As it’s coming to a close, I’m feeling pretty good about this Tuesday. I was productive, dipped out during lunch for a little tech talk at the Media Future Now Lunch and got to think for a bit about Twitter.
The Media Future Now lunch was organized by none other than Shana Glickfield, the DC Concierge, and panel members included:
- David Almacy, VP of Waggener Edstrom Worldwide’s Studio D Group for the North American region
- Peter Cherukuri, Roll Call Group, Publisher
- Ben Coffee Clark, Fleishman-Hillard.
- Ernie Mosteller, Blattner Brunner, VP, Interactive Creative Director.
- Sarah Romer, Washingtonian, Director of Sales & Marketing, Washingtonian.com
The Panelists talked about talked about a variety of things including the growing attention directed towards and the use of social media, the election, the role of technology in both campaigns and digital spending in this economic downtown.
David Almacy, Waggener Edstrom VP and former White House Director of Internet and E-Communications definitely wins the PR Prescriptions speaker of the day award for his way with words. David’s presentation included focused on the White House’s adoption of internet technology and social media tools. He also gave new definitions to the terms ROI and OD:
- ROI: Risk of Inaction. Refers to the consequences of lost relationships, conversations, business partnerships if not engaged in social media.
- OD: Over Digital[ize]. This was in reference to some PR pros’ tendencies to not keep things simple and pump too much digital talk into business pitches.
David started with a screen shot of the first White House website, which looked nearly prehistoric, and moved on to share stories about the BarneyCam and the involvement of the White House’s use of the Google government search, the iTunes government podcast section and Twitter to get news and other important info out.
Must say that David and the White House team were very smart in their use of the internet and social media. They were observant and learned as they went, realizing a couple things:
1. You where the people are, and you need to make sure your content can do the same. In the case of the BarneyCam, it wasn’t long before traffic to the video on YouTube and other video sites surpassed viewers coming to the Whitehouse.gov site. It’s about getting the content out there.
2. If you’re not doing it, someone will do it for you. When he and his team set out to create a twitter account, he was surprised to find that one was already setup. Fortunately (in large part because of his team’s online strategy), the person who set it up did so using the official White House RSS feed.
They aren’t perfect, but I wish more companies were willing to experiment as much as the white house has so far.
Between Twitter, the papers and Ad Age, I’ve gotten different bits of info on the Chevy Aveo Livin Large campaign, enough to want to check it out.
Ad Age writer Jean Halliday reports:
“Chevrolet is trying a new twist on viral marketing. General Motors Corp.’s volume brand said it’s offering up to 10 free rides a day to college students on six campuses in a Chevy Aveo5 hatchback and filming the experience.
Students are encouraged to ham it up. The videos will be posted within 24 hours of the ride to a special site, AveoLivinLarge. From here, the students can see the footage, pass it along to friends, or upload it to their blog pages or sites like Facebook.”
Later in Halliday’s piece, Chevrolet North America VP Ed Peper is quoted saying that the “College Cab” program “leverages the online tools young people are already using in a fun and interesting way.”
I have to say that the videos, especially the ones featuring freestyles, are pretty good. They provide a nice 3pm metal break, but I imagine that Chevy’s goal isn’t to go viral. It’s probably closer to something like selling more Aveos, and they’ll do it not because they were able to get some nice videos online but because they were able to create a cool experience for their target audience inside the car.
When it comes to cars, you can have the greatest commercials, the most clever taglines and the craziest celeb plugging the model for you, but in the end, it’s about the car. How do I feel when I get in? How’s the ride? Did I feel at one with the wheel? (Ok, the last one may be a little personal, but you get the point.) It’s about the experience.
This jumped out at me becuase I recently had a few errands to run and needed to rent a car. When I went to pick it up, they didn’t have the one I requested and asked if I wouldn’t mind trying out the HHR.
I would never have voluntarily chosen to get into this vehicle. It just didn’t speak to me, at least not in the same way the ultimate driving machine did. It took about 10 minutes to get used to it and before I knew it I was zipping up and down 66 and 395. I know some of you are making faces right now, but this thing can move! Even though it was by accident, I came to like the car. I had to actually get in the car to see myself in the car. Not an earth-shattering revelation, but it just occurred to me.
To all the marketers and PR pros out there, before you begin putting all your stock in going viral, remember that the best way to do it is still getting nonbelievers to have their own physical, offline experience with your product or service.
