My business partner, David Waymire, and I are in New York City, where we just accepted the Silver Anvil in public affairs, the nation’s top award for public relations excellence. If you’re in the PR field, you know about the Silver Anvil awards. If you’re not, the best way to describe the Silver Anvil – a surprisingly non-descript metallic trophy with one arm raised up in victory – is that it’s considered an Oscar among public relations practitioners.

After wrapping up some final client work and getting on a plane this morning to head to the AXA Equitable Center in Manhattan, Dave and I were recalling our past brushes with this strange-looking trophy. Dave (in 2000) and I (in 1996) have each been honored to receive a Silver Anvil in past years. We were working for different firms then, but both of those earlier awards were also in public affairs for managing ballot proposal campaigns.

We couldn’t be more thrilled to be winning our first Silver Anvil working together at Martin Waymire Advocacy Communications, which we established in 2004. It’s a tribute to our great clients, and to the amazing people who have joined our firm over the years. It’s a team that compares favorably with the best firms in the nation, as this award shows. And we are ready to put that national-award-winning team to work for you.

The winning campaign: Defeating Proposal 5, a prescription for gridlock

The firm was recognized by the Public Relations Society of America for its work on the campaign to defeat Michigan’s Proposal 5 during the 2012 election season. Called the “Super Minority” constitutional amendment, Proposal 5 would have wrecked havoc on our state by allowing just one third of the members of either chamber of the Legislature to block any tax or close any tax loophole. Talk about a recipe for gridlock that would have decimated law enforcement budgets, closed schools, drilled bond ratings, and quite possibly sent some of our cities eventually into bankruptcy. (Stuck with a similar constitutional amendment, California developed a huge budget problem. Since overturning its superminority proposal, the state has righted its fiscal ship and is creating jobs at a rapid pace.)

But we understood that on paper, the proposal sounded good if you didn’t know anything about it. Who doesn’t want more legislative support for important fiscal decisions? Before we launched the NO on 5 campaign, polls showed the proposal winning with about 70 percent of the vote. It was heavily, heavily bankrolled by in-state and out-of-state billionaires and millionaires, and was supported by many Tea Party organizations and the so-called “Americans for Prosperity” special interest group.

In the end, thanks to our campaign, Michigan voters defeated Proposal 5 by 69 percent to 31 percent – which, we are proud to say, was the largest margin of any of the questions or candidates on the statewide ballot. It also received 260,000 more “no” votes than any other ballot proposal.

Behind the scenes of Proposal 5

Our entire staff was immersed in this campaign, working with a large, statewide coalition and managing media relations on a daily basis. We ran an extensive social media engagement and social media marketing campaign, and we developed viral videos – featuring ‘odd couples’ such as Gov. Rick Snyder and his 2010 Democratic opponent, Lansing Mayor Virg Bernero, and a University of Michigan and Michigan State University fan — to explain why pretty much the entire state was coming together to reject the extremist proposal. We even got Nolan Finley, editor of the conservative-leaning Detroit News editorial page, and Stephen Henderson, the editorial page editor of the more liberal Detroit Free Press, to do a video together.

Of course, we couldn’t have done it without our clients. Martin Waymire would like to thank the founding members of Defend Michigan Democracy for retaining our firm to run the NO on 5 campaign, including the Michigan Health & Hospital Association, the Michigan Municipal League, AARP Michigan, and the Michigan Education Association.

Beating this extremist measure was good for Michigan, and being recognized for our work by our peers nationally is particularly sweet.

It’s been a very fulfilling — and long — day.

But if there’s one thing the Martin Waymire team is known for – other than our nose-to-the-grindstone work on our client campaigns – it’s our “work hard, play hard” ethic. I’ll be honest with you – Dave and I are looking forward to changing out of our suits and into our blue jeans and taking advantage of being in the city. We’re heading out, with our wives, to catch some good blues music in the city that never sleeps.

In mid April, we launched “Get a Shot. Save a Life,” a pertussis awareness campaign sponsored by one of our long-time clients, MESSA. The campaign ran during National Infant Immunization Week (April 20 – 27).  The goal of the campaign was to increase awareness in Michigan about this highly contagious and potentially deadly disease and stress the need for adults to get vaccinated to protect the infants they are around.  Even though most people are vaccinated against pertussis at some point in our lives, the immunization’s protection wanes over time. In addition, immunizations don’t fully protect babies until they are 1 year old.

