Online Fluency

Mind the [Generation] Gap!

2007-08-27T15:12:00.000-04:00

If you have kids — or nieces and nephews in their tweens, teens and early 20s — you’re probably already well aware of the digital generation gap. We email; they SMS. We’re shocked to see how much information about us is available online; they happily bare their souls on their blogs and MySpace pages. We socialize IRL (that’s “in real life,” for those of you over the age of 25); they network virtually … and enthusiastically. We read news; they use social networks and instant messaging to disseminate news.

Yet the difference between the generations may be narrowing … at least in some areas. Social networking is no longer entirely confined to kids. Last year, the Associated Press reported that half of MySpace users are 35 or older. Only 30% are under the age of 25.

The online research firm Compete reports that two out of every three people online visited a social networking site last June. And according to Jeff Cole, director of the USC-Annenberg 2007 Digital Future Project, 43% of Internet users who are members of online communities say that they “feel as strongly” about their virtual community as they do about their real-world communities. Nearly three out of five (56.6%) log into their community at least once a day.

So what are the implications of these shifts for those of us in communications?

To find out, the Public Relations Society of America and Dow Jones & Company conducted “Wired for Change,” a survey of PR professionals and students that explores their attitudes, usage and expectations of technology in shaping current and future communication practices.

Here are some of the more interesting findings:

Both groups believe that the technology-driven channels that provide the best opportunities for the practice of public relations are online news websites, blogs and social networking sites.

Generally, students have a more positive view of new communications tools than professionals, especially professional networking web sites, internet TV, blogs, social networking sites, satellite TV, internet radio, chat rooms and video phones.

A majority of all PR professionals believe their organizations lag in broader communication technology use, with only 20% saying they are “ahead of the trend.”

While the majority of PR professionals and students think that print publications are more credible sources than various new media, younger internet users are just not reading print, preferring social networks and instant messaging for news.

While communicators at all levels of experience, including students, strongly believe that technology has positively impacted the practice of PR, they also think that the new social media — including blogs and social networking sites — present critical credibility and ethical challenges. A majority of survey respondents acknowledge that, because they are “unregulated,” the new social media enable the potential for reputational harm and for rumors to spread quickly.

PRSA hopes to repeat the survey later this year to assess evolving trends in the new and next media and determine how opinions of public relations professionals and students have changed.

Technorati Tags: digital generation gap, MySpace, social networking, social media, Jeff Cole, USC+Annenberg, 2007 Digital Future Project, PRSA, Dow Jones & Company, communications, public relations

Living on Glass Microscope Slides

2007-07-09T14:44:00.000-04:00

If you missed Tom Friedman’s New York Times column last week, headlined The Whole World is Watching, you indeed missed a treat. Inspired by Dov Seidman’s new book, “How,” which is now on my reading list, Friedman notes “We’re all public figures now,” and “ ‘how’ you live your life and ‘how’ you conduct your business matters more than ever, because so many people can now see into what you do and tell so many other people about it on their own without any editor.” He goes on to quote Seidman: “We do not live in glass houses (houses have walls); we live on glass microscope slides…visible and exposed to all.”

However, with apologies to Annie Lennox, many people are living on “broken” glass microscope slides. There has been so much written about how, for example, in the work world, many young people have stubbed their toes in their job searches by not being cognizant of their online reputations. The Wall Street Journal, for instance has written about how the reputation of small businesses is increasingly being affected by the growth of online consumer reviews and how prospective students are turning to bloggers’ rankings of law schools as an alternative to the dominant rankings published by U.S. News. At the New York Times itself earlier this year, the managing editor came under fire because a number of freelancers had not disclosed potential conflicts concerning issues they then reported on … information that may have been readily available online if anyone looked.

It seems that almost every problem ignited by the march of technology inspires a solution. As Andrew Lavallee reported in The Wall Street Journal, reputation management services going by names like ReputationDefender and DefendMyName, are charging fees to expunge or downplay offensive blog mentions, embarrassing photos or critical mentions of names on the Web. One of the firms interviewed for the article charges $30 for each item that the user wants to try to correct or remove. It starts by sending polite email requests on behalf of its clients to web-site owners, and then escalates by contacting a site’s ISP about the problem. There have been some successes, such as for an identity-theft victim who had personal information published on a blog, and a medical student that discussed his own clinical depression on a public newsgroup. But these service providers have also seen their best efforts backfire and generate even more negative online dialogue.

