Goodwin Communications

What will you do with Google+?

2011-08-20T07:11:00.005-04:00

It is interesting watching the media coverage and interest in Google+. The important goal here for Google is to try to break through the media saturated environment so that people can understand advantages of its new product.

Even though a recent news article says there are only 20 million users right now, it appears from the Google+ web site that it is "overcapacity" right now, so it makes sense it will not catch up to Facebook numbers any time soon. And, a half billion users may not be a goal anyway. A Forbes reporter is already writing an eulogy for Google+ and explains why.

If you are a communications strategist for a large company, then you have been spending time trying to understand and use this product. Where does it fit in with all the other channels you are recommending and building elaborate plans to use?

Read this NPR story to get some extra perspective on Google+ as you plan your strategy going forward.

Watching New York Times new digital model unfold

2011-04-12T08:40:00.003-04:00

There is no doubt that the New York Times has taken on a mightly challenge in setting up its digital subscription plan. Are there enough of us who regularly read a lot of NYT pages that will take the plunge? Read about how some people are viewing the change on Adweek. Wired puts it well: "The New York Times unveiled its widely anticipated digital subscription plan Thursday, a big step by one of the most impactful newspapers in the world. In the months to come, the headlong dive by this resource-rich media giant should help answer the biggest question in digital news: Can newspapers convert digital readers they have conditioned for years to expect “free” into paying customers? In other words, if The New York Times can’t, who can?"

Planning content for a tablet

2011-02-09T16:26:00.003-05:00

Hewlett-Packard announced its long-awaited new tablet device called the TouchPad today. There's no doubt that developing a web site today is not like it was a few years back.

We need to plan for how this information is displayed and how it is consumed in a new way. We got some practice with the iPhone and then the iPad, but the tablet is more ubiquitous now.

I will leave the details to the techies who help us brand messaging and content folks get the info out in the right format. But no doubt the mobilty factor is not just about phones.

For the consumer looking for information, anything goes now. To learn more about this tablet, visit the New York Times.

The Social Network movie: Conversations started

2010-10-12T07:46:00.006-04:00

Update to my blog below: Bulldog Reporter covered the topic about Facebook brand today. Younger audiences found it the movie appealing and thus looks favorably toward the brand. Older audiences not quite so much.

From a public relations standpoint, I have been interested in how Facebook, Harvard, Mark Zuckerberg, Sean Parker, and others have been portrayed and how the brand is affected for Facebook.

I am interested in how our views of society are changing, what the new opportunities are, how young entrepeneurs get to the top in business, and more.

David Brooks, an op-ed editor for the New York Times, says ..."the “The Social Network” is bad sociology, it is very good psychology. The movie does a brilliant job dissecting the sorts of people who become stars in an information economy and a hypercompetitive, purified meritocracy. It deftly captures what many of them have and what they lack, what they long for and what they end up with."

From a brand standpoint for Harvard, I have not been paying attention closely enought to know what it will think about Brook's comments, "The old WASP Harvard is dead. As Nathan Heller writes in an intelligent blog post called “You Can’t Handle the Veritas,” (Sorkin also wrote “A Few Good Men”), most kids at Harvard today come from pressure-cooker suburban schools. The old clubs are “vestigial curios.” Computer geeks do not spend their days desperately trying to join the Protestant Establishment because people born in 1984 don’t know what it is."

No doubt there is much to react to in the movie "The Social Network" and look at a generation that thinks about life and approaches it from a much different orientation than the observers who are writing about the movie. Review.

Does an online newspaper really want to know readers' favs?

2010-09-06T17:38:00.004-04:00

Check out the NYT article on newspapers using advanced technology to see what people are reading online. This is not new, but evidently the Times thought it was good to review this practice.

It says, "Editors at The Journal, like those at other large newspapers, follow the Web traffic metrics closely. The paper’s top editors begin their morning news meetings with a rundown of data points, including the most popular search terms on WSJ.com, which articles are generating the most traffic and what posts are generating buzz on Twitter. At The Washington Post, a television screen with an array of data — the number of unique visitors to washingtonpost.com, how many articles those visitors view and where on the Web those visitors came from — is on display for the entire newsroom."

My question is: What happens when you find out your readers are not interested in the serious matters you were covering - they would rather see what the local celeb is up to than see how the November elections are stacking up. The NYT has the luxury of readers interested in everything, so this helps a broad approach. However, a smaller newspaper, such as the AJC in Atlanta, will focus on what the readers are looking for - and it appears to be unusual local stories, the crime scene and celebs. This is why I need an online newspaper now, so I can read the NYT to get some important news of the day that affects the country - like top notch financial news. If I want celebs, I will go to Huff Post for that.

Use LinkedIn to find business, experts say

2010-07-25T17:07:00.004-04:00

A column in The Augusta Chronicle gives a good, simple summary of the use of social media in business. I think author Jeffrey Gitomer's ideas about LinkedIn for business make sense, especially for the small business owner.

Gitomer says, "LinkedIn allows you to find people who possibly can do business with you, and, more importantly, it allows people to find you. Most of the salespeople who use LinkedIn are trying to find leads and/or beg for some kind of connection. This strategy is the least useful, but it's better than a cold call. LinkedIn has a wealth of CEOs and other C-level people in its network, and millions of entrepreneurs (yes, millions) who own their own business and can make a final decision. LinkedIn is the new cold call. Instead of calling a gatekeeper and fishing for information on one possible decision-maker, you can now advance search on LinkedIn and determine exactly whom you need to contact before you make the call. You can discover who is connected to your connections and find people by job descriptions and job titles." Read more by the author of The Sales Bible by visiting the Chronicle.

Check out ways to use LinkedIn from the horses mouth.

Keep in mind latest tech problems that may affect you

2010-06-27T07:10:00.003-04:00

No doubt that as a consumer it is hard to stay aware of bugs and problems of technology you use and understand whether or not it is a problem to manage.

