Communications

Quotes for the week ending 30 May, 2009

/ Angelo Fernando / Leave a comment

“He texts during dinner at restaurants and while walking down the street and twitters at red lights while driving.”

Reader at New York Times, commenting on how people who who would never be so rude as to talk on the phone at a restaurant, have different rules for using Twitter

“Britain’s mums told us where to stick the artificial ingredients. And it wasn’t in the bottle.”

Ad for Sunny Delight, running in Britain’s newspapers, as recointed by Jonah Bloom of AdAge, who suggests marketers need to apologize first. To which one reader responded:

“The first financial institution that apologizes will be apologizing for an entire industry for years of greedy pay packages, excessive “innovation”, disregard of risk, tricky offers & excessive political lobbying. Their customers will likely not be so forgiving as the Brits when they chuckle about Marks & Sparks reducing the price of big bras.”

Advertising Age

“It’s hard to understand how Cheney and Kyl could make statements like this with a straight face…”

Steven R Corman, at ASU’s Hugh Downs School of Communication, commenting on the former vice president and the senator from Arizona’s dismissal of Guantanamo prison being a strategic communication tool for Al Qaeda

“We used to call people who embraced this sort of behavior workaholics. Now we call them crackberries.”

Jim Shea, on how Boomers make way  for ‘weisure’ time –fitting fun around work, rather than the other way around.

“…it most definitely wasn’t named for Bing Crosby.”

Fast Company, on Microsoft’s new search engine, Bing, that is positioned as a ‘decision engine’

Lessons from live blogging a social media event

/ Angelo Fernando / 2 Comments

Last evening, I live blogged an event at work, trying out a service called CoverItLive.

Check it here

What was interesting to me was that the event itself was steeped in social media. Basically it was the unveiling of a student-created wiki for sci-fi author, PJ Haarsma, who writes books that are connected online  games, using feedback loops and wiki-interaction to promote better reading habits across America.

To get back to CoverItLive, it’s a great tool, because it lets you update your posts  created on the CoveritLive interface, to any blog. Of course being the first time I used it, I think I messed with the time-zones and as a result, it was not updating. Plan B rolled out! I copied and pasted the posts into the blog. Which defeats the purpose, I know!

But the experience was valuable; it’s only by experimenting with social media tools like this can you get past that learning curve. The very frustration and the mistakes make a lot of other similar social media apps coming after this, easier to master.

Features: What’s neat about CoverItLive is that the audience does not need to refresh the screen — the text keeps streaming onto your blog. Also very valuable, is the ability to conduct a poll while posting.

Recently we looked at using Polldaddy as a sidebar to a live video being streamed via BitGravity, and toyed with the idea of live-blogging and tweeting the event. I love Polldaddy, but application clutter can be distracting. One interface that pulls a lot of other apps together in one box is what I am always looking for.

So the 3 things I learned about live blogging:

  • Always conduct a dry run. It seemed to work in a test, but I never went live. If no time for a dry-run, always have a Plan B.
  • Work as a team. It’s tough to take photos, record audio and live blog! We did this at the Obama visit a few weeks back.
  • Gather media in advance -videos, photos, links etc. Fortunately I had some some homework on this event, so I knew what YouTube video to link to etc

There are two other boxes to check:

  • Make sure of the wi-fi connection
  • Charge your batteries, and/or sit close to a power outlet

Quotes for the week ending 23 May, 2009

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“It’s an interesting use of technology, but I can’t help but feel a bit ‘eeewww!’ about this.”

Twitter user on hearing about surgeons in New York tweeting through a kidney surgery

“The word “campaign” has become the pariah of social marketing. Preferred alternatives include terms like “program,” “initiative,” or even “conversation.”

David Berkowitz, in MediaPost, about the word (borrowing from George Carlin) that will “infect your soul, curve your spine, and keep the country from winning the war.”

“Think of it as an early warning system.”

Dan Greenfield on a new tool called Tweet Cloud he has developed for PR and marketing, to make better use of Twitter

“As if there is a lick of difference between those split hairs.”

Arizona Republic editorial on Nancy Pelosi.

“I really hope we don’t get shut down.

Ross Luippold, editor in chief of Texas Travesty, about a fake Twitter Account the student humor magazine had created on behalf of University of Texas at Austin president, William C. Powers Jr.

“1 billion applications served, 35,000 applications available and more than 30 million devices in market.”

Advertising Age on how mobile advertising –app-vertising– is going to change.

“I don’t know if you’re aware of this, but these honorary degrees are apparently pretty hard to come by. So far I’m only 1 for 2 as President.”

President Obama, at his second commencement address this year, at Notre Dame University, with a snide reference to his visit to Arizona State University last week.

Word map your tweets and learn from it!

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Did you know you can log in to your Twitter account via Tweetstats, and create a word cloud of just your posts? After this  previous post I wondered. Could a word map be useful, apart from its eye-candy appeal?

WordCloud_Mytweets_3_May09

As those of us who took part in this exercise begin compiling a report of our social media coverage, I realized that this could be another way to create a snapshot of each team member’s activity. But besides that, I can see a few other uses:

  1. It can be used to compare two different events that have something in common –say two consecutive lectures, two conferences, to compare the buzz that speakers generate.
  2. Or to take it to a macro level, we could track  hash tags  in relation to a particular brand attribute, and map it over consecutive weeks. This will give a brand manager better understanding how that attribute is being received 0r rejected in the twittersphere.
  3. We can they overlay it with other analytics using a service such as Buzzgain or Crawdad, and see the effect from multiple angles.
  4. We could the word map from one event to set a target for a similar event. In the above example, the words “thanks” and “news” add not value, and probably were a waste of characters given the 140 limitation.

Quotes for the week ending 16 May, 2009

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“I’m OK.”

