My Name is Kate

Dude, Where's My Haplogroup? Genebase's Disastrous DNA-based Social Network

Updated with actual link to Rose's post about her experience.

So, one of the cool things about being a blogger that a) occasionally writes entertaining posts and b) doesn't have a solid THEME for her blog, is that you get asked to test a number of interesting and generally unrelated products.  One of the recent blogger outreach programs that I participated in was for the DNA Ancestry Project - a product from Vancouver-based Genebase that purports to use DNA as the basis for social networking. 

I am predisposed to liking this product, to LOVING this product.  Social networking?  Rock on.  Love social networking.  DNA analysis?  Who doesn't love DNA analysis?  I saw the Colbert Report episode where he found out his Haplogroup ... I'd like to know mine.

Side Rant: I would link to the Colbert Report and the video clip about Stephen's Haplogroup, but apparently Comedy Central has done an evil deal with the Comedy Network in Canada.  If you are surfing from a Canadian IP address and you try to go to www.comedycentral.com, you are automatically redirected to the Comedy Network.  No choice.  Just redirected.  EVIL.

So, back to DNA.  I am PSYCHED about this product.

The courier arrives and I rip open my box ... it includes a pretty map-poster, a fancy looking swab kit and a CD with software for installation.  Ack!  It's for Windows (I'm on a Mac).  OK, turns out I don't need to use the CD - I can just sign up to the website with the username and password provided in the kit.  So, I create my account and fill in some really basic info in the profile page.  The website is quite complex and not very easy to use.  It also isn't really set up to do "non-traditional" family structures.  I can add a husband, but not a wife.

OK, I can understand - this is about genetics, not social mores.  So, I do the swab test and send it in.  Rose is testing the product too, so she sends in hers at the same time.  And we wait.

I forget about it for a few weeks, what with the holiday season, the redesign of One Degree, etc.  But I login one day (I saw the pamphlet on my desk - I have yet to receive any email notification) and see a golden key by my name.  Ooo ... golden key!  Apparently, this means I have results.  I figured this out through a lot of trial and error.  The problem is, I can't figure out what my results are.  I click on a bunch of different things, trying to figure out what my results mean.  This website is super complicated and super circular.  It's like I'm in voicemail hell, but I'm on a website.  And most links lead to "buy another test from us" which is incredibly frustrating because I haven't had any results from my first test.

This website fills me with rage.

After more clicking and comparing with Rose's control panel, it turns out my results are still "pending" (meanwhile Rose is secure in the knowledge of her haplogroup ... you'll have to read her post - I don't want to spoil it for you).  She and I sent our tests in at the same time, so I'm not sure why mine is still pending.  I didn't swab vigorously enough?

Now, I know that DNA and all the "science" that they are dealing with over at Genebase is tricky and complex.  But if you're going to make claims about social networking, it kinda needs to be dead simple.  Big pretty buttons labeled "Get your test results!" and friendly statements like "We're still processing your DNA ... in the meantime, check out this article on Marie Antoinette's DNA ancestry".  The homepage has pretty buttons and friendly statements ... why doesn't the actual application itself?

I've logged on a couple of times since I first had an inkling they received my buccal sample.  Still nothing.  And it's been at least 6 weeks.  So, I don't know if my sample is bad, they lost it, or perhaps, I really am an alien.  In any case, everytime I go on the site, my frustration level goes through the roof.  I would really encourage Genebase to spend some time and money on some usability experts and some great copy writers.  The actual application is a total disaster.  And if the results you get from your DNA tests are so minimal and Genebase is relying on additional features like the family tree and journaling to keep its site sticky - well, there are dozens of applications out there that do it much better .. whether web-based or run on the desktop.

I wish I would have seen this MarketPlace report on DNA kits (called Who's your grand daddy?) first because it reviews this same product.  Wendy characterizes the desire of people using these test as looking for their "Oprah moment" - an emotional connection with their genealogical past.  Now, I don't even care like some of the folks in this video that I can't find out the exact tribe I'm from.  I didn't really have that expectation.  But I did expect a positive experience and some interesting piece of trivia about my ancestral DNA that I could whip out at a cocktail party.  So far, I haven't even gotten that.  I'm not a fan of this product.  And I think it's over-priced at $129.