Wired's Epicenter blog used reporting from IDG News Service, PC World, Infoworld and Computerworld to piece together this interesting summary of 2010's tech problems that may affect or have affected you. It is titled "Biggest Tech Industry Apologies of 2010(So Far)".

For example read the following excerpts:

McAfee in April apologized for its anti-virus update that took down Windows XP computers around the world, although the company said the problem affected a small percentage of its customers.

The carrier in June apologized for a hack that exposed thousands of iPad customers’ e-mail addresses and vowed to work with law enforcement to prosecute those responsible.

Adobe in February issued a mea culpa for allowing a 16-month-old bug in its Flash Player to fester without a patch despite the fact that the plug-in itself was updated four times since the flaw was revealed.

Visit Wired for the full story and links to more information.

Expanding ways to reach audiences with ads

2010-06-22T07:01:00.003-04:00

Ready, set, go for a new kind of advertising option - on license plates while a car is standing still more than 4 seconds!

The San Jose Mercury News reports, "The California Legislature is considering a bill that would allow the state to begin researching the use of electronic license plates for vehicles. The move is intended as a moneymaker for a state facing a $19 billion deficit. The device would mimic a standard license plate when the vehicle is in motion but would switch to digital ads or other messages when it is stopped for more than four seconds, whether in traffic or at a red light. The license plate number would remain visible at all times in some section of the screen. In emergencies, the plates could be used to broadcast Amber Alerts or traffic information."

Read more.

A new car to love: Saab Aero X

2010-06-21T15:32:00.005-04:00

I am attracted to stories about auto styling - good design always pulls you in.

Check out Wired magazine's story on the new Saab styling.

Jason Castriota, the designer, says the new Saab 9-3 will emphasize aerodynamic efficiency.

Spyker Cars NV [owner of Saab] CEO Victor Muller says, “It is truly aircraft-inspired and Swedish-clean." Read about his plans for the company.

Evidently Saab pulled in a 36-year-old American to accomplish this. Read more.

While I scouted for a photo, I found the Saab Areo X, and I have already changed my affection to this auto! Images.

Getting to the bottom of AT&T/iPad email exposure

2010-06-13T10:14:00.005-04:00

The best way to look for answers on the AT&T/Apple iPad snafu this week is to look for analyses from the experts who cover this technology. Here are some excerpts and links to help figure out what went wrong.

Gregg Keizer at Computer World says: "The hackers who harvested an estimated 114,000 Apple iPad 3G owner e-mail addresses defended their actions Friday as "ethical" and said they did nothing illegal. The hacking group Goatse Security obtained the e-mail addresses using an automated PHP script that collected iPad 3G owners' ICC-ID numbers and associated addresses from AT&T's servers using a publicly-available feature of the carrier's Web site. AT&T disabled the feature last Tuesday, a day before the Valleywag Web site [that was given the info from the hackers] first reported the story.

Gawker Media LLC is the focus of a Wall Street Journal article that is tied into the controversy this week of iPad owners' email addresses. Even thought the FBI, say the WSJ, is looking into Gawker records, it not a focus of the investigation. "Gawker's Valleywag section wrote Wednesday about a glitch in AT&T Inc.'s website that exposed the email addresses of iPad owners, including politicians, military officials and media executives," notes the article.

Information Week's blogger George Hulme through in cut to the chase message on Friday: "Essentially, all that happened is that a security firm managed to brute force a process that returned the correct unique identifier for the iPad and associated e-mail address. Based upon published lists, there were plenty of .gov, .mil, as well as high-level politicians, journalists, and CEOs affected. Our Paul McDougall has an in-depth write-up here. Jim Rapoza blogged earlier today that Cloud Is Real Culprit in iPad/AT&T Security Hole... The "cloud" isn't the culprit at all: AT&T's security and development processes are.

No doubt we will hear more about this in coming days, as well as other security issues for mobile technology.

Social tools making headway, enhancing work in organizations

2010-05-31T08:33:00.004-04:00

I am following the new concepts underway for social networking within an enterprise -Facebook-like features that allow workers to more effectively. I came across the article by Mike Swift at San Jose Mercury News that does a good job explaining it - excerpted here:

"... Social media — complete with Facebook-like status updates, profile pages and networks of social connections — is coming to your office cubicle. Palo Alto-based Socialtext and other smaller companies already supply workplaces with the same sort of online social tools that Facebook, Wikipedia and Twitter brought into the mainstream in recent years — features such as networks of personal connections, internal wikis that allow groups of employees to collaborate, and Twitter-like microblogs that co-workers can follow. But with Microsoft, the 800-pound gorilla of office software, set to push deeper into the market with its SharePoint 2010 release May 12, analysts say online social networking is crossing over from something you do for fun with friends and family to something you increasingly will do with co-workers as part of your job."

Obviously this concept will spill over as a tool to interface with customers along with current use of Facebook etc. to engage our targeted audiences.

Privacy control issues addressed by Facebook today

2010-05-26T16:26:00.002-04:00

Finally, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg held a news conference to let people know he is making it easier to adjust privacy controls on Facebook. Considering how many users, over 500 million people, depend on Facebook now for communications and to interact with fan pages, companies still need this channel in their toolkit to reach consumers.

You can read what Zuckeberg said on his blog today. Here is an excerpt:

More recently, we also launched community pages and other ways to give you personalized and social experiences on other sites you use. Since then, you have sent us lots of feedback. We've listened carefully in order to figure out the best next steps. We recognize that we made a lot of changes, so we really wanted to take the time to understand your feedback and make sure we address your concerns. The number one thing we've heard is that there just needs to be a simpler way to control your information. We've always offered a lot of controls, but if you find them too hard to use then you won't feel like you have control. Unless you feel in control, then you won't be comfortable sharing and our service will be less useful for you. We agree we need to improve this. Today we're starting to roll out some changes that will make all of these controls a lot simpler. We've focused on three things: a single control for your content, more powerful controls for your basic information and an easy control to turn off all applications.

Nuancing the social in the online world

2010-04-21T18:18:00.004-04:00

Thank you to makeitwork.com for this image.

