What I Learned from Watching Fox & Friends This Morning – 7/30/2008

*Three supposedly educated people can argue about a single topic without hitting on the only logical point about it. In discussing whether or not an area of Los Angeles has the right to ban fast food joints because they are unhealthy, several arguments are raised: Should government dictate what we eat, the rising cost of the “obesity epidemic”, supply and demand economics, and how all fat kids will eventually get Diabetes (you can thank Brian ‘Just Read the Sports Scores and Shut the Hell Up’ Kilmeade for that medical update). What no one thinks of mentioning is that restaurants and delicatessens serve unhealthy food as well, they just charge a bit more for it.

*All of the negative press the economy has been getting recently is merely alarmist propaganda, because the conservative host of a financial radio show received anecdotal evidence in the form of emails and phone calls from listeners, who all say that things are going great.

*A recent study that shows Obama gets more negative media coverage than McCain doesn't disprove the theory that the 'Liberal Biased Media' has a love affair with Obama. What it actually proves is that the 'Liberal Biased Media' is falling out of love and beginning to react negatively to Obama's 'Elite' and 'Arrogant' attitude.

*Writers at Fox News still don’t know how to spell Obama.

*Bill O’Reilly has a temper.

21st Century Advertising for New Home Builders

The cover of Preston John’s book on 21st Century Advertising for New Home Builders features a digital representation of a house on a sleek new laptop, visually promising a book full of information on utilizing today’s technology to its fullest potential when selling homes in today’s marketplace.

What you’ll find inside, however, is a brief little refresher on the basics of marketing and advertising, the kind that you might find yourself subjected to at an overpriced motivational seminar. With its small novelty book dimensions, the book looks, feels, and reads like something you might receive in a goody bag at such an event.

The book opens with an eight page comparison of the housing market to buying eggs, and the level of usefulness never really rises above that. The selling of new homes is neatly broken down into “The 5M’s” (which I will not reveal out of courtesy to prospective readers), which are listed and explained in great detail, but with as little actual detail as possible.

All of the advice and information given is done so in the broadest of general terms. For example: the chapter titled “Questions & Answers” contains only three questions spend over six (little) pages, and the answers are overwhelmingly self-explanatory. “How should I handle TV advertising?” The answer given, of course, is that you should hire a professional advertiser.

The author urges new home builders to purchase and utilize the proper computer software to chart and analyze their market research, but makes no attempt to recommend any specific programs. The chapter dedicated “Online Advertising” does not site a single website. Not even willing to offer the proper documentation for the definition of “Market”, the author forgoes an actual dictionary and instead offers his own definition of what you might find “If you were to look it up in a very conservative dictionary.”

If you were to look up advice in a very informative book, you might actually find detailed examples and lists of sources for further research. Unfortunately, this isn’t that kind of book.