If ancestral DNA testing IS something that you're interested in, I would check out National Geographic's Genographic Project.  They seem more reputable; they provide more information about what you can expect from the test; their language and interface are friendlier.  Now, I haven't tried an actual kit from National Geographic, so I can't confirm if their control panel and application are actually more usable, but their screen shot gives that impression.

Also, their price point is under $100 which feels more reasonable.

So, that's my rant about Genebase's DNA Ancestry Project.  I was predisposed to liking it, but now, just classify it as a huge frustration and lesson in how not to design a social networking application.  Though I do like the pretty poster that came with the kit.  If I do ever get any results, I will update.  Many thanks to Capulet Communications who arranged for us to test this product!

Update - April 6, 2008: I finally received my DNA markers!  I've written a follow-up post on my subsequent visit and experience.

Liberal Party design traps Canadian women in the 1950's

The Pink Book?

The PINK Book?

Yeah, yeah .. I know .. it's a play on the Liberal's "Red Book".

That doesn't mean it doesn't suck.

And where did they get the designer for the cover?

Oh, that's right.

Kotex ads from the 1950's.

 

And this is why design and language matter.

I possibly could have lived with "The Pink Book" title if it were an updated, modern take on the power of pink.

I have not read the Pink Book.  And I likely won't.  Because it is telling me, through its flat, saccharine, stereotypical design, that there are no new ideas here.  Nothing that we haven't heard since the 1950's ... telling me to stay home, take care of the kids, cook my husband dinner and wash away all his insecurities.

That isn't my vision of a strong Canadian woman.  If it's going to be pink - I want it PINK and powerful!  Like Pink Ranger.  Now, that's a vision I can support!

Update: Based on Darren's comment below, I updated the title to clarify that my issue with with design and not policy.

CMA's 2006 Digital Marketing Conference Keynotes - where is the diversity?

The CMA's blog's latest post announces two more keynotes at this year's Digital Marketing Conference in Toronto.  C.C. Chapman and David Weinberger join the already announced keynotes of Mitch Joel, Joseph Jaffe, and Brian Eisenberg.

So basically ...

and join and and

Or, White meets Bread at the DMC.

Here's the thing.  These guys are all really smart.  And I intend no disparagement of their quality or their ideas. I either know, have met, or heard speak 60% of them. I link to them, schill their books and wax philosophic about their cool ideas. So, I am, in no way, concerned about the quality of their content or their innovative ideas.

What I am concerned about is this:

As marketers, we need to reach out to all types of people.  Men, poor, women, black, Asian, fat, immigrant, lesbian, socialite, tween, Tory, labourer, hippie, zippie and yuppie.  And to do that we need to hear from a variety of voices - voices that reflect the reality of the world back to us.  So that our thinking and our ideas are enriched by perspectives other than our own.  And that we can engage in authentic conversations with our customers.  I'm concerned that five, middle-aged white guys can't do that as well as a slate of keynotes that included more than one gender, race and age-group.

And I know we can do that without sacrificing quality of ideas or presentations.  So what if the line-up looked something like this:

and and and and

It looks a little more like the customers that I'm trying to engage.  And in the above group of people, in addition to David Weinberger, you have the Chief Experience Officer at JWT (Colleen DeCourcy), Manging Director for Garage Technology Adventures and customer advocate (Guy Kawasaki), the president of Publicis Groupe's new "Future's Practice" (Nick Pahade) and the VP and director of account management at Vidal Partnership (Sandra Alfaro). Smart, snappy, innovative people.

So, how do we get this lineup at conferences like the Digital Marketing Conference or MSN's Digital Ad Summit (which was great, but a case study in middle-aged white men speaker symdrome)?

We need to start saying that a more diverse slate of speakers matters to us.  To our business. To our relationships with our customers.  Tell the Digital Marketing Conference Committee that you're not going to pay $743.65 for white bread.

Bonus Link: AdvertisingAge (you might have to register to see some of this content) has a feature each year, "Women to Watch".  This year, they are celebrating the 10th year of it.  It features talented, smart, innovative marketers who happen to be women.  I'm glad they put it together and applaud them for doing so.  But I long for the day when they don't have to.