Staying in touch with friends - how nuanced is the online and mobile world becoming and will this become something like the "splinternet" in acquisition of information and social conformity?

Read an observation at Yeah! - ..."digital identity is beginning to define who we are offline (or at least it's becoming a symbol or identification). It's how we're known to friends (real and digital) and strangers alike. Non-users of pervasive technology platforms will quickly find that they're the odd man out. The person who can't be counted or included."

Awareness and Personal Branding

2010-04-17T16:34:00.003-04:00

I have been reading a book by Harrison Monarth called "Executive Presence, The Art of Commanding Respect Like a CEO" [on Amazon] and decided to Google him to see what comes up - afterall, he says you should be good at branding yourself!

Well, he is good. I found a lot of ways to learn more about him and his skills. I think one of the best ways to brand yourself is to write a book about how to do something well in the current business environment. I like it when someone thinks innovatively, and Monarth seems to combine common sense with new ideas.

With my Google of Monarth, I found an interesting person who has written a book, too. Dan Schawbel of Millineal Branding, published "Me 2.0". He interviewed Monarth for his blog, and I will give you one sentence to ponder and then visit Schawbel's blog for an interesting interview - "knowing the impact of how you come across is most critical." I agree that awareness is important. I haven't read Me 2.0, but it looks interesting!

In Monarth's book, he tells CEOs, or CEO wannabes, that they should utilize all social media to enhance their brands. I agree that communicating your ideas in various forums is good, and building relationships in a 2.0 world is important.

A chance to firm up Wikipedia page on social media marketing

2009-10-04T07:52:00.005-04:00

It looks like social media marketing has made the Wikipedia. Check it out, the page is asking for citations and verification! It is amazing how quickly these tools have been incorporated into traditional PR and marketing activities - now the standard.

"Social media marketing is a term that describes the act of using social networks, online communities, blogs, wikis or any other collaborative Internet form of media for marketing, sales, public relations and customer service. Common social media marketing tools include Twitter, blogs, LinkedIn, Facebook, Flickr and YouTube. In the context of Internet marketing, social media refers to a collective group of web properties whose content is primarily published by users, not direct employees of the property (e.g. the vast majority of video on YouTube is published by non-YouTube employees)."

Check it out. Thanks to mashable for the image.

When it's mobile, brands will have to choose

2009-06-25T14:57:00.005-04:00

There is a lot of conversation going on about social media, and most of us have adopted rudimentary, or sophisticated for that matter, plans on how to use this to our organization's benefit. As time goes on, we will need to rely on some experts to help us learn more about mobile technology and how it is going to affect our public relations efforts. Mobile expert Conrad Lisco takes a look at the complexities of the technology in his blog called ThumbJockey. The image comes from buymeaniphone.

"As the number of operating systems and platforms grow, so too will complications for brands looking to go mobile. Brands are asking not only how they can get consumers engaged via mobile, they're asking how to get the engaged on iPhones in particular. Why? Because the iPhone-wielding public represent an opportunity for rich, meaningful brand engagement. How do we plan for a more open, seamless mobile experience? Because developing for handset-specific applications, browsers and optimizations isn't going to be cheap. And it isn't sustainable. We have to move past this walled garden approach to mobile started by carriers years and years ago."

Creativity or Just Plain Dedicated Effort?

2009-04-20T14:27:00.002-04:00

Fast Company's Linda Tischler covers a conference on making ideas happen.

She blogs, "The Behance "99%" conference wound up on a high note with Pentagram designer Michael Bierut offering five sane and simple principles for maximum productivity. Given his track record--hundreds of design awards, work at MOMA, a faculty appointment at Yale, a hugely popular blog, and a book or two, (I'm exhausted just listing all his accomplishments!)--his was advice with instant cred. "

So from this conference Bierut offers tips - here is #13 of 13, but you should read them all.

"13. Nothing trumps hard work. Many successful people don't want to talk about how hard they work. Even when you've made it, you've got to keep working."

Science & the Public Eye Follows Journalism's Change

2009-04-18T15:13:00.004-04:00

I am following Janet Raloff's Science News blog. She is covering science journalism today and changes that public relations professionals are also following and adjusting to new realities.

Here are some of her recent blogs. Janet says: "Indeed, a number of scientists are now blogging with news of their work — or comments/analyses of interesting research by others. One problem, these often aren’t really written for the general public. A bigger obstacle: These science portals can be hard to find in a Web populated by gazillions of bloggers (and with millions more coming online each minute — or so it seems). For people with dial-up service (yes, there still are many such Internet users), flitting from site to site to reach each site can be cumbersome."

Science & the Public : Science reporting: Evolving before our eyes

Science & the Public : More Signs of Endangered Journalism
Science & the Public : Real News: An Endangered Species
Science & the Public : Bloggers Need News Too
Science & the Public : CNN downsizes science team

What the Web Has Done for Us

2009-03-17T11:17:00.001-04:00

There is no doubt that proposing the World Wide Web has had greater impact than just about anything in the past 20 years. Really, this marks the day the world changed for communicators. Thanks for the image from American Heritage.com.

And, consider how technology has changed since this day and the impact it is having on culture now and what it holds for the future [visit Singularity at SciAm].

Says Larry Greenemeier at Scientific American, "Twenty years ago this month, a software consultant named Tim Berners-Lee at the European Organization for Nuclear Research (better known as CERN) hatched a plan for an open computer network to keep track of research at the particle physics laboratory in the suburbs of Geneva, Switzerland. Berners-Lee's modestly titled "Information Management: A Proposal," which he submitted to get a CERN grant, would become the blueprint for the World Wide Web."

Read more on the web site! "What surprised Tim most is that for years people were so much more interested in simply browsing for and reading content rather than in creating it. His very first browser—WorldWideWeb—was actually both a browser and an editor. It let you write your own pages, post them online, and edit pages posted by others. But the commercial browsers didn't offer editing capabilities. This frustrated him for a number of years. The whole point of the Web, to him, was not to just see information but to publish it, too. This didn't really happen until blogs emerged, followed by sites like Facebook, where people can easily post content."