Knowing we had a lot of information to share, and knowing the awareness campaign was for a short time period we figured the best way to get this message across was for people to actually see first-hand how pertussis can devastate families right here in Michigan. We worked closely with Sean and Veronica McNally, Oakland County parents who tragically lost a 3-month-old daughter to pertussis last year, and produced the following heart-wrenching video (you may want to grab a tissue):

As the McNally video was coming to life, we knew we had a very strong visual message and turned the spot into a: 30 PSA and got it aired on TV in most markets of the state.

We coupled this creative with our public relations strategy and a successful digital ad campaign utilizing Facebook, YouTube, Google, mobile and some of the main Michigan news sites. Martin Waymire’s extensive knowledge and expertise in this growing digital market is the reason why our campaigns are so strong, time and time again.

Martin Waymire surpassed MESSA’s expectations within the first two days of the campaign. We are happy to report that in less than two weeks, our video has logged more than 56,600 views online, and these don’t include the tens of thousands more eyes that saw it on TV.

The video and MESSA’s pertussis awareness landing page are now featured resources on the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) pertussis website.

Our campaign was covered in many news articles including MLIVE, Detroit Free Press, the Midland Daily News and even went national on Slate.com.

The campaign’s huge metrics are only a part of the success though. What’s most important is the great feedback and thousands of comments coming in from families’ nationwide saying they are now informed, and will be scheduling appointments to get protected or to make sure their immunizations are up-to-date. This makes us realize that we were part of an even greater picture – saving lives

Did you get a glimpse of the recent MESSA campaign? Watch the video? Let us know what you think! 

A client we have proudly served for more than 20 years scolded me earlier this week: “You guys (our firm) spend so much time making other people look good, you don’t do enough letting the world know how great you are.”

Since the client is always right (well, not always), we proudly announce that Martin Waymire Advocacy Communications:

• Won four first-place Pinnacle Awards in the 2013 PACE Awards competitions for the Central Michigan Chapter of the Public Relations Society of America (CMPRSA). The awards were announced last night in a ceremony that also recognized the superior performance of many other firms, companies and institutions in the region. Three of our awards were for excellence in public affairs and crisis communications management, the practice areas that form the foundation of our business. Our “big” award: a Pinnacle for the “Vote NO on Proposal 5” statewide ballot campaign.
• Partner David Waymire was named 2013 “PACE Maker of the Year,” the top award given each year to an individual practitioner by CMPRSA. The award recognizes practitioners for a career of excellence in and contributions to the profession. (This means both Martin Waymire principals now have been recognized as CMPRSA PACE Maker of the Year.) We are so proud of Dave!
• Won four additional awards, including one first-place Diamond Award, in the national Public Relations Society of America’s (PRSA) awards competition for Michigan and other states in the east-central region of the country.

And here’s some really big news: Our “Vote NO on Proposal 5” campaign is a finalist for a national Silver Anvil, the top award for public relations excellence given each year in the United States by our professional peers. With fingers crossed, we will be traveling to New York City on June 13 to attend the Silver Anvil awards ceremony. For the record, Mr. Waymire and I are both Silver Anvil winners in past years. That’s a really big deal, folks. It is hard and rare for a practitioner to win one of these in an entire career, and just to be in the running is a tremendous honor.

Click here to view the news release we issued today announcing all of this. We are grateful for your confidence in our firm, and want to be certain you know that our performance is quite often recognized and awarded for excellence.

Best,

Roger Martin

YouTube recently took its new channel design, One Channel, out of beta and opened it up to all users. This means that now individuals and businesses with YouTube channels will now have the choice to have more flexibility in customizing the design, and making it look similar to their other social media channels and even their own website.

The new look features a header YouTube calls Channel Art. It is formatted in a way where one design, turns into different looks for the many online devices. From TV viewing, desktops, tablets and mobile, YouTube makes it a one step process for your in-house designer or marketing firm.

YouTube’s Channel Art works on all online devices

It also provides a new ‘trailer’ video that is featured right below your header that will play when visitors come to your site for the first time, or not subscribed to your channel. This allows you to speak better to potential new customers, and putting a pitch to subscribe in that video’s description.

One Channel also allows you to organize your videos and playlists better. YouTube realized that you know your audience better than they do, so why not allow you to customize what your audience sees when they come to your channel?

You can see more by viewing the One Channel introduction video by the YouTube creators.

