Disruptive Conversations

Watching The Colossal PR Train Wreck Of The Susan G. Komen / Planned Parenthood Debacle

2012-02-02T09:34:39-05:00

This, my friends, is what a truly colossal PR/social media train wreck looks like...

... and the comment count will undoubtedly be higher by the time you all look at the Facebook page.

If you've missed the story that's all over the news, the Susan G. Komen For The Cure organization has got itself into a PR nightmare. Most of us in the USA and many parts of the world are probably aware of the Komen organization. It is a major force in efforts to raise funds for research into a cure for breast cancer and has made the now ubiquitous "pink ribbon" a powerful symbol. My wife and I have donated to Komen and run in multiple Komen-sponsored races and walks, even before my wife wound up fighting breast cancer.

Today, though, the Komen organization is in a great bit of trouble.

Last year, per the company's story, in an effort to be more accountable and be sure their dollars were making the most impact, they tightened up their eligibility requirements for future grants.

This, in and of itself, is a good thing. Charitable organizations should look at how to be more accountable to their donors and ensure their dollars are going the farthest.

Back in December, Komen notified its longtime partner Planned Parenthood that under the new guidelines they would no longer be able to receive new grants, apparently because Planned Parenthood is under investigation by the US Congress related to its use of federal funds.

Again, one can potentially see the point. If an organization is being investigated about its funding, other donors to that org may want to take a "wait and see" approach until the investigation is resolved.

And if the organization in question were not Planned Parenthood this might all have all been seen as proper fiduciary responsibility on the part of the Komen organization.

Playing With Fire

However, in our hyper-politicized age, and in an election year, an organization like Planned Parenthood is a insanely hot lightning rod. The mere mention of the name can send some crowds into a frenzy.

Anything involving Planned Parenthood is playing with fire.

And so when the AP broke the news on Tuesday, the predictable media frenzy started. Planned Parenthood blamed anti-abortion foes and right-wing groups and was, understandably, quick to stoke the flames and use the issue as a fund-raising tool. Rather smart on their part and last I heard they had already raised nearly as much in donations than Komen granted to Planned Parenthood in 2011.

Komen's position was not helped by the fact that they recently hired a vice president who previously stated her strong opposition to Planned Parenthood. In fact, she clearly stated in a run for Governor of Georgia that if elected she would eliminate state grants to Planned Parenthood.

More wood for the fire.

And then...

... the Internet took over.

A zillion tweets... more and more and more... thousands upon thousands of Facebook comments, posts and shares... more in Google+... more in blog posts... spreading like wildfire all around the globe...

The Response?

And in the face of this insane maelstrom, the Komen organization did...

NOTHING!

As Kivi Leroux Miller writes in her excellent post, "The Accidental Rebranding of Komen for the Cure," the Komen crew was missing in action while all the action was going down.

Komen was not active on their Twitter account nor on their Facebook page.... nor anywhere.

They lost control of the narrative.

They let the story be defined by the media, by pro-choice activists, by critics of Komen, by supporters of Planned Parenthood, by everyone else but them.

Many hours later Komen issued a statement in corporate-speak about how their changes had been "mischaracterized" and that "our grant-making decisions are not about politics". They subsequently released a video from founder and CEO Nancy Brinker that I thought at first might be an honest outreach to people who were so upset... but turned out merely to be a visual recitation of that same corporate-speak statement. Similarly, they posted a few tweets and Facebook updates... but just again pointing to their statement or emphasizing key points.

Meanwhile, people all across the Internet are talking about ceasing all their donations to Komen. Sure, some who support the decision are saying that they are glad they can finally donate to Komen, but they are far outweighed by those who are critical of the change.

Komen's Facebook page is filling up with such wall posts and there is a constant stream of tweets directed at them.

They are, right now, pretty thoroughly screwed.

Now What?

So what does Komen do now? They have completely lost any control of the story - and the stories circulating on the Internet are now feeding upon themselves. How do you even remotely start to unmake this mess?

Given that I try to first believe "Never assume malice where stupidity is a far better explanation," I would personally like to believe that the Komen folks are sincere, that they made some changes to their grant-making guidelines and that this whole debacle has caught them unawares. I'd like to believe that, although admittedly the political angle does make that hard.

If they are sincere, though, were they really so clueless from a PR point of view that they didn't think about the political ramifications of their decision? Or if they did, why were they not prepared for the reaction?

As Kivi Leroux Miller writes in her post:

It’s a no-win situation that could have been avoided had they developed a communications strategy on this decision at the start. Sure, they would have still angered many of their supporters, but I believe they could have avoided this huge rift had they communicated upfront, and honestly, about the decision. They should have released it, instead of letting Planned Parenthood own the messaging.

Exactly.

On something as potentially contentious as this, they should have gone out first, rather than letting the AP and Planned Parenthood define the story.

Or, in the event of the AP story blowing up as it did, Komen should have had a plan to get out there and explain their decision in clearer terms.

Instead, as Kavi Leroux Miller writes:

Yet it appears that Komen wants to desperately pretend that this decision is being made in some completely different context. By not responding at all to the overwhelming negativity being thrown their way, and continuing to pretend that this has nothing to do with a red-hot social issue, they are alienating a big part of their constituency.

It seems like they are hoping this will just blow over. It won’t.

Hiding away won't help them.

While they've spent 30 years building up the organization, this past 30 hours may go far in destroying all they've built up.

Their only chance now may be to come out with more information about the changes to their grant-making guidelines, to explain more about why Planned Parenthood no longer qualifies, to explain what other organizations will no longer be able to receive funding.

It may be too late.

Are You Ready?

All of which begs the question...

are you ready for something like this to happen to your organization?