Which gets us back to Tom Friedman’s point. The best way to minimize the risks associated with internet-enabled transparency is to assume that the whole world is watching and always — always! — strive to do the right thing.

Technorati Tags: Tom Friedman, Dov Seidman, Annie Lennox, online reputation, Andrew Lavallee, reputation management services, ReputationDefender, DefendMyName

A Healthy Debate

2007-06-12T18:01:00.000-04:00

The blogger BL Ochman last week applauded USA Today 's Elizabeth Weise’s report on how bloggers drove the momentum behind the recent pet food/melamine recall. The mainstream media (MSM) hadn’t seized the story, said Ochman, though 56% of U.S. households own pets.

The Pet Connection blog was one of the heroes; it live-blogged and ran transcripts of the FDA press conference on the recall – reports that didn’t get to MSM websites or print outlets. The five Pet Connection bloggers - Dr. Marty Becker, Gina Spadafori, Christie Keith and Susan and Dr. Rolan - clearly applied standards of good reporting and also created an online database where pet owners could log the symptoms of their pets, treatment and outcomes.

Perhaps the MSM didn’t feel the urgency of the pet food story right away, but as someone who adopted a dog from rescue at the time the story finally erupted, I am thankful that the story came to light, so I could keep Oliver well-fed … with product deemed safe.

How cute is Oliver?

Speaking of health, David Carr, the media reporter for The New York Times, complained in a rather blog-like print column today that he found “everything, except insight” among bloggers and digital news sources on the questions raised about Avandia, a drug used to treat Type 2 diabetes. A published study by Dr. Steven Nissen, a noted cardiologist who also blew the whistle on Vioxx, found that an analysis of previous studies revealed Avandia actually increased heart attack risk by 43% and called its use “a virtual public health emergency.”

Carr, who noted he uses Avandia himself, said that the polarized online discourse on the matter was confusing to him. “When it comes to meta-analysis on breaking issues, the Web seems better suited to Paris Hilton than patient safety,” he wrote. He elected to confer with his doctor before deciding whether to continue taking it.

We wish him well.

pet food recall, BL Ochman, Pet Connection, Avandia, MSM, patient safety

Is Anyone Paying Attention?

2007-04-17T15:40:00.000-04:00

Despite the proliferation of news outlets on the Internet and cable TV, Americans still don’t know much more about national and international affairs than they did 20 years ago, according to a new Pew Research Center study. Only 8 of 1,502 respondents correctly answered all 23 questions that asked them to identify public figures such as the Vice President of the U.S. and the governor of their state, and whether Congress passed legislation to increase the minimum wage.

The survey respondents deemed most informed were more likely to be viewers of what the New York Times (subscription required) called "fake news programs" -- "The Daily Show" and "The Colbert Report" -- followed by the Web sites of major newspapers. Next on the list: "News Hour with Jim Lehrer" and then "The O’Reilly Factor" which tied with National Public Radio; and then Rush Limbaugh’s radio program (none of which were termed "fake").

Nearly 4 in 10 of all surveyed regularly use at least one type of Internet news source, either news pages of major search engines such as Google or Yahoo, websites of television news organizations, or websites of major national newspapers. About one in ten read blogs.

But does anyone listen to radio? When Don Imus uttered his now infamous remarks April 4 on WFAN radio, relatively few people were actually listening, according to the Wall Street Journal (subscription required). It was 6:14 a.m. EST. But a blogger for Media Matters for America was watching the MSNBC simulcast of the show, and posted a video clip of the comment. Media Matters sent an email to several hundred reporters, and while the post received numerous comments, the next day top news outlets did not mention the incident.

It wasn’t until about 36 hours after the comment was made when it proverbially hit the fan – or was it the WFAN? -- as MSNBC executives fielded complaints from viewers and employees who had seen the remark on the Media Matters site. Then everyone began paying attention. The Village Voice's blog, Running Scared, sums it up: "None of Imus' eminent guests, who included many of the nation's most prominent journalists and politicians, apparently ever thought the show's racist hijinks were worthy of mention."

