Some blue sky through a black cloud

So you go to Vegas with $500. You win $3000 playing craps. Then you blow $1000 on slots on the way out.

Good times or bad?

MSN MoneyCentral published this today. And for the first time in a while it feels as if there's still some blue sky peeking through the black cloud overhead.

In 2005, my home was valued by a Realtor to be worth $1,100,000. (I paid $245,000 in '97). Granted I put a few hundred grand of improvements into the home. But still, that return was significant.

Here we are in 2008. If things had continued going up, my home could have been worth several hundred thousand more. But the real estate slot machine ate some of the winnings.

But I, and millions of other American's like me, are still way, way ahead. And I think this relieves some of that doom and gloom hovering above.

Now, I realize some folks who bought homes in 2006 and 2007 are not as celebratory as I am right now. I feel that. But at least it's not everyone. And if we can all just hang on, things will correct themselves. They always have.

So I wouldn't call this report great news. Or for that matter, good news. But it's not horrible, roof caving in, CBS canceling Jericho for the second time, devastating news. If, after all this time, we are now at 2005 pricing, many of us are still way ahead with a ways to go before we're even at break even.

And sometimes, given the situation at hand, that's not the very worst thing in the world. The best we can do is say "nuts" and carry on!

- Davison

Looking for Jericho and finding Mayberry

The explosion assaults your otherwise quiet, habit-filled day. In the distance, a massive mushroom cloud heaves toward the heavens. Seconds later, you buckle from the shockwave. An electromagnetic jolt shocks you back to the Stone Age.   

When you regain consciousness you realize the dust shower now settling on your town was once a nearby metropolitan city. Days pass. Amid the chaos, you learn that these attacks were released on a several dozen major metropolitan cities by the very hands of the newly formed, self appointed government now taking over the country.   

Sit back, grab your bag of peanuts and enjoy the show.

Jericho

On September 20, 2006, CBS debuted Jericho. Twenty-two episodes later, on May 9, the final episode played to what many at CBS believed was a small, insignificant audience.

Networks rarely un-cancel a show. But the program's fan base, a collection of millions of Web-based viewers, launched a resurrection campaign unlike anything the networks have ever seen. In an unprecedented move, CBS executives agreed to gather cast and crew and grant the program seven new episodes.

In an open letter posted on the CBS blog, CBS Entertainment President Nina Tassler wrote, “We hope you will rally around the new episodes of Jericho with the same passion and volume you displayed this summer to bring the show back. There is the potential for more Jericho, but we will need your help to recruit new viewers” -- in other words, find people who are willing to sit in their living room at 10 p.m. on Tuesday to watch the show.   

As the walls tumble

Founded in 1923, Nielson’s last update and modification to its ratings system took place in the 1940s -- when TV was black and white, when characters were named Fred and Ethel, when cars ran on leaded gas that cost 10 cents a gallon.

The ratings system's inability to account for change, to account for how today’s audience wants their entertainment, to yield to the new metrics has led to the show's second cancellation.

TiVo, iTunes, XBox Live, Netflix, BitTorrent and the half dozen other venues used by viewers who are too busy, too social, too wrapped up in other things to plant themselves in front of the TV the way their parents once did scream for attention. iTunes reports Jericho as one of its most popular show downloads ever.  And finally, check this.  People are watching. 

Speaking of online participation, Jericho-related forums, Facebook groups and blogs measure into the hundreds with tens of thousands of postings.

All shell and no nuts

This is not about the fate of a small Kansas town set in TV fantasyland. Neither is this a statement for how success must now be served up like fast food - piping hot and instantly.

This is about CBS’s failure to recognize where and how 6-10 million consumers think and want content. This is about a brand that has, even if by accident, touched millions of consumers and destroyed its chance to spearhead a major paradigm shift in television viewing. They stood at the crossroads. Turned their back.

And proved they're all shell and no nuts.

At worst, Jericho could have been viewed as a lost leader. Keeping 6-9 million viewers inside the CBS store seems like a smart investment to me. 

Instead, they chose to cancel their future, remain in the past and pretend the world hasn’t changed. 

Looking for Jericho and finding Mayberry

Outside your office is a Jericho audience. They’re younger and different than you. CBS failed to convert them to their way of participation so my guess is real estate will as well if it continues to do things as it's always has.

The world has changed -- there is a new viewer in town. They’re unlike their parents. They’re not typical Nielsen families. They’re online. They're looking real estate Jericho but instead, finding Mayberry in the form of old Websites produced by Fred for their Ethel customers. 

CBS had something and they let it go. It wasn’t the show. It was diehard viewers that could have become brand loyalists. Now they’re rangers, fighting against the brand.

Real estate has something that it lets go every day. It’s the chance to create brand loyalists.

The lesson here is the blind eye and deaf ear to a burgeoning demographic. It’s brokerages not pressing because due to the fear they have rocking the agent boat. It the concern of doing something new because it’s never been done before.

I know that people are as passionate about real estate as they are about television shows. They want to do much more than just search for a home. They are looking to do it in ways that don’t always confine them to their desktop computers or to older traditional means. 

Now is the time for real estate to go nuts.
To attack old models.
Attack old ideas.

If not now… when?

- Davison

As the walls of Jericho tumble, reevaluate everything

CBS yesterday announced that Jericho has been canceled.

The show was canceled because it failed to take into account the Gen Y viewer and the fact that while they watch the program, they don't do it in a way a major network understands. I'll be writing more about this in the coming days.

CBS isn't alone. Banks don't understand Gen Y -- a group also labeled "milennials" -- either. A recent report from Forrester blunty titled Consumers don't enjoy financial services made this really clear. Banks cater to boomers and run their banking processes the same way they did 30 years ago, minus the free toaster. 

Some tidbits from the report:

-- "35% of consumers fall into a segment that we call “at-risk” because of their low level of enjoyment with their bank. Compared to other segments these ”at-risk” consumers are the youngest and have the highest income."

-- "Young females (Gen X and Gen Y) report the most problems with their banks."

My own observations on Gen Y:

• They have much more refined self-marketing skills than their older counterparts.
• They can hold important day jobs and build/run small web businesses at night.
• They have money. Many still live at home, saving, and don't feel bad about it.
• They are open, transparent and have nothing to hide.
• They don't "Learn" or "adapt to" technologies. They take them for granted.
• They bounce between media like pinballs.

Growing up, I remember mom and dad sitting in front of the tube together at night, on a couch covered in plastic, watching their favorite shows while eating cake and drinking coffee -- then going to bed.   

Millennials work out. They socialize. They gather at Starbucks and dig into their school or work projects. If there's a TV program they like they Tivo it. Watch it on their time. Not someone else's. They record it. Download it. Rent it on Netflix. 

Trying to evaluate this huge and powerful demographic using standard methods like Nielsen ratings, or trying to penetrate their social consciousness using old fashioned messaging will serve to cancel your own program, regardless of how big of a hit it once was.

What can you do? Take a different measure of your business. Start by assessing who your customers are. The facts are everywhere - yet the greater real estate population ignores them. Your customer is 10-20 years younger than you, the average agent. You cannot force them down your old chute. You need to build new chutes. And start sliding down theirs.

In the spirit of Jericho, I am advocating the nuking of your marketing plans. Nuking your current website. Your photos. Your message. Your tag-line. Your flyers. Your post cards. Those self indulgent press releases.

Gen Y is not reading, watching or viewing them. 

It's slow now. You can sit all day mulling over the good old days or stuck in the "where to should I start mode". Start anywhere. But start on the things that matter.

- Davison

For anyone interested, use this Petition to let the Sci-Fi channel know you want to see this program live another day.