If a media story runs with comments critical of your organization, are you ready to deal with the resulting social media firestorm? What would you suggest for Komen to do from a communications point of view?

The story is still unfolding, but I think this one will definitely be an example for the textbooks in - so far - what not to do...

Image credits: learnscope and jill_carlson on Flickr

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The Challenge of Apple Forking the EPUB Standard with iBooks Author - 4 Articles to Read

2012-01-24T13:58:02-05:00

While I ranted last week (here and here) about the lock-in aspect of Apple's launch of iBooks Author, an even more disturbing action Apple took was to "embrace and extend" the EPUB standard and create their own version. In programming-speak, they "forked" the standard and are now off with their own proprietary - and incompatible - version.

What this means is that I was wrong in my last post - there is in fact a technical restriction on how you can view ebooks created with the new iBooks Author app.

Basically, you can only view them on the iPad using iBooks.

That's it.

Complete lock-in, both legally and technically.

Here are four posts that go into great detail about the new format and explain how Apple deviated from the EPUB standard:

Baldur Bjarnason: (whose blog design I very much like)
Daniel Glazman: (Co-chair of the W3C CSS Working Group)
- iBooks Author, a nice tool but..

I share the frustration of both authors and have to end quoting Baldur Bjarnason's last post in his series:

The idea behind ePub3 is that it would, finally, bring ebooks to a relative feature parity with the web and enable more advanced authoring and reading tools. The iBooks Author application is exactly the sort of app people expected would be brought to market as a result of ePub3’s capabilities. The iBooks new textbooks are exactly the sort of dynamic, interactive, and rich ebooks that ePub3 enables.
Now that Apple has decided to deliver both as a part of a custom format that throws the future of ePub3 into question. Apple isn’t an outsider who decided that a format somebody else didn’t have the capabilities it needed, it is essentially one of the format’s co-authors. One of the format’s biggest proponents and supporters has forked ePub3.
This is akin to Google deciding to build support for an incompatible fork of the HTML5 standard in Chrome after it had gone through the trouble of building consensus around the standard.
Will Apple add ePub3 to iBooks now? If they do, will they do a full-featured implementation that matches the capabilities of the textbook format, or will they just work like a warmed over ePub2 files?
What was the point of Apple’s participation in the ePub3 standards process?
No. I have to say, I still don’t understand why they did it.

Again, iBooks Author just makes me sad...

P.S. Hat tip to Rich Ruh for pointing me to one of these articles, which then led to others.

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The Super Simple Secret to Stopping Online Piracy (Hint: It's not SOPA)

2012-01-23T10:08:44-05:00

Memo To MPAA and other SOPA Proponents: Yesterday was a perfect example of the failure of your current business models to meet consumer demands - and the reason why there is online piracy. It also shows you the super simple secret to stopping almost all piracy.

Let me explain.

As probably most people here in the US know, yesterday we had the US football playoff championships. Even if you aren't a football fan, it was hard to escape the media attention. Particularly here in the "Patriots country" of northern New England.

While I don't really follow football, I do like to tune in around the playoffs to watch the final games. However, we don't have cable TV so I had no way to watch our local CBS station.

Here's the fundamental problem:

I HAD NO WAY TO PAY TO WATCH THE GAME!

None. Zip. Nada.

No CBS websites had a live stream of the game, nor any other legitimate websites I could find. If I tried to go to the NFL Networks' website and pay to watch a live stream, I got this message:

Yes, indeed...

NFL Network Online is not available in the United States, Canada, Mexico, and any U.S. territories, possessions and commonwealths (including American Samoa, Guam, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands).

MPAA and SOPA proponents, are you paying attention?

I was trying to give an entertainment network money.

I had my wallet open. Credit card out.

And you failed me.

Now, in my case yesterday, I drove across town and watched the game at my brother-in-law's house. But had that not been an option and had I really cared enough, I would have gone online to one of the many live streaming sites and sought out a live stream that someone else was running.

Yes, that "someone else" might be someone who is taking a web cam, pointing it at the TV and using one of the many live streaming apps to send their stream out on the web.

It would have been someone "pirating" the live broadcast of the event.

And I might have had to listen to whomever it was swearing at the screen, eating chips and guzzling beer.

But I would have been watching the game!

Because you, the entertainment industry, couldn't give it to me in the way I wanted.

Artificial Scarcity In An Era Of Abundance

Now, I completely understand why I get this NFL Network Online error message. The NFL has all its various contracts with TV and cable companies where those companies pay the NFL a zillion dollars so that the NFL can then in turn pay the ginormous salaries of the players, the owners and everyone else involved.

The only way the NFL can get the income they need to sustain their business model is to create conditions of artificial scarcity.

The NFL, as a content provider, needs to provide exclusivity to a content distribution provider so that that distribution provider can charge whatever exorbitant rates it needs to charge to cover its investment of a zillion dollars.

The distribution provider, CBS, in this case, needs to recoup its investment somehow... and so it then has contracts with cable and satellite TV companies where it provides exclusivity for them so that they can then charge their own high rates to pay for their fees.

In this case, though, the content distribution provider, CBS, failed to provide a way for a consumer like me to legitimately/legally obtain the content.

The end content distribution networks, the cable companies and the satellite TV companies, also failed to provide a way for a consumer like me to legally obtain the content. I can't simply call up my local cable TV provider on a Sunday and say, "oh, hey, can you hook up my cable this afternoon so that I can watch the game? and then disconnect it after that?" And they have no way for me to simply view their content online over the Internet unless I am actually a paying subscriber (which again, I'm not).

The content provider, the NFL, similarly failed to provide a way for a consumer like me to legally obtain the content when the content distribution provider offered no option.

So, then, as a non-subscriber to a cable or satellite network, I really have only three options:

Forget about the content and go do or view something else;
Go somewhere where I can view the content; or
Become a pirate. Watch the content on an illegal source.