Maybe it's just not real until we see it on the Internet.

Technorati Tags: Pew Research, The Daily Show, The Colbert Report, The Wall Street Journal, NPR, The New York Times, WFAN, MSNBC,Media Matters, Imus, The Village Voice

New Meaning (or is it “No Meaning?”) to Too Much Information

2007-03-10T12:55:00.000-05:00

Yet another study concludes we have more information available than ever, but getting the right information at the right time is getting harder all the time. The IDC study, commissioned by EMC, who probably never met an exabyte it didn’t like, said the amount of information created and replicated in 2007 (255 exabytes) will be greater, for the first time, than available storage capacity (246 exabytes).

To truly appreciate this, consider that an exabyte is equal to one billion billion, or one quintillion, bytes … or 1,000,000,000,000,000,000 bytes. (Need a cup of coffee …?)

According to EMC, hard drives aren’t about to melt down from this overabundance of data – although we may – because some data get deleted.

All these exabytes though are taking a different kind of toll.

Earlier this year, Accenture surveyed over 1,000 middle managers at U.S. and U.K. large companies on receiving information necessary to their jobs:

Middle managers spend more than a quarter of their time searching for information they need for their jobs – and when they do find it, it is often wrong.

A majority (59%) acknowledged missing information that might be valuable almost every day because it exists elsewhere in the company and just cannot be found.

Another sizeable chunk (36%) said there is so much information available that it takes a long time to actually find the right piece of data.

Apparently, middle managers are looking for a needle in an exabyte.

Technorati Tags: eMarketer, EMC, IDC, information overload

"Getting It" – 12-Year-Old Outshines the Pros on Driving Blog Traffic

2007-02-15T09:06:00.000-05:00

You are missing a treat if you don’t visit Problogger, where 12-year-old David Wilkinson wrote an articulate guest column on driving traffic to your blog. I agreed with one of the 80+ people who commented on the post, Gary Ruplinger, who said: "This makes me feel really old when I’m getting advice from someone who’s half my age … Written a heck of a lot better than most adults who claim to have passed college English courses (and better than some writers I’ve hired who’ve claimed to have a masters degree in English)."

Wilkinson reviews the basics ("start by building quality content for somebody to see"), then emphasizes the "three Cs: community, communication and consideration [to your audience]" as well as the importance of search optimization.

It may be a "well, duh" that the teenage, pre-teen and 20-something generations are far more immersed in social media and that public relations directors need to pay attention to them … and structure campaigns to respond to the different media consumption habits of multiple audiences. The lesson: listen or be an obsolete counselor.

To that point, the ad agency community has been under fire for not "getting" the age of digital communications fast enough. To its credit, Ogilvy & Mather is really trying, having aligned with the blog search engine Technorati to try to help clients find their way. The initiative, as reported by Brian Steinberg in the Wall Street Journal (subscription required), is aimed at reaching those who spend time creating content rather than watching or reading content produced by someone else. I doubt that this is going to solve the inherent conflict between advertising and blogging, but perhaps some people's horizons will be expanded. Maybe they should listen to the 12-year-old instead.

Steinberg interviewed Peter Hirshberg of Technorati who aptly calls on marketing organizations of all types to "have somebody on board whose job is to listen, to converse with and ensure the company is engaging with its customers, whether they are on blogs, MySpace, YouTube, whatever…. The new 24-year-old person you will hire, you will be amazed by the knowledge they bring to the table." He observes "the most interesting action in the blogosphere is really the hundreds of topic areas where communities coalesce and people are having conversations," and "the blog isn’t going away, because it really does give the audiences a voice."

Technorati Tags: Problogger, Ogilvy, Technorati,The Wall Street Journal, MySpace,YouTube

How Do You Multitask? Let Me Count the Ways

2007-02-05T15:14:00.000-05:00

Not that long ago I wrote about how media and technology had turned the 24-hour day into the 43-hour day. Jumping on the bandwagon, eMarketer just declared in a new report that our virtual day is actually like 36 hours when all media consumption is considered.

The new wrinkle of the eMarketer report is its specificity about the nature of our multitasking ways.

