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Committing to buying a spot in the Super Bowl is always a big risk due to the vast sums of money at stake. For those with the wherewithal to pull it off, a big splash around the Super Bowl may generate more buzz than a year’s worth of mediocrity.

The year’s game, featuring one of football’s biggest stars in Peyton Manning and the feel good story of the past year in the New Orleans Saints, was the most watched TV show in the United States ever with 106.5 million viewers. With all the entertainment options people have now compared to when the previous record was set by the MASH finale in 1983, this is an amazing accomplishment.

Even more astonishing, people don’t DVR the Super Bowl and zip past the ads; instead they sit in groups and watch the ads intently hoping for a big laugh. In my case, I printed out a list of the expected ads from adbowl.com and had the people at the party help me decide on the rankings. (Next year, I’ll be doing this in realtime with the aid of my iPad).

More than just the massive, rapt audience, marketers also get the benefit of all the hype and exposure surrounding the Super Bowl.

And, now, it has caught on with social media.

BtoB magazine reports that of the 38 brands that ran TV spots during the Super Bowl, 75% saw the number of blog posts about their brands double, compared with the average number of blog posts on Sunday evenings over the past six months. Overall, blog posts about the Super Bowl increased to 25,725 this year, up from 15,702 last year. Of these, more than 3,600 posts were specifically related to advertising. Twitter also saw increased Super Bowl-related activity, with more than 720,000 tweets about the game.

Seriously, if you’re a marketer and you’re considering this brand-building extravaganza, do it. But do it right.

Here are a few basic observations on what “right” looks like. It still boggles the mind that companies can get this wrong. I’m not going to bash anyone, but there were some real stinkers in the mix, as there have been in the past.

1. Be clever and funny. David Letterman nailed this with his 10 second spot with Oprah and Leno. Did it help Leno? Who cares, it was funny and led to gobs of media coverage. Learn from this folks. We’re watching the Super Bowl at a party and we want to be amused.
2. Don’t get old and worn out. Hey is anyone home at eTrade and GoDaddy? The baby thing isn’t funny anymore (loved it first time out) and GoDaddy, it’s time to move on. Come up with something new.
3. Big names doing funny things work. The consensus #1 ad this year was Snicker’s with Betty White and Abe Vigoda. Hyunda’s ancient Brett Farve and VW’s Punch Dub with Stevie Wonder and Tracy Morgan also were hits with the audience.
4. If you can’t be funny, sentimental works too. Google’s surprise ad – which had been on YouTube for a few months – about using search for Paris love was fantastic. Our crowd thought that it was the winner.
5. Keep coming back – but with new stuff. Audi’s brand is quickly moving to the top of the charts. The German automaker has been on the Super Bowl roster for a couple of years and had a clever entry this year.
6. Maximize your PR and social media outreach. Be sure to wrap lots of marketing, PR and social media activities around your investment in the Super Bowl.
7. Give stuff away. As was humorously portrayed by terrified chickens, Denny’s used the Super Bowl to promote free Grand Slams on Tuesday. Well it worked. At least one of my neighbors braved the crowds to get her eggs and hash browns.

If you missed out on the Super Bowl, you still have some big sporting events on tap. In particular you might want to think about real football, as in Futbol or Fußball, like what’s played everywhere else on the planet. If the US team makes the World Cup quarterfinals or semifinals it will be huge. Or not. Like it or not, the Super Bowl is the biggest and best brand building machine in the US today.

Too often it seems our world is surprised by violence or death or simply disappointment. I can’t bring myself to read the Wall Street Journal some mornings when the world or the country has had a particularly awful previous day. (The Oregonian doesn’t upset me as much – don’t know why.) But in the past few days I’ve been pleasantly surprised by two events: the birthday of the coining of “serendipity” and a true incidence of the same.

On the first. Serendipity was first coined on January 27, 1754, by British member of Parliament Horace Walpole. In a letter to a friend living in Italy he mentioned he’d come up with the word from a fairy tale called “The Three Princes of Serendip,” in which “as their Highnesses travelled, they were always making discoveries, by accidents and sagacity, of things which they were not in quest of.” Though they were from Serendip – today Sri Lanka – their happy accidents (and I do believe they must have been happy) seems to me the best way to travel.

Which brings me to event two. Our morning dog walk often takes us to a small park near the house. Lost Park isn’t really lost, but it is far from the madding crowds, especially in the mornings after the official work day has begun. This morning we climbed the stairs at the base of the park and heard music drifting over the trees and the tennis courts. As we got further in, it became clear it was trumpet music – random notes, perhaps scales, then gradually bars of a song I thought I could pick out. What could be more charming then a sunny February day in a cool and lush park populated only by two people, three dogs and one trumpet player (with her own dog) playing the Pink Panther theme song?

