The Pnebleu Blog

Someone recently told me they didn’t get into photography because they didn’t have a good camera.  That took me aback.  Yes, a good DSLR takes great pictures, but it is more about the person behind the camera than the camera itself.  From 2002 until 2009, I was using the lower end Kodak snap and shoot cameras for all of my pictures.  I have so many great pictures from those years.  The quality of the photo (grain, resolution, focus, exposure, etc.) may not be superb, but for most of the pictures it doesn’t have to be.

This picture, for example, isn’t of the greatest quality, but it conveys a feeling, an emotion.  The photo’s job is done. Photography is the art of conveying a story, feeling, emotion, or event to others visually and empathetically.

Another thing she said was that she didn’t have the artistic skill to take good photos.  That may be, she might not be the next Ansel Adams, but you don’t have to be.  With the abundance of digital photography, most people taking pictures aren’t going to be great photographers.  But the pictures you take have meaning to you and the people you are with.  That is what’s important. Does your picture remind you of the emotion of the moment?

The picture below is probably my favorite picture I’ve taken recently.  It’s not that great a picture, but when I look at it, I’m flooded with memories of my Dad and the opportunities we have to share going forward.

So, no matter your skill or camera, get out there and take some pictures!  Because they are for you and your loved ones, it doesn’t matter how good they are!

What does one say when inspired to write, but has nothing to write about?  That is where I am at.

There are so many things in life to enjoy, but oft we fail to even appreciate the most obvious.  The beauty of nature, the flavors of fresh food, a good strong wind through your hair, a clear starry night sky, a long hot shower, the love of one’s family, the company of friends, God’s unending blessings.  We’ve been given taste, touch, smell, sight, hearing, and our minds  to observe the world around us, experience it, learn it, use it, and understand it.

There are times when I get caught up in the day to day and loose track of when it is.  April has just disappeared.  I’ve just let it disappear.  I need to make a change and appreciate everything and every moment God has given to me.  Life is a wonderful, one-time only experience; I want to make the most of it.

Wednesday is the beginning of my last semester at Texas A&M University.  I am beginning to realize that.  In May, I will be graduated.  I don’t know what I want to do.  Not knowing what’s going to happen is starting to bother me.  I know I shouldn’t worry because God will take me where I need to go.  The job market is tightening up because of the economic situation, but I still have opportunity in front of me.

I have not lived my life.  I have put off a lot of things because I “just wanted to get through school, then I would get it.”  I’m not starting a pity party, I just committing myself to do the things that I want and should do.  My camping trip is a good example of something I did without waiting.

2009 is a new year and I’m going to try to make the most of it.  I am also going to try to figure out what I want to do.  Doing that might put my planning mind at rest.

So, this has been an interesting ride for the last few months.  We had a woman versus a black man on the Democratic side of the fence and a Mormon versus a maverick on the Republican side.  Then, it narrowed down to McCain and Obama.  After the selection of the vice presidential candidates, a new energy and vigor was introduced to the 2008 race.  Female Governor Palin was a surprising choice on the part of McCain  and Obama’s lack of selecting Hillary Clinton shocked many.  With less than a month to the vote, things are getting intense.

The economy has been up and down.  The Dow, S&P, and NASDAQ have all fall a great deal in the last few weeks.  Many people believe the government should bail out the failing companies to “save” the economy.  I don’t think it will be enough.  We have based our economy on credit, and credit must be paid back.  Stricter lending policies must be brought back.  People not able to pay back a loan should not get it.  That may be harsh, but these are obviously hard times.  The national deficit is out of control.  We must stop spending money, and keep taxes low.  The government shouldn’t spend money it doesn’t have.  Raising taxes in an unstable economic climate would be disastrous.  It would slow the economic recovery further.

The next four years are going to be historic.  Either a female VP or a black President will lead the country through the worst ecomonic conditions in a very long time.  I do not doubt that we will recover, but it will take time and wise leadership.

“Success will come with patience.” That was the last advice I got in a fortune cookie at T. Jin’s.  So far, I have lived by that motto.  I work hard everyday, at work, school, or play.  Always giving my best effort, I usually succeed, but when I don’t, I just keep going.  You can look at the token in that light, or you can look at it in a different light.

“Success will come with patience.” You have to wait for success to come.  You’re unsuccessful now, but maybe in the future, if you wait patiently, success will come.  Obviously, I try to look at it in the first more optimistic frame.

What is success?  Is it becoming the CEO of a Fortune 100 company, making millions of dollars, and marrying the perfect trophy wife?  I don’t think so.  I think of success as doing my best everyday, enjoying my work, and leading a life in service to God.

If you’ve read the sidebar, you should be aware that I’m a junior at Texas A&M University.  TAMU is full of traditions.  Greeting passersby with a “howdy” is one of the most recognizable traditions practiced on- and off-campus.  Every year there is a cyclical decline of the use of “howdy.”  High in August and decline through December.  There is a low spike in January, then it declines to it’s lowest in May.  I’ve notice over the pass three years an overall decline in “howdy’s” use.

