June 2006 Archive

So I’ve been in vegas 13 hours already and I’m in vegas for the next 28 hours.

I have loads of stories to tell ya already.

OMG.

First off, when you arrive at the vegas airport at 7:30 at night (after a half hour delay), it is a balmy 108 degrees outside. Balmy.

That would be about 40 degrees higher than it is on a typical evening in SF during the summertime. I’m measuring in Farenheit of course. but jayzus.

My friend A. has decided to keep me company during my trip. a) because he knows the city well and desperately wanted to go see the shows I’d been given the opportunity to check out. b) because I told him how much the last time I went to vegas *sucked sweaty monkey nuts* and how he’d like to help me overwrite with 7x with 0s that patch of bad memory. (I’m such a nerd that I can’t believe I used that analogy. Does that make me pathetic or cute?)

Why am I in vegas?

Because through Mr. Smokler, I’m part of the citizen media crew that will be reviewing the brand new show LOVE inspired by the Beatles here at the Mirage Hotel – produced by those Candian hippie circus freaks “Cirque De Soleil“. Ya know, I lilke them Canadian hippie circus freaks. He wasn’t able to come to the event, and I’m guessing because I went apeshit with my reviews for the SFIFF film festival, that I’d be able to produce pretty decent coverage and generally rock out with my glock out during this event.

So back to the story of last night.

7:30 PM arrival in Las Vegas

8:00 PM arrival at the Mirage

8:10 PM attempt to check in. Speak to the new girl.

8:16 PM attempt to check in. Speak to the not so new girl. Am told that my reservation is not found in the system.

8:30 PM attempt to check in. Speak to the other not so new girl. Call the person to find out what the heezy happened to my reservation.

8:45 PM attempt to check in. Speak to the assistant assistant manager. Discover that for whatever reason my reservation was *cancelled* because they had me down for a sunday arrival, not monday. And somehow they’re *sold completely out* and I’m pretty Shit outta luck.

They offer me a voucher for the fucking California Pizza Kitchen.

What. The. Fuck.

CPK? Jayzus motherfuckers. I’m supposed to be covering this show. I’m supposed to have tickets for Zumanity at the 10:30 show. I’m supposed to be treated like swank press people.

Not classy whatsoever. I roll eyes and say… “Come *ON”.

A. trys to play goodcop while I’m obviously fuming badcop on the situation. He plays up my “press” angle. And I’m just thinking to myself that I’ve so far, received 4 levels of being completely blown off. I am not pleased.

Service at the mirage? Pretty ass. I’m wondering if it’s because I look like I do. Fairly youngish. And sweaty. In a tank top and jeans. A backpack that’s been mended with duct tape. And a duffle bag that I borrowed from my roommate

9:00 PM attempt to check in. Speak to the assistant manager. Calls are made. A. tells me that they’ve *gotta* have a room and we’re just still not talking to the right people.

9:10 PM attempt to check in. Contact pr/travel person and leave a voice mail msg. Have now left 4 voicemails to the dear heart who calls back in panic mode and is utterly mortified to learn about the snaffoo.

9:15 PM. Am finally delivered keys to go check in.

JAYZUS.

Immediately take a washcloth bath to run off and try to get cleaned up & pretty for whatever mischief catches me that evening. Charles Zukow succeeds in coordinating my tickets to catch Zumanity at the 10:30 show and I make myself pretty. Charles Zukow is now my favorite person in the whole wide universe.

Oh, and did I fail to mention that when I went to the bathroom to get cleaned up that I discovered the following on the counter?

a) A half used up bottle of shampoo. From WHO? I just checked in to the fucking room.

b) A lovely piece of soap with pubic hairs stuck on it. Class.

All. Fucking.Class at the Mirage, folks.

And oh, while the toilet paper roll was folded neatly on the edge, there was toilet paper and piss in the toilet.

