Some excerpts of the conversation:

“It’s essential [to build our presence up on social media channels]…. [I]f you are not visible in a social media context … you’re invisible, and rapidly becoming obsolete despite a wealth of knowledge.”

“If you can’t be found by search, do you exist? Even if you have the highest quality information, if no one can find it, so what?”

“[Y]ou do have to make yourself [and your content] visible, even if you have assets, knowledge, etc. that you do feel are of high value. If nobody knows about  them, their value goes way down [to] near zero.”

“I think we are actually seeing the first generation emerge … in our workforce that believes that transparency is the best way to do business — that by sharing, we further build our reputation and our knowledge and our clout.”

“Most organizations are [still] led by those who were not raised digital — who were not raised in this richly collaborative, open environment. Younger customers expect a level of openness that [some of the older generation just] cannot imagine.”

“If your company were a person, would I friend it?”

“One of my personal mantras is developing business models around interactions, not transactions….”

“[Look at today’s web-native businesses,] in which the entire business model, from the ground up, is based on interaction with consumers or potential consumers; where your innovation, your product development, all of these things are done publicly so that your customer relationships and your marketing exists at every stage, in every corner of your business.”

PRobecast episode #91 featured special guest Todd Van Hoosear along with Topazers Alison Raymond, Joanna DiTrapano, Tony Sapienza and Evan Siff talking about the recent purchase AOL made, content curation, texting while driving, hatchbacks, etc. Here are the issues we covered:

Has Social Network Content Creation Plateaued – Research from Forrester is saying that while social media use is on the rise, social media content creation has shown no measureable growth over the past year. Are you a creator or a curator?

When it’s the Case of TMI, Curation is Key – Paul Gillin recently had an article in B2B Magazine talking about the importance of not just creation, but curation. There is almost too much information out there – and to find the important things, you must find ways to sort through all the information coming in.

AOL’s New Purchase: TechCrunch – AOL bought TechCrunch for around 40 million dollars. What does this mean for the future of TechCrunch. Can they really be unbiased when owned by a public company?

Bye, Bye Texting While Driving – There has been a lot of discussion over the texting ban. 30 states and the District of Columbia have banned it. However, research has been finding that since the ban, crash rates rose as people where trying to go “under the radar” while still texting. Living in a society that is always connected, what do you think of these bans?

Can RIM’s PlayBook Run Up Against the iPad? – RIM recently announced a new tablet called the PlayBook. This seems to be the most similar competitor to the iPad. Do you think the PlayBook has a chance against the giant that is Apple?

Are Hatchbacks Cool? – Ford has reported that 60-percent buyers are opting for the new Ford Fiesta hatchback, stating that just over 8-percent of cars last year were hatchbacks. Is the hatchback a new trend?

His later cover story on math lead to a book contract for the Numerati, for which he took a sabbatical from his long-time weekly reporting job. Of course, he had to come back to BusinessWeek before setting off again, but this time the decision was made for him. Bloomberg had purchased the venerable publication from McGraw-Hill and changes there included massive layoffs.

Steve now blogs on his own site is writing a new book, which is due out in early 2011. During his interview with us via Skype, he talked about leaving BusinessWeek and starting a new phase of journalistic life. Among the interesting quotes from the interview:

“I didn’t enjoy my time back [at BusinessWeek after the first book-leave] as much, in part because the magazine was failing and it’s no fun to be part of sinking ship.”

“The money [at Bloomberg] comes from the data, journalism by itself couldn’t create the kind of empire they have”

“The advertisers can tune into your own interest and your behaviors, learn about you and target you with advertising, so they get to know you much better than an advertiser in a print publication.”

“I think you need to accompany book writing these days with blogging and keeping up with people on Twitter and other more social media platforms. And then once you do a book then perhaps you can get more revenue by doing things like speaking.”

“The one positive that comes out of [the changes in journalism] is that there is more opportunity for people in their 20s because organizations are getting rid of people like me in their 40s and 50s.”

“Even writing about IBM… I’m benefiting from IBM’s own publicity and in a sense I’m part of it. That puts me in a different role and I just have to be clear with people about what my possible conflicts are… but it’s something that we all deal with in one way or another because we have to find new revenue streams.”

Fresh Ground principal Todd Van Hoosear, not one to click on many ads, was intrigued enough by her approach to click on her Facebook ad, and wondered if it had led to any job leads or other opportunities. They spoke yesterday by phone from her home in the Houston area about her search, social networking and public relations.

While the ad hasn’t led to an offer yet, she’s netted nearly 400,000 impressions, 761 click, and emails from all over (including Fresh Ground and Edelman, among many others) after her $100 five-day run. She targeted based on interests (e.g., PRSA, social media, journalism) and agencies. If you have a job for her, tell her I sent you!

