Shabbir's Diary

John Edwards Mobile Campaign

In my opinion as a 12 year practitioner of the art and science of epolitics, one of the great new frontiers is the mobile channel.  I'm reasonable about it's potential, as I don't think we're all going to suddenly migrate from PCs to our phones for web surfing.  Instead the mobile channel is going to be an edge connector.  It's going to connect us to the network in reduced ways that trade off the mobility of a phone against the lack of portability of a laptop/desktop for a reduced experience.

This is why we don't care about not being able to read an attachment on our cellphones.  If we needed to really work on a file, we'd get ourselves to a computer.

To this end the Edwards campaign has been innovating "around the edges" with mobile.  They've recently sent two text messages to their phone list.  The latest capitalized on the feud between Ann Coulter and the Edwards family:

Elizabeth Edwards took on Ann Coulter on Hardball.  Hear it NOW!  Dial 202-350-9751.  Or hit Reply and txt the word 'CALL'.  Hit Send & your phone will ring back!

I went ahead and called and recorded the call, you can hear it here.  This rings through to a very traditional phone bank.  This technique of sales through the phone runs against the very trendy technique of trying to actually pay through the phone, either through your cellphone bill or like Paypal Mobile, through a Paypal account tied to your phone.  These services have been plagued by various problems which have hampered their adoption.  The cell carriers take 40% of your funds raised and limit you to a maximum of $10, which has killed that as a marketplace.  The Paypal solution is clunky but good, but has been hampered by a small registered user base.

The Edwards solution is the future on cellphone fundraising because it relies on what cellphones do best: make phone calls.  It's what I would call an incremental innovation, but will be quickly copied by all the campaigns in the future I am sure. 

High wire job

A coworker passed around this video which is about a tres cool job.

glumbert.com - High Power Job

The Great Soviet State Will Forge You Into A Mold Just Like Your Brothers

So what could have been a perfect day care scenario has not turned out so well.

When we moved into SF I found a small daycare facility run by a Russian women in the ground level apartment of her house with two assistants.  I went there for a few days and spent an hour with Moishe playing in the center.  She started complaining the first week.

"He doesn't eat much."  Yeah, we know, why do you think we have him under the care of a doctor with a long list of things you can't feed him for allergy reasons?

"He doesn't nap for more than an hour.  He's quiet when the other kids are awake and when they go to sleep he starts talking and playing."  That's right, he takes after his parents.  He's got shy tendencies and has the capacity to entertain himself.  There's nothing wrong with that.  He doesn't need to be "fixed".

"He seems to only bond with one adult here."  Yes, that's right, perhaps it was because he had a nanny for his first 18 months, but this is how he is.  This is how he was at the last daycare center. Over time he becomes close to adults in a serial manner.  That's just his way.

Seeking an answer to why he was different than all other kids in her daycare, she asked "Was he premature?"  Um, no.  Sarah and I both had to take a five minute timeout after that last one.

Clearly this woman is not prepared to care for any child that behaves differently than the others.  We are so getting him into some other facility. 

Polyphonic Spree, "The Fragile Army"

I've never been a big Polyphonic Spree fan.  There was a song or two I liked and I thought all their stuff sounded the same.  While they don't seem to have branched out too much from their core sound, the new album "The Fragile Army" is them at their best.  There are a number of bright spots on it, especially "Section 28: Guaranteed Nightlite".

Take a moment and pick it up.   I am listening to it for free on my all-you-can-eat Rhapsody music subscription for less than $20 / month.  (I also got the new Marilyn Manson, which is all goth torch songs, weirdly enough.  Apparently having Rose McGowan dump you has the same effect on Manson that it would have on the rest of us.)

My professional blog

I've started posting again over on my professional blog about PR, technology, and politics.  If you have a chance add it to your RSS feeds or bookmarks.

http://www.safdar.net/cto/

If I ever tell you I'm going to buy a power strip....

....stop me, hold me down, and wave one of the six power strips I've just unpacked in my face. I'm not even done going through me endless "parts" boxes.  Power supplies, old cpu cases, motherboards, etc.  I've got a freakin' Fry's computer warehouse in here.

God please, no more power strips.

More photos from my 40th birthday

Johanna has put up more photos from the party, taken by the incredibly talented and entirely underpaid photographer, Heidi Schuman.  We ran out of budget for the party before we got to the photographer, but Heidi came and took some photos anyway.  The least I can do is tell you to hire her for your event or professional gig.

Making space

So, I'm in the middle of a space project here at the new house.  With the knowledge that I'll be here for 25 years, and the blank canvas of a new house untainted by our historical use of it, I'm using every one of the clever ideas I've ever heard of to make every inch of space more useful.

The one I implemented this weekend was shelf risers for our food storage.  It's an idea that's been around for years but I first saw it on Lifehacker.  I'm sure there's someone that sells these out of the Skymall catalog for $24 a set, but it's really a simple idea.  (Oh yeah, it sells for $14 plus shipping!  A crime!)  Your cabinet is so deep that you can't see what you've got in the back, and that lends itself to clutter.  Instead go get yourself some 2x4's or 1x2's at Home Depot and ask them to cut them to the length of your cabinets.  Then go to the back of the cabinet and stack them three high.  In front of that, stack them two high, in front of that put one, and voila, you've got a four level cabinet that lets you see the cans in the back clearly, and lends itself really well to good organization.

You can see the result above.  It's totally awesome, and I'm entirely proud of the fact that I did it with $5 worth of lumber!

One of my many other projects over the weekend was replacing a ball cock and a flapper on a toilet.  $10 in parts that saved me at least $100 in a plumber.  Although aggravating, the plumber visit could have been affordable, but what motivated me was that time.  It took me ten minutes each to install the parts in my toilet, whereas the visit from the plumber would have sucked up much more of my time.