Category Archives: Blogging

Blogging’s impact in the newsroom

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Steve Rubel points to an article in The American Journalism Review about how bloggers are changing journalism in the US. This should be required reading for any working journalist. The AJR piece concludes with some blogging tips from Dallas Morning News Editorial Page Editor Keven Ann Willey, who led her staff in launching the nation’s first editorial page blog. Here are her excellent suggestions:

1. Be brief and informal. Breezy, conversational tone is good. Two hundred words is too long. Go for the quick hit, light touch, witty aside. Attitude required.

2. Don’t be too proud to blog.

3. Respond to previous blog postings. This is about conversation, after all. It’s the back and forth that makes a blog engaging.

4. Vary your topics. Don’t be a wonk.

5. Don’t write anything you wouldn’t want your mother to read in the paper.

6. Use hyperlinks.

7. Incorporate interesting, provocative reader e-mail. The best blogs are two-way streets.

8. Be quick to correct yourself.

9. Don’t feel obligated to answer all blog-generated e-mail.

10. Don’t over edit; but designate a blog boss.

Real Lawyers Have Blogs

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That’s the name of Kevin O’Keefe’s blog. He chatted with me today about blogging and lawyers and I could kick myself for not asking how he came up with “Real Lawyers Have Blogs.”

The blog is part of LexBlog, a consulting company that helps lawyers with Internet marketing and business development puts a strong emphasis on blogging.

Kevin was a trial lawyer for 17 years but stopped practicing in 1999 and founded an “online law community” called Prairielaw.com (which was later acquired by LexisNexis).

Kevin is my kind of blogger. He thinks every business should be blogging and says all lawyers will have blogs by the end of the decade (even though less than 1% of attorneys currently have blogs).

LexBlog has created some really nice looking blogs for their clients. These are some of the best looking websites I’ve seen and they got all the blog tools and features.

Kevin pooh-poohed my suggestion that blogging was difficult for some people. They either hadn’t found the right tools or weren’t ready to blog (yet). He’s right of course.

(audio no longer available)

After listening to Kevin for a few minutes and looking at and reading the blogs of some of his clients… I can’t imagine why every lawyer isn’t blogging. I guess the real ones are.

Life and work interfering with blogging

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It does pain me to look at the little calendar to the right and see that entire days have gone by with not a single post here at smays.com. Four days last week! Cripes! What’s the point of living if you’re too busy to blog about it? What have I been doing that is more important than this?

We relaunched one of our websites last week. WRN.com is the online home of Wisconsin Radio Network. Our news network websites are among the oldest in the company. Almost ten years for a couple of them. Waaay overdue for an overhaul. RadioIowa.com is next and then Missourinet.com.

The Amazing Andy (Gestalt Inc) does all of our sites and he’s done a nice job with these. All sites optimized for blogging, RSS, podcasting, etc. Still miles to go but I’m hoping to have all three up and running before the end of the year.

Spending more and more time talking with clients about blogging and podcasting. The vast majority are still clueless about these tools but there are little flashes of “get it” here and there and we’re trying to fan these tiny sparks into roaring infernos.

But it’s all web-o-licious and I can’t remember the last time I heard the phrase “this Internet thing” at Camp Learfield.

White House Press Secretary Tony Snow doing a radio commercials

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Radio Iowa News Director (and blogger) O. Kay Henderson heard White House Press Secretary Tony Snow doing a radio commercial on a Des Moines radio station this week and found it blog-worthy. The New York Times liked the story too:

“Just imagine, you’re listening to the radio, Tony Snow has been speaking to you as the spokesman for the leader of the free world, and then a commercial comes on with him trying to sell you a window,” Ms. Henderson said Thursday. “He introduced himself as Tony Snow, talked about the travails of remodeling projects, boasted about the 30-year history of this business and delivered the 800 number of the business, twice.”

My favorite quote from the story was by Mr. Snow: “It’s like, you don’t have the White House press secretary flacking siding.”

I suppose Kay could have done a “human interest” piece for our network but this is perfect blog-fodder. Not a big deal, just interesting. And how many reporters heard the White House Press Secretary shilling windows on the radio and didn’t think to follow up on it?

Seth Godin on comments

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“I think comments are terrific, and they are the key attraction for some blogs and some bloggers. Not for me, though. First, I feel compelled to clarify or to answer every objection or to point out every flaw in reasoning. Second, it takes way too much of my time to even think about them, never mind curate them. And finally, and most important for you, it permanently changes the way I write. Instead of writing for everyone, I find myself writing in anticipation of the commenters.”

—  Seth Godin blog post

 

Blogging for president

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I’m sorry, but radio and TV has completely fucked up the way we elect the leaders of our country. Think about it. We elect presidents and senators and governors and damned near everybody based on:

* :30 TV spots
* Debates that aren’t
* Speeches the candidate didn’t write
* Yard signs (that’s a small town thing but it’s universal. The guy with the most yard signs wins)

Do any of these reveal anything about the ideas or intelligence of the candidate. No way. You know what would? A blog. A blog written 100% by the candidate (not sure how you could keep the bastards from cheating and you know they’d try).