Some highlights of the conversation:

“Our vision for online community was to … flatten the company if you will, so that it didn’t matter where you were in the world, what function you were in, what level of the organization you were in — that you would have equal access to other people in the company to ask or answer questions, to really transcend so many of the barriers that create silos.”

“As I started to look at [flattening the organization], I discovered that there were a number of pilots going on within the company testing social media, community, blogging, [and how we could help partners and customers. I] asked those folks if they would like to be part of my initiative to find a platform that we could use internally, with a common hope that we could find a platform that would work internally and externally, but no promises.”

“We launched both our internal communities and our external communities at the same time as we launched our [new] brand back in March of 2008…. What this allowed us to do is to offer both our customers and our employees a functionality that they didn’t have before of immediately asking and getting questions answered.”

“Most of our communities are actually public communities, so whether or not your a part of, say, our services team, if a conversation, if content in that area interests you, you can search for it…. We really only have private communities when there is a business reason for that community to be private — where there’s a need for confidentiality.”

“We’ve created [an] environment which leans to being very open. Actually, the very first employee who commented in our NetApp Live … internal community was someone from Singapore. And what we found with other initiatives is that people who are from outside the U.S. are some of the early commentors.”

“I completely respect the concept and the practicality of a firewall to protect data that needs to be protected. But not all information needs to be protected.”

“We’re using the Jive Software platform, and their most recent upgrade includes a concept of ‘bridging’ [both external and internal communities while respecting confidentiality]. The bridging would allow an employee to see public content … with the same search that they would use … in the internal community.”

Due to the #ashtag incident, the original keynoter, Neville Hobson, was unable to attend the event, and Manish was asked to step up and present, which he did. His story, in which he draws parallels between the rise of social media and the rise of nuclear power, was provocative and thoughtful, and we’re including an excerpt of it as this week’s Fresh Ground podcast. You can catch the full audio on the Fresh Ground blog.

The keynote will also be featured in an upcoming For Immediate Release Sessions & Speakers episode.

So here are some excerpts from the first part of Manish’s presentation on measuring social media and business value:

Sam has watched mainstream media drop the ball and really struggle with becoming more social, and when Fresh Ground Principal Todd Van Hoosear caught up with him at the NewComm Forum last week, he asked him what brought him from Boston to Silicon Valley, and what he sees on the horizon for the media world.

Some highlights of the conversation:

“In an era of social media, I really wonder how influential some of these smokestack media journalists are.”

“You’re seeing the dynamic content show up anywhere but the ‘packaged goods’ media — the media that the clients demand to get in, but hardly anybody reads anymore.”

“[PR agencies] are turning to us saying ‘what language … tools … and data can you give us to … wake up [our clients] to the fact that they really should be excited about that blog post and maybe not so much about the [mainstream hit].’”

“Most of the packaged goods media people have the static mentality: ‘I’m filing the story and I’m done with it; now I’m going to do a new story.’”

“[Use] bloggers as lightning rods for discussions.”

“There [are] all these reasons that these big titles aren’t participating the way that they should, and somebody’s going to pick up the winnings on that.”

“The influencers … in the near future are going to be not just the authors but frequent commenters.”

“The people have the power now. I don’t know how many clients are even comfortable with that. I think the clients [still] feel good with the imprimatur of the expert.”

“All of us are liberal arts refugees in some way, shape or form in this business…. You really have to have facility for [the ones and zeros].”

Fresh Ground Principal — and former classmate of Hanson — Chuck Tanowitz discusses storytelling, journalism vs. “journalistic”, trust, and several other subjects with Hanson.

Some of the more interesting excerpts:

“Even before I took this position at the University of Washington I actually stopped calling myself a journalist…. I just felt like journalism, at least the way we define it in the United States, has become too constricting.”

“I don’t believe in objectivity. I think it’s a canard.”

“I … don’t think [journalism] works anymore even as a business model…. Because of … social technologies … we can actually bring transparency and authenticity to communications. Maybe you don’t need to have that journalism thing as high up in the food chain as we used to.”

“The stories come from the people who actually are living those stories. That’s what’s changed [thanks to digital and social technology]. Everyone is a storyteller.”

“Stop thinking about ‘journalists’ and the journalism industry… and start thinking about being ‘journalistic.’”

“There is huge demand for somebody with the skills and mindset of a journalist outside of journalism.”

“There’s so much noise out there because all of us can communicate. This is the great democratization of communication…. If you want to remain a professional communicator, what matters most is your ability to actually influence people within a community.”

“Anybody who goes to journalism school to be a journalist is wasting his money.”

About the Fresh Ground Podcast: Each week, we feature 10 minutes of insights from people driving change in today’s competitive business and media landscape. We talk about the evolving worlds of media, public relations, marketing and business, with a special focus on creating more social organizations.

