"So we decided to take matters into our own hands.”

You know there has been a shift in how information is distributed and consumed when a group of people say that have created a ‘feed’ for a government run outfit. That the group happens to be 3 bloggers, isn’t a surprise. One is a patent attorney, one writes on intellectual property law, and one runs an intellectual property ‘weblawg.’ Check them out here:

The govt. office in question is the US Patent and Trademark Office. Calling the site ‘woefully antiquated,’ the group created an RSS feed. Check the story here.

Continue reading →

Haley Knutsen, the 9-year-old girl from Arizona, suffering from leukemia, is now in San Diego awaiting a liver transplant. The Arizona Republic ran a story today about her progress.

I featured the Hope For Haley campaign month ago, and have been asked if there is an alternative way to contribute. So far the only mechanism is via PayPal. As a PayPal user I have not had any problems. Even non PayPal users may use the service, with a credit card.

Continue reading →

After a much needed break, it’s back to business, marketing, and blogs.

Got a first-hand look at Sri Lanka after the tsunami that I will be sharing with those who have contributed to our Wave of Hope Campaign. To be sure, people still live in tents in some towns that are not enjoying the fruits of internatonal relief.

Continue reading →

Elizabeth Albrycht of Albrycht McClure & Partners is hosting a teleseminar not to be missed. It’s on the use of RSS in corporate communications.

See more details on her blog here.

But it is today, from 3-4 pm.

Continue reading →

Live 8 is creating quite a stir. It’s got all the ingredients of a buzz marketing campaign. Known brand name (Geldof) +  medium (music) + good cause (poverty alleviation) + of course, politics.

Mr. Geldof knows how to simplify his message very well. Listen to his comparison between cows and people here on the Reuters site. He then asks the audience to "tilt the world a little on its axis" not for poverty but political justice. He called on people to get to Edinborough by any means possible, giving the police a massive headache. Law enforcment: one more buzz element.

Also check how Live8 is tapping into the cell-phone culture to create a digital side to all this:

LIVE 8 is the first truly interactive and digital global concert. You can support LIVE 8 where ever you are, using your phone.

No only can you sign the LIVE 8 list, you can have you’re own bit of LIVE 8 memorabilia on your phone too.

How does this work? Those with camera phones are asked to take pics and send it to +44 (0)7774 777 444 where it will be on the G8 gallery. There’s much more.

Reuters has a special G8 page on the site, as does the BBC here, and NBC here. With names like U2, Cold Play and Bon Jovi involved, the buzz is at its peak now. The organization, One, represents the American voice.

Bloggers will also play a part, as does Technorati’s special site which will keep tabs on G8 related blogs.

Continue reading →

Seth Godin observes that podcasting could become a subscription-based service. I see it as being very useful when used to narrowcast to small, captive audiences. For the moment, podcasting –may because it sounds a lot like broadcating, and web radio– is being treated in a one-to-many fashion. But to make it really worthwhile for both the producer and the audience, it could be used to communicate at a personal level and to small groups.

I just completed an article on podcasting for IABC’s magazine, CW (upcoming Sept-Oct issue) where I suggest a big leap when wireless iPods, WiMax and camera phones with MP3 players become common. An audio newsletter could be beamed at empoyees one day, and they could download and listen to their manager’s presentation at an international conference the next…

On a personal note, I was hoping someone at the IABC international conference now on in Washington DC would do just that. Maybe next year this time…

Continue reading →

Thanks to a blog started by IABC, IABC Cafe, I can stay abreast with the connference on communications that I am missing this year. 

The Blog posse, as my friend Jeremy Pepper calls it, is  posting updates. Cafe was started by Warren Bickford, the IABC vice chair.

Continue reading →

I just wait to read Steve Crescenzo’s article in CW magazine , because he says the most important things about writing and newsletters, in the most amusing way. 

The latest issue (July-Aug 05) is about "Giving the CEO message a makeover." He doesn’t ask yo to kill the boring "letter from the CEO" (you know the column that nobody reads but few are courageous to admit it) but to give the CEO’s writing some -how to put this– cosmetology.

The 3 most offending elements, he says, are the lousy executive photo, the headline (which is predictably weak because the letter zero news) and the language itself. He is so right. CEO’s in formal settings talk in a strange language –an ancient English dialect spoken in the boardroom, perhaps. Here’s a quote from Crescenzo on why the badly written CEO column is a waste of newsletter real estate.

"Believe me, when a CEO goes home at the end of the day, he doesn’t say to his wife, "Honey, as we about to transition from dinner table to the bedroom, we need to proactively reassess your core competencies, and maybe shift some paradigms.."

This CEO-speak is caused by what he calls ‘homicide detective syndrome.’ What’s that? On TV, a cop says things like "we apprehended the alleged perpetrator." When the detective gets home he would say "We caught the dirtbag."

I happen to design and publish newsletters, so I see this on a regular basis. (Brochure-speak is a subset of CEO-speak but that’s another topic.) We once did a study of whether we should replace the printed newsletter with an online edition. Readers said no! The dirty little secret in this can-you-PDF-my-Blackberry age is that people who defend digital products to death, still enjoy a good read when it’s in print –especially when the stories involve lots of ‘dirtbags,’ not ‘perpetrators.’

Continue reading →

I have been asked by a good friend what we could do to help the daughter of someone he knows, who is fighting Leukemia. Haley is a eleven year old from Chandler, Arizona. See this web page.

We often strategize and execute ‘campaigns’ for our companies. What if a few of us could donate some time to raising some money for Haley? By all means, buy a wristband, or a car magnet, or donate via the site. But is there anything else we could do as a community?

Please post your suggestions by clicking on the COMMENTS tab, below, or email me here.

Continue reading →

When is a smart phone, a really smart phone? We hear a lot about VOIP
solutions, especially the Cisco’s IP Phone phone, or the Motorola Razr and a host of multi-media phones. But have
you heard of a smart phone service called CyraCom? It came into being around
1995, but only started making waves last year, with a voice-activated feature.

It’s not a phone  ordinary
people would buy, but it is pretty smart, as communications devices go. Some
600 hospitals and healthcare networks use it. CyraCom, you see, is actually a translation service that has a handset as an interface. It’s a special instrument with two handsets. It gives two users an ability to talk to each other, even though they do not
understand each other. This service -they call it ‘transparent language services‘ — is a critical tool in emergency situations, when
patient and medical staff don’t speak each other’s language. It gives hospitals a choice of about
150 language interpreters. Languages that CryaCom handles are from
Farsi and Flemish, to Urdu and Zulu!

CyraCom, based in Tucson, Arizona. See case here. 

Continue reading →