August 2007
Commentary by blog and social media consultant Josh Hallett on the use of blogs for public relations, media, marketing, communication & branding and from time-to-time the unsolicited opinion.
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Yeah there was the meme going around about blogging less. A good friends recently said, "Yeah, I live that meme...no need to post about it." Ha. Well I'm living it as well.
All my friends that work in the space are busy, very busy. We're all damn busy.
I used to blog quite a bit in what could loosely be termed the 'thought leadership' vein....that was commentary on this evolving world of social media. It was great for business development, but then I ended up getting busy, too busy to blog :-)
You also blog about what you're passionate about, and if you can't really tell, one of the things I'm passionate about now is photography. Many recent posts are initiated by a photo I took.
The crux is that I have a readership that probably started reading me because of one reason or another and I don't feel I'm providing them value. What to do.
Compounding things is the planning of BlogOrlando over the next few weeks. Running an event is a bit of a time sink :-)
Hopefully things will be different after the end of September.
All professions mature and a level of specialization occurs. In some case you're almost forced to choose a path.
With my consulting I've been involved with a number of 'specialized' fields. I've done work with newspapers, corporations, PR firms, ad agencies and CVBs (think tourism). I enjoy working with all of them and the variety definitely allows me to see how social media is impacting a number of industries in unique ways. It also provided a perspective of the landscape that is unique. Similar to how an analyst can look over a number of businesses in the same space. People I know are already drifting towards specialization, it might be legal, medical, non-profit, etc.
I think I need to focus on a few select types of work to improve myself, the question is which direction? Changes are coming and I'm looking forward to it.
Mindy McAdams from the University of Florida blogs about some new classes she is teaching. They focus on new tools available to journalists.
The idea behind this class (and the follow-up, Journalists’ Toolkit 2) is that students will learn to use some of the common tools of today’s cross-platform reporting through assignments based in regular reporting practice. The primary tools in the first class are audio, audio slideshows and blogs. In the second class, the focus will be on video and other motion visuals.
She has the
syllabus online.
In my local area there was a certain PR person that would always e-mail me press releases for my hyperlocal site. You know, the standard mass e-mail to everybody with the release copy/pasted in the e-mail.
This person recently switched jobs. One problem.
The other day I received a release about a local bank but it had come from a medical firm. I thought...that's strange, I really don't see the connection between the two. Then I made the connection. This person was sending press releases for their new job while still working for the old one. Not really a good idea.
Yesterday I visited the Kennedy Space Center Visitors Complex to plan a pre-BlogOrlando event. During my brief stay I was able to 'ride'...whoops, 'experience' the Shuttle Launch Experience (SLE).
That little slip was on purpose. The SLE is just that, an experience, and not necessarily a ride. When you tell people it's a ride they have a certain expectation and if you're thinking ride when you get on it, then it might not meet your expectations. This issue is compounded by the fact that there are a bunch of 'rides' about 60 miles away at places like Disney and Universal Studios.
That brings up the question, how do you marketing or tell people about the experience which simulates an actual Space Shuttle launch without using the word ride? When you try to tell somebody the word 'ride' always seems to slip in there.
I'm a space/aviation geek so the ride/expereince was cool and something I look forward to taking my son on soon.
The rest of my photos from KSC can be found on Flickr.
I think I just found my next camera :-) Nikon just released the specs for the D3 and the D300. While the D3 is sweet, it's also pricey...so it's the D300 that's calling my name.
Looking some more.....the D3 has a full-frame sensor. Perhaps I'll wait till the next generation when the full-frame moves down the family...perhaps the D400?
We've heard this story before....blogger has bad experience with company, blogs about it, then Google works its magic. In this case it's Alex Rudloff who had a problem with Spirit Airlines.
Alex's post is now #2 on Google for 'Spirit Airlines'. It's even ranked higher than Wikipedia. That has attracted a number of comments and e-mail from folks with the same experiences with Spirit. It's sort of a mini Dell-Hell.
The latest twist in the story involves Spirit CEO, Ben Baldanza who had a slight e-mail snafu. Fun stuff.
Walking around the toy store at Downtown Disney I ran into an old friend, Beaker, from the Muppets. Many old memories from the childhood :-)
Beaker was one of my favorite Muppets, along with Animal. Who is your favorite Muppet?
A somewhat belated congratulations to Alex Hillman and the Philly co-working group. Alex recently signed the lease for Independents Hall a cool co-working initiative in Philadelphia. The local paper did a big piece on the launch of their space last week.
Alex Rudloff is testing the waters to see if a similar thing would fly in Orlando. (I guess you have to be named Alex to do this). Even though I'm not based in Orlando anymore I told Alex I'd support any space he launched.
The finalized list of 2007 BlogOrlando sessions has been posted. This FREE event will be held on Sept 27-29th in Orlando at Rollins College. You can register here.
