Lubetkin on Communications (Formerly "Lubetkin's Other Blog")

Hey, Where Did That Book Go?

steve@lubetkin.net (Steven L. Lubetkin (steve@lubetkin.net)) — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 19:50:46 PDT

I’ve been having some back-and-forth debates with folks about certain rock musicians exercising their rights to protect copyrighted music that people have expropriated for their YouTube videos and other uses where they didn’t get permission or pay for the privilege. But this move by Amazon defies all logic.

Big Brother: Amazon Remotely Deletes 1984 From Kindles
Pete Cashmore
Fri, 17 Jul 2009 22:57:30 GMT

Sustainable Jersey Green Grants Press Conference, 6/22/2009

steve@lubetkin.net (Steven L. Lubetkin (steve@lubetkin.net)) — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 11:50:04 PDT

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This is the complete Sustainable Jersey press conference held June 22, 2009 in Trenton, NJ to announce the awarding of $200,000 in Green Grants funded by Walmart Stores, to 14 NJ municipalities. Four towns received $25,000 grants for sustainability projects, and 10 towns received $10,000 grants. The video includes remarks by New Jersey sustainability leaders and state officials, and the annoucements of the specific grants. Produced for Walmart Stores by Success Communications Group (successcommgroup.com) and Professional Podcasts LLC.

Leadership NJ Press Conference 6/22/2009

steve@lubetkin.net (Steven L. Lubetkin (steve@lubetkin.net)) — Mon, 22 Jun 2009 19:47:34 PDT

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Leadership New Jersey held a press conference at the New Jersey State House to announce a partnership with News 12 New Jersey TV to produce a debate between candidates for the new lieutenant governor position created by New Jersey voters. Tom Dallessio, executive director of Leadership NJ, hosts the presentation. This video was produced by Professional Podcasts LLC.

Bankers conference highlights opportunities, pitfalls of social networking

steve@lubetkin.net (Steven L. Lubetkin (steve@lubetkin.net)) — Sun, 21 Jun 2009 12:45:01 PDT

Bankers conference highlights opportunities, pitfalls of social networking

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steve@lubetkin.net (Steven L. Lubetkin (steve@lubetkin.net)) — Thu, 28 May 2009 03:08:47 PDT

is finishing up production on some pods today.

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steve@lubetkin.net (Steven L. Lubetkin (steve@lubetkin.net)) — Wed, 27 May 2009 03:02:05 PDT

is in the studio today, editing audio, burning DVDs, great day of meetings in NYC yesterday.

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steve@lubetkin.net (Steven L. Lubetkin (steve@lubetkin.net)) — Tue, 26 May 2009 02:42:43 PDT

is recording client pods in Lower Manhattan this am, appearing on Social Media Hour on BlogTalkRadio @ 1pm EDT http://is.gd/uVtt

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Drexel University PRSSA Panel: Breaking Boundaries, The Revolution of Social Media

steve@lubetkin.net (Steven L. Lubetkin (steve@lubetkin.net)) — Sat, 23 May 2009 10:49:14 PDT

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The Drexel University Chapter of the Public Relations Student Society of America (PRSSA) presents "Breaking Boundaries: The Revolution of Social Media," a panel discussion held May 5, 2009 in the Bossone Auditorium at Drexel University in Philadelphia.

Panelists

Gloria Bell, Red Stapler Consulting
Steve Lubetkin, Managing Partner, Professional Podcasts LLC
Valeria Maltoni, ConversationAgent Blog
Scott McNulty, Chief Blogger, Comcast
Katie Shields, Vice President and Managing Partner, Vault Communications

Moderator
Rick Alcantara, Tara Communications

Videography

Juán “Chedigitz” Vazquez

Post-production

Professional Podcasts LLC

Family Continues Search and Rescue Effort for NJ Man, Joe Dunsavage

steve@lubetkin.net (Steven L. Lubetkin (steve@lubetkin.net)) — Mon, 18 May 2009 21:05:26 PDT

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Joe Dunsavage, an Edison NJ resident, remains missing at sea since disappearing off Roatan Island, Honduras a week ago Sunday. Military search and rescue efforts have been called off, but Dunsavage's family continues to pay for search efforts out of their own pocket, appealing for donations and information from the worldwide Internet community. Steve Lubetkin of Professional Podcasts interviews Joe Dunsavage's brother Jeff, and father Ed, who are spearheading the search efforts.

