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Despite all the options for consuming TV content, it still takes strategizing to figure out what you'll watch live, what you'll DVR, what you'll stream online, and what you'll watch on demand. Forget Monday morning quarterbacking — it's all about Sunday night strategy!

The New York Times featured this phenomenon in its piece, On Sundays, the DVR Runneth Over.

It's madness actually, but the silver lining is that there are actually quite a few good shows to watch. It just takes a bit of prioritization and planning.

Either that, or throwing your hands up and your remote out, and picking up a good book instead.

Much of my life is spent digitally, but my recent trip to Israel reminded me of the power of seeing things up-close, and in person. On a fundamental level, there is no substitute for this.

Today I received a New York Times news alert about Israel considering a proposed deal to free soldier Gilad Shalit. My visual memory went immediately to the makeshift tent where Shalit's family camps out. I saw it by taxi cab in Jerusalem, this past August.

Palestinian prisoners (plural...number as yet unknown) vs. 1 Israeli soldier. I don't claim to have the answer, but seeing the protest tent up-close and seeing Shalit's family sitting there — in so doing, demanding that the prime minister and the people not forget, five+ years later — brought the news alive in a way that newspapers, television, the web, and mobile alerts just hadn't. At least for me.

And so I find myself tonight — thanks to the machinations of ever-changing programming schedules — triple-booked for this evening when it comes to one of my guilty pleasures: entertaining TV. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, I used to work on hard-hitting television documentaries for Bill Moyers, and now my TV viewing habits include the likes of Desperate Housewives, The Good Wife, and Drop Dead Diva. I can rationalize it with the best of them — "Don't you find that Desperate Housewives is like an Alfred Hitchcock film where murder is committed in broad daylight?" and "The Good Wife's Julianna Margulies just won an Emmy for lead actress in a drama series" — and yet it is so.

I remember reading about the origins of Desperate Housewives in Bill Carter's book, Desperate Networks. The book provided some dish of its own as it gave readers an inside view of the television industry and the bets made on hit TV shows. Specifically, I recall that Susan Lyne had focused on the absence of "her shows" ever since Sex and the City had stopped airing Sunday nights at 9. Lyne wanted to lock up the female audience on Sunday nights from 9-11pm. Well, as we all know by now, ABC hit it out of the park with the decision to greenlight Desperate Housewives and to air it Sunday nights at 9pm.

As for tonight's dilemma, our TIVO's on the blink, so I have some strategizing to do. Much as the suspense will kill me, I can catch Desperate Housewives on Hulu tomorrow, which I cannot say about The Good Wife since CBS hasn't struck a deal with Hulu in the U.S. Drop Dead Diva will re-air at midnight Monday night and that will be fine as desperate circumstances call for desperate measures. Like a good wife, I've given my husband free license to watch more football. And that's the show I'll be watching tonight.

Update:

Conveniently for me, there's a delay in the season premiere of The Good Wife, allowing me to flip channels to my heart's delight.

CBS is (conveniently) suggesting viewers hedge their bets with blanket DVR coverage of CBS:

"#CBSAlert. In some ET/CT mkts shows may start little late due to football overrun. Check local channel or DVR CBS for whole nite to be safe." (via CBS's Twitter)

Photo of Gloria Clyne Greenberg by Jennifer Mirsky

NBC staffers spoke at the funeral. Gabe Pressman remembered her as “a journalist…make no mistake about it.” Gloria used her incredible gift with people to ferret out stories, to separate the wheat from the chaff.  Apparently she would bawl out telephone callers, seemingly alienating the audience, then make travel plans to go visit them across the country. No matter that she was the only investigator— she called herself the Chief Investigator. In her own way, she “ran the newsroom.” Her colleagues remembered her as a feminist, campaigning for equal jobs and equal pay for her female colleagues.