Make every candidate blog during the year leading up to the election. They can post as often as they like… about any topic they like.

This has the added benefit of requiring the American voter to get more involved than watching some mindless network television salted with attack ads.

“Wait a minute, smays. Leadership requires courage and values (like mine) and a bunch of other qualities that have nothing to do with how well you express your ideas in writing.”

Horse shit. If you can’t think… you can’t lead. At least not well. And I want to measure the quality of your ideas. Not the ideas of your campaign manager, or your PR firm… your ideas.

If you’re hung up on the writing thing… let’s throw a podcast into the mix. Every candidate produces a weekly, fifteen minute podcast. Any topic, any format. But the candidate must produce it him or herself (they go into a glass walled studio, put it together and upload it).

Imagine reading blogs written by George W. Bush; Bill Clinton (or Hillary Clinton); Al Gore; John Kerry; John McCain; Al Sharpton; Dick Cheney; Ralph Nader… you get the idea. Can you honestly say you wouldn’t have a better feel for who these people are and what they really believe? Of course they’d try to scam and bullshit you. But it would be so much harder to do.

I can fool you for 30 seconds at a time. Especially if you’ re not paying much attention. But if you’re reading what I say every day, for a year… you’re gonna learn some things about me. Good and bad.

And here’s the proof of this pot of pudding: Regular readers of smays.com have NO doubt that I would make a really bad (fill in the elective office).

Feedback: LeAnn says the tone of this post lacks “the same effervescent, entertaining qualities of your other posts. I am concerned someone pissed you way the “f” off on Thursday.” Nope, Thursday was a very nice day. But the post does read “angry,” doesn’t it. I should really stay away from politics.

I had to look up the definition of “effervescent” (vivacious; gay; lively; sparkling). I think I can sparkle but vivacious will be a stretch.

Blogs: CB Radio with permalinks

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Brian Noggle at KansasCity.com compares blogs to CB radio fad:

“I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it until I’m proven otherwise: Blogs are CB radio with permalinks. And we know how much CB changed the face of citizen media in the 1970s. It spawned a number of books, three “Smokey and the Bandit” movies and “Convoy.” Some of its slang lives on, but you don’t see many cars with the antennae on their roofs anymore, do you?”

Say what you will about the staying power or significance of blogs… that’s a pretty lame knock for a Big City Newspaper Guy. And I’m not sure how to reconcile his view with with his well-tended blog.

I dropped Brian a line and asked for clarification on what might serve as “proven otherwise” for him. I offered some possible bench-marks:

  • More than three movies about blogging
  • Blogs help sway a presidential election (I don’t think CB’s did that)
  • There are more profitable blogs than major daily newspapers

As far as I know, none of those things have happened. I’m not sure the second two would prove much. but four movies on blogging…whoa! Thanks to Mj Reports for the pointer.

Update: Received a nice email and comment from Brian in which he points out he has no connection to the Kansas City Star. I don’t think KansasCity.com made that clear and my apologies to Brian. And he makes some very solid points on the true impact –or lack thereof– of blogging.

Robert Scoble: The value of “influencers”

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“I’ll tell you what executives from big companies (like Kraft, Procter and Gamble, GM, and others) who were at MSN’s OWN ADVERTISING CONFERENCE told me. An influencer is worth THOUSANDS of times more than a non-influencer (influencer is someone who tells other people stuff, which is why blogging is getting so much advertising attention lately). That’s why Google is charging more per click than MSN is (Google has more influential users).”

— Robert Scoble via Gaping Void

Why don’t CEO’s blog?

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Randall Stross has a nice piece on CEO blogging in Sunday’s NYT. Features Sun Microsystems Pres/CEO, Johathan Schwartz:

“C.E.O. blogging should no longer be viewed as extreme sport. Mr. Schwartz’s example shows that blogging fits quite naturally into the chief executive’s work week. In an exhortatory piece, “If You Want to Lead, Blog,” published in The Harvard Business Review last year, Mr. Schwartz predicted that “having a blog is not going to be a matter of choice, any more than having e-mail is today. My No. 1 job is to be a communicator,” Mr. Schwartz told me last week. “I don’t understand how a C.E.O. would not blog if committed to open communication.”

The Times story starts with: “Chief executives are inclined to avoid activities generally deemed to be high-risk: Sky diving. Cliff jumping. Motorcycle racing. And blogging.”

Learfield Top Guy, Clyde Lear, was born minus the risk-aversion gene. He’ll try anything and encourage others to jump with him. So blogging doesn’t scare him even a little. He’s been travelling a lot this summer and it’s cut into his posting but I think we’ll see it pick up as the summer winds down.

Prediction: Don’t know when… don’t know what… but a day will come when our company will be glad we have the forum that GrowLearfield.com is becoming. You can say you read it here. [via Buzz Machine]