Thank you, Rick Derringer. Now I know I’m on the right track…

steve@lubetkin.net (Steven L. Lubetkin (steve@lubetkin.net)) — Fri, 15 May 2009 04:07:27 PDT

Rock legend Rick Derringer told BlogTalkRadio that Internet radio was the future of radio. Phew! I have been telling that to clients and audiences for months. I feel vindicated. I don’t think satellite radio will ultimately survive. It’s too expensive to keep sending the Space Shuttle up there to change the blinking red lights on the satellites. (OK, I’m kidding. But it is way too expensive to pay for transponder space to beam words and music back to earth.) Once someone figures out the WiMax issue of making it as easy to tune Internet radio coast-to-coast in a car, no one will want a sat radio. Not with 10,000 streams of all kinds available from all over the world.

Yes, Sirius/XM will keep its beautiful studios and still produce programming, but without the crushing financial burden of those satellites. (Dave Bowman, Star Child? Need you to do a little house cleaning please.)

Some quotes from the BlogTalkRadio Blog…

“Those days of radio, people figure, are gone because radio is so controlled and it’s so big – Clear Channel and all those stations – it’s programmed and it’s so controlled that that can’t happen anymore.

“Radio stations, no matter how big they are – the terrestrial stations, we call them – are limited by the output of their transmitter, which means they can only be heard within a certain given metropolitan area,” he says.

“These stations, like the one we’re on now can be heard everywhere in the world.”

To head Rick’s full interview, click here.

Rock Legend Rick Derringer: ‘Internet Radio Is the Wave of the Future’
Philip Recchia
Thu, 14 May 2009 23:04:19 GMT

Compuschmooze columnist "PodcastSteve" seeking r

steve@lubetkin.net (Steven L. Lubetkin (steve@lubetkin.net)) — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 09:11:35 PST

My March column is about audio and video social media tools. How do you use Utterli? Do you use any others?

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Weighing in on Facebook's Terms of Service

steve@lubetkin.net (Steven L. Lubetkin (steve@lubetkin.net)) — Wed, 18 Feb 2009 03:00:11 PST

Since yesterday's firestorm of opposition to the recent changes in FaceBook's terms of service (TOS) agreement, the social networking website has recognized its error. They've rolled back the problematic legal agreement that very clearly claimed perpetual ownership of content produced by Facebook users, even if they deleted their accounts. They are now rewriting the TOS. We'll be very interested in what they come up with.

Much of the commentary from Facebook supporters focused on the myth of online privacy. Many of us who were unhappy with the change of terms were not worried about privacy, we are content producers who zealously protect our copyright and the copyrights of our clients, and the changes were problematic for that reason. And the problem with Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg's "clarification" of what they meant to do is, it's not a legal agreement, it's his interpretation. But what he said they meant to do is NOT what the TOS change said. The change said they had a license to use everything you posted any way they wanted.

This is NOT about privacy concerns. I gave those up long ago when I embraced online life.

We understand that if you post something online it is pretty much there forever -- I wrote an email post in a USENET Group in 1992 that still seems to be the earliest online use of the phrase "e-business." It's there for anyone who wants to Google it. Forever.

This is about who owns what I create -- and what you create. Just because it's "only a photo of Aunt Tillie" doesn't mean you should give up your rights to that photo. You made it, you own it.

Like many independent consultants, I make my living from the content I create for myself and for clients. That means podcasts, video podcasts, photos, writing articles, anything else I can sell as part of my services. It's valuable to me and my company's brand to share a lot of this content online, on sites like Flickr, Twitter, and Facebook.

I am willing to have my content promoted, distributed, highlighted, shared on these sites. I am not willing to allow these sites to say they own my content and can sell it without sharing those proceeds with me in a reasonable way.