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Tablets like what Steve Jobs and Apple just introduced have long been forecast in science fiction, so you just knew that sooner or later devices like this would become reality. 

Steve Jobs with his new pad.

For example, in Arthur C. Clarke’s 1968 novel 2001: A Space Odyssey, Clarke describes something called a “Newspad” that Heywood Floyd, “plugs into the ship’s information circuit and scans the latest reports from Earth. One by one he would conjure up the world’s major electronic papers; he knew the codes of the more important ones by heart, and had no need to consult the list on the back of his pad. Switching to the display unit’s short-term memory, he would hold the front page while he quickly searched the headlines and noted the items that interested him.”

While there will be little need to know codes by heart, Clarke’s vision of getting electronic papers on a pad-like device is finally here.  To be sure the iPad is likely far from perfect, I fully expect that it will inevitably become more refined and in the process move us much further to full electronic delivery of premier content – much of which is currently paper-based. 

Sure you can get content on either a smartphone or a laptop, but neither is ideal. The smartphone is just too small and the laptop is too clumsy. I just don’t find myself sitting at breakfast surfing news on my laptop, or trying to peer into a tiny screen on the BlackBerry. 

Instead I get volumes of newspaper – big piles of it that inevitably end up being recycled.  Speaking of which, the environmental impact of all that paper is not good. Paper consumes large amounts of water and energy, levels forests, and requires many gallons of fuel to get it to my doorstep. Electronic delivery has almost zero impact in comparison.

I can, however, imagine using the iPad as my daily news feed. What’s more there’s economic justification simply on the basis of replacing paid-for printed content I currently consume.  While I expect to still pay for the electronic content, the price will go down significantly.  Note that some of the publications have yet to adopt eReader technology like what the NY Times currently offers, but publishers that expect to survive will offer similar technology. Based on my calculations, I figure I could save $652 per year, easily justifying a $499 iPad.

Beyond lowering costs, the iPad will deliver a much improved experience.  Publishers will be able to blend video and printed words. Instead of a few photos, I will be able to see the entire sequence if I so desire. I’ll also be able to look up related information, or make comments. Basically it’s everything we love about the Web, but in a nice magazine-like format.  When I’m travelling, all I’ll need to pack is my iPad and a cell phone. No longer will I need a few magazines, a couple of books, media player, GPS, or even a laptop. And, of course, there will be countless numbers of cool apps.

Sounds like science fiction? Not anymore.

In my last post, Real Journalism, I pointed out the benefit of educating and paying people to investigate and write about our world. How else will we know about abuses of power or inequality or any number of societal ills? But as a writer, if I’m given a choice between tackling a paying job that comes in or writing a blog about a subject that rankles me, I’ll take the paying one. The bills can’t be paid on ire after all.

I still stand by that argument. But I’ve learned that the blogosphere does have the power to help traditional media effect change. The most recent evidence is a story of how a New York City college student went up against two large retail chains over an apparent policy to destroy unworn clothing they couldn’t sell. Cynthia Magnus found garbage bags of slashed clothing outside a NYC H&M store along with bags of clothing bearing Wal-Mart tags that had been punched full of holes. Rather than donate the clothing, the retailers left them fit only for the garbage dump. H&M’s action was especially egregious because the garbage bags of destroyed clothing were just around the corner from a collection point from New York Cares, a charity that collects coats for the needy.

I heard the story as a quick news blurb on KINK, the station my alarm is set to. I woke up thinking geez, what a crappy thing to do in a city with so many poor people – and such cold weather.

Turns out the story didn’t spring from a blog as KINK reported, but from the New York Times. Magnus had tried unsuccessfully to contact H&M. When they wouldn’t give her the time of day, she turned to the Times. Two days after the story ran H&M issued a promise to donate, not destroy unsold clothing. I searched but didn’t find out what happened with Wal-Mart. The story got picked up by AP and ran about everywhere. Twitter even got in on the action, as one blogger claimed the flurry of tweets led H&M to straighten up. What this says to me is that reporters and bloggers and people who twitter (twitterers?) can have a synergy that leads to action, in this case for cold, poor New Yorkers.

We were playing Loaded Questions following a delicious Christmas dinner with our Olympia, Wash., relatives Ann, Eric and Faye and Eric’s girlfriend Julie. One question we drew was to name a profession that would be extinct in 10 years. Two of the group guessed journalism-related jobs: paper delivery and journalists in general. How could I argue with our own Oregonian shrinking like the Wicked Witch of the East before our very eyes and other newspapers laying off reporters, photographers, even editors. As a copyeditor who’s worked at several newspapers and magazines, I feel sometimes like a horseshoer watching horseless carriages taking over the road.

