don draper

Who needs a hi-fi?

Hi-fi has a dated, almost "Mad Men" ring to it, but it predates Don Draper's 1960s time frame. Sound-quality advances in hi-fis first grabbed the public's imagination 10 years earlier, in the 1950s.

A hi-fi system could be configured in a variety of ways, but the basic setup had a turntable, amplifier, and a pair of speakers. That sort of rig, with a CD player, still works for today's audiophiles, but they're probably 1 percent of all music listeners. For the other 99 percent, their "hi-fi" is in the car, or maybe … Read more

When did music become unimportant?

In last Sunday's Mad Men episode, "Lady Lazarus," the advertising agency's creative director, Don Draper, asked, "When did music become so important?" Draper's clueless about what's going on outside his Madison Avenue office window. The episode was set in the summer of 1966 when the culture revolved around music; in 2012 the Web is where the action is.

What went wrong with music? Some blame the record companies, believing they mismanaged themselves into a crisis, then again, maybe it was inevitable that our tech culture would move away from music. In the … Read more

1960s IBM standard-issue wall clock tops Don Draper's wish list

One of my favorite products on the Schoolhouse Electric & Supply site is a replica of IBM's standard-issue wall clock from the '60s, sure to make it onto Don Draper's holiday wish list this year.

This run is technically the first, as Schoolhouse Electric hit up IBM to make these iconic clocks available to all of us who didn't work in IBM offices, warehouses, and schools during the mid-20th century.

They're all assembled by hand in the company's factory in Portland, Ore., and each clock is bound by a spun-steel case with the original graphic hands and domed glass lens.

As is usually the case with historical relics, getting your hands on one of these will empty your wallet--the IBM standard-issue wall clock retails for $235 in the Schoolhouse Electric marketplace.

(Via A Continuous Lean)… Read more

Don Draper pitches...Facebook Timeline?

This is beautiful.

In the way slow motion scenes of individual back hairs being plucked by a Rottweiler's teeth to a Johann Strauss waltz would be beautiful.

Created by a very interesting man called Eric Leist, this is the story of how Facebook Timeline was sold to corporate America. By the ultimate American mad man, Don Draper, aka Jon Hamm.

It's done with feeling. For it is, in fact, Draper's presentation from the TV show "Mad Men" of the Kodak Carousel to some allegedly sane men whose clothes are currently available at Banana Republic-- doctored … Read more

Avoiding the spoiler on social networks

Did you watch "Mad Men" on Sunday night? Wasn't it amazing when Don Draper...

When virtual world blogger and strategy consultant Wagner James Au tweeted on Sunday night "Oh I see 'Mad Men' spoilers in my Tweetstream! ," he could easily have been alluding to more than just trying to keep from finding out what the fictional character Draper had been up to. Indeed, his tweet touched on something that is growing more problematic every day: the conflict between many people's compulsive need to post to social media sites their thoughts about TV shows they'… Read more