Net News 54

I was reading Chris Brogan’s blog this afternoon (where anyone interested in getting better with social media should go) and found this post interesting.  Chris talks about ratcheting up your ability to get through information, especially when dealing with social media, faster and faster (think Ben Johnson on steroids, then crystal meth fast).

The problem starts up when you don’t know where to look for information.  Like me, sometimes I finally find out what’s going on only to turn around, write a brilliant masterpiece you have all come to know and love ( ), get something online and find out I’m still behind the curve.  It’s like the saying goes, sometimes you get the bear, and sometimes the bear gets you.  It’s just a matter of not getting caught off guard too often.  Two questions are, how can you get the information synthesized fast enough, and in this day and age of instant online media, how can you get faster?

P.S. Chris, if you have any ideas on staying up to speed, I’d love to hear them.

(We break into your regularly scheduled PR and business news to give you… crickets!)

Good morning ,at the crack of 121 in the am.  I was finishing up reading a couple of blogs before bed and suddenly stopped to realize that, for the first time in a very long time, the sounds of crickets are dancing through the air.

Between the crickets chirping, and the cool breeze cutting the 80-degree heat out of the house, I’ve just realized that spring has firmly ensconced itself in Albuquerque.  Now let’s see how long it lasts before the 100-degree days hit this year. (”Gee there’s no such thing as global warming…” My ass!)

When trying to get the media interested in your story, don’t send a blanket email out to every reporter you can find an email address for.  Because the reporters are starting to push back and not only block those email addresses, they are also posting the worst offenders online.

Hat Tip: my friend Peter Shankman, creator of the excellent Help a Reporter site.

Earlier today I was listening to NM political blogger Joe Monahan as part of a media roundtable. He was a decent member of the panel, making a few good points about social media, but at the end he really blew it. He was asked about the future of blogging and he said that blogging had reached its heyday a couple of years back and that blogs would start to fall by the way, much like some of the mass media outlets that have shuttered their doors in the last decade – the market would decide which blogs will survive.

Joe’s looking at the story of blogging as an independent source of revenue, he had discussed advertising on blogs, or blogging independently as a career – like he does. He’s not thinking about the use of blogging and other social media in a business setting. That’s the future of non-independent, non-hobbyist social media use.

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What can I say?  I’m convinced…

Because starting May 26th, you could be arrested and thrown in the dock in the United Kingdom for misrepresenting your company as a consumer (Walmarting Across America comes to mind here).

The legislation is already in practice in Europe, the UK is just getting into the act a little (fashionably ?) late.  On one hand this can be good because it’s going to cut down on the amount of BS astroturfing that companies and their PR firms do.  It’s a kind-of enforced authenticity.

Is this a good thing?  Isn’t it better if people know that a company isn’t communicating authentically of their own accords?  The press, and other bloggers, are more than happy to shine a light on the astroturfing efforts of those corporations and PR firms.  Isn’t that the way it should be?  Online news organizations, like the newly created New Mexico Independent or well-established PR Watch, are sprouting up to watchdog various organizations and report the news without fear or favor (if not partisanship).

And another question I’d like to ask is, for activist groups throughout Great Britain - do these rules apply for them as well?  Will the same group of activists who misrepresent themselves as a greater number of people (think about the blogger equivalent of a phone bank calling talk radio shows to comment) be subject to the same rules and punishment?  Ad Age explains the law as applying to “Brand Owners” and Greenpeace, or the Sierra Club, or the Christian Coalition, or Wake Up Walmart are all brands and should be subject to those laws as well.  All things being fair and all that.

What this means is that companies and organizations should be authentic and true in their online communications.  A lesson to corporations, activists and PR firms around the world: if you represent themselves truthfully when dealing with online and social media communities, they can avoid a lot, if not almost all of, these kinds of problems.

It will be interesting to watch Great Britain in the upcoming months and see what happens.

Hat Tip: Ad Age

I’ve been trying to keep up with the stories about people who are still having problems with Windows Vista.  Some of the problems appear to be people with Vista on their new computers, which is understandable since it’s Microsoft’s first OS upgrade in a long time - understandable but still a pain in the ass, because Microsoft should not have overpromised and underdelivered on Vista.

(as I’ve said before, Vista has been a pretty solid OS for me.  I haven’t baby’d my laptop either - it’s my main computer and I’m usually running a handful of video, audio or web editing software on it and it trucks along.  Not as fast as XP, but Vista is Mike Alstott to XP’s Warrick Dunn.)