Released to the public last week, YouTube One Channel hasn’t been met with the best reviews at this point — just take a look at their ‘dislike’ count from the introduction video, or should I dare tell you to step in and take a look at the explicit comments YouTubers are posting on the video. Eek! You better not. (The complaints are mainly due to taking away the background design channels were given and now making it a cleaner, white background for all.) As you can see, it is looking more and more like Google+ pages. This makes sense:  YouTube does own Google.

YouTube and Google+ pages have a similar look and feel now.

But like any new layout design, there is always a time period for people to get adjusted and acquainted to a new way of doing things. For now YouTube is allowing channels that make the switch or to revert back if they would like to. As for me, I like the new clean, fresh feel.

See mine.

If you are interested in getting the new One Channel layout for your company or organization’s YouTube channel, or to get started on YouTube, Martin Waymire would be happy to help! We are also available to help produce your future video projects, big or small. Just contact us for more details.

Ah, the beauty of the empty email inbox. I need to see this view before I get on a plane so that when I’m away in a beautiful tropical paradise, I can relax into *that* view and not worry about what’s happening back at work.

If all goes well, by the time you’re reading this on Monday morning when I’m setting this blog post to publish, I will already be two days into my Ashtanga yoga retreat at an undisclosed location in Mexico. (Even though I don’t have cell connectivity here and there is only limited wifi, I know my colleagues will find a way to find me if I tell them exactly where I am – so we’ll leave my location as undisclosed. ).

Anyone in a fast-paced job knows that enjoying vacation time away from work requires at least three key actions:

• Saving up.
• Planning ahead for the trip itself.
• Getting everything at work in order before getting on that plane.

This post talks about that third component – the mad rush that allows us to take some much needed R&R – specifically, what I do in the week or so prior to a vacation. I’m sort of an organization geek (in case you couldn’t tell), and I would love to hear how you stay organized, whether at work or at home. What are some of your organizational solutions for heading out on vacation?

10 days ahead of departure: Start to think about whether I need to work with my colleagues on a project hand-off for clients for whom I’m the main account executive.

Martin Waymire is a small, full-service public relations and marketing communications firm, so we all carry a lot of responsibilities. I think through the following:

• If there is a crisis communications situation, does my client know how to quickly reach other team members on the account? It’s not often that all the key contacts for a client are off at the same time, but if that is the case, then arrangements are made to ensure that there is someone handling any crisis situation that comes up. (Although situations requiring crisis communications don’t come up too frequently — thank goodness! — part of being a responsive public relations firm means always being ready for one.)
• Are there social media accounts that I admin for my clients that need to be turned over to someone else?
• Are there assignments or projects in progress that won’t be finished by the time I leave? How will those be handled?

One week ahead of departure: Notify my clients about my time off.

I’ve learned that telling clients – who are always so busy themselves – too far ahead of time isn’t as useful as telling them the week prior to leaving. With my time off on the horizon, they’re able to check their calendars and see if they know about anything they might need while I am away that they haven’t notified me of yet. (The exception with this is that if I’m involved in a big, complicated, long-term project with the client, then more advance notice may be required.)

Three days ahead of time: Making that staff meeting list

If I’m going to miss a staff meeting, I try to list out what I would have needed to discuss, and I ask a colleague to take it to staff and share for me. I could do this via email, but I figure this saves everyone another email to try to keep track of — because we all know if there’s anything we’re never short of, it’s email!

Two days ahead of time: Empty the inbox

Speaking of email, as a rule, I try to keep my work email inbox at zero at the end of each day. There are times, however, that this is nearly impossible. In those cases, I try to get that inbox at zero by the end of the week. This past month has been particularly hectic, and I’ve had to let my inbox go for a couple of weeks instead of my preferred day or week. In cases like this, I make sure that two days before I’m scheduled to be on a plane, I’ve cleared my inbox. It makes it so much harder to catch up with the emails that stack up in your inbox while you’re away if you left a big stack there before you headed out.

I also create Outlook rules so that certain types of emails — such as news summaries, which will be so dated when I get back and therefore useless — go straight to certain folders or get deleted outright.

One day ahead of time: Unhook social media notifications.

Because social media strategies are so critical to the communications strategies that Martin Waymire account executives recommend to clients, we manage quite a number of accounts. Each Martin Waymire staffer has a different system for handling all the important social media notifications we need to see; some rely on mobile notifications from native apps like HootSuite.