When George Lucas was asked about YouTube (whose users seem oblivious to its similarly confiscatory TOS claiming ownership of every video you post there), Lucas responded "I'm always amazed at how many people are willing to work for nothing."

That's what you do when you post content to sites that claim ownership. You work for nothing. They grow and gain in advertising value with the content you create. Advertisers want eyeballs, and sites get eyeballs by having content people want. They should share that revenue with the content creators in a meaningful way. Not "if we get 10 million hits on your content we'll give you $20."

Here's the content of a note I posted to Mark Zuckerberg at FaceBook this morning:

Mark, thanks for having second thoughts about listening to the lawyers on the TOS. The clause they wrote was a clear rights grab from the perspective of those of us who create content intending to profit from it, like podcasts I produce for clients, videos I produce for profit, and my writing. That's how I make my living. I don't give anyone perpetual rights to anything without compensation, and despite your "clarifications" of what you intended that isn't what your legal terms stated.

The problem is that we live in a world where it's not your intentions that govern the relationship, it's the legalese. People can try to diminish the importance of the TOS any way they want, but that is the governing agreement. If you don't intend to own our personally generated (and copyrighted) content forever, then you have to say so in the TOS, not let the lawyers write a perpetual license that gives you effective control over that work product.

I suggest you get input from intellectual property experts outside your law department -- especially from professional writer groups, professional photography and video trade associations, and other trade groups interested in protecting the copyrights of their members. There ought to be a reasonable middle ground in which content producers can be comfortable that posting a link to their work product on FaceBook doesn't strip them of their rights to profit from their work.

Just because millions of people give up the rights to their videos by posting them on YouTube doesn't mean all of us want to work totally for free. We display our work to you and our friends because it's part of the overall online strategy for our personal brands, and so people know what we are working on. But things change. As the commercial says, "Life comes at you fast," and we need to know that if we change our minds and part ways with FaceBook, we really part ways.

Looking forward to continuing the dialogue!

Steve "PodcastSteve" Lubetkin

As a free society, we've always placed value on the creative energy of content producers -- whether they are superstar blockbuster authors or just ink-stained struggling wretches who celebrate the $25 stringer fee they earned from filing a story with a wire service.

Do we really care so little about the rights of content creators that we want them to shut up because being able to Poke and SuperPoke people is a higher priority?

What do you think?

Jeff Pulver Welcoming Remarks, Philadelphia Real-World Social Media Tagging Breakfast, 2/5/09

steve@lubetkin.net (Steven L. Lubetkin (steve@lubetkin.net)) — Sun, 08 Feb 2009 20:05:18 PST

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Jeff Pulver's Real-World Social Media Tagging Breakfast in Philadelphia on February 5 included short remarks by Jeff about why he began creating opportunities for social media participants to meet each other in the real world, and the tools he thought might be helpful to get people to engage each other in real interactions and conversations.

La Nueva Frontera Digital, multimedia conference for journalists, 1/31/2009

steve@lubetkin.net (Steven L. Lubetkin (steve@lubetkin.net)) — Sun, 01 Feb 2009 12:03:57 PST

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Steve "PodcastSteve" Lubetkin of Professional Podcasts was a panel presenter at La Nueva Frontera Digital conference at Temple University on Saturday, 31 January 2009, sponsored by the Philadelphia Association of Black Journalists and the National Association of Hispanic Journalists. This short video report contains scenes from the conference including excerpts from presentations by Ju-Don Roberts of WashingtonPost.com; Bill Rowland of the Philly Food Guys Podcast; Dan Levy and Nick Tarnowski of the On the DL Podcast, and interviews with Sarah Glover, staff photographer of the Philadelphia Daily News and Regina Medina of the Philadelphia Inquirer, co-chairs of the conference.

MediaBistro panel on social media and traditional media focuses on “monetization”

steve@lubetkin.net (Steven L. Lubetkin (steve@lubetkin.net)) — Fri, 30 Jan 2009 03:03:31 PST

MediaBistro.com held a conference panel on “Journalists and Social Media” this week. You can read Paulina Reso’s summary of the event at the Fishbowl NY blog. They included this post-game analysis video with people who attended the event, and the theme of their comments seems to be “how the heck do you make money off of this stuff?”

