Google yourself

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Why? This from Seth Godin…

If you’re a salesperson, your prospects already do.
If you’re looking for a job, your prospective employers already do.
If you’ve got a job, your co-workers already do.

What do they see? Do you know?

…and this from Mindy McAdams (Teaching Online Journalism)…

“If you’re a journalist — or a journalism student who hopes to enter the field — this should concern you. First, what results do you get when you Google yourself (first name, last name, no quotation marks)? Most important, what are the top two or three links? I hope they do not go to pages about you that make you look like an idiot, a sex fiend, or a drunk.”

They both offer suggestions on how to improve your Google juice.

Wanna be president? Gotta talk to Kay

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Nice profile of my friend Kay at chicagotribune.com:

Candidates and their campaigns take pretty seriously the ubiquitous reporter with the black flip hairstyle and the rectangular glasses.

“She’s the voice of Iowa,” says Tommy Vietor, the local spokesman for Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama. “If you want to deliver a message and you’re not talking to Kay, you’re not doing it effectively.”

Kevin Madden, spokesman for Republican Mitt Romney, says he was “star-struck” when he met Henderson last summer at the Ames Straw Poll. Along with other national political junkies who cyclically train their focus on Iowa, he’d been reading her blog religiously for months.

As David Yepsen, the Register’s political veteran, puts it, “Kay’s a double-barreled reporter. She instinctively understands how something will play with average Iowans,” he says.

Unresolved

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I feel like I should do some sort of year end post but I honest to god don’t know what to say. Or even what I think about the past year. The last couple of months are a little blurry and I’m too lazy to scroll my archives to see what happened before that.

I feel the need to make the coming year… different somehow. I have too few vices to give any up. It’s likely I’m already being the best person I’m capable of.

I think I need more real-time communication with friends. More time in meatspace, less time in cyberspace.

I need to spend more time in "now" and less in the past and the future. In a couple of months I’ll have gone zero to 60. That should be a "now" moment.

2007? Really nothing more than some neurons firing back and forth in my head. Imperfect memories at best. 2008? Same deal. Some brain chemistry fiction projected on the inside of my forehead.

To paraphrase the tag line from one of my favorite TV shows, Max Headroom… let’s take the future in 20 minute chunks.

Illegal to rip songs from CD’s to computer. Yeah, right.

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“Now, in an unusual case in which an Arizona recipient of an RIAA letter has fought back in court rather than write a check to avoid hefty legal fees, the industry is taking its argument against music sharing one step further: In legal documents in its federal case against Jeffrey Howell, a Scottsdale, Ariz., man who kept a collection of about 2,000 music recordings on his personal computer, the industry maintains that it is illegal for someone who has legally purchased a CD to transfer that music into his computer.” [Washington Post]

PROFANITY ALERT: Let me see if I have this right. I buy the CD. I copy the songs to my laptop or iPod so I can listen to them. I don’t share them with anyone. And that’s illegal. As they say on Keith and the Girl, “Fuuuuuuccckkkk you!” Steve Martin used to say, “Excuuuusseee me!”

Update: Turns out this story was wrong. Never mind.

Iowa Exodus

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Kay Henderson shares an amusing advisory from the Des Moines International Airport:

Saigon250“An estimated 2,000 rental cars will be returned those days (January 4 and 5) and approximately 50% more people will be departing from the Airport than on a typical day. Many national and international media personnel will be attempting to leave Central Iowa. It will take the cooperation of everyone to ensure this happens efficiently and that the nation gets a good picture of the capability of Central Iowans.”

Tweeting the Iowa Caucuses

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A couple of weeks ago I wondered if we’d see any live blogging from the local precincts that make up the Iowa Caucuses. I figured someone must be trying to pull this together and found this post by Patrick Ruffini at Hugh Hewitt’s Townhall.com:

“On Iowa Caucus night, I’d like to launch a little experiment in citizen journalism. Mobile technology allows anybody to communicate from anywhere, including from inside a caucus. Any caucus goer can become a citizen reporter, relaying key facts to the outside world instantaneously. I’d like to recruit an army of caucus insiders — both Republicans and Democrats — to report results instantly and share tidbits on what the campaigns are doing to sway last-minute undecideds.”

Caucus bloggers can participate via Twitter, email or by texting.

Not sure how busy I’ll be helping with RadioIowa.com, but I’ll try to keep an eye on this experiment.

How newspapers got into such a fix

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A fascinating look at how U. S. newspapers got to where they are, by Paul Steiger who spent 26 of his 41 years in journalism at the Wall Street Journal. Thursday is his final day at WSJ.

“Next week I move over to a nonprofit called Pro Publica as president and editor-in-chief. When fully staffed, we will be a team of 24 journalists dedicated to reporting on abuses of power by anyone with power: government, business, unions, universities, school systems, doctors, hospitals, lawyers, courts, nonprofits, media. We’ll publish through our Web site and also possibly through newspapers, magazines or TV programs, offering our material free if they provide wide distribution.

Pro Publica is the brainchild of San Francisco entrepreneurs-turned-philanthropists Herbert and Marion Sandler, who along with some other donors are providing $10 million a year in funding.

The idea is that we, along with others of similar bent, can in some modest way make up for some of the loss in investigative-reporting resources that results from the collapse of metro newspapers’ business model.”

Macworld virgin

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In couple of weeks I will attend my first Macworld in San Francisco. 60,000 rabid Mac fans gather for a week of… well, I’m not quite sure but look forward to finding out.

Three Macworld veterans are letting me tag along and their enthusiasm is infectious. These guys are my age and they’re as giddy as a GTO full of college sophomores on their way to spring break.

Macworld500b

They know the ropes and have planned our trip like a Delta Force strike. This morning at our planning meeting, I was informed that we’d be getting in line at 4:30 a.m. for the keynote by Steve Jobs.

Macworld sounds like a bouillabaisse of Burning Man, 60’s Be-In, and Jonestown (substitute microbrews for Kool Aid). Can’t wait.

Study on “State of the Media”

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From survey (of 2,000+ Americans) commissioned by Deloitte & Touche (as reported at WebProNews):

“Close to 40 percent (38%) of Americans are watching TV shows online, 36 percent use their cell phones for entertainment and 45 percent are creating Web sites, music, videos and blogs.”

Boy, those numbers seem high to me. But then, most of the people I hang with are creating content of some sort so, maybe.

And this from Ken August, vice chairman and national sector leader for Deloitte & Touche’s media and entertainment practice:

“I think for advertisers one of the conclusions is you don’t make decisions to advertise either on television or the Internet when you want to hit all the demographics, but rather you need to have a multiplatform strategy. It shouldn’t be an either or proposition.”

And maybe a dash of radio?