Benjamin Nevas

Choosing the Right Marketing Guru for You

I wonder how the Beatles choose the Maharishi to help  provide their spiritual guidance.  In fact, I wonder what my father felt when, like so many others during their hippie years, he traveled to India to find a guru of his own.  How did one choose between so many competing messages of peace and harmony?  Recently, I have been on a search for my own guru, a marketing guru.  If you can bear with me to the end, I have discovered the true path to choosing the right one for you.

Since beginning work as a marketing intern at a nonprofit, I have voraciously consumed books, blog posts, twitter updates and website content from a host of marketing gurus and companies.  Much of the information I have consumed has been useful, guiding my practice and my decision making in helping create a marketing strategy for the National Parents Organization.

Marketing in the digital age has changed considrably.  Instead of TV and print ads, most companies are beginning to focus on online content and social media.  It's about giving away benefits/value (content), and building engagement (social media).

Now to the Gurus.  There are too many to list here, but I will focus on 3 of the big hitters.

"Inbound Marketing," espoused by the marketing software firm HubSpot, was developed by gurus Brian Halligan and Dharmesh Shah.  It takes its name from the conceptual shift from traditional "loudspeaker" methods, such as billboards and ads, to a focus on making oneself easy to find online and providing benefits to the consumer, such as novel information or entertainment.  

"Permission Marketing," developed concurrently to Inbound Marketing by Seth Godin, takes its name from the conceptual shift from forcing a product down consumers throats to making it readily available and earning their trust and "permission" to market to them by providing content.  

"Content Marketing," often tied to innovator David Meerman Scott, takes its name from its relentless focus on creating and distributing content.  This was one of the earlier philosophical shifts, and strongly influcenced both Inbound and Permission Marketing.

The honest truth about all of these new marketing philosophies, along with many others, is that they are all ESSENTIALLY THE SAME THING.  Although different marketing firms, such as Likeable Media, HubSpot, Marketo, etc. all publicize their own system, even they generally acknowledge the undeniable similarities.

1) First and foremost, provide interesting and engaging content.  This can be as a blog, a website, a Facebook page, etc.  Most gurus and marketing consulting firms correctly note that this is the most important focus.

2) Make this content easy to find, share, and engage with.  This includes a focus on Search Engine Optimization, soliciting and responding to comments, utilizing social media, etc.

After that the details vary, but they follow more traditional marketing strategies.  How do you close the marketing loop with analytics?  How do you attract more customers to widen the top of your marketing "funnel?"  How do you draw them down the funnel by engaging with them?  How do you get them to subscribe and become viable marketing leads?  How do you qualify them as potential sales leads?  How do you convert them into customers?  And finally, how do you engage with them afterwards and convert them into evangelists and supporters?

They all focus on content, SEO, "Likes," landing pages, and using micro-targeting tactics to engage customers at the point they are ready to purchase.  They are generally unconcerned with traditional marketing principles (segmentation, pricing, placement, promotion, etc.).  SO HOW TO CHOOSE?  

Pick one.  Seth Godin is kind of "guru-looking," so maybe him.  Plus, he comes up at the top of a Google search for the term "Marketing Guru."

 

 

e-Textbooks Versus Paper: Choosing A Future For Our Schools

Reading an excellent article by Ferris Jabr, "The Reading Brain in the Digital Age," I was forced to completely re-examine my position the use of digital textbooks in the classroom.  I am a strong supporter of adopting new educational technologies into our sometimes-archaic classrooms, and fully endorsed the use of digital texts.  As the cost of e-readers and tablets become cheaper, many schools are switching from traditional textbooks to e-texts.  Hundreds of school districts are in the process of making this switch already.  There is no question that they are cheaper than regular textbook replacements, increase convenience by combining many heavy textbooks into one light device, and allow students to access internet resources and access digital classroom environments.  

The one question being overlooked is arguably the most important, however.  Do they help or hurt students ability to access, organize, and recall information?

Abigail Sellen, author of The Myth of the Paperless Office, the reading an e-bookis like going on a hike, where the trees and path move past you, where you can't see what is ahead of or behind you.  The text can be surprisingly difficult to map and navigate.  