Tags: Women in Marketing, CMA, Digital Marketing Conference, toronto, white bread

ebranding - my first cease and desist email!

On Friday, I received my first cease and desist email.  I consider this quite a milestone in my life as a blogger.

   

Date: Fri, 28 Apr 2006 15:56:03 -0400
Subject: Ebranding
From: "Gavan Howe" <[email protected]>
To: kate
CC: "Nancy Miller" <[email protected]>

Kate, please be advised that Howe Brand Communications is the registered owner of the trademark: ebranding and would ask that you cease and desist form [sic] using out [sic] mark in any fashion

Canadian Trademark # TMS 573,202

Gavan Howe

Really?  "ebranding" is trademarked?  Interesting.  So, I checked it out in the Canadian Trademark Database.  A quick search on "ebranding" verifies Howe's claim:

   

ebranding

INDEX HEADINGS:
EBRANDING
BRANDING, E

SERVICES:
(1) Interactive media communications services, namely the creation and development of communications strategies, creative development and execution of advertising materials, and media planning and execution for web sites.

CLAIMS:
Used in CANADA since at least as early as 1996.

I also checked out Howe's site to see how he uses "ebranding".  Howe Brand Communications describes "e-branding" as:

   

“e-branding”™ is the creation and development of communications strategies specifically for brands to have meaning and context on the web. You can never smell a steak sizzling on the web.

   

e-branding™ our creative strategies sprang from the reality that traditional, terrestrial brand positioning strategy doesn’t always work on the web. In late 1996 and early 1997 while working to develop the Bayer Aspirin* web site, we found that in these early days, there was no clear thinking on how to effectively take a land based brand, to the web.

Curiously, Howe uses "e-branding" and not "ebranding" on his website which is the trademark; does that little hyphen makes a difference?  Law-talkin' folks - if you're reading this, I've love to know.

Now, I've read enough cease and desist emails on other bloggers sites to know that the main reason that Howe has to send emails like this is to protect his trademark.  My understanding is that in order to retain a claim on the mark, he has to take reasonable steps to protect it.  Now, it seems to me that ebranding has become a relatively common term, but I wasn't sure.  To Google!

A Google search on "ebranding"  yields 29,500 results.  A search on "e-branding" yields 148,000 results.  Howe has his work cut out for him.  But maybe he only needs to protect it in Canada.  "ebranding Canada" turns up 4,500 results and "e-branding Canada" turns up 9,930 results.  In both of these, I turn up on the first or second pages.   But, wow, I am not the only one.  Howe has some late nights of emailing ahead.  Canada Post even seems to have an individual whose title is "Manager of eBrand Development".  Will he have to change his job title?

I actually don't have any issues with Howe asserting his trademark.  I believe I am violating it in two places: my Bio Page and my Typekey profile page.  These have now been edited.  I'm just not sure it's a useful exercise.  That's the trouble with trademarking words like "ebranding" or "emarketing" or "ebusiness".  Following their initial coinage, a critical mass is reached and everyone starts to use the term.

I searched in the Canadian Trademark Database for "emarketing" and "ebusiness".  There were only three claims containing "emarketing". Two of them were just on the word "emarketing" and were abandonned.  The third uses "emarketing" in conjunction with a business name "Planet Emarketing".  This seems to be a highly defensible trademark, rather than just the word.  It's similar for "ebusiness".  None of the 23 claims have "ebusiness" on its own.  A number of the claims were abandonned.  Two of the most recent I found were for "enabling eBusiness conversations" and "eBusiness conversation manager", trademark applications filed by Ogilvy Renault and recorded as recently as April 13, 2006.

So, the point in all this is I understand the cease & desist, but I question its efficacy at this point.  Will Howe Brand Communications ever be able to assert its full right to the Canadian trademark and become uniquely associated with the phrase "ebranding"?  I don't think they will.  This also gets tricky on a domain level; Howe owns ebrander.ca and ebranders.on.ca, but not ebranding.ca, ebrand.ca or ebrands.ca.  How's *that* all going to play out?  I'll be interested to see if this trademark assertion means that Howe Brand Communications is making a move for a more prominent position in the Canadian online branding consulting space or if there is a plan to perhaps sell their intellectual property in their ebranding [tm]  process.