Fresh Ground Principal Chuck Tanowitz caught up with Christina at DEMO Spring 2010, where they talked about how she got to where she is today at the age of 27, and what’s next for her and for journalism and blogging in general.

Some of the more interesting excerpts:

“I wanted to write for as long as I can remember … but it’s funny how I got into [blogging]. I was a frequent contributor on USA TODAY’s music blog, and the music editor … liked my comments and reached out to me….”

“I want to make sure that … when people are Google stalking me … that I’m worthy of stalkage….”

“I’m geek chic…. I’m into technology, I’m into film, I’m into fashion. I can talk the talk, genuinely, but I can also go and be excited about pretty shoes.”

“The place that I’m working … is less important than [my] doing valuable work….”

“[The] old style journalism that existed even 10 years ago doesn’t exist anymore.”

About the Fresh Ground Podcast: Each week, we feature 10 minutes of insights from people driving change in today’s competitive business and media landscape. We talk about the evolving worlds of media, public relations, marketing and business, with a special focus on creating more social organizations.

Photo credit: Grant_Robertson

Fresh Ground Principal Chuck Tanowitz had a chance to speak with Reagan about her current projects and perspective on the shift going on in the advertising industry today.

Some of the more interesting excerpts:

“Clients are seeing … social media as this great way to get into the marketplace, but they’re doing it … haphazardly and we think they’re really missing an opportunity to extend their brand….”

“[Social] media [is] advertising…. You can control [it], to a certain extent, and you can make it work for you … just as hard as your offline or paid media.”

“Your … creative people [need to ensure that your social media] brand matches and complements … the website.”

“The reason why SuperBowl ads are still expensive is because they work.”

“[Broadcast] ads have to work a little harder. Ads don’t just create top-of-mind awareness…. They’re becoming much more interactive….”

“You shouldn’t buy anything unless you’ve got a great creative direction.”

About the Fresh Ground Podcast: Each week, we feature 10 minutes of insights from people driving change in today’s competitive business and media landscape. We talk about the evolving worlds of media, public relations, marketing and business, with a special focus on creating more social organizations.

Some of the more interesting excerpts:

“Journalistic freelancing is very very difficult these days because, basically, pricing has gone to hell. You’ve got thousands of people out there willing to do something — I can’t say it’s really the same thing that professional journalists do, but it seems to be good enough for a lot of people — and they’re doing it for nothing.”

“It’s kind of an ethical wasteland… It’s very situational. You have to figure out the rules as you go along. One thing I have been doing is some blogging for [a company] — what amount to feature pieces… I’m not writing specifically about [their] products, but I’m writing about a field that’s of interest to them.”

“I [thought] I’d get a lot of pushback from my journalistic colleagues. I didn’t.”

“I’m also writing product reviews … that would not be published anywhere, so they can anticipate what they can expect to see when they launch.”

“I think it’s becoming important for companies to promote themselves in new ways. [Sam Whitmore] has been promoting this idea for some time: that companies, because of the changes in journalism, can’t really count on journalists to cover their products in the way they used to, and they have to get more sophisticated about basically doing internal journalism to promote their own products.”

“I am not looking to build an empire at this point in my career. I’m not looking to retire either….”

“I think that Om [Malik] has done a fabulous job [with] GigaOm Pro…. Basically he’s providing analyst-type reports really competitive with what Gartner and Forrester [do] at substantially lower prices.”

“The fact is what analysts do and what journalists do is not particularly different, they just do it for different audiences.”

“In my years with BusinessWeek, I don’t think I ever quoted an analyst…. I found quoting an analyst was a lot like quoting another journalist, which … I wouldn’t do.”

“I wish I had a copy editor [as a blogger]. Good copy editors are invaluable [and] hard to find. It drives me crazy every time I get a blog comment pointing out a grammar error, a spelling error…. I’d be a lot happier if that editing got done before it got posted.”

About the Fresh Ground Podcast: Each week, we feature 10 minutes of insights from people driving change in today’s competitive business and media landscape. We talk about the evolving worlds of media, public relations, marketing and business, with a special focus on creating more social organizations.

Some of the more interesting excerpts:

“Innovation is something new that’s been created … that is providing some value…. It’s not just a dream, there’s something active about it.”

“I’m probably one of the few people who can say that a blog actually directly brought them to a job…. The blog sealed the deal, otherwise I would’ve been nobody to them.”

“We help companies grow by helping them understand how they can make innovation repeatable.”

“Innovation starts with … solving a job that the customer has to get done.”

“We don’t want to come out of the box. That’s such a nasty cliche, but what you really want to do is clearly define the box, and then ideate your butt off all the way inside that box so that you’re coming up with ideas very deeply in this space….”

“It’s not the technology that disrupts, it’s the business model.”