This year's event is shaping up to be a big step-up from last year. We've broken down the event into four separate tracks to represent the diverse audience we expect. Here is the list:
Opening Keynote
The State of Social Media in the World
Leader - Shel Israel, CA - Global Neighbourhoods
Keynoter Shel Israel recently conducted a 10 week Global Survey of the state of social media on behalf of enterprise software giant SAP. He interviewed more than 50 people in 20 countries on four continents. His primary finding: social media is evolving at different rates in different corners of the globe, but it is changing all cultures and businesses. It is beginning even to change some governments.
Israel will report on his finding, some of which are quite surprising most of which indicate that social media is rapidly changing the entire world and in a great many ways, it is for the better.
PR/Marketing Track
Blogger Relations and Ambassador Programs
Leader - Tom Biro, NJ - Open the Dialogue
Working at MWW, Tom spearheaded the Nikon D80 Blogger outreach program. Tom will talk about working with bloggers and building ambassador programs.
Using Blogs for Product Development
Leader - Dave Coustan, Atlanta, GA - Earthlink
Dave Coustan, corporate blogger for EarthLink will talk about how organizations are using blogs as communication tools to develop better products by (gasp) actually asking people what they want.
Crisis Communication
Leader - Laurie Mayers, MI - MS&L
How do you handle a crisis via blog, or created via blog? Laurie Mayers of MSL (think the GM Fastlane Blog) will talk about how GM handles ‘issues’ online, and the limitations of what a publicly traded company can say on a blog.
Customer Relationships with the Rabid Crowd
Leader - Jake McKee, Dallas, TX - Community Guy
As former director of global community development for LEGO, Jake knows a thing or two about working with passionate users. What can your organization do to develop deeper, longer term relationships with your audiences?
Tourism and Social Media
Leader - Annie Heckenberger, Philadelphia, PA - Greater Philadelphia Tourism Marketing Corporation
As the social media guru for the Greater Philadelphia Tourism Marketing Corporation Annie oversees a number of social media programs used to promote Philly. Annie will discuss how tourism groups are adapting to the new media landscape.
Business Blogging the Next Steps
Leader - David Parmet, Pound Ridge, NY - Marketing Begins at Home
David Parmet returns to BlogOrlando to lead a session on the business blogging. We’ll assume you know what a blog is….and start to talk about what some of the next steps are.
Participation is Marketing
Leader - Geoff Livingston, Alexandria, VA - Buzz Bin
In the end it’s all about getting involved. Geoff will touch on a number of topics presented during the day…the foundations are honest, open communication. Can you do it?
Continue reading "2007 BlogOrlando Sessions Posted" »
I could do a long, detailed recap of Gnomedex, or I could just point to Randy Stewart's great comic version. Good stuff.
One of the folks I've been running into quite at conferences is Kris Smith. Of course it's hard to miss Kris, he has a unique look :-)
If you look at the photos below you can see there is a difference. One is casual-conference-goer-Kris, the other is serious business-man-out-on-the-town-Kris. But which one is the real Kris Smith?
Kris is a podcaster by nature so of course he was doing quite a bit of podcasting from Gnomedex. He talked to a number of folks including me. To listen to the podcast you can click here. We talk about conference photography, development and a number of other fun topics.
Update: The attack is over. E-mail is working now.
If you've tried to e-mail me the past few days you would notice that it's bouncing. My mail server has been under a DDOS attack since last week. At one point it was receiving about 4 million bogus connections per hour. Fun stuff. Luckily my host is very cool and has been helping out with things.
The question though is why me? There are some thoughts that it's a deliberate attack, or it could be that I was randomly selected. Not sure. Anyway it will soon be a week.
While I wonder how much e-mail I have missed, most of the people I deal with on a daily basis know how to reach me, i.e. jrhallett@mac.com or jrhallett@gmail.com.
Speaking at Gnomedex Guy Kawasaki said: Good companies are about making meaning, not making money.
A few hours ago Chris Pirillo kicked off the 7th edition of Gnomedex in Seattle, WA. The wifi and EVDO is very slow so photos will be sparse today. Look for a massive upload tonight.
I'm sitting at Orlando airport (MCO) using their free wifi (go Orlando!). It's been a hectic past few weeks and I'm almost at the end of my marathon travel run. I'm at Gnomedex till Sunday and then I make a quick trip to Phoenix at the end of next week.
After that I'm home for a while, thankfully. I need some time to slow down and catch up. Then it's time to start ramping up for BlogOrlando.
Plus there are some work changes coming up....more on that later.
My blogging-partner-in-crime Chris Gent has a wrap-up post for our conference blogging at the 2007 Florida Public Relations Association Annual Conference. We posted a total of 84 entries, 7 podcasts and almost 700 photos.
Like many conference blogging experiences, it was fun, but exhausting. We had a team of bloggers and we tried to closely follow the conference blogging guidelines I set out last year.
Chris and I handled most of the photography. You can find the FPRA Flickr stream here.
