TTAC Future Writers Scandal: TTAC Crowns Loser, Hoses Winner
Andrew Lok, a.k.a. contestant won the Thursday round of the TTAC Future Writers Week by a wide margin. His epos on stolen GPS machines, and his pilgrimage to the Valhalla of Speed, the Nürburgring der Niebelongen, received 45 percent of all votes on Thursday. In the following week, when the full results of TTAC’s Future Writers Week were published, Lok was gone.
Instead of Lok, William Simonsick found himself standing on the podium. His treatise on the demographic stereotypes for Subaru buyers, with a focus on the People’s Republic of Boulder, originally had deposited him far back in the pile on place 5 when all the votes were counted. A few days later, Simonsick suddenly was the cat’s meow. Scandal!
“Statistical abuse at its worst,” barked TTAC watchdog Pch101, who called for a public hanging of the responsible. “Toad” APaGttH said this is “undoubtedly a case of severe bias.” Actually, nobody had noticed. Except Wild Bill Simonsick, perhaps, but he kept his own counsel, a retired professor of the Marquette Law School.
Today, we received an email.
“I got hosed!” writes Andrew Lok, “I won the Wednesday round and didn’t make it to the final assignment. What happened?” We immediately started an investigation, and determined that due to my stupidity a computer error, Lok was falsely dropped, and Simonsick was falsely named as a winner, along with a general jumble of the Thursday results.
Having already crowned Simonsick, we don’t want to send him back to the ranks of the unloved. Therefore, William Simonsick becomes Editor’s Chocie #2. He will cover demographics in Boulder for TTAC.
Here is the corrected and hopefully definitive listing:
TTAC’s Future WritersNameContestantRankedDayMichael Trainor41MondayGeorge William Herbert72MondayGrant Tillery13MondayMatthias Dean-Carpentier201WednesdayAndrew Nevick162WednesdayEvan Reisner193WednesdayAndrew Lok281ThursdayMatt Oppen222ThursdaySean Scoggins243ThursdayJeremiah Cayce321FridayJeff Snavely352FridayThomas M Kreutzer293FridayKeith Kostecke391SaturdayDerek Young412SaturdayMichael Stephenson363SaturdayBilly Pollock491SundayDan Reitman462SundayMatt Horsfield483SundayEditors’ ChoiceDavid Hester313FridayWilliam Simonsick235ThursdayPS: Andrew nearly caused me a heart attack. After his email, I immediately raced to the Wednesday round which Andrew said he had won. Neither Andrew‘s nor Bill’s names could be found. I feared total data corruption, Chinese hackers, or worse. Turned out that good Andrew also isn’t perfect either. It was the Thursday round.
Bertel Schmitt comes back to journalism after taking a 35 year break in advertising and marketing. He ran and owned advertising agencies in Duesseldorf, Germany, and New York City. Volkswagen A.G. was Bertel's most important corporate account. Schmitt's advertising and marketing career touched many corners of the industry with a special focus on automotive products and services. Since 2004, he lives in Japan and China with his wife <a href="http://www.tomokoandbertel.com"> Tomoko </a>. Bertel Schmitt is a founding board member of the <a href="http://www.offshoresuperseries.com"> Offshore Super Series </a>, an American offshore powerboat racing organization. He is co-owner of the racing team Typhoon.
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This TTAC idol thing is getting confusing.
I assume the Chinese are hacking TTAC because of Bertel's coverage of the market there, just like the Gray Lady.