Category Archives: Blogging

Naked Conversations

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Robert Scoble and Shel Israel co-authored this excellent book on “how blogs are changing the way businesses talk with customers.” Just a couple of chapters in but finding a nugget on almost every page:

  • Tool Lust –People develop emotional attachments to things that empower new, faster, easier or cheaper activity (blogging)
  • Interruption Marketing — Unanticipated, impersonal and irrelevant ads, repeatedly hurled at involuntary audiences. (Seth Godin)
  • “First there were phone books, then web sites and [businesses] know that if they don’t have [one], it works to their disadvanatage. Blogs are just the next logical step.” — Betsy Aoki, Microsoft blogger
  • Corpspeak — An oxymoronic hybrid of cautious legalese seasoned with marketing hyperbole. Corpspeakers talk to people when they want to speak, not when people want to listen.
  • If you’re afraid to share ideas, you shouldn’t blog. One time someone asked Walt Disney if he wasn’t worried about telling so many people about his ideas. And Disney said, ‘Those were last year’s ideas.’ (pg 94) If you’re paranoid about your ideas being ripped off, don’t blog.
  • If the company culture is manipulative, employees are not treated with respect, and customers are thought of as commodity items, then that company should not blog. That company should close its doors. (pg 95)

If you’re not sure if your sales proposal or corporate brochure or news release is corpseak, stand in the middle of a room with some of your co-workers and read the copy aloud. If they laugh, it’s corpspeak.

I’ll update this post as I move through the book.

Death Row Blogger

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“Vernon Lee Evans Jr. — amateur advice columnist and convicted murderer — is scheduled to die next month by lethal injection. He is one of the very few death row inmates to have a blog and, activists say, perhaps the only condemned man worldwide to use a blog to take questions from readers.”

— washingtonpost.com:

More Squirt Cheese in History

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“It was against this backdrop that Marco Polo floated into Japan in a hot air balloon, carrying with him the most luxurious goods from his homeland: extra virgin olive oil, Venetian blinds, and his 5 remaining bottles of squeezable parmesan cheese. The Japanese people, after years of gustatory oppression, gobbled Polo’s golden ribbons of delight with gusto. They rose up against their oppressors, won their freedom, and never looked back.

Is there a lesson for the modern reader in Japan’s tragic romance with its scrumptious first love? Perhaps it is this: we fight the good fight for that which we hold dear, but ultimately, to win or lose is a mere footnote to our having tasted our bacon-flavored life to the fullest.”

Wouldn’t you love to know and hang out with someone that can write like this? I am so pleased to know David Brazeal and so sad we don’t get to hang out.

Who are your “alpha customers?”

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Chris Anderson (The Long Tail guy) looks at why big companies should have public blogs. Among other reasons, they serve as a peer-to-peer product support channel for “alpha customers”, whose opinion can sway others.

Does Learfield (the company I work for) have “alpha customers?” Who would that be? Our university partners? Our advertisers? Our affiliated radio stations? I would argue that the correct answer is: D) All of the above.

Those charged with knowing and influencing “alpha customers,” whomever they might be…might argue that we are already doing a fine job of this. No argument here. But “deep in my heart, I do belive” we could do it even more effectively with some savvy blogging.

RobotWhich brings us to a DWR moment: Pushing your company or organization to blog before they are psychologically ready or have the will and talent to pull it off, is like showing motion pictures to the indigenous tribes of Borneo. They might cheer and make you Tribal Witch Doctor, or they might stab you to death with tiny little spears.

Anytime you see this little robot, you know you’re reading something that could get me –and you– in a lot of trouble.

J-School head poo-poo’s political blogs

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Cub Reporter Bob Hague sends along this link to an interview with James Baughman, head of Journalism/Communications at UW Madison. Bob says what started as a discussion of celebrity journalism spread to political blogs. Baughman thinks they’re going to be great for political geeks, but is pretty pessimistic about new media’s impact on the electorate. [Thanks, Bobby.]

PR Technology Panel

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The big “PR technology” panel went off reasonably well today. Not my best showing but it’s been a while since I did one of these. [AUDIO: 5o min] I got a little distracted when my nano (which I was using for a timer) shut off. But it could have been worse. And the room was packed.

Tony Calandro did a nice overview of blogs, RSS, podcasting, etc. I added a few thoughts on podcasting. and Richard Callow (www.mayorslay.com) did convinced me that a smart politician with good people advising him/her can get a lot of mileage from blogging and podcasting. I was very impressed.

You can listen to the discussion if you care to download this 23 meg MP3 file. Questions from the audience were not mic’d so I left those off.

