About Three weeks ago I was in Boston to take part in an interview with some marketing types that are working for The Science Channel. They found me through my meetup.com profile where I guess the meetings I go to are sufficiently geeky as to blair loud and clear to anyone interested that I am someone who is likely to watch science television. Lo, their assessment was dead on, and I am as predictable as I feared.
Anyway, they had me come into the Boston and sat me down on a nice couch in the Ritz Carlton and asked me what would I do if I could remake The Science Channel. I rubbed my hands together and for the next hour and a half brain dumped all kinds of ideas about science and tech television. What I liked, teeny tiny detailed, statistically accurate, fiddly programming. What I hated, showing off the latest gun, without going into the engineering of it, or the Man vs Wild fiasco, with him getting a proper camp site and three square everyday.
In the middle of all this I mentioned that the more REAL they made the science, the more believable they made the programming, no matter how geeky and seemingly impossible it would be for anyone to stay interested in the topic, the more props they would get from the internet sites I frequented. When he asked for which sites, I casually said, "you know my 'opinion cloud', Digg.com, Slashdot.org, Space.com, various blogs, some personal online groups I am part of like Gweep.net, and my Facebook.com friends and meetup.com groups.
His face twisted into this really neat comical mask, like he was tasting some very strongly flavored exotic fruit he wasn't sure he liked or not, but he was sure other people would like. "Your 'opinion cloud' hmm? and should we be trying to create our own opinion clouds to get people interested in The Science Channel?"
"Oh no, no!" I said "Just make super detailed really scientific programming, and not the little technology montage programs they have out there now, and they the opinion cloud will naturally drift over to your programming faster than you think."
Now the fun thing here is i thought up the phrase that moment just trying to explain all the places I get interested in 'some new thing' and the guy kept asking questions about opinion clouds instead of The Science Channel. I think it really got his brain working.
So, if in a few months you see some marketing for the next great opinion cloud, you know where the word came from.
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