The senator is neither left nor right, is not for the Greens or the Labor party. He/she has a Facebook group (with 699 members as of Sunday).
The plan is to have a truly democratic party online so that the Australian voter could be more aware of the electoral process.
SOL is quote savvy in its marketing, as you could see here, with supporters stripping down to their underwear in Perth to show how ‘transparent’ (or is it exposed?) this party could be…
“This isn’t a completely new business model; cellphone companies have offered similar deals for a while, but this is the first time I’ve seen this approach applied to mobile broadband.”
“Copywriters wrote copy. Art Directors directed art … But what’s also needed is the evolution of the next iteration. But what does this look like? An Information Architect who completely grasps Human Computer Interaction but can also think fluidly can do things like rapidly create prototypes, facilitate user testing, understand visual design and occasionally write copy. This kind of individual possesses a multi-dimensional creative brain that has evolved over time.”
“We’ve always joked the holiday is like the running of the bulls … This year it will be the fast-walking of the bulls though because we have implemented a crowd control…”
“The wireless industry can’t be an extension of the Internet because wireless bandwidth is finite. It’s a fixed resource, and it is shared bandwidth. The more people who use it in a given area, the less data speed they have.”
You’ve probably heard the news that Facebook has added what’s almost the equivalent of Google’s Ad words. I say almost, because there are some key differences, since we do not subscribe to Google, among other things.
The program, called Facebook Beacon, is quite interesting –and controversial. That’s why I like it. It pushes the envelope. It sure raises privacy issues, because no one wants to involuntarily share personal information with one’s personal network.
Facebook states that there are safeguards, but its critics (who created a protest group on, you guessed it, Facebook!) won’t buy that. The Facebook group has 5,802 members.
I don’t quite agree with all this weeping and gnashing of teeth. No one forces you to joint a network. As one visitor to the protest group wrote, “I don’t understand. They made the site, they make the rules. If you don’t like it, leave. It’s how they make $ and what drives innovation”
Some of you will recall how people got all in a dither when Amazon began a “recommendation” feature using cookies that tracked purchases and saved that information to recommend products based on what people in a similar demographic had bought.
Back to Beacon, there are ways for subscribers to opt out of it, but it is annoyingly cumbersome. Opting into many services is an inevitable by-product of using social media. We could protest, stay as far away as possible from the network, or … just get over it.
If you’re in PR this report published by The Arketi Group is a great affirmation that not all PR is badly done.
It states that:
“Almost all journalists (98 percent) say they prefer to receive news releases via email from companies they know, and 93 percent of business journalists say they prefer to receive news releases via email from companies they don’t know but are in industries they cover.”
That one point stood out for me: that 93% of journalists like to hear from “people they don’t know.” It turns into spam only when it becomes irrelevant to the journalist’s beat.
89 percent) say they tap into public relations contacts.
How do you evaluate a Creative person you are about to hire?
I once told someone that the best way to judge a Creative is not from a portfolio, but to ask the candidate what’s on his/her wall space.
At the risk of being simplistic, I like to say that creative people fall into two categories. Those who put up project lists on their wall (so that they stay on top of things,) and those that have all kinds of stimulating material (so as to stay connected to things.)
Unlike a portfolio, that many of us maintain in analog or digital formats (or both,) a work space cannot be faked. At least not for a long time. The former displays a great sense of order: neatly stacked folders, pencils in place, and zero coffee stains on their desks. Also this: bland work. The moment you see “trophies” dominating the workspace you know there’s something else about the person’s work style. I’m not talking of awards on the filing cabinet, but framed artwork (of aforementioned bland work,) that shout “I’ve made this happen. Respect me. Kneel down before me..”
But there’s another kind of creative. The person who rips out an ad or a quote from Wired and pins it on the wall because it sparks something. Someone who brings back odd bits and bobs from a hike, a picture of funny sign, a made-up word from Seth Godin scrawled on a sticky note, a URL that he/she cannot stop talking about…
This is the kind of person I was reminded of when I came across this brilliant post by David Armano of Digitas about an “Information Architect.”
He cites Tim Brown of Ideo who calls this new kind of creative person a “T-shaped” person. Fits perfectly with my “portfolios are dead –giveaways” theory.
“We look for people who are so inquisitive about the world that they’re willing to try to do what you do. We call them “T-shaped people.” They have a principal skill that describes the vertical leg of the T — they’re mechanical engineers or industrial designers. But they are so empathetic that they can branch out into other skills, such as anthropology, and do them as well. They are able to explore insights from many different perspectives and recognize patterns of behavior that point to a universal human need. That’s what you’re after at this point — patterns that yield ideas.”
Empathetic. Universal. Approachable. If only the world had more of these types.
