The last thing I saw before surgery was the color bars......

Well, after two years of physical therapy, a corotozone shot, and untold temper tantrums that I can now blame on the pain, I finally had the sugery to correct a torn labrum on Friday July 13th 2012.

To avoid the obvious questions, What's the Labrum?. The labrum is a type of cartilage that surrounds the socket of ball-and-socket joints. A labrum is found in both the shoulder and the hip joint. The labrum forms a ring around the edge of the bony socket of the joint. It helps to provide stability to the joint by deepening the socket, yet unlike bone, it also allows flexibility and motion.

According to several sources on the internet,The Torn Hip Labrum Is the New “In” Surgery Alex Rodriguez olympic skater Alissa Czisny. sprinter Tyson Gay.

As they wheeled me into the operating room at the NYU Langone Center for Joint Diseases in Manhattan, I was surrounded by a bank of broadcast quality monitors, displaying color bars. It was those monitors which my Doctor (Robert Meislin) would use to navigate his way around in the small socket and clean up the frayed edges and loose parts of the labrum, and clean out bone spurs, which were the source of two years of pain, these technology advances continue to amaze me. Those color bars were the last things I saw before the anesthesia kicked in..the next thing I knew it was two hours later, and I was in the recovery room.

I want to thank my friends, family, colleagues, and the staff at NYU Langone Center for Joint Diseases (except the person in "accounting" that forgot to click one "billing approval" button Thursday night which caused a 45 minute delay in my admission for surgery) for the support and encouragement, and prayers for my Refuah Shlema, complete and speedy recovery, I look forward to thanking you in person.

I also want to thank my constant nurse and ice maker wife Robbie for her support, I expect to be on crutches for the next 3 weeks, however I feel better every day.

Radio Accountability Initiative Announced at RAB Conference

Initiative to Address Accountability/Distribution Platforms

Orlando, Fla., March 18, 2009 … Ad-ID today announced the “Radio Accountability Initiative,” which was endorsed by the Radio Advertising Bureau (RAB) at its RAB `09 conference. Harold S. Geller, senior vice president, cross-industry workflow, 4A’s, and managing director, Ad-ID LLC, announced the initiative during a panel discussion entitled “Increasing Cash Flow and Decreasing Makegoods Through Digital Commercial Workflow.” The Initiative will address accountability and distribution platforms that ensure the right commercials get on the right stations.


In endorsing the Initiative, Jeff Haley, president-CEO, RAB, said “As radio aims to grow its share of ad dollars, proof of performance, improved commercial workflow and consumer Interactivity are increasingly important at the station level. It is beneficial to make radio commercials as interactive as the purchase-enabled songs to which they are attached.”

“Accountability in radio revolves around identification. If you can consistently identify a spot, the advertiser it’s associated with, and centrally access other necessary information, you create an environment where accountability and transparency are core capabilities,” added Harold S. Geller, managing director, Ad-ID LLC. “Each of the founding participants in this initiative plays a key role in radio workflow; together they can demonstrate the accountability of radio.”


Initial initiative participants include: Allen Hartle, founder/CEO, Jump2Go; Harold S. Geller, managing director, Ad-ID LLC; Joe Rivera, vp/director of operations, FirstSpin Inc.; Rick Rowland, president, PowerLink Software.


Additional vendors and station groups will join as this initiative launches. There will be no restrictions to participation other than supporting Ad-ID. If advertisers choose to code ads outside of Ad-ID, a station’s own policy will govern how that ad is treated.

“The founding participants of the Radio Accountability Initiative can make radio more accountable with limited disruption to existing workflow,” added Geller. “Obviously as more vendors come on board, and adopt Ad-ID and XMP, more capabilities will emerge.”

About the Founding Partners
Ad-ID is the only advertising asset coding system supported and authorized by the American Association of Advertising Agencies (4A’s) and the Association of National Advertisers (ANA) across all media. It is guaranteed to be globally unique and has more than 70 metadata fields, (including: advertiser, product, brand, ad title, medium, agency, and length / size). Ad-ID is a flexible metadata model that can integrate requirements of any media, and provides Web services that enable the easy retrieval of data by authorized users. There are currently over 700 advertisers, including 78 of the top 100 in the United States, signed up for Ad-ID. For this initiative, Ad-ID becomes the foundation of the digital workflow.