Another problem with e-text has been demonstrated in a recent series of studies.  These studies have found significant differences in reading comprehension and long term memory of material in print and e-text.  As it turns out, the brain interprets physical objects, such as a book or page with defined dimensions, differently than an ephemeral digital document.  The physical flipping of pages and holding of a book have cognitive implications.

The educator inside of me is torn; there are clearly strong benefits to electronic texts, but do they outweigh some very fundamental learning goals?  As a graduate student who has actually tried to use digital textbooks in place of regular ones, only to go back and purchase the regular textbooks, I have to say NO.  If I can't organize information from a piece of digital text as well as paper text, how can I expect this of my students?  As we race to adopt new educational technologies, and rightfully so, on this one I think we should hit the pause button.  Learning goals come first, convenience is a far second.

Gay Marriage Vs. the Supreme Court

Gay marriage is an issue that is very personal to me.  My students, friends and coworkers know where I stand on this issue, and it is one I take very seriously.  My classroom, in fact, had a giant Pride flag hanging during Pride Week, and I was a sponsor of the Gay-Straight Alliance at the high school where I taught.  I have gay friends and family, all of whom are very important people in my life.  As the supreme court prepares to hear arguments next week on the constitutionality of gay marriage bans, several justices may direct the country in ways as progressive as Brown v. Board, or as retroactive and reactionary as Dredd Scott.  Not to wish ill on anyone, but I hope Scalia comes down with the flu that week.

This is a great short video by a teenager who is being raised by two loving fathers, directed at Chief Justice Roberts, which makes the case very nicely.

 

NYC Sugar Drinks Ban, A Tragic Loss

I can see how Mayor Bloomberg's proposed ban on large sugary drinks does, in the words of Judge Tingling, seem to grant the Health Department "authority to define, create, mandate and enforce (laws) limited only by its imagination."  The judge may be perfectly correct in his prediction that it "would create an administrative Leviathan and violate the separation of powers doctrine. ... It would eviscerate it."  But I'm not overly concerned that commandos dressed in New York Health Department uniforms will start pulling foods out of my refridgerator.  In fact, nothing would have made me happier than to see this law pass.

Having taught culinary arts and nutrition to middle and high school students for the past several years, I have come to form strong opinions about the issue of childhood obesity.  Having seen the massive amounts of sugar consumed by adolescents, it is not surprising that the CDC predicts 1 out of every 3 people born after the year 2000 will develop diabetes.  The current obesity epidemic and the looming public health catastrophe are obvious, you only have to step inside of a school to see a fairly representative sample.

The issue is choice.  The cruel dietary lie is that we have free will in determining what we eat, and therefore restrictions on choice are nothing more than an infringement on our rights.  In fact, our choices are already limited.  Those with greater means may have more choice, but we are all limited by what is affordable and conveniently available.  It is no surprise that obesity has a strong correlation with poverty, and it is not only for lack of information.  We all know that cheap food is bad for us.  This is not entirely coincidence; our government actually subsidizes the production of high fructose corn syrup.  In lower income communities in particular, access to healthy choices is not always available.  Access to sugary drinks, however, is always close at hand.  It is no mystery as to why obesity and diabetes are both crises which are expected to cause the first wave of American citizens who do not have longer life expectancies than their parents.

As long as the incentive for serving and consuming sugary drinks remains high, we will remain on the brink of tragedy.  Something must be done, and I commend Bloomberg for trying.

San Quentin Prisoners Develop New Startups

Apparently San Quentin Prison, just outside of San Francisco, is now offering training to entrepreneurial inmates who are interested in building their own startups.  I think it is interesting that even at the very edges of American society, the realization of our employment future is changing.  The most popular programs at this prison have traditionally been welding or similar factory-based skills, which are becoming less relevant in the modern workforce.  

During the "Last Mile" program's Demo Day, investors listened to pitches referring to "lean startups" and "minimum viable products."  Business opportunities included a fitness app that helps drug addicts to exercise, a social network for sufferers of PTSD, and an e-commerce site for artists in prison.  The real goal of the Last Mile program is not to find funding for these potential startups, but to place prisoners into internships in the high-tech industry after their release from San Quentin.