WHO THE FUCK WAS IN THAT HOTEL ROOM AND WHY WERE THEY PISSING AND RUBBING THEIR PUBES ON SOAP IN MY ROOM?

At that point, i was just pleased to have a room and too exhausted from the ordeal to complain. Gack.

Ok. And then off to a fab little nosh at Gallaghers in New York New York and then the show Zumanity.

Let me say this about the show.

HOT. SEXY. HOLY FRICKING CRAZY HORNINESS AND TITTIES.

And also HOT MEN. WITH AMAZING ABS.

AND 2 OF THEM EVEN MAKE OUT WITH EACH OTHER. AFTER SPARRING WITH EACH OTHER IN A CAGE MATCH. CAGE MATCH!!!!

AND HOT WOMEN. WITH WIPS.

AND TOPLESS ASIAN CHICKS SWIMMING TOGETHER IN A LARGE FISHBOWL

HOT BLONDES DRESSED IN SCHOOL GIRL OUTFITS HULA HOOPING AS THEY SPIN UP INTO THE AIR. HULA HOOPS!

AND A HOT MIDGET.

AND WAIT, I”M FORGETTING STUFF

AND A HOT DRAG QUEEN AS MC WHO TELLS YOU THAT YOU SHOULD GET A BUNCH OF SPICY JAM & SOME DILDOES AND SOME POPPERS AND HOT SEX
COMPANY FOR THE NIGHT AFTER THE SHOW.

Poppers?

I turned to A. and asked, “What the hell do jalapeno poppers have to do with this.”

He laughs at me for a good 5 minutes. Nitrous, amyl nitrate you idiot.

“Oh.”

Good fricking show, my friends. And that was pretty much my evening. And staying up until 4:30 in the morning responding to email and trying to get some work done. I’m currently in the press box looking over the materials for LOVE.
Now you can’t walk 5 slot machines within the hotel without running into some promotion for this show. It’s on the walls. It’s on your key cards. It’s on more walls. And did I mention that it’s on some of the walls? Now, part of me is quite the skeptic in terms of how the Beatles can be integrated with Canadian hippie circus freaks. But the production details and press release look very compelling. Sir George Martin, The Beatles original producer, and his son Giles Martin have offered up an extensive archive of Beatles recordings to develop the production. It will be showcased in a brand new theater with 100-foot digital moving images & 360 seating.

It may just be the hotness. Not sure yet. But I’m going to see what they do with Abbey Road, Help!, and Back in the USSR along with 25 other Beatles Classics. There’s a character in the production who will be playing the Walrus. Fascinating prospects arrise. More later.

I hope to meet up with two of my favorite people later this evening.

IMG_0117.JPG

Originally uploaded by minjungkim.

Somedays I feel really relaly really pimp.

PIMP!

My favorite band Scrabbel has a run in with Margaret Cho and she *WRITES* about it on her blog.
My.Head.Explodes.

I’m like famous & published in a (yet another)book project.

Check it out here.

Cool contributers from around the interweb! Melissa Summers, Stuart Bridgett, Ernie Hsiung, Min Jung Kim, Krissa Corbett Cavouras, Ross Wolinsky, Claire Zulkey, and many more awesome people.It’s now available for pre-order at the low, low cost of just $15 and no additional shipping charge!
And pre-order it here!

WOot woot woot woot

Andrew Huff & Cinnamon Cooper (Of the Huff&Cooper Chicago Peeps of awesomeness)

Are MARRIED! 

Watch the insanity that ensued a little bit yesterday.

Good stuff.

And a crapload of amazing fun photos here.

An observation from a midwest girl, living in SF, working in a web 2.0 company, former candidate for business school, and marketing for both big and small brands (From Supernews=>RemarQ Communities =>Kefta Marketing Solutions =>Comcast => Currently at writing) for 10 years and having written and spoken for nearly 15 years from the Detroit Freepress, KoreAm Journal, Asian Week, Chinese Software Proffessional Association,SXSW, KSW, LocusArts, Asian American Theater Company, etc. And ooh! brand new news…I’ve got a literary agent now! I must be doing something right.)
So this tweaks me.

