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.
When I first heard of Blog Action Day 2008, I knew I had to take part, but I didn’t know what I could do or if there was anything in particular that I could say regarding Poverty to really make a difference.
I spent a couple weeks thinking about it and ended up doing a self-evaluation, looking at who I am, what my passions are and actions I’ve taken to those ends. Going to see Call+Response definitely helped me along this path.
If anyone asked me to pick two topics that I’m extremely passionate about, without blinking, I’d say Health and Education. I was raised by a phenomenal woman who has spent 25+ years teaching in the NYC Dept of Education, and I had the true PRIVILEGE of getting a great education both in and out of the classroom. My education led me to the start of my career in health care communication, and though I have moved on, in no way have I left my passion for health behind.
We all have work to do when it comes to living in good health, but as always, those living in the poorest of conditions have the least access to information and resources which, depending on lifestyle, can be a formula for poor health. With an education, I believe we can empower the most disadvantaged person to improve their life and the lives of those around them overall.
What am I really getting at?
The thing that became apparent through my self-evaluation was that my passions and actions didn’t line up. In this blog, and in general, I’ve shared my passion for PR but not the other issues which are just as important to me. That’s going to change, both here and offline.
I’ve already begun to make some progress towards my goal by volunteering with Level Ten Leaders, an Education non-profit focused on closing the achievement gap, but it’s only the start. I have not got it completely planned out, but withinspiringbloggerslikethesepeople, I’ll find my way.
I encourage you to line up your passions and actions, and I hope you find your way as well!
As Twitter overflows with the many great Blog Action Day posts, I’ll update this post to share the links with you. Hopefully, they will inspire you to take action against poverty in the best way you know how.
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.
Lately, I’ve been doing a LOT of reading and thinking about the future, and by default, there’s been an abundance of jazz and gospel pumping from my headphones as well.
The cause of all this extra big picture thought has been my decision to create a five year plan. I’m too big a believer in the unpredictability of life to think that everything will go as planned, but I still feel the need to get some things down on paper (or a least fleshed out in a word doc) and work towards them.
Somewhere nestled in my five year plan will be going back to school to get my MBA. Taking proactive steps toward that goal, I stopped by the bookstore to check out GMAT books and discovered something else, Ahead of the Curve by Philip Delves Broughton.
In the book, Philip, former New York and Paris bureau chief for the Daily Telegraph of London, recounts his experiences from his two years at Harvard Business school. I’m only about 75 pages in, but so far so good. In the chapter titled “Who Am I?” Philip speaks about the personal development exercise called “My Reflected Best-Self.” He was asked to create his own best-self portrait by answering the following questions:
- How does your best-self profile correspond with the sorts of things you spend the bulk of your time doing?
- What situations or contexts encourage your best-self to emerge?
- What keeps you from operating at your best most of the time?
- How can you priortize your life so that you maximize the potential for your best-self every day?
- What can you do differently?
- What might you consider not doing anymore?
- Are there certain contexts you can put yourself in to maximize your potential?
I know that looks like quite a bit to ponder. I’m gonna try to set aside some time to tackle this this weekend and I challenge you to do the same. What is your “reflected best-self”?
One more thing…if you know of any great models for five year plans or even blog posts that’ll help get things going, please send a few links my way.
So I’m on Bolt Bus right now and making full use of the wifi. The music for today’s ride will be provided by iTunes, Tuneage and the baby crying in the back row.
I am extremely glad to be breaking out of the district for a little bit, but I am also glad that I will really be able to catch up on family happenings, the greatness of NYC, my reader and email.
Part of this email catch up will involve posts to del.icio.us. Before I became addicted to all things social, I was “that guy.”
Who’s “that guy”? The one who emails himself great links so that he could either read them later in the day or store them for later use. No worries I am no longer that guy!
I knew of del.icio.us, much like the way my great aunt knows of Facebook, but I never bothered to use the site. Thankfully an awesome person sat me down and showed me Common Craft vid on it.
Instantly, I saw the inefficiency of my ways and signed up. If you’re reading this, you know I’m into Public Relations, Marketing, Branding, Social Media and cool things. That means that you’ll find bits and pieces of all of these on my page.
I hope you find the links there useful, and let me know if you have any links you think I’d want to check out.
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!
I’ve started my own little speaking circuit without even really noticing it. If you haven’t noticed from my other posts, I am huge into PR, Marketing and Social Media. I believe in its power and am always more than happy to share my take on new sites or tools and how they can or cannot help you get your message out.
My first official speaking engagement came earlier this year at the Next Wave Action Summit. At the Summit, I spoke to current and soon-to-be non-profit leaders about ways they could market their cause creatively. This was the first time that I felt the presence of the social media awareness bubble that PR pros and Social Media enthusiasts always speak about. My second engagement was just last week.
