Our office has been working on gathering some of the professors around campus with an expertise in issues that will be important for the 2008 election.  We’re putting together a Web site for our experts so if the media want to contact them they’ll be able to, since New Mexico is supposed to be one of the few swing states this year that could decide the election.

Our site will also include video pieces of each of the experts, and I wanted to share one with y’all today.  I interviewed Prof. Geissman yesterday, and I’ve gotta say he’s a really cool guy with a lot of passion about his area of expertise, global climate change.  So for yer viewing pleasure, here he is.

I’m wrapping up the evening’s festivities and getting ready for a quick nap before heading to work tomorrow morning and I realized that it was a pretty good day.  I’m on a compressed work week at the university, working four 10 hour days instead of five 8’s, so I had the day off, which works great for me because my fiancee also has Monday’s off.  (There’s been a little bit of consternation in the media about the compressed work week - how dare those ungrateful people working for the university work only four days instead of the five we have to work.  Of course, the media want us to work five 10 hour days and only get paid for 40 hours, like they do, but that’s a story for another time).

Most of today was spent working around the house, playing on the XBox 360 (Call of Duty 4 and Half Life 2, Ep 2) and planning out the rest of my work week.  This month’s UNM Today stories are due on Aug. 11 and I’ve got a light writing load this month.  Although our office is also working on an experts list for the upcoming election.  Keep your eyes on this space to find out more soon!  I’m only working a couple of days this week, my birthday’s on Friday (big 35, now I’m looking at the downside of my angry 30’s) and I’m heading to Vegas next week for the New Media Expo and Podcasty Goodness Convention.  I’m really looking forward to that.

But the big news for today comes from the future Mrs. Net News 54.  She went to meet with her heart doc today and came away with pretty much a clean bill of health!  As some of y’all know, earlier this year, she was rushed into the hospital with a weak heart - her blood ejection fraction was around 20%, which was perilously close to “Danger Danger Will Robinson!” status.  Today her ejection fraction was back up to 55%, