wal-Mart Leads "Black Thursday" Charge
Jason Mick
Oct 29, 2014, 9:57 PM
"Bear Selfies" Fad Could Turn Deadly, Warn Nevada Wildlife Officials
Jason Mick
Oct 28, 2014, 12:00 PM
The Surface Mini That Was Never Released Gets "Hands On" Treatment
Brandon Hill
Sep 26, 2014, 8:22 AM
ISIS Imposes Ban on Teaching Evolution in Iraq
Jason Mick
Sep 17, 2014, 5:22 PM
More Blog Posts
Copyright 2015 DailyTech LLC. -
RSS Feed
About Us
Terms, Conditions & Privacy Information
Kristopher Kubicki


text:
Owl Electrophoresis Horizontal Systems Vertical Systems Sequencing / Blotters Power Supplies |
Price Increase Effective January 1, 2015On January 1, 2015 there will be a product-wide price increase from Thermo Scientific, our manufacturer. If you have bids or quotes provided by sales reps and know that you cannot place the order before the end of the year, please be certain to contact us for an extension. All extensions must be registered before the end of the year. Expired quotes cannot be enforced retroactively. Thank you to all our loyal customers. We have enjoyed record-breaking sales in 2014 and look forward to new milestones in 2015. |


text:
"Awesome jersey, awesome price..thank you!" (E25788)
"Perfect gift for elementary age baseball-obsessed boy! Kids love using them in backyard. Excellent price, and was amazed at how quickly item was received. Thank you for great service." (E4820)
"very nice pants.. They did the trick!" (E6687)
Holloway Ladies Devote Short Sleeve Shirts [E96967]