Tags: ebranding, trademark dispute, cease and desist, Howe Brand Communications

Dear Bell Canada ... don't try to upsell me when I have a service complaint!

Last night we came home and there was no phone service.  After checking in with the concierge, we discovered it was only in our condo -- no one else had complained and the front office reported that no one from Bell Canada had been in the building.

OK.  Let's check the website and see how to get the phone working again.

Bell.ca has a lot going on.  But there is a tab clearly marked "Customer Service".  OK.  So far so good .. big headline reading "Technical Support".  Here's where I get my first twinge that this might not go well ...  "Technical Support" has two options.  "Star Codes" and "User guides, troubleshooting & repairs".  Basically, "Star Codes" and "Other".  OK.  I click "Other".

Now Bell wants me to choose my technology.  OK, reasonable request.  I'm feeling a little more antsy.  How many more clicks?  See .. we're waiting for a call from the hospital because Roro's grandfather has been admitted and it's pretty serious. (Question: how many personas that all of us user-experience folks create, ever include "anxiety" personas?  Not everyone is sitting happily in front of a computer with all the time in the world and zero-other pressures.  Back when I worked on the Allstate Canada site, I created an emergency persona - someone who had just been in a car accident and needed help FAST.  That really helped designers and developers focus on the essential.)

Now, I'm a gadget girl.  I think "Troubleshooting Tips".  I'm smart.  I can do that.  So I click.  Yeep.

Breathe. There are headlines, there are bulleted lists.  Someone went to the trouble to make this scannable.  Searching ... searching ..  Ah Ha!  No Dial Tone.  That's it!  That's me!  Yay!  Bell has enabled me to help myself.  Online customer service rocks!  Click.

WTF?  I'm in a condo.  I can't touch these things in my building.  If I could have switched phone services right then, I would have.

OK.  Maybe I am going about this all wrong.  Maybe I should search for my problem.  So, in the search box, I type "I don't have a dial tone."  I get a page with several results.  #4 looks promising:

Bracing myself, I click.

OK, well I've done the troubleshooting.  I don't want to register.  I'm just going to call.  So we call 310-Bell from our cell phone.  It's 5:15 PM.

Their customer service department is CLOSED.  It's 5:15.  People are just getting home from work.  To broken phone lines.  You're making all these people wait til tomorrow?  Seriously?

Fast-forward to today.  8:15 AM.  We call.  Explain the problem.  The nice customer service lady says "Why didn't you call the repair line?"  Well, we did what the website said to do.  We called 310-Bell.  "Oh, you should have called the repair line.  The number is in the front of the phone book."

Phone book?  We haven't had a phone book for .. oh .. six years?!?  Why isn't the web info the same as the dead-tree info?  And why doesn't the call centre know this?

Moving on .. she takes our number down, says she'll have someone look into it and will call us back on the cell.

Oh, and while we're on the line, she noticed that we're not using Bell Express View - even though its in our building.  Maybe we'd like to subscribe.

No.  Thank you.

Oh, well, what about our DSL service?  Who's your Internet provider?  Rogers?  Well you can save a lot of money with us.

No.  NO.  NO!  Look.  Just fix our phone.  I can't believe you're trying to upsell me on your services at one of the lowest points in my experience with your brand.  Who writes these call centre scripts?  Have they ever had to use their own call centre?

Fast-forward once again.  5:30PM.  We arrived home.  There was a dial tone.  No followup call to the cell phone as promised.  So today, we still have Bell.  Tomorrow .. it is definitely time to consider going to a non-Bell cell phone full time.  I wonder how that City Fido service is?

Technorati Tags: poor+customer+service, Bell+Hell

Not surprisingly, the TV Bureau likes TV best!

Maybe it's unfair of me to be suspicious. 

Maybe my 15+ year advocacy of the online/digital channel(s) has robbed me of my perspective, and I simply can't appreciate facts for facts. 

Maybe. 

See, this came across my inbox today via Marketing Mag's Marketing Daily (sub required):

A new survey from the Television Bureau of Canada concludes that TV advertising remains the most effective way to reach consumers.