Wisdom from the Basics, a thumbjockey Truism

2009-02-01T10:29:00.005-05:00

I like to find straightforward words of wisdom for communicators, and a new blog on thumbjockey caught my eye: Back to basic - here is the essence, or visit thumbjockey for the full blog. Photo credit: Yoga with Richard James Allen.

"I took a "basics" yoga class for the first time in a while and it felt really good. It reminded of the importance of solid fundamentals - the principles that everything else is predicated upon. A good yoga practice is nothing if you can't first nail the basics.Then it got me thinking about marketing and how many of the same principles apply. So I thought I'd share:

Get power from your core.

Be Flexible.

Be present.

Let go of control.

It's called "practice" for a reason."

Tangled up in Green - Innovation

2009-01-24T13:23:00.004-05:00

I decided to borrow from my personal blog, The Sky Badge Project today.

Sometimes I cover innovation on this blog, and usually more from a creativity side of things. Today I am sharing this business story because it is really a wake-up call for how complicated the legal side of innovation is becoming. Photo credit: from this web site. Funny, green meant money for a long time, now it mean the environment and healthy eating.

Here is the scoop: Newsweek's Michael Heller covers the troubles in "Innovation Gridlock- Today's inventors need to put together many bits of intellectual property. Too bad they are all patented." Newsweek writes, the first decade of the 21st Century has seen startling advances in biology. Scientists have cracked the genomes of humans and many plants, animals and microbes.
They've uncovered new cellular processes affecting inheritance of diseases. Likewise, investment in biotech research and development has been steadily increasing. So what happened to all the lifesaving cures that were supposed to come our way as a result? Read this story.

Print News Cedes to the Internet

2009-01-10T10:53:00.005-05:00

There is no doubt that we are on fast-track change with the internet now. Especially with recent reports of newspapers limiting print product and going online only.

The latest change comes with the sale of the Seattle Post-Intellegencer - if it does not sell in 60 days it goes online only, and then it might fold anyway. Not sure what it means when we do not have major market thought leaders in print, this leaves broadcast and internet a job to fill.

A Pew Internet & American Life Project report recently says:

A survey of internet leaders, activists and analysts shows they expect major tech advances as the phone becomes a primary device for online access, voice-recognition improves, artificial and virtual reality become more embedded in everyday life, and the architecture of the internet itself improves. They disagree about whether this will lead to more social tolerance, more forgiving human relations, or better home lives.

Here are the key findings on the survey of experts by the Pew Internet & American Life Project that asked respondents to assess predictions about technology and its roles in the year 2020:

The mobile device will be the primary connection tool to the internet for most people in the world in 2020.

The transparency of people and organizations will increase, but that will not necessarily yield more personal integrity, social tolerance, or forgiveness.

Voice recognition and touch user-interfaces with the internet will be more prevalent and accepted by 2020.

Those working to enforce intellectual property law and copyright protection will remain in a continuing arms race, with the crackers who will find ways to copy and share content without payment.

The divisions between personal time and work time and between physical and virtual reality will be further erased for everyone who is connected, and the results will be mixed in their impact on basic social relations.

Next-generation engineering of the network to improve the current internet architecture is more likely than an effort to rebuild the architecture from scratch.

Moodstream - For the Creative Side

2008-12-27T11:01:00.005-05:00

I read about an interesting creative tool posted by Conrad Lisco on thumbjockey.com today - called Moodstream, by Getty Images. Take a look and create your mood for music and images! This is a lot of fun, too!

Conrad says: Moodstream is an online tool that allows you to browse imagery and music based on keywords or moods. What you see and hear matches the particular mood and can be dialed up or down in a host of ways. Its a great way to find inspiration.

Getty Images has a customizable home page for you, too, where it aggregates latest tools, galleries, and ideas based on your selection of featured content on its site.

I've used an image from Virtual Tourist for this blog today.

Start Now: a Procrastination Primer

2008-11-28T10:04:00.004-05:00

I thought this article on procrastination on Scientific American online covered important points for workers, so I am including the topic in my blog today!

SciAm says, "A penchant for postponement carries a financial penalty, endangers health, harms relationships and ends careers. And yet perpetual foot-draggers sometimes benefit emotionally from their tactics, which support the human inclination to avoid the disagreeable. Research into the reasons people put off projects has led to strategies for helping all of us get and stay on task.

"Almost everyone occasionally procrastinates, but a worrisome 15 to 20 percent of adults routinely put off activities that would be better accomplished right away.

"A penchant for postponement carries a financial penalty, endangers health, harms relationships and ends careers. And yet perpetual foot-draggers sometimes benefit emotionally from their tactics, which support the human inclination to avoid the disagreeable.

"Research into the reasons people put off projects has led to strategies for helping all of us get and stay on task. Almost everyone occasionally procrastinates, but a worrisome 15 to 20 percent of adults routinely put off activities that would be better accomplished right away."

Can Blogging be Objective?

2008-11-15T07:56:00.006-05:00

PRSA shared an article about Editor & Publisher' questions about "the decrease in objectivity among journalists" on Nov.14. It goes on to say, "In the face of new media developments, journalists are becoming less objective, which may or may not be a good thing, says an article in Editor & Publisher yesterday... According the article, the line becomes blurred even more as print journalists are being asked to write news stories, blog, do analysis, create new media content and provide commentary for radio, TV and online outlets. As a result, newspaper Web sites are blending in more with blogs and altering their principles regarding objectivity and balance."

I do not necessarily agree with this concern, although I know many opinions are expressed in blogs, but on traditional news sites it makes it clear when the content is strictly news and when it is opinion, especially if the information is aggrated onto the site from outside bloggers.

It is interesting during these turbulent times as newspaperts develop their online presence, and it is lively and keeps readers on the pages to find news!

Thank you to Pop + Politics for the image!

How Does an Iconoclast Think?

2008-10-18T09:29:00.001-04:00

I am interested in innovation in the workplace, so I pulled this from an Emory University press release we learn about a new book: Iconoclast: A Neuroscientist Reveals How to Think Differently (Harvard Business Press, 2008) - Gregory Berns, MD, PhD, shows us how the world's most successful innovators think and what we can learn from them.

