Y.P. Cheng (鄭仰平), formerly Chief Conference Interpreter of Chinese Language Division with the Hong Kong government, is one of the Interpreters/translators that I admire the most, and I am looking forward to pick up a copy of his 《不在香港的日子》.
It was my pleasure finally to meet Tony Lacavera, chairman of Globalive & WIND Mobile, in person at the CRTC Breakfast at 2010 Banff World TV Festival after interviewing Tony over the phone in Sept 08 and Dec 09. I wanted to video interview Tony after the breakfast but he had a plane to catch so Tony promised to let me have another phone interview with him.
- How is WIND Mobile preparing for Sept 1st, 2011 when analog TV broadcast goes digital and those old analog TV frequency spectrum becomes available ? Any plans to bid for some new frequencies? (note: WIND currently doesn’t have coverage in Quebec.) Is WIND ready for new competitions from winners of the upcoming auction?
- Good to see WIND Mobile is keeping its promise and keeping an open blog taking users’ comments and feedback. Does WIND find it difficult to get useful insight from the comments and feedback which sometimes has lots of “noise”? I asked Tony to give some specific ideas or suggestions from users that WIND has implemented, unfortunately Tony wasn’t able to give me any examples.
- Tony mentioned that both him and Ken Campbell, WIND Mobile CEO are available to Canadians when the other wireless providers aren’t.
- WIND Mobile had lots of network problems a few weeks ago in my area (Calgary SW) and it seems to have improved in the last few weeks. While Tony was unable/unwilling to tell me how many network towers are in Calgary, he told me the total number of towers have doubled since launch.
- Is WIND Mobile able to get network or tower sharing access with incumbents? In an April 2010 speech, Tony mentioned that WIND had sent over 100 sharing requests to the incumbents and had no success. Unfortunately, this is still true! The incumbents are doing their best to NOT help WIND. :)
- The top WIND Mobile data user has been reportedly used 118 GB in one month. I suggested that using the rate of 5 cents per MB charged by the incumbents, 3 GB max data for the best $100/moth plan, the additional charges for the additional 115GB will be $5,888!!! Tony talked about the existing well publicized fair usage data policy with no cap, which I think is very fair.
- Tony also talked about how WIND see Public Mobile and Mobilicity as pure play wireless company. And since there aren’t much details on Shaw’s wireless plan, Tony didn’t have much to say yet.
- Finally, I asked Tony will WIND consider selling out to the big three in a few years down the road. And what kind of new promotions are coming up in coming months.
In the interview, Tom and I talked about TiVo’s relationship with the advertising industry and television networks. When people are fast-forwarding commercials using technologies like DVR, television “needs to find different forms of inventory that involve different technologies as a way to present that [advertising] so that the advertising is compelling”. Tom gave the example of TiVo’s ability to pause live TV, so viewers can search and find any products appearing in a TV show (a sweater worn by an actress, a golf club used by an athlete, or any products on screen at the moment) and then turn the thought into an actionable transaction where the viewer can buy the product. TiVo is putting a lot of meta data into the TV content and movie content and in doing so, create a lot of “transaction opportunities”.
I also asked Tom When will TiVo come to Canada? And will the data collected by TiVo be transferable to Canada and other countries.
Tom Rogers is President and Chief Executive Officer of TiVo (NASDAQ: TIVO), the creator of and a leader in television services for digital video recorders (DVRs). With a career that operates at the nexus of where media, technology, advertising and public policy come together for more than two decades, Tom brings to TiVo a distinctive blend of operational leadership and corporate strategy experience across multiple facets of the industry. Read the rest of this entry »
After working as a creative executive in the advertising and gaming industries, Dick partnered in 1999 with Joop van den Ende, creating some instant TV-successes in Holland. A year later he formed a creative team with John de Mol specializing in “global TV-formats”. In 2004, de Rijk signed an exclusive partnership with Endemol International that resulted in numerous worldwide format successes. In 2007, three of Endemol’s top-5 format properties were created by de Rijk, including their number one blockbuster – on air in some 150 countries – Deal Or No Deal. Under his new alliance with ProSiebenSat.1, Dick will be based out his offices in Hilversum, Netherlands.
It was my great pleasure to meet, listen, and learn from Ian Brennan, creator/writer of Glee at the 2010 Banff World TV Festival. The following are video clips of Ian‘s Master Class and press conference.
