The Daily Show :: Obama Cartoon

This is just one reason why I love The Daily Show.

Barack Obama should in no way be upset about the cartoon that depicts him as a Muslim extremist, because you know who gets upset about cartoons? Muslim extremists.

Don’t we all wish we could do a rant like this one? The joke about the bears is really enough to tell the whole story, alone. Yet, the closing line says it all.  Read more

Lee Hopkins In Facebook: OMG!! This bloke is amazing!!

Danger, Will Robinson! Robert’s about to be corny. I know this may be considered totally off-topic (maybe) and most have likely seen it before, but I had not.

Our good, fun friend Lee Hopkins shared this in Facebook recently. It is too beautiful.

Recently, as I listen to students about to head out after graduation, some are expressing doubts about whether they are ready for the real world stage. If this story cannot inspire, I don’t know what will.

Following the Paul Potts storyline, it turns into an amazingly true tale.

Paul Potts had a dream. He stepped out upon a stage, for all to see and hear. The reality seems to have turned out to be more beautiful than the dream. He believed in himself just enough to stand up and sing forth.

This is the kind of story that will make you cry. Thanks for sharing it, Lee. You’re right. “This bloke is amazing!!” Read more

Alice Marshall’s Sister Is Cool

So is Alice, by the way.

Call me what you will, but I think this is pretty darn interesting. In fact, I wish I’d seen this before because I really would have just sat up to simply watch it pass by. Think of it as a “time” total eclipse or a once in a millennium comet.

Read about the one in one-thousand occurence of 123456 in time.

I’m such a nobody. I should have known about this. I can, of course, say I was there when it happened, though.

From Presto Vivace:

On Wednesday of this week, at two minutes and three seconds after 1:00 in the morning, the time and date (was):

01:02:03   04/05/06

You won’t see that again unless you live another 1000 years.

Finding a Path to Blog PR Bliss … Goose and Gander?

Ah, the metaphors come flowing in at times like this.

What follows is really kind of sad. You don’t want bad things to happen to people, especially when (even if they are not) they think they are doing good deeds. That is what is happening here.

What is good for the goose, is not necessarily good for the gander. Well, so says the goose, Steve Rubel.

Scott Baradell has a great post about this. His contains much wiser, kinder and gentler advice, too. The comments are great, as well. Check it out.

So, now the story…

Steve Rubel is a blogger. When he started blogging, although no where near the first of PR bloggers, it was still relatively new. People then, and even now, think it is a bit strange.

But, he worked hard linking and SEO hacking and pitching and promoting and eventually found his own bit of fame.

Yesterday, Rubel tossed out his own self-proclamation of how he is a “top tier” blogger. He owes that to his own personal long tail. Links, links, links. Pitch, pitch, pitch.

Over one and a half years ago, Steve Rubel went in search of his own long tail. He decided that he needed Google Juice (links) to achieve the fame that could drive his blog to success and - eventually - into a micro-practice. He needed that juice to appear legitimate when he pitched himself, and his blog, to traditional media. He needed it to have something to show potential clients. He threw out his many links and readers as if it was a flambouyant scarf.

Notice how we haven’t discussed ‘content’ much, yet? Isn’t content king? I think it is. I’ve heard Rubel’s blog referred to as a “regurgablog” or link blog. If you think about it, that is true. He posts other people’s thoughts. He is, quite literally, a one-man aggregator. He is aggregating other people’s content.

Rubel had no qualms with asking others for help. An unknown, he wrote, in April 2004, asking for links. He did become a successful aggregator via his blog in the eyes of many. The Micropersuasion practice was realized.

Yesterday, Rubel wrote a little homily about best practice in link acquisition. I believe he probably thought he was being nice. It wasn’t received that way by everyone. Rubel was a role model for some. But, that blogger and other observers see that Rubel was actually discouraging those that are simply practicing what he did over a year ago to start his climb to A-list status.

Rubel forgot that blogs give everyone a voice and are supposed to (if you ‘really’ believe in the Cluetrain and Long Tail) help democratize the communication flow. They can help level the playing field.

