Well, not really. But every so often one runs into brand new ground in the field of crisis communications. I’ve discovered just such a new landscape. Back to a more regular schedule soon.
Thanks to all those who have been checking on me…
Archives for January 2008
Invisible Music
Posted on January 18, 2008 Written by
I drop the kids off at school each morning. It’s a short drive, no more than three minutes, but they can be demanding about what they want. Usually it is a song.
The exact song varies from time to time, but one will stick for a month or two as the favorite. Past requests include Peter Gabriel’s In Your Eyes (the 11-minute live version, for when the commute was longer); Johnny Cash’s cover of Rusty Cage (complete with child-seat head-banging); and now, Show Don’t Tell by Rush. You could make the argument that my little girl just wants to please her daddy, but hey — you’ve got to foster an early appreciation for the classics.
My son isn’t out of this equation. He likes almost all of the songs, provided I can cue his participation in the chorus with hand puppets that sing along.
So that’s the setup. This morning, after getting parked and past the chorus, I opened the car door and the music stopped. My daughter was still jamming along, and I asked her what she was listening to. “My invisible music,” she said.
I’m a fan of instruction by analogy, and she gave me a perfect setup. I don’t expect her to immediately walk around using “inaudible” in her conversations, but language is learned in context – and that goes for the languages and jargons of business and science. If she can connect the “in” in the words as meaning “not,” then she can cross over and catch the “aud” part as a Latin root. From there, it’s another puzzle piece she can use to ferret out new words on her own.
It reminds me of the need to be accessible without being too basic. There’s a fine line between talking down to your audience and talking over their head. If you do it right, they learn a new vocabulary through context, and feel smarter instead of dumber.
[tags]Ike Pigott, Occam’s RazR, language, communication[/tags]
Rush to be First
Posted on January 17, 2008 Written by
Jeremy Pepper wrote a great post about “Truth and Blog Truth“, dealing with the rush to judgment that leads to publishing before proper examination. There is a great human desire to be first with information. Those who position themselves as brokers of information are more valued – and that’s human nature. It explains why the prophet, the Grand Vizier (or the Rasputin) has such a secure job… as long as their information is good.
So I ran a little test.
It involved a non-existent Firefox plugin, that ironically is designed to provide a level of security for people who don’t want to see Rick Astley pop up on their screen. Rick-rolling is silly, but I just as easily could have used antivirus scares or an anti-phishing tool. It wouldn’t have mattered much.
I disguised the Google Video link with a PHP link tracker. For the non-tech inclined, it is a link that re-directs to another destination, and triggers a counter.
Within minutes of posting my bogus plugin, social networking users had posted my link to both Digg and Reddit. I can’t speak for the motive… maybe they got snared and wanted to share the misery. Or maybe they wanted to earn the credibility of being “first” with this new exciting information.
It has made me pause, and think about the very plugins I have used on this site, and have installed for other people. I can’t code in PHP, but I’m fairly certain I can slog my way through the code and make sure I’m not passing malicious information on to a greedy plugin designer. Fortunately, the WordPress community is large enough and talented enough to sniff those sorts of things out in a hurry, but really… how many people using the software bother with the geek news?
Remember… 90% of phishing and internet scammery is not technical. It is human engineering. And in an internet culture where we have a rush to be first, we’re all ripe for the taking.
An Ounce of Prevention
Posted on January 17, 2008 Written by
Well, it’s finally time to unveil an idea I’ve been kicking around.
Are you tired of following links on websites, only to get “Rick Rolled?” If you’ve had it happen to you, you might be interested in a Firefox browser plugin that would automatically proxy any links leading to YouTube or other video sites, and check them against a dynamic updated database of known Rick Astley videos.
After all, some people will click on anything. I know I could have used it.
So far, people have clicked to download the plugin.
Coattails and Drafting
Posted on January 15, 2008 Written by
It used to be considered an insult to say that someone or something was “riding the coattails” of something popular. For politicians, it is a back-handed sleight meant to diminish the accomplishments of a winning candidate. In other fields, it’s an implication that somehow the project or achievement is a fluke, and would not have succeeded otherwise. It’s the equivalent of penalizing a sprinter for having the wind at his back.
