All Posts By

Jon Gatrell

Did Morgan Spurlock Damage the McDonald’s brand?

I remember with great joy and glee when I would request going to McDonald’s during my early childhood and I clearly remember it meant anything – [tag]Arby’s[/tag], [tag]Burger King[/tag], [tag]KFC[/tag] or [tag]Wendy’s[/tag] – just fast food please. I also think I remember this word usage in college, but it doesn’t seem to be the case today in casual conversation. This may not even be a reasonable observation by the extremely focused group of folks I interact with, which are effectively 30+ yrs old for the most part.

So the question I have is – Has the McDonald’s brand been permanently damaged for the 30 somethings due to [tag]Morgan Spurlock[/tag]? This question came about due to another post I made on Culinary Gizmodo:

So we all like McDonald’s, most will probably not admit it and seldom not feel guilty after a visit – but we DO like McDonald’s. All of us have new way of referring to a quick stop as Micky D’s. Ever since the movie Super Size Me from Morgan Spurlock we refer to McDonald’s with euphemisms: “grabbing something quick” or “getting a burger”

I’m not saying we never admit we eat at McDonald’s, but if we do the admission somehow includes a salad and Dasani. I think many of use say fast food instead of McDonald’s as well.  So my hypothesis is that at some point since [tag]Super Size Me[/tag] in 2004, Morgan’s work could quite possibly have demoted the McDonald’s brand to a less than synonym status of the like of Coke or Kleenex.

The other option is that Spurlock didn’t erode the brand and my cohort group just isn’t a naturally strong demographic. Thoughts?

October 6, 2007 by
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Growing up web…

So the post below made me think of the guy who introduced me to why it is important to understand this whole web thing – Jeff Fergurson from wunderground.org. When I met Jeff it was on a porch in Ypsilanti, Michigan at friend’s house named Mike Foster, had to be 1997 or 98 and he look like he did below, bottom right:

All I remember was the absolute kindness of the guy, his willingness to chat about his work gig and his passion for his kids. This was a guy I wanted to emulate. I was very happy when I was first able to pay him money for weather on a portal I was the PM on, we scrapped the portal and I lost touch when I left Ann Arbor in 2001 and moved my life. So I decided to look him up with a universal search query and sure enough – same cool cat.

Jeff Ferguson

only gray… I can’t talk I have some cool gray hair when I grow a beard.   I’ve linked them in through my blog for appreciation of his insights and consistent efforts towards [tag]sustainable agriculture[/tag].

NOTE: [tag]Ann Arbor[/tag] was green before [tag]carbon credits[/tag] were cool.

October 6, 2007 by
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What is Universal Search? An increase in productivity.

I know we all have been noticing a mix of images, text, news and video on our search returns from google. This is changing my life as a web user, it’s been live for months on Google and basically exposes content you may not have known you wanted to see or even existed. The real world continues to morph towards rich media with embedded videos in [tag]powerpoint[/tag] or sound, so too is the web and now it continues to get richer online thanks to [tag]Universal Search[/tag].

Universal search uses traditional text returns, but with other tagged media driving a global folksonomy which is getting more and more important/valuable for finding the RIGHT content. What are tags? Tags are not some cryptic header code or HTML syntax – its a human readable plain english way of simply explaining what something is, typically used when uploading files to [tag]YouTube[/tag] or posting to a blog. Tags are increasing the relevance of [tag]Folksonomy[/tag] and provides the web as people see it, not machines or coders.

So times they are a changing. Old world surfing is going the way of walking the stacks as the library. I put the original search inline with the Dewey Decimal system, I know it’s far more complicated than a rigid and almost incomprehensible system which required librarians to assist, but the old search just wasn’t scaling to meet the requirements of users.

So will universal search create new jobs? Probably, not just for technologist but for generalists (folksonomist). Think about it – library science is a discipline, so search has an opportunity to be a new soft science as well.

So where am I going with this? Universal search is transforming EVERYONE’s online experience from a linear browsing activity to multi-threaded surfing adventures. The other big win is the tab concept first deployed by [tag]Firefox[/tag] and now part of Internet Explorer.

Many corporations don’t yet realize the lost productivity due to not having IE 7.0 or allowing Firefox installations, I did an non-scientific exercise and I think universal search and tabs have a productivity lift of about 15%, for not good searchers – the control group was my wife it looks like perhaps even more like 20-25%, so this is low hanging fruit for many organizations since both apps are free.

A user can now conveniently tab out content from a search for rapid non-linear review/assessment leveraging multi-media search returns. This means no more do we just look at the first one, hit the back button, look at the second one, hit the back button….slow…. The other option was the only slightly more productive shift-click to pop a new window, but you then had to close windows and often got lost, a totally crowded desktop and often closed the wrong window – not fun.

We are able to get a rapid review of search returns and explore within out losing our relative location in a search initiative.

So marketers have new opportunities with universal search, but the real opportunity is for users. So go get a tabbed browser, and rss reader and welcome to the new web. What is an RSS reader – watch this video

The productivity lift by using a RSS reader is exponential.

October 6, 2007 by
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Top 25 Blog Styles

Have to give credit where credit is due. First I love [tag]slideshare.net[/tag], this is the coolest thing for me. Mainly because I don’t edit video, but also because I just like [tag]PowerPoint[/tag]. The other piece which requires credit is the presentation by Rohit Bhargava on the 25 Styles of Blogs, I also found his blog and his book looks interesting.

I would have never thought to the level of granularity Rohit did, so kudo’s to him as it is insightful and inspiring.



October 6, 2007 by
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