Adobe’s Extensible Metadata Platform (XMP) is a labeling technology that allows you to embed data about a file, known as metadata, into the file itself. With XMP, desktop applications and back-end automation systems gain a common method for capturing, sharing and leveraging this valuable metadata, thereby opening the door for more efficient job processing, workflow automation and rights management. In this initiative, XMP will be implemented to take the guesswork out of ad identification. Adobe has been approached to endorse this initiative.

FirstSpin’s radio distribution platform ensures that commercial spots make it to the radio station, in time for air and with minimal manual intervention. Integration to Ad-ID’s central database of information about ads reduces a step of rekeying, and ensures that vendors further down the workflow will have the necessary data. FirstSpin plans to use XMP to embed the Ad-ID in the file, which will further automate station commercial operations.

Jump2Go is designed to make radio commercials as interactive as the purchase-enabled songs to which they’re attached, using the RDS layer of analog broadcast. Jump2Go will use Ad-ID to manage the identification of the ad; Jump2Go will also maintain a database of text that is associated with the Ad-ID based on the available output devices

PowerLink Software’s “Proof of Play” demonstrates the accountability of radio with definitive proof that commercials aired correctly. It can monitor ads before, during and after airplay via the Web. Combine Posting results and late copy change requests to the same screen and you have a one-stop shop for Ad buyers to be serviced with the latest technology! Power-Link’s integration with Ad-ID, enables it to use standardized data to aggregate across stations and markets in real time.

About The Radio Advertising Bureau
The Radio Advertising Bureau serves more than 6,000 member radio stations in the U.S. and over 1,000 member networks, representative firms, broadcast vendors, and international organizations. RAB leads and participates in educational, research, sales, and advocacy programs that promote and advance radio as a primary advertising medium.

About the 4A’s
The 4A's is the national trade association of the advertising agency business. The 1,196 member agency offices it serves in the United States employ 65,000 people, offer a wide range of marketing communications services, and place 80 percent of all national advertising. The management-oriented association helps its members build their businesses, and acts as the industry’s spokesman with government, media, and the public sector.

About the ANA
The Association of National Advertisers leads the marketing community by providing its members insights, collaboration and advocacy. ANA’s membership includes 400 companies with 9000 brands that collectively spend over $100 billion in marketing communications and advertising. The ANA strives to communicate marketing best practices, lead industry initiatives, influence industry practices, manage industry affairs and advance, promote and protect all advertisers and marketers.

MediaBank Is First Media Management System to Partner With Ad-ID

Partnership Allows Advertisers and Agencies to SignificantlyImprove Operating Efficiency

CHICAGO (November 24, 2008) – MediaBank, a leading provider of integrated technology solutions that help marketers and agencies better manage the end-to-end media buying process, and Ad-ID, a joint venture of the American Association of Advertising Agencies (4A’s) and the Association of National Advertisers, Inc. (ANA), today announced the integration of Advertising Digital Identification (Ad-ID) with MediaBank’s technology platforms to help reduce common inefficiencies associated with the advertising and media buying process.

The full MediaBank product suite will integrate with Ad-ID to allow advertisers and agencies to more effectively manage metadata and measure performance throughout any media campaign lifecycle.

“Incorporating Ad-ID coding into MediaBank’s innovative products greatly improves operational efficiencies for media buyers and advertisers,” said Harold Geller, managing director of Ad-ID and senior vice president of Digital Initiatives at the 4A’s. “MediaBank is providing enhanced transparency, accountability and efficiency to our industry.”

Ad-ID, the advertising industry’s Web-based, complete-code system, offers a central database where information about each commercial asset can be entered and coded to bring consistency to asset identification and enable the digital exchange of information.

MediaBank is the first media management system to directly integrate with Ad-ID. The partnership provides advertisers and agencies – delivered either on an on-demand basis or three times daily – with new or revised Ad-ID codes and metadata instantly through the MediaBank system. E-mail notifications provide alerts for successful or rejected transmission with actionable messages. Using MediaBank and Ad-ID, an advertiser can eliminate manual double entry and common errors, as well as receive timely updates of Ad-ID data for trafficking.