But Rubel has his own idea. He has established a tier system for people wishing to climb the link ladder. The “Z” list asks the “Y” list for links. The “Y” list ask the “X” list, and so on… Convenient for Rubel, today.

Rubel’s tactics are an example of a pseudo “New PR” practitioner. He does love to talk about new media, but supplements his tricks and hacks with the old practices. Hey, they are good tactics and strategies. He just rarely talks about that traditional practice of PR, which he uses a great deal.

Sadly, he actually calls himself a “top-tier” target. Well, it is true. But, if he is on top, shouldn’t I know it already? Aren’t some things best left unsaid? There is an old saying. Act like you’ve been there before. Don’t flaunt it.

Yes, what Rubel has accomplished/achieved has somehow made him a sought after source for traditional media. But I believe that most of his visibility comes from the old world press agentry promotion of what he is doing in his blog. It is that traditional media relations work that has served him best, more so than the blog itself. The media coverage is what really drives people to his site.

For me, I really don’t go to Rubel’s blog - unless I am sent a link or see it referenced in some other blog and it seems interesting. It has lost value for me. Heck, anyone can do RSS searches, Google Alerts, Yahoo! Alerts and any number of other RSS feed scanning practices. I find all the things Rubel posts about, but in the other blogs I read. And, I find something more. I find the thoughts of those bloggers and what they think of these new ideas, tools, tactics and more. They add to the conversation, not echo it. That, my friends, is content worth reading. They may not be A-List bloggers, but they are the true Kings and Queens - the royalty - of blogs.

I hope Rubel enjoys being there - in his blog. Chance the Gardener has a new crop of squash. As in, squash the lil’ guys. He doesn’t have time for anything but the really big vegetables.

Duke Web Site Redesign Blog :: Oh, Boy!

Ah, yes. Sweet happiness. You know how I love these college Web site redesign efforts via blog. Constantin Basturea kindly tipped me off to this one. He writes, “http://redesign.dukenews.duke.edu/ (via CollegeWebEditor) I know you’re a fan :)” And, yes. I am. Thanks, Constantin. And, thank you Karine (collegewebeditor.com), too.

Welcome “Redesigning the Duke.edu Website” to the college redesign social network. Good for them!

I made quite the goofball of myself with many posts about Cornell’s redesign project. I even nominated them for a Bob. They did pretty well, but their focus/audience was so narrow/niche, they couldn’t quite beat the broader sites.

So, could “Redesigning the Duke.edu Website” be my next cause celebre? Well, the title of the blog could use some work. However, it is quite literal. No confusing it with any other topic.

Thus far, the blog has 10 posts and Whoa! 141 comments. Pretty good startup. The Office of News and Communications (ONC) is moderating the posts. That isn’t unreasonable. Hey, it is a university site. No need to have students writing their off-color comments in there. Oh, students would never do that now, would they?

The three posts that garnered the most interest so far are - not surprisingly - the ones with examples of the pending design.

Mock-up: Design 2 Homepage (59 comments)
Mock-up: Design 1 Secondary Page (29 comments)
Mock-up: Design 1 Homepage (19 comments)

Among the interesting comments? “I’d like to see a mock up of #2 with images unrelated to science and technology. Although I’m an engineer myself, I think it portrays too much ‘nerd’ and not enough humanities.”

If nothing else, these comments will aid the design group in forming questions for any focus / demo groups they may wish to put together before launching the new site. Previously, most of these observations probably came from IT pros and selected administration and faculty members. They might have thrown in a few students along the way. At Cornell, parents and alumni also joined in the discussions. Hope that happens for Duke, too. I did find one alum / parent post already.

This blog, by virtue of the comments and participation so far, is focusing more on style & design - user friendly GUI - and not so much the aura and history of the school. Much of the Cornell.edu blog had some very entertaining comments about the school and how it should be portrayed in the portal’s design. This may well surface as the Duke blog is still young. Color (ah, Duke blue) has already surfaced, too. My experience in Web design has shown that color choice seems to be the primary concern of so many users.