With all the election happenings, I’ve been a little delayed with the recap from last week’s Social Media Club DC event.
Here’s a quick description:
Social Technologies in Associations and Non-Profits: Understanding the Present, Exploring the Future
“As associations and non-profit organizations begin to implement social technologies in their work, we are learning valuable lessons. Drawing on research findings, strategic insights and the actual case examples of two leading organizations, this session will explore the current state of social technology use in associations and non-profits. It will also examine future applications of these tools.”
The speakers all shared great points about the use of social tech in associations, if you have any questions at all, these are your people. I’d like to focus for a bit here on a few findings from research conducted among associations:
- Associations are mainly still in the experimental phase when it comes to social media/ social technologies.
- Many of the associations who do blog focus on issues relevant to them, but some do have blogs which focus on the association.
- Some associations are using social networks and some are using wikis internally.
- Almost half (48%) of social tech conversations are being driven by the Marketing or Communications Team.
- 13 % of conversations are being driven by people working on Membership.
Jeff’s general thought on this: As far as adoption of social technologies go, associations are moving forward. Groups are now trying to develop social media policies (who on staff should blog, including volunteers, featuring external content, endorsing external views). We need to bring it (the use of social tech) out of this marketing focus area and spread it across the company.
Jeff touched on something that associations really should pay attention to, the Facebook effect. Much in the way facebook and other social technology have empowered the masses, they are empowering your members and changing expectations of membership. People are creating their own groups on social sites and, in some cases, are using official association logos to recruit members. What are the major issues here?
- These “members” aren’t really linked to the organization. They don’t pay dues and aren’t connected to association happenings.
- You aren’t a part of the community!
I’ve done searches and surprised a few clients with myspace pages, facebook groups and twitter mentions that they had no clue about. If you (or your account team) is not already monitoring your online presence, please start or find someone to do it for you and let you know what’s going on.
There’s no reason to try to jump in and take control of every conversation going on, but there’s also no reason to NOT know what people are saying about you, your brand and/or association.
I think most are okay, but I HATE the ones that disrupt my ultimate quest for enlightenment (also known as my attempt to read the news) by sliding down the whole page of news, causing me to frantically search for the microscopic ”skip this ad” or “close this ad” link. By the time I actually click on it, the advertisers usually have won and some uninvited company has become etched in my mind.
After preparing myself for battle, today I went to the Washington Post’s site and received a welcome distraction. The page loaded and I noticed some activity on the right hand side of the screen. It was PC Guy.
PC Guy dragging in his Op Ed
What was he up to? Dragging in an Op Ed about people switching to Macs.
Stop Switching to Mac Op Ed
Being a PR guy, I thought this was hilarious on several levels. If you love the all the great Mac-PC Guy interactions as much as I do, here’s one for you.
People often look at the current presidential election and marvel at the groundswell of Gen Y support for Democratic nominee Barack Obama. Those attempting to understand his support and this new generation entering today’s workforce do not need to look any further than the three simple words he began with: “Yes We Can.”
Those words resonate so deeply with me and those I know that it is almost as if it is our generation’s rallying cry, especially in the workplace.
During the spring of my senior year, I interned at a company that I loved, and after three months had been offered a full-time position. Over the span of two weeks, I went from being solely on the receiving end of projects to being the one assigning them, and when the new group of interns arrived, I had one overarching goal: Do it better than those who came before me. Remembering what it was like on the other side, I set out to:
* give realistic deadlines
* minimize stress levels
* be firm, yet understanding
* be an unofficial advocate for the interns with senior staff
* teach them something that I wish I knew when I was in their shoes.
With all this in mind, I gladly jumped at the opportunity to join the team of intern coordinators that fall. At the first coordinators meeting, I was tasked with developing a final project for the incoming group. At that moment, I don’t think anyone, including myself, could have guessed that I would have come back to the table with the program I did.
I sat and thought about how we could really improve the internship experience. What I came up with was a professional development series that would help the interns get closer to mastering public relations basics, encourage them to start a dialogue about industry innovation and really prepare them for their first full-time position.
Gen Y’ers are often viewed as this overly idealistic group of people who think that we can and will change it all and we receive lots of criticism from those more senior than us because of it.
Honestly, I believe that there is a part of our rallying cry which goes unspoken. When we confidently go after that new position, that raise or the opportunity to manage the difficult account, we say “yes we can” and in our hearts, we follow that up with “at least we can try.”