About the Fresh Ground Podcast: Each week, we feature 10 minutes of insights from people driving change in today’s competitive business and media landscape. We talk about the evolving worlds of media, public relations, marketing and business, with a special focus on creating more social organizations.

Some of the more interesting excerpts:

“[Social media] was … one of [the] hats I was wearing starting about a year ago when I got involved with our Facebook page and created a … Twitter handle for us…”

“[Mike Troiano] gave a description [of the] role of the community manager…. I thought that was really interesting because … well, that’s what I’m doing…. I came back excitedly saying ‘I have a title’…. A light bulb came on, and I [officially] became [a community manager] three days after LaunchCamp.”

“We’re unique because our community exists in real life…. [Our moms are] already online, so we’re just showing them that we’re there too.”

“As soon as I engaged on Facebook, things exploded….”

“I try and keep them talking…. We have a question of the day…. I’ve been experimenting around with what types of questions get the most response, and I’m finding that moms really like to give advice to one another and recommend things to one another…. And I hooked our blog up to Facebook,… so now we get the Facebook traffic over to our blog, which is nice. [Just] doing those two things exploded our number of fans … without much effort.”

“We’re starting really small [with video]. We have a flip video camera and me and my husband filming me in my bathroom, which was the first video blog entry about potty products…. I said ‘hey, let’s bring people into my bathroom,’ so we did.”

“Measurement is becoming more and more of a priority, and [we’re] trying to get a little bit more sophisticated about what we’re doing, rather than having it be shots in the dark.”

About the Fresh Ground Podcast: Each week, we feature 10 minutes of insights from people driving change in today’s competitive business and media landscape. We talk about the evolving worlds of media, public relations, marketing and business, with a special focus on creating more social organizations.

In episode 7 of the Fresh Ground Podcast, Chuck Tanowitz talks with Howard about how the “quiet period” — most typically associated with investor relations around public IPOs — also applies to private funding rounds as well. Private companies engaging in angel, venture capital and private equity funding most commonly take advantage of Regulation D, Rule 506 to avoid registering a public offering (and thus keeping the offering private). This regulation places a number of restrictions on marketing the company that many communicators are unaware of.

The key takeaway: your company’s PR track record is not just important going into an IPO, it’s important at all stages of private equity offerings.

Some of the more interesting excerpts:

“[The] more you can establish a track record early-on of ordinary course communications that don’t have anything to do with corporate developments or certainly offerings or intentions to raise money, the better you’ll be…”

“If you use social media as a regular channel for your communications for ordinary course business announcements … that will [help establish] that you’re not engaging in general solicitation….”

“The key is [not to] have any mention or even implication of fundraising….”

“[The] cases that make the headlines are not going to be the close calls, but that … doesn’t mean that companies shouldn’t clearly think about what they’re doing….”

“If you know the people you’re talking to already … you don’t have to worry, it’s general solicitation — you’ve already got the relationship. The concern is when you bring in people who you’ve never met before to invest in the company, and how did they find out about the offering…”

“There are some other strategies that have worked that the SEC has indirectly blessed here, or not complained about. For example, if the company has a relationship with a registered broker/dealer or placement agent, and they have people they’ve pre-qualified before the offering to invest in this type of offering [then] that middleman can set up meetings between the company and clubs of angel investors and things like that.”

“[You] can’t just [go] to wherever you’re invited to speak at and start talking about how people should invest in your company…”

About the Fresh Ground Podcast: Each week, we feature 10 minutes of insights from people driving change in today’s competitive business and media landscape. We talk about the evolving worlds of media, public relations, marketing and business, with a special focus on creating more social organizations.

Chuck and David discuss the Boston Globe’s “Your Town”, how the editorial process works, how community bloggers can participate, the impact of layoffs, the accelerating speed of change in the industry and who their competition is (and isn’t).

Some of the more interesting excerpts:

“[Our] model is to link to [other sites] and in most cases, those bloggers are delighted to get the attention and get the links in Boston.com.”

“[Boston’s] Universal Hub [website] is a really clever, energetic aggregation site and I think Adam [Gaffin] is doing a really good job… but is he a competitor? In this environment, it’s difficult to define somebody as a competitor when, in a lot of these cases, we’re all linking to one another.”

“Boston.com… is one of the most successful websites in the country, one of the top ten regional newspaper websites in the country [with] really quite a loyal following.”

“There are discussion groups. [Readers have the] ability to sign on and become a registered user on Boston.com and create your own blog. There’s a terrific mom site that has created its own community. There’s another terrific site called Raw that has created its own community of amateur photographers.”

About the Fresh Ground Podcast: Each week, we feature 10 minutes of insights from people driving change in today’s competitive business and media landscape. We talk about the evolving worlds of media, public relations, marketing and business, with a special focus on creating more social organizations.