Blog | Nada

It has really been a good year. I’m not saying that to be shocking, it really has been. Despite the obstacles (apropos of the economy, the industry, etc), we were able to continue on our path of aggressive growth, innovation and a whole lotta laughs. And now, we get to where everyone can decompress for a month. The golden word around HQ: Sabbatical. Nothing does it like a month off to recharge, reinvent and reinvigorate. And after this year, everyone needs it more than ever.

Within our web incubator, we launched our New Media division with a migration of our website to a 2.0 platform that allows us to do… virtually anything. And we have been. The number of friends/followers continues to swell and we’re loving the direct contact with you. Thank you for making our presence that much stronger, and our insights that much keener.

Our 2D Barcode platform is making waves—and judging from the high volume of all you scanners, you’re having a lot of fun collecting “free stuff” and other offers tied to the program. Not using it? Go to lipulse.com/future to find out how your cell phone can start acting like your personal concierge. Wait until we release our mobile app! (And I’m already thinking about 3D.)

Our advertising team has bucked the trend in both publishing and the local economy and brought in more sales, more ad pages, and more renewed business than ever before. The business department and our fulfillment team have been growing both our subscriptions and the number of retailers where you can pick up the Pulse.

So you want to know how we do it? Here’s a list of the Top Twelve, in no particular order.

12. Don’t sleep. Don’t need it, don’t want it. But if you do, make sure you dream.

11. Ice cream cake.

10. Melissa Flagg, who steers our communications and heads up the web incubator. On top of all that, she has essentially reinvented corporate communications. Like Hunter Thompson, Walter Cronkite and Truman Capote did by introducing a personalized flair into their styles of reporting, Melissa has created “Flaggs.” Press releases, if you will, that are exciting, “fly on the wall” perspectives of what we’re doing. Find them in the blogs section on this site. MF, I hope your break is full of new tattoos and surfing in Costa Rica with hubby.

9. Fresh salads. Best when eaten communally at the lunch table.

8. Coffee. Bathtubs full at a time (see #10).

7. Lilien Williams, our Director of Advertising who’s been fearlessly leading her team, has an unshakable focus on serving our clients’ needs. Whenever something comes up, you can almost see her wheels creaking backwards to recall what the client said about one point or another. She better see lots of snow on her ski trip.

6. A pool table in the office.

5. Art Director Kenny Janosick, who must have a secret twin. He is never tired. Not even a little. You’d think with all the pressure on the guy, he’d get at least a little cranky sometimes. No Dice. Plus, he never runs out of ideas, even when we’re talking about something unrelated to his work. So that makes me think there are really two Kennys: When one gets tired the other works, switching off to give the appearance of one unruffled guy. I just hope they both come back from snowboarding out West.

4. Music. Make it loud, make it funky, and make sure there is lots of it around. All different types, all the time.

3.5. The F-word.

3. Writers can be irascible, absent-minded children. Sometimes, working them through a piece is more challenging than the piece itself. Managing Editor Matt Kapelas has been running the game through each issue since our third. And yet, we have pretty much the same lineup of expert columnists we had in the beginning—a terrific feat. Plus, we’ve been able to attract some of the best writers out there. No wonder he doesn’t have a Blackberry, all that beeping and buzzing would make it hard to concentrate at the poker tournies he’ll probably spend the next month at.

2. There has to be someone in charge. Depending on the day, you could debate who that is around here. But no one would protest to Editorial Assistant Mike Isenbek being named so. This guy is able to accomplish voluminous amounts of work in no time. He’s been with us since the third issue or something. He writes the Zoom, New Release Tuesdays, all the events listings, the famed Pulse Rate, and lots of other things that come up. And he’s spending the break working on some Egyptology research. See what I mean? Life support system for a brain.

1. Embrace the circus. The unpredictability will keep you on your toes, smiling and seeing things differently.

So that’s just a few of the key ingredients here. There are hundreds more, but it’s time to break now. And I have a plane to catch. Me? I’ll be exploring some of the more remote parts of the planet. Digging through sandstorms, sketching the Colossi of Memnon, camping in the desert… If you care to keep up with me, check out my travel blog where I’ll be uploading pictures and news from everywhere in Egypt and the lost city of Petra (Jordan).

Don’t worry, mascot Zoki will drop you the occasional blog from grandma’s house.

Introducing 2D Barcodes

About a year ago, I came across an article in one of the ad industry pubs about 2D Barcodes. It was mainly about how the technology works and the different applications both manufacturers and marketers are finding in places like Europe and Asia. I started thinking about the relevance of the technology to what we do as a print media here at Pulse and I fell in love.

Basically, 2D Barcodes turn your cell phone into a portal to the online consumer universe. At the same time, the technology effectively eliminates any disconnect between printed pages, instantaneous connectivity to information and, for the manufacturing-sales-inventory-marketing paradigm, it enables absolute cohesion of information. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

Here’s How it Works:
We (Pulse) generate a 2D Barcode specific to a piece of information, say a special advertiser offer or free stuff. That barcode is married to a pre-determined landing page, lipulse.com/abc for instance. The barcode can now appear on any printed material for that offer (magazine pages, bulletin boards, t-shirts, etc). Any time a user sees the barcode, s/he can take a picture with a scan-enabled cell phone. The scan will instantly bring them to the landing page where they can engage in the offer or access the information being promoted. It takes about 3-5 seconds.

What Does a User Need?
Any cell phone with picture taking and web browsing capabilities can do this. All the user has to do is open the web browser on the phone, go to get.neoreader.com and follow the prompts for the one time free download. The whole thing takes about 5 seconds. From there, s/he is free to engage with 2D Barcodes any time, anywhere.

The Future is Now:
We released our platform with the November 2009 issue, and we are proud to be one of the first titles in the country to do so. But the technology is rapidly gaining ubiquity both here and abroad. In the past few weeks, I’ve received some bills that included a 2D barcode.

In China, the same 2D barcodes we’re using are included on billboards advertising concerts. Passersby scan the billboard and through their cell phones they can interact with the box office, view the seating chart, purchase tickets for a performance and have everything emailed to them for an instantaneous, paperless transaction.

Consider this: You’re shopping for wine and can’t decide between two different zinfandels. You can scan the two bottles (which have 2D barcodes on them) and compare Wine Spectator reviews to purchase the favored bottle. (This is happening in Europe.) Also in Europe, shoppers can scan merchandise in a store and find out where else it’s being sold within a 10 mile radius and what other retailers are pricing it at.

As retailers upgrade cash registers in the next 3-5 years, their scanners will be 2D equipped. In preparation, goods are being packaged with the barcodes on them. Cell phones, like Blackberries, are entering the market already 2D equipped (you can use your new Blackberry to scan a contact’s barcode and it will automatically enter into your address book). So the future really is now, and we’re happy to share it with you. Now if I could just get my hands on those dental transmitter microchips…