However, that paradigm of “having someone on your coattails” implies that you are being slowed down. A zero-sum game, where any energy expended elevating others is a drag on your potential.
Reciprocal Buzz
I live in the heart of NASCAR country. I’m not a fan by any stretch, but you can’t live 40 miles from the Talladega Superspeedway and not be a little conversant in the lingo. And the relevant notion is “drafting.” At high speeds, cars traveling in the same air-lane can go faster than by themselves. The trailing car gets pulled in by the air displacement of the first car — and the prevention of disruptive airflow around the back end of the lead vehicle speeds it up as well. It’s not “pushing” with a cushion of air, but the net result is about the same.
The same can be said of viral marketing campaigns, that spoof or play off something popular. Who benefits from this video?
Local 6 News rides the coattail of the undefined creature of Cloverfield. I’m willing to bet the homage generates a little pro-movie buzz along the way. The nature of influence is not a closed system.
[tags]Ike Pigott, Occam’s RazR, viral buzz, marketing, movies, WKMG, Cloverfield[/tags]
It’s Who You Know
Posted on January 15, 2008 Written by
I’m a former news guy, so I do know a little something about credibility. I had sources that would tip me off to things that were happening. I had some that would pitch me on items that were important to them. Over time, they would earn or lose credibility based on what they told me and how well it panned out. The key there is “over time,” implying a relationship of trust — and it has a powerful business application.
Yesterday, I heard from an acquaintance of mine in New York City. He happened upon the partial collapse of a building in SoHo, and was close enough to share an eyewitness account on Twitter.
BREAKING: PARTIAL COLLAPSE OF TRUMP SOHO BUILDING UNDER CONSTRUCTION. MAJOR CHUNKS RAINING DOWN ON STREETS
(Think of Twitter as a micro-blog and instant messenger that is friendly and compact enough to work on a cellphone.) He also found a way to upload a picture to his blog.
I’ve never met Peter Shankman in person. I met him through his blog, I’ve talked to him a few times and we’ve traded e-mails. Heck, I even helped him late one night when he was looking for information about the trains in San Francisco. But I’ve had enough interaction with him to know that he was onto something with the building collapse. In fact, I was able to alert my supervisors about the incident a full 15 minutes before the first cable news networks even sniffed the story.
Then late last night, while contemplating what I’d write for Now Is Gone, I got another Twitter message, this one from Jeremy Pepper:
Earthquake at 9.13 PM
That got my attention… and moments later I was able to confirm that everything was alright. It was only a 3.0 on the Richter scale. (This isn’t the first quake I’ve caught on Twitter before the news, either.) My social network is proving to be a source for newsworthy items long before they are mentioned in anyone’s news.
Faces and Curtains
Let’s contrast that to yesterday’s discussion about Wikipedia here at Now Is Gone. Not to rehash, but there are still issues about Wikipedia’s trust level. Most of the editors enjoy the protection of Oz’s Wizard, hiding their names, faces, and agenda behind a curtain of anonymity. Yes, it is nice to have hordes of free labor to work on your site. It’s not so friendly to business, and not as trustworthy, when those faceless minions can break you and you don’t have an opportunity to offer “truth” from a neutral standpoint.
The trick to social media is the “social” part. Just like every other aspect of business, it is who you know. Wikipedia might do really well in the search engines, and might just be good enough to write every term paper for the next ten years. But I don’t trust it blindly. I do trust the words of Peter and Jeremy, because we’ve established a baseline of credibility. The technology lets you “roll your own” sources and inputs — your judgment remains your filter about who to believe and who to reject.
Today, it’s even more than who you know. It’s what “the people you know” know.
(Ike Pigott regularly blogs at Occam’s RazR)
Cold and Dark
Posted on January 14, 2008 Written by
{{myquote|It is not always darkest before the dawn; that is when it is the coldest. The darkest time comes for those who refuse to open their eyes, and miss the chance to chase first light wherever it might rise.}}