Hmm ... so the TV people say TV is the best!  Do tell!

The Media Attitudes 2005 study, conducted by ComQuest Research, a division of BBM (Bureau of Broadcast Measurement), reports that on every variable, consumers report that television advertising has a greater impact on them than advertising they see or hear in any other major medium.

For variables such as effectiveness, influence, power, persuasiveness and engagement, TV advertising leads the pack, ahead of newspapers, radio, magazines and the Internet. In most cases, according to the phone survey of 1,000 respondents, carried out in three waves last summer, newspaper and Internet advertising rank second and third behind TV ads.

Key results of the survey of adults 18+ include:

•80% said television advertising is the most influential, with newspaper ads trailing at 8%;

•75% said television advertising is the most powerful, with newspapers advertising 65 percentage points behind at 10%;

•71% said television advertising is the most persuasive, easily eclipsing newspaper ads at 12%;

•69% said TV ads are the most engaging, far ahead of the 9% rating of newspapers;

•68% said television advertising is the most effective medium, surpassing newspaper advertising at 15%;

•59% said television advertising is the most relevant, more than twice newspaper’s 25%; and

•53% said television advertising is the most authoritative, some 31 points ahead of newspaper ads at 22%.

I'd actually never heard of the Television Bureau of Canada.  So I went to their site (http://www.tvb.ca/).  Reading the copy was like sitting in McMann and Tate's offices on Bewitched.

Welcome to TVB! If this is your first visit to the Television Bureau of Canada's Web site, you're in store for some excellent information about the powers of commercial television advertising and the broadcast industry in Canada.

OK, so .. cheesy writing.  A lot of "bureaus" have cheesy writing.  But then I found their TVBasics [pdf],  "the ultimate compendium and reference guide on television, including viewing trends, statistics, station information and industry composition data, Canadian advertising revenues, market and regional facts about television along with many inter-national comparisons."  And in its section on "2005-2006 Key Strengths of Television Advertising in Canada" I found these gems:

• Television has an aura of importance. It is a prestigious medium, enhancing advertisers' image by its use
• Television appeals to more of the consumers' senses than any other medium
• Television gets closer to one-to-one communication than any other mass medium

And (AND), in this 2005-2006 update,  they have the nerve to tout data from 2000 as current!

The thing is, I like TV.  Really.  But we got a PVR for the holidays and we will never go back.  I know I'm an "early adopter" but Canadians overall are early adopters. And it won't be long before those silver boxes are everywhere.  And with them we're only spending 129 minutes to watch 129 minutes of content, instead of spending 180 minutes to watch 129 minutes of content. (Jaffe has a great chapter on the impact of "On-Demand Viewing" on the TV watching habits of Americans in 2005 in Life After the 30-Second Spot).

In the interest of fair and balanced coverage of Canadian's media choices, I went to trusty Ipsos-Reid.  In a release entitled "The Internet Continues To Impact Consumers' Usage Of Other Media" (sub required) from August 2005, I found some interesting data ...

The recent Ipsos Reid study Online News and Information Seeking: What the Future Holds¹ shows that the amount of time Internet-using Canadians are spending actively using the Internet is on the rise, averaging 12.7 hours per week (up 46% from 8.7 hours in 2002²). This increase appears to have come at the expense of radio as the typical Internet-using adult spends 11 hours per week listening to the radio, down from 16 hours per week in 2002. While weekly Internet usage has surpassed radio listening, television retains the number one position among media sources with Internet-using Canadians averaging 14.3 hours³ of TV viewing per week. Still, the gap between Internet and TV usage is closing (a difference of 1.6 hours per week compared to 4.5 hours in 2002), with the Internet threatening to overtake television should these trends continue.

Cool.  So TV, still very important.  What about younger generations.  Our *future*.  Oh, and me.

Younger Internet-using Canadians (18-34) are particularly enthusiastic users of the Internet, spending more time actively using the Internet (14.7 hours per week) than they do with any other medium, including radio (11.7 hours per week), television (11.6 hours per week) and reading newspapers (2.5 hours per week). [emphasis mine because I simply couldn't resist].