I truly am glad that I was able to experiment in the workplace; I’m glad that I tried. My program was adopted and went so well that I was even approached by a senior VP interested in making the program company-wide.
I have since transitioned from that company to my second job, but I was pleased to learn that the program is still being carried on. Though it won’t be called the “James S. Walker Public Relations Professional Development Series” (it was company branded), I am very proud that at 21, I was able to conceive, successfully lobby for and spearhead a great program that will help other Gen Y’ers enter the industry, and ultimately, demonstrate to others the intelligence, insight and capabilities that our generation has to offer.
When I first read about Go Miniman Go!, the celebration of the 30th Birthday of the LEGO Miniman in Ad Age, it really took me on a trip back to my younger days.
One LEGO moment I vividly remember was watching my older cousin use an insane amount of LEGOs to replicate a scene from the American Revolution for his eighth grade history class. With LEGOs and a little imagination, anything was possible.
Somewhere along the way I lost touch with the LEGO Miniman, but I reconnected with him when I stumbled across “Classics in Lego” on Balakov’s Flickr page. This guy has some great replicas of famous historical pictures. Here are some of my favorite from his photostream.
lunch atop a skyscraper
vj day times square
He also has a nice Star Wars collection.
Star Wars, Darth Vader
Balakov grew up with LEGOs, is still a fan, and is notalone. There was a time, though, when LEGO wasn’t so sure.
In May 2008, Jake Mckee, Chief Ant Wrangler at Ants Eye View and Former Global Community Relations Specialist at LEGO did a guest post about building community on Rohit Bhargava’s Personality Project blog. According to McKee, LEGO was ignoring the fans, so he began to reach out to them, and in 2003, he created a series of comic strips “to showcase the mindset, issues, and interests of the adult fans for people inside the company.” He described the strips as “a fun and comical look at some fairly complex issues, distilled into four-panel strips and complete with punchlines.”
The comic strips were eventually distributed online among fans and turned out to be a huge hit, giving McKee serious credibility in their community and (I think) fostering relationships sure to keep LEGO around for a little while.
Like the running man, Legos have always been there, and if they continue to acknowledge their fans they’ll continue to be. Now, if you haven’t seen it, check out the Go Miniman Go! video. Happy 30th LEGO!
Three days into my new role and I’m glad to say the transition is going well…thus far. I am really comfortable with the process. So, you’re probably thinking what’s the problem?
Here’s the thing: I expected the transition to be rough. I left behind some good friends, went to a company much larger than what I was used to and switched career focus a bit. In describing my new post to friends and former co-workers, I got everything from “That sounds great” to “You know how those big firms are; I hope they don’t treat you like an underling.” Great words of encouragement, right?
Anyway, the journey’s just begun and it’s off to such a good start that it had me thinking all day: “Why am I so comfortable?” I think I’ve figured it out. It’s my network.
Lately, I’ve been feeling like the Verizon guy, with a great network of people nearby if I need them.
My college network led to several great internships, including the one that led to my first job after college, and when the time came to move on the next chapter of my career, I had several people to call on for references, advice and perspective on the company I considered moving to.
The most surprising thing and the most comforting was the fact that when I arrived, I discovered that I already knew two people here. One from GW days (someone who lived across the hall from me freshman year) and another I met through blogging and the Brazen Network. Like the Cheers song, sometimes you want to go where everybody knows your name. I know its not a lot of people, but when you’re new, two is enough to get you going.
My network, from freshman year straight through, has been a tremendous help. How’s your network these days?
It’s been a really long time since I’ve done any straight up campaign prescriptions. If anyone out there has any suggestions for campaigns to check out, feel free to email me at james.walker@prpescriptions.com or DM me on twitter: @jaywalk1. Like, I said, it’s been a while, but here’s something I had to share.
Sucker City, Mad Mag
Background: Nope, your eyes aren’t deceiving you. Mad Mag ran a piece on Circuit Sucker City and their Grand Opening downtown right across from Best Buy. Already, I’m laughing. Here’s the other part:
Looking at this, it is clear that several people take shots here, including Nintendo and the epilepsy community. I actually don’t know how funny I think the Epilepsy Victim Bundle is, but that’s a topic for another day. Despite all their shots, I never would have expected a response like this from Circuit City.
What? Why? It’s funny. The only big problem I see here is the joke about the epilepsy bundle with the bitestick controller. You’re a big brand (at least in my mind) and here’s a group poking a little fun. How much harm could it have really caused?
