Schreiner’s Media Landscape

When I was a kid, I never dreamed I’d do for a living what I do now. That’s because computers, digital cameras, editing software, the Internet, and a lot of the weapons in my current video-making arsenal didn’t even exist. I was lucky because when the digital revolution ramped up in the late 1980s, I was in perfect position to not only see how digitization, technological democratization, and other tech phenomena were changing industry, work habits, and society in general, but how they were GOING to change it over the next thirty years. I was so confident in that direction, I started phasing myself out of TV news- my career of 31 years- and creating the business I’ve now run the past ten years producing videos for business, non-profits, and anyone else at high volume and low cost.

I bet it all and won. Others my age aren’t so lucky. Wall Street Journal has an article today about Americans 55 and older (that would be me) struggling to find work and might never find it again. Forbes has one on ten jobs that didn’t exist ten years ago (“chief listening officer”? Who knew…) while Atlantic has another on the fastest-dying and fastest-growing jobs. Up to now, most of the corporate media’s attention has justifiably been focused on young people who are not only unemployed but many of whom are saddled with college loan debt they haven’t begun paying off and will have trouble doing so once they get a job.

So it not only becomes a matter of personal survival that we “baby boomers” create our own jobs, our own companies, services, products, and ultimately our own lives. We’ve got to serve as role models for subsequent generations who are far more technologically-oriented, disenchanted with the corporate culture that ruled America’s economy for decades, and needing help to find a direction so they can enjoy the kind of life lucky Americans like me have had for so long.

Through my experience, I hope I can help young people- as I’m doing with the Salt Lake area youth media group SpyHop- to use their talent, imagination, and all that time on their hands, to mold their own lifestyles and careers. It’s not enough to have hope to make it in the world. You’ve got to have skills. Because the jobs of today are simply training grounds for the jobs of tomorrow. And tomorrow can’t wait.

The outrage over Time magazine’s recent cover pic about breast-feeding appears to be legitimate shock among the more conservative or feminist elements of society. But seriously, folks- are you really shocked?

Magazine covers have been “shocking” for, oh about a century now: so continuously “shocking” that they are almost invisible among the racks and racks of other “shocking” and “outrageous” magazine covers. I live in Utah where magazines are routinely pulled or bagged for being a little too interesting to the more sensitive elements of our extraordinarily right-wing-dominated population. A car mag can be pulled for having its hood open.

But the magazine business has been this way as long as there have been magazines. Their goal is to get the kind of publicity- even negative publicity- that the breast-feeding issue has produced. After all, they’re on the same shelf as their competitors. It’s not enough to have fantastic writers, content, and beautiful, readable layout. You’ve got to catch the consumer’s eye and stand out from the crowd. And above all, make them buy it.

I’ve been a fan of magazines all my life. Sadly, as readership continues to decline with the rise of the Internet, iPads, Kindles, etc. and cultural illiteracy, the paper mag becomes even scarcer and the industry more desperate. Didn’t like the breast-feeding cover? As they say on the carnival midway- and at the checkout counter- you ain’t seen nuthin’ yet.

In our electronics-obsessed world (I’ll admit, I’m an addict), you’d think the makers of TVs, phones, cameras, and other gizmos would be rolling in cash. But it’s just the opposite. Sony had another disastrous quarter, Panasonic joined its Japanese counterpart in misery, and the only national big box electronics store chain left, Best Buy, is teetering. Why?

Panasonic says: Business conditions deteriorated… listing as negatives the supply chain disruptions from the tsunami in northeastern Japan and the floods in Thailand. It also blamed the European financial crisis for slowing demand and cited worries about a steady and cheap electricity supply as a concern.

Sony says: Sony’s ambitious but disastrous purchase of Hollywood studio Columbia Pictures… worsened by factory and supplier damage in northeastern Japan, ravaged by the earthquake and tsunami last year. Sony also suffered production disruptions from the flooding in Thailand. (U)nit sales slipped in flat-panel TVs, video and digital cameras, game machines and personal computers… bashed by competition from Samsung Electronics Co. of South Korea and other Asian rivals. And consumers are flocking to products from Apple Inc. like the iPhone and iPad instead of Sony gadgets. A soaring yen that erodes the overseas earnings of Japanese exporters like Sony has also added to the damage.