This will be an interesting site to follow. I promise not to over post about this one. OK, well I’ll ‘try‘ to not over post about it. Can’t help it. I just think this is a great way to involve people in a conversation. It is especially interesting to see at places where, strangely, these kinds of decisions are ‘not’ ususally opened up to the core stakeholder groups. Involving your audience up front? Go figure. What a concept.

Nova Spivack :: Top Thinker Minding the Planet

Top thinker Nova Spivack. He has been “Minding the Planet” for some time at his blog.

I became aware of Nova when starting this blog. In fact, you can see where I posted several times about him over the year - particularly in the beginning of the blog.

Recently, Nova’s blog was listed as one of the Top Ten Sources “Thinkers of the Web.”. Congrats on that, Nova.

Nova writes that he is “trying a little experiment to see who is reading this…” Well, this one is a bit different from his previous meme experiments, but an interesting one. Nova wants to know who reads him. Well, I do - although not that regularly of late. My apologies, Nova. Too little time. His site is in my Sage RSS feed collection, though. Nova is one to be checked from time to time because of his unique outlook and insights.

So, please check out his blog. Students, you may use Nova’s blog as one of your reading / commenting assignments, if you wish. Look around and you’ll find a wide variety of topics to choose from at Minding the Planet. He was an early source of inspiration for our blogging class efforts, so it is just that we re-visit Nova’s site.

Lee Hopkins reminded me of this over at ForImmediateRelease.biz.

Trackback, Schmackback :: The Bigger Story!

There was a little tiff between bloggers the other day. We’ll get to it in a bit.

The real story - the most telling bit of this whole story - is something off-topic that Steve Rubel let slip in the comments of the offending post.

He writes, “I don’t blog much on PR, you may have noticed. I’ll bore my readers.”

Are you as confused by that as I am? Read more

Ooops! Another lesson learned

Remember those discussions we’ve had about what NOT to do with your blog and work email account?

In the “things not to do” file, this is yet another good lesson. This could be viral (as in terminal / termination) jobwise if the right (or wrong) people got wind of it. With blogs, and your work email account, that can happen in a heartbeat. This is just one of the reasons why I will give all students a GMail account for use ‘after’ graduation.

From Jeremy Pepper in the AllBusiness.com PR Blog: The PR Blog : Monitoring Employee Emails - ( Small Business Blog Center )

Out in the blogosphere, there has been a lot of discussions on employee blogs, and setting up guidelines for employees who might be blogging - even if it’s on their own time. Most of the time, blogging guidelines and policies can be summed up as common sense, but unfortunately, that seems to be in short supply.

Companies also usually have email and Web usage policies in place, that can be summed up with: we own the computer and the network, so don’t use either for personal use. This is especially true with corporate email.

BlogHer Conference :: Interesting Idea

Emailed Elisa Camahort, of Worker Bees: Buzz Marketing & More and Worker Bees Blog, about the upcoming BlogHer Conference ‘05, July 30th, 2005 in Santa Clara, CA.

I find this conference particulary interesting because of the large number of women we have in our classes. As I wrote to Elisa, this semester, my classes have about 80 students. Of those, about 95% are women. So, I am always interested in finding great examples for them to read and get to know online. It is a bit difficult in the field of public relations, re: women bloggers. Although women dominate the industry in numbers, they are out-numbered in this world of blogs.

It would be wonderful if we had such a conference, or even a group blog, of women in the PR/Marcom world. Don’t get me wrong, we have some great contributors to our MarcomBlog group experience. And, Tara Smith is a blessing there. Also, Elizabeth Albrycht has been kind and supportive, too.

If I were to be specific and identify ‘only’ PR bloggers, the number of them would probably be counted on one (maybe two) hands. Add Marcom/Marketing and Publicists and we might get up around 20, or so. Just guessing - haven’t counted lately. Note to Self: Dear, Self - Do that and post the count/blogroll here.