There is no question that education is a key component of rehabilitation.  My father taught in a prison, and I firmly believe that educational interventions and programs like these can provide life-changing support and be a powerful net positive for society.  When we talk about incubators we rarely think of prisons, and I think it will be very interesting to see what comes from San Quentin next.

The Best Job In The World: It's At Kraft

Recently I was speaking to a family friend and brand manager at Kraft.  Knowing my background in culinary arts, she insisted that I must speak with a friend of hers in the company who works more on the product side.  Her department does not create the foods themselves, but rather tests the foods, and write the creative recipes you find on the back of most Kraft boxes.  One current project is finding multiple uses for Boca Burgers.  

I thought, well, this must just be her interpretation of what her friend does.  She sees her friend tasting food all day in a lab and makes assumptions about how amazing that job must be.  After speaking with this woman, however, I discovered that her job is, in fact, amazing.  That day at work, the project this product team worked on was tasting and charting the color, flavor, texture, and other metrics of Kraft sauces and competitors sauces.  Amazing.  It seems to be one of those jobs that even if you won the lottery, it would still be fun just to do.  It might be the best job ever.

2 Reasons LinkedIn and Education Should Go Together

I am going to throw out an idea which might at first seem crazy, but hear me out.  I believe that all teachers, administrators, and students should be on LinkedIn.  It's actually crazy that they are not.  There are two major benefits that use of this particular social media could provide in a secondary education context.

Firstly, the obvious.  Teachers and administrators could use LinkedIn the way the rest of the world uses it, to build a strong professional reputation.  My experience has been that with the exception of the newest generation of teachers, educators tend to be slow to integrate new technologies.  I believe this is an unfortunate element of the profession, and one that a coalition of teachers, myself included, attempted to overcome at my former workplace.  

Secondly, the less obvious use is to benefit graduating students attempting to enter college or the workforce.  Two of my former students are on LinkedIn, and both have recieved strong positive references on their profiles.  It is one thing to ask for a written recommendation or reference contact information when a student has reached the interview process, and another for a prospective employer to see strong references during their vetting process.  The student may have a greater chance of landing an interview with a strong LinkedIn profile and references from teachers and administrators.  For this reason, I recommended all of my students to join LinkedIn, and actively network with school faculty.

One of the most challenging aspects of searching for employment after or while attending high school is the limited ability to demonstrate skills and attributes.  While teaching resume and cover letter writing seminars to my students, this problem was painfully evident.  LinkedIn provides a way for a new worker to market him or herslef better than a barren resume.  It only makes sense that school guidance offices implement professional development and in-class seminars for the use of LinkedIn.  It's crazy not to.

10 Worst Marketing Campaigns of Of All Time

Business Insider rates these as the 10 worst ad campaigns ever.  Here is a selection, and the rest of the 10 can be found on the Business Insider link on the bottom.  Which is the funniest?  Which is the most offensive?  They're all pretty terrible.  Here are the full lists for Worst Ads of All Time, and Worst Ads of 2012.

 

It took some time to realize this was a Motrin commercial:

 

Painful.

 

 

Culinary School: Knife Skills

Since this blog is about social media marketing, inbound marketing, food, and life, a proper understanding of knife skills is clearly essential to our lofty aims.  Often, knife skills will be the very first laboratory class one takes in culinary school.  As head of the culnary program at Millbury, my students picked up knives on the 3rd day of class.  The first question I would ask was: How many of you use kitchen knives at home?  Often, about of quarter of the class raised hands.  I would always hope for fewer.  It is easy to pick up bad, inefficient, and dangerous habits, and it is essential to develop good habits right from the start.  Some of the worst habits included placing an index finger on top of the knife, and splaying out fingers dangerously over the food while cutting.

During my tenure, I had perhaps 5 finger cuts per year, not more than 1 of which would require stitches.  This is an incredible statistic considering I had over 275 different students over the course of a year, often using their knife skills several times each week.  For a chef, practicing knife skills is fun... it is the equivalent of practicing guitar or playing tennis.  It is a challenge to the body and the mind, and carries a fair amount of risk.  A fun evening for a chef includes hours of slicing and dicing.

