Neal's Notes

Whilst recently adding some blogs to our blogroll, our webmaster, Elyssa Malakoff, who heads up central NJ-based ELM Design World (highly recommend utilizing her services!), suggested that I do a posting outlining some of my favorites. Great idea!

So here’s my Top 10 list:

Boy Genius Report – Was founded by an anonymous blogger known as Boy Genius. Has a great online following as he or she has constantly broke stories in the mobile gadget space.

College Fashionista – As someone who is severely fashion-challenged (I strategically line up dress shirts and corresponding ties in a row and also memorize combinations so I don’t walk out of the house looking like a clown), I normally wouldn’t glance at this. But my niece is blogging for them so am slightly biased, and of course, her postings are top-notch.

Daily Kos – This is an online political community with more than two million monthly visitors, established in May 2002. Contributors have included numerous senators, members of Congress, and governors.

engadget – Geek Central for gadgets.  ‘Nuf said.

Gizmodo – More gadgets and technology. Launched in 2002, Gizmodo is now Gawker Media’s largest blog, with more than 100 million page views a month in traffic.

Guy Kawasaki – Always has cogent posts.  He’s a managing director of Garage Technology Ventures, an early-stage venture capital firm and a columnist for Entrepreneur Magazine. Previously, he was an Apple Fellow at Apple Computer, Inc. and author of nine books including Reality Check, The Art of the Start, Rules for Revolutionaries, How to Drive Your Competition Crazy, Selling the Dream, and The Macintosh Way.

Lifehacker – Lifehacker is a software and productivity blog providing tips and tricks for streamlining life with computers. The blog “points out software downloads, web sites, do-it-yourself projects, how to’s, tutorials, shortcuts and tips for going beyond the default settings and getting things done in the most clever, unexpected and efficient ways.”

Media Decoder – Published by the New York Times, contains a lot of relevant media-oriented stories. It’s an insider’s guide to the media industry, tracking the movie business, television, print, advertising, marketing and new media.

The Onion – I loved MAD Magazine as a kid and have always enjoyed warped, off-kilter humor. Now I get my chuckles from reading the wicked satire of The Onion. It’s read by more than 3 million people each week, online and in print in select cities. Another million folks listen to Onion Radio News. In 2007, The Onion also launched Onion News Network, a 24-hour video news network.

The Opinionator – Online commentary from the New York Times – lots of interesting subjects, topics and contributors. Worth checking out.

The Computer Industry Almanac now estimates there are more than 1.8 billion Internet users worldwide. But at least in the U.S., we’re not hangin’ out very long on any particular web page (and I plead guilty too) – Nielsen reports that the average American spends only 56 seconds there before moving on.

So are we becoming a bunch of digital gnats – just buzzin’ around, filling our heads with all sorts of arcane facts/figures that are forgotten hours later, or are we actually getting smarter?

Could be a bit of both. Two contributors to a recent Wall Street Journal story, Does the Internet Make You Smarter or Dumber, presented cogent arguments for each supposition.

Clay Shirky, who most recently penned Cognitive Surplus: Creativity and Generosity in a Connected Age, believes that the Internet will fuel the intellectual achievements of the 21st century. Shirky said the Internet “restores reading and writing as central activities in our culture.” He added that we’re now witnessing the rapid stress of older institutions accompanied by the slow and fitful development of cultural alternatives.

“Just as required education was a response to print, using the Internet well will require new cultural institutions as well, not just new technologies,” said Shirky.

Shirky stated that we’re going through an explosion of publishing capability today, where digital media links over a billion people into the same network.

“This linking together in turn lets us tap our cognitive surplus, the trillion hours a year of free time the educated population of the planet has to spend doing things they care about,” said Shirky. “In the 20th century, the bulk of that time was spent watching TV, but our cognitive surplus is so enormous that diverting even a tiny fraction of time from consumption to participation can create enormous positive effects.”

Nicholas Carr, author of The Shallows: What the Internet is Doing to Our Brains, said that the Internet, with its constant distractions and interruptions, is turning us into scattered and superficial thinkers.