Gloria worked at NBC News for 55 years. When she arrived, she was 18, and so was NBC (in 1944). When she left, she was 73 years old. She lived until her mid-80’s. And boy, did she live. Her days of hobnobbing with David Brinkley and Milton Berle predated me, but the birthday parties she would throw for herself in her 80’s – complete with dancing and fortune tellers and her adored dog in tow — did not. Nor did the invitation she extended to me and my sister-in-law for a “midnight cruise to nowhere!" Gloria never met a party she didn’t like.

She asked that the following be read at her funeral, and — even knowing Gloria just a little — it seems to sum up her fully-lived, action-packed life:

"Life should not be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside in a cloud of smoke, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming "Wow! What a ride!" — Hunter S. Thompson

The byline treatment and footnote of this article redefine an understated approach if you ask me. 

Template treatment or democratic decision?

Which got me to thinking, why is it that "time off" and, even better "paid time off" prove so elusive to so many Americans?  Is it our Puritan work ethic?  Our narcissistic belief that business can’t go on without our presence at key meetings?  Concern that we’ll be perceived as less-than-100% dedicated to our jobs? 

I recall a study a while back that ranked countries’ allotted and used vacation time—America did not fare well.  In broad strokes, the Europeans put Americans to shame. Heck, the entire country of Italy basically shuts down for the month of August.  Germans get six weeks, which I can only assume is why I run into them whenever I’m fortunate enough to travel.  For specifics, check out figures from human resource consulting firm Mercer.

Or read this excerpt from Expedia.com’s 2009 International Vacation Deprivation™ Survey Results:

Who Vacations The Best? And the Worst?  

The Best:

France wins the distinction for receiving and taking the most vacation days out of those countries surveyed.  Employed adults in France receive an average of 38 days of vacation each year, compared to 13 days for U.S. employed adults and 26 days for employed adults in Great Britain.

And French workers take an average of 36 vacation days per year, compared to 8 days for employed adults in Japan, 11 days for U.S. employed adults, 23 for employed adults in Austria and 24 days for employed adults in Great Britain.  

The Worst:

Throughout the eight years that the Vacation Deprivation survey has been conducted, the U.S. has long-held the dismaying distinction of being the country with the worst vacationing habits.  Employed adults in the United States receive the least vacation days per year (13 days).  This year however, workers in Japan win the distinction for being the most likely to leave vacation days on the table with 92% reporting they will not use all earned vacation days. Employed adults in Japan will leave an average of seven vacation days on the table. 

An old boss of mine once joked that two weeks was “basically enough time to do her laundry”—in other words, insufficient for a meaningful trip or break. Not enough time to clear one’s head, to recharge.  This same old boss, my mentor actually, always made a habit of traveling to a Spanish-speaking country for several months a year, in between free-lance television projects.  Her job prospects never suffered; she always managed to land new gigs. In fact, people respected her more for having the confidence to leave and for the self-assurance of her worth and talent.

One of the more interesting TED videos I’ve seen is from Stefan Sagmeister, on “The power of time off.” I highly recommend watching this—it’s quite thought-provoking.  The basic premise is that instead of saving up one’s retirement years for the later part of one’s life, one should intersperse (5 of the 15) retirement years into the (40-someodd) working years.  Stefan describes how he shut down his office and left a message asking clients to call back in a year. Such daring, such chutzpah.  Such seeming disregard for work obligations. And yet Stefan reports that his “year off” ended up informing the next 7 years of his work. In other words, time well spent.

Led by Ally Hemming, whose title of course is Top Gun*, the session was highly interactive and participatory.  Ally is clearly someone who's in the right job. My instant impression of her:  someone who is highly creative, energetic, and social.  She can't help making connections all the time, whether between people and people, people and projects, you name it. You can practically see the synapses firing in her head.

Some takeaways:

- Your message about what you uniquely bring to the marketplace has to be short and memorable.  You have to be confident in believing that they can't get "x" from anywhere else.**

Also, as one workshop participant suggested, do the "who who what" analysis. As in, who: demographic, who: psychographic; what: what you do, what you can help them with

-the time to think about your fantasy retirement job is now. Ask yourself at what age you will retire, how many years you have until then and what experience you need to acquire between now and then (see chart below. The point made was that you may take job after job that ends up widening the gap between you and your fantasy retirement job.) 