I came away with the sense that the PR community sort of knows what blogs and podcasts are… and want to know more. But they have miles to go. Controlling the message is hard-coded into their DNA and the idea of open, unfiltered, uncontrolled communication will make many of them –and their clients– uncomfortable for a long time.

Is your company ready to blog?

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In an interview for the Bacon’s Navigator, Sally Falkow writes that Jonathan Schwartz, President and COO of Sun Microsystems said that blogging had played a major role in the revitalization of Sun’s reputation. Sun has gone from the 99th to the 6th most popular server company, largely because it has embraced authenticity and transparency in its communication initiatives, according to the piece.

Among the benefits of corporate blogging (according to the Falkow piece):

  • Increases search engine visibility and thus brand awareness
  • Offers a direct communication channel to the public
  • Builds credibility and trust
  • Allows you to tell your story, uncensored by the media
  • Makes your organization more “real” to the public

Is your company ready to blog? Check the culture of your organization:

  • Can you let go of the controlled ‘messaging’?
  • Are you willing to be authentic and transparent?
  • Do you have the resources – writers, time, budget – to create the content for a blog that others will find compelling?

I remember (many years ago) pleading with our CEO to get computers for the newsroom. And lots of heated meetings on why we did (or did not) need to network our computers. The idea of email seemed silly at one time. I remember all of this like it was yesterday. I get the same blank, puzzled looks from some of our top folks when the subject of blogs comes up. What possible value could a corporate blog have?

Can we let go of controlled ‘messaging?’ Not entirely.
Are we willing to be transparent? Up to a point.
Will our company ever have a corporate blog? I expect we will, and it will probably happen like this:

Somebody in senior management will be at a meeting or conference and someone they know and trust will talk about their experience with blogging and ask if we are using this tool. Fortunately, when they return to the Mother Ship, they’ll find a cadre of experienced bloggers ready to help.

Postscript: (24 hours later) Not every company is ready to blog. I happen to think most companies should not attempt this. This only works if everybody (top to bottom) is jumping in with great enthusiasm. If there’s any doubt about whether this is a good thing for your organization… don’t do it.

Blogs worst marketing idea of 2005

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Brandweek Magazine ranks blogs among the worst marketing ideas of 2005:

Blogs provide almost no new information. They’re frequently inaccurate. They contribute to the hysterical polarization of our nation’s political discourse. And they’re often written by people who can’t, you know, write. So naturally marketers have flocked to associate their brands with them. Seriously, it’s not entirely clear why so many marketers have rushed to get themselves name-dropped in one of the most unreliable media environments yet invented, but we’re sure there’s a PowerPoint presentation on their ROI being prepared as we write this.

I especially like the part about “hysterical polarization of our nation’s political discourse.” Riiight.

Ladies and gentlemen…SquirtCheez!

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In June of 2003, I posted a short list of “Blogs I Would Read If They Existed.” Leaving David Brazeal off that list was an oversight but David is easy to oversee. Not unlike Topsy. Tonight I am honored to be among the first to link to David’s new blog, SquirtCheez.

SquirtCheez has a long and illustrious history as a metaphor for the human experience. Homer called it the “nectar of fat and happy Olympian consumerism.” American colonial preacher Jonathan Edwards, in his most famous sermon, noted that SquirtCheez is the only source of sustenance that will explode upon being thrown into the flames of hell.

It’s totally unfair of me to put this kind of pressure on David and I will look like a total dumb-ass if he screws the pooch on this. But gosh darn it, I’m willing to risk it. Because David is part of that tiny, select group I refer to as: TFFTJ (Too Funny for Their Jobs). Please welcome him to the ‘sphere.

The people formerly known as the audience

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The phrase above is attributed to Jay Rosen, a blogger and journalism professor at New York University. I thought it nicely summed up an article written by Katharine Q. Seelye (Answering Back to the News Media, Using the Internet). Subjects of newspaper articles and news boradcasts taping interviews, gathering email exchanges, taking notes on phone conversations…and publishing them on their own web sites or blogs, creating a new world where the audience and sources are publishers.

As far as I know, this has not happened to any of the reporters that work for our various radio news networks. But it will. One of our guys (intended as gender-neutral) will record an interview and pull some “cuts” for the story. The person being interviewed will be recording the interview as well. And they’ll post the full transcript (or the audio) on their website. Not necessarily to question the accuracy of our story, but just to let the public see what we did –and did not– include. Is this “fair” or “okay?” Don’t know. But that’s beside the point. It’s happening.

If is was a hot topic, I’d post the entire interview myself. Unedited. [Thanks, Morris.]