Best Practices

Time to rejigger the microsite

/ Angelo Fernando / Leave a comment

Anyone who knows me knows how I make a big deal about microsites. The reason? Web sites are boooring, and way too static to engage me. (I really shouldn’t be saying this because I have a very static elder-statesman web site that I am too lazy to redesign.)

But I am talking of business web sites that are so full of the About-us stuff. Microsites, however break all the old rule of ‘stickiness’ and the default mode of information overload. But it’s about time to rejigger them because of the way our reading, search and navigation habits are going.

I am working with a crack team of designers on several microsites for some completed projects. My point is that I don’t want to simply knit up a project with a microsite, but create a structure for it to be a work in progress, a knowledge hub that is (a) never static like the parent site and (b) malleable and confident enough to have as many external links that are necessary, if it means rewarding visitors with content they may not have come across before in one place.

David Armano makes a few great suggestions on how to do this. His observation of the Lenovo (micro)site, which has been featured here many times, is spot on –that it doesn’t even scream microsite! His basic premise: build microsites that are more bloglike.

Why stop there? Why not bag traditional web site architecture and make web sites more bloglike?

Cabinet secretary: “I am not a professional blogger”

/ Angelo Fernando / 3 Comments

A cabinet secretary may not come across as your typical blogger, or PR person. But Mike Leavitt’s blog at the Department of Health and Human Services turns that stereotype on its head.

This morning, he was on a Kaiser Family webcast about why he blogs, how he finds time to do it (answer: sometimes on a stair-master in the gym.) Also how his organization looks at new media exercises like this. Some quotes:

  • “I speak my mind. I am just not reckless about it.”
  • “I am not a professional blogger … I have been taken under the wing of more seasoned bloggers.”
  • “information goes where people are, and public policy makers should do the same.”
  • “A secretary is the spokesperson. Too many HHS spokespersons could be a problem.”
  • “My blog is not a literary masterpiece –that is not my goal.”
  • “I choose the topic – not a reporter.”
  • “I choose the words – not a reporter.”

Leavitt was quizzed about moderated comments and the media reading his blog, and it was evident that he is much more interested in the unfiltered voice and format of the blog than being reduced to a sound bite, and being subject to the media filters. It reminded me of Sun Microsystems’ Jonathan Schwarz’s comment some years back that he decided to maintain his own blog because he was tired of being strained through the media filters.

Leavitt was a bit shaky on the audience question about whether he would promote his staffers to blog. (See quote above.) Which was odd for someone who embraces the democratized medium like this, and wants to hold on to the megaphone. That sounds like what a PR department would say.

I took it as a comment that suggests he is still thinking about this. Some blogger would/should take him under his/her wing on that one.

Pandemic flu hits blogosphere

/ Angelo Fernando / Leave a comment

I’ve been tracking how the pandemic flu is being covered over the past few months, and notice a spike in interest across many cities, scary media stories, a military-styled exercise. The blogosphere has suddenly become engaged in this.

Blogging a pandemic I. SDHD PanFlu BlogEx, a blog by the Southeastern District Health Department in Pocatello, Idaho is nothing to sneeze at. It is using a blog format to ‘report’ an outbreak within a two-week period using news-like headlines, fact-filled blog posts, videos and and links to external agencies. I like the fact that comments are open to the public. Every carries this disclaimer in red: “This is an exercise. It is not real.”

Unlike most What-If exercises (considered table-top exercises by the Dept. of Homeland Security) a global event like this cannot be contained by governments and medical professionals. There is a huge public component, not to mention a media component. Information will spread fast through whatever channels are available and it is not a stretch to assume that the blogosphere will upstage the traditional media in the same way it did during recent crises, such as the London bombings and the Asian tsunami. People will upload videos from their phones. Paramedics will provide advice via home made videos published on Youtube. Citizen journalists will break stories from far flung places before Newsweek or Catie Couric even get there –if flights to affected areas will even be possible. This format with potential for greater collaboration and dissemination is truly worth exploring.

Blogging a pandemic II: One Michael Coston, a paramedic, maintains a blog called Avian-Flu diary. He’s onto something, being a sort of a paramedic-meets CitJo.

On similar lines, the Kaiser Network is hosting a web conference called “The Health Blogosphere: What It Means for Policy Debates and Journalism” today at 1 p.m. Eastern time.

ASU fired the first shot? I like to think we had a head start on some of these. Our ‘hybrid’ Pandemic Flu exercise at ASU’s Decision Theater in April this year took the table-top model in a new direction, using the collaboration tools of the Theater with rich media inputs, and scenarios.

Are employees partly-owned brands?

/ Angelo Fernando / 1 Comment

Chris Brogan, whom I regard as a lead evangelist of social media, raises a great question: Are employees quietly becoming a “half-owned brands” of the company they work for?

