The stupidest person on earth

Who, you may ask is the stupidest person on earth? I mean, if there was some empirical way of calculating it, in this very instant, of all the dunces, dummies and doofuses out there, who reigns supreme over them all?

Ladies and gentlemen, I reveal to you the answer: it is I, yes I, Kerin Donahue! Project manager, blogger and New Media Wannabe Extraordinaire! Those of you who had me in the pool, collect your winnings. I am the Stupidest Person on Earth!

Well, no not really. But don’t it just feel that way sometimes?

As 2009 comes lumbering to its final resting place, I look back the road I’ve travelled. I started off all shiny and new, working for a direct response agency and really enjoying it. Then the dumb old economy went and wrecked that, leaving me (and many, many other people) scratching my head wondering where to go from there. The answer for those of us in marketing was pretty clear: if you’re not in the digital space today, you’re nowhere.

So I started a blog. I joined up, signed on and opted-in for everything under the sun. I took classes, I attended conferences, seminars and industry events. I volunteered, I networked and I participated. All in the hopes that someday I would catch the tiger’s tail and feel like I’d arrived.

But it’s never enough. The fact of the matter is, it will never be enough. The influx of new technology and new terminology will only increase. There will always be another new Big Thing I didn’t know about and there will always be people with way more insight than me creating a dizzying array of new Big Things for me to learn.

Normally I would view this as a good thing. But in the dying throes of the Aughts, I'm exhausted; I'm done in. My poor brain has been reduced to a dithering morass of WOOB-WOOB-WOOB, where all I’m able to do is lie twitching on the floor occasionally spitting out gibberish like “SEO! PPC, PHP!”

Every time I open my browser, the internet mocks me. It says, oh you think you’ve got a handle on social media, do you? What do you know about mobility marketing? Experiential marketing? EXPLAIN IT TO US IN GLORIOUS TECHNICAL DETAIL, New Media Wannabe Worm, or we will point and laugh at you! (Apparently the internet refers to itself in the third person). You know ABC? That’s all well and good, but did you know DEF, GHI, or at the very least XYZ? No? Ha! Have you been living under a rock? We laugh at your pitiful efforts to adjust to our cruel new expectations for new media mastery.

Okay, I may be hallucinating most of this. But I tell you, people: I’m in a funk. A great, big fin de decade funk.

I know that many of you reading this will be all, ‘Aw, cheer up, little buckaroo – it’s not as bad as all that.’ Well no, I suppose it isn’t. Some would also say, ‘Quit yer bitchin’, Complainy McWhinesalot’. These people are a) right, and b) kind of jerks. Right or wrong, however, I’m not sad to see this armpit of a year dwindle away to nothing. Let us never speak of it again and pray for an improved state of mind and a clean slate in 2010. I will be patient; I will be tenacious. Like the phoenix, I will rise anew and finally remember what the acronym“SEM” stands for on the first go.

Vayas con dios 2009! This dummy bids you Good Day. Don’t let the door hit your bum on the way out.

You have failed me for the last time, Kindle-miral.

In recent months I’ve been touting the coming of e-readers, particularly the Kindle, to anyone who will listen. As an avid reader, I’ve been stoked to get my hands on one; the idea that I can download a book, immediately, for less money than a printed book is a subject very dear to my heart. Order from Amazon (if you have a Kindle e-reader) or from Chapters/Indigo (if you have a Sony e-reader) - no running from bookstore to bookstore or waiting (and/or paying) for shipments, not to mention having my storage issues solved. Heaven!

But as I ran a few pricing tests (Kindle vs. Sony) I came across an unpleasant realization. Yes, some e-books are much cheaper than their printed counterparts. But once you get off the ‘featured books’ list, the price of an e-book is virtually the same – IF NOT MORE.

Wait, what? Distribution, overhead and materials alone should make an e-book substantially cheaper. But they’re not. Following are five books I checked out.


Charlaine Harris, From Dead to Worse
Indigo: Printed book $8.99 e-book $8.59
Amazon: Printed book $7.99 e-book$7.59

The Snowball: Warren Buffet and the Business of Life
Indigo: Printed book $13.72 e-book $11.99
Amazon: Printed book $13.60 e-book$ not available (great!)

Pride, prejudice and zombies
Indigo: Printed book $13.64 e-book $ not available (really??)
Amazon: Printed book $13.99 e-book$ 9.77

Stephen King: Just After Sunset
Indigo: Printed book$11.82 e-book: $10.39
Amazon: Printed book $9.99 e-book $9.99

Patricia Briggs: Moon Called
Indigo: Printed book $8.99 e-book: not available (grr!)
Amazon: Printed book $7.99 e-book $8.39

(Note: Amazon prices are in USD. I have not factored in the iRewards discount for Chapters, either).

I call Shenanigans on e-book publishers! Here’s an article by Rick Broida for CNET that I found that further fanned my indignant rage.

Boy, I feel like a chump. My apologies to all the people I’ve been raving to about e-books and e-readers. Apparently price is NOT an issue at this time. I am hereby deleting an e-reader off my WANT list until further notice. We’ll see what happens when Apple launches iBook or iReader or whatever the heck they end up calling their product.

On a side note: Harlequin Romance offers e-books (in three formats) on their site for a pretty good discount off the regular printed books. I’m not a fan of Harlequin, but they actually offer some other authors I recognize, like CE Murphy, Mercedes Lackey and PC Cast. Kudos to them.