Berns is distinguished chair of neuroeconomics, professor of economics at Emory University, and professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences, Emory University School of Medicine. He focuses his research on human motivation and decision-making through a blend of neuroscience, economics and psychology.

"Iconoclasts are individuals who do things that others say can't be done," explains Berns. "An iconoclast defies the rules, but given the opportunity, can be an asset to any organization because of the skill to be creative and innovative despite adversity."

The book examines the stories of famous and not-so-famous iconoclasts to learn something about creative decision-making, innovation and creativity and the ability to control fear, and to look at the neuroscience behind those processes. Berns profiles people such as Walt Disney, the iconoclast of animation; Natalie Maines, an accidental iconoclast; and Martin Luther King, who conquered fear.

Berns says that many successful iconoclasts are made not born. For various reasons, they simply see things differently than other people do.

"Certainly there are people who are born this way, but what I have been able to learn about these individuals is that most successful iconoclasts are people who are skilled at handling failure and particularly at handling fear - fear of failure, fear of the unknown," says Berns. He also discovered a trait that ultimately distinguishes the people who are really successful is social intelligence.

"A person can have the greatest idea in the world - completely different and novel - but if that person can't convince enough other people, it doesn't matter," says Berns.

Will the Managing Editor Go with the Times?

2008-09-21T10:23:00.004-04:00

My local newspaper is The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, and it has been re-orging a bunch over the past 18 months. Because I am a communicator who helps share important medical discoveries for my organization, an academic health system, I am concerned that there a fewer reporters with health and medical beats. When you are working in a place that has a reponsibility for sharing discoveries, especially with federal funding supporting a lot of this, the goal is to get the news out to the public about how they are benefitting from advances.

So, keeping up with trends, I read a recent column by Mark Fitzgerald, an Editor and Publisher editor-at-large. He says managing editors may be a middle management phenomenon that may eventually go away. Read an excerpt here and visit his column.

"What, M.E. Worry? Managing Editors May Be On The Way Out: In the rest of corporate America, the middle manager has been an endangered species for the better part of three decades. With so many papers losing them, will the managing editor position soon disappear?

"In some ways the wonder is that the M.E. position has hung around so long. In the rest of corporate America, the middle manager has been an endangered species for the better part of three decades."

PRWeek's Social - Blogging Competition

2008-08-22T09:34:00.002-04:00

The blogging activity by PRWeek bloggers should have interesting results, but a lot to keep up with in the meantime. Check it out:

As part of its 10th anniversary celebration, PRWeek is honoring one of the most important technological advancements in content distribution of the past 10 years: the blog. The celebration comes by way of a competition. PRWeek personnel selected 16 of its favorite blogs, and ask each of those bloggers to select another blog to nominate for this competition. You will find the logos of all 32 blogs here and a bracket of the competition here. The competition will be a single elimination tournament, voted on by you, the reader. The tournament will take place over five weeks. For the first round, we will introduce eight new blogs every Monday and Wednesday. Polls will close on Tuesday at 11:59 pm EST, and on Friday at 5:30 pm EST. Bloggers have agreed to participate in the tournament, and were allowed to promote their participation on their blogs and elsewhere.

The Changing Newsroom - an Extensive Report

2008-07-27T15:43:00.003-04:00

Public relations professionals, many of us ex-journalists, are watching in dismay as newspapers continue to unravel across the nation. The recent Pew coverage says:

"The majority of newspapers are now suffering cutbacks in staffing, and even more in the amount of news, or newshole, they offer the public. The forces buffeting the industry continue to affect larger metro newspapers to a far greater extent than smaller ones. In some cases, these differences are so stark it seems that larger and smaller newspapers are living two distinctly different experiences. Fully 85% of the dailies surveyed with circulations over 100,000 have cut newsroom staff in the last three years, while only 52% of smaller papers reported cuts. Recent announcements of a further round of newsroom staff reductions at large papers, including the Los Angeles Times, the Chicago Tribune and the Washington Post, indicates these differences may be widening further."

A very extensive report of the latest survey of newspapers can be found at The Changing Newsroom. The Project for Excellence in Journalism is a research organization that specializes in using empirical methods to evaluate and study the performance of the press. It is non partisan, non ideological and non political. "Our goal is to help both the journalists who produce the news and the citizens who consume it develop a better understanding of what the press is delivering. The Project has put special emphasis on content analysis in the belief that quantifying what is occurring in the press, rather than merely offering criticism and analysis, is a better approach to understanding."

"Doctored" Photos Easy in the Digital Age

2008-07-12T17:11:00.006-04:00

I usually check out Scientific American for my science blog WendSight, but this story warrants a view by PR professionals. I pulled the main points from "Digital Forensics: How Experts Uncover Doctored Images" written by Hany Farid.

It says, "Fraudulent photographs produced with powerful, commercial software appear constantly, spurring a new field of digital image forensics. Many fakes can be exposed because of inconsistent lighting, including the specks of light reflected from people’s eyeballs. Algorithms can spot when an image has a “cloned” area or does not have the mathematical properties of a raw digital photograph."

Visit SciAm for an interesting read and photos! Visit this link to see the photo credit.

Make Way for New News Media

2008-07-06T18:47:00.004-04:00

I was scouting the pages of Fast Compnay, and see a concept for new radio that looks interesting. From a public relations point of view, if you have a product for NPR, then this looks good.

Writer Linda Tischler says of the show The Takeaway, "The first goal was to create a public-radio news program that replaces highly produced, carefully edited segments, such as those on Morning Edition, with something that feels a little more on the fly--open and conversational. New York's WNYC, which coproduces the show with Public Radio International (PRI), its distributor, drew its inspiration from the BBC Radio's popular 5 Live, a highly interactive alternative news broadcast in the U.K."

Bottom line: get to know the new media, because the old media is not going to be influential for the generation in its 20s right now.