Taking the shape of a presentation/group discussion, I shared my thoughts on the business with my 9 interns and members of the Technology and Design team in a presentation titled “Innovation in the Industry.” I highlighted some of what I believed to be good examples of big brands communicating online and engaging their consumers, and while selecting examples for the presentation, I noticed that more companies are creating branded online sites meant to serve as gathering places for people who work/play in their space. The latest company I noticed taking this approach was American Express with its Open Forum.
I first learned of OPEN Forum while catching up on Chris Brogan’s blog, and when I went to check it out, first thoughts were: “I like it. Clean layout, good color choice, clear mission/tagline.” Second thoughts were “really useful network.” Chris figured out how great content networks could be and blogged about this in 2006, but it seems that businesses are now getting the valuable counsel they need to understand the power that comes both with being a part of these networks and being the network providers.
“Our goal was to bring together leading experts in an engaging experience at the OPEN platform itself. Thus, any of the authors work that was picked up on other blogs, social media engines like Digg, StumbleUpon, etc., would all give credit back to OPEN as being the keeper/facilitator of the conversation. In the new world of media, these trackbacks and links provide a new form of Brand Equity for OPEN. This again drives home the point behind the OPEN brand that they are here for Small Businesses to make their life better and grow their business.”
I am not sure that the message will be as clear as OPEN’s “here for Small Businesses to make their life better and grow their business,” but I do appreciate the fact that they created a nice platform where everyone can gather and focus on something they’re interested in.
The most useful or interesting part of the site to me was the events page which features video like this one, sharing discussions with business leaders.
To everyone behind the creation of the OPEN Forum, good job! To anyone who has not checked it out yet, please do!
Last week was a pretty busy one for me between work and all the post-6pm events competing with sleep time. All in all, it was great!
I wrote and pitched a social media plan for a new, education-focused non-profit, visited the new leaders of InfluencePR, went to a Nats game at the new stadium and met the man himself, Rohit Bhargava.
When I first came across it, I had the same reaction that I normally have when I see a new Marketing or PR book: “Hmm….that’s interesting. Cool idea. Maybe I’ll add that to the list.” It was Rohit’s awesome blogger book promotion strategy and his updates on Facebook that really pushed me to pre-order the book and really get pumped to meet him. I finally got the opportunity last week during the PNI book signing at the Barnes & Noble in Clarendon, and after a great conversation with him and the other attendees, I’ve decided to move his book to the top of the queue.
I HIGHLY recommend it to anyone even remotely interested PR, Branding, Marketing and/or Business. If you’ve read it already or are working on in it, let me know. It would be great to get your take and bounce ideas back and forth.
Coming out of PodcampDC, I think that the most creative AND useful presentation award goes to Jennifer Berk with her presentation on Content Cross-Promotion. Right in the middle of her presentation, I had the “that’s it!” moment. It’s a little different for everyone. For some, it’s the basic light bulb going off; for me, it’s the ringing bell and music cue when someone wins on the Price is Right! (Minor Disclosure: I love that show and intend to one day play Plinko!)
Ok, so my “that’s it!” moment happened when Jennifer shared her categories of Link Structures with an astronomical theme. They included:
- Nebula: Lots of pieces, not linked together
- Asteroids: Related items but not fully linked
- Solar System: All sites linked to one central place
- Black Hole: Bits of everything featured in one location (blogs,podcast,video,etc.)
- Constellation: Specific links available guiding you along a path
I hope that by now you too are having a “that’s it” moment. I think many of us go about interacting online and creating identities without giving any real thought to how we can strategically link/cross-promote our online content. Out of the five systems mentioned, I think I’m most partial to the Solar System and the Black Hole. Both provide the opportunity for the site visitor to get a snapshot of you and all that you do online.
In everything we do, we should all be thinking about how we can make the stars align.
Yes, that’s right. I said digitally promiscuous! I learned about that and so much more at PodcampDC, the ” ‘unconference’ focused on educating people on how to use, implement and share any/all new media tools including, podcasts, videocasts, blogs, Second Life, Facebook and YouTube.”
Co-founded by Chris Penn, CTO at the Student Loan Network and Producer of the Financial Aid Podcast, PodcampDC was one of the best conferences that I have ever attended, and it was 100% free! Several PR/Marketing/New Media industry leaders presented on key topics such as:
In addition to being surrounded by some extremely knowledgeable and successful new media pros, all of the speakers were truly down to earth and provided several great analogies to help participants understand their messages. Hands down, Chris Penn gets the best quotes of the day award:
“Social Networks are the new water cooler.”
“It’s okay to be digitally promiscuous.” (Referring to LinkedIn)
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
