communication. community. cognition.
Archive for September, 2007
Now is Mobile
Sep 29th
The sun is shining, the breeze is brisk, and it’s a good day to be outdoors.
Say what you will about the mobile revolution — and come down anywhere you like about the state of the mobile web in the United States. (Yes, we’re behind. Nations with less invested in fixed wiring leapfrogged, and rightly so.) The real benefit of Mobile Computing with regards to Social Networking is not the shifting of space, but of time.
I write this not from my PC, but from a Blackberry on a mobile browser. It’s a beautiful fall day, and I’m able to bang out a sentence or two in between watching the kids on the playground. I can share my thoughts closer to the time I actually have them. Who knows how many really great ideas evaporated before they were adequately transcribed?
The Mobile Web gives users the freedom to be inspired where the inspirations should emerge – closer to where we live and recreate, instead of where we toil and work.
Raw thoughts can be just that — raw. But I can take it. I’m in a good mood. And I think I’ll move over there to the shade…
The Value of Ideas
Sep 28th
“It’s human nature to place a higher value on one’s own ideas. That’s why someone will give you a penny for your thoughts, then give you their two cents worth.”
Finding Your Voice
Sep 27th
“The man who does not read good books has no advantage over the man who cannot read them.”
- Samuel Clemens
findingvoice.mp3
(Run time – 2:17)
Yesterday, I pondered the consequences of what would happen if I lost my voice, which for the longest time might have been the worst thing that could have happened to me other than dying. But what does it mean to have a voice, and not use it? Certainly the world would become a noisier place. And it has.
On the whole, we live in the greatest Age of Freedom with regards to free expression. We still have a long way to go, but never have more people been free to share ideas without repercussions. More importantly, never have more people had access to the tools of amplification. We have access to say, to see, to find, and to disagree. The Marketplace of Ideas has never had so many vendors and consumers. And for many of us, the stakes have been raised – because there is a greater need to know how to be heard above the noise. More >
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Losing Your Voice
Sep 26th
findingvoice.mp3
(Run time – 2:25)
My family moved to Idaho when I was three. Actually, the point was just to move west to find cleaner air. My father was a preacher, and we drove west until we found a preaching job. We did – we rented a house – we unpacked the U-Haul – and got some bad news. It turns out that “preaching job” was an unpaid teacher for a Sunday school class. With no other options, my father got out of the ministry, and traded “selling God” for “selling cars.”
After a few months, there were more people sitting in a cramped room for my father’s class than there were in the minister’s auditorium session. A jealous man, the minister conspired with some of the church leadership, and we were ‘invited’ to leave. Not long afterward, that preacher inexplicably lost his voice. Permanently. I don’t know and I don’t care what you think about spirituality – but there is a certain sense of divine justice in that story. More >
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Friendships Defined
Sep 25th
“Friends are defined by what you’d give for them. There are Handshake Friends and Car Key Friends, and even fewer Kidney Friends. Count yourself among the most lucky if you’ve got a Heart Friend.”
Web To Point, Oh?
Sep 25th
From this week’s mailbag:
Dear Ike –
I’ve heard a lot about this ‘Web 2.0′ stuff, and it has me worried. I just figured out how to do my e-mail and the internet, and I’m really not in a position to pay for an upgrade. What is ‘Web 2.0,’ and how much more will it cost me?
Agnes D., Las Cruces, NM
Dear Agnes -
Fear not! ‘Web 2.0′ is not a commodity to be purchased by end-users such as yourself. It’s a series of technologies and structures that companies pay for! You just get to enjoy it!
Dear Ike –
I work in the PR department of a Fortune 1214 company (can’t tell you which one, for reasons of confidentiality), and am the liaison to the corporate IT department. I read your letter to Agnes from New Mexico, and I’m worried that we’ll get stuck with needing to implement these newfangled Web 2.0 interfaces. Yet IT has the budget authority. Help!
Steven J., NYC
Dear Steven,
You’re in luck. You might be confusing ‘Web 2.0′ with ‘PR 2.0′. Web-2 refers to websites that are more interactive and responsive to the end user. They employ a lot of nifty programming tricks that do cool things like auto-fill fields with suggestions, push information before you request it, and allow for greater freedom for user customization. PR-2 is a fancy way for describing what I call the Consolidation of Channels.
In the past, companies would communicate with the public using one medium, and the clients/customers/serfs would communicate back through another. Examples:
1567 – King sends town criers to announce a new tax | Peasants respond with torches and pitchforks
1977 – Candidate sponsors a rally | Voter sends a letter of support.
1987 – Company places an ad on television | Angry customer faxes letter.
1997 – Company sends mailer to home address | Customer e-mails displeasure.
2007 – Ad placed on website | Fan creates mashup of ad, links back to original.
As you can see, communication between companies and people has always been two-way – but not always in the same channel. Now we’ve got the tools to talk to our customers in a more friendly, less intrusive format. And they have the ability to inexpensively talk back to us within that same instrument.
The good news for you is you don’t have to have Web 2.0 to employ PR 2.0, and you don’t need IT’s blessing. The bad news is you need buy-in from the guys in the C-Suite.
Ike – thanks for nothing. How in the heck am I supposed to get buy-in from the suits?
Fake Steven J. – NYC
Fascinating question, Fake Steve. I’ll take that up in next week’s column.
And if you have a question…
The Rise of the Communicators
Sep 24th
If someone asks, I’ll tell them I am a communicator.
I used to ply my craft in the world of broadcast news, where deadlines are stiff and constraints are unreal. You’re expected to weave a whole day’s worth of development on an issue into 70 seconds. If you’re lucky, 70 seconds of video will match up with 70 seconds of audio and tell a unified story. If you’re skilled, 70 seconds video + 70 seconds audio = greater than the sum of the parts. It’s not easy. You have to become a master at finding and exploiting analogies. You have to learn how to frame an issue and the context together so it makes sense. And did I mention you have just one day to pull it all together, with travel to unwilling subjects, and you can’t stretch your deadline by a single second?
Broadcast Journalism departments squeeze out as many graduates every year as there are jobs in the industry. Most never get in the door, and go on to something else. A few stick around for the long haul from behind a cushy anchor desk, where the salary typically becomes inversely proportional to effort exerted. A lot of us, myself included, leave after several years of honing our skills in the crucible that is daily news. And we have a mission. More >