I mainly rely on emails that are sent to my personal gmail account. This can get unwieldy when I’m away, however. So what I do is have notifications sent to a dedicated gmail account that exists solely for this purpose. I then, normally, have all the emails that go to this account forward to my main gmail account. When I’m about to go on an extended vacation —in this case, one week – I go into my gmail settings and stop the forwarding.

I guess I could write more, but I leave in about 32 hours, and I haven’t started to pack yet. My friends know that I’m the worst packer in the world. If only organizing my suitcase were as intuitive as organizing my work and digital life!

Empty inbox before a trip, good! Empty checked luggage before a trip . . . um, not so good.

Yesterday, we looked at how brands will have a field day with Vine, Twitter’s new looping video app.

Today we’ll take a look at how easy it is to get started on Vine. Currently, Vine is only an iOS app (requires version iOS 5.0 or later), which means it is only available to iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad users. Android users aren’t too happy about this, but there is an Android app called Vine Flow that allows Android users to view Vine videos — they still can’t create videos, but they can view the loops.

If you’ve got your iPhone ready, search for Vine in your mobile app store and install it:

You have to be 17 or older:

(About that age 17 requirement? Well, Vine had a bit of a problem with pornography when it launched, causing the app to have to implement the 17+ rule.)

Sign in with Twitter or Facebook:

Determine if you’d like to set a location:

The ability to geotag, by the way, is what could give Vine a competitive edge over other video platforms such as Vimeo and YouTube when it comes contests and the like.

In the upper left is the home menu. Click on that and you’ll get:

If you select “Explore,” you’ll be able to search people or tags or pick from pre-selected topics:

You follow people the same way you would on Twitter, Tumblr, etc.

To record video, touch the video icon in the upper right-hand corner and you’ll be directed to hold your finger anywhere on the screen to start recording. To stop recording, you simply lift your finger. This ability to start and stop allows you to weave together shots to achieve GIF-like videos. If you choose to keep your finger on the screen for the entire six seconds, you’ll get a regular, straight-forward video. The bar at the top tells you how much more time you have:

Once you’ve finished recording, you can share your video on Vine only, or to Twitter or Facebook as well.

The Vine stream looks like an Instagram or Tumblr stream — one looping video after another. The loop starts to run if you pause on that video, and that loop goes away when you start scrolling again.

A few tips:

• Remember that there is audio, so even if you’re doing a GIF-like image (drawings, etc.), it will be recording sound.
• If you’re watching a Vine video on your phone and you don’t hear any sound, check to see if your phone is on vibrate. (It sounds obvious, but you’d be surprised at how easy it is to forget this.) And even if your phone is on vibrate, it will be recording sound.
• You need to shoot vertically. (You can shoot horizontally, but the loop will also show horizontally.)

The app maker wanted simplicity above all else, which is why Vine doesn’t have a play or pause button:

Vine is a video service without a play button. This was intentional. Old things are beautiful, but new things should look, well… new. That’s why Vine doesn’t have a play button. It also doesn’t have a pause button, a timeline scrubber, a blinking red light, or dials and a brushed-metal finish to give you the impression that you’re using a dusty video camera.

I think they’ve achieved the simplicity they were looking for.

I wasn’t very intrigued when Twitter announced its new Vine app late last month. “Six seconds of video?” I thought. “What’s so special about that, when smart phones have great video capabilities?”

I’ve now had the chance to play a little bit with Vine, and not only am I impressed — it’s a blast — but I’m psyched (really, I’m psyched) to see how creative individuals, organizations and brands will get with this platform.

What it is

Vine has been described as Instagram for videos, but I don’t think that captures what makes Vine appealing. The app makes it extremely easy to either:

• Create fast-action, GIF-like looping videos, or
• Record video straight-up.

Here is comedian Jimmy Fallon — I’m a big fan — using Vine in straight video mode:

This example of Vine in GIF-like mode, from Gap Canada, shows how brands are already using Vine:

From the past to present, the labels tell the story of our 1969 jeans.#denimevolved vine.co/v/bvP0zgpe9Oa

— Gap Canada Official® (@GapCA) February 12, 2013

A member of the Twitter family, it’s of course a cinch to share your Vine creation on Twitter — and anyone reading that tweet on Twitter.com will see the looping video in action.

A field day for creative brands

Ad Age suggests five ways brands can use Vine:

Behind the Scenes
Many brands already have different versions of the same video ad for different formats (such as a shortened pre-roll ad for Internet video edited from a longer-form TV ad). Vine can further complement this by making snippets of behind-the-scenes footage available where appropriate.

