Media Relations and Public Relations in the Age of the Blog :: UMR Crisis Management

Andrew Careaga (bio), UMR manager of public relations, has an excellent post about dealing with blogs, media relations, dittoheads and - oh, those glorious phone calls you can receive from the public. Visit his blog, higher ed marketing, for the post - UMR, the media and the war on error.

Andrew, away at a conference, receives word that his university, the University of Missouri–Rolla (UMR), is in the throes of a crisis. “A graduate student from India was charged Wednesday with several felonies after a bomb and anthrax threat at the University of Missouri-Rolla shut down the campus for a day.” (Source: News-Leader.com) The student’s threat turned out to be a hoax.

See video below. A 6:53 news report from local TV station, KY3. Rana Basheer, interviewed for the story, posted the video at YouTube to capture his 15 seconds of fame. His part starts at about 5:00.

Andrew and his staff find themselves dealing with local and national media. I imagine they even had international inquiries. But, they also have to deal with the world of citizen journalists and gawkers. Check the Google News and Technorati blog coverage on missouri rolla terror that ensued. He also had to deal with little green footballs, of the CBS and Reuters news fraud exposure incidents. It was the readers of little green footballs that likely were his biggest headache. You’ll see.

I don’t want to spoil it for you, so go read Andrew’s post. He answers the question we all get so often, “why I love this job so much.”

Suffice to say, this is a perfect example of the inane realities we all must now face in this world of citizen journalism and infopinions - a little be of factual information and a whole lot of personal opinions.

We feel your pain, Andrew. Great post and congratulations to you and your staff for dealing, so well, with this crisis communication event.

Ted Demopoulos :: What No One Ever Tells You About Blogging and Podcasting

Blogging is a difficult concept for some people to embrace. Often, the best way to learn how you might be able to use a blog for your own benefit is to hear how others use it.

This is where Ted Demopoulos comes into your life. Ted has written a book - What No One Ever Tells You About Blogging and Podcasting: Real-Life Advice from 101 People who Successfully Leverage the Power of the Blogosphere. (Amazon)

Ted agreed to sit for an interview and we discussed many of the individuals he interviewed. He has stories from around the world. Big names and relative unknowns. But, they have all found positive (even profitable) uses for blogs and podcasts in their personal and professional lives. The book includes stories from “Seth Godin, Large John, Guy Kawasaki, surferdude/deep thinker Dave Kesel, Dave Taylor, Andre the Siberian Splogger and reindeer breeder, and even my (Ted’s) favorite, ANONYMOUS!” We discussed several of these people in our interview.

I have edited this down from a one hour conversation. It now runs 21:06 (7mb download), and I hope you will enjoy it.

Full disclosure: I am in the book. Ted kindly included our discussion which is condensed down to the quite simple section - It’s All an Experiment. Thank you, Ted. I’m grateful and honored you chose to include our interview.

Despite my good fortune to be in the book, I’m still grateful for the opportunity to read it. Stories like those Ted has compiled will serve me, and you, well. Check out the book at Amazon. It was released yesterday. My apologies for being a day late.
Here is the interview.

Blog Orlando Kicks Off Today :: Congrats to Josh Hallett

Blog Orlando is an un-conference created by Josh Hallett and friends in Orlando, Florida. Their efforts have proven fruitful as about 88 people are making the trip to Rollins College for a weekend of learning and sharing.

For some background on the event, check out Josh’s post - Yep It’s Free - There’s No Catch - about how it all came about.

Also visit the conference main site - BlogOrlando.com - and their blog at BlogOrlando : September 22-24, 2006 : Orlando, Florida.

Congratulations and best wishes to Josh and all of the attendees. Wish I could be there.

YouTube, Google Video and ASCCA Video

This summmer we will be sharing a lot of videos as a part of our social media public relations project at Easter Seals Camp ASCCA. They will appear in our Camp ASCCA YouTube listings. Check them out to see how they’ll look.

Google Video will also play host to our videos. The idea is to expose our camp activities to a larger audience via these online video sharing communities.

And below you may watch the “Day at Camp ASCCA” video. Click the screen capture of the lil’ camper climbing into the treehouse, to your right (pop-up window). The video runs 10:00 and, my apologies, is only available as a highspeed / broadband download right now. The video is currently a huge MPG file. Look for a smaller download version of this one down the road.

Using available online social media video sharing sites and our own blog/site, Camp ASCCA should be able to present the most comprehensive record of all the activities available. Now this is one truly positive aspect of social media, blogs and vlogs (video blogs).