“When we’re constantly distracted and interrupted, as we tend to be online, our brains are unable to forge the strong and expansive neural connections that give depth and distinctiveness to our thinking,” said Carr. “We become more like signal-processing units, quickly shepherding disjointed bits of information into and then out of short-term memory.”

Carr added that he finds it distressing to compare the cognitive effects of the Internet with those of the printed book.

“Whereas the Internet scatters our attention, the book focuses it,” he said. “Unlike the screen, the page promotes contemplativeness. To read a book is to practice an unnatural process of thought – our fast-paced, reflexive shifts in focus were once crucial to our survival as they reduced the odds that a predator would take us by surprise or that we’d overlook a nearby food source. We now have to strengthen the neural links to counter our instinctive distractedness, thereby gaining control over our attention and our mind.”

Carr believes that we’re at risk of losing this mental acuity as we continue to spend more time online.

So were you able to read this brief essay in its entirety sans interruptions?

Or were you simultaneously texting, using IM, viewing split screens with multiple web browsers going, and chatting with someone on your iPhone or Crackberry?

Spotted an excellent posting by Craig Silverman in the Columbia Journalism Review. We have all stood in line at the grocery store and perused through the often sensational headlines/articles from the National Enquirer. I’ve always wondered how the publication goes about checking their sources and substantiating what’s published.

Silverman interviewed Barry Levine, the executive editor/director of news at the National Enquirer.

Levine told Silverman “obviously we want the public to believe the stories we’re writing but things are different because we’re in the business of revealing secrets … there’s obviously a lot at stake, so the vetting process as it relates to sources really is the most important part of the process.”

Levine, noted Silverman, said that no two Enquirer stories are the same in terms of their verification requirements.

“We have a very particular system that is probably more elaborate than any other newspaper or magazine in America,” Levine says. “We have a battery of devices available to us, and I’ll use as many or all that I feel necessary to bring in a story.”

Silverman outlined some of the safeguards:

Independent Corroboration: Levine regularly has multiple reporters hit the pavement to see if they come back with information that corroborates what the paper has already received from a specific source. Usually, the reporters have no idea what their colleagues are up to.

Polygraphs: The weekly has relationships with several polygraphs experts. “If we have very revealing information about a celebrity or newsmaker, we will have the source sit down and be administered a polygraph test based on specific questions about what they told us,” Levine says.

Affidavits and Recordings: Silverman said that the Enquirer will often have off-the-record sources sign a legal affidavit that attests to the accuracy of their information, and also ensures they will appear in court to testify to their information. This helps the weekly satisfy its legal team, though Levine told Silverman that in a decade with the publication he’s never found himself in a courtroom. Another step is audio taping and videotaping the source to provide a clear testimony. This is to ensure that “a few months down the road they won’t change their story.”

Legal Vetting: The Enquirer’s legal team is very much a part of the vetting and verification process. Levine told Silverman that anything in a story that is new information specific to the Enquirer’s reporting must be sourced and provided to the company’s lawyers. As an example, the Enquirer lawyers required editors and reporters to go back and get additional corroboration before giving the green light to publish about Tiger Woods’s infidelity.

Traditional Fact-Checking: There are six employees in the magazine’s Florida-based research/fact-checking department. They check quotes with people who have gone on the record and verify information such as the spelling of names, addresses etc.

Food for thought next time you see some of those screaming headlines – and here are just a few that the Enquirer currently has online:

Oh-Oh-7!: Daniel Craig’s Steamy Gay Kiss

Tom Cruise Meltdown

Zac and Vanessa: Trial Marriage

The Night Lana Turner’s Daughter Stabbed Her Lover to Death with a Butcher Knife

Over the past few months I’ve read numerous stories on how businesses of varying sizes and all walks of life have utilized Twitter to snag more customers and increase revenues.

Small businesses, in particular, that have limited marketing/advertising dollars to spend have found Twitter to be especially useful.

A New York Times story accentuated this:

“Because small-business owners tend to work at the cash register, not in a cubicle in the marketing department, Twitter’s intimacy suits them well.”