Take a look at the video and add your comments and suggestions for how to “monetize” social media…

Post to claim new Technorati blog listing

steve@lubetkin.net (Steven L. Lubetkin (steve@lubetkin.net)) — Sat, 24 Jan 2009 12:59:27 PST

Need to claim this new location on Technorati.

Technorati Profile

Penn Central 1974 - The Movie

steve@lubetkin.net (Steven L. Lubetkin (steve@lubetkin.net)) — Thu, 11 Dec 2008 17:58:52 PST

This is the movie commissioned by the Penn Central Railroad bankruptcy trustees to try to convince members of Congress that the railroad desperately needed a cash infusion or some other federal intervention if the railroad were to survive.

Think of it as the social media of its day, a corporate movie commissioned as a way of educating elected officials who had little time or inclination to actually visit the railroad to find out what was going on.

In fairness, there are some anecdotes I've heard about the making of this movie, including the fact that some of the really bad conditions just wouldn't cooperate with the filmmakers. So instead of showing actual "standing derailments" (derailments caused by crossties so rotted that the rails just spread apart under the weight of the freight cars), they actually had to stage some of them.

There is a scene of a car derailing as it moves down the "hump" track in a classification yard, and I'm told it took more than one take to get it to derail.

Despite these moviemaker tricks, the facts were pretty bleak for Penn Central.

And the movie did help convince Congress to do the only right thing.

Take control of the company and the other bankrupt railroads, and make something new. Conrail. And considering what the car companies are asking for as an INTERIM solution for just the next three months ($15 billion), Conrail was a bargain at $7.6 billion -- all in.

That's pretty much where the auto industry should be headed. Even as I was preparing this blog entry, I came across the daily agenda in the previous entry showing that GMAC is still taking folks out for expensive breakfast meetings, even as its owners go begging the taxpayers for a handout.

Enough bailout money, we need to nationalize these turkeys and impose a Conrail style solution once again.

del.icio.us Tags: conrail,penn central,railroad,auto industry,general motors,ford,chrysler,bailout,federal intervention,bankruptcy

They just don't understand, do they?

steve@lubetkin.net (Steven L. Lubetkin (steve@lubetkin.net)) — Thu, 11 Dec 2008 18:28:08 PST

This was on the sign at The Mansion, a lavish catering hall in Voorhees, NJ. Let's give these guys some taxpayer money so the can have a good breakfast out, right?

Yeah, I'm in favor of that.

Great minds think alike. Florio, Broder, Lubetkin. The Conrail solution may be the right solution to auto industry crisis.

steve@lubetkin.net (Steven L. Lubetkin (steve@lubetkin.net)) — Thu, 11 Dec 2008 13:14:52 PST

Yesterday I tweeted on Twitter (I'm PodcastSteve, if you want to follow me there) about former NJ Gov. Jim Florio's recent appearance on CNBC, in which he advocated a Conrail-like solution to the auto industry crisis. Florio, who was chair of the House Surface Transportation Subcommittee during the original Conrail privatization process, may have an excellent point. And others are starting to think this way too. As I was typing the Twitter message, I started to refer to the solution as "ConCar" (as in Conrail) and then deleted that reference.

Today, former Conrail colleague Bob Libkind points out the op-ed in the Philadelphia Daily News by Jonathan Broder, general counsel at what remains of Conrail, sort of a co-owned switching railroad split between Norfolk Southern and CSX Corporation. What's the headline? "Remember Conrail? Think Concar."

I shoulda left it in the Tweet, huh?

For those of you who want to go into the Wayback machine on Conrail, here's a link to the article I wrote in PR Strategist about the Conrail privatization battle.

As a special treat in advance of the Conrail alumni holiday party later this month, we've decided to bring to our web video platform the 1974 Penn Central video used to convince Congress that the railroad needed saving.

The film is an interesting artifact that shows how the railroad made clever use of the social media of the day; i.e., a corporate film, could be used to educate constituencies about the real day-to-day problems facing the industry.

Now how is Detroit using social media tools to help gain support on Capitol Hill?