“This integration demonstrates MediaBank’s commitment to product innovation and connectivity, and our dedication to provide our clients with the tools necessary to be the best at media buying,” said Brad Keywell, founder of MediaBank. “This is a valuable asset to our clients who are challenged to better navigate and understand the increasingly complex media landscape.”

MediaBank is built on an open architecture platform, which enables it to quickly integrate with other data sources and adapt as media types proliferate. The integration of MediaBank and Ad-ID has further enhanced the robust offerings provided to customers of MediaBank’s diverse product suite that includes MediaBank OX, the industry’s first fully integrated cross-media buying solution, and MediaBank AX, a leading analytics and media mix management tool that provides detailed, customizable analysis and tracking of all in-fight and historic advertising campaigns across all media types.

About MediaBank, LLC
Privately held, Chicago-based MediaBank, LLC is a leading provider of integrated technology solutions designed to enable marketers and agencies to better manage the end-to-end media buying process across all media channels – analog, digital, and emerging media types. MediaBank’s unique products provide marketers with unprecedented cross-media analytics and business intelligence capabilities through the use of planning, buying, accounting, workflow and data warehousing tools. MediaBank has more than 25 years of industry recognized experience in providing media buying solutions, and is committed to combining the latest technologies and applications to improve efficiency in the advertising industry. For more information on MediaBank, visit: www.mbxg.com.

About Ad-ID
Advertising Digital Identification, Ad-ID, is an Internet-based, digital identification system that generates a unique identifying code for all advertising assets (TV, radio, print, Internet, etc.). Each Ad-ID stores critical metadata related to an advertising asset. The system has open Web services for the interchange of metadata related to advertising assets, enabling advertisers, agencies, media and others throughout the media and marketing ecosystem to improve upon current ad-related processes and capitalize on emerging technologies and marketing opportunities. Developed by the American Association of Advertising Agencies (4A’s) and the Association of National Advertisers, Inc. (ANA), Ad-ID is the only advertising asset coding system authorized and supported by the 4A’s and ANA. For more information, visit www.Ad-ID.org.

###


Contact:
Annie Elzey
Edelman for MediaBank
312-233-1391
annie.elzey@edelman.com

Kipp Cheng
4A’s for Ad-ID
212-850-0720
kipp@aaaa.org

Syncro Services announces integration with Ad-ID

Syncro Services is pleased to announce that its spot ordering system has been integrated with Ad-ID’s database to create operational efficiencies and leadership in asset management and post-production technology.

Replacing the previous ISCI code assignment system, Web-based Ad-ID, which is jointly owned and operated by the ANA and the 4A’s, enables an automated process of identifying commercial creative assets to protect the uniqueness of codes and create data consistency. With so many Syncro clients being television advertisers, this digital exchange of information between Syncro and Ad-ID minimizes error by eliminating the need to manually retype spot information multiple times throughout post-production. Furthermore, this level of integration introduces a more uniform process for identifying commercial formats. By simply adding the letter “H” as the 12th character of an asset’s ID code in the Syncro system, the Ad-ID database is automatically updated, thereby alerting stations that an HD copy is available.

Many TV advertisers turn to Syncro for distribution of their HD assets. Since the number of HD-TV households is rapidly increasing, advertisers are willing to invest in HD formats, especially after making a sizable investment in television air time.

Having a commercial available in HD prevents copy from appearing cropped or distorted on HD TVs, which is relevant for brands with marketing efforts focused on visual appeal. Brand categories such as food, fashion, and cosmetics are conscious of airing distorted imagery for fear that their ad will be deemed ineffective or, worse yet, damaging to a brand’s overall equity.

Currently, Syncro is unrolling its Ad-ID integration to a select handful of clients, but further innovations that build upon Ad-ID are already planned. Specifically, Syncro is looking to automate the addition of key metadata by including captioning, station information, and shipping data to each spot hosted within its digital asset management system, and sister company, WheresMyMedia.

By linking the Ad-ID database to assets hosted in WheresMyMedia, trafficking, spot performance, and accountability can become even more automated and error-proof when monitored via WheresMyMedia’s reporting functions. As Ad-ID’s Managing Director Harold Geller explains, “Syncro’s database integration with Ad-ID will create welcome operational efficiencies for their clients.”

