If you were at CMP Publications, or just wish you were, you can read some CMP briefs and feel as if you were there.

In my 20 years at CMP I was given a selection of swag that indicated I needed polo shirts and mugs.

The CMP product with the shortest life span gave out the best swag: a coat with leather sleeves. At one time the URL passed to a porn site.

I edited two CMP websites, and got polo shirts for both (not pictured; Byte.com pocket protectors). Byte.com now belongs to a dentist.

And then there were the cups…

The late, great, beneficent media giant CMP (died after being sold for $1 billion) knew its publications and staff were unlikely to receive outside awards (although there were a few), so it gave out internal Excellence Awards, judged by an outsider(s). I won three, still on the wall in my office

Larry D. King (not that Larry King) wrote a series of letters about Confusion Central while he was working at InformationWeek.

One began: “If you think of yourself as endlessly shoveling coal down a chute–i.e., copy onto the desk–I am the chute endlessly transporting coal. You assume the chute needs coal; I assume the coal must go somewhere. Beyond that, we cannot say what purpose we serve, where the cycle begins or ends. Where does the coal come from? Where does it go? Is it used for anything? Is it perhaps the same coal, sliding down the chute and back onto the pile from which you shovel, so that I merely serve as the means by which you can continue to enable me to serve as the means by which you continue?”

So here I am, walking down an alley bathed in the golden glow of nostalgia, hitting my tin pan with a stick. I have written a number of song parodies, but there are two relevant here. Directly about CMP is the story of my time in Cupertino for CSN: Cupertino Star, sung to the tune of Roger Miller’s Kansas City Star. You can tell this one is fiction; CMP would never offer anyone a company car, at least not a journalist.

CMP-adjacent is my account of the freelance experience, King of the Keys, sung to the tune of Miller’s King Of The Road.

Why yes, I have been keeping busy in retirement.

Top Ten Friday Afternoon Activities (April 5, 1991)

1.       Make crank calls to Gerry Leeds’ office.
2.       Form debate teams and tackle the thorny problem of “Headshots: File by Name or Company?”
3.       Lambada!
4.       Co-ed skins vs. shirts Nerf basketball.
5.       Listen to live recording of “Free Bird.”
6.       Browse through the copy editors’ magazine collection.
7.       Clean beige substances off cafeteria floors.
8.       Mail-order expensive gifts with editor’s credit card number.
9.       Change all the hallway office signs.
10      Call the bureaus at 5:20 and see who’s still at work.

These CMP Links prove that I have written frequently about the company since this blog debuted in October of 1998.

And don’t forget Internet Pioneer (TechWeb) Interviews

Note:  I am still alive. This is not my obituary¹; it is an Aide-mémoire for those CMP people who didn’t know/don’t remember me, establishing my bona fides for the creation of this collection of CMP trivia/self promotion²]

You may remember me from such cute/public habits as:
•  Asking the first question at Camp CMP each year.
•  Being the first person to ask Michael Leeds, on the “we’ve been sold” conference call, how he squared the sale of the company with the “We will remain independent” principle. Turns out there was an exception: “Until such time as we can use the proceeds to really fund the heck out of the family foundation.” Well, OK, and also “If we can get a billion dollars for the company at the absolute peak of its value, from Brits with cloudy crystal balls.” [Hey, I didn’t decline the generously and voluntarily offered share of the sale price, nor did anyone else in the company I know of. I’m happy they sold. Too bad it violated a principle.³]
•  Not having an indoor voice.
•  Wearing bow ties after… I forget who… taught me how to tie one in exchange for me giving him one.
•  Working from home for 20 years, much to the irritation of many other writers and editors—or so they frequently told me.
•  Never once in 20 years writing too short.
•  What, you didn’t know I was employee 100?

Footnotes

1. 1. I have written my obituary; CMP does not show up until the 7th paragraph. ↩︎
2. 2. Not to mention letting me use two show-off foreign words in one sentence. ↩︎
3. 3. At Camp CMP once, Gerry said his secretary could turn down buyout offers without asking him. ↩︎

Apparently, Ken and Mike wrote The Future Just Happened

“May contain inaccuracies.” Better perhaps: “may contain total bovine effluvia.”

I had a vague recollection that two of the executives at CMP had been mentioned in Michael Lewis’ book, The Future Just Happened in connection with Netguide. I guess my prompt must have been faulty: “the future just happened ken cron michael leeds netguide”

Imagine Lewis’ shock and chagrin when the Duck Duck search assist returns this response:

“The Future Just Happened” is a book by Ken Cron and Michael Leeds that discusses the impact of technology on society and how it shapes our future. It explores themes of innovation, digital culture, and the challenges that arise from rapid technological advancements.

 Wikipedia

 Internet Archive (this link is particularly relevant)

Why wait? Don’t fall behind the curve. Tomorrow morning hand your business over to notAI/LLM. Let it write your business strategy, screen your job applicants, diagnose your patients and handle your customer support calls.

With all your newly freed time, you can read Cron and Leeds’ book The Future Just Happened. Until your company disappears, as theirs did. It took  years, because NotAI/LLM wasn’t there to help. A fake AI can hallucinate you out of business in no time.

And contemplate the term used in private aviation: controlled flight into terrain.

Yeah, I wasn’t the first or last layoff initiated by UBM when it took over. Haven’t gotten over it a quarter-century later? Quoting Weird Al, “I might seem kind of bitter.” You be the judge…