I know a lot of people who write today’s date as 4/7. In other words, they do not live in the United States. Most of these people have never experienced a U.S. July 4 celebration, and this post is a convenient way to share a 4th of July parade with them.
There are a lot of businesspeople in California’s Inland Empire. They write the date as 7/4, and these businesspeople need to communicate with their prospects and clients. If Bredemarket can’t fulfill their videography needs, then what the heck CAN Bredemarket do for them? A lot, as I’ll explain at the end of this post.
But first let’s look at some parade videos and pictures.
The Chaffey High School marching band. To ensure that I didn’t violate copyright restrictions on various social media platforms, I made sure to create this video when the band was NOT playing its long-standing theme song, “Eye of the Tiger.” From https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eoLiObu_l04
Obviously this is not a complete document of today’s parade, which had well over 50 participating entries. There were a few notable omissions:
Horses. Sorry for not capturing any horse videos or pictures this year.
Twirlers. The girls (and at least one guy) who were twirling were exceptionally good.
Itty bitty cars. I didn’t see the Shriners this year, but there were at least a couple of participants who drove itty bitty cars around.
Those danged bagpipes. Locals know who I’m talking about. I lived near Upland High School for a few years, and was “blessed” to hear them practice early on some mornings. Jeff Pope, they’re yours.
But at least the videos and pictures that I DID take give you a little bit of a taste of what a U.S. July 4th is like.
IE businesses are now wondering what Bredemarket CAN do for them
My European friends can tune out here. This next part is addressed to local businesses.
Specifically, I’m talking to local businesses who need to communicate to their prospects and clients, and therefore have a need for written content that inspires your prospects to find out more about your products and services, and hopefully purchase those products and services.
But before you create that written content yourself, or have someone (such as Bredemarket’s John E. Bredehoft) work with you to create the content, you need to make sure you create the right written content.
Click below to find out how to create the right written content.
As some of you know, I’m applying for full-time employment. Every one of my cover letters has a variation on this sentence.
I am in Southern California, five miles from Ontario International Airport, and can easily travel throughout the United States or to other countries as needed.
You will note that I explicitly state that Ontario International Airport is in Southern California, not Canada. Although the phrase “Ontario CA” can be interpreted as referring to the city in the state of California, or the province in the country of Canada, depending upon how you look at it.
Not that anybody pays attention to my explicit California reference. When I was sharing pictures from the February 18 Ontario Art Walk, and labeling the pictures as originating from Ontario, California, I was still asked to promote one of the pictures on a Canadian Instagram page.
The curse that we endure in the town of the Chaffeys. I bet Mildura doesn’t have this problem.
While Ontario International Airport is not the only airport in the Inland Empire, it is (at present) the largest one, and thus has a dramatic effect on those of us who live here.
One impact? Well, in the same way that I can board a flight from ONT to my future employer in San Francisco or Austin or Paris or wherever, visitors can board flights to ONT.
And some of those visitors are business visitors. Years ago, I was one of them, flying from Portland, Oregon to some town I had never heard of before for a job interview. Not only did I fly into the airport (Terminal 1 in those days), but I also stayed at the Red Lion Inn and spent other money while I was in town for the interview.
Ontario International Airport Terminal 1 as of September 2021, 20 years after airport traffic changed forever.
Postscript: I got the job. And other jobs after that.
The economists assign a monetary impact to the activity attributable to the airport.
The impact of economic activity taking place at Ontario International Airport itself, including the activity of the airport authority, airlines and their suppliers, government workers, airport concessions, and logistics companies is estimated at $3.8 billion in 2022. This will support $2.2 billion in GDP and 27,800 jobs. The bulk of these impacts—71% of the GDP impacts and 76% of the jobs impacts— reflect the impact of visitor spending in the region.
But don’t forget the government, which gets its own goodies.
This $2.2 billion of local economic activity (GDP) will result in a total of $571 million in tax impact. This consists of $319 million in federal tax impacts and $253 million in state and local impacts. As with the GDP impacts, the majority (71%) of these tax impacts are driven by the spending of visitors to the region.
And this doesn’t count the impact of the Inland Empire’s logistics industry.
The total economic impact of the logistics activity in the eight zip codes adjacent to Ontario International Airport was $17.8 billion of economic output, $9.9 billion of GDP, and 122,200 jobs. This activity generated $2.3 billion in federal, state, and local taxes.
But what of non-monetary impacts? As the description of the Ontario International Airport – Inter Agency Collaborative (ONT-IAC) makes clear, some of those impacts are negative.