Roxana Saberi, Iranian-American journalist who reported for NPR, who was freed from Iranian prison this week.

“But the president I worked for always wanted it short. He thought about people sitting in the audience on a hot day…”

Mark Salter, who has written commencement speeches for Senator John McCain, commeiting on on what president Obama’s speech at Arizona State University would be like.

“It was a shock … we knew the list was coming, but we didn’t think we would be on it.”

Regina Alexander, whose parents own a Chrysler dealership, on the news of the closure of five Arizona dealerships.

Take risks, change attitude, rethink your career

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Obama4If people though that Obama would trot out the message of Hope, and yes-we-can for an grad audience, they were wrong.

It’s about change, not hope.

“Question conventional wisdom and challenge old dogmas.”

Hard task ahead, not just for people like these 11,000 people entering the work force. I try to put some of this across in my resume-meets-social media seminar, but taking risks is hard, scary at this time. But guess what? I know of two people who are doing just that.

One guy is starting what most people would call crazy –a media company. He happens to be an ex-journalist. The other guy has a great model for mobile marketing, using the phone as a scanning device. I asked the journo, if he has a business plan. He says yes, but it’s not exactly a plan because  he intends to tweak it as he moves ahead. Conventional wisdom tells me this is risky. But that’s exactly what we need in a recession: Unconventional wisdom. He was not forced into a career change. He shifted gears before he was forced to.

As Obama sums up his speech –it’s 8.25 pm Mountain Standard Time– I know that Obama is lighting a fire under an audience beyond this stadium with than formula.

Alice Cooper rocks graduates -still!

/ Angelo Fernando / 1 Comment

“Why is Alice Cooper alive?” was one of the comments on Twitter at 6.15 Pm.

The short answer to it is: he eats a lot of red vines. (He happily took some off our desk.)

It was moments after the 61-year old took to the stage –probably tweeted while this was on stage. When you think about it, you wonder, what is this brand doing on stage in this day, at this time. Also he’s the lead act before another brand, Barack Obama who will be here in a few moments.

The funny thing is, not all brands who need to stay relevant need to join the Twitterrati, as we have. I actually asked Alice Cooper this question a little while ago when I got to interview him. His response: I don’t need to do this stuff, I tell my band when they are in Paris to get out and see the real Eiffel tower, rather than look at it online.”

For anyone juggling between old media and new media, this is a sobering thought.

Don’t you think?

Obama’s visit today begets massive social media coverage

/ Angelo Fernando / 1 Comment

PressBox_0512Happy to note that I am part of the social media ‘swat’ team at today’s commencement at Arizona State University, where president Barack Obama will speak. (Sun Devil Stadium, 7 PM Mountain Time, 63,000 people).

Now unofficially called the ‘Tweam‘ (in the tradition of making horrible words to describe anyone also using Twitter as a communication tool) about 20 of us will provide a different type of coverage from what the major networks will bring: multiple angles, twitpics and more uploaded to Flickr, perspectives and commentary on several blogs, podcasts etc. Befitting, of course Obama’s and the White House’s use of social media.

A few things to get you started:

Watch how ABC15 profiled this social media blitz last night –click on the TV story, top right of page

Live streaming meets interactive

/ Angelo Fernando / Leave a comment

Today’s economic summit, for the Greater Phoenix Economic Summit, GPEC hosted here at Decision Theater proved to be truly interactive, in more ways than one.

GPEC_1On the expected level, there was interactivity between business leaders and the media.

But while all this was happening, the camera that you see here was live streaming video made available to a web audience. We used BitGravity for this. The BitgGavity feed was embedded in a dedicated web page. At one time we tracked more than 600 people on that site. This extended audience got to interact with the speakers through an embedded chat program, and via a polling tool.

In an adjacent  conference room –call it the social media hub— I was part of the team watching the live web stream. Someone from the GPEC comms team would forward the questions to the Drum via Blackberry. All this, as we tweeted and blogged the event.

Photos taken during the event were immediately uploaded to Flickr -you can see them on the right of this page- and TwitPic.

Quotes for the week ending 9 May, 2009

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“Gaze tracking is well-established … In the future, the whole image could also be panned left or right as the gaze approaches the edge of the screen.”

Gadgets and how we may use them, in BBC story on Science Beyond Fiction conference in Prague.

“The effects of the swine flu epidemic have been felt in Hollywood.”

Access Hollywood on an e-mail spam message that claimed Madonna had caught the virus.

“Moving from the digital world to print as everything else moves in the other direction may seem contrarian. But people want physicality, especially as more and more of our lives are lived virtually.”

Eileen Gittins, CEO of Blurb, a profitable print-on-demand company that has sold $30 million worth of books in 2008.

“Integration has long been talked about as the holy grail of brand communications. Socialization of media warrants finding it, and fast.”

Chris Perry, executive VP at Weber Shandwick. In Advertisng Age.

“…the greatest facilitators of human conversations, its building itself as a brand based on emotional bonds and trust in a shell of social , web 2.0 services.”

johnhorniblow, talking of Facebook, responding to the above article

“Forever is a word people aren’t used to hearing from marketers. But forever is good. If you could keep every customer you get forever, you’ll be in business for just as long.”

Rohit Bhargava, about the United States Postal Service’s use of a ‘forever stamp’ at the current postage rate, and it would be valid many years later, irrespective of price increases.

“Be warned. It’s me uncensored.”

Megan McCain, on her blog about her use of Twitter. Megan, daughter of John McCain is seen as the new voice of the Republican party. She will publish a book on this subject soon.

“They should be the ones writing the tweets – no ‘ghosttweeting’.”

Linda Vandevrede at ValleyPRblog.com, about CEOs use if Twitter. The full report is on Ryan Zuk’s presentation about Twitter.