Press conference
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The following is Ian’s bio from Banff.
Ian Brennan
Writer, Glee
“Glee marked Ian Brennan’s first foray into television writing. Brennan began his acting career in Chicago working with the prestigious Steppenwolf and Goodman Theatres. He later moved to New York to pursue other opportunities in television and film, and has been involved with off-Broadway plays at the Vineyard, Playwrights Horizons and MCC Theatres. Brennan is a graduate of Loyola University Chicago. He was inspired to write Glee – a television show about a high school show choir – after participating in his high school’s show choir that never won anything and whose director later spent time in prison.”
An intro about the session,
“Brennan was inspired to write Fox’s smash hit show “Glee” – a television show about a high school show choir – after participating in his high school’s show choir that never won anything and whose director later spent time in prison. Read the rest of this entry »
P.P.S. I met Cam by chance at a Banff breakfast. It was nice to see him again by chance the following day, this time, part way through his breakfast, he got a chance to pitch his animation projects to a broadcaster. :)
David Zucker, executive producer of The Good Wife 2010 Banff World TV Festival master class
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The following is David’s bio at Banff
“David W. Zucker is President of Television for Scott Free and Executive Producer of both the hit CBS drama, THE GOOD WIFE, starring Julianna Margulies, as well as the Friday night stalwart, NUMB3RS, which will wrap its sixth season in March. He is also Executive Producer of the eight-hour limited series, THE PILLARS OF THE EARTH, based on Ken Follett’s international best-seller. Read the rest of this entry »
I really enjoy the pilot of Jason Priestley‘s new TV series “Call Me Fitz“, it looks like great TV where Jason plays Richard “Fitz” Fitzpatrick, “a morally bankrupt used-car salesman whose consequence-free life is complicated by the arrival of do-gooder Larry (Ernie Grunwald), another salesman who claims he is Fitz’s conscience.“
Note: I want to add that the cool and character fitting underwear wore by Jason in “Call Me Fitz” were designed by a Canadian company (Ginch Gonch) and we first heard about the brand/business pitched on CBC TV on Dragons’ Den in 2006. It looks like the company was sold in July 2008. Anyway, good job by the PR team to get Ginch Gonch products featured.
At Banff, Sheri talked about finding “Fitz” in Jason after watching this QTV interview of Jason on the internet. I think this is a good lesson for actors/actresses as you never know how and where you will be discovered for a role.
“Pick a day. Ask people to record what’s going on in their lives – getting a haircut, having a birthday party, taking a nap, whatever – and post the video on YouTube. Turn the footage into a feature-length documentary.
Crazy? Maybe. But Ridley Scott (“Gladiator”) and Kevin Macdonald (“The Last King of Scotland”) are sure giving it a try.
“Life in a Day” is a global experiment in user-generated filmmaking, an increasingly hot area on the Web. A similar project is underway involving Lionsgate and Massify, a social network for digital content creators. Mass Animation is an upstart that is trying, with some success, to make animated films by tapping the Facebook community.“
I was watching the testimonies from fcic session 1 of “The Role of Derivatives in the Financial Crisis” Wednesday and came to a deeper understanding of Zero Sum Games. In a “frozen” (“illiquid“) market or when the solvency of your counterparties are in doubt, the delicately constructed Zero Sum Games don’t quite have to “zero out”. And when that happen, things can be quite ugly.
Can this be from Apple, a brand people supposed to “Love”? [HT FP "Apple solution to iPhone signal problem fails to satisfy"] “”Apple likes to promote its products as “magical,” which might be a more accurate description than the company ever intended. The iPhone 4 is doing a very good job of making Apple’s once-sterling reputation disappear.”"
Following is Apple’s letter Regarding iPhone 4. Looks like Apple didn’t learn much from the Intel Pentium FDIV bug lesson and still think they can PR the problem away. Apple’s recent behaviours are slowly damaging its status as a Lovemark in my mind.
The man — who goes by the online handle Leroy Stick — runs the satirical BPGlobalPR Twitter account that has been chronicling the disaster in the Gulf of Mexico for the last two months.
As many said before, BP having no Twitter voice and letting its Twitter PR nightmare snowball to what it is now truly is an object lesson for any self-respecting companies to learn from.
Posted by kempton 
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