For example, two-thirds of the total U.S. adult population -- 100 million -- watched TV while they were online last year. Ninety million listened to the radio while online. More than 50 million read magazines while online (hmm… that doesn’t make sense unless you go online to read the magazine… unless we’ve sprouted an extra eye somewhere).

Further, people are not dropping one form of media in favor of another, according to senior analyst Debra Aho Williamson , the author of the report. "Full engagement is no longer a realistic expectation," she said. (What did she say…?) And everybody is multitasking -- although kids are multitasking more. The dichotomy between generations on media consumption is growing, said Jeff Cole, of the Center for the Digital Future, which has perhaps the longest longitudinal study on the matter.

So what’s a marketer to do? It bears stating the obvious:

Understand how your audience is consuming information. Take the time to get the facts, with online research and by seeking out information through live conversations.

It has always been true that the more channels you utilize to get in front of your target audiences, the more successful you will be. It’s even truer today.

If you are seeking to reach across the generations, it is critical to tailor your campaigns.

Measure. The online component has made it increasingly easier to understand what’s working … and what’s not, so you can fine-tune your campaigns on the fly.

Technorati Tags: eMarketer, multitasking, Center for the Digital Future

Social Media Gives New Meaning to Teaching an Old Dog New Tricks

2007-01-16T13:56:00.000-05:00

My firm did a survey of corporate blogging earlier this year that indicated corporate executives in the Fortune 1000 were behind the curve in recognizing the power of blogging and, by implication, other forms of social media.

If ever there was an eye opener for the C-suite, it should come from none other than Bob Dylan, who in 2006 at age 65 became the oldest living artist to have an album debut at Number One on the charts – largely due to social media. In the October 5th, 2006 issue of Rolling Stone (not available online), Steve Knopper recounted in "Dylan’s Chart-Topping Strategy" how social media like YouTube, iTunes and MySpace were factors in spreading the word on Dylan’s new album, Modern Times.

The build-up began with a pre-release iTunes commercial along with an offer to buy Dylan’s entire catalogue for $199, including 42 rare tracks. His team then produced a home-movie style video for one cut, "When the Deal Goes Down," featuring Scarlet Johansson and premiering on AOL, where the video was watched 100,000 times on the first day and then posted to YouTube, getting 15,000 more views.

Dylan also started a MySpace page where Rolling Stone said that "Mr. Tambourine Man" had been played more than 700,000 times -- reaching scores of new young fans. His new XM satellite radio show – also a new medium -- is drawing 1.7 million listeners a week. And Dylan’s old recordings are moving. Oh, and Starbucks also sold 227,000 copies of Dylan rarity CDs as exclusives, as well as 13,500 copies of the new album. (The Starbucks deal also coincided with the premiere of Martin Scorsese’s documentary film about Dylan's life: "No Direction Home: Bob Dylan.")

The sum result is that not only did Modern Times sell 193,000 copies in the first week, 20,000 of them digital, Dylan’s older recordings also received a boost.

Pretty cool. But most important, pretty smart marketing.

Technorati Tags: Rolling Stone, corporate blogging, YouTube, iTunes, social networking, My Space, XM Radio, Starbucks

Tipping Point for Online Journalism?

2006-12-19T12:45:00.000-05:00

The task of determining precisely who is a journalist is getting murkier. Mainstream media (MSM) are looking more like social media in their online editions. Teens are using texting to make or break movies on their opening weekends. Corporations are becoming publishers by encouraging employees to blog. Public relations firms are pitching influential bloggers for exclusive stories. And the jobs of marketing and communications strategists get tougher as we sort through our influentials and how best to reach them.

It’s my theory though that, with a few exceptions (predominantly in the technology and consumer marketing sectors), most public relations professionals are still conducting media relations much the way they always did.

As a sign of the times, in a recent RFP, a sales prospect from a London-based technology firm whose targets are chief marketing officers asked, "Has the shift online in U.S. media meant that most of your work is online?"

We responded that there is no question that the importance of online media in the U.S. is accelerating, a trend more pronounced in the consumer category than the business category, although the latter is changing fast. The recent announcement by the Wall Street Journal surrounding the roles of its print and online editions will give more impetus to that shift in the business press.