The article also quoted an industry analyst, Greg Sterling, who focuses on the Internet’s influence on shopping and local businesses:

“We think of these social media tools as being in the realm of the sophisticated, multiplatform marketers like Coca-Cola and McDonald’s, but a lot of these super small businesses are gravitating toward them because they are accessible, free and very simple.”

Probably one of the most ubiquitous Twitter business success stories is Los Angeles-based Kogi Korean BBQ. Owner Mark Manguera tweets his BBQ truck’s locations and times each day so customers can easily find him. They now have topped 22,000 followers and more than 800 people are served at each stop.

But on a personal note, we’ll be starting project work for a client in the next few weeks – and it was all based on a bawdy Tiger Woods retweet from a friend.

The retweet was seen by a former project manager who worked for a company that we represented for 14 years until they took their PR in-house. I had not corresponded with this soon-to-be client in almost a decade. But somehow he spotted that retweet circulating out there in the digital ether world, tracked me down and contacted me.

And to add to the karmic connections, one magazine example that I sent to him to demo our capabilities also featured his photo (unbeknownst to me) – he was conducting a product demonstration for a public agency official.

Proverbial bottom line – I went out and bought a few extra California Lottery and Mega Millions lotto tickets (haven’t won yet, but there’s always that next drawing) and suggested to my soon-to-be client to do the same. We had a good chuckle over a coffee but were both amazed at how effective social media tools can be, no matter how they may be implemented.

Got any weirder examples? I’d love to hear them.

A recent PR Week/PRNewswire media survey didn’t reveal any startling trends, but definitely reinforced what’s fast become obvious – journalists are relying more and more on utilizing social media to research and craft stories.

The survey queried over a thousand journalists in the U.S. from all genres – blogs, online news sites, TV, radio, wire services, newspapers, and magazines. More than 1,300 PR practitioners were also polled and were asked how the changing media landscape is affecting them and the way they work with journalists.

Some interesting snippets/factoids:

37% of traditional journalists are being asked by their bosses to contribute to Twitter; 39% to a blog as part of their expected/expanded duties.

62% of PR professionals follow individual journalists and media outlets via social networks.

61% of journalists have received pitches via Facebook in the past year; 44% via Twitter.

59% of traditional journalists also have a blog; 31% are also writing a blog for their traditional outlet, up 28% from 2009.

17% of PR pros responding to the survey are pitching to traditional media outlets with less frequency; 66% target bloggers more frequently; 45% go directly to consumers more often.

Two comments from editors for the survey were particularly noteworthy:

“It’s a digital age, and we’re looking for the fastest, most efficient way to reach out to other people in the industry,” said Eric Berger, science blogger for the Houston Chronicle. “These types of outlets provide that efficiency. Just a few seconds online can provide a list of contact information for someone you may be trying to reach, and it’s a time saver. That’s important in an environment where people feel like they have less time.”

Kate Corcoran, technology editor for Women’s Wear Daily, added that Twitter posts are morphing into news coverage – reporters post updates to complement more detailed stories to be published later.

“In covering parties or fashion events, our reporters will use Twitter to talk about what’s going on, and that may coincide with a story that might take a day to write,” Corcoran said. “There’s definitely more of a blurring between the professional and personal with social media than there was before.”

The vernacular often used is ‘content farm’ – briefly defined by Richard MacManus, as “a simple formula for success on the Web: create a ton of niche, mostly uninspired content targeted to search engines, then make it viral through social software and make lots of money through ads.”

This formula won’t hasten the demise of journalists but it’s definitely changing the profession’s business model. There’s now a proliferation of these companies offering gobs of quickly produced, made-to-order content.

One of these, Demand Media, has an army of more than 7,000 freelancers and churns out thousands of stories and videos each day. Demand Media uses proprietary algorithms to analyze search keywords; story topics are then generated based on what pops up. Although contributors get a byline, remuneration is minimal – about $15-30 for each article.

Two key competitors include Associated Content, which calls itself, ‘The People’s Media Company™,’ and AOL Seed. Associated Content states it has a community of 350,000 contributors and access to a library of more than two million syndicate-able pieces of content. AOL Seed assigns, purchases and distributes content for all of AOL’s properties.