The ONT-IAC implements the policies and criteria of the Airport Land Use Compatibility Plan (ALUCP) to prevent future incompatible land uses surrounding ONT and minimizing the public’s exposure to excessivie noise and safety hazards.
There’s always a balancing act between positive and negative impacts. While I might appreciate the ability to board a flight to Dallas at 6:00 in the morning, someone who lives near the airport may not be as appreciative. And the referenced “incompatible land uses” restrict the types of businesses that can be located near the airport.
While the Amazon LGB3 warehouse in Eastvale, California is some distance from Ontario International Airport, the airport’s presence has a positive impact on the warehouse and its workers.
But the relatively large amount of open space near the airport (again, our beloved warehouses) has helped to ensure that ONT does not need to implement the severe flight restrictions found at John Wayne and our former airport overlord Los Angeles International Airport.
And for better or worse the airport will remain for some time. It’s not like it’s going to close down or anything.
Although 9/11, the 2008 recession, and COVID tried to close it.
And one more thing about your business…
Does your firm need to create content for Inland Empire residents, Inland Empire visitors, and others who use your firm’s services?
Are you ready to take your Ontario, Eastvale, or Inland Empire firm to the next level with a compelling message that increases awareness, consideration, conversion, and long-term revenue?
Let me quote a little bit from the page I just created.
For example, let’s say that an Ontario, California content marketing expert wants to target businesses who need blog post writing services. This expert will then create a web page, and possibly a companion blog post, to attract those businesses.
If I’m going to talk about blogging, I need a blog post to go with it, right?
The other purpose of this blog post is to direct you to the web page. I don’t want to repeat the exact same copy from the web page on the blog post, or the search engines will not like me. And you may not like me either.
If you’re an Ontario, California business who is looking for an effective method to promote your firm, and a description of how to move forward, go to the Bredemarket web page “Blog posts for your Ontario, California business.”
Why should I read the web page?
Needless to say, you only need to read the web page if you’re an Ontario, California business. Well, I guess Fontana businesses can read it also; just ignore the video with Mayor Leon and substitute a video with Mayor Warrent instead.
The web page addresses the following topics, among others:
Why do you want to use content marketing to promote your Ontario business? (The web page also addresses inbound marketing.)
Why do you want to use blog posts to promote your Ontario business?
How can an Ontario business create a blog post?
How can an Ontario business find a blog post writer?
Instead of writing “online,” I should have written “offline.”
I don’t know whether I just made a typo, or if I intentionally wrote “online,” but I shouldn’t have.
Why QR codes rarely make sense online
Because if you’re online, you don’t need a QR code, since you presumably have access to a clickable URL.
But if you’re offline—for example, if you’re watching a commercial on an old-fashioned TV screen—a QR code makes perfect sense. Well, as long as you explicitly identify where the QR code will lead you, something Coinbase failed to do in 2022. “Just click on the bouncing QR code and don’t worry where you’ll go!”
But there’s one more place where QR codes make sense. I didn’t explicitly refer to it in my 2021 post, but QR codes make sense when you’re looking at printed material, such as printed restaurant menus.
Or COVID questionnaires.
Which reminds me…
What I didn’t tell you about the Ontario Art Walk
…there’s one story about the Ontario Art Walk that I didn’t share in yesterday’s post.
After leaving Dragon Fruit Skincare, but before visiting the Chaffey Community Museum of Art, I visited one other location that I won’t identify. This location wanted you to answer a COVID questionnaire, which you accessed via a QR code.
I figured I’d do the right thing and answer the questionnaire, since I had nothing to worry about.
I was vaccinated.
I was boosted.
I hadn’t been around anyone with COVID.
I didn’t have a fever.
I entered the “right” response to every single question, except for the one that asked if I had a runny or stuffy nose. Since I had a stuffy nose, I indicated this.
But hey, it’s just a stuffy nose. What could go wrong?
When I finished the questionnaire, I was told that based on my answers, I was not allowed in the premises, and if I was already in the premises I should leave immediately.
Which I did.
And which is why I didn’t write about that particular location in yesterday’s post.
Bredemarket, pressing the flesh (sometimes six feet away)
But back to non-health related aspects of QR codes.
The Ontario Art Walk was actually the second in-person event that I had attended that week. As I noted on Instagram, I also went to a City of Ontario information session about a proposed bike lane.
Now that COVID has (mostly) receded, more of us are going to these in-person events. My target market (businesspeople in the United States) is mostly familiar with the century-old term “press the flesh.” While it usually applies to politicians attending in-person events, it can equally apply to non-political events.