That said, a majority of business-to-business clients, particularly in industries such as financial services, professional services, health and investor relations, still say that their companies’ senior management value MSM over online media and prefer to be seen there. It’s time to reconsider.

It’s our job as communicators to be strong and knowledgeable in both print and online modalities and to help our clients and peers to understand the coming trends. In a recently released report, Surveying the Digital Future – The World Internet Project, the University of Southern California Annenberg School found that today’s 25- to 54-year-olds are far more likely to read offline newspapers and magazines, while those aged 12-24 prefer to read publications online. The 12-24s who get their news online often find consumer-generated media and MSM-generated sources just as trustworthy (although they apparently become more discriminating as they get older).

If you doubt the blending of social networking and journalism, check out digg.com , a user-driven social content site in which readers play editor and decide the value of a news story. The stories that get the most "Diggs" make the front page; alternatively users can "bury" stories that they don’t like, as well as post comments. The stories can come from anywhere and users don’t always differentiate whether the story is journalistically sourced or from elsewhere. As CNET reported , from time to time users plant phony stories and the site tries to crack down on such instances when discovered – just as Wikipedia has experienced more than once. Come to think if it, sometimes the MSM doesn’t get it right either…

Technorati Tags: digg, Wikipedia, CNET, The World Internet Project, The Wall Street Journal, social networking

A Patently Good Idea

2006-12-11T12:06:00.000-05:00

For corporate execs who are skeptical about the credibility of blogs, wikis and social networking in general, a pilot program sponsored by IBM should help to change their minds. This past summer, as reported by Fortune Magazine, the program — which adapts a wiki approach to the patent-approval process — has been endorsed by a growing list of companies (e.g., Microsoft, Red Hat). Using a collaborative platform, select outside experts share their observations and comments during the patent-review process.

Patent applications have tripled in the last two decades, but examiners have only 20 hours on average to review and research applications, a reason why so many questionable patents are being granted for ideas that aren’t new. In her blog, Professor Beth Noveck , Director of the Institute for Information Law & Policy at New York Law School, proposed the wiki approach to peer review of patent applications, and the idea is taking off.

It’s not surprising that IBM helped move the idea forward, as for 13 consecutive years it has received more patents than any other company in the world. In September, in fact, IBM formalized a corporate policy stating patent applications should be available for public examination and issued a report, Building a New IP Marketplace.

This effort though doesn’t just stand to benefit IBM. A start-up, Out-of-the-Box Computing, became the smallest company to allow some of its published patent applications to be peer reviewed this way.

This is great news and a step forward in demonstrating the credibility and value of community to corporations. The 2006 Makovsky State of Corporate Blogging study, conducted by Harris Interactive, reported that only 5% of Fortune 1000 senior executives believe "to a great extent" that corporate blogging is growing in credibility as a communications medium for corporations; 27% believed it was growing in credibility to a "moderate" extent, and 62% said "somewhat or not or not all." While the study, sponsored by my employer, didn’t specifically ask about online communities, it wouldn’t have been surprising to have received a similar response on the credibility of corporate social networks. We’ll ask next year and I invite your suggestions for questions to pose.

Technorati Tags: patent approval, IBM, patent review, Fortune Magazine, Beth Noveck, patent wiki, wiki

Whither Goest “Yesterday’s News?”

2006-12-04T13:47:00.000-05:00

You may have heard earlier this year about the Wall Street Journal’s plans to shrink the size of the print edition in Jan. of 2007.

Today the Wall Street Journal (subscription required) revealed its plans in a Letter from the Publisher L. Gordon Crovitz, and the New York Times (subscription required) also gave its interpretation. The impact of the change transcends mere size reduction and extends to the nature of what will be reported in the print edition versus what will go online.

I hope this development — combined with the New York Times’ announced intent to shrink its size from 13.5 inches to 12 inches in August 2007 — will be major ammunition for corporate communications directors to finally persuade senior management that online media are important and they should participate.

But beyond that, these changes are undoubtedly going to further change the competitive dynamic within traditional and social media. With a smaller news hole, and "yesterday’s news" relegated to snippets, the spotlight will shine more on bloggers and social networks.

