Ah, starting to make sense. I’d very much like to try this out. I no longer rely on email as my primary means of communicating online. Google Wave just might be The Thing.
Drop a text “dime” on the jerk in the row behind you
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Iowa State and University of Iowa football fans can now text university staff to alert them to problems. Like some drunk ass clown sitting behind you screaming obscenities. Or a lost child or something.
They just punch in 97178, then type the word ALERT, before sending a text message (including your seat location).
Hawkeye officials implemented a new text messaging system before the season, in order to give fans quick and discrete access to ushers as well as security and medical personnel.
The texting program is part of a larger communications agreement with Learfield Sports (company I work for) and FanDriveMedia. Full story here.
Top 10 Reasons Chicago Failed to Win the 2016 Olympics
From my friend (and recovering Bush apologist) David Brazeal:
10. IOC delegates disappointed to discover Oprah hadn’t hidden portable DVD players under their seats.
9. Voters perturbed by President Obama’s effort to lead them in a chant of “USA! USA!”
8. US credibility damaged when Michelle Obama expressed her hope to meet “international soccer star David Beckett.”
7. Many of Chicago’s most supportive IOC delegates still partying in Pittsburgh after last week’s G-20 protests.
6. Chicago officials bribed delegates with US dollars instead of euros.
5. Delegates unswayed by promises that Chicago Olympics will “save or create 8-million jobs.”
4. Withdrawal of US missile defense from Eastern Europe swayed large bloc of Polish and Czech soccer moms to support Rio de Janeiro.
3. Voters creeped out by Joe Biden’s pro-Chicago video presentation, praising “northern girls with the way they kiss.”
2. Delegates turned off when American Kanye West interrupted Tokyo’s presentation to say Beyonce really deserves to win.
1. It’s all George W. Bush’s fault.
The boys remains one of the funniest people I kn0w. [Files under: Too Funny for His Job]
Better tool for journalists, iPhone or BlackBerry?
Etan Horowitz, posting on E-Media Tidbits, attempts (and succeeds, in my opinion) to answer the question: Which is better tool for journalists, BlackBerry or iPhone? I’ll just share his conclusions here and you can read the full post:
“In the days when producing content mainly happened from a laptop or the office, the BlackBerry made a lot of sense. It is a perfect tool for communicating quickly by e-mail or text and looking up information online. But now that many journalists are expected to post stories, blog posts, photos and videos from the field, the iPhone is a better option.
As a profession, journalism is still struggling to find its footing in the digital age. Since most of the innovative mobile applications are being developed for the iPhone, using an iPhone will help journalists stay current with technology and get them excited about its potential for news.
Don’t believe me? Just give an iPhone to one of the old-school types in your newsroom and see how they react after a few days of use. They’re likely to tell you the device changed their life. You won’t get the same response by giving someone a BlackBerry.
But that doesn’t mean the iPhone is best for all journalists. Editors, Web producers and others who don’t report from the field but frequently communicate with a team will probably be better served by a BlackBerry. And the fact that BlackBerrys cost less, run on multiple carriers and have removable batteries and memory cards are also valid considerations.” [Thanks, Aaron for the link]
Big St. Louis architectural firm getting their blog on
Clyde found this blogging success story in the St. Louis Business Journal. It’s about HOK a global architectural firm with headquarters in St. Louis (I assume). It’s a biggie, with $752 million in revenue in 2008.
A year ago they launched a blog (HOKLife.com) to put a more human face on the firm, which has 2,000+ employees, and to communicate with potential hires, clients and competitors.
It’s a group blog with three dozen contributors from their offices around the world, whose posts, by the way, are not edited. Senior writer John Gilmore:
“Young readers are very savvy, and they know when something’s not authentic. If hour’s not authentic, it’s the kiss of death for a corporate blog.”
True that. The Business Journal article included some findings of a 2009 survey (of companies with more than 1,000 employees). Among the findings, companies with blogs reported higher levels of customer satisfaction, employee satisfaction, greenness, revenue and market share.
The companies with blogs reported revenue per employee of $336,792, compared to $263,333 for those without blogs.
Despite success stories like this one, there remains –even in our company– pockets of resistance to blogging as a communications tool. And I’m convinced it comes down to control. Like HOK’s Gilmore said above, it’s got to be authentic and that means unfiltered and unedited. And that’s really difficult for managers who are centralized, command-and-control guys in their DNA.