-Think that naming your competitors will somehow weaken your position in the eyes of your clients or job prospects? Wrong.  The sheer demonstration of your knowledge of the competitive field earns you trust and credibility.

- Immediately after finishing a project is the time to ask your client for a testimonial. Strike while the iron is hot, not months or years later.

- Do a skills bank assessment. Ask your friends, colleagues, what they think your strengths and weaknesses are. Commonalities will surface.

- There are many ways to develop your visibility.  Some include blogging, public speaking, and Peter Shankman's HARO (Help a Reporter Out). The gist of HARO is this: a reporter has a need for an expert in X or Y and you can be that expert in your field and in the process, raise your visibility. Or if you're a journalist, you can find yourself a source.  Talk about a memorable tagline. HARO's is: “Everyone is an Expert at Something,”

- Your Google profile is your future business card.

Much food for thought, and a fun way to spend an evening.  Also an interesting exercise to put yourself through. Personally, I find it's easier to brand or promote someone else versus yourself.  Do you find that too?  Do you think it's especially hard for women who, rightly or wrongly, may have been taught growing up not to be boastful or overly self-promoting?

* PS: Top Gun is right up there with the list of fun work titles I've come across thus far in my career. Other personal favorites are "Director of Ideas" and "Chief Ego" at Ego Media.

- Everything good that you come up with has already been taken, in terms of URLs

- If the URLs are available, then there is stiff competition by very large companies who have spent significant dollars ensuring that they have great placement in Google sponsored links

- You would think that by using your last name this exercise would be easier, and it is, but you're not out of the woods yet. You see if someone or some other entity has been using your last name in conjunction with your generic word of choice (such as Mirsky Media which has been around since 2001), well then you have a legal issue.

- You have to put on your Futuristic hat. That is, when I was considering using the word "digital," a new acquaintance cautioned that digital could become obsolete as a characterization in a matter of years.

And so, or "allora" as they say in Italian, what was I to do?

First, I did what any self-respecting Webizen would do and I did a Google search about naming. I found this amazing site, The Name Inspector, and thought long and hard about his tips for naming and the merits of a compound name versus a generic name.

I also became overly enamored with this site that lets you find alternative endings (like del.icio.us) if you want to explore name variations (thank you, Liza, for the tip). I'll give you the URL here but with the caution that it is highly addictive: http://domai.nr/

In desperation, I decided to call on a family friend and famous brand expert, Clive Chajet, otherwise known as "The Chaj." The two salient points that hit home the hardest for me from this discussion were that I should use my real name if that's what it was that I was selling, and that in my efforts to work the dog concept into my site's name, I was, as he kindly but firmly told me, "only talking to myself." OK, moving on!

Having read this far, it will probably not surprise you that in a fit of exasperation, I decided to do something drastic. I decided to use my actual real name. Nothing cute, nothing clever, no puns, no legal issues, etc. Just plain old "Jennifer Mirsky." Which, by the way, is a good choice in terms of search engine optimization.

Once I did this, everything fell into place. The site navigation was clear to me. The email address was already set up. I already owned the root domain, jennifermirsky.com, and that's a good thing, because search engines prioritize URLs with the name of the business in the URL itself. Now I just have to do some complex domain mapping to straighten everything out. Because you see, I experimented with two platforms on which to build this site as well. But that's a subject for another post. Check back later if you'd like to hear the gory details.

PS: the same new acquaintance confirmed my paranoia as correct: When you use a site, such as networksolutions.com to check the availability of URLs, your searches are being "watched" and you may find that if you don't snap up your desired domain quickly, that these parties will buy the domain and then make you buy it from them, for a higher price. The way around this, if you have a mac, is to run the native "Terminal" program and then simply query: "Whois ___.com " which will find the answer directly from a database instead. This is the preferred way to search as it is a hidden search.