The secret to avoiding finger cuts is an awareness that almost all of them happen while clearning the knives.  While using proper cutting techniques with a sharp knife, and if you are mindful and don't lose focus, it is nearly impossible to cut yourself.  When you are cleaning the knife, it is much easier.  It will slice through sponges and towels, right into your fingers.  Which is why we have a very specific cleaning protocol - wipe up the dull spine, pinch and pull directly away from the edged side.  Never wipe UP the sharp side.  Seems simple enough, but this is where 90% of our cuts came from.

Alton Brown's "American Slicer" show was one of the tools we used to build a basic understanding of knife safety.  It is one of the best videos on this topic I have found!  

 

Marketing and Childhood Obesity: Keeping Ahead of the Crisis

For the past several years, I have been teaching cuilnary arts and nutrition in a low-income community.  My job had several important facets: to reduce drop-out rates from at-risk students, to prepare students for careers in foodservice, and to help reduce childhood obesity rates in our district.  In an area where many students were often sent off to school with a microwaveable lunch, chips and a soda, it was my responsibility not only to teach students how to eat, but to convince them of the dangers of obesity.  

Now, as an aspiring marketer, I am looking at the issue from a slightly different perspective.  I would argue that a focus on reducing childhood obesity will, in the long term, benefit food and beverage companies in all sectors.

When Coca-Cola markets their new low-calorie beverages, they are not marketing them to young children.  They marketing them to health-concious adults and young adults, many of whom are already stuggling with obesity.  According to Heart.org, today 1 in 3 children are overweight or obese, and 80% of them will remain overweight or obese into adulthood.  Obesity and diabetes are not becoming epidemic, they are epidemic.  The effects of the obesity epidemic are already becoming apparent, and companies such as Coca-Cola are trying to adjust.

By working to reduce rates of obesity and diabetes through product offerings and marketing efforts, food and beverage companies are ensuring life-long consumers, and avoiding the risk of litigation and regulation.  Forbes describes several ways businesses can stay ahead of the fallout from the obesity crisis in the article "Can Food Marketers Not Make Us Fat."

Their recommendations include:

1)  Increasing the prices of soda and candy.

2)  Creating and marketing healthier products.

3)  Reducing portion sizes.

4)  Rebranding products.

Although these recommendations might not immediately raise revenue, I agree with Forbes that they would help food an beverage companies maintain long-term growth in a changing public environment.

 

 

The Social Media Apocalypse: Life After Facebook

Having just watched Warm Bodies, a movie which takes a very creative and out-of-the-box approach to your classic Zombie movie, I find myself thinking about a post-appacalyptic future.  Except in this future, instead of zombie people, we have zombie Facebook profiles, wandering the internet with no human user updating them.  This future, however, may become very real.  If the over-inflated social media sites, including Facebook, Linkedin and Groupon, do not prove profitable to investors, we may face a host of consequences.  Will the muc-hyped social media bubble pop?  Will it slowly deflate?  Or will these companies find creative ways to survive, while their competators disappear around them?  For me, one of the most important questions is: what will this mean for the future of social media marketing?

The financial analysts of CBS News maintain that the bubble has already popped.  Facebook's value has  dropped by 50% since going public, and other social media sites are seeing declines in stock prices.  As Facebook employees begin to sell their stocks, prices are expected to dive even lower.  In fact, Zuckerberg and other early investors have already cashed out.  Below is a list of companies and their stock market adjustments as reported by US News:

Facebook (IPO date, May 17, 2012). Stock down 26 percent.

Zynga (December 15, 2011). Down 69 percent.

Groupon (November 3, 2011). Down 66 percent.

Pandora (June 14, 2011). Down 43 percent.

Others believe that we are still cresting the hill, with perhaps another 12-24 months until the effects of the social media bubble are obvious.  Wall Street investors live in a world somewhat different from our own, and investors understand the seeming contradiction of exploding popularity and imploding value.  What would it mean if stock prices plummeted, even if activity on Facebook remained the same?  Would the company survive as a non-lucrative but important service, like Wikipedia?  How would social media marking need to adjust this new reality?  