And while I wrote here about wanting to watch a sports game, you can go back through my text and substitute:

watching the latest movie;
watching a hit TV show;
reading the latest novel of a best-selling author;
listening to a live concert;
listening to the latest album of a band.

The fundamental problem with this business model based on artificial scarcity is that is is completely broken in an era of abundance.

I don't need to subscribe to cable TV to get most of the news and entertainment that I want to watch. I don't need to sit in a movie theatre to see the latest movie. I don't need to go to a bookstore to buy the latest novel. I don't need to go to a music store to buy the latest album.

The Internet has severely disrupted all of those "traditional" channels and we now have an abundance of different channels and different ways to obtain our content and entertainment.

Propping Up Scarcity

What we are seeing with the proposed SOPA and PIPA legislation here in the US is

the failure of the entertainment industry to adapt to the new consumer preferences.

Rather than spend their millions to figure out how to evolve and meet consumer demands, the industry would rather spend their millions to reduce/remove/eliminate/kill all those other distribution channels.

They want to prop up scarcity.

Keep their business model alive.

That's what this is all about. It's not about "breaking the Internet". It's about putting the proverbial genie back in the bottle and somehow trying to get back to an era when the entertainment industry could be in control of all the distribution channels and thereby charge whatever they felt like charging.

In the end, it will most likely fail. (Assuming we all in the Internet space continue to pay attention to what is going on.)

But the battle will be hard-fought largely because of the insane amount of lobbying money and people engaged with manipulating the political process.

The Super Simple Secret To Stopping Online Piracy

If you've read this far, you probably already know the simple "secret" to stopping almost all online piracy:

Give people a way to get...
the CONTENT they want
in the CHANNEL they want
at a reasonable COST.

That's it.

The vast majority of people, even those "young kids" people say want everything for free, will pay when a legitimate channel is made available.

Don't believe it?

Consider iTunes. Think of how many millions and millions of songs are being purchased every single day. Because Apple provided a very simple and easy way for people to legally obtain the music content people wanted in the channel they wanted (on their iPods/music players) at a cost that people felt was reasonable.

Now, if you go back a few years, the music industry wasn't too happy with Apple's move and did all they could to fight that move.

Apple understood: give people a way to get the music they want in a downloadable form at a reasonable price.

Sure, there's still probably online music piracy going on - there are some people who will never pay and want everything for free. But for the vast majority of people, why do they need to bother with a pirate music site when a legal download is only a click - and a buck - away?

Amazon's been similarly disrupting the publishing and book distribution business for years now - and now is doing it again with ebooks. Netflix and Hulu have been disrupting the movie and video distribution business.

They get it.

The MPAA and other SOPA proponents seem to be missing the point.

Entertainment industry folks - want to stop almost all online piracy?

Evolve.

Figure out a way to get us the content we want in the channels we want at a cost that works for us.

Figure out how someone like me can decide to watch a sports game and go online and pay to view it live. Figure out how to let someone watch the latest TV episode of a popular series either live or shortly thereafter. Figure out a way that someone can watch the newest movie in their big huge home theatre on the day of release. Oh, and figure out how to do this globally.

Do that and probably 99% of the online piracy you are currently whining about will simply... go away.

Does that trash most of your existing business models?

Absolutely. I'm not saying this is easy.

I'm only saying that the solution from a consumer point-of-view is simple.

Yes, some of the jobs and companies (and even industries) of today may be lost... but new ones will be created. Yes, the transition will be extremely hard on some people. Transitions always have been. But sticking your head in the sand and pretending the transition isn't happening will not make it go away. It will only make the transition harder on the people in those jobs and companies.

Stop spending your millions on lobbying for profoundly stupid legislation like SOPA/PIPA and instead spend it on figuring out how to reinvent the way you connect with consumers in the world of today.

Evolve.

If you found this post interesting or useful, please consider either:

Yes, Apple's iBooks Author Strategy Is Absolutely Brilliant... Just Short-Sighted

2012-01-20T10:23:50-05:00

After my rant yesterday about Apple's über-restrictive license terms for the new iBooks Author app, I had several comments to the effect of "DUH!" and "Well, doesn't it make sense for Apple?"

Yes, it absolutely makes sense for Apple.

It's the proverbial "give away the razors to sell more blades".

Or give out free samples of crack to turn people into addicts.

Give people a FREE, simple, easy-to-use authoring program - AND give them an easy channel to market with iBookstore...

...with just that wee minor stipulation that Apple gets 30% of all sales and locks you in to their marketplace and their rules (including whether or not your book even gets published).

Brilliant.

Abso-freaking-lutely brilliant!

And I have no doubt it will be insanely successful. With this one action Apple will sow the seeds for thousands... probably tens of thousands and maybe even millions of ebooks to be born. Textbooks, sure, but many other kinds of books. Having used iBooks Author a bit yesterday I can say that it really does seem to be a great editor.

And I get that it is called "iBooks Author" and not something like "eBook Author" because it is designed as an on-ramp to get content into iBookstore. Apple's not even pretending it's for anything else...

And I completely understand that, just like the App Store, Apple's requirement to be the gatekeeper to what gets published is in part wanting to control what gets published, but also wanting to ensure that the iBookstore user experience "just works" and that books have a certainly level of quality and lack of technical errors.

And I get that it is free and so comes with these restrictions - although I, for one, would gladly pay for a version that was not locked to a specific marketplace.

And on a macro level, there is a part of me that welcomes anything that brings more competition to the larger publishing marketplace. I'm a big fan of Amazon, make many purchases through Amazon and see a good bit of sales of my books coming through Amazon... but I share the concern of many that Amazon is perhaps too powerful and able to exert too much of an influence in the publishing space. So on a macro level I'm okay with Apple building up their iBookstore to be a stronger competitor. Competition is good, both for consumers and for authors.