If you have a subscription to the StL Biz Journal, you can read the full article here.
“All spokes and no hub”
Steve Rubel suggests the next big media company won’t have a website:
“Conceivably the next great media company will be all spokes and no hub. It will exist as a constellation of connected apps and widgets that live inside other sites and offer a full experience plus access to your social graph and robust community features. Each of these may interconnect too so that a media company’s community on Facebook can talk to the same on Twitter.
Facebook might be the first venue where this starts. It could become a mini news reader for millions who don’t care about RSS or Twitter. Over time this may obviate the need to create large news sites. It’s easier to create a rich interactive experience there than start a new news site and hope that people come to you. They won’t have time to find or visit.”
“Mass Roots Marketing”
Interesting post at AdAge.com on hyperlocal media and how one big media company –in this case NBC– is attempting to play “at the intersection of advertising, marketing and programming, potentially creating new kinds of content in the burgeoning local arena.”
“We’ll explore what the best solutions are to connect across all platforms. Maybe it’s finding a great blogger who lives in that community who becomes an on-air personality. It’s creating things for people to feel more connected to their community.”
“Local media is going to be the intersection of utility and entertainment and everyday life. As things are globalizing, local becomes even more vital. You have the same brands, the same food, etc., wherever you go now. Local is what makes things different; it gets to what people love about their neighborhood, why they decided to live there.”
“You start with an event or something that happens in a small community in one locale and you’re looking at it to amplify out from that. NBC Local is well-placed to help big marketers to put those new kinds of programs in place. You’ll still have people buying local 30-second spots, but more and more also putting together programs that make an impact on a very local level and have that radiate out in significant ways.”
Uh, isn’t this what local broadcasters and newspapers are doing? Or should be doing? Or used to do? Are the Big Guys planning on doing “local” better than local media?
Stay tuned.
Seth: “If you were starting your business today…”
“Your industry has been completely and permanently altered by the connections offered by the internet. Your non-profit, your political campaign, your service business. Not a little different, not just email enabled or website marketed, but overhauled.
Unfortunately, that’s hard to embrace. But it’s still true. What are you going to do about it? If you were starting your business today, knowing what you know now, how would you do things (very) differently?” — Seth Godin
Rollip turns digital pix into Polaroids
I loved Polaroids for the same reason I love small digital cameras. I got to see and share the photo immediately. No waiting for processing. And there was a space on the front of the photo to write name/date/place.
Rollip is a website that turns your digital photo into a faux Polaroid. I can probably do this faster in Photoshop but if you like this effect, Rollip is fun, easy and free.
Bomb shelters or spaceships
If you were recruiting for someone to manage a news organization in 2009, what skills or experience should you be looking for? What would the job description look like? (Since I know nothing about print, I’ll limit my questions to broadcast)
In my experience, most people who make it to “the top,” come from the sales side of the business. The men and women who made their bones in the newsroom occasionally wind up running the show but they are the exceptions. So we’re looking for sales and marketing experience, yes?
Someone who can figure out how to sell the advertising that funds company. Someone who can recruit and train people to sell 30 second radio and TV commercials?
What about this Internet thing? Do our sellers need to know how to sell banner ads (or whatever), too? Or does our manager have to manage two distinct type of sales departments? “Traditional” and online?
Strategically, do we manage the business we have today and hope it lasts a long time? Or, do we try to anticipate what our business will become in three, or five, or ten years? No easy task.
Clay Shirky says the advertising model that has defined and driven news organizations worked because advertisers didn’t have alternatives. Now they do.
But I’m getting away from my original question. Do we need a manager that is real good at “where we’ve been?” Someone with a good handle on where we’re headed? (if such a person exists) Or both? (tall order)
What if advertising –as we have come to know it– plays little or no part in funding news organizations in the future? Uh, let’s not go there. Too murky and scary.
As you can see, I have no answers… just questions. And I’m not sure they’re even the right ones.
Maybe it comes down to finding someone who knows how to build a spaceship, verses someone who knows how to build a bomb shelter. The spaceship has to get us to a very different place. The bomb shelter will protect us for as long as our food and water hold out.