I also call to your attention the Middle Chamber Books podcast interview we conducted in February 2007 with Rush Loving, a former associate editor of Fortune magazine, and author of The Men Who Loved Trains: The Story of Men Who Battled Greed to Save an Ailing Industry, about the recent history of U.S. railroads, particularly the Penn Central, its bankruptcy and consolidation into Conrail, and then Conrail's privatization and sale.

Rush Loving steps off
an inspection trip on a Norfolk
Southern locomotive in October 2003.

The Men Who Loved Trains: The Story of Men Who Battled Greed to Save an Ailing Industry (Railroads Past and Present): Rush Loving: Books

ISBN: 0253347572
ISBN-13: 9780253347572

Download the podcast here (Stereo MP3, 50.2 mb, 35:40 duration)

A couple of years ago, when the legendary L. Stanley Crane passed away, I attended his memorial service with many former colleagues. Crane, who as chairman made Conrail profitable and stood up to then DOT Secretary Elizabeth Dole in her ill-advised scheme to sell Conrail to Norfolk Southern, had the perfect model for the auto industry.

In April 2006, I drafted an op-ed article that I submitted to newspapers in Philadelphia, Washington, and Detroit.

No one took me up on it.

I should have published it on this blog then.

It's worth publishing now. Wherever I mention General Motors, you can substitute the entire auto industry. It's understood.

Op-ed for Philadelphia Inquirer

By Steven L. Lubetkin

To Solve General Motors’ Problems Requires Railroading Through A Solution

In the very public debate about how to solve General Motors’ woes, it’s amazing that no one has considered how legendary railroad manager L. Stanley Crane imposed effective and successful strategies that saved Consolidated Rail Corporation (Conrail) from a similar death spiral a little more than two decades ago.

Not satisfied with a mandatory retirement as the close of his highly successful career at the Southern Railway following the Southern’s merger with Norfolk & Western, Crane accepted the challenge of becoming Chairman and CEO of Conrail when the large northeast-midwest rail system was on its knees.

Conrail was the federally imposed compromise solution to the bankruptcies of five northeastern and Midwestern railroads in the 1970s, following the larger collapse of the ill-fated Penn Central.

All these railroads were merged into Conrail after failing to adjust to the economic realities of the railroad industry, which had changed dramatically following the construction of the Interstate Highway System in the 1950s and early 1960s.

The early planners of Conrail had a vision strikingly similar to the strategy currently being employed at General Motors. One is reminded of the catch phrase behind the movie, “Field of Dreams,” which suggests that we should “build it and they will come.”

L. Stanley Crane calls his office
from a tower office in Youngstown
Steven L. Lubetkin Photo
Copyright ©1985, 2008 Steven L. Lubetkin. All rights reserved.

Conrail’s planners assumed that rebuilding and renovating the decrepit physical plant of the railroad would attract back the traffic that had been lost to trucks because of decades of poor service and track conditions.

To get labor unions to agree to the Penn Central merger, its management agreed to pay union members until age 65 whether there was work for them or not. This made it impossible to change the size of the workforce to reflect the economic realities of the business.

GM is now facing the consequences of agreeing to this kind of guarantee in an earlier labor negotiation.

When Conrail was formed, the labor protection situation got even worse.

“Build it and they will come” thinking led Congress to codify into federal law a labor protection feature of the Penn Central merger that GM seems to have adopted just as the Penn Central did, in hopes of buying labor peace – the “jobs bank.”

This guaranteed wage was written into the Conrail enabling legislation as “Title V,” and tens of thousands of idled rail workers collected annual salaries while Conrail hemorrhaged federal dollars. The hope was that when traffic volume increased, these workers could be productive again.

Stan Crane looked at this issue from a different perspective when he arrived at Conrail in 1980. He argued that the railroad did not have the luxury of rebuilding a gold-plated physical plant in the hope that traffic would return.

Instead, he demanded that his managers size the railroad’s physical plant and staffing for the current level of traffic, enabling him to redistribute and use more effectively such assets as locomotives, rail, and other equipment.