But...

... as I said in my other post, iBooks Author could have been so much more.

Edd Dumbill really nailed it in a Google+ post appropriately titled "iBooks Author makes me sad" when he begins:

I adore content creation tools. I've spent most of my adult life either trying to build content creation tools or in the search for the perfect one. How exciting that Apple are getting behind this!

and ends with:

Write a book, any book, as long as it conforms and you permit us to own your distribution. Oh, except if you're giving it away. In that case, have at it, we love free advertising!
No thanks.

Like Edd, iBooks Author makes me sad.

Particularly when there is probably no technical reason to restrict published books to iBookstore. Early reports I've seen indicate that iBooks Author spits out a modified version of the EPUB 3 format. Apple's just doing a little bit of the old "embrace and extend" of open standards.

Give some developers a few hours and someone will have a script out there to make an iBook Author-published book readable in other readers. That script is probably already out there if I search hard enough.

No technical restriction... just a legal restriction.

Like Edd, I adore content creation tools. For the past 25+ years, I've been working with such tools and always searching for better tools that help us as content creators more rapidly create even better content.

There is a need for simple, easy-to-use tools for ebook creation that can help take advantage of the differences of an ebook from a regular book.

Many of the tools out there today are designed to help you take written text and package it up in the appropriate formats for ebooks. While this is great, it doesn't make use of what is different about ebooks. The idea that you could easily incorporate multimedia content... or even bring in live content from the Web. The idea of making an ebook that might appear different on different devices. Or that could be displayed differently for different people (ex. font sizes or typefaces).

iBooks Author could be the "killer app" that totally disrupts publishing and lets so many more people easily publish ebooks.

I don't know if it is, because I've just started playing with it.

But even if it is, what makes me sad is that it is tied to one closed, locked-in ecosystem.

Perhaps it will open up at some point (although I doubt it)... and perhaps it will inspire other app vendors to make a similar app that is just as good or even better, or to improve existing apps.

Yes, the strategy is brilliant and yes, Apple will probably make millions as a result of this.

And I'm honestly glad that Apple released iBooks Author. It's great to see their support behind ebook publishing and it's great to have their entrant into the tools space.

But where the app could have lifted the entire ebook publishing space and maybe even become THE default ebook publishing app (at least on the Mac)... now it may only lift one part of the ebook publishing space.

That is what I find sad.

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Apple's Great Big FAIL: iBooks Author Is Amazing - But Locks You In To iBookstore!

2012-01-19T21:49:12-05:00

It could have been beyond amazing!

Apple's iBooks Author app, announced today and available for free in the Mac AppStore, could have severely disrupted the ebook publishing space. I mean... watch the video... it's got all the ease-of-use, the simplicity, the drag-and-drop goodness... everything we've come to know and love from Apple apps.

It could have been beyond simply "amazing".

As an author and online writer who is employed full-time to create new online content, and who has several ebook ideas in the queue, both professionally and personally, I know first-hand the challenges of ebook creation. While the tools have gotten better over the years, the market could still use the disruption of an app that truly makes it drop-dead simple to create ebooks.

You know, the kind of app that Apple is so good at creating.

However, Apple's iBooks Author app, as amazing as it may be... is a great big FAIL in my book.

It could have been beyond amazing.

Now, I probably won't ever use it.

Why?

Simple...

LOOK AT THE LICENSE TERMS!

Go ahead... download the app. It's free, after all. (Assuming, of course, you have a Mac.)

Then go up to the "iBooks Author" menu and choose "About iBooks Author". You'll get the screen below:

Click on the "License Agreement" button... and prepare to cringe.

Right at the very top in bold print is this message to you:

IMPORTANT NOTE:
If you charge a fee for any book or other work you generate using this software (a “Work”), you may only sell or distribute such Work through Apple (e.g., through the iBookstore) and such distribution will be subject to a separate agreement with Apple.

And if you aren't disgusted enough, keep reading down to section B, clause (ii):

B. Distribution of your Work. As a condition of this License and provided you are in compliance with its terms, your Work may be distributed as follows:

(i) if your Work is provided for free (at no charge), you may distribute the Work by any available means;

(ii) if your Work is provided for a fee (including as part of any subscription-based product or service), you may only distribute the Work through Apple and such distribution is subject to the following limitations and conditions: (a) you will be required to enter into a separate written agreement with Apple (or an Apple affiliate or subsidiary) before any commercial distribution of your Work may take place; and (b) Apple may determine for any reason and in its sole discretion not to select your Work for distribution.

Soooo.... you can use it to write documents that you will give away... but if you want to sell them you can do so only through Apple???

And Apple "may determine for any reason and in its sole discretion NOT to distribute your work? So you go through the whole process of creating an ebook only to find out Apple will not carry your ebook in their iBookstore???

HOW MANY WAYS CAN YOU SPELL "LOCK-IN"?

And of course, you see this message again when you go to actually export a document you create:

Again...

HOW MANY WAYS CAN YOU SPELL "FAIL"?

It could have been more than just amazing.

It could have severely shook up the ebook authoring environment.

It could have been yet-another-reason why people would choose to use a Mac.

Instead, Apple decides that they will use it as a way to lock people in to their specific platform.

Sad.

Sorry, Apple. You've lost a potential user.

Instead you'll find me at the Tools of Change Conference (TOCCON) next month in New York, where the real revolution in publishing will be unfolding as we look at new apps and technologies that can truly feed an open ecosystem of authors and publishers.

Too bad.

It could have been beyond amazing!

