A Calling for Help

I'm sometimes slow to figure things out. It often takes me a week or two to really understand what's going on with me emotionally. It's taken me that long to figure out why I'm so personally bugged by the recent changes at TechTV, for instance. I finally realized that for the past three years I've been able to do something I'm really good at: Call for Help. I fit that show like a hand in a glove. I didn't understand at the time how exceptional that was. Now I'm doing something I'm just OK at. Something that apparently serves the company's needs better. But I miss that feeling of fitting the job perfectly. Perhaps some day I'll feel just as fulfilled by The Screen Savers. But for now, I miss the feeling of vocation. Call for Help was my calling. This feels more like a job. A really good job, true, but still a job. Hey, I'm not complaining. I'm very happy to be doing what I'm doing. I'd be a jerk not to be insanely grateful for the opportunities I have. Heck, I'm grateful that I had three years of Call for Help. That's more than I ever expected. But once you've had that feeling of answering a calling, it's hard to accept anything less.

Our Dumb Decade

If there's any doubt that we've just lived through a wacky few years read eCompany's 100 Dumbest Moments in e-Business. Hey, they all seemed like great ideas at the time. You gotta love dumb moment #95: "Ziff-Davis chairman Eric Hippeau launches ZDTV, proclaiming that ZDTV is "about a world where geek is chic." According to Webster's, geek means "a person, often of an intellectual bent, who is disliked." Tres chic, Monsieur Hippeau, tres chic."

More Pictures

And now some more pictures. These are from TechLive. Steve Abrams is anchoring right after my shift. (Click on the thumbnail for a full size image.) This is the view from behind the main anchor position. A side view. Note the teleprompter and monitor on the camera - that's what we're looking at. Rich Statter screening calls for Call for Help. Simon the job operator fooling around. The jib is a camera on a boom that gives those incredible swooping shots.

Vote for Stacee, Part II

Uh oh. That evil Maria Bartiromo is catching up with Stacee in Playboy's Bear Market Babes poll. Even though Stacee thinks it's silly, I really don't want her to lose. If nothing else, it would be great for her career. So if you're over 18 please cast your vote here (this is a direct link to the vote page to minimize the girly pix, but there are still some mildly offensive images. Not to mention the totally insulting copy.) She's sitting right next to me and she's given me permission to mention this again. The vote ends May 1 and you can vote more than once. So do!

Web Traffic

TechTV won't be getting ratings until later this year, so we rely on web traffic for an indication of how we're doing. Our research shows a strong correlation between web users and viewers. In the past few days we've seen a dramatic increase in the traffic on the Screen Savers site. This week we had over 250,000 impressions per day. In the past we've averaged closer to 100,000-150,000. That means we've almost doubled our traffic in our new time wth our new format. That's really encouraging news. Thanks for your clicks!!