fligtar's blog » ken kovash

Ken turns infinity

Justin Scott (fligtar) — Wed, 29 Apr 2009 15:51:51 +0000

Last night as part of the Mozilla All-hands dine-about, I had the pleasure of dining with Ken Kovash at The Cantankerous Fish. Imagine my surprise when we learned that it was the Numerator’s birthday!

Please enjoy this video of the festivities:

from underneath the giant spatula

Justin Scott (fligtar) — Sat, 31 Jan 2009 08:06:37 +0000

My friends from across the parking lot David and Ken have begun a blog debate on whether a Firefox Super Bowl Ad is a good idea. I’ve been chatting with Ken about this recently and agree that it’s a great idea. So, to back up Ken, I’d like to respond to a number of David’s points.

Does a Super Bowl ad “feel” Mozilla, even with community involvement? Unlike Download Day or the NY Times Ad, appearing on the Super Bowl just doesn’t seem to fit our DNA.

Yes. I think the community coming together to plan and organize something makes anything feel Mozilla, whether it’s sending a laptop to space to claim 100% of the non-Earth market share, sponsoring every Red Panda exhibit in the world, or running a historic Super Bowl ad.

In fact, Firefox is growing even faster overseas. Which makes advertising on the Super Bowl curious. As a very US-centric event, there’s little reason to spend nearly an entire year’s marketing budget on something that so few current and potential new Firefox users will see.

Firefox’s amazing growth overseas is certainly great, but I see it as even more of a reason to make sure our growth in the US stays strong. I disagree that there will be “so few current and potential new Firefox users” watching the Super Bowl — I think it’s the perfect opportunity to get exposure in front of the non-technical audience that’s hardest for us to reach. And, who isn’t a potential new Firefox user, anyway?

It seems that over the last few years, the only way to generate press from your Super Bowl Ad is to show scantily clad women or do something incredibly controversial. … Simply running user-generated or community sponsored commercials is unoriginal and likely wouldn’t provide any additional press.

I’ve never really been one to fit in, but I have to think there are others like me who remember well-done ads long before they can remember a sexual or controversial ad. All we have to do is peak someone’s interest enough to get them to do a search for “firefox” a week later when they see “web browser” mentioned on a website and never thought twice about it before.

NBC used to use the slogan “If you haven’t seen it, it’s new to you” to promote re-runs. Any Firefox community member who sees a Super Bowl ad would get goosebumps. Any Firefox user who sees a Super Bowl ad would be proud. And I really don’t see a non-Firefox user or reporter who sees a Super Bowl ad saying “community-backed commercials are so unoriginal” and refusing to pay it any attention. I think it’s much more likely that when the Firefox logo appears, one of the people at a Super Bowl party says “Hey, I use Firefox! It’s great!” and the other people at that party remember what he said next time IE crashes.

Retention marketing is indeed a challenge. However, the linkages between Firefox and improved retention by spending an entire year’s marketing budget on 60 30 seconds of TV is misguided. To retain a user (or buyer), an organization needs to consistently engage with them over time.

For existing Firefox users, this isn’t going to come and go in 30 seconds. Before the commercial, getting support and funding for this will be a monumental task, and will involve Firefox users talking to their friends and keeping them involved. After the commercial, when a coworker walks up and sees you using Firefox and says “hey, didn’t I see an ad for them last month?”, you can proudly tell them that they did and why you love it.

The effects of the crop circle, Download Day, and the New York Times ad weren’t constrained to the first-hand witnesses of the events. They had effects on Firefox users and non-Firefox users alike who heard about them and wondered (or already knew) what was so great about a web browser that made people do these things. That’s engaging with users over time brought to a whole new level.

I think the idea is worthy of further discussion and look forward to reading additional points of view. And by the way, I haven’t watched the Super Bowl in years.

How do you measure a year?

Justin Scott (fligtar) — Fri, 19 Dec 2008 14:11:27 +0000

In daylights? in sunsets? in midnights, in cups of coffee? How about love? Both Ken Kovash and the cast of RENT can tell you that a year is 525,600 minutes. But I measure my years as the time between each Ken Kovash Day.