UPDATE: - I wrote a follow-up post: Yes, Apple's iBooks Author Strategy Is Absolutely Brilliant... Just Short-Sighted

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Video: Oh, the Places You'll Go at Burning Man!

2012-01-19T08:30:27-05:00

I hadn't really mashed up Dr. Seuss and the annual Burning Man festival in my brain, but a gent named Teddy Saunders did and the result is this amazing video!

It's a wonderfully well-done re-telling of Dr. Seuss' classic book "Oh, The Places You'll Go!" set in the Arizona desert and showcasing many creative people and their structures, artwork and talents. The whimsical nature of Dr. Seuss fits so well with the structures and the people.

For communicators it's an interesting example of taking a well-known story and using video from an event to illustrate that story. I'm not quite sure that anywhere other than Burning Man could illustrate this particular story so well, but the idea is very good to think about for other events.

Enjoy...

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Fun Video: The Joy of Books

2012-01-10T09:08:24-05:00

I can't even begin to imagine the amount of time it must have taken to create this video... but I admire the folks you did it! Fun to watch...

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TheNextWeb Highlights 9 Free Display Typefaces...

2012-01-09T19:51:10-05:00

If you are, like me, a fan of all things related to typography, then you are probably, like me, easily sucked into articles with headlines like:

9 Awesome free display typefaces you can download right now

And indeed this post from TheNextWeb's "Design & Dev" site did pull me in...

... but that's okay, because I enjoy seeing what designers will come up with for new typefaces.

The 9 highlighted in this article are not necessarily ones you would use for typical written text but rather are designed for "display" usage, i.e. signs, banners, logos, etc.

It's a nice collection and I've got some ideas in mind for a couple of them... :-)

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My Report into For Immediate Release (FIR) Podcast #632

2012-01-02T21:58:46-05:00

In this week's For Immediate Release episode #632, my report covered:

Congratulations to Shel and Neville on 7 years of FIR! It's insanely easy to start something like a podcast, but extremely difficult to keep it going... and 7 years is quite an accomplishment!
Text messaging is declining in some areas as people move to using other messaging systems working over the data network.
Codeyear.com provides an easy way to learn a little bit about "coding" if you have ever been interested in dipping your toes in and understanding some of the allure of programming.
A gentle plea to experience the moment rather than focus on capturing moments to share on social networks.
My 3 Words for 2012.

If you are a FIR subscriber, you should have the show now in iTunes or whatever you use to get the feed. If you aren't a subscriber, you can simply listen to the episode online now.

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Are You Following the WordPress Development Updates Site?

2011-12-28T13:15:41-05:00

If you use WordPress for publishing content online and are interested in how the platform is evolving, do you follow the "WordPress Development Updates" blog found at:

http://wpdevel.wordpress.com/

It is the "official blog for the core development team" and is regularly updated with news of their meetings, activities and other projects. For instance, for those of us interested in WordPress Multisite (as I am), there was a recap of a recent meeting focused on ideas for improving Multisite. There was also a thread earlier in the month about adding images to plugin pages on WordPress.org, which explains why many of the pages have now added photos. And there was discussion of what would be in a "TwentyTwelve" default WordPress theme.

All good stuff to monitor for those of you heavily using WordPress. You can, of course, subscribe via RSS... and an email option is also provided.

Kudos to the core development team for keeping us all informed on what they are doing (or thinking about doing).

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The Remarkable Success of Sean Quigley's Little Drummer Boy Video

2011-12-23T09:30:15-05:00

The tools we have today to unleash creativity are utterly amazing. Recording a version of the classic song "The Little Drummer Boy" is not terribly remarkable... but... creating your own arrangement, playing all the instruments and singing, recording and editing a really fun video, and then getting 1.4 million hits on YouTube... and all at the age of 16... THAT is remarkable!

If you haven't seen it yet, just watch 16-year-old Sean Quigley's video:

As a result of the amazing interest in the video, the high school student in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada, (note the red "Canada" gloves in the video) has now been on the major Canadian TV and radio networks and has been receiving attention from around the world. As articles in USA Today and on CTV News can attest, he now has an agent and is in fact selling copies of his song online.

This interview on CTV News back on December 2nd gives a bit of the background:

Of course, at that time, the number of views was still only in the thousands. Now, as I'm writing this post, the number of views is closing in on 1.4 million... and I'd expect it to probably go even higher.

What I find so cool about this all is that Sean Quigley did all of this himself with the help of a few friends.

He shot it all using a basic DSLR camera. He recorded all the instruments and vocals into a computer. He did the editing/post-production - I don't know using what software but there are many inexpensive choices.

No fancy commercial production houses. No extra producers.

Just a talented individual able to make use of tools he had available.

He didn't need to ask permission of anyone to upload the video.

He just did.

It's awesome to see... and he and his family and friends certainly have a good bit to be proud of... I'm looking forward to seeing what he'll do next!

And I'm looking forward to the continued creativity to come out of all the people in this world with the easy access to tools... and an open Internet on which to publish their work...

P.S. Those interested in following what is next for Sean Quigley can follow him on Twitter or on Facebook.

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5 Critical Facts You Need To Know About Jan 12th Launch of New Generic Top-Level Domains (gTLDs)

2011-12-19T09:47:20-05:00

Are you aware that on January 12, 2011, a fundamental change to the Internet's naming infrastructure is beginning? Are you thinking about what it means to your company or organization?

What's going on?