Hologram "Transports" CEO to Meeting

2008-05-27T07:36:00.006-04:00

I like to look at ways technology impacts public relations and what to plan for in the future. A company in Australia has sent its CEO to a meeting via a hologram.

Read here. "The future of Australian communications technology has been showcased in Adelaide with a live hologram used to address a business conference. Telstra has used the latest high-speed broadband technology to transmit an image of its chief technology officer Dr Hugh Bradlow in real-time, from his office in Melbourne. The image has been projected as a hologram, to make it appear he was standing on stage. David Thodey, from Telstra, says the technology has the potential to revolutionise how Australians do business.

Considering the cost of travel and hotels, this is going to look better and better as time goes on.

Photo credit goes to aplink.wordpress.com.

Amazon Kindle: Simply Amazing

2008-05-04T15:13:00.003-04:00

I am going to look like I work for Amazon, but this product is amazing. Some of you probably already have it! Kindle: a Wireless Reading Device. Consider what the future holds beyond Amazon and books. See what Wikipedia says.

Here is what it can do:

Revolutionary electronic-paper display provides a sharp, high-resolution screen that looks and reads like real paper.
Simple to use: no computer, no cables, no syncing.
Wireless connectivity enables you to shop the Kindle Store directly from your Kindle—whether you’re in the back of a taxi, at the airport, or in bed.
Buy a book and it is auto-delivered wirelessly in less than one minute.
Free book samples. Download and read first chapters for free before you decide to buy.
Top U.S. newspapers including The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and Washington Post; top magazines including TIME, Atlantic Monthly, and Forbes—all auto-delivered wirelessly.
Lighter and thinner than a typical paperback; weighs only 10.3 ounces.
Holds over 200 titles. Long battery life. Leave wireless on and recharge approximately every other day. Turn wireless off and read for a week or more before recharging. Fully recharges in 2 hours. Unlike WiFi, Kindle utilizes the same high-speed data network (EVDO) as advanced cell phones—so you never have to locate a hotspot.

Jeff Bezos says: Three years ago, we set out to design and build an entirely new class of device—a convenient, portable reading device with the ability to wirelessly download books, blogs, magazines, and newspapers.

Thanks to electronic paper, a revolutionary new display technology, reading Kindle’s screen is as sharp and natural as reading ink on paper—and nothing like the strain and glare of a computer screen. Kindle is also easy on the fingertips. It never becomes hot and is designed for ambidextrous use so both "lefties" and "righties" can read comfortably at any angle for long periods of time.

We wanted Kindle to be completely mobile and simple to use for everyone, so we made it wireless. No PC and no syncing needed. Using the same 3G network as advanced cell phones, we deliver your content using our own wireless delivery system, Amazon Whispernet. Unlike WiFi, you’ll never need to locate a hotspot. There are no confusing service plans, yearly contracts, or monthly wireless bills—we take care of the hassles so you can just read.

Best Business Advice from My Dad

2008-05-03T10:43:00.011-04:00

Today I am reading the Fortune article on "The Best Advice I Ever Got." A lot of leaders in business reflect on past advice and many point to their fathers.

It made me think about the best advice from my father, Rodger Goodwin. He and my mother, Sue, owned a small business in Lexington, Ky., and during high school and college I spent some summer weeks in the business office.

I can recall how skillful my father was at presenting his ideas that could provide his clients with high-quality and artful ornamental metals for home and business needs. On occasion a client would visit the company on site and I would listen to my father talk with the visitor. I can remember thinking how bold he sounded as he convinced someone to go with the highest quality and if that was not what they wanted they would have to go elsewhere. He said he could only give them the best.

This was not just a sales pitch, he meant it. He was not just trying to get top dollar for his work, he wanted people to want the best and get the best. After a visitor would leave, totally convinced by the way, he would tell me what his thoughts were on how the person approached him, the conversation, and then the results. Essentially, he told me never to provide any work that was not the very best and be willing to give up business in order to be known for the highest quality work.

Mobile Will Be the PR Way

2008-04-28T19:10:00.002-04:00

Business Week has good coverage of new media. The story on Google's ad future by Ben Kunz is enlightening on the advertising side, but eventually will affect public relations as reaching audiences with our messages will probably include mobile in the not-to-distant future.

Kunz says, "Google's biggest threat may not be Microsoft or Yahoo!. No, one of the most formidable challenges facing Google is likely sitting in your pocket or purse. It's your cell phone, and it will put added pressure on Google and other Internet companies to revamp the way they handle online marketing. As more people use cell phones and their tiny glass screens to gain access to the Internet, Google and its fellow online advertisers will have less space, or what's called ad inventory, to place marketing messages for customers. Google makes money selling ad inventory. And its ad inventory is diminished on a cell phone. "

Creative Synergies Bring New Business to SC

2008-04-19T09:41:00.003-04:00

Most of my career has been in academic health sciences, and I come across interesting synergies that propel business in this area. I am impressed with what the University of South Carolina, Medical University of South Carolina, Clemson University, and other schools in South Carolina are doing to become a powerhouse much like the Research Triangle in North Carolina or the Emory University and Georgia Tech growing relationships in Georgia.

I first noticed last year the announcement that USC would build a major complex for research called Innovista. I was impressed with the vision and also the details of the design that would include residences and businesses within the complex that could sustain a small town of researchers in an intellectual rich environ.

USC has also received wealth from Columbia's philanthropy to continue to drive its research programs and recruit major talent. From a communications perspective, I like the way USC is promoting its mission and achievements via its web site - a nicely designed and easy to navigate site. The school can reach audiences ranging from donors to legislators to media to investors to community to patients to potential new scientists with this web site. You cannot underestimate the importance of a go-to place that impresses and builds excitement.

Chevy Creates Microsite off NYT Home Page

2008-04-07T18:31:00.005-04:00

Chevy has devloped an interesting approach to reach consumers about its "fuel technology dialogue" created off an ad on the NYT web site home page.

Questions come from consumers who are identified on the site and ask pointed questions about what Chevy is doing. The site is called a "sponsored archive/microsite." You can link back to stories on the NYT to read about alternative energy.