About Syncro Services
Syncro Services has been a leader in serving the advertising and production communities for over 45 years. Known for its state-of-the-art equipment and cutting-edge technology, Syncro offers a multitude of services including media duplication and distribution, international conversions, captioning, DVD, and High Definition encoding.

About WheresMyMedia
Syncro’s sister company, WheresMyMedia, delivers, hosts, and archives on-demand content on its customizable, Web-based digital asset management system. Known for its automated video-transcoding capabilities, WheresMyMedia provides an easy way for agencies, producers, and content providers to manage and repurpose digital assets.

About Ad-ID
Ad-ID is a joint venture of the American Association of Advertising Agencies (4A’s) and the Association of National Advertisers (ANA). Ad-ID is a Web-based system that creates unique codes for advertising assets and is the only asset coding system authorized and supported by both these associations. Ad-ID is widely used throughout all segments of the advertising industry.

Activate in Ad-ID By October 1 to Avoid Activation Fees

Ad-ID, the Web-based coding system, is the only system authorized and supported by the 4A's and the ANA.

Advertisers and their agencies have until October 1 to activate with Ad-ID and avoid the one-time activation fees.

When the old coding system, ISCI, was withdrawn last year, advertisers and their agencies were given until July to register their prefixes with Ad-ID, at no charge, and until August to purchase the necessary code contracts. That deadline was subsequently extended to September and October, respectively.

The Ad-ID team has hosted hundreds of meetings with agencies, advertisers, systems vendors, lawyers and media outlets, either face-to-face, via conference calls and webex demos all over the country. Ad-ID has also hosted four Webinars, which were all well attended.

The response to Ad-ID has been extraordinary. There are now more than 700 advertisers signed up--and that includes 54 of the top 100 advertisers.

Activating an advertiser in Ad-ID is a simple process. There are a variety of code-contract levels available to suit the needs of advertisers of all sizes-- including pro bono and non profits.

For further information, call the Ad-ID customer service team at (704)501-4410, or e-Mail.

For more information about Ad-ID visit The Ad-ID Website

Has Ad-ID Reached a Tipping Point?

It’s been more than a year since I wrote my first blog entry about Ad-ID and about 10 months since Ad-ID became the only advertising asset-coding system authorized and supported by the American Association of Advertising Agencies (AAAA) and the Association of National Advertisers (ANA). Lots has happened during this period, which tells me that we are definitely moving in a good direction toward bringing the advertising industry into the current, well maybe just the immediate past, century, when it comes to digital asset management.

There are currently more than 600 advertisers using Ad-ID, including 30 of the top 100, and more are activating every week. I have traveled all over the country to large and small audiences discussing this topic, addressing people’s concerns, and mostly listening to how Ad-ID can respond to the needs of our ever-changing industry.

Here are just a few things that we’ve done to make Ad-ID better:

• For visual media, such as television, Ad-ID has facilitated the development of standards for the coding of standard and high-definition commercials. All standard definition commercial codes are 11 characters; the high definition version of the ad will contain an H in the 12th character.
  
  


• Introduction of the small advertiser program: This allows advertisers that spend less than $5 million a year to purchase a 300 Ad-ID contract at a discounted rate of $2,500. That’s a 66 percent discount off the standard Ad-ID rate card.
  
  


• Introduction of the limited Prefix Program: This program is only for advertisers who need five codes or less per year.
  
  


• Made sure that “e-Media Front,” Ad-ID’s quarterly newsletter, addresses issues relating to advertising coding, in addition to more information about Ad-ID features, and quick tips. Our e-newsletter is now read by more than 3,000 subcribers.
  

We have also begun a series of Webinars, the first, “Introduction to Ad-ID,” was held June 25, 2008 (and will be repeated in September), and attended by more than 200 people. The second Webinar, “A Real-Time Demonstration of Ad-ID,” takes place on August 19, and I urge you to attend.

We had a very lively Q&A session following the first Webinar, and I wanted to share some of those questions with my readers, and urge you to write me or Lindsay Garvey if you have additional questions.

Q: Can clients and agencies be forced to use Ad-ID? Will TV stations refuse spots that don’t have Ad-ID #? Who are the “authorized entities” who can access the metadata from the spots? Is your slate page the actual slate that will be used in lieu of an edit company slate?
A: Ad-ID, as it was with ISCI, is a voluntary system. Please contact the media directly for their individual requirements. Only those who are given permission by the group administrator will have access to the metadata in Ad-ID. The Ad-ID slate page includes the general information that is typically found on a standard slate, but at this time is not used in lieu of the edit company slate.