On that date, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) starts taking applications for new "generic top-level domains (gTLDs). Here are five critical facts:

1. The gTLD process may result in 10s or 100s of new top-level domains

A "top-level domain" (TLD) is the final part of a domain name. Originally there were only eight TLDs:

.com .edu .gov .int .mil .net .org .arpa

ICANN was awarded the contract to manage the DNS system in 1998 and engaged in two rounds of domain expansion in 2000 and 2004 that resulted in the addition of 15 more domains (see the ICANN agreements):

.aero .asia .biz .cat .coop .info .jobs .mobi .museum .name .post .pro .tel .travel .xxx

Additionally, there are 250-ish two-letter "country code top-level domains (ccTLDs)" that are handled by each nation. (And some of those ccTLDs are available commercially to anyone such as ".tv". ".me", ".co", etc.)

This new round of domain name expansion happening comes after about an 18-month process by ICANN to engage many different stakeholders in the process. It will allow anyone who can meet the criteria to establish a "registry" for a new domain name. ICANN created a video that explains the program:

2. These New Domain Names Will Most Likely Not Be Out Until 2013

On January 12, 2012, the application process will start for entities that want to apply to register a new gTLD. As explained in the Applicant Guidebook, the process is quite lengthy and involves a significant amount of both technical and business due diligence. It also costs $185,000 USD just to apply, plus the additional costs of setting up the business, technical infrastructure, etc.

The application process closes on April 12, 2012, and given the lengthy process the earliest that new gTLDs would most likely become available is early 2013.

3. You Need To Watch The gTLD Applicants To Ensure No Trademark Issues

ICANN has stated that "approximately 2 weeks after the close of the application window, ICANN will post the public portions of all applications that have been received on our website. At this time, the formal objection period will begin and will last for approximately 7 months." (See Section 4.1 of ICANN's gTLD FAQ.)

ICANN has stated that at the current time they will NOT be notifying brand name / trademark holders of applications using their brand/trademark (see Section 1.12 of the FAQ), so you need to pay attention to what is being proposed.

4. There Is An Opportunity Here for Brands

If your company/organization has both the financial and technical capability to operate a gTLD registry, there is a great potential here for carving out your area of the Internet. For instance, Ford Motor Company could register ".ford" and then start using domains such as:

cars.ford
trucks.ford
about.ford
support.ford
...

The beautiful thing about operating your own gTLD is that:

You do NOT have to let anyone else use it!

It can be your own top-level domain name that no one else on the global Internet can use. gTLD operators set all the rules for how the domain is to be operated - and can choose to not let anyone else use it... or set specific criteria for people wanting to use the domain.

Again, it's very definitely NOT an easy process to get started, but it is something that some larger brands certainly may want to consider. (There is also no guarantee that consumers would accept these new gTLDs and might keep trying to tack .com onto the end!)

5. Communicators Will Need To Monitor These New gTLDs for Defensive Registrations

Once these new gTLDs start appearing in 2013 or so, communicators will of course need to monitor the success (or not) of these new gTLDs and consider whether or not they want to defensively register their brand/name/etc. in the new gTLDs.

This has been the harshest critique of the new gTLD program - namely that it creates a massive problem for brand/trademark holders and will create additional cost for them to register in each of these new domains. There have even been hearings in the US House and Senate related to these concerns and numerous editorials and online articles about this. (one example - and an ICANN response)

However, all current signs are that the launch of the application process WILL go ahead as planned on January 12, 2012. The application process does require each new gTLD to have a "Sunrise" period where entities can register new domains with specific brands/trademarks in advance of the open public registration... but that again will be something communicators will need to monitor.

LEARN MORE...

ICANN has established a section of their site specifically about the generic Top-Level Domain program:

http://newgtlds.icann.org/

Of particular value may be the FAQ:

http://newgtlds.icann.org/applicants/customer-service/faqs (direct link in English)

For those seriously interested or wanting more of the details, the Applicant Guidebook is critical:

http://newgtlds.icann.org/applicants/agb

There has been a great amount of discussion about this ICANN program in various parts of the media. One site I have found extremely useful has been CircleID and their specific page tracking TLDs is here:

http://www.circleid.com/topics/top_level_domains

Now, the reality is that this entire gTLD program could completely fail. There may not be enough applicants... or consumers may simply not accept any of the new domains. Certainly some of the already-approved gTLDs have not found widespread acceptance.

Still, this new expansion of top-level domains seems pretty certain to move ahead - and as communicators we all need to stay on top of what is going on here and understand what we may or may not need to do.

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The Snarky Tweet That Derailed Yesterday's SOPA Hearing

2011-12-16T09:36:46-05:00

Yesterday during the marathon US House Judiciary Committee hearings on the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) (which is an insanely bad idea), there came a point where the entire hearings ground to a halt...

... because of a tweet!

I had just tuned back in to the hearing and it took me a bit to figure out the kerfuffle (via Twitter, naturally), but Iowa Congressman Steve King was bored listening to Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee and tweeted that sentiment:

As Declan McCullagh recounts over on CNET once Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee learned of the tweet she termed it "offensive" in the open conversation of the hearing... and the hearing then went into the type of parliamentary rathole that can occur in such places as the U.S. Congress.

While people can debate whether this was this was offensive and disrespectful of Rep. King or whether it is all being overblown, the more interesting aspect to me was the intersection between Twitter and hearings such as this one.

Any of us who are used to speaking publicly in 2011 are very well aware that there is inevitably a "Twitter backchannel" going on, for better or worse.

And the SOPA hearings were no different... the #SOPA hashtag had way too much traffic yesterday for any sane person to handle... and representatives who were in the hearings were participating in that stream, too. Rep. Zoe Lofgren had a couple of tweets go out during the hearings - and Rep. Darrell Issa had a constant stream going, although in his case he has made it clear that his staff is tweeting during the actual hearing.

In this case of Rep. King, though, it was a more snarky message about another committee member... made on a public stage. Which, of course, got back to people within the room.

I'm sure this won't be the last time... we're in this brave new world where comments and opinions people might have kept private in the past are now made in public forums. Interesting times ahead, for sure...