Like no time before, we are now able to provide an almost real time presentation of Camp ASCCA’s programming. Parents and caregivers, campers and counselors (present and past) may follow along and experience camp’s activities each day. Summer camps start in less than two weeks, so please make sure you come back often.

Cross-posted in the blog over at Easter Seals Camp ASCCA.

Australians, Americans, Mexicans and Spaniards :: Education in Blogs and Podcasts

Coincidences. I love them. Of late, the podcasting coincidences are overflowing, and this is a good thing.

Over the past few days, I’ve been communicating with some of the good people at Deakin University in Australia. Ross Monaghan has his students blogging with us at PRblogs.org. He has begun a podcasting site with his colleague Colleen Murrell entitled themediapod.net.

At the same time, Ashley Imsand is writing about podcasting at the Forward blog. She references Octavio Rojas and Eric Schwartzman. Schwartzman shares some selling points about podcasting “for a client proposal” he created recently.

• Allows listeners to time-shift and place-shift media consumption
• 100% efficiency, since episodes are only downloaded by listeners on an opt-in basis
• Easily accessible to a global audience that is not defined by geographic boundaries
• Access to an educated, influential audience with a high disposable income
• Ability to leverage electronic programming without an outside news media filter
• Most cost effective electronic media distribution channel available

Ashley’s colleagues, Erin Caldwell and Luke Armour, are being featured in the Edelman earshot podcast, hosted by Phil Gomes. The podcast has, by the way, a rather funny (yet morbid) postscript to it. You’ll have to listen. (To Phil: Mine was forest ranger.)

That’s a whole lotta podcasting and discussion of podcasting, folks.

I’m loving this. Why, you ask?

Above you see several examples of wonderful information being shared. No pot shots were taken. Everyone signed their names. All of the discussion is relatively transparent. Comments are allowed and add to the learning experiences. No one is hiding. All are taking chances by sharing their thoughts. And what, I ask you, is wrong with that? Nothing.

I offer these great examples in advance of my next post about social media. Hey, there is a dead Greek and more. It’ll be fun.

Students Always Leave … We Miss Them, But Are Always Proud of Them, Too

Very happy to report good news for one of our own. Erin Caldwell is going to Washington to work with Vice President Mike Krempasky and others.

We are very proud of Erin and all of our students. Honestly, we do have a wonderful group of quite intelligent - and very hilarious, I might add - students each and every semester. That’s why I truly love my job. The students make it all worthwhile.

…our grads are all over the world practicing in large firms, and small… they are in gov’t, industry, nonprofits and more…

Read about Erin’s great news in her blog: Erin Caldwell’s PRblog » Miss Caldwell Goes to Washington. Lest we forget, we have other successful students, too.

Erin is joining a long list of Auburn grads inside the beltway. Paige Bagby is also headed to Washington. They called and recurited Paige back to her old internship stomping grounds at a lobbying firm in D.C. Others practicing PR in Washington? Maggie Landry is there with the McGinn Group - and she’s blogging. On Capitol Hill, Shea Snider is Congressman Mike Rogers’ Press Secretary.

Erin isn’t the first to join Edelman, either. Lauren Schuler works for Edelman, in Atlanta. Many others are - and have been - with the firm, too. The Atlanta office is doing quite well. Just last year, the Edelman Atlanta office received “Agency of the Year” honors from the IABC.

Amy Lee is in New York working with the Financial Times and Jessica Stephens is with Publicis in Atlanta. Publicis was recently announced as AdWeek’s US Media Agency of the Year.

Some day I should do one long post with examples of all the students we have out there, coast to coast - and overseas. They really are everywhere. I feel kinda bad just mentioning these students because there are so many out there - and here on campus - doing great things each and every day.

So, forgive my lil’ bit of self-congratulatory flag waving for our students. We love them. They make us proud every day. All of them.

PubSub Parity

Um, I don’t know how long this will last … but, every PR blog is tied for first at PubSub.

The experience called “PubSub LinkRank scores” is akin to a roller coaster that has been hijacked by the Devil (thank you, George Carlin). Where is Scott Baradell? He’d love watching this wild ride.

PubSub Community Lists: The PR List

Technorati Tags: PR, public relations, blogs, search, parity

posted using performancing firefox

Disclaimer Longer Than Blog Post … Bait for Satire, or Reality Setting In?

So funny, yet so sad. The legalese is longer than the content.

Starwood Hotels is attempting something that is sort of like, well … it is trying to be like … well, it started as faux blogging and now it is …. well, just corporate blogging. In fact, it is corporate blogging that fits many stereotypes of legal and management “interference” - some PR practitioners like to call it.

Starwood launched The Lobby.