Best Buy says: prices on high definition televisions plummeted and the economy gyrated uneasily following the 2008 financial crisis. (T)he number of mobile standalone stores has soared from nine locations to 281, 100 of those additions in the past twelve months alone. Other Best Buy divisions, like Magnolia Audio and Pacific Sales Kitchen and Bath Centers have shuttered outlets. In the U.K., Best Buy has started closing all of its outlets, exiting the country entirely after only two years. Margins collapsed. One of its largest divisions, consumer electronics, posted a decline. And services, a bread and butter profit producer, had stagnant growth, contributing the same 6% of revenue during the quarter, or $720 million, it did last year.

Bottom line: competition. There are winners in the electronics wars. Apple, Samsung, Haier, Amazon. With the high volume and high quality of gadgetry available, it’s no wonder prices are so low and it’s getting harder to make money. Hopefully, the electronics industry will not suffer the same fate as the airlines, who saw deregulation create a proliferation of competitors which caused prices to collapse, resulting in what we have now: fewer airlines, less choice, worst service, and higher prices.

When old institutions and habits break down or consume themselves, new experimental shoots begin to appear, and people explore and test and share new and better ways to survive together.

“Ecotopia” author and founder of “Film Quarterly” Ernest Callenbach recently died at 83. His last writings have been found on his computer. Perhaps the only purpose of great writers is to use their knowledge, wisdom, skill, and insight to make our own ill-focused lives sharper. But like most dreamers and artists, Callenbach’s goal appears to have been to save the world- even to his very end. If we don’t listen to visionaries like him, we deserve everything of which we’ve been warned.

Since the U.S. Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision declaring corporations have the same rights as individuals, critics have attacked the concept of “corporate personhood”. It’s become a presidential campaign issue: Romney for, Obama against. Stephen Colbert has railed relentlessly about its social and cultural ramifications while supporters claim it as a First Amendment issue.

So in the spirit of fairness and equality, I’m doubly- proud to announce that I am now a corporation: at least in the eyes of my favorite charitable organization, The Nature Conservancy. This is a result of my work producing videos and donating my time to preserve and protect Utah’s and the planet’s sensitive and crucial lands from development, pollution, and ruin. I’ve become a member of the Utah Corporate Conservation Alliance. My logo is highlighted in the pic. Look closely and you’ll see my one-person conglomerate at parity with heavyweights like Rio Tinto, Chevron, and Union Pacific Railroad.

It’s an honor to be among other corporate people (?) who believe protecting land from development is the soundest strategy toward preventing Earth’s ecosystems from falling even more out of balance. But through donations and individual charitable acts, perhaps little corporations like you and me can also mitigate America’s ideological wars, and bring our country and what it truly stands for back into balance as well.

My father was a cranky old man his entire life. But in his fifties, he started getting migraines: an early symptom of something much worse that few people, including our medical community, understood. It wasn’t until he turned 65 and retired that he suffered from clinical depression. He became bed-ridden with misery. What followed was 25 years of electro-shock therapy, medication, and hospitalization. He died almost seven years ago at the age of 90 but it seemed as if he’d been dead long before that.

These are the roots of my interest in depression. Having read lots of books and read articles about it, I can say it’s a lot less of a mystery now than it was when Dad was going through his nightmare. Kaiser Permanente’s new study confirms what’s been said for some time: depression in one’s early life is a precursor to Alzheimer’s, dementia, and other mental disorders suffered by the elderly. Dad never got Alzheimer’s or dementia but his condition destroyed him and severely affected our entire family.

I’m fascinated by the topic less for myself than understanding why it happened to someone I was so close to. I don’t have migraines. I’m significantly happier and less cranky now than I’ve ever been. The only thing that depresses me is running out of cookies. But it’s clear it can happen to anyone, especially because of the stigma attached to depression and many sufferers’ perceived need to hide it from their families, employers, and themselves. Talking about it, removing the stigma, and treating it sooner than later, is crucial to making our golden years happier, more productive, and less of a drain on our families and healthcare system.

