Rob Hyodo

My blog has become a bit like the Matrix… Remember what The Architect said to Neo??

The matrix is older than you know. I prefer counting from the emergence of one integral anomaly to the emergence of the next, in which case this is the sixth version.

Third version, my case. Though I’m not completely reinventing the blog, I’ve removed older postings and elected my October 30th posting - “Laid Off” - as my new starting point.

I’ve some other obscure blogs I post to and have neglected this one, but I admit… I’m a poor excuse for a blogger. For now, I want to chronicle my efforts to reinvent myself as I seek new employment opportunities.

A new year’s resolution of mine was to find a job that I can truly enjoy. Though I may not land/create my dream job this year, I can certainly take steps toward it.

I checked the news when I got up this morning and found that thousands of jobs had been cut. Contentinople posted a couple of articles with the headings, “Viacom Cuts 850 Jobs, Sets Salary Freeze” and “Adobe Revises Q4 Earnings, Cuts 600 Jobs.” CNN Money reports, “Jobs cut today = 20,650” and states,

The nation’s job market, in the final month of a brutal 2008, was dealt a savage blow Thursday when four major companies - AT&T Inc., DuPont Co., Viacom Inc. and Credit Suisse Group - announced job cuts that total 20,650.

I had been optimistic for a stronger start to the new year hoping companies would feel better about hiring, however, another article on CNN Money reports, “Job recovery could be slow and weak” and anticipates problems hiring even after we get out of this recession… Article provided this graph:

Bad news, but I remain cautiously optimistic. I’m beefing up my skills in areas I had fallen behind, mostly in design. I’m also dabbling into music again, toying around with Propellerheads Reason. This could give me an edge as I could create music for presentations and such.

For today,… more Photoshop tutorials!

Nearing the end of my second week of unemployment, I have not accomplished much in the way of finding employment. I received a few more calls from former teammates and partners and have tracked some opportunities in a spreadsheet, but have not made any calls.

Instead, I have been able to extend my stays with family and friends and avoided any need to rush.

• I took a trip to Sacramento with friends who took a couple days off work to see a few bands play.
• Drove down to SoCal and celebrated my daughter’s Shichi-Go-San ceremony and had photos of her taken in traditional kimono, hairstyle and makeup. Absolutely beautiful!
• I spent time with friends in my scene at Bats Day at Disneyland, which was an absolute blast.
• Did a lot of photo editing!
• Installed Propellerheads Reason on my laptop so I can take my music editing on the go.
• I’m starting to help people with web projects, setting up WordPress blogs for them.

My unemployment still has not come through after nearly two weeks since I applied. I’ll need to call them tomorrow and get that squared away.

My time to myself so far has been quite refreshing. I haven’t yet become lazy to where I’m sleeping in until noon. As a matter of fact, I’ve only “slept in” (full eight hours of sleep) twice since my lay off. I’m staying productive and plan to travel a bit to places I’ve been meaning to go photograph, but couldn’t, given my schedule.

“Obama to be first African-American president Obama to be first African-American president”

This seems to be the headline for the past few hours. As an Obama supporter, I celebrated at my friends’ Election Night Gathering where we watched video streams as the announcement was made.

Shortly after the announcement that Barack Obama would be our next President, Senator John McCain gave a speech in Arizona which I thought was delivered with utmost respect to both Obama and the American people. This was the greatest speech I’ve heard from McCain and I have great respect for someone who’s fought as long and hard as he did, not only for this election, but for his service to the country. He addressed Arizona and the nation with magnificent grace!

President-elect, Barack Obama, then gave his speech. He is an inspirational speaker. There were moments where I actually felt a bit of pride in being an American again. I’ve not felt much American pride in a long time. It was a very forward-thinking speech that would speak of changes into the next hundred years.

“What’s better than watching history unfold? Being a part of it.”

I’d like to think that I was a part of making history today. I’m not working at the moment… what else could I do? this afternoon, I went to the San Jose Obama Campaign Office and for the first time ever, I volunteered to try to make a difference in this presidential campaign, using my personal phone to call people in swing states like Missouri and Colorado.

There were about 50 people there making calls and over 30,000 calls were made that day to likely Obama supporters  reminding them to vote. It seemed like shamelss telemarketing, but it was great when people said they voted for Obama and were excited about that themselves. But I had enough negative responses to know I’d never want to be a telemarketer.