My assumption is that the more innovative companies will survive, and many other popular sites will not.  Even if less valuable to investors, I also believe social media will continue to be increasingly important to marketers.  Investors have been aware of this bubble for a while, but it is now becoming evident that social media marketers must consider this future as a possibility in the ever-evolving and often unpredictable digital age.

Best Digital Ad Campaigns of 2012

This is a very cool set of videos and descriptions of the best ad campaigns of 2012, including Merceds Benz "Invisible Car," Red Bull's "Stratos" jump, and McDonald's surprisingly honest answer to the question "Why does your food look look better in advertisements than they do in real life?"

 

The best digital campaigns of 2012 from Gregory Pouy

 

 

Nathan Myrhvold: Culinary Hero or Patently Villainous?

Beware of heroes. 

This lesson is one of the most important and recurrent themes in American history, and one I had covered many times in my first position as a history teacher.  And tragically, one I recently had to revisit.

For me, Nathan Myrhvold has the profile of a truly heroic individual.  I waited six months for my hideously expensive backordered copy of Nathan Myrhvold’s “Modernist Cuisine” to arrive. The whole set was so heavy I had to open the box and bring it up to my apartment book by massive book.  Critics have hailed his series as the most significant publication on cooking since Larousse Gastronomique, the kind of seminal work that comes along once every several generations.  As a former chef and culinary arts instructor, I have collected nearly 300 books on food, cuisine, and cooking, but Myrhvold’s “Modernist Cuisine” series has become my main reference for any and all questions.  It sits right alongside my worn and treasured copy of “On Food and Cooking” by Harold McGee.  For me, he was a culinary hero and an inspiration.

The man is a prodigy.  He began college at age 14, and completed an array of Masters and Doctoral degrees in physics and mathematics from Stanford and Princeton.  He worked under Stephen Hawking at University of Cambridge.  In addition, Myrhvold travels the world as a well-published paleontologist, and just happened to write one of the most important series on cooking in history.  He is a father and self-described super-nerd.

While reading an article in Inc. about patent trolls, I was shocked to see his name.  I had to double and triple check to make sure that this was the same Nathan Myrhvold.  In fact, not only is he listed as a major patent troll, he is the CEO of Intellectual Ventures, which Inc. and others describe as the largest patent trolling company in the world! 

Although Intellectual Ventures has amassed over 70,000 software patents, they have not created a single product.  Instead, they reportedly use these poorly regulated and ill-defined patents to extort enormous sums of money from small companies for the most unbelievably vague infractions, such as connecting a computer to a network.  Inc. lists the total costs of patent trolling to the U.S. economy at $29 billion.  Almost 90% of cases are settled by paying off the patent trolling company.  Almost no patent suits of this kind actually win, as most are obviously absurd, but the costs for small companies of defending themselves are so high that they are forced to settle.  As a condition of settlement, they must sign non-disclosure forms, hiding the misdeeds of the patent troll.

To be fair, they invest in some technologies such as efficient power creation and disease prevention.  These are held as talking points in defense of their reported patent-suing business.  Other large technologies do the same thing; although they claim it is to protect their products as opposed to simply generating revenue, these companies have been known to sue using patents they have no plans to utilize.  The difference between these large tech firms and a patent troll is the scope of this activity, and the focus with which they target and go after victims.  Meanwhile, small business are forced to close, lay off employees, and sign documents promising not to speak of the extortion they have faced.  It is unjust and horrific that such abuse can occur in the modern business environment!  Or perhaps I am naïve enough to think we should be able to move past this barbaric way of doing business. 

It was shattering for me to learn of Nathan Myrhvold’s reported involvement in these patent suits.  As I’ve said, I want so badly to like him.  At some point, if we're honest with ourselves we must all confront the humanity of our heroes.  I think it is a good thing to be reminded of this, painful as it may be.  And his “Modernist Cuisine” series will still be the most brilliant series of books I have ever read.