Indeed, he’s referring to people like Robert (Fast Company) Scoble, and Charlene (Forrester) Li etc, who are known not for the company they work for (or leave) but for the ideas they represent.

His point needs to be looked at in the context of how organizations ought to hire, empower and work. They need not be looking for super novas but for those with star potential. Why? Because ultimately an organization’s ‘about us’ pages will be irrelevant. What matters will be not its ‘core competencies,’ ‘heritage’ or strategic business units, but its DNA made up of strands of these partly-owned brands.

I found some interesting examples.

  • Rahul Sood, is a brand that happens to work for HP. He is the Chief Technology Officer of HP’s gaming business, and his blog is linked from HP but exists outside of the enterprise. He doesn’t write mainly about his employer, but about his passion in the IT world of gaming and business, about Nintendo’s Wii and batteries.
  • Sun Microsystem’s bloggers may write about the products they represent, but three of them have more hits than the CEO Jonathan Schwatz’s well-known, well written blog.
  • Rohit Bhargava may ‘belong’ to WPP, being senior VP of Ogilvy 360 Digital Influence, but as a marketer, speaker and author he is a brand in his own right, a satellite that casts a nice glow on the mothership without needing to hype the WPP or Ogilvy brand.

I don’t know about you, but these partly-owned brands come across as a lot more authentic. I would rather do business with a Raul Sood, than some anonymous corporate voice at the other end of a toll free number.

Three Gold Quills for Arizona

/ Angelo Fernando / Leave a comment

Congratulations to Rachel Pearson, Mary Ehlert, ABC; and BDN Aerospace who brought home Gold. The Gold Quill awards were made at the IABC international conference in New York last week.

  • Rachel won a merit award for the Scottsdale Convention and Visitors Bureau‘s 2007 Annual Meeting in the category of Special Events – Internal or External.
  • Mary won a merit award for the Arizona Department of Health Bureau of Tobacco Education and Prevention. The category was for Economic, Social and Environmental Development.
  • The BDN Aerospace marketing team won a merit award for the MD Helicopters Ad Campaign. The category was for advertising using conventional media.

IABC Gold QuillsGold Quills recognize best practice in areas such as marketing communications, corporate communications, benefits communication, digital communication, branding, special events, podcasts, publications, annual reports, recruitment and writing. Not surprisingly, the Gold Quills attract local and international entries from agencies, photographers, graphic designers, strategic planners, creatives and even students.

Blogging with an audio recorder

/ Angelo Fernando / 1 Comment

Follow up to my post about Bill Marriott’s blog, Marriott on the move, I find it interesting that he does not type his posts but dictates it to his communications manager using a digital recorder. It retains an essential conversational element that tends to get edited out when some people put pen to paper.

Many were impressed at the 75-year old CEO embracing the blogosphere, as was seen on the tweets and other conversations I had at the conference. Steve Crescenzo and others suggest that the lowly digital recorder is a great way to dive into the social media, especially for people who are bad at typing, or don’t have the time.

What’s interesting about Marriott’s blog is that his folks have not only transcribed the dictation into text, but post the audio file on the blog. It adds one more level of authenticity, because you now know that some scribe in the back room is not tweaking the sentences for the blog.

Stuntman in New York targets journalists, us

/ Angelo Fernando / 1 Comment

The stunt by a French daredevil tells us something about how far someone would go to ‘create awareness’ and target the media. Forty-five stories to tell his story.

Alain Roberts climbed the brand new New York Times building right to the top. No harness, no ropes. Just a banner in his hand which he hung out with his message –and a web address — about global warning.

What does it tell us about sending a message? Guerrilla marketing is quite tame compared to ‘culture jammers’ like Mr. Roberts and street artists like Bansky. They have figured out that it doesn’t require a grand media buy to take the message public. Banski’s ‘art’ (left) is stark, much cheaper than a billboard, and always packs a good story.

In Roberts’ case, he was literally taking the message to The New York Times which of course, carried the story. And a video clip. How could they resist? The story was right outside their window! They updated the story online too as a second man attempted to climb the building.

The banner, and the risky act of disobedience was for the audience outside. Two audiences. One guy and a banner. A funky web site. Lots of stories.

How far do you go to tell your story?

Social media minus geek-speak and PowerPoint

/ Angelo Fernando / 1 Comment

I head to the IABC International conference in New York that starts next week. Two things I can expect: To meet a lot of folk interested in social media, and to see see a lot of PowerPoint slides 🙂

But what has left an indelible mark on me is a series of videos created by Lee and Sachi LeFever and his wife at CommonCraft. This one, particularly on social media in plain English.

If you’re interested, CommonCraft says they offer licensed versions to ‘educators and influencers.’

As someone who writes about this stuff, attempting to demystify technology and clear the fog that hovers over technology, I think this work is pure genius.