The Consortium for Strategic Communication (CSC), of the Hugh Downs School of Communication has awarded Robert Gates, Sean McCormack (Asst. Sec of State) and Ayman al-Zawahiri (he of al Qaeda) among the winners in strategic Communictaion
I don’t think CSC meant it to come out the way it did, when they summed up the listing for the bad guy in the pack with this line: “May he have a year of similar accomplishments in 2009.”
Chris Brogan published an eBook for those who might be wondering how to use social media to find work. It’s a quick read –19 pages — about threading the social needle, and being human and genuine about it.
Research backup: His guide comes at a time when there has been a noticeable shift in how recruiters use social networking sites –a 17 percent increase since 2006, according to SHRM. Interestingly, the top reason (69 percent) was “to recruit passive applicants who might not otherwise apply.”
Meaning, recruiters find you before you notice the job opening. Isn’t that much of social media has proved to be –an amazing on-demand tactic ? But the trick is, to be very pro-active first about social media, not passive!
Student Support: Finally, if you’re a student, or know a student in this difficult job market, check NUResume. It’s packed with helpful ideas, and tools. Also job openings.
We said goodbye to some extraordinary people this year.
PR disasters and signs of the times
Milestones:
Many things to be thankful as 2008 comes to a close. As a member of IABC, I attended some great events, connected with some of the smartest people, and witnessed a huge shift in communications at a local chapter and international level. These included:
If you’re not a member of this professional, global network, 2009 will be the year to join.
2008 brought some sweeping changes to marketing, journalism and PR.
But as PR got tight with marketing, technology and media, the old, timeworn, definitions had to be reworked, as the practice of PR changed. I found a thought provoking definition by Parry Headrick of Shift Communications) who called PR still about fishing, but:
“once there was but an ocean filled with a certain type of fish, today there are channels leading to different bodies of water, where the fish exhibit unusual behaviors and don’t respond to the old bait.
It’s PR’s job to find out what these new fish in these unusual waters like to eat – before ever casting the first line.”
The use of word ‘channels’ is not accidental. The angling metaphor brings up interesting analogies.
Key issues were the blocking of PR Spam, and the assault on the ’embargo‘ that closed out the year.
Maybe I had Arthur C. Clarke on my mind, since he passed on this year.
One event in 2008, the stock market melt down, seemed to come straight out of 2001: A Space Odyssey. The scene when Dave tells Frank they have just one alternative. Unplugging the HAL, because the system is jeopardizing their survival.
I was sparring with a friend about how our headlong rush into technologies, and our marvelous apps might be working against us. (An odd angle for someone who writes about technology) A few countries like Brazil and Kuwait have had to suspend trading on the stock market because the ‘system’ run by machines was endangering itself.
Dave: “We would have to cut his higher-brain functions…without disturbing the purely automatic and regulatory systems.”
Hal: “Stop, will you? Stop, Dave. Will you stop, Dave? Stop, Dave. I’m afraid. I’m afraid, Dave. Dave, my mind is going. I can feel it. I can feel it. My mind is going. There is no question about it. I can feel it. I can feel it. I can feel it. I’m a… fraid….”
Even Alan Greenspan seemed very a…fraid.
Looking back, it’s been a momentous year for me. Fresh into the first week in ’08, I took up an amazing job at the Decision Theater.
In 2008, the words that made an impact, in no particular order have been:
“I’d made sure I’d bought plastic handcuffs and a plastic whistle but I hadn’t realised that the costume had a metal ban.”
“So, although it’s true we need a president who can juggle several issues at once, we don’t need a president who falls prey to “continuous partial attention.”
“Vatican embraces iTunes prayer book.”
“Only a tiny, tiny number of individuals could even theoretically ‘twitter for a living’ — just as almost no one successfully blogs for a living.”
“being in a car with bad brakes driving toward a cliff in the fog.”
“So, why exactly are you planning on the future being just like it is now, but with better uniforms?”
I have strong reservations about this PR stunt conducted by JWT in Sri Lanka on behalf of its client, marketing Reborn t-shirts.
While the idea seemed clever —faking the kidnapping of radio DJs to create buzz, it is very close to something else that has plagued the country: the political abduction of prominent people, including those from THE MEDIA. It even uses a yellow van as the abduction vehicle, alluding to the “white van syndrome” – a reference to the abduction vehicle of choice. White vans have been used to abduct people, who are then held at ransom. A prominent journalist, Keith Noyahr was abducted in May this year and beaten up badly, as reported by the Committee to Protect Journalists.
While the harsh treatment of prominent media people –even one this month — may be a fact of life in some parts, creating a parody of the situation only helps legitimize it.
They steal your passwords, hide under the folds of your browser, and turn off your virus protection software.
Alex Dragulescu turned these deadly computer virus into visual models that look like works of art.
We work with huge amounts of data at the Decision Theater, and often over-simplify what we refer to as a ‘visualization’ — a JPG, a PowerPoint, a map are, after all, visualizations. But data can be rendered as a city, a strand of DNA, a mathematical model…a Twitter user’s digital profile? That’s an eye-opener for me.
Take this, from Alex Dragulescu. It’s a look at what Twitter users do when they micro-blog, creating a data profile as it were. As Alex puts it:
“we visualize the topical and temporal patterns to create a portrait of the author.”
Hoipolloireport 