To close the evening, we watched various video clips, monitored results and had drinks and snacks. Then we got into watching videos on YouTube, digressing into watching videos such as:

Twisted Sister - Oh Come All Ye Faithful

and

The Temple of Drum and Bass

on a large, Sony Bravia…

I’m voting for…

First off, I had a great weekend with my daughter sharing Halloween candy, watching movies, reading and writing (no arithmetic). It was eerily calm and relaxing and the rain was a nice touch. This morning, I drove her to school for the first time ever since moving to the Bay Area, which was great.

Here are a few things I accomplished today:

• Tied up some loose ends by emailing my former boss a list of things I was working on, the status of each item and where to find certain resources to keep them going.
• Spoke with a couple former colleagues who continue to offer support and help me start the search for job opportunities amongst people they know, even if just for the benefit of networking. (I took a lot of notes.)
• Researched details on some propositions for tomorrow’s election so I can make cast a more educated vote.
• Edit photos and post them on a site for a local group I belong to. This had been looming over my head for a week now.
• Set up a WordPress blog for my Dad’s business.

These are just a few things I felt worth noting.

Something I didn’t get to that I really needed to do… exercise! I’m going to hit the gym hard tomorrow! Tuesday night’s are usually reserved for capoeira, but a friend is having a BYOB Election Night Gathering where we’ll monitor the election results as they unfold.

The event is described as: “We’d like to watch the numbers roll in with a small gathering of friends, eat snacks, and drink (drink is essential!)”

As mentioned in my previous post, I was laid off yesterday from Technicolor Digital Content Delivery.

Hmmm,… I seem to have lost…

my job…

Taking it all in at the moment. More later…

Troy Wolverton’s article in today’s Mercury News titled “Putting Off Blue-Ray” noted reasons why you should wait before diving in and purchasing a Blu-Ray player. According to Wolverton, waiting a few months could get you:

• a more affordable player
• a better selection of movies (of which there are currently only 500 on Blu-Ray)
• and better features

Some of the features Wolverton speaks of are faster load times, picture-in-picture for director commentaries (supported by a few devices now) and downloadable, interactive content.

My division of Technicolor is currently developing applications for Blu-Ray interactive features and demoed some of these features in the Blue-Ray Disc Association booth at CES this year. I was among those demoing these features at our own booth and must say that responses were very positive and encouraging for the development of the technology.

If you have an HD TV and absolutely cannot wait for a better picture but don’t want to spend the $360 for a Blu-Ray player, Wolverton suggests getting a DVD player that will “upscale” the image of a standard-definition DV, which you can pick up for under $100. He states that unless you’re doing a side-by-side comparison, you may not notice a difference (unless you’re like my video-processing cohorts in Anaheim).

He does add, though, for the ideal “upscaling” experience, your HD TV should be less than 50 inches and should be more than eight feet away from you. I have a 52 inch HD TV. From the front of the TV to the front of the couch is eight feet. Leaning back would put my eyeballs about ten feet from the TV. I think I’ll wait for better, more affordable Blu-Ray players.

Today marked VON’s last day of conferences. This was my first VON and I now have a better understanding of the VoiP industry than I could have imagined. This entire week, tough, I was hard pressed to find discussions that were relevant to the industry in which I belong; namely, the online content delivery industry.

Perhaps the most relevant session I attended was yesterday’s discussion on Business Models for Web TV. The VON website described the session as follows:

Whether it is providing innovative digital marketing through streaming video ads, applications that measure audiences for Internet TV or working with content partners to provide unique programming options to your web TV portfolio mix, Web TV is creating a new industry of vendors, applications and services for the delivery of Video on the Net. Hear about the unique new applications and services these panelists have brought to market and see why you might want to take advantage of the business opportunities in Web TV.

• Who is making money off of Web TV services?
• What are the applications that help to drive profits?
• What are the new technologies driving Web TV success?

Fellow attendee, Kfir Pravda, summed the session up very nicely in his blog posting, “VON Live blogging - Business model for Web TV.”

As Kfir stated, the only business model really discussed in was regarding advertising.

From all the new media conferences I’ve attended over the last few months, advertising seems to be the topic to discuss in terms of how to monetize from online content delivery. Regardless of the core topic, there seems to be a natural gravitation towards the discussion of advertising.

To encapsulate what’s being said about advertising in a nutshell, the overall consensus is that advertising works here in the U.S. (Europe is a slightly different story, where they are used subscription-based models). The time-shifted model is ever popular because of the convenience of being able to access the content you want and people don’t mind having to sit through a few ads if the content is free.

Of course, this summary can branch into a hundred different debatable threads of discussion, but I’ll leave it at that for now.

Hulu, which launched last week, is a perfect example of this model. And when someone I know in a completely unrelated industry sends me an email that says, “You gotta check out this site! Free movies and TV!” I think that speaks volumes of a company that is on the right track.