I cannot recall when Chevrolet changed to Chevy. I do like this site for reaching consumers about its efforts for the environment.

Social Media - Dive in and Learn

2008-04-06T13:39:00.007-04:00

Many conversations about social media are taking place across the business world, and many people want to understand the concept. The best way to understand social media is to jump in and do it yourself. After you begin to experience it you will better understand how it might benefit your company.

The following excerpted definition from the Wikipedia is clear:

Social media or social networking (one example of social media) has a number of characteristics that make it fundamentally different from traditional media such as newspapers, television, books, and radio.

Primarily, social media depends on interactions between people as the discussion and integration of words builds shared-meaning, using technology as a conduit.

Social media is not finite: there is not a set number of pages or hours. The audience can participate in social media by adding comments or even editing the stories themselves. Content in social media can take the form of text, graphics, audio, or video. Several formats can be mixed. Social media is typically available via feeds, enabling users to subscribe via feed readers, and allowing other publishers to create mashups.

Social Media Marketing, on the other hand, is an off-page characteristic of Social Media. This includes writing content that is remarkable, unique, and newsworthy. This content can then be marketed by popularizing it or even by creating a “viral” video on YouTube and other video sites. Social Media is about being social so this off-page work can include getting involved in other similar blogs, forums, and niche communities. Search Engine Marketing or SEM involves utilization of all available Social Networking platforms to brand a product using Search Engine Optimization or SEO techniques of communication, to the end consumer.

A few prominent examples of social media applications [with links] are:
social advertising and social ads
Wikis: Wikipedia
Social networking: MySpace and Facebook
Presence apps: Twitter and Pownce
Healthcare apps: CareFlash
Video sharing: YouTube
Virtual reality: Second Life
Events: Upcoming
News aggregation: Mixx and Reddit
Photo sharing: Flickr and Zooomr
Livecasting: Justin.tv
Social bookmarking: del.icio.us and StumbleUpon
Online gaming: World of Warcraft
Game sharing: Miniclip.com

Open-Source: Evolution in Progress

2008-03-30T11:15:00.004-04:00

Reflecting on an earlier post I made last week, I read an article in the business section of The Economist that provided more understanding of open-source networks. It points to how more nimble this makes social networking than actually going to a web site such as Facebook. This concept will come more to light as time goes on, and then those who wish to market something will have to re-evaluate once again.

The Economist says, "The opening of social networks may now accelerate thanks to that older next big thing, web-mail. As a technology, mail has come to seem rather old-fashioned. But Google, Yahoo!, Microsoft and other firms are now discovering that they may already have the ideal infrastructure for social networking in the form of the address books, in-boxes and calendars of their users. "

To learn more about open source, go to the Open Source Initiative. Wikipedia defines open source as: "Open source is a set of principles and practices on how to write software, the most important of which is that the source code is openly available. The Open Source Definition, which was created by Bruce Perens for the Debian project and is currently maintained by the Open Source Initiative, adds additional meaning to the term: one should not only get the source code but also have the right to use it. If the latter is denied the license is categorized as a shared source license."

State of the News Media: 2008 Report Issued

2008-03-29T12:12:00.005-04:00

Looking through news of the day, I saw that the Project for Excellence in Journalism has a report out on new media and some suprises. This is a must-read, and I am including language directly from the report here and links so that you can read the 30-page executive report and other materials.

According to the introduction to the report, "Critics have tended to see technology democratizing the media and traditional journalism in decline. Audiences, they say, are fragmenting across new information sources, breaking the grip of media elites. Some people even advocate the notion of “The Long Tail,” the idea that, with the Web’s infinite potential for depth, millions of niche markets could be bigger than the old mass market dominated by large companies and producers.

"The reality, increasingly, appears more complex. Looking closely, a clear case for democratization is harder to make. Even with so many new sources, more people now consume what old media newsrooms produce, particularly from print, than before. Online, for instance, the top 10 news Web sites, drawing mostly from old brands, are more of an oligarchy, commanding a larger share of audience, than in the legacy media. The verdict on citizen media for now suggests limitations. And research shows blogs and public affairs Web sites attract a smaller audience than expected and are produced by people with even more elite backgrounds than journalists."

The first item on the Trend summary says:

"News is shifting from being a product — today’s newspaper, Web site or newscast — to becoming a service — how can you help me, even empower me? There is no single or finished news product anymore. As news consumption becomes continual, more new effort is put into producing incremental updates, as brief as 40-character e-mails sent from reporters directly to consumers without editing. (The afternoon newspaper is also being reborn online.) Service also broadens the definition of what journalists must supply. Story telling and agenda setting — still important — are now insufficient. Journalism also must help citizens find what they are looking for, react to it, sort it, shape news coverage, and — probably most important and least developed — give them tools to make sense of and use the information for themselves.

"News people are uncertain how the core values of accuracy and verification will hold up. Some of the experiments, even the experimenters think, are questionable. And people are being stretched thinner, posing hard questions about how to manage time and where to concentrate. But the hope is that service, more than storytelling, could prove a key to unlocking new economics. A news organization and a news Web site are no longer final destinations. Now they must move toward also being stops along the way, gateways to other places, and a means to drill deeper, all ideas that connect to service rather than product."

The Project for Excellence in Journalism is a research organization that specializes in using empirical methods to evaluate and study the performance of the press. It is non partisan, non ideological and non political.

For a full report and executive summary.

Open ID and OpenSocial - What Does This Mean Now?

2008-03-23T17:37:00.004-04:00

This is going to be important to business and communicators as we move forward in the bringing business to our companies.

The web site explains OpenID: it eliminates the need for multiple usernames across different websites, simplifying your online experience. You get to choose the OpenID Provider that best meets your needs and most importantly that you trust. At the same time, your OpenID can stay with you, no matter which Provider you move to. And best of all, the OpenID technology is not proprietary and is completely free.