Location
One of the biggest advantages of Vine over other video platforms—most notably YouTube—is that it more easily adds geo location data to posts. This can get real interesting for local restaurants or other vendors looking to Vine as a way to draw in customers in the immediate vicinity… something to keep in mind when creating a Vine video.

Contests
Release new ads or other long-form videos in 6-second teaser segments unlockable only after certain follower or retweet milestones are met. This can be done as a ramp-up to the premier of the ad, particularly for marquee ads (like those unveiled during this last Super Bowl) or for other types of announcements.

User-generated content
Ask customers to submit Vine videos of themselves using your product, and perhaps even compile the best into a longer-form ad used on another platform.

Product demos
Short, how-to videos for products that can use either an extra hand in educating the public on how it’s used, or to showcase creative ideas for how to use a product that may not come immediately to mind.

What about super short (well, six-seconds’ worth) news-style “interviews” with adults and kids? Or the-making-of type videos for artsier products (less behind-the-scenes and more about seeing a work coming together)? Lifestyle-related outlets and brands will be able to show looping video of new recipes and crafts. And we all know that it won’t take long for looping videos of cats to inundate our Vine streams.

In short, there’s no shortage of what can be done with Vine.

A look at General Electric on Vine

Perhaps the best example of a brand already using Vine creatively is General Electric. Here, General Electric celebrates National Inventors’ Day with this take on Harlem Shake:

Thanks to everyone who helped reinvent the Harlem Shake. Happy National Inventors’ Day! #IWantToInvent vine.co/v/bvdXevrLW5p

— General Electric (@generalelectric) February 11, 2013

General Electric has also used Vine to add some spark to its annual #IWantToInvent campaign:

Inventions are built one piece at a time. #IWantToInvent vine.co/v/bn9PXmAFej6

— General Electric (@generalelectric) February 8, 2013

I see a lot of potential with Vine helping companies that need to liven up their brand’s personality, or to reach a younger audience. The platform simply makes sense for any brand with a quick story to tell — it spices up Twitter’s 140 characters like nothing else has been able to do so far, and I’m looking forward to trying to find ways to use Vine for client campaigns.

Metrics

Social media metrics are notoriously hard to pin down, but there’s already a free service — SimpleMeasured — to provide a sense of engagement levels on Vine.

See tomorrow’s post for how to start using Vine.

Next post>>How to start creating looping video using Twitter’s Vine app  

Reality TV has become a phenomenon in American culture. We have reality TV programs on mediums, hoarders, “Real” Housewives, wives of professional athletes, singing competitions, just to name a few. Reality TV has become assimilated into American pop culture quicker than apple pie — but what does reality television mean for our culture; our self perception; our profession?

Often times, this “reality” is the furthest thing from the reality the audience is used to. I think it would be safe to say that hoarders don’t watch “Hoarding: Buried Alive,” wives of famous athletes don’t watch “Basketball Wives,” and mediums don’t watch “Long Island Medium.” These shows attract audiences that are often the opposite of the people’s lives the show depicts. For example, as a twenty year-old man from a middle-class family, I have very little to nothing in common with Adrienne Maloof, a “Real Housewife of Beverly Hills,” who happens to own an NBA basketball team, The Palms casino and hotel in Las Vegas, and a home bigger than most of the buildings in metro Lansing; however, I am fascinated and enthralled with her, and most of the other “Real Housewives”. I have absolutely nothing in common with Adrienne or anyone else in these franchises that span the United States, but the escape into another person’s life and the problems, relationships and lessons associated with their lives absolutely captivates me. This questions some of the most fundamental issues that public relations professionals have in their everyday careers: reaching target publics.

Reality television has opened up a public that is much harder to define; Nielsen ratings will show you that reality programming has quickly become the leading programming for people aged 18-49. Targeting the desired public has to be considered one of biggest challenges for public relations professionals – how do you reach a public that can watch television programming that doesn’t relate to their own lifestyle, personal behaviors or reality — pun intended; how can this public be defined, targeted and influenced when they don’t identify with their own reality?

Reality television is fun (who wouldn’t want to watch a confrontation between two grown women arguing about an alleged wig pull?), but it has segmented the market in a way that makes targeting younger Americans and Millennials harder than ever. This challenges the modern public relations professional to create captivating, non-traditional and thrilling campaigns that can recreate the captivation that is associated with reality television to reach this market quickly and effectively. The reality is that competition for younger people is, and will continue to be, prime real estate for clients — reaching this market has now become the PR professional’s burden.