Developers who are working on consumer products but only talking to other developers. Or in this case, developers who are working in San Francisco and only talk to possible users who are in san francisco who are developers themselves.
If you have any intention of designing a product that works for mom, the teen down the street, or Father Boris, then you need to actually sit down with these people in person.

From a marketing perspective, what I’m saying seems very un-SF. After all, SF people are so *very very very clever* and therefore must totally be determining the trend for all user behavior nationwide and internationally. (Wow… in a weird way, doesn’t that seem like top=>down social arrogance)
Why this is totally flawed:

Developers have a completely different mindset than the end user. Not only in terms of understanding the technology of what’s hot & pretty right now and getting uber engaged and entrenched in usability terms, but they’re also early adopters and have an ease with change. Highly resiliant to it. Addicts and fanatics.
End users are not necessarily like this. In more cases than not they are passive audience to marketing & technology trends. They won’t know what they want or what they like until they see it. And even then, when they hate something or it doesn’t work for them in the way that they want it to, they aren’t as able to articulate their needs or wants. They use clunky tools because it’s what they’re used to. Why else would so many people be on Myspace when the UI/Design/Stability/Speed/etc of that site is so.fucking.broken. Because it works enough. And moving to another, slicker, more functional site causes the value of the product to diminish like no-one’s business because the userbase isn’t there.

How many people are on livejournal vs. WordPress? Is that so different a scenario?
Any learning curve that requires fundamentally different behavior is a serious obstacle for adoption. It’s not one to be taken lightly. It’s neither easy or fast to get a userbase to change over from a clunky piece of entrenched behavior over to something slick, no matter how much prettier and logical the design of the new product is.
This is the reason why Microsoft IE still owns over 80% of the browser marketshare. While the mozilla platform is more secure, faster, and feature rich, Microsoft has created an aggressive revenue model based on smart (if you’re a shareholder) marketing moves including relationships with ISPs, PC Manufacturers, and bundling with other software.

Why do software packages include auto-update features for virus definitions, security patches, and whatnot? Because the average user is *NOT* necessarily very good at adopting new behavior, keeping track of technology trends that may/maynot affect them, and being uber resiliant to change. I’m not being condescending when I say this. I’m being realistic.

And in any business that plans to survive and succeed you have to keep clear your revenue model. A little money from a lotta people or a lotta money for a few people. Puma’s or Manolo’s? Brand marketing & top down marketing strategy makes a serious difference in terms of messaging, perception, the cache of coolness, pricepoint determination adn etc. In otherwords ==> everything that drives your business towards success. Why do you think Isaac Mizrahi has his deal with Target? This is top down marketing that has worked very successfully without strangleholding the customer base.

I mean, just because you’re marketing a Web2.0 product does not mean that the fundamentals of market research, strategy, branding, and CRM aren’t still valid even though the tools for conducting these components of marketing have become more sophisticated.

What I’m saying is that you have to develop products at least understanding the most common denominator and you can totally do that without makign products for just the dumbest common denominator. Make a product clever, but keep it accessible. And not just from a CSS vs Tables web standards accessible.

If you can do that with your product and brand, you’re gold.

Make the product keeping in mind my dad who can barely double click. For Cousin Steve who’s smart as a whip but doesn’t want to mess with stuff that still works, “If it works, then don’t break it or replace it.” For Rebecca who’s got more social engagements and professional commitments than she does time to migrate all her contacts, calendars, and email from one webap to another. Keep THAT IN MIND. It’s not pretty, but it’s reality.
Can some people here in Web 2.0 land get their asses outta their heads for a little bit and stop developing for their own clusterfuck?

Recommended Reading:

Crossing the Chasm

Mass Affluence.

The Making of a Name

Counterintuitive Marketing

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