Whenever I go out to these local events, I like to have some printed Bredemarket collateral handy in case I find a local businessperson looking for marketing services. After all, since I am the Ontario, California content marketing expert, I should let relevant people in Ontario know this.
In those cases, a QR code makes sense, since I can hand it to the person, the person can scan the QR code on their phone, and the person can immediately access whatever web page or other content I want to share with them.
On Saturday, it occurred to me that if I ran across a possible customer during the Ontario Art Walk, I could use a QR code to share my e-book “Six Questions Your Content Creator Should Ask You.”
Unfortunately, this bright idea came to my mind at 5:30 pm for an event that started at 6. I dummied up a quick and dirty page with the cover and a QR code, but it was…dirty. Just as well I didn’t share that on Saturday.
But now that I have more time, I’ve created a better-looking printed handout so that I’m ready at the next in-person event I attend.
If we meet, ask me for it.
Making myself look less smart
Well, now that I’ve gone through all of this trouble explaining how QR codes are great for offline purposes, I’m going to share the aforementioned handout…online.
(UPDATE OCTOBER 22, 2023: “SIX QUESTIONS YOUR CONTENT CREATOR SHOULD ASK YOU IS SO 2022. DOWNLOAD THE NEWER “SEVEN QUESTIONS YOUR CONTENT CREATOR SHOULD ASK YOU” HERE.)
Which has probably prompted the following question from you.
“Why?”
Four reasons:
It gave me the excuse to post the question “Why?” above, thus reiterating one of the major points of the e-book.
Because I felt like sharing it.
Just in case you don’t make “Event X” that I attend in the future, you can experience the joy of printing the flyer and scanning the QR code yourself. Just like you were there!
To demonstrate that even when you provide a piece of content with a QR code, it’s also helpful to explicitly reveal the URL where you’ll head if you scan the code. (Look just below the QR code in the flyer above.) And if you receive the flyer in online form rather than printed form, that URL is clickable.
I finally made it to the quarterly Ontario Art Walk in downtown Ontario, California last night. I didn’t make it to all the studios, but here’s a sampling of what I did see.
Socal Trout Cartel
I’ve been following SCTC’s Instagram account for some time, and obviously knew of the interest in fishing and the clothing, but did not know that SCTC manufactured custom fishing rods. The technical specifics are way beyond my understanding (my only fishing experience was at Boy Scout camp, and I bought a cheap pole for that), but SCTC is more than happy to answer any questions you might have. https://www.socaltroutcartel.com/
I Am Threads
Co-located with Socal Trout Cartel, I Am Threads offers women’s clothing. See the website.
Lebec Makeup Atelier
So after looking at women’s clothing, I looked at women’s makeup. A few young women were busily applying makeup to celebrate a “prom night.” Hope they enjoyed it. https://lebeconline.wordpress.com/
Dirty Window Gallery / Rebecca Steen Art
This is another account that I have followed on Instagram for some time, and it was nice to finally meet Rebecca in person. My picture only captures a small part of her art; I should have taken more pictures.
I encountered my first DJ of the evening here. The atmosphere yesterday evening took me back to my college days. (OK, maybe Reed College was a little grungier.)
More information about Geo.Metrics is available at DOIA and on Instagram.
Paul Williams Gallery
Historical note: the gallery was not founded by Paul Williams. Well, I guess it sort of was. Paul Williams was an architect who designed a post office in Ontario in 1925, as David Allen notes. The post office moved to another location in 1941, but the building is still associated with Williams (as are others). The gallery that opened there in 2005 took Williams’ name, although it features art rather than architecture. Another Instagram account I’ve been following.
Dragon Fruit Skincare
I didn’t buy women’s clothes or women’s makeup, and I didn’t buy women’s skincare either (although their products are advertised as unisex). I did want to mention, however, that this was the second DJ of the evening, although this performance was lower key than the other two. https://www.dragonfruitskincare.com/
Chaffey Community Museum of Art
Crossing Euclid, I revisited the Chaffey Community Museum of Art, which featured rare evening hours in conjunction with the Ontario Art Walk. The current exhibits are from Chaffey Joint Union High School District students and faculty. https://www.chaffeymuseum.org/
The store has announced a soft opening, but it’s apparently very soft; I went by at 11:15am today (Saturday) and the door was locked with no hours posted.
But stay tuned to its Instagram account candystreetmarket for updates.