George Simpson, a columnist for Media Post’s Marketing Daily added this to the PR debate, with some harsh words.
“Show me a child who says “I want to grow up and spend 15 hours a day writing meaningless press releases, begging for placement and swallowing my pride with arrogant writers”–and I will show you a child the school authorities should keep away from m-rated video games, listening to Metallica, or obtaining a gun permit.”
Never mind that Simpson cites stats such as this: 90% of B2B reporters use news releases as sources for their stories.
Chris Anderson’s post has somehow become a polarizing event, with the PR haters on one side of the spectrum taking hugs whacks at much more than clueless practitioners spamming journalists. (Someone commented that Anderson has no right to be offended. WIRED mag has been spamming him for years!)
Amazingly, the PR industry response has been weak. PRSA has published results of a study that very impressively states how journalists largely depend on PR for their stories –the source that Simpson uses. But while it has responded to other issues such as the recent fake news conference held by FEMA, the PRSA has not issued a statement on the Anderson problem. It’s been left to PR practitioners to stand up for what PR is really about.
How long must we wait?
The virtual bureau opened as planned in Second Life, last week. The location is called Future Island. CNN held its first in-world weekly editorial meeting on Tuesday.
But while they will be using citizen reporters, they will not be paid. It’s probably a way for CNN to dip its toes in to virtual worlds and see how it might tie into its citizen journalism project, iReports.
Someday Brian Williams and Katie Couric may be the ones we get our news from —in Second Life. That’s not far fetched, considering how SL is attracting all media organizations.
But it’s also possible that Journalism schools could get into the act too, and (Professor) Larry King could be conducting journalism training in SL. I’m not making this up. There was a move last month by CNN where it said it was setting up a virtual bureau in SL, with its eyes on a citizen journalism. The bureau was supposed to begin operatiing last week.
In related news, Dan Gilmore, the authority on the topic of citizen journalism, is joining Arizona State University’s Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication. Gilmor has not commented much on this move, but I know it’s going to be a big leap for citizen journalism, and add a lot of exciting dimensions to the Cronkite School.
The above picture is from CNN’s iReport via one of its citizen journalists.
“I’ve been working with these people for 20 years. Without them I’m not funny. I’m a dead man.”
“We live evermore in the United States of Fear. We are entertained by it. Titilated by it. Distracted by it.”
“Hi. My name is Steve and I am a Web 2.0-alcoholic. Like millions, I am passionate about technology, particularly the web as a platform and its potential to change business and society. However, recently I learned I have a problem … More recently I have sobered up.”
“THEY are the ones who have to tell the client the baby is ugly.”
“A colorful release name like Android is the sort of thing that Apple or Microsoft would do, and it pretty much confirms my suspicions that Google is aspiring to world domination via the desktop”
“The next 100 years starts today, and it’s going to be different.”
Doing PR for a a complex organization is one thing. Doing PR for a country embroiled in two wars is no walk in the park.
So when Karen Hughes, the U.S. Under Secretary of Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs talks of the “long struggle” ahead of her office to improve the image of the US abroad, she must really mean that it’s a dirty job but someone’s got to do it.
I admire the move the State Dept took with Dipnote, a blog that (I featured last month) lets people in those tough diplomatic spots in Lebanon, Iraq and Sudan talk about what they are up against. On this blog, Hughes talked about her new video (created for the State Dept. by Disney, of all organizations!) that addresses a problem/opportunity she had identified: The need to lay out America’s welcome mat. Perhaps this message has not been communicated enough, considering the accusations of racial profiling, even by airlines. Perhaps all the talk about a fence around the border and Bush’s backing a guest worker program has sent mixed messages that we are –selectively– in lock-down mode. If you’ve been outside any US consulate you’ll know that these garrisoned buildings, bristling with security personnel and cameras are a necessary evil.
So what’s a Public Affairs czar to do?
A video? To be sure it smacks of old-school advertising, and propaganda. Also, when you watch the happy people and slow motion images it comes across as too glossy, too Hollywood. To a first time visitor a few kind words from a visa officer at the embassy, or an airport baggage handler would sear a permanent image in my mind far greater than a video.
Hughes rightly talks of a the US as a complex tapestry, but as we know all to well, the threads of that tapestry are not spun by Madison Avenue, Wall Street, Hollywood and Pennsylvania Avenue. They are coming off the loom of real-time media and citizen journalists in other countries, the families of people caught up in wars and poverty blamed on the US whether we are involved or not. In the flat world, we are so intricately connected (woven if you will) a video will just not cut it.
I am reminded of a previous effort –the so-called Shared Values campaign that was created by ad woman Charlotte Beers. It was so far out of touch with the reality of what was going on at that time, it was halted. It’s time to start looking for Disney-esque fixes to complex issues.
Hoipolloireport 