Permission Marking and Education

While reading an inspiring article by Seth Godin, I had one of those flashes of insight his writing so often initiates.  In this article, Godin describes the scalability of permission marketing as being adaptable from the second grade teacher to the largest of corporations.  Something about this statement resonated deeply with me.  It is the same thing that drew me from teaching to marketing.  It was the sense that I have been doing this for years.

His statement about the value of permission marketing to teachers is exactly correct.  In fact, I would go so far as to attribute my own success in working so well with the most difficult and at-risk populations precisely because I value the tenants Godin describes.  As a teacher, you are in fact selling several products.  As a culinary arts teacher running a program for at-risk youth, my products included a high school diploma, a culinary arts education, and literacy and math skills, among others.  I was selling to a wide variety of clients, from students with behavioral/emotional issues to those on the Autism spectrum.  I even had a few gifted students who were granted special entry into my program, simply because they wanted to learn how to cook. 

At-risk students are entirely different from other types of student populations.  You can try to give them all you want.  You can try to give them a high school diploma – it’s free.  You can try to give them reading and writing skills.  You can try to give them content knowledge.  While many other students woutl take these out of hand, because they have already bought into the value of an education, at-risk youth often have the defining characteristic that they do not.  You have to sell it to them.  And in this, many teachers fail.  The most difficult part of this equation is that there is only one way to effectively sell your products to students who are a captive, and often resentful, audience.  You can’t simply shout at them and try to shove a high quality education into their brains; it is far more subtle and far more challenging than that, you have to get them to come to you.

You could get students to buy into the value of an education in two ways.  The first way is more traditional; you seat everyone in the room in rows, give lectures, assign book chapters, give tests, and shout and punish when a student does not follow proper conventions in your classroom.  All of these options were impossible in my setting.  I had large tables instead of desks, much of the class took place in high-risk kitchen environments, and my students were, for the most part, thoroughly disenchanted with education.  The model of me giving the information to them and using a carrot-and-stick approach to their buying into the program simply would not work.  The fact that these students were part of a captive audience made this situation even more difficult.

My approach to get students to buy into my program included more collaborative seating arrangements, use of technology in the classroom, and a modern student-centered approach to instruction.  This took time, patience, and creativity.  In the beginning, I was cursed at, ignored, and nearly even struck on numerous occasions.  Through patient, consistent, and respectful engagement of these students, using creative techniques to market my products to them, I eventually received wide buy-in not just from my students, but from much of the local student population.  As my reputation continued to spread, with my program evangelized by many of the most challenging students in our school district, my program grew tremendously.  I turned some of my most difficult students into assets by giving them internship and leadership positions, offering these students something of significant value to them.  By the end of my second year, not only was I the only teacher with a waiting list to get into his classes, but also these waiting lists were approximately twice the capacity of my program.  

I received enormous and near unprecedented success in working with our school’s at-risk population through building trust and fostering strong working relationships with my students.  The marked improvement in drop-out reduction rates from within my program further demonstrated this.  Even if they would not buy into the educational products offered by teachers and administrators who communicated in a single direction, they were willing to buy from me, because I was willing to offer them a conversation.

Making Lasagna With Students

I became nostalgic this morning when I found this old video made by a group of former students.  We are making lasagna for a dance at the senior center, and they decided to use the "most Italian" song they could find for the background.

 

Google Robbed Me

 

Google robbed me today.  They didn't steal my money.  They didn't take my iPod.  But they did steal 2.5 precious hours of my life.  While most companies are going one direction, providing real-time support through phone, email and instant messaging, Google has decided to go quite a different direction.  Getting customer supporth through Google's ironically names "Help" pages is like searching for a term through a non-alphabetized dictionary.  Or trying to swallow a whole pinecone.  Both metaphors work.  My frustration arose while trying to transfer my domain name from Google's Blogger to the much more user-friendly and customer respecting TypePad.  With their army of software engineers and product developers, surely they could aquire some customer support.  They are lucky they've got the whole email and search algorithm thing down so well.