Q: Can you include the screen shots with the post-webinar document?
A: They are on the Ad-ID Website for download .

Q: Are all broadcast networks adopting Ad-ID? Even internal creative services groups? (internal/in-house)
A: Media support includes ABC, CBS, FOX, NBC, Turner Broadcasting, and other national and local media companies. Ad-ID can be used to code all media. Please contact the media directly to determine their individual requirements. Many of the agency and broadcaster systems are also compliant with Ad-ID.

Q: Are you working with Donovan Data Systems (DDS) so codes don’t have to be entered twice?
A: DDS has confirmed that as of the end of May their systems can now accept up to 12 characters, which accommodates the Ad-ID 11 and 12 character code. At this time, Ad-ID is not integrated with DDS.

Q: As an AD-ID subscriber can we download the metadata to our own systems?
A: The Ad-ID metadata can be printed or exported directly from the Ad-ID Web site, in either comma separated values (CSV) or Extensible Markup Language (XML) format, or via Web services in XML format.

Q: What is the security for the data entered? Aren’t security rights an issue if all parties have access to Ad-ID’s Web’based system?
A: The Ad-ID Web site uses Secure Sockets Layer (SSL), which protects data in transit from eavesdropping and man-in-the-middle attacks. The data in Ad-ID is only accessible by those who are given permission to see the information by the group administrator.

Q: Can we continue to traffic spots that are labeled with ISCI code? Or do we need to recode all previous spots that will air in the future with Ad-ID code?
A: Codes created prior to January 1, 2009, can still be called ISCI codes, however they cannot be verified by Ad-ID if they are not created in the system.

Q: Can we just pay for our grandfathered ISCI prefixes for our clients and not use the formal system?
A: In order to ensure an ISCI prefix is activated in Ad-ID, the prefix can be activated prior to September 30, 2008, without a prefix activation fee and a code contract will need to be purchased by October 31, 2008, in order for the prefix to remain activated in the Ad-ID system. The code contract can be purchased at the level that best fits your needs. Ad-ID will not be in a position to authenticate codes not produced in the Ad-ID system.

Q: Can we keep the same alpha prefix or do we need to apply for a new apha prefix for a particular client?
A: If the prefix is a licensed prefix through ISCI or Ad-ID, then the advertiser can continue to use the prefix in Ad-ID.

Q: How does tagging of a TV ad work? If we have one ad with 300 tags, how does that work cost-wise? Who is authorized to view the Ad-ID slate? Why can’t codes roll over?
A: For one spot with 300 tags, we would anticipate that 300 separate codes would need to be created. Therefore, it would likely be best to do the unlimited contract for this client if they are doing tagging of this nature. The data in Ad-ID is only accessible by those who are given permission to see the information by the group administrator. Ad-ID code contracts are annual contracts and therefore expire at the end of the one-year period, even if there are codes remaining. For 50, 100 or 300 code contracts, if more than 30 percent of the contract has not been used at the expiration date, a discount of 25 percent of the cost of the new contract will be offered.

Q: If using one of the templates in which the year is one of the digits, what happens after 10 years? Do you recycle numbers then?
A: Ad-ID will not recycle numbers. For example, if the “1 digit year, 3 digit sequence option” is chosen and the advertiser has created 250 codes this year, they would have used ABCD80010000―ABCD82500000. In 2018, the system would begin counting up from the last code for this prefix (ABCD82510000, etc.).

Q: Could there be somewhere on the Ad-ID Web site where old ISCI codes could be logged (even though not guaranteed unique) so that all advertiser spots, old and new, can be found in one place? Can an advertiser purchase a single code and still keep their prefix?
A: At this time, Ad-ID is not able to store ISCI codes on the Web site. Yes, an advertiser can purchase a single Ad-ID code for $50 to ensure their prefix is activated in Ad-ID. The only exception is if the advertiser has multiple prefixes to activate, then the minimum contract that can be shared among multiple prefixes is the 10 code contract for $500.