The blog states their focus and purpose:

To help keep Starwood Preferred Guests on top of the latest travel trends, Starwood and ElectricArtists have assembled a team of travel writers to contribute to this site. Every weekday this site will be covering the latest and greatest in worldwide travel.

A legitimate idea. However, the authors in the blog seem more like jingle writers than travel writers. Each post is a commercial for some Starwood hotel or amenity.

Still, that’s not too bad of an idea. It is just the way they do it that seems contrived. Too planned. Too dry. Too predictable. The posts range from 100 to 200 words, with a few exceptions - the average is about 150. (This will be important later.) All of the posts are the equivilant to sidebar contextual ads with nice photos. It is one long list of short advertisements.

Starwood is using MovableType (MT). Many sites do. That isn’t uncommon. MT makes a fine CMS, aside from just a blog. But, The Lobby’s posts have links for tagging and bookmarking the site which many/most associate with blogs more than a dynamic site.

At first Starwood’s “The Lobby” did not have comments turned on.

Some people criticized them for that. B. L. Ochman called it a “dud” for more reasons than just the absence of comments. The Inside PR podcast also felt that the absence of comments did not help the blog’s legitimacy with audiences. There was no opportunity for a conversation.

So, Starwood turned comments on for some/most of the posts. However, in this instance they only made things worse.

If one is seeking to lay blame for this, I imagine the place to point is to upper management and the legal team. I doubt it is what the creative people wanted.

When Starwood did turn on comments, they couldn’t help but turn it over to the legal department, first. So, now you have one of the most ridiculous comment sections, on every post offering comments, that you will see on a blog - in blogging’s brief history. The legal disclaimer is actually longer than the posts. Seriously, the post at that link is 194 words, whereas there are 282 words in the disclaimer before you may comment. And, most of the other posts are like this, too.

Need more irony? The title of one post is: Head and Shoulders Above the Rest. Um, no Starwood. This this is more like what happens when you don’t use Head and Shoulders^TM … you appear flakey (or legally anal) - people notice, and you are embarrassed.

Sigh. So, bless their hearts, at least they are trying. How they could not see that their practice will bring snickers is kind of scary, but why am I not surprised?

Admittedly, there is legitimate concern for companies and individuals regarding the comments some people may leave in your blog.

Jeremy Pepper wrote:

Is it worth pushing the boundaries in a blog to get traffic, then end up in a libel suit? Are certain blogs that we all have seen - making fun of ugly people on the Web, making fun of Star Wars fans - worth the potential for a libel lawsuit?

Corporations have traditional boundaries and standards of practice. They are loathe to change them when the fear of legal entanglement may be the result. So, what you sometimes see is this kind of silliness.
I don’t know. Starwood can defend their tactic, of course. But, isn’t it kind of funny? Their fear is worth more text than their travel related content? B. L. was right. The Lobby is a dud.

Honestly, it reminded me of contract management. The rule-of-thumb was always - CYA or CYB. Here is the complete disclaimer you must wade through before getting to the comment forms:

BY CLICKING “I AGREE” AND SUBMITTING A COMMENT YOU AGREE TO THE FOLLOWING TERMS & CONDITIONS:

You agree not to submit any comment that contains unlawful, threatening, libelous, defamatory, obscene, pornographic or other material that would violate the law.

You agree that all comments submitted by you should be relevant to the article and remain respectful of other authors and commenters.

You authorize Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide, Inc., its affiliates, properties within the Starwood system and third party service providers (collectively, “Starwood”) to collect, process, use and display the information provided by you (including personally identifiable information) for any lawful, Starwood business related purpose, to store the information at and transmit the information to various locations, either directly or through its third party vendors, throughout the world, whether within your country of residence, the United States, or elsewhere; and to contact you regarding the information you provide.

You assign to Starwood the right, but not the obligation to edit, remove, modify, publish, license, print, transmit, display or otherwise use any comments you submit to Starwood and all accompanying personally identifiable information via all forms of media now known or hereafter devised, worldwide, in perpetuity, without notice to you and without compensation, and you waive any moral rights you may have in having the material altered or changed in a manner not agreeable to you.

You agree to indemnify and hold Starwood and its subsidiaries, affiliates, officers, directors, agents and employees harmless from any claim or demand, including reasonable attorney’s fees, made by any third party due to or arising out of Your breach of these terms and conditions or Your violation of any law or the rights of a third party.

That is on every post where you may leave a comment. Can you believe that? I find it amazing.

Um, and you don’t click on “I AGREE” … you click on Preview or Post.

Do you really want to see and read that every time you want to post a comment?