One of the highlights for me was Cynthia Gordon's session on how Universal has been using digital and social media. Many of her examples revolved around the recent announcement that Universal Studios Theme Park would be home to Harry Potter.
My mail server is under a massive DDOS attack so it's somewhat difficult to e-mail me right now. If you need to reach me you can use jrhallett(at)mac(dot)com. Of course not having e-mail is also a refreshing break :-)
I'll be blogging from the 2007 FPRA Annual Conference for the next three days. You can follow all the action over at the official FPRA Blog.
We have a team of conference bloggers covering the event. The conference is being held at the Ritz-Carlton in Sarasota, FL.
Quite the title....World of Coke and Pierced Nipples...what do they have in common? Quite a bit actually.
While on a pseudo-vacation last week the family went to the new World of Coke in Atlanta. The opening movie presentation titled, 'Inside the Happiness Factory - a Documentary' is difficult to describe. Is it lame OR stupid?
Earlier this year Peter Merholz visited the new World of Coke and wrote up his thoughts. When talking about the movie Peter said:
The first is a film that *all* attendees much walk, a 7-minute (though it felt like 15) “documentary” of what happens when you put a coin in a Coke vending machine. It cops the style that Nick Park created for his Creature Comforts short (and which has been used by Chevron in their teevee ads) — interviews with various folks about what it’s like for them to do what they do. The Happiness Factory is hackneyed and not particularly inventive, and it was interesting to see just how little the audience reacted to the “spectacle” and the “jokes.” ....
...They felt *very much* like the products of committee, where any truly interesting idea was filtered out as it passed through too many hands, until all that was left was bland, inoffensive, rah-rah with no charm nor personality whatsoever.
Now, on to those pierced nipples.
During the movie one of the characters is interviewed. He's a big slug looking thing that is suspended from a few helicopters. If you look on his underbelly he has a series of nipples and they're all pierced. You can click on the image to get a larger version.
Of course the question is, did the 'committee' that Peter thinks developed the film see these? Or are we dealing with a Little Mermaid penis castle or a Jessica Rabbit flash?
Here is a photoset of only the 'Inside the Happiness Factory' movie. Here is the complete World of Coke photoset from my visit.
I have a new toy for the D80. It's a Nikkor 70-200mm f/2.8D G-AFS ED-IF VR Lens and as you can see it's big :-)
Nikon is loaning me the lens on consignment for a few months. I had planned to take it to BlogHer '07 but it arrived a bit too late. The lens would have worked out great during Elizabeth Edward's session.
I'll be using it at next week's FPRA Annual Conference and Gnomedex.
I'm a bit late on this since I said I would pick the winner on July 31st. Sorry about that, I've been on a half-vacation/half-work trip. On to the important stuff though....
First off, thanks to everybody that entered and shared their desire for the Helio Ocean. It's tough because no matter who I pick I'll end up upsetting somebody else. Looking over all the entries there were a mixture of appeals. Some folks expressed their desire for the device, other talked about what they would do with the device. Some were funny, others were sad.
In the end though one entry appealed to me and to a few other people. What I mean by this is a few friends e-mailed me to vote for one of the entries. Alan Gutierrez has a plan for what he wants to use the Ocean for and it's a good cause. Congrats to Alan and thanks again to everybody else that entered. If I had a few more devices I'd send them your way, but all I had was one.
I'll be contacting Alan to arrange for shipping.
Perhaps some friends could help out with some service :-)
Marijean has a good post-BlogHer item on blogger relations.
As BlogHer started I noted a marked increase in the number of PR folks in the audience. They were there no doubt to 'reach' this highly coveted 'segment'. However during many of the sessions the vibe was very clear, the majority of them resent PR/marketing folks and their intrusions. And they're just that, intrusions. Marijean talks about the relationship aspect necessary for anything to work.
I point back to my earlier post about my rule of blogger relations: Send Something of Interest to Somebody You Know. I also touched on this topic a bit in my 'jaded view' post.
The other thing is that a blogger relationship is based on more than a link or a basic piece of information. What I mean by this is sending a blogger a link to 'check out' or a press release is one of the worst things you can do. When I engage in blogger relations I rarely send anything, I ask. If the blogger has written about a subject or expressed interest in the topic I ask if there is anything else I can assist them with.
There is a big difference between saying, "Here is our latest press release." and "How can I help you?"
A number of other folks also blogged about the relationship with PR and the momosphere.
It's sad that so many PR people don't do things right. All we can hope is that more people in the profession realize that it's about relationships and not pitches or target audiences, etc.
Last week I asked how many photos would be uploaded from BlogHer. Looking at the numbers exactly one week later it was 2,903 photos. If I look now it's 3,321. That's quite a few photos :-)
At some point the uploading from the event will stop, but who knows when. Each day a few hundred more photos are being uploaded. I'm going to put together a set of my favorite shots from the conference. What are yours?