50% of solar heat enters your home or office through windows. When we renovated our home two years ago, we replaced our old, rope and pulley outdoor roller shades with UV-tinted windows. They not only look better and require less maintenance but they significantly knock down the amount of solar heat entering our house which has a broad, southern and western exposure: nice in the winter, brutal in the summer. We also built a solar-powered, louvered deck cover which allows us to electronically control the amount of sun hitting the west side and its windows.

We kept our roller shades with the idea that we could use them on the lower level of the house which is just as exposed to the sun as the aforementioned upper level. Our master bedroom is the most exposed with a large windows and glass patio doors on the south and west respectively. The bedroom is protected by the deck above which keeps most of the direct sun out. But while we also made the bedroom windows with UV glass, the afternoon sun still gets low enough to heat the room through the west patio doors upwards of ten degrees from 4-9 p.m. spring through fall. That makes the AC work harder and spins the meter. Enter the roller shade.

I’d kept the old shades (circa 1979)  and all the parts so the hardest thing was figuring out how they went back together (no Internet instructions available that far back). Abbie’s got experience sailing boats so she handled the restringing of the pull rope. Fortunately, the old shades were long enough so I could mount the one I needed on the thick, wood frame of the new deck instead of the new, high-tech but weaker,  synthetic stucco exterior. The whole process took about two hours.

Like our solar power and water systems, evaporative cooler, insulation, and other energy efficiency measure, I’m monitoring this one to see how effective it is. But because of my experience with our other efforts around the house, I know this will work too. The only question is how well. As usual, I’d love to hear what you think (keep it real).

For someone who spent their entire life in television- as a fascinated kid, aspiring news guy, and now video entrepreneur- it’s odd that I rarely get excited about certain programs. In fact, I can count the ones I was actually a fan of on one hand: “Moonlighting”, “Monty Python’s Flying Circus”, “Psych”, “Blackadder”, and “Dream On”. But now I guess I’ll have to start using my other hand: “Sherlock” is back.

Like a lot of Americans, I love British shows. Of course, a lot of American shows were ripoffs or franchises of original Brit shows (“American Idol” and “All in the Family” probably the most famous). The problem in the past was that if it wasn’t on PBS, you never saw it. Netflix changed that. Thanks to Netflix, we not only were able to watch the entire ten-season run of “MI-5″ but found fantastic new and old Brit series like “Doc Martin” and “Sherlock”.

Sure Benedict Cumberbatch who plays Sherlock looks weird (cosmetic surgery combined with his Goth-beanpole stature) but that makes his character even more intriguing. Martin Freeman, known best for his roles in the UK’s original “The Office” (there’s another one the Yanks’ copied) and now as Bilbo Baggins in the upcoming “The Hobbit”, is Watson. He’s the perfect balance to the arrogant and egomaniacal Sherlock. The look and pace of the show are stylish, mysterious, and addictive.

The new season which starts May 6 on PBS is only three 90-minute episodes just as the first season. But you get more than your money’s worth. It picks up where arch-villain Moriarty first appeared in the last episode and is unleashing his evilness upon everyone and everything. Check out the trailer.

Jet packs are so 2011. The official bucket list for conspicuous consumers, Hammacher Schlemmer catalog, is now offering a hovercraft for only $190,000. Tuan Nguyen of SmartPlanet is fast becoming my favorite source for future transportation news like this. I’m not sure how smart the planet would be to turn our local lakes into landing strips. But spend an average summer day out on any American body of water and you’ll believe it can’t be any more dangerous than a jet ski.

Nothing CNN, Fox, MSNBC or any of the 24/7s change would make them better than what they are: headline services with breaking local disasters,  pseudo-events, predictable and repulsive talking heads, and Depends commercials interjected. But here they go anyway. Good luck- but I’m not sure I mean it.