(UPDATE: And, I did. Here is the list. It is still in ‘development’ but I went through the 200 or so PR blogs and think I’ve found them all.)

So, I am watching the BlogHer Conference ‘05 with interest.

If you would like to be a sponsor, here is the ‘.pdf’ of their sponsorship kit. Also, they are accepting donations.

Register for the conference here.

Business Week Snarks and Praises Blogs :: More sugar for the Koolaid?

A lot of happiness coming from PR and Biz bloggers thanks to the BusinessWeek cover story, “Blogs Will Change Your Business”.

Now, don’t get me wrong. I like blogs and see value in them. Still, I do not subscribe to this ‘blogs are the saviour to connecting with your customers’ nonsense that so many are spouting. They are ‘a’ way to do it and they do not work for every business/organization - product/service.

Is there potential for this to occur? Well, yes. But we are NO way near there, yet. First, the reach to audiences is still small - even miniscule by comparison to tradtional PR/Marcom practices.

Let’s look at the BusinessWeek article, too. As I read it, there is a lot of snark in there. Yes, it is disguised since they wrote the article in ‘blog’ format. But I don’t see that as complimentary.

Steve Rubel, for example, is widely regarded as the highest profile PR blogger. The article, however, calls Rubel a PR Bunny. Not very kind. The quote is, “Now Rubel is positioned as an all-knowing Thumper in a forest of clueless Bambis.”

Could this BW article be taken as a sign of good things to come for biz blogging? Yes. But, when you can show me a ’snark free’ straight piece in the NYTimes or WSJ, then - then I’ll be more of a believer. Right now, the koolaid is running free. And, it has more sugar than can possibly be good for anyone.

Let’s maintain our rational and reasoned look at this new tactic. Blogging - as a business/PR tool - is hardly 3 years old. Tom Murphy’s PR Opinions, regarded as the “Grandaddy” of PR blogs, started in March 2002.

Blogs GOOD! Blogs not SAVIOUR! And they are not the best thing to hit communication ever. I’m still going with that good ol’ face-to-face as the single best way to communicate. I’ll put my research to prove it true against any koolaid drinkers anywhere. Sorry.

The Voice of PR Face2Face and Cluelesstrain

Another great post from Jeremy Pepper. This one is “Blogs in the Communications Mix“.

This article “Papers broaden margins, jump in the blogosphere,” at the Kansas City Star (registration required), serves to further prove Jeremy’s point.

The LA Times launched a blog for baseball’s spring training. The San Francisco Chronicle plans to try out blogs, as well. But they are “still grappling with the ‘exact form and structure so that it fits journalistic standards’”. We’ve all likely heard of the new tool and new effort by a Greensboro, N.C. paper. “Others, like the News & Record in Greensboro, N.C., think that they should be spontaneous, as other non-newspaper blogs are, and show the writer’s voice.”

Short story? They are trying new ‘tools’ to enhance their dwindling circulation numbers and trying to boost online interest in their papers. In some intstances, they are embarking on a ‘citizen journalism’ verture because they see what NowPublic, WikiNews, GetLocalNews.com, Northwest Voice, OhMyNews (South Korea) and others have accomplished so far. They do not want to be left behind. Right now, blogs serve as the latest tool they can try in the mix to stay current/relevant.

The struggle they are going through now with “how to” (implementation) is the same thing businesses must address before diving into the mix.

Probably a small issue for many, but I fear that the term ‘blog’ has already developed such as specific identity with early adopters, we may need new sub-categories or other terms to properly identify blogs in the future. Ultimately, whether called a blog, journal, web log or waffle - one thing is certain. If the content is good, people will still come. In the examples above, one definitive element we can identify is ‘voice’. The writer must hone one. Jeremy has done that. The PR Face2Face interviews, now coupled with Clueless Train, have made his blog even more enjoyable to read. You know that when you visit on Tuesdays (interviews) and Thursdays (Cluelesstrain) that you’re going to see new interesting people and topics profiled/discussed.

Good job, Jeremy. Quite the definitive blog you have there.

Next Page »