As December 19 approaches each year, I start to get an overwhelming sense of accomplishment and purpose. Not because of anything I’ve achieved, but because I think of all that Ken has done over the last year. To give just a small glimpse into some of Ken’s doings since last KKD:

Thursday, December 20, 2007: Ken wakes up, goes to work, and pioneers analytics.
Friday, December 21, 2007: Ken wakes up, goes to work, and pioneers analytics.
Saturday, December 22, 2007: Ken wakes up and pioneers analytics.
… and at least 362 other accomplishments

I only wish I had such dedication — to think, even pioneering analytics on weekends! That’s why I was so happy to discover that the official Ken Kovash Day website added a new feature for this year’s KKD: a widget where you can express your desire to be like Ken Kovash. It even keeps track of how many people share your aspirations in real time!

I have to say, the Friends of Ken Kovash organization really stepped it up a notch for this year’s celebration of Ken Kovash. I encourage everyone to check out their Ken Stories section for this year and to submit your own if you have a particularly heart-warming Ken Story or revelation.

No other course; no other way. It’s Ken Kovash Day.

Gustav

Justin Scott (fligtar) — Thu, 11 Sep 2008 17:08:09 +0000

As you may (not) know, I live in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, home to swamps, pet alligators, Mardi Gras, cannibalization, Britney Spears, oil companies, and the rest of the world’s evil. And last week, the temporary home of a horrible guest, Hurricane Gustav. The media pretty much stopped reporting on it as soon as it hit (admittedly, there are more important things, like Sarah Palin), but half of Louisiana had no power for days. Baton Rouge was devastated and other areas of the state won’t get power for 4-6 weeks.

If you’ve ever been to Louisiana during the summer (or anytime, really), you know that it is extremely hot and humid and that when the power and air conditioning goes out, older people and others have a lot of trouble breathing. Fortunately I’m not one of them, and I got my power back 2 days ago, 8 days after the storm. Most traffic lights in town are still out and traffic is a nightmare, although the parish curfew ended this morning.

After a few days of being without power and getting very behind in work projects, I headed to Mountain View for a few days to be productive. Things are slowly getting back to normal. Classes started again on Monday because we can’t miss anymore — we’re already having to go on a few Saturdays to make up last week.

I gave a presentation on Web Analytics this morning. When I told the class that I’d be talking about Web Analytics, before I even mentioned Mozilla, someone immediately raised their hand and asked if I know the “analytics pioneer” Ken Kovash. I lied and said no, because frankly I’m tired of everyone asking me to get his autograph, strands of hair, chewing gum, etc. for them. You’ll have to wait in line like everyone else.

The Numerator

Justin Scott (fligtar) — Wed, 19 Dec 2007 22:12:39 +0000

During my 3 months in the Mozilla Mountain View office over the summer I saw a lot of interesting things and met a lot of new people. Of all those experiences, the thing I miss most is Ken Kovash, or “ko-ko” as he was known.

I had the honor of sitting next to Mr. Kovash for around 2 months. For the first week, there wasn’t even a divider between us. I watched as he dared request an IBM Thinkpad in the presence of so many Macs. But that’s just like Ken. Always the shining star; never one to conform. I watched as he removed the taped paper from under his optical mouse and asked if I placed it there. I watched as his chair would sometimes be missing when he came back to his desk. I often thought he played these pranks on himself. Because no one is deft enough to prank Ken Kovash.

Every morning when I got to my desk with cereal in hand, Ken would be there (sometimes) to say “Good morning, Justin.” It gave me the energy to get through the day, until around 5 when he would say “see you tomorrow”. I think he might have said a few other things during those months, I can’t quite remember now. I didn’t start writing them down until the last week.

I know that I am not the only one influenced by ko-ko. I can only hope that polvi, melissa, and others that sit around him have absorbed some of his knowledge while they can.