Hmmm ...

OK, but what about *news* specifically?  What medium is the King of News?

While Internet use is on the rise, Internet-using Canadians turn to different sources depending on their news and information needs. For example, the Internet is used more to look for specific or ‘niche-like’ news and information such as health (48%) and travel information/guides (45%) whereas television tends to be used more for general news and information such as weather (70%) and national and international news (70%).

Ahh ... interesting. So where there is a particular need (say, a personalized, one-to-one kind of need) the Internet is used.  But where it is more general, TV is preferred.  So, what's a broadcast medium to do?

“Traditional sources for news and information are facing stiff competition from the Internet as seen by the high growth of Internet use compared to other traditional media,” says Catherine Rogers, a Senior Research Manager with Ipsos Reid’s Media Practice. “In order to combat this growing threat, traditional media sources must continue to find innovative ways to use the Internet as a complement to their total offering.”

So ... it's not this TV RULES THE WORLD situation as described by the TBC.  It's more of an integrated offering that is required.  More of a choosing the right channel for the right audience at the right time with the right offer and supplementing that offer in other channels.

Ladies and gentlemen ... welcome to 2006.  It is not your father's marketing mix.  That pretty blue chart above?  If those were the only 5 marketing channel choices, we'd be lucky.  The list is more like:

• TV
• Radio (online and off)
• Newspapers (online and off)
• Magazines (online and off)
• Video Games
• Cell phones
• Web sites
• Banner Ads
• Blogs
• Podcasts
• Product Placement
• Discussion Forums
• Search
• Experiential Marketing
• Guerilla Marketing Events
• Billboards
• Ad nauseum

Agencies, advertisers and bureaus need to recognize that our customers have surpassed us in sophistication and media-channel savvy.  And if we're going to ever have a meaningful conversation with them, we need to throw away our planning grids and start paying attention to them.  And that attention can't come with an aura of importance about how prestigious we are.  It's time to get over it and get real.

Technorati Tags: dinosaurs, self-importance, marketing

Even Anheuser-Busch Gets the Long Tail

From Brand Week ...

Anheuser-Busch is starting a non-beer business unit called "Long Tail Libations".

Seriously?

Anheuser-Busch has never said it can't beat them, but the No. 1 beer brewer is joining distillers in their own game by forming a separate spirits unit, Long Tail Libations, and testing its first product, Jekyll & Hyde.
 
The two bottles, intended to be mixed into a single drink, are now being tested in about 40 restaurant and bars in Columbia, Mo., as well as Denver, Las Vegas and Orlando, Fla. A-B wholesalers in those markets received licenses to sell distilled spirits. Jekyll is a 60-proof wild-berry-flavored liquid, and Hyde is 80-proof with a hint of licorice.

I poked around and couldn't find the origin of the name.  But maybe A-B is paying more attention than I would give them credit for.

Santa's Bloggin' and Podcastin'

Not sure how to feel about this one ... Kris Kringle is a'bloggin'. A project of Five Star Experience (a Toronto-based "experience company" specializing in unusual gift certificate combos like Adrenaline or Tranquility), Santa is blogging and podcasting at santasjournal.com.  From Five Star Experience's own blog:

FSE is proud to announce that it will sponsor Santa Clause this holiday season as he blogs and podcasts to the world for the first time.

Santa will be writing a journal highlighting the latest events at the North Pole as he and his team of elves prepare to bring joy to the children of the world.

His blog will be available as a podcast so that children who cannot read yet can still stay up to date.

Interesting idea.  Using the man-in-red in a character blog.  FSE is promoting their own product line on the blog .. though mercifully not on the homepage.  But I don't know .. the tone of it is weird - like people who don't know how to write for kids, thinking that writing for kids means dumbing it down.  I also listened to the podcast; the quality is pretty shitty.  Which as a kid I totally would not put up with or buy into. 

The blog also includes a syndicated story with the final installment being released on Christmas day.  (Personally I don't think the content would sustain my interest that long.)  There is a game and you can email Santa your wish list.  I didn't bother.