Let’s review this person’s plan of action:
1. Remove all copies from the store.
2. Destroy them
3. Throw it away
Problem solved, right? This person has lost their sense of humor and as a result, really lost it!
Diagnosis: I think the response here was a big overreaction. If anything it caused a little buzz about Circuit City, a brand I associate with my crappy Compaq which always seemed to know the perfect time to freeze, ignore my internet connection, destroy a CD, shutdown or all of the above. That too is a topic for another day.
Prescription: A fun response. By the time I learned about this, it was already taken care of by a smart guy named Jim Babb.
Now, here’s how you deal with something like this. Light, acknowledges the issue, but still humorous. When dealing with these types of things, it’s always best to do the following:
1. Take a deep breath.
2. Think about the positives and negatives of the current situation.
3. Think about potential repercussions of your actions.
4. Find the nearest Gen Y PR Professional.
5. DON’T LOSE YOUR SENSE OF HUMOR!
* If you’re in danger of violating #5, check out Business Guys on Business Trips. It’s hilarious, in that kind-of true but don’t want to admit it kind of way.
1 year 2 months, the amount of time my LinkedIn profile says I’ve spent as a full-time professional in the Public Relations industry. Not a great deal of time, but I’ve seen, heard, said and learned a lot. There will be more posts in the coming weeks which relate more closely to my daily dealings, but for now, I’d like to weigh my professional experience against something else, my social media experience.
1 year 2 months, the time I’ve spent working as a Public Relations professional
vs
2 years 3 months, the amount of time I’ve spent experiencing social media
I am not an expert and don’t claim to be. (The first point in Dave Knox’s post on the Cult of the Amateur definitely made me think about that for a bit.) However, I’ve experienced enough to know a little about social media’s reach and power. When thinking about it, a few words and phrases come to mind: crazy, interesting, shocking, massive.
I won’t be so bold to say that everyone participates in social media, but I believe that a good percentage of the people who do participate or benefit from it don’t even realize. David Meerman Scott’s post Why “do you use social media?” is the wrong question for marketers to ask really led me to think about that.
I really think Scott is right when he says:
“Practically everyone uses Google and other search engines regularly and the search results frequently include blog posts or YouTube videos or other social media content high in the search results. So even though people may report ‘no’ when asked if they use social media, nearly everyone has been to a blog or other social media content through search.”
Scott’s final point in the post was that we should “use social media data with caution” and not let our bosses diminish the hidden value of social media. I can recall several arguments discussions at work when the power/weight/reach of social media has come into question, and it’s not always the bosses either. There are a few naysayers in the younger ranks as well. The battle conversation normally is focused on one thing:
blog audience vs. media impression/circulation
If we just look at the base data, we are missing the point. People who read blogs are generally very engaged and want to know more about the topic they’re checking out. They may blog, have facebook accounts, network on LinkedIn, read wikis, and share content through email too. They’re engaged. Many of them do it without even thinking about it.
I’ve heard the phrase “Each One Reach One, Each One Teach One” used at several workshops and conferences. When I think about the power of social media, I think about the power it gives each one to reach five or ten or fifteen really engaged people who share what they’ve learned with 15 or 20 more really engaged people and on and on. In the end, isn’t that we want? Just a thought…
Common Craft is a great company I learned about in early 2008. In their own words: “We are two passionate people and Common Craft is our company. Our product is explanation.”
They may want to add the line “Smart PR pros love us.” I know I do. Common Craft has been extremely helpful in explaining social media and networking tools to co-workers. Normally, I give my two cents on a given tool/application/site and follow up with: “Check out the Common Craft video.”
As Zoe Siskos, author of medium & the message, says in one of her recent posts, most people don’t know what Common Craft is. Zoe brilliantly developed a short video called Common Craft in Plain English, and while they don’t detail all the possibilities (and they shouldn’t), the Common Craft creators Sachi and Lee LeFever do a great job of answering not only “What is this?” but also “How and Why would I use this?”
Here are some of videos I normally tell people to check out:
Social Media in Plain English
Twitter in Plain English
Social Bookmarking in Plain English
If you liked these videos, check out www.commoncraft.com and spread the word!
As it’s coming to a close, I’m feeling pretty good about this Tuesday. I was productive, dipped out during lunch for a little tech talk at the Media Future Now Lunch and got to think for a bit about Twitter. 
Posted by jaywalk1
Posted by jaywalk1
Posted by jaywalk1