Inbound Marketing and Radio

This morning I finished reading "Inbound Marketing," an industry-changing publication from HubSpot creators Brian Halligan and Dharmesh Shah.  The inbound marketing concept is a refreshing one; we have all grown up bombarded by billboards, TV commercials, mailings, radio ads, and more recently email blasts.  Inbound marketing encourages content-based marketing which draws in customers, and offers them something of value, rather than standing on the highest hill one can afford and trying to shout the loudest.  The next 50 years belongs to those with the most engaging, authentic content to offer potential customers, and to the companies willing to engage customers in real conversation.

What does all this have to do with radio?  Many stations are supported by traditional advertising, through mostly obnoxious 10 minute commercial interludes which seem to fill half of the commute home.  As with DVR, people are finding ways to tune out these interruptions, turning to Pandora and satellite radio.  Will this mean the death of non-viewer supported radio?

Radio has had a good run.  It has been one of the leading technologies of the past century.  I grew up dubbing mix tapes off my favorite stations, and listening to Howard Stern (who has already jumped ship to satellite radio).  Local radio stations and talk show hosts might survive on sponsorships, but for how long?  When my students wanted to listen to music during our cooking labs, they asked to play music from YouTube.  You could almost imagine them asking, "What's radio?" 

New media, and in particular social media, will replace old media as the CD replaced the cassette tape.  Once you get past the nostalgia, this is great news.  Who really wants to listen to a cassette tape, or watch the newest release in Beta?  I for one am very excited to see how new media drives changes in marketing, and are affected by marketing in turn.

Eating Rare Chicken

Last week I cooked rare chicken, and ate it.  I knew it was rare.  And I also know it was delicious.  As a ServSafe certified chef and former teacher of food safety and sanitation, you might ask, why?  Why would anyone cook and eat rare chicken?  Because it's delicious.  The more important question is "How?"

After much anticipation, I recently received my PolyScience immersion circulator.  I have been interested in modernist cuisine for the past several years, and this device has remained high on my wishlist.  This device heats a bath of water to a very specific temperature, within 1/10th of a degree, and circulates the water using a fan.  I'm currently using a basic FoodSaver vacuum sealer, although a chamber vacuum sealer has replaced the immersion circulator as the top item on my wishlist, specifically this one.  This has worked well enough.  At the risk of grossly oversimplifying, by sealing food in special bags and submerging in carefully controlled water bath, you can cook anything to the exact temperature you want, and hold it there for a very long time.  Queue the sous vide experiments.

According to Nathan Myrhvold's "Modernist Cuisine," Thomas Keller's "Under Pressure," Jason Logsdon's "Beginning Sous Vide," and the authoritative PolyScience Cuisine website, Pasteurization begins around 136 degrees F.  This allows us to slow-cook brisket for 36 hours at 130 F for the most tender, flavorful meat on the planet.  It also allows us to prepare nearly raw chicken, pasteurized and safe for human consumption.  Supposedly.

Raw chicken is a delicacy in Japan, and from the right supplier, it does not require any treatment.  The reason chicken is such a dangerous meat, usually requiring temperatures over 165 F to kill dangerous pathogens, is due to the horrid and unsanitary conditions under which most birds are raised.  The meat itself is no more naturally susceptible to pathogens than beef.  Off the grocery store shelf, incorrectly prepared it can be very dangerous.

I prepared the water bath to 140 F, slightly above the 136 F threshold recommended by Myrhvold in his Sous Vide Chicken recipe.  136 is low, I just couldn't, I had to give myself some buffer of safety.  Some recipes will say 130 F; trust Myrhvold on this, don't go below 136 F.  PolyScience has an amazing iPhone app that lets you enter your metrics and will give you the precise cooking time.  This took 3 hrs. 10 mins. of cooking, and an additional 1 hr. 27 mins. in an ice bath for a 1 1/2 in. chicken breast.

I have rarely been more more nervous than taking that first bite, knowing full well the consequences of failure.  It was delicious!  Tender and flavorful as any steak I have ever had!  If all chicken was raised in safe, sanitary conditions, we could eat chicken like this every day without the effort and specialized equipment.  That should be enough for some major agricultural policy changes!  I waited for several hours, anticipating severe cramping to begin at any moment.  Nothing.  It worked.  If I can summon up the courage, I might even try it again.