My advice would be to place as many pre-menopausal women as possible in a room with a case of wine and your messaging points; you’d reach at least one twenty year-old!

Because I’m super special, this week I gained access to Facebook’s new internal search tool called Graph Search, which will be rolling out to all users later this year.

(Actually I’m not special – I just put myself on a waiting list to be one of the first users because I’m a nerd. But let’s roll with the first rationalization, OK?)

If you’ve ever tried to search for anything on Facebook, you’ve probably realized how frustrating it is – rarely do you get the results you’re looking for. Graph Search is Facebook’s attempt to revolutionize not only its own search capabilities, but search in general (in other words, look out Google!)

Here’s how Facebook says Graph Search differs from a traditional web search, like Google:

Web search is designed to take a set of keywords (for example: “hip hop”) and provide the best possible results that match those keywords. With Graph Search you combine phrases (for example: “my friends in New York who like Jay-Z”) to get that set of people, places, photos or other content that’s been shared on Facebook.

Essentially, Graph Search aims to provide personalized search results through queries that focus on natural language, rather than keywords. I’m not convinced this is a Google killer yet (the product is only in beta, after all), but on first blush, I do see some strengths.

First, as Craig Kanelley pointed out in his column for Huffington Post, Graph Search could be a boon for journalists looking for sources. Say you’re doing an investigative report on a product from a local company that’s been recalled, and you want to speak to an engineer off the record. You could search for “friends of my friends who work at (insert company)” and refine the search to include people with the job title of “engineer.” Then, send the person a direct message saying, “Hi, xxx is our mutual friend – think we could talk?”

Second, it could be great for networking. Say, for instance, that Martin Waymire was interested in providing public relations services for hot dog vendors. Do a Graph Search and maybe someone from your extended network is associated with the National Association of Hot Dog Vendors!

(No such luck for me, apparently)

The drawbacks? Yeah, it can be a little creepy. For instance, you may want to search for photos refined to those posted in 2006 – the Stone Age of social networking, before we were so conscious that everything we shared on the Internet would last forever. Even if you’re not tagged, you may find yourself popping up in a handful of images you’d rather forget.

Hypothetically speaking, of course. Now, excuse me while I go yell at a few friends.

What does it mean to tell a story in our digital age?

This is what it means for The New York Times in its recent project detailing the horrific avalanche in the Cascades, located in Washington (click on the screen capture below and then scroll down the page):

For one journalist, it means working in partnership with Prairie Public Broadcasting, the Association of Independents in Radio (AIR), and Zeega, an interactive storytelling platform, to produce Rough Ride. Rough Ride uses a documentary-style approach — it’s best watched in full screen on your computer — along with first-person video and interactive graphics.

For the online music magazine Pitchfork doing a feature profile of Bat for Lashes, it looks like this (I love the featured playlist and the near flipbook effect you get scrolling down):

I would argue that the technologies used in these examples enhance the purpose of that particular piece. You get a closer look into the lives of people who are strangers in your world. You hear their voices. You watch them move.

Taking ‘show’ to the next level

I attended journalism graduate school before the explosion of YouTube, Vimeo, Facebook, Twitter, Storify, and all the social media channels that give digital storytelling in 2013 so much potential. “Show, don’t tell,” my instructors would always say. They meant, of course, writing compelling scenes by weaving together telling details.

Words still matter — they always will. (And I actually think the single hardest social media platform to tell a good story through is Twitter, with its 140-character limit. That’s why tweeters who can hook you in and entice you to click on the link to read more — like Meegan Holland of MLive.com and Chris Gautz of Crain’s Detroit Business, just to name two local journalists out of many — get so much respect from me.) But words (say, song lyrics) combined with interactive tools have the potential to take storytelling to fascinating depths.

Back in 2010, the MIT Media Lab held an event called Story 3.0 to explore critical questions related to storytelling. Not surprisingly, the rise of these digital tools for storytelling raises some concern among journalists, and projects like the Harvard University-based Nieman Journalism Lab do an excellent job of tracking trends and spurring discussions. I care about how people’s stories are told and preserved — it’s why I went into my first career of journalism — and I think this is a healthy and important discussion to have.

But right now, at the beginning of a new year and lucky enough to work with colleagues who share my enthusiasm for digitizing communications with purpose and integrity, all I can say is that I am genuinely excited for what the innovative storytellers of our time are up to.