News industry analyst Ken Doctor recently told PR Week that this business model could ultimately threaten traditional media.

“It’s establishing that content can be gauged per unit, as opposed to a whole package of a paper or magazine,” Doctor said. He expects that by 2013, traditional news syndicates could be using these metrics to measure content.

Forrester Research analyst James McQuivey also quipped that “perhaps consumers don’t care as much about quality content as editors traditionally thought.”

And for PR practitioners, they too will have to adapt. Jake Wengroff, global director of corporate communications for Frost & Sullivan, told PR Week that “with Demand using thousands of freelancers, where would PR people even start their pitch? As far as traditional media relations, there’s no obvious role.”

If you’re a baby boomer (defined as someone born between 1946-1964), you may find this posting relevant.

The May issue of Money has a feature by Dan Kadlec entitled, ‘How to Age-Proof Your Career.’ Rather than simply copy/paste the entire article, thought I’d paraphrase/quote one key point that jumped out.

Social media is here to stay – embrace it or stagnate. Period. One good example the article mentioned – last February, Sun Microsystems CEO Jonathan Schwartz resigned. Few years ago, this would have been done probably via a press release. Schwartz did it via a ‘tweet.’

Social media isn’t a flash trend, the article went on to say, it’s part of a tech-tonic cultural shift.

Increasingly such tools are being used to do business – and even generate revenue, “so boomers need to get comfortable with them,” says workplace researcher Bruce Tulgan, co-author of Managing the Generation Mix. “Not learning social networking is like being the aging person who never turned on the TV.”

While 75% of Gen Y workers have profiles on social media sites like Facebook and Twitter, only 30% of boomers do, according to a recent Pew Research Center study.

What else should baby boomers do to remain competitive in today’s marketplace?

Money says for starters, “become part of the Twitterati…from a career POV, you want to follow thought leaders in your field. Identify a few people you really respect in your profession and see who they are following. By reading them you’ll stay current, and by repeating – or retweeting – what you learn, your newfound edge will show.”

The article recommended devoting a few hours a week exploring the features of key social media sites.

“Tell yourself that time spent being sucked into the vortex of Facebook is career development,” says Tulgan.

‘Nuf said.

Whilst doing some research for a client re: various social media analytic tools/programs out there in the digital netherworld, I came across a number of them that may help your business or organization – and many of these are free.

Here’s my ‘Baker’s Dozen’:

Addictomatic presents all mentions of keywords or brand on one page. You’ll see images from Flickr, videos from YouTube, posts shared on Digg and much more.

Backtype – A comment aggregator, it searches through conversations across a variety of social media platforms including blogs, social networks, and other social media forums. It also offers email alerts.

Blogpulse Conversation Tracker – Creates a thread view of conversations that started on one blog and resulted in other bloggers responding with posts on theirs. Maps a blog’s permalinks to see where the conversations are heading.

BoardReader explores forums to figure out what users are saying about your organization.

Brandwatch — A social media monitoring system. Tracks brands, companies, campaigns, competitors.

coComment.com – A comment aggregator, coComment monitors online conversations through comments made on different social media sites. Follows news sources, blogs or forums. Also enables users who sign up for this free service to track all comments they take part in that mention their brand.

Google Trends – Enables you to see how popular the brand is across search engines, including what news articles have mentioned the term. This free tool also shows what regions have the highest search volume for the term, what cities it is most searched in, and in what languages the term has been searched for.

Ice rocket is a social media search engine covering video, blogs, Twitter, news, and images. Select to view results by day, week, or month, and narrow down the language field. Use their trend tool to see a visual representation of a brand, average numbers of mentions on a daily basis, and more.

Keotag – A search function that sifts through tags that user submitted content has been labeled with. The search process has two parts — first is to enter the keyword; second is to select one of the 17 social media platforms to search through.

Twazzup 2.0 beta is a dashboard that can gather all mentions of your organization on Twitter and present them in an organized manner.

Trendrr – The free account option allows users to track 10 terms from over 40 of the top social media and online services. Real-time social and digital media tracking allows users to monitor your organization and also key competitors.