Candy Street Market is at 110 W Holt in Ontario, next to the Honduran restaurant.
Candy Street Market, 110 W Holt, Ontario, California
I’ll admit that the case studies that I’ve produced, either under the Bredemarket name or under other names, have been relatively short in the two-page range. This is why I usually recommmend the Bredemarket 400 Short Writing Service for clients who want my case study services.
But there’s no law that says that a case study has to be that short. If you want to create a 1,000 page case study, you’re certainly entitled to do so.
But what about a 17 page case study?
That’s the length of the case study that greenlining.org prepared on a program here in the City of Ontario.
Since 2007, a coalition of residents, community-based organizations and the City of Ontario have been working together under the Healthy Ontario Initiative (HOI) to improve health outcomes and quality-of-life. HOI came together to address community health and build safe and vibrant neighborhoods, against a backdrop of high levels of poverty and chronic disease burdens.
At 17 pages, the case study goes into a great deal of detail on a variety of initiatives, including Healthy Ontario and the Vista Verde Apartments near Holt and Grove. The apartment complex and other projects all fit within the goals of improving “health outcomes and quality-of-life.”
Now this is not the most robust proof of identity. As I recently noted in my JEBredCal blog (one of my other Google identities), it’s extremely easy for multiple people to use this day pass at different times during the day. Even the 7-day and 31-day passes, which must be signed and may be compared against an identity document, are not necessarily free from fraud.
However, this is not critical to Omnitrans, who would rather put up with a small amount of fraud than inconvenience its riders with multiple identity checks.
Identity proofing is more critical in some situations than it is in others.
Of course, if Omnitrans really wanted to, it could achieve the need for fraud prevention by using relatively frictionless forms of identity proofing. Rather than demaning to see a rider’s papers, Omnitrans could use passive methods to authenticate its riders. I won’t go into all the possible methods and their pros and cons here.
However, I would like to explore one possible identity proofing method to see if it would solve the Omnitrans pass use issue.
You’ll recall that many identity experts recognize five factors of authentication:
Something you know.
Something you are.
Something you have.
Something you do.
Somewhere you are.
Well, because I felt like it, I proclaimed a sixth factor of authentication.
Why?
I said, because I felt like it!
Whoops, “why?” is the sixth authentication factor. I still haven’t rendered it into the “somexxx you xxx” format yet.
Can Omnitrans use the “why?” factor to test the reasonableness that any particular trip is performed by the person who originally bought the pass?
Possibly.
Applying the “why?” question to bus boarding data
Assume the most challenging scenario, in which Omnitrans knows nothing about the person who purchases a 31-day pass. The person pays in cash and is wearing a face mask and sunglasses throughout the entire transaction. Therefore, the only identity information associated with the pass is the location where the pass was purchased, the date/time it was purchased, and some type of pass identification number. For this example, we’ll assume the pass number is 12345.
So Omnitrans really doesn’t know anything of importance about the holder of pass 12345…
…other than how it is used.
I’m making the assumption that Omnitrans logs information about every use of a pass. Since you don’t need to use your pass when you leave the bus, the only information available is when you board the bus.
So let’s look at some fake data.
Date and Time
Bus
Location
Monday, July 25, 2022, 6:39 am
87
Euclid & Holt, Ontario
Monday, July 25, 2022, 6:35 pm
87
Amazon LGB3, Eastvale
Tuesday, July 26, 2022, 6:39 am
87
Euclid & Holt, Ontario
Tuesday, July 26, 2022, 6:35 pm
87
Amazon LGB3, Eastvale
Wednesday, July 27, 2022, 8:42 am
87
Euclid & Holt, Ontario
Wednesday, July 27, 2022, 6:35 pm
87
Amazon LGB3, Eastvale
Thursday, July 28, 2022, 6:39 am
87
Euclid & Holt, Ontario
Thursday, July 28, 2022, 6:35 pm
87
Amazon LGB3, Eastvale
Thursday, July 28, 2022, 7:20 pm
61
Plum & Holt, Ontario
Thursday July 28, 2022, 9:52 pm
61
Ontario Mills, Ontario
Friday, July 29, 2022, 6:39 am
87
Euclid & Holt, Ontario
Friday, July 29, 2022, 8:35 am
87
Amazon LGB3, Eastvale
Friday, July 29, 2022, 10:00 am
66
Vineyard & Foothill, Rancho Cucamonga
Friday, July 29, 2022, 11:26 am
14
Fontana Metrolink
Friday, July 29, 2022, 11:53 am
82
Fontana Metrolink
Friday, July 29, 2022, 12:08 pm
66
Fontana Metrolink
Hypothetical logging of trips on Omnitrans Pass 12345.
