A blogging case study, close to home

I’m always on the lookout for good (or bad) blogging stories. I found one in our own back yard during the last few days. The story isn’t complicated but I think our corporate blog tells it better than I can. Just read the original post and the comments. It’s all there.

I’m really proud of how our company and our CEO has used the blog to explain a difficult decision, and allow interested parties to tell us how they feel about it. I’ve been thinking about how this would have been handled pre-blog.

We might or might not have put out a news release. This had to do with an unpleasant decision. If the public wanted to tell us how they felt about it, they could write a letter or send an email, to which we might or might not have responded.

Whatever communication took place, it would have been slow and not very public. With a well-established corporate blog, our CEO just put it out there. The reasons for the action we took… comments… and his response to some of those comments.

Not everybody is happy with the outcome but nobody can say we haven’t been open about it. As an employee –and blogger– I’m proud of how this was handled.

Full disclosure: My wife works for a law firm that represents one of the companies mentioned in the post and comments.

The Senath Lions Quartet

One of the best parts of having a blog is connecting with people. You could argue it’s the only part. One of the first sites I created was a tribute to KBOA, the radio station where my father worked for many years and where I spent a dozen years. The site is packed with great photos, most of which were taken by the late Johnny “Mack” Reeder.


I captioned one of those photos  “Unknown Hillbilly Band” because I had no idea who they were. Now I do, thanks to an email from one of the men in the photo, Charley Crawford:

“The name of the group is “The Senath Lions Quartet” and this was in 1951. We started the quarter in Senath High School. The members are left to right front, Charley Crawford, Jimmy Milligan, behind Jim, right to left are Charles “Tod” Horner, James Allan and David Adams at the piano.  We were on the radio every Saturday morning at 10:30 a.m., sponsored by the Senath Merchants.”

Charlie was also a member of The Foggy Mountain Boys Hillbilly Band in 1948.

CORRECTION: I assumed –incorrectly– Charlie was referring to The Foggy Mountain Boys featuring Flatt and Scruggs. Charlie and friends were in a local band of the same name.

The Foggy Mountain Boys was an influential bluegrass band that performed and recorded during the 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s.

How long to lose your blog readers?

The J-Walk Blog is very popular. For all the usual reasons. He writes well about interesting stuff and he posts every day. Usually several times a day. John Walkenbach (Mr. J-Walk) was called away to a meeting and didn’t post for a week. Upon his return, he checked his stats and did a little trending to determine he would lose all of his many readers in 17 days if he stopped posting altogether. One assumes it would take less time for blogs with fewer readers. I wonder how long –if at all- it would take for visitors to return. And why would they?

In search of radio’s romance, longing and connection

From a speech by NAB President-CEO David Rehr at the National Association of Broadcasters Conference:

“Rehr then turned to radio, first talking about a widely reported BusinessWeek column by Jon Fine, headed “Requiem for Old-Time Radio.” Though Fine believes radio isn’t well-suited to moving its business model online, he wrote that he remembers radio with “ridiculous fondness” and recalled “huddling with it long past bedtime, the volume set low, hoping to hear something I loved.”

“Rehr said, “Ladies and gentlemen, that is romance, that’s longing, that is a connection. Listeners still want what they’ve always wanted. Technology hasn’t changed that — it has just changed the devices of delivery.”

According to Mr. Fine, Mr. Rehr missed the point of his article:

“You don’t need to huddle with a radio long after dark to hear new music; you can form that romance or connection with a hundred other things.”

Fallout shelter radio ads

I remember well the back-yard fallout shelter craze (mania?). The family that lived behind us had one. It was clearly large enough for just one family but it was considered uncool to talk about who would live and who would die. And we lived in the landing approach path to the Strategic Air Command base in Blytheville, AR. Generally considered a prime target for a Russki ICBM.

The nice folks at DinosaurGardens.com have posted some creative radio spots for Survive-All Fallout Shelters. (“Civil defense approved, FHA approved, no money down, five years to pay!”)

  1. Maximum Protection (General)
  2. Comparison
  3. Value
  4. Equipment
  5. DYS
  6. Maximum Protection (Steel and Concrete)
  7. DYS (short)
  8. Maximum Protection (Steel and Concrete) (short)
  9. Maximum Protection (General) (short)