Crane made many unpopular cost-cutting decisions, closing repair shops, unproductive rail yards, and reducing management. He also went after asset utilization.

On one inspection trip, he ordered his managers to rip out two of the four tracks circling the railroad’s iconic Horseshoe Curve in Pennsylvania, a stretch of railroad that some diehards joked “was a four-track railroad since before it was built.”

The expensive specially tempered rail was valuable and could be used elsewhere, and Crane argued that traffic volumes did not justify keeping it idle on the Horseshoe Curve.

He also argued against Title V labor guarantees when there was, for all practical purposes, no prospect of those idled workers ever returning to work on the railroad.

Many railroaders grumbled at Crane’s approach, just as many GM managers seem resistant to making hard decisions today. But these are precisely the decisions needed if GM is to survive.

Crane’s cost-cutting leadership helped convince union leaders to join forces with management and convince Congress that Conrail could be profitable and successful.

This labor-management cooperation convinced Congress to remove the legislative burdens it imposed on the nascent Conrail in the 1970s, and allowed Crane to lead the company to its successful public stock offering in 1987 – the largest IPO in U.S. history up to that time, what was then a stunning $1.9 billion deal (a mere rounding error on the dot-com IPOs of recent memory).

The lesson for GM from Crane’s Conrail experience is that GM can’t afford to size its facilities for future hoped-for sales.

It needs a physical plant that matches its current level of sales, and a workforce that matches.

GM also needs its leaders to speak honestly about getting rid of the burden of its unrealistic “jobs bank.”

It can’t continue to pay full salaries and benefits for workers who have little hope of returning to work for the auto maker.

Whatever the mistakes of GM’s past, management and union leaders need to collaborate in a solution that helps the auto maker survive in some smaller form.

That would be far better than a solution that wrecks the company completely.

That’s the lesson Conrail learned from L. Stanley Crane, and GM should call its next series of plays from Crane’s playbook.

del.icio.us Tags: conrail,stanley crane,railroad,auto industry,chrysler,ford,general motors,gm,detroit,philadelphia,washington,elizabeth dole,penn central,consolidation,bankruptcy,privatization

America's Most Convenient Bank, Eh?

steve@lubetkin.net (Steven L. Lubetkin (steve@lubetkin.net)) — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 13:47:58 PST

Marketing Daily ran this story Friday:

TD Bank Is 'At Your Convenience' Through January

It just bears remembering that the bank using the tagline "America's Most Convenient Bank" is actually, um, a Canadian bank. The TD stands for Toronto Dominion, okay?

Maybe the tagline should be North America's Most Convenient Bank...

Steve Lubetkin Photo, Montreal, July 2006

Contextual ads in online communications - make sure the context is right

steve@lubetkin.net (Steven L. Lubetkin (steve@lubetkin.net)) — Sun, 23 Nov 2008 05:50:29 PST

Neville Hobson has commented on work by Niall Kennedy to create a new "front-end" interface for Twitter that allows additional levels of customization to the web page for a Twitter user, to include local languages, different ways of linking, and, perhaps most importantly, serving of Google ads that are relevant to the specific user.

Relevance is a key consideration, because some of the current implementations of ad-supported SMS leave a lot to be desired in that department.

I've been subscribing to several of these ad-supported SMS feeds from the New Jersey Gannett newspapers in the past couple of months. At no cost to the user, the Asbury Park Press, Vineland Daily Journal, South Jersey Courier Post, and some others, have been inviting online readers to subscribe to receive up-to-the-minute headlines.

The service is actually pretty good, you get breaking news heads several times a day, and sometimes it's even traffic warnings -- that could be a whole separate revenue generator if they play it right.

The problem is the juxtaposition of the ads included with the news headlines. The ads are clearly randomized, but the very randomization makes them humorous in connection with the headlines they pay for, often in a dark and certainly unintended way.

Here are some examples.

WARNING: Don't be sipping a beverage or eating food when you read these or you will either pass it through your nose or spray it all over your monitor.

