This N That

After several weeks of big news stories and crazy articles that led my blog, this week I was left with no lead story but a bunch of industry related items to hit on.  So without further delay, here are a handful of items that I find newsworthy and interesting….

--  Congrats to the fine people at Viracon for 2 reasons.  First they once again made an amazing charitable donation to the United Way.  They done this for a few years now and this year Viracon employees donated an awesome $111, 990.00.  That is simply incredible and impressive and deserves major attention.  Kudos to Carla Kern who led the charge once again…as well as Kelly Schuller and the entire management group there. 

On the product side of things….  Viracon made news this week with word on their new warm edge spacer.  I am always big into technology and when energy performance can be improved with smart moves like this, it’s a big win for our world.  Kudos to all involved in that process and well done!! 

--  What city in the US features the most cranes?  I was really surprised that for the 2^nd year in a row it was Seattle…. I was also surprised that Portland was in the top 5.  Obviously the Pacific Northwest is a hot place eh?  Other cities in the top 5 were Chicago, Denver, and LA.

--  The stock market had a very bumpy run of late and so has the Dodge Momentum Index.  Commercial buildings were down almost 8% in January vs. December.  And similar to what is being said about the Dow Jones, the experts feel this drop is a basic correction vs. a very strong 4Q.  Obviously both bear monitoring to see if there are deeper issues than a correction, so no major worry…. yet…

--  Many of you out there are doing some sort of digital marketing and you know it can be an adventure.  Well just imagine if you had the same amount of money for digital marketing that people used on a 30 second Super Bowl ad.   Digiday did a great look at how much you could do online with 5.2 million dollars.  It really is amazing how much more long term value there is vs. one TV ad….

--  So speaking of those TV ads each year I do follow the Super Bowl commercials very closely… this year was no different and I was happy that most ads tried to steer clear of social issues.  I personally prefer my social issue discussions to be separate from my chips, beer, and car commercials.   Winner overall for me was Tide.  Smart use of their time making fun of stereotypical super bowl commercials from the past.  I really enjoyed it and had no idea the lead actor was from “Stanger Things” (I’ve never seen) but that surely had my son appreciating that approach.  I also liked Rocket Mortgage’s translating millennial speak.  Given the way our world is these days, that was cool.  Last I am a loyal M&M guy (unless I get the real chocolate from a good friend in Hawaii) so I thought the Danny DeVito coming alive as the red M&M was awesome.

--  Last this week congrats to all of those Eagles fans out there.  Friends of mine like Chuck Knickerbocker and Ted Bleecker should still be on cloud 9 a week later…. It was a nice win in an exciting game.  I don’t watch much NFL these days but I did enjoy this one and happy for those folks who can finally celebrate a championship!

LINKS of the WEEK

If you know me, you know I am a dog guy.  This story sickens me.  And the woman who married this monster AFTER he did what he did is beyond belief.

It was the police that robbed the bank!!

This is not surprising- but I also wonder if it’s real.

VIDEO of the WEEK

Folks with serious brains are not usually football fans… and these 3 on Jeopardy surely proved that!