I attribute the iPod as a leading reason for the decline in “howdy’s” that I hear.  The popularity of the Apple iPod and other mp3 players lead to people wearing headphones to and from class on campus.  Listening to music, Aggies are less likely to spout a brief “howdy” to the person walk by, and if you walk by someone wearing headphones/earbuds you are less likely to say “howdy,” as not to disturb them.

This is a sad trend here in Aggieland.  I hope the new classes admitted will push to bring back “howdy” to the levels it once was.  I’ll do my part and say “howdy” to everyone I pass.

The following is an essay I wrote in response to an assignment to identify and discuss my favorite viral marketing campaign and give the reasons why I selected it.  I’ll put the grade up here when I get it, if it’s good enough.  If I fail, I’m not going to tell you!

Viral marketing is not new, but its recent growth and increased power have brought it to the forefront of every corporation’s marketing department.  Every conscience marketer of product or service is trying to create a way for the customers to work for them.  File-sharing on services like Kazaa or on networking standards like BitTorrent is a great example of viral marketing.  A music customer rips a CD and uploads the music files to share with friends or strangers alike.  This is the perfect example of a virus in the market.  The music starts with one customer, and then someone else downloads the song.  If they like it, the song is shared with more people.  If they like it enough, that someone else may purchase other songs or albums from that artist, go to a concert, or become a die-hard fan willing to spend hundreds of dollars on merchandise and experiences related to that artist, just like some of the fans of Nine Inch Nails did.

On Sunday, March 2nd, 2008, Nine Inch Nails released Ghosts I-IV for sale in a variety of ways.  First, they offer a $5 package including all 36, DRM-free tracks in your choice of high-quality MP3, an open source, lossless format called FLAC, or in the Apple Lossless format which will work in iTunes.  This package also includes many extra features.  The next choice for $10 includes all of the above and a 2-disc CD pack shipped in April.  For $75, you get the five-dollar package, plus the 2-disc CDs, plus 2 hardcover books, plus a data DVD with source .wav files of the recording sessions for remixing, plus a Blu-ray disc of the 36 tracks in extremely high-resolution audio.  The last choice for $300 is a limited edition collection of only 2,500 sets signed and numbered by Trent Reznor which include all of the above and a four-LP set of Ghosts I-IV.  Next to all of these choices to purchase they offered Ghost I, consisting of 9 DRM-free tracks, for free to download as a sample.  They have also posted this sample on BitTorrent among other file-sharing avenues.  Giving away something for free to entice customers to buy more is not a new concept, but doing it in the music industry, which has so readily sued its customers for sharing the music, is innovative.  The standard thought in the industry is that if you give your music away for free the customers won’t buy anything from you.  That theory is starting to fall apart and Nine Inch Nails’ album release is a prime example for how the industry can virally market the music and still make money on it and other premium products or services.  By Tuesday, March 4th, all 2,500 limited edition collections had been sold for $300 each; that’s $750,000 from just the most expensive of the choices.  It’s too early to say how well Nine Inch Nails will do from this release and marketing strategy, but I’m pretty confident that it will be a large success.  Included with all of the packages are desktop wallpapers for your monitor, and more importantly I might add, twenty-two images specifically designed for use on the web.  They range in sizes and design for instant messaging icons, webpage banners, images for blog posts, and any number of other uses.  Nine Inch Nails wants to give its fans and all of the people who download the free sample an easy way to advertise and spread its product.  Nine Inch Nails, Radiohead, and many other bands or artists are quickly catching onto the fact that viral marketing of their music is an important and viable means of generating revenue.  They are also realizing that penalizing the fans for sharing the music with others is only increasing the number of people aware of the band and potential customers.

The reason I choose this campaign is because it is close to my interests and my experience.  I am very interested in technology and music.  The recent technological changes in the music industry have all happened within the grasp of my lifetime.  The most significant change is the digital conversion which has happened most recently.  Within this decade, 2000 to 2010, I believe that most music will move from a physical medium, such as record, cassette, or CD, to the digital medium.  Digital allows for much more flexibility in the quality, access, transportability, et cetera.  From listening to songs online, I probably bought 5 or 6 albums and then got my friends to buy several albums after listening to the music with them.  The songs we listened to were less quality than when the songs were played on the radio, and much poorer quality than the songs on CD.  The lower quality encouraged me to not be satisfied with the free listen but to pay for a higher quality or premium version.  One of the music industry’s main concerns is the availability of pristine, high-quality digital songs that can be copied limitlessly.  However, most consumers aren’t criminals and would be willing to pay for those perfect songs.  This leaves the door open to give out samples of music at moderate sound quality for the purposes of viral marketing.  The customer can get a medium quality sample of an album for free on a social networking site such as Last.fm or Facebook, which then entices them to buy the lossless, or perfect, quality full album from a music store or from the artist’s webpage.  Change is coming for the music industry, whether they like it or not.  There is a great opportunity for them to embrace file-sharing as a means of viral marketing and still be profitable, instead of litigating the fans for just spreading the word, and product, of their favorite music artist, which in the end only hurts themselves.