Some of the people bitching about Vista haven’t tried Vista yet, but read some of the negative comments about it and added gas to the fire.  Or saw Apple’s innovative ads poking fun at Vista (Steve Jobs’s gratitude for Bill Gates bailing him out and saving Apple a few years back, but I digress)

And some of the complaining seems to come from people who have tried to install Vista on that cutting-edge 1996 computer they just can’t seem to get rid of, for some pack-rat sentimental reason.  Microsoft, instead of subtly nudging people into upgrading their computers so they can run on Vista, decided to shoehorn Windows users into getting Vista - and worse, getting them on computers that won’t run Vista properly.

This has caused quite the PR kerfluffle within the computer world.  This isn’t “the good ole days” when Microsoft released XP.  Nowadays detractors have media outlets to complain to (or with) that were not available with the great XP unveiling - blogs and other social media. (Ha!  I knew I could tie blogging into this somehow!) MS should have been a little more savvy to the segment of their consumer base that isn’t ready to,  or capable of, adopting.  Now Microsoft has opened itself up to some deserved criticism as the end of life date for XP looms closer - Microsoft is really not going to cut off service to millions, if not tens or hundreds of millions, of XP users are they?

Some savvy computer makers (Ok, right now it’s just Dell, but expect other’s to follow quickly) have stated they will continue to install XP Pro on computers after the cut-off deadline, thanks to a loophole that allows them to offer XP Pro to those who purchase a computer with Vista Business or Ultimate. Microsoft should offer the same kind of deal.

Listen up Ballmer, I’m going to tell you how to turn this into a PR, and actual customer, win.

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I finally made it to post #200! To be honest, I thought I’d have gotten here a lot faster. My friend Mark beat me to it by a couple of months, and he writes amazing 3,000 word posts! I don’t know if my last 10 posts have totaled 3,000 words! I had taken a blogging hiatus a while back, and then for a while working my way through school I was informed that I could be fired for blogging – hence the long pause between blogs (had to start a new one because the wait was so long) and from reaching 200 posts.

Now with that behind me, I’m quickly approaching a blogging conundrum. (a “blog-undrum,” get it?)

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Finished reading this by CNET blogger Charles Cooper. He takes a look at how press releases, especially those that are stacked with easily searchable words, are showing up higher and higher in online searches. It’s a great story, I highly recommend giving it a once over when you have time.  One of the ideas I liked to mull throughout the article is the idea that the mainstream media is becoming increasingly marginalized, and how organizations can take advantage of that.

Cooper starts the article with a scenario familiar to many public relations professionals.

A few years back, representatives from the Industry Standard, Wired, and Upside were invited to a public-relations gathering to talk about how they decide what to cover. After they finished their prepared remarks, a young woman in the audience stood up to ask a question.

“You talk a lot about tricks and tips on what we should do,” she said. “But I’ve done all that and I still can’t get you to cover my clients.”

The reporter from Upside recognized the opening and rammed a Mack Truck right through it. “Ma’am,” he replied, “you need better clients.”

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.. “and s/he is us”

I was talking with a co-worker a couple of days ago about all of the great stuff I learned at the PRSA and CASE conferences. Our conversation, as it does sometimes, veered into the number of alumni/a/ae/aeiou/eieio who start trashing the university upon graduation, and how that has been affecting our brand. It’s almost as if, in addition to the degree, we give them a card that tells them they can start talking about all of the stuff they didn’t like about the institution.

I could have, and have at various times, gone into “evangelist mode” talking about the great things going on around campus, or the really cool research our profs are doing. My view is, when talking about the university, I tend to talk about good people (students, staff, etc.) doing good work at a good school. My co-worker said that I was one of the rare exceptions, I graduated from the college I work at now, and I’m fired up about the school in general. (although not this fired up…)

Instead I started taking time to think about what our grads are saying. There’s the usual talk about the food or the facilities around campus (computer labs are always full, library’s not open 24-7) or that some of our faculty aren’t available at the necessary times or aren’t receptive to student concerns. These are all factors which have hurt the university’s brand, especially since we are not holding up our end of the bargain and addressing these students complaints when brought up. In the past we’ve tended to “shield up” when these concerns come to light and that is being reflected in the response of our alumni when they graduate. Don’t get me wrong, there are plenty of alumni out there who are proud graduates, and maybe this is nothing more than an expected percentage of students who were not happy with their experience in college.

Our uni. president mentioned this during his webcast last week to present his strategic plan for the next five years. One of the first things he addressed was openness and transparency with the public, our students and employees. This might be the opening our office is looking for to add blogging and more podcast/video work to our efforts. The key is going to be transparency, and if we can get everyone on board with facing our detractors and telling them what we are doing to improve the university, we might be able to reverse some of the negative feelings people have towards our university.

True? False? Indifferent? What do y’all think?