Here are the highlights of the Journal’s changes:

1. In paring the size of the paper by 3 inches, it will reduce the news content of the print edition by 10 percent.

2. In the print edition, there will be a greater emphasis on analysis and insights, and what is expected to happen later in the day.

3. "Yesterday’s news" will be shrunk into multiple news briefs columns in the inside pages, for each industry sector, called "In Brief," and will constitute approximately 20 percent of the content of the daily paper. The paper also plans to use more "infographics" to make it easier to access more information.

4. The print edition is working towards making 80 percent of its print content based on exclusives. Obviously, this is going to have a major impact on how companies release major news developments.

5. "Breaking news" will be covered on wsj.com.

6. Stories that start on page 1 and continue will be jumped to the two pages before the editorial page, to make them easier to find.

7. The paper will double the number of leisure and arts stories in "Personal Journal."

There’s an old Wall Street proverb — "Buy on the rumor, sell on the news" — that makes a clear distinction between that information which passes almost instantly from person to person and that which is officially sanctioned by the media. The distinction is fading fast. With the WSJ printing what Crovitz describes as "what the news means, not just what happened the day before" and "more forward-leaning coverage, with headlines featuring predictive and explanatory words like 'will' and 'means' and 'why'," it is clear that the key characteristics of the social media (i.e., urgency, timeliness, passion and a clear and distinctive point-of-view) are increasingly being embraced by the mainstream media as they work to ensure their relevance in today’s wired world.

Technorati Tags: Wall Street Journal, Gordon Crovitz, social media, New York Times

The 43-Hour Day

2006-11-30T11:45:00.000-05:00

When I was visiting family this past weekend in Minneapolis, I caught a great story in the Star-Tribune by Neal Justin, "Swarmed by Screens." He reported on a local family whose home is stocked with 12 TV sets (for three people), a home theater unit, 6 computers, nearly 50 remote controls and a number of other electronic gadgets – and their struggles to maintain quality family time.

Justin went on to cite an OMD statistic that the average U.S. home now boasts an average of 12 technology/media devices, from big-screen TVs to video iPods, compared with 5 such devices 10 years ago. He posed the question: "Do so many screens make us smarter, savvier human beings or drooling zombies?" I probably ping-pong between those extremes.

By OMD standards, my household ranks below average with technology/media distractions: five TVs, two computers, and two Treos. But if you included my XM and Sirius subscriptions and three daily newspaper subscriptions, I'd be up there.

According to OMD, because of our penchant for doing two or more things at once, Americans now live in the age of what some call the "43-hour day" – the total time spent on various activities. More than 16 hours on average are spent on media and technology alone. In fact, more than 70 percent of consumers use multiple forms of media at the same time, according to a 2004 study by the Media Center at the American Press Institute.

A couple of months ago, Jared Sandberg (subscription required) of the Wall Street Journal contended that while multitaskers seem to be accomplishing a lot, they're not doing anything very well. He wrote that multitasking is more "rooted in blind faith than fact" and that "what now passes for multitasking was once called not paying attention."

I can relate, based on the number of times I answer "What?" to my husband, who is trying to converse with me while I'm busy answering work email in front of the TV watching the Mets game with no sound, while the radio is turned up to one of my favorite radio talk-show hosts.

And now the cell phone is ringing...

Technorati Tags: multitasking, OMD, Jared Sandberg, Wall Street Journal, New York Mets, American Press Institute

My profile

2006-11-29T17:02:00.000-05:00

Robbin Goodman is Executive Vice President and a partner at New York-based Makovsky + Company, one of the top 30 independent global public relations and investor relations firms in the U.S., and leads Online Fluency, the firm’s practice focusing on applying social networking to business issues. She brings more than 20 years of experience as a public relations specialist, focusing on Fortune 1000 and emerging business-to-business clients in technology and professional services. Her client programs have yielded major visibility and business impact, and won awards such as The Holmes Report's Gold Sabre, the Public Relations Society of America’s Big Apple, and the International Association of Business Communicators’ Gold Quill. Robbin directs Makovsky’s pioneering Quality Commitment Program, a client-feedback and “continuous improvement” program intended to enhance client service. She also serves on the Board of Directors of the New York Chapter of the Public Relations Society of America, as a member of its Executive Committee.