Here’s an argument for keeping the journalism profession alive. I’m talking about the kind of journalism I went to school to learn and get a degree in, not the kind of stuff we call New Media. My argument goes like this: Someone with writing and reporting skills gets paid to use them for the ferreting out of information vital to us all. I’m sitting here trying to cook dinner, do laundry and walk the dogs, feeling the need to write, but hey, if a paying job comes in I’ll drop the blog post-haste.

When I worked at the News Tribune (sorry, no link; it’s been dead for years) or the Press-Enterprise or the Portland Tribune those folks got my undivided attention because they helped pay the bills. Don’t get me wrong, I admire writers and editors who will work for free. In fact, I advise fresh-out-of-J-school grads to do just that: give away their writing by working gratis for some publication — any publication that will give them clips. But that can’t go for long. Nor should it. I was reminded recently about why we desperately need paid, skilled journalists.

The Oregonian ran an investigative piece on Dec. 30 on the sale of green energy tax incentives to corporations, among them Wal-Mart, Costco and U.S. Bank, that effectively allowed these companies to avoid paying millions of dollars in state taxes — and here’s the clincher — without actually doing anything green. Turns out these tax incentives can be bought and sold just like derivitives — but at a much better rate of return.

‘Course we Oregonians lose the tax income, but that’s business, right?
I’d never have known about that if the Oregonian wasn’t around. Good job Harry Esteve.

Example number two: the graph from the Washington Post that ran on A4 of the same edition showing every U.S. senator’s vote on the health care reform bill along with how much money each has gotten from health care lobbyists and the percentage of uninsured in their states. How can senators Hutchison and Cornyn sleep at night knowing they voted against reform when their state, Texas, has the highest rate of uninsured in the nation? And John McCain (who can Twitter) pulled in more than $9 million in lobby geld voted lock-step with the other pull-up-the-ladder Republicans. His state only has 19% uninsured. I’m sure those folks will understand his vote, right? Interestingly John Kerry got more than $8 million from health care groups but he voted for reform.

I guess you can see where my loyalties lie. Given a choice between blogging and newspapers, I’ll take real journalism any day — every day, pitched on my driveway!

First of all, I confess that I don’t go in for Twitter. I’m way behind John McCain on that one. I just don’t feel the need to send off a comment about my breakfast (granola and copious cups of coffee, if you must know) or the dust bunnies under my desk (dog hair, actually). Brian, on the other hand, twitters constantly. Nothing’s sacred, though usually it’s comments about music or work or the dogs. Hopefully not too much in the way of personal stuff about me (gasp!).

I’m more of a Facebooker. I like the give and take of posting to people I actually know and getting feedback. Like the day I noticed there is a variation on raindrops on weather.com. Your basic rainy day rates six drops; a gullywasher, a couple more. We take our rain seriously here; so any time someone else does too, even if it’s only a rain graphic, it’s cause for an appreciative nod. When I noted that on my status, I got some almost instant comments from fellow Northwesterners — a couple of Washingtonians, an Idahoan, an Oregonian, even a Californian.

So, regarding the people who partake in Twitter, here’s my question: What do you call them? As an editor, I need to know this. Those of you out there who do imbibe, so to speak, let me know. I’ll fire off a reply to ex-AP Editor Norm Goldstein who writes for Copyediting magazine and who wrote on the subject recently, sharing my burning question. He’s probably a Luddite like me, so I’ll use old-fashioned email.

The defining natural event of my life and probably my oldest daughter’s (she’s now 23) was the Loma Prieta earthquake of Oct. 17, 1989. Like most major events, though, it has faded from memory, brought up only in discussions with my students about earthquakes — most of the world doesn’t experience them — or in remembrances of our time in San Jose, Calif.

But seeing a Salon posting this morning along with pictures of the Cyprus Freeway in Oakland (the one that collapsed) brought back memories of the most violent earthquake I’d felt in my three-plus decades of California living.

Along with droughts and wildfires, earthquakes and earthquake preparedness are a natural part of life in California. Things start to shake and you scurry under a table, hands wrapped around the back of your neck — a tiny measure of protection if you think about it. The building collapses onto your table, you might last a few seconds more if you remember to keep your fingers laced behind your neck.

So, what was I doing at 5:04 p.m. Oct. 17 (a Monday, I think)? I was changing a diaper, getting Alex and Jessica up from a late nap to head out to the park for playtime. When things started to shake, I grabbed Jessica, pulled Alex out from his exploration of the bathroom trashcan and ran for the doorway (2nd best place to stand, we were told). When it kept up — it felt like an eternity, not the 15 seconds they told us — we took cover under the dining room table. Brian called as soon as the shaking stopped and we guessed the magnitude, at least a 6.0 we thought, which was a far cry from the 7.1 it was officially pegged at.