Q: Currently, our agency has an ISCI prefix. Can we still use that on behalf of clients, or does each client need their own Ad ID?
A: All Ad-ID prefixes and contracts are advertiser based. Therefore, each client (advertiser) would need their own prefix. Agency prefixes can be held dormant in the Ad-ID system, but are not to be used in Ad-ID and are meant to be used for internal purposes only.

Q: Is the activation fee for clients that already have an AD ID code assigned? What happens with all the spots that are on-air right now that don’t have an AD ID code but have an ISCI code.
A: The prefix activation fees only apply to ISCI prefixes that are activated in Ad-ID after September 30, 2008. Codes created prior to January 1, 2009, can still be called ISCI codes; however they cannot be verified by Ad-ID if they are not created in the system. Any codes not created in the Ad-ID system cannot be termed Ad-ID codes.

Q: My agency currently puts an “R” behind original ISCI code when spot is REVISED, i.e., TCAA-T8-001CINR. Will this be able to be continued or do we have to assign an entirely new ISCI Code?
A: In Ad-ID, revised spots are coded with a new code in Ad-ID. An “R” is not able to be added at the end of an existing code. All Ad-ID codes follow the same structure of four alpha prefix, middle four characters and overflow.

Q: Our current ISCI prefixes will not be used by AD-ID unless we register them. Meaning if we don’t register them, AD-ID won’t use them for someone else? They are still bought and paid for by our clients and they will continue to own them, correct? Will the networks stop accepting spots that are not coded through AD-ID? So, if we just activate the codes, but don’t purchase a contract, nobody else can use that code? They won’t be recycled even if we don’t purchase a contract
A: Advertisers do not own their prefixes; they are licensed from Ad-ID as they were with ISCI. ISCI prefixes not activated in Ad-ID will not be re-licensed; however, if a firm goes out of business, its prefix may be re-licensed. If the advertiser activates its ISCI prefix in Ad-ID prior to September 30, 2008, there will be no prefix activation fee and the only cost will be that of the Ad-ID code contract. If a code contract is not purchased by October 31, 2008, the ISCI prefix will be deactivated and subject to the prefix activation fees. Please contact the media directly to determine their individual coding requirements.

Is It Too Late for eBiz?

For over 20 years in the media business, we have lived in a world where workflow automation has taken a back seat to strategic initiatives (such as ROI metrics, audience measurement, and proprietary client initiatives) instead of moving forward with it in tandem.

As Irwin Gotlieb said at this year’s AAAA Media Conference and Tradeshow, reinventing business practices is now about our survival. To be clear, what I consider to be automated workflow is not online negotiations, but rather automating the fulfillment of the results of our negotiations, and the stewardship of those campaigns through integrations between buyer and seller systems.

There are still media buyers that depend on faxes to communicate orders to their media sales counterparts. To those buyers, shame on you; your systems suppliers have offered electronic transmission capabilities for years!

However, even these automation capabilities are inadequate at best. 
Other industries—such as healthcare, automotive, consumer packaged goods, publishing, and major retail—havemandated integrated technology workflows as the cost doing business with them, and have gained co-operation and operational efficiencies as a result.

The majority of the media-buying community has paid lip service to workflow, but done nothing. Our media trading partners have developed workflows, and innovative ways of using technology, in a vacuum. Meanwhile, media buyers have failed to grasp the importance of automated workflows, and therefore have not moved their vendors to actively participate in the workflow conversations that have taken place under the auspices of our vertical trade associations and/or implement their recommendations.



Automated workflows in emerging media have been slowed by this legacy thinking, and now agency systems vendors are realizing that our current highly manual model of stewardship is not sustainable.

We have been complacent, and allowed our vendors to make us choose between workflow and strategic enhancements, instead of moving them both forward or exercising the supreme motivator of finding vendors that will do so.



The media business is at a crossroads, as we reinvent business practices while we sustain legacy practices. We must strike a balance between the effort required to compensate for 20 years of complacency, and living in a world where change happens all around us every day. Agencies must actively partner with media and trade associations, and demand that our systems vendors do the same.

So, is it too late for eBusiness? Perhaps in the legacy model. However, as new business practices emerge, the opportunity exists to transform a highly manual ecosystem to a well-oiled integrated workflow machine, or have technologists impose their solutions upon us. It’s your choice.