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New WordPress 3.3 Available With Much Simpler User Interface, Uploading

2011-12-13T09:21:16-05:00

The folks over at Automattic announced last night that WordPress 3.3 is now out and, as per usual, provided a spiffy little video to highlight the new changes:

I've already updated one of my sites and am indeed impressed by the simpler and cleaner UI. Just as one very simple example, it was always annoying in earlier versions of WordPress that you had to click on the down arrow in the left navigation admin menu to get to the menu choices. The new fly-out menus are a whole lot easier! Similarly, the simplification of the upload process to a single button is a nice step.

There are a veritable TON of other changes and fixes for those interested in the gory details:

http://codex.wordpress.org/Version_3.3

All in all it looks like quite a solid release. I'm looking forward to seeing how it works on my other sites!

P.S. WordPress 3.3 is available for immediate download, although if you are running any recent version of WordPress you can simply "update" your site (after backing it up!) through the admin menus.

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Goodbye Black Bar, Hello Grey Bar - Google+ Gets a Visual Update

2011-12-01T16:26:05-05:00

Logging into Google+ today I was immediately drawn to the new visual look:

Quite a departure from the "black bar" that we've come to expect from Google+. Here's what it looked like yesterday - and interestingly still looks like on another computer of mine (I'm guessing there is a browser refresh issue there):

You'll note that in the old style of header, you had quick access to other Google services. This has now been moved to a drop-down menu when you hover over the "Google+" logo in the upper right:

This is all part of Google's overall effort to bring a stronger visual identity and simpler user interface across its various products and services.

So far in brief period of using it, I like the new redesign. How about you? What do you think?

P.S. If we aren't already connected on Google+, how about adding me to a circle on Google+?

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On The Need To FOCUS In Our Age Of Hyper-Distraction...

2011-11-30T09:00:40-05:00

I was amused by a bit of synchronicity yesterday. I've been giving a lot of thought lately to how to better focus my attention. The "bright shiny objects" of our social media world have tended to pull me away from what I should be doing and suddenly I've found that it will be near the end of a day and I haven't accomplished those things I'd set out to do in the morning.

"Oh, look, there's a butterfly..."

It's VERY easy to get distracted. Go to do research and pull up an article... only to start clicking on other headlines and photos... and then somewhere in there remember what you were researching...

The topic of "attention", or our lack thereof, has been much on my mind.

So I was amused to find two articles yesterday that both hit this topic straight on:

Developing Razor Sharp Focus with Zen Habits Blogger, Leo Babauta is actually a blog post written back in July 2011 by Jane Genovese, who also produced this wonderful mind-map/graphic that I've included in this post. (A larger version is in her post.)
Jane discusses a free ebook from Leo Babauta, "Focus: A simplicity manifesto in the Age of Distraction" and lays out her own suggestions and commentary about how to focus more. It's a well-done post with, again, a stellar graphic. (I've subsequently downloaded Leo Babauta's ebook, too.)
Don't blame the information for your bad habits is an interview over on O'Reilly's Radar site by Mac Slocum of author Clay Johnson about his upcoming book "The Information Diet" that hits many of the same themes. While this interview is admittedly self-promotional as Johnson's book is an O'Reilly book, it nonetheless has some good thoughts in it. Here's a quote I liked:
In other words, we don't suffer from information overload — we suffer from information overconsumption and poor consumption habits. The solution is just as simple as a successful food diet. It's about building habits and healthy choices for yourself, and sticking to it.

Tim O'Reilly also had a good comment to the post that included in part this:
Time is a precious resource. You don't get it back. Thinking through what you want to produce as well as what you want to consume, and how much time you'll allocate to each activity, is a good start. But there are a whole host of productive steps you can take to remove cruft from your information diet.

Both of these posts came to my attention yesterday... ironically, of course, both through social media. The first through Google+ and the second through either Facebook or Twitter (and possibly both).

Regardless, they do hit on a crucial topic - how do we manage our time and our attention? How do we focus on what is important? How do we not get distracted by all those forces around us that entice us?

I've been taking some steps over the past few months to increase my focus (including of note to only read email at particular times of the day)... and I need to take even a few more.

What steps are you taking to tame the distractions?

UPDATE: Chris Brogan wrote a great post on this topic on Dec 2nd: YOU’RE NOT AS BUSY AS YOU THINK

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MarsEdit 3.4 Now Available for Offline Blogging on Mac OS X

2011-11-29T16:05:00-05:00

I was very pleased to see this morning an update notice for version 3.4 of MarsEdit, my favorite tool for writing blog posts on my Mac:

This 3.4 release is stated to be focused around improvements to the media management system and I can already see some changes to the UI, such as this "Section" box in the upload window (that I don't honestly know yet why I'd use it):

I'm looking forward to learning more about the new changes and how they can help with handling media in my posts. One of the reasons why I love using MarsEdit is because it gives me a consistent editing platform across my various blogs, some of which are on WordPress and some of which (like this one) are on TypePad. One set of keyboard shortcuts (which I have enhanced and added to). One editor window. Plus, of course, the ability to edit from anywhere that I am, regardless of Internet connectivity.

If you are on a Mac and haven't tried out MarsEdit for writing blog posts, I definitely have found it incredibly useful and would encourage you to give it a try!

P.S. And no, I do not have any affiliate relationship with MarsEdit - I'm just a very happy user.

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WordPress.com Rolls out WordAds, New Competitor to Google AdSense

2011-11-29T09:17:43-05:00

Want to make money from your blog hosted on WordPress.com?