For businesses, this means a lower cost of password and account management, while drawing new web traffic. OpenID lowers user frustration by letting users have control of their login.
For geeks, OpenID is an open, decentralized, free framework for user-centric digital identity.

OpenID takes advantage of already existing internet technology (URI, HTTP, SSL, Diffie-Hellman) and realizes that people are already creating identities for themselves whether it be at their blog, photostream, profile page, etc. With OpenID you can easily transform one of these existing URIs into an account which can be used at sites which support OpenID logins.

OpenID is still in the adoption phase and is becoming more and more popular, as large organizations like AOL, Microsoft, Sun, Novell, etc. begin to accept and provide OpenIDs. Today it is estimated that there are over 160-million OpenID enabled URIs with nearly ten-thousand sites supporting OpenID logins. OpenID has arisen from the open source community to solve the problems that could not be easily solved by other existing technologies. OpenID is a lightweight method of identifying individuals that uses the same technology framework that is used to identify websites. As such, OpenID is not owned by anyone, nor should it be. Today, anyone can choose to be an OpenID user or an OpenID Provider for free without having to register or be approved by any organization.

The OpenID Foundation was formed to assist the open source model by providing a legal entity to be the steward for the community by providing needed infrastructure and generally helping to promote and support expanded adoption of OpenID.

As innovation moves at warp speed, and you apply Moore's Law, you better have an Internet guru at your VP level soon. Also check out Google's new OpenSocial.

Reaching targeted audiences: 55+

2008-03-19T19:11:00.004-04:00

I have been talking about increased use of the Internet for finding information and doing business by the 55+ crowd for some time. Your company may be looking for ways to angle into an older audience online. This survey by Burst Media has some interesting findings.

Burst recently surveyed more than 13,000 web users 18 years and older about their views on the availability of age-focused online content, website design, and targeted online advertising.
It says that Internet users actively seek out content for their age group. However, online content providers are not meeting the needs of all age segments. The survey shows that a majority of Internet users 45 years and older believe online content is focused on younger age segments.

"Three out of five (59.6%) of respondents are visiting more websites in a typical week than they were one year ago. (Chart 2) An expanded catalogue of sites visited is not only a phenomenon of the young, but is found among all age segments. In fact, 62.8% of respondents 55 years and older say they are visiting more sites today in a typical week of web surfing than they were one year ago," according to the report.

One last note, and you can find the whole report at Burst, "The 55 years and older segment is integrating the Internet into their daily lives. In fact, for this segment the Internet is rapidly replacing other media as the primary source for news, entertainment, and information. As you develop a media plan to reach this important target, recognize the role the Internet has in their lives by leveraging the vast content of the Internet, and utilize creative that is age appropriate in both design and messaging. Remember the creative options utilized to reach one age segment might not resonate with another."

Reputations in the New Social Order

2008-03-12T19:02:00.009-04:00

This may not make any sense to you as the reader since you did not attend sxsw, but the account of the Mark Zuckerberg, founder of Facebook, interview at sxsw made news - via Twitter live during the interview and then later on Media Post's Social Media Insider. This is an example of how things can change instantly for a person or an organization via social media technology:

"I'm no more sure of what the Sarah Lacy/Twitter debacle means than I am about the Eliot Spitzer tweets, but let me take a crack at it. To recap, Sarah Lacy writes the ValleyGirl column for BusinessWeek, and was asked by the organizers of SXSW Interactive (an offshoot of the music festival in Austin), to interview Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg on Sunday as part of the conference. My personal complaint is that somehow the interview ended up being as much about her, her book, her previous encounters with Zuckerberg, as it does being about him or Facebook.

The crowd agreed, but here's where the Zuckerberg/Lacy interview differs from the usual lousy conference Q&A. Those in attendance began to criticize her, in real-time, on Twitter, blogs and in the real world, bringing a brand new meaning to the term "mobisode," which used to mean a small, portable episode of a TV show.

Now, I'd argue that an experience like Lacy's fits the term better (although here the first syllable in "mobisode" should be pronounced as in the word "mob," not "mobile.") At one point, when Zuckerberg offered that maybe Lacy should ask questions, the crowd cheered for 30 seconds that seemed like five minutes, and somehow, between the Twitter postings, the news stories, the posting of the interview on YouTube, and so on, Sarah Lacy found herself in the middle of a Web 2.0 perfect storm -- which has continued to feed on social media's power. Now that's a mobisode! Though what I've seen of the interview certainly shouts "debacle," in another era it would've been quickly recounted and dismissed. Sarah Lacy may have committed many an interviewing faux pas on Sunday, but is this to be the punishment we can expect in the future for a particularly bad day at the office?"

Find more in the column at Media Post!

Also, a You Tube account.

sxsw Interactive Web - What the Experts Say

2008-03-12T11:28:00.004-04:00

Social media, relationships, authenticity, new generation experiences, measuring knowledge, the language of "we", neighborhoods of people and ideas are all buzzwords in the communications realm and will revolutionize our practice dramatically in the next few years.

I attended the sxsw Interactive Web conference in Austin this week and learned a lot from the experts. Of course, listening to a live conversation with Mark Zuckerberg, the founder of Facebook, allowed a glimpse into a major social phenomenon.

A speaker I really learned from was Shiv Singh, at a sponsored session by Avenue A | Razorfish. Here are a few words, but you can read more about him and the sxsw conference at my discovery and innovation blog WendSight.

If you think social media is all about clever corporate marketing on Facebook or quirky videos on YouTube, you're missing an opportunity to change your company's entire culture and operations, says Shiv. In fact, social media can affect how companies innovate, test ideas, recruit talent, measure performance and interact with all their stakeholders.

Shiv explains how the enterprise can use social media to improve business practices. He talks about the rise of social media has created a new form of marketing altogether, referred to as social influence marketing.

Social influence marketing is about employing social media as part of the entire lifecycle of a marketing campaign, even beyond a campaign.

Key points: people join networks if they have friends there; behavior is influenced by others; growth occurs in the centrality; people will disseminate information from social networks; trust is essential for information sharing; and user based evaluations are important to collaboration.