TweetDeck — A Twitter and Facebook feed aggregator, tweet deck also has a keyword search option which updates in real time.

Yacktrack — Can search for comments on your organization’s content from various sources such as Blogger, Digg, FriendFeed, Stumbleupon, WordPress blogs. Has a ‘Chatter’ tab allowing you to perform keyword searches on social media sites and then notifies you of instances of your brand name. Search page results also provide an RSS feed for the search term.

Social media outreach can be a particularly challenging endeavor for a company’s services, especially if the products and services are highly focused for a niche technology market.

Hope you find these useful!

Last weekend I attended the 47th SABEW (Society of American Business Editors and Writers) annual conference in Phoenix. We arranged for one of our clients to participate on a panel entitled, “The Future of News Delivery.” The conference was held at the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism at Arizona State University in downtown Phoenix.

Some very interesting/innovative sessions. Arthur H. Sulzberger, Jr., publisher, The New York Times, delivered a keynote entitled, “Reinvention v. Continuity: Keep a Brand Strong During a Period of Transformation.”

Unless you have been hiding in a cave the past few years, you know that the business model for newspapers has been tossed upside down. Many distinguished, century-old papers like The Rocky Mountain News, Seattle Post-Intelligencer, and more, have either gone belly up or have been forced to retool, downsize their editorial staffs and go digital. Ad revenues at the vast majority of daily papers in the US have decreased markedly.

Sulzberger, who was introduced by Lawrence Ingrassia, the Times’ business/financial editor, talked about a new monetization that includes some free and some paid news content. A number of journalists in the audience questioned how this will play out but Sulzberger is confident the Times is moving in the right direction. We’ll see.

Other tracks I attended were also quite interesting – “Paid Content on the Web – the Future or False Hope?,” “Beyond the Flak – Developing Great Sources Inside Companies,” and “The Future of Web Search,” all played to packed audiences and the subsequent Q&A discussions were lively, pointed and informative.

Just as impressive was the ASU facility itself – 14 digital newsrooms and computer labs, two TV studios, 280 digital student work stations, the Cronkite Theater, the First Amendment Forum, and more. The faculty includes former Washington Post executive editor Leonard Downie Jr., former CNN anchor Aaron Brown, and digital media guru Dan Gillmor.

An interesting and educational weekend. And a good forum and some positive publicity for our client as well.

Neal Leavitt, Leavitt Communications

Welcome to my blog. Not exactly Pulitzer-Prize winning opening prose but there you go. Admittedly, am long overdue – what finally prompted me to get off my digital fundament was a recent book I read by David Meerman Scott called ‘The New Rules of Marketing & PR‘.

One example he used really grabbed my attention. Scott indicated that one of his favorite examples of success with the new rules of marketing and PR came from the pastor of a church in the Washington, DC metro area.

“But his isn’t a typical church, because he doesn’t actually have a church building,” said Scott. “Instead he uses video technology, blogs, podcasts, and the Web to tell stories and build a spiritual community both on- and offline…here’s a guy who’s a church leader without a church building, and through innovative use of a blog, a podcast and some video, he has become a leader in his field. He’s got a bestselling book and tens of thousands of devoted online followers. Whether you’re religious or not, you’ve got be impressed with his business savvy and with the way the new rules have helped him reach his buyers.”

Like the church pastor, I want to position Leavitt Communications as a key player in our industry.

Goals/objectives of this blog are simple and straightforward – comment on salient marketing communications/media issues and ancillary topics, establish a dialogue with all of you out there who are gracious enough to respond, and subsequently hope this spikes traffic to our site to help with new business development.

And I’ll also take care of the self-promotional stuff right now:

http://www.leavcom.com/referralprogram.htm — Links back to our referral program. Self-explanatory. Welcome your leads, happy to remunerate you.

http://twitter.com/leavcom — Follow us on twitter; happy to return the favor.

http://www.linkedin.com/pub/neal-leavitt/1/882/1a2 — Join my LinkedIn network; ditto on my joining yours.

http://www.facebook.com/neal.leavitt -– Join me on Facebook too.

Looking ahead, I welcome your thoughts and in advance, thank you for your comments.