I think this whole enterprise might work better if they didn't choose Santa.  Santa is difficult to appropriate (really, has anyone done it better than Coca-Cola).  If you want to go with a character blog ... own the character.  Maybe a reindeer?  Or the elf who is in charge of the email?  Also, you really have to have good content.

One interesting thing ... Santa does provide details of the inner workings of the North Pole: list management, monitoring boys and girls behaviour, etc.  I would have totally geeked out on this content as a kid. 

Women Speakers at Tech & Marketing Conferences

I finally signed up to Misbehaving.net's feed and was catching up on their recent posts.  Liz Lawley commented on the dearth of women speakers at Web 2.0: 8 out of the overall 107.  Some say "Oh, its the tech world .. it's 'male-dominated' so of course there will be more male speakers."

Maybe.

But I've been frustrated with this for a while and not just a "tech" conferences.  I went to TED last year.  48 speakers (not counting ensembles); 7 of them women.  And three of those were performers.  (I posted about this in February during TED.)  I hope that this year there will be a more diverse program: gender-wise and race-wise.  I'm pleased to note that one of the winners of the TED Prize this year is a woman, Jehane Noujaim.

But this issue of women speakers hits closer to home.  The Interactive Advertising Bureau of Canada (disclosure: I sit on the Advertiser's Council) had its Interactive to the Max one-day conference recently here in Toronto.  The three keynotes: all men.  To be fair, 50% of the panel moderators were women and women were represented on the panels.  But not on the keynotes.  Same thing with the CMA's Digital Marketing Conference.  The keynotes and "standalone" presentations - all men.  Again, women moderated a number of the panels.  (I promise I won't go on about the idea that women play a strong "facilitation" role which is why they are good moderators .. blah, blah, blah).

It's not like we don't have successful, knowledgeable women in Toronto.  Wendy Muller from Google Canada comes to mind.  Paula Gignac, executive director of the IAB.  Dawna Henderson of henderson-bas.  Terry Costantino from Usability Matters.

Though then I read Marketing Magazine's article about its new inductees in Canada's Marketing Hall of Legends (seriously .. Marketing Hall of Legends?).  All men.

What does this all mean?  That we need (*I* need) to encourage my peers and my mentors to speak up and speak out.

The .xxx debate: one you just can't win

So I'm in Vancouver today, meeting with VANOC to get trained-up on Olympic mark and brand protection (a whole 'nuther post -- WOW, these Olympic folks have some serious guidelines in place).  Am just starting to absorb that free and easy vibe that comes from being here on the west coast.  Drinking a gin and tonic.  Checking my feedreader.  And I get (via IAB SmartBrief and CNET):

Bush administration objects to .xxx domains

The Bush administration is objecting to the creation of a .xxx domain, saying it has concerns about a virtual red-light district reserved exclusively for Internet pornography.

Michael Gallagher, assistant secretary at the Commerce Department, has asked for a hold to be placed on the contract to run the new top-level domain until the .xxx suffix can receive further scrutiny. The domain was scheduled to receive final approval Tuesday.

[deletia]

After ICANN's vote to approve .xxx, conservative groups in the United States called on their supporters to ask the Commerce Department to block the new suffix. The Family Research Council, for instance, warned that "pornographers will be given even more opportunities to flood our homes, libraries and society with pornography through the .xxx domain."

Come on!  Maybe I'm missing the point, but wouldn't a top level domain that blatantly labels something as pornographic HELP with keeping our homes, libraries and societies (or at least those homes, libraries and societies who wanted) free from pornography?

Apparently, I'm not the only one who thought so.  Back in 2000 when ICANN voted to reject the .xxx domain, they were lambasted by both sides of Congress ...

Rep. Fred Upton, R-Mich., demanded to know why ICANN didn't approve .xxx "as a means of protecting our kids from the awful, awful filth, which is sometimes widespread on the Internet." Sen. Joseph Lieberman, D-Conn., told (click for PDF) a federal commission that .xxx was necessary to force adult Webmasters to "abide by the same standard as the proprietor of an X-rated movie theater."

Exactly.

Pornography is on the internet.  And will be for a long, long time.  Better to have it labeled.  Sheesh.

Oh, on the lighter side of the Bush administration, got this via Adrants (who got it via flickr-ite kerrynz):