COURIER-POST

Crash on Rt. 30 E between Ben Franklin Bridge and Federal St. - all lanes closed *Go Acela - Book at Amtrak.com

COURIER-POST

Barack Obama elected 44th President of the United States of America *Talk to your next date! Call 866-228-2164

THE DAILY JOURNAL

FAIRFIELD: Man arrested in September slaying *Feel silly? Reply JOKE

COURIER-POST

Water main break on Rt. 73 N at Rt. 38 - left lane closed. courierpostonline.com *Meet singles near U! Call 866-228-2164

ASBURY PARK PRESS

Aberdeen man admits in court to beating and drowning 19 cats *FREE HBO and Starz! Reply SATELLITE

THE DAILY JOURNAL

FRANKLIN: Three teens arrested in tool-theft case *Protect your family + home 24/7! Reply BRINKS

ASBURY PARK PRESS

Murder indictment of Jersey Shore nurse dismissed *Check out movie listings Reply BIGSCREEN

ASBURY PARK PRESS

Missing Jackson boy found in Brick this morning *FREE info on the best schools! Reply SCHOOL

THE DAILY JOURNAL

Financial rescue bill sails through House *Great deal! Save $$ @ Friendly's! Reply FRIEND

ASBURY PARK PRESS

Man, 88, dies after fatally shooting wife at Community Medical Center *Escape to Myrtle Beach! Save $$$! Reply MYRTLE

Two decades later and they still haven't learned the lesson of Michael Moore

steve@lubetkin.net (Steven L. Lubetkin (steve@lubetkin.net)) — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 05:06:27 PST

Open letter to auto industry executives:

You guys need a reality check. You have been spending way too much time in your gated Grosse Pointe communities and not enough time experiencing life the way most of us live it.

The Washington Post yesterday reported that despite the 24 daily nonstop commercial flights between Detroit and Washington, the CEOs of the three failing US automakers chose to fly on individual private planes to a hearing where they asked taxpayers to pony up $25 billion to paper over their wretched record of mismanaging formerly great American industrial companies.

There are frequently very good business reasons why it makes sense for corporate executives to use private aircraft to go somewhere. More control over the scheduling, getting somewhere quickly in a crisis, and so on. But this was an incredible display of what the Post politely called "tone deafness" to the climate in Washington, and it may very well have killed the industry's chances of getting a dime from lawmakers.

It is a direct parallel to the disastrous tone deafness of an earlier GM CEO, Roger Smith, when his office was approached by a young unknown documentary film maker from Flint, who wanted to discuss with Smith the impending plant closures and layoffs at GM's Flint complex, which was going to wreak havoc on the Flint economy.

Despite pleas from some of GM's very bright PR counselors at the time (I know this from speaking to them directly), Smith refused -- against PR advice -- to meet with the filmmaker, and Michael Moore's movie, "Roger and Me" went on to launch Moore's career in ambush documentaries.

The whole premise of the movie was "Roger Smith doesn't care enough to meet with me, and he's now trying to hide from me." Smith, with his aristocratic arrogance, played right into the typecasting he was being shoehorned into by Moore.

If he had been honest, met with the filmmaker, explained the difficult decisions, maybe, just maybe, it would have damaged the premise of the movie. Instead, he just helped confirm Moore's worst caricature of the GM CEO, and severely damaged the firm's reputation.

KEY TAKEAWAY FOR CORPORATE EXECUTIVES: Be honest, if you don't know, say you don't know. Stop pretending you have this economic thing figured out any better than your hourly workers. We're all in this together whether you like it or not -- and your behavior up to now is clearly indicating that you don't like it and really do think you are different from the rest of us.

And so today, we have this awful PR disaster that may very well wreck the chances for restructuring this industry any time soon.

You have to think that the veteran PR people at these auto companies MUST have told the CEOs that flying their $10,000/hour jets into DC would be an image problem. It certainly didn't get past the members of Congress who grilled them, according to Dana Milbank's column in the Post. As Milbank reports:

"There's a delicious irony in seeing private luxury jets flying into Washington, D.C., and people coming off of them with tin cups in their hands," Rep. Gary L. Ackerman (D-N.Y.) advised the pampered executives at a hearing yesterday. "It's almost like seeing a guy show up at the soup kitchen in high-hat and tuxedo. . . . I mean, couldn't you all have downgraded to first class or jet-pooled or something to get here?"