Perhaps the better path to follow (aside from the obvious “Drop the facade.  Don’t blog.  Make it a static site.”) would be requiring all who wish to comment to simply register for your site. Then, they see the disclaimer once and are bound by the rules. As Starwood is doing it now, the blog is a chuckle on every post, at first. After a few times, it will become - simply - a pain. Are they really going to turn these posts into purchases of services at their hotels? I don’t know, but I doubt it.

Here is an idea. Take the reigns off of the writers. Be bold. Take a chance. Let them write critically about your hotels and services. (I know. I’m dreaming.)

I don’t think Starwood Hotels did any reading or research into the mindset of most bloggers and blog readers. If they get laughed at online, it is their own fault. Of course, their target audience is probably not bloggers. It is business travelers. But, they are online and therefore open to these types of critiques.

What do you think? Is this a good practice by Starwood? Will they succeed? How would you suggest they blog?

Thanks to B. L. Ochman and Inside PR’s David Jones and Terry Fallis for the link.

Brendon Connelly and Sean McKay :: George Fox University Does Wikis Right :: Podcast

HEBC George Fox University is doing great things with wikis. Meet Brendon Connelly and Sean McKay. They can help you get started with wikis, too.

“A wiki is a collaborative web-based content management system in which all users can edit the web pages that are part of the site. Wikis provide a flexible and adaptive web-based environment for admissions (and other higher-ed) departments to develop knowledge bases and repositories of group experiences … Because of its nature, a wiki web site evolves over time and adapts to work with the content that its users contribute.”

Get the PDF presentation.

Brendon Connelly

George Fox University

http://www.slackermanager.com/

Sean McKay

George Fox University

http://academic.georgefox.edu/~smckay/

There is a screencast in “.mov” format available to compliment the PDF.

And, we have a podcast that I recorded with Sean and Brendon awhile ago. Sorry for the delay in sharing it, but - as with Nancy Prater’s podcast - I’ve experienced a computer crash and had to retreive and restore a great deal of information - plus, buy new software.

Now, this is not your usual podcast. The files were corrupted, but I could recover their voices. So, what you hear are their responses to my questions. I have tried to make it comprehensible. If you download their PDF file and read that, then listen to the podcast, I believe it can work for you. Think of these as audio notes on how they got into the wiki business at George Fox University.

The podcast link is below (23 minutes). Please visit Sean and Brendon’s presentation, too. Using Wikis to Facilitate Communication, Collaboration, and Knowledge Sharing Among Admissions and Administrative Personnel.

Nancy Prater :: Podcast :: Ball State University’s Social Media in Student Recruiting

HEBC Ball State University is doing some remarkably innovative things with social media. Meet Nancy Prater, John Dailey and Heather Shupp. They are the brains behind this truly interesting “Brady Bunch” homage that is making Ball State University a place to think about for college.

This fall, Ball State University took blogging to a new level by offering a multi-media version that includes podcasting and video. In addition, the blogs are unedited and the comment feature has been left on, allowing for more interaction with prospective students. Learn about how they did it and how they plan to research the blogs’ effectiveness.

View the video presentation; requires Windows Media Player.

View the PowerPoint for this presentation.

And, we have a podcast that I recorded with Nancy a few weeks ago. Sorry for the delay in sharing it, but I’ve experienced a computer crash and had to retreive and restore a great deal of information. Time for a new computer, I fear.

The podcast link is below (18 minutes). Please visit Nancy’s presentation, too. Case Study: Blogging and Podcasting for Student Recruitment.

HigherEd BlogCon :: Day Two is New Media in Alumni Relations

HEBC More interesting presentations today from student affairs professionals. Yesterday’s posts spurred some comments showing the excitement about social media in higher education. See Joseph Diorio’s comment to the right.

So, what will today bring? Check out these posts and please post about HigherEd BlogCon to help us share these ideas with communicators everywhere. The ideas, I believe, may transcend their usage in higher education and be applicable in many business practices, too.

Tuesday, April 18, 2006: New Media in Alumni Relations

SPECIAL EVENT: Chat with the presenters, live at 4:30 EDT.

Alumni E-Networks: Using Technology to Engage Alumni and Constituents

Holly Peterson
Tristan Roberts
World Learning, including The Experiment in International Living and The School for International Training

Here is a podcast interview with Holly and Tristan recorded awhile back. It will provide some background into their work, too.

Podcast with Holly and TristanOnline Networks: A New Tool for Alumni Relations - How Third-Party Social and Business Networking Sites Can Benefit Alumni Communities

Andrew Shaindlin
Elizabeth Allen
California Institute of Technology

Social Networking: What Is It and Where Does It Fit in the Alumni World?

Abe Geiger
Affinity Engines

Katie Seay
University of Florida Alumni Association

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