In the hours that followed, we considered, then rejected, turning off our power; lost phone service — but not TV — and endured too-numerous-to-count aftershocks. That’s what sent Jessica, then 3 years old into our bedroom to sleep. She didn’t sleep alone for years after that. Try telling a toddler that those near constant trembles aren’t just more quakes.

While old town Los Gatos collapsed and unlucky drivers perished in the sandwiched freeway collapse, our damage was confined to potted plants. Even glassware survived, miraculously walking into drawers that opened to catch it.

If we’d truly suffered like so many people did, I’d not be feeling nostalgic. But in a way I do miss the excitement of a good shake. They came out of nowhere, and if you were like most Californians and didn’t suffer much if at all, they made a great story. Just ask Jessica. Or maybe not.

For those us who have been unable to transition our lives to Twitter and Facebook, we are highly dependent upon email.  Unfortunately, the entire email system is overrun with unscrupulous types who blast out vast quantities of garbage, to the point that we must waste considerable time sifting through these pointless missives to get to the mails we care about.

For the past several years, Outlook has included a junk mail filter. This sounds promising but in reality it doesn’t do a very good job. The spammers have figured out how it filters the mail and game it with ease. What’s worse, it will also trap mails from clients and others I want in junk mail purgatory.  This means that I have to look through all the putrid junk mail in case a mail I want got misfiled.

In my quest for a better alternative, I have landed on the service from Cloudmark. It installs a lightweight toolbar in Outlook and then taps the collective brains of its users to spot the spam.  This means that it can’t get false positives, and it gets the vast majority of spam out there.  I’ve been using it for about a week and in that time it caught an astonding 1,360 spam mails that Microsoft’s junk mail filter missed.  Wow. What a lifesaver.

Here’s a tip for you.  Cloudmark charges $39.95 per year per subscription for the service. Well worth it. But you can get it for less from Sunbelt Software under the brand name I Hate Spam for $29.95 or, and here’s the best part, $49.95 for a home site license.

If enough people start using this, maybe the percentage of people responding to spam (somebody must respond to spam or the spammers wouldn’t keep sending it) will go from .000001 of a percent to 0% and the spammers will all starve to death and leave us alone. One can hope.

Sitting on the deck tonight, Mary and I discoursed on the topic of the day over a glass of chilled white wine: the much debated plan to reform health care.

 It seems to be one of those issues that defies easy answers and avoids application of common sense solution. Even over a glass of wine. The crux of the problem, of course, is that healthcare costs have risen at an extraordinary rate, far greater than inflation. To be sure the quality of health care has improved as well, driven primarily by technological advances. 

The question I have in all this is why does the cost of healthcare increase far faster than inflation?  Higher education also seems to be on the same trajectory.   Each year, we read about 10-15 percent increases in medical premiums and similar amounts in college tuitions. If only our salaries increased at this rate.

I think this bears more researching. Why, truly, are these cost going up at such a crazy pace, especially in a down economy? Is it greed or malpractice or just bad management? Whatever the case, I hope medical reform includes a stringent cost containment component.

It’s funny how fast change happens. I think of that credit card commercial about how fast life comes at you. One minute you’re holding a new life in your hands, the next you’re watching her graduate. Geez, it went by fast.

So now I’m sitting here musing on the state of things since December when I sounded smug about not working for The Man. About how cool it is to get up at a reasonable hour — 8 a.m. is reasonable — have a leisurely breakfast, take the dogs out for their morning constitutional, and then tackle whatever work came rolling into my inbox.

Something happened in January. Something bad. Now I’m almost thinking The Man’s not so bad. Paid vacations, health insurance and a regular paycheck sound ok. But at least for this summer, I’m not quite ready to throw in the towel.

Maybe that’s because summer is special in Oregon — one, maybe two solid months of sun. I’d hate to miss that by being in an office. Plus we’ve found there are some cheap thrills that do more for recreating us than the more expensive variety that we must admit we love. Canoeing is one. On the 4th of July we decided to forgo the war zone for canoe/camping on a quiet lake in the Cascades. It turned out to be our personal lake as no one else camped there, and the one group that fished it when we arrived was a godsend — they had mosquito repellent that we’d forgotten. The next day we swam in a nearby lake that had been similarly overlooked. The time together away from the house, computer, cell phone, etc. was therapeutic in a way I couldn’t have predicted.

In all it was one of the best — and cheapest –vacations we’d ever had. And that’s a good thing because it looks like cheap is going be describing our thrills for some time to come.