Greg Verdino raises an interesting question to Nielsen BuzzMetrics about its ongoing client-only CGM Summit 2006,

…how can you host an event about consumer generated media and not let your consumers, um, generate media?

This is Greg’s response to a warning in the confirmation email Nielsen BuzzMetrics sent to its attendees: “Off The Record: the CGM Summit is off the record, so please no blogging, reporting, recording or broadcasting.” For those who are not familiar with the jargon, CGM refers to Consumer-Generated Media, in which blogs play a big role. The irony is pretty amusing, isn’t it?

Steve Rubel sees both sides of the issue. I agree with him on that the no-blogging strategy might help preserve the benefit of paying to attend the summit. If the company made the decision for this reason, I think it values its consumers’ and its own interests. This can be a justification for the ban. However, if Nielsen BuzzMetrics banned blogging partly out of concerns that they would be harshly criticized or challenged, or simply be talked about, this might be an indicator that it at least understands the Word-of-Mouth power of CGM very well. But is it better that people don’t talk about you?

A commentator was curious about the outcome of violating the ban. Me too. I don’t know if this warning is legitimate enough to put the violators into trouble. If so, will a blogger get caught just because s/he writes “I think the summit is awesome for blah blah blah…?”

Both Steve and David Armano mentioned about the group blog for Forrester’s Consumer Forum in contrast with Nielsen BuzzMetrics’s no-blogging policy. I don’t know how Forrester reached the contributors. I don’t know if Forrester gatekept the outlet. But at least it’s a good sign.

Sitting in Cafe Metropolis, I think I’ll melt soon. My hands become sticky and I can hardly hold my head. One hour ago I had an impulsion to fly to Australia or somewhere in the South hemisphere where the Spring is looming. Now I feel I am already there. Or maybe some place further south.
I can’t believe I’m in the middle of the fall quarter. Five weeks to go and will face two final papers and one take-home exam. Not too bad. But thinking about the coming Winter gives me a headache. I should have ridden my bike more in the Summer. Or at least should have had it fixed–the left pedal fell off a few months ago.
Now I have a new way to procrastinate. I procrastinate by surfing the Web to seek for cure for procrastination. I’m learning to use MyLifeOrganized to implement GTD.
I’m expecting a cool gadget I just ordered online today. I can’t wait to try it out and maybe will post a review when it arrives. It must be very very very cool. Okay. Time to go back to work.

You should have noticed it but I still can’t help posting this. I’ve got Punkymoods!
Peter stopped by my blog to let me know it so I was the very first person to sign up after his vacation! YAH!!!

It snowed in the morning. On the 12th day of October!
I was excited about it because it hadn’t snowed for such a long time. No! It hadn’t snowed in the past 6 months!
I should do something to beat the winter blues. How about a big hot chocolate with whipped cream?
Update: the snowfall set the record of Chi-town. Never in 121 years of official observations has measurable snowfall occurred earlier in the city.

Via Bitch Ph.D.
Today is National Coming Out Day.
Here is the Straight Guide to GLBT Americans.

I have to switch from Bloglines to Google Reader. Now I claim myself a widow of Bloglines because I think it’s dead. I never thought the mishap would happen to me one day though I’ve seen people mourning for their lost feeds in Bloglines. Now my turn. Bloglines ruined my day. I lost all my feeds and thus had nothing to procrastinate in a positive way. Katherine suggested I can still procrastinate by putting Bloglines together all over again. What adds to my resentment is Bloglines didn’t allow me to add my subscribed feeds for “You are already subscribed to that blog.”
So this is the story. Last Friday I tried to move a feed to a folder I thought it might belong to better. After that, BOOM! Everything was gone in the left bar. I was praying the plumber to show up to say “we are sorry” blahblahblah but it turned to be my fantasy. Nobody in the blogosphere complained about the loss of feeds as I experienced. To offset my cognitive dissonance, I thought it might be a punishment for my being organized. Anyways, the blessing in disguise is I exported all my feeds to an OPML file a few days ago.

Read the rest of the entry…

I found this at the YWCA boutique in Toronto. This is an interesting store full of gifts from all over the world. When my eyes rested on it, the poor little thing was in the corner on the shelf, full of dust. When I checked it out on the counter, the lady was delighted and told her co-worker “someone finally wants it!” And she was kind to remind me that the accessory on it was for display only and not for sale. “I knew it. What I want is it.” I smiled.
Do you know what this is for?

The photo from the back might give you a better hint.

Read the rest of the entry…

Via Bloodless Coop. I thought I am very liberal, but ooooooh…
My score on The Politics Test:
Centrist
(You scored 58% Personal Liberty and 40% Economic Liberty!)

A centrist believes in moderate government intervention in both personal and economic matters. They tend to be somewhat ambiguous, as they may have the oppurtunity to pick the side of any group surrounding them on any given issue. They generally believe in a moderate social safety net and what they consider to be a balanced stance on personal liberty. Centrists tend to emphasize compromise and cooperation between partisan groups.
It might be bothering if you want to take the test. You have to read 160 statements. What bugs me most is there is no neutral options like “neither agree nor disagree” or “don’t know”. And you have to sign up for the dating Website if you want to know the result. Anyway, I still took it here.
BTW, you can find a bunch of academic blogs from The Academic Blog Portal. That’s where I found Bloodless Coop

If you stopped by here before 2006, you might have noticed the cute line-drawn mood icons on the right sidebar. I used to change it from time to time to reflect my moods. The service has been down for about a year due to a disk failure of the cartoonist, Marc Lutz. I thought I’d lost it forever. But guess what? It’s back!
Peter Keung has brought it back with the permission of Marc. Peter, you are my hero! Unkymoods, now Punkymoods, is still free but a donation will be appreciated.
At this point I can’t register for the service for “Registration closed until mid-October as Peter is on vacation.” It’s Okay. I don’t mind waiting for ten days to get it back. But I’m too impatient to keep it from you. Every blogger deserves Punkymoods!
P.S. This is a story of serendipity. I just checked all the unpublished entries and found one in mourning for unkymoods. Not expecting to find anything new, I was directed to Punkymoods by Google.

I had my hair cut really really really really short. So short that I’m half bald. So short that I feel there is nowhere to hide myself when I feel ashamed. So short that I can make a fortune by saving a lot of money on buying shampoo and conditioner. So short that even hurricane can’t ruin my haircut — even it does, I can fix it in a sec. This is the shortest haircut in my whole life! Now nobody can catch me by the hair!!!
So far I still like it. Nice try.