In a fascinating move today the folks at Automattic, the company behind WordPress.com, rolled out WordAds, directly competing with Google's advertising offerings. As they state:

Over the years one of the most frequent requests on WordPress.com has been to allow bloggers to earn money from their blog through ads. We’ve resisted advertising so far because most of it we had seen wasn’t terribly tasteful, and it seemed like Google’s AdSense was the state-of-the-art, which was sad. You pour a lot of time and effort into your blog and you deserve better than AdSense.

Right now there isn't much information beyond what can be found on the application form:

Only publicly visible blogs with custom domains will be considered for this program. ...
Selection will be based on level of traffic and engagement, type of content, and language used on a blog. Some blogs may not be accepted. Entering the form below does not commit you to the advertising program. It just signals your interest in learning more.

Personally, I don't have any blogs hosted on WordPress.com (outside of some experimental sites), so I won't be applying... and I actually share the feeling that most advertising hasn't seemed to me to be very attractive (which is why I don't run any on my sites).

While this is limited now to blogs on WordPress.com, it will be interesting to see if it expands beyond that if the program is successful. Competition certainly is good and having even more options available for bloggers who want to use advertising is good news for all of us.

If your blog is on WordPress.com, will you apply for this program?

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Om Malik's Reflections (and Stats) on 10 Years of Blogging

2011-11-28T15:40:01-05:00

Over the weekend Om Malik published a great piece that's worth reading if you are a writer / blogger:

My 10 years of blogging: Reflections, Lessons & Some Stats Too

It's a wonderful story of how Om first got into blogging... providing some history and names that will be familiar to many. He also provides some rather incredible stats. Here's just one of the sets of stats:

11,165 posts
About 3 posts a day, every day for roughly 10 years.
About 2.06 million words.
About 215 words per post.

An amazing amount of content over all those years. His post has more stats and some great charts.

His "10 lessons learned" are also a great read, particularly his #4 about writing every day, and #5 and #8 which speak to the civility that has always been a hallmark of Om's writing.

I began "blogging" back in May 2000, before the term "blogging" was really even widely used. My writing back then was largely about open source and then in 2001 increasingly about voice-over-IP (VoIP) as the startup I was with (e-smith) in Ottawa was acquired by Mitel Networks and I entered the telecom space.

At that time, there weren't all that many of us who were regularly writing online about VoIP / telecom matters... Jeff Pulver, of course, and Andy Ambramson, Tom Keating, Alec Saunders, Aswath Rao... and probably a few more that my aging memory forgets.

And, of course, there was Om.

He was always there to write about what was happening in the overall telecommunications space and specifically in the "new" world of communications over the Internet. In those early years, we were often referencing what others wrote on their pieces... it was a smaller world and we all pretty much knew each other. (Although in truth I only met Om face-to-face once or twice at one of the various conferences like VON.)

I don't recall now what Om originally called his site but pretty soon his "GigaOm" site became one of THE places to go to stay up on what was going on.

It was quite inspiring to watch as Om took the leap and turned his passion into a full-blown media site... and then a whole network of sites. Even as he encountered and survived health issues, his "media empire" kept growing and growing and growing...

It's certainly been an impressive first 10 years... and I look forward to Om's next 10 years. His "big picture" writing has always been thoughtful and I'm looking forward to seeing even more of it.

I enjoyed, too, one of Om's reflections toward the end of his post:

" curation and sharing of content has become as important as writing. By sharing videos, photos, links, or quotes we are all essentially editors and the sharing itself is an act of editorializing."

Curation (even while some dislike the word) is a key part of what we are doing these days, and I've personally enjoyed Om's "Om Says" newsletter and sharing he's been doing.

Thanks for 10 years of writing and sharing, Om! Congrats on the milestone!

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And So Google Finally Announces the Formal Death of Google Wave in 2012...

2011-11-23T14:22:37-05:00

And so at last comes the end of one of Google's most intriguing and useful collaboration platforms... Google Wave. Amidst the long list of services Google is killing off as part of its latest round of "spring cleaning" was this note about Wave:

Google Wave We announced that we’d stopped development on Google Wave over a year ago. But as of January 31, 2012, Wave will become read-only and you won’t be able to create new ones. On April 30 we will turn it off completely. You’ll be able to continue exporting individual waves using the existing PDF export feature until the Google Wave service is turned off. If you’d like to continue using this technology, there are a number of open-source projects, including Apache Wave and Walkaround.

I admit that from the start I was a big fan of Google Wave. I wrote about Wave a good bit here on this site and used it both personally and professionally. Wave's ability to allow real-time collaboration was really quite incredible, as I documented in this video about collaborative note-taking at a conference. In fact, I still use it weekly as Shel and Neville use Wave to plan the outlines for each For Immediate Release podcast - as a weekly correspondent I use the wave to see what else they are going to talk about to avoid overlapping or to build on what is being discussed elsewhere. They also get to see what I am going to be talking about in advance of me submitting my recording. It also provides an easy way for them to get the links for the show notes.

Plus, as an advocate for an "open Internet" where can control your own data, I loved the promise that the "Wave protocol" would allow for federation between Wave servers... that it would allow for the creation of a distributed and decentralized architecture for collaboration servers.

Sure, Google Wave had a user interface that was very "different" and took some getting used to. It definitely had some clunky aspects to it... and the massive hype around it led to outsized expectations that clearly could never be met.

And now, two years after Wave's launch, some of the features in Wave have migrated into other Google products. Google Docs has a real-time editing capability very similar to what worked so well in Wave. Google+ amusingly has the "play back" capability in its Ripples feature. There may be other features in other services I haven't noticed. It's clear that that work involved with Wave had an impact within Google.

Now it's left to open source projects like Apache Wave and Walkaround to carry on with what Google Wave started. It will be interesting to see what can be done... I'm certainly going to be exploring both projects in the time ahead.

Goodbye, Google Wave, 'twas nice knowing you...

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