If the miserable consequences of this error in judgment weren't so appalling for thousands of innocent auto workers, Michael Moore might even be chuckling, with a slight hint of schadenfreude. But I have a feeling he's punching holes in the wall with his fist.

And probably so are the PR folks at these companies, because saying "I told you so!" isn't a real career option for them right now.

Walmart Store #5201 Grand Opening, Edison, NJ 11/12/2008

steve@lubetkin.net (Steven L. Lubetkin (steve@lubetkin.net)) — Fri, 14 Nov 2008 14:02:21 PST

Click to Play

Steve Lubetkin reports on the opening of Walmart Store #5201 in Edison, Middlesex County, NJ. The new 141,000 square foot store features environmentally friendly skylights, LED lighting, floors made of recycled materials, as well as one-hour photo, full service pharmacy, and oil and tire express services.

TV News Directors and Online Video News Editors: There is substantial b-roll available from this grand opening if you are producing reports. Please contact slubetkin@successcomgroup.com or (856) 751-5491 to obtain b-roll.

Thoughts about Podcasting and "Micro-Communities"

steve@lubetkin.net (Steven L. Lubetkin (steve@lubetkin.net)) — Fri, 14 Nov 2008 04:58:39 PST

On November 13, I joined more than 60 social media experts in Melville, NY for the "Social Media Jungle Conference organized by Internet entrepreneur and investor Jeff Pulver.

I was one of 15 session presenters/facilitators for the all-day conference, and I focused on how companies can reduce their marketing expenses through effective use of audio and video podcasting. Much of the conference was streamed live over the Internet through UStream.tv.

You can see part of my presentation in the player below.

You can see the lineup of Social Media Jungle speakers at Jeff Pulver's Blog.

For videos of many other presentations, go to the UStream.tv program page here.

Photo by Jeff Pulver

Free TV : Ustream

The conversations at the conference got me thinking about how we focus on our podcasting activities. Our clients' audiences are very highly targeted niche markets with specialized interests. They are "micro-communities" exquisitely tailored for the niche-based or narrowcasting focus of social media. Social media liberates the "media" distribution platform from the limitations of broadcast networks or terrestrial radio and TV stations dictating to the audience what content they will see.

Nelly Yusupova, ("DigitalWoman" on Twitter) who spoke at the Jungle about how to integrate advertising effectively in social media, coined the couplet, "The narrower the niche, the more you get rich."

That is exactly on point for social media. In my opinion, social media entrepreneurs are often too focused on collecting large numbers of eyeballs -- in terms of page views, clicks, or downloads.

Just as Twitter (I'm "PodcastSteve" on Twitter) gave rise to the concept of "microblogging" because of the short length of messages, Nelly's idea carries heavy freight for me -- and for my podcasting business. We are not particularly worried if our audiences are small, as long as they are self-selecting to gather our content. We are producing podcasts for very narrow niche business-to-business purposes. Our clients want to communicate highly technical business expertise to prospective clients who need to understand how that expertise can help them.

It's long past the time when a business could get its expertise covered in detail -- and effectively -- in the mainstream media so that prospects would knock on the door. And getting a business story covered in depth on radio or TV? Fuggeddaboutit!

Businesses that want to have some level of control over the opportunities to present their expertise to these micro-communities need to consider podcasting as a tool that makes them broadcasters and takes control of the content away from third parties.

But with this control over one channel comes additional responsibility. Corporate podcast users also need to be sure there is a mechanism for passionate believers in their brand to express that passion through conversation, creative activities, even fun and humor -- often at the expense of the brand. It's really OK to not only let that happen, you couldn't stop it if you wanted to, and if you have passionate microcommunity members talking about your brand even when you're not around, isn't that a success?

Justin Oberman

steve@lubetkin.net (Steven L. Lubetkin (steve@lubetkin.net)) — Thu, 13 Nov 2008 14:10:31 PST

Justin (@JustinOberman on Twitter) was the final Social Media Jungle speaker, on mobile social media.