Even if you are not familiar with California’s Inland Empire, you can probably classify these trips into the following categories:
Trips that are probably legitimate.
Trips that may or may not be legitimate.
Trips that are probably fraudulent.
Trips that are definitely fraudulent.
For the most part, you can’t know with certainty about the legitimacy of most of these trips. Here’s a story that fits the facts.
Jack Jones starts his new job at Amazon on Monday, and works Monday and Tuesday with no incident. Jack overslept on Wednesday and was written up. He made sure to arrive at work on time Thursday, and at the end of the day he celebrated with a dinner at a restaurant in the Ontario Mills shopping center. After arriving at work on Friday, Sara Smith picked his pocket and took his pass, fleeing the scene an hour later and making her way to Fontana. She creates several clones of the bus pass and sells them at a discount before fleeing herself. Therefore, all trips beginning on Friday at 8:35 am are fraudulent.
But that might not be the true story. This one also fits the facts.
Jack Jones starts his new job at Amazon on Monday, and works Monday and Tuesday with no incident. On Wednesday Jack calls in sick, but lets his housemate Bob Brown (who also works at Amazon) use his pass on Wednesday and Thursday. By Thursday evening, Jack is feeling better, retrieves his pass from his housemate, and goes to Ontario Mills for the evening. On Friday Jack goes to work and is fired. He boards the 87, misses his stop in Ontario, and stays on the bus until he reaches Rancho Cucamonga. Despondent, he decides to visit his friend in Fontana. However, his Fontana friend, Sara Smile, secretly created several clones of Jack’s bus pass and sells them at a discount. Therefore, the Wednesday trips, the Thursday day trips, and all Friday trips beginning at 11:26 am are fraudulent.
Or perhaps some other set of facts fit the data.
It’s possible that the pass was stolen before it was ever used and all of the trips are fraudulent.
Or perhaps every trip before arriving in Fontana is legitimate, but how can we tell which one (if any) of the three trips from Fontana was undertaken by the true passholder?
But the data that Omnitrans captured provides a way to challenge the pass holder for possibly fraudulent trips.
If Omnitrans is really suspicious for some reason, it may choose to challenge every trip that didn’t take place at the “regular” times of 6:39 am or 6:35 pm. “Why are you boarding the 87 bus at this hour of the morning?” “Why are you boarding the 61 bus?”
Or Omnitrans may assume that all of the trips are reasonable and don’t necessitate a challenge. Yes, someone can go to work late. Yes, someone can go to Ontario Mills for the evening. Well, all of them are reasonable until Friday at 11:53 am, when a passholder boards a bus at the same location where the same passholder supposedly departed at 11:26 am.
Now even if strict identity checks are used with the “why?” statement, the data alone can’t detect all fraud. If Jack Jones and Bob Brown both work the day shift at Amazon, but on alternate days, how can Omnitrans detect the days when Jack Jones leaves Ontario at 6:39 am, vs. the days when Bob Brown leaves Ontario at 6:39 am?
Again, no identity proofing method is 100% foolproof.
But the “why?” question may detect some forms of fraud.
Or are there really only five factors of authentication after all?
Now I’ll grant that “why?” might not be a sixth factor of authentication at all, but may fall under the existing “something you do” category. This factor is normally reserved for gestures or touches. For example, some facial liveness detection methods require you to move your head up, down, right, or left on command to prove that you are a real person. But you could probably classify boarding a bus as “something you do.”
Anyway, thank you for engaging my tangent. If I can think of a “why?” example that doesn’t involve something you do, I’ll post it here. That will help me in my hopeful (?) quest to become the inventor of the sixth factor of authentication.
What about the businesses in cities where my bus trips took place?
But back to the businesses in Ontario, Eastvale, Rancho Cucamonga, Fontana, and other cities: need some content help? I can create esoteric long-winded content like this, or (what you probably want) more concise, customer-focused content that conveys your important message. My regular work includes case studies, white papers, proposal services, and other types of content. If you need someone to help you create this content:
But we don’t celebrate on the anniversary of that day. Instead we celebrate the anniversary of the day that the Continental Congress adopted the Declaration of Independence.
Which is why 4th and Euclid looks like this on Saturday morning.
4th and Euclid, July 2, 2022.
Come back Monday morning and it will look different, since 4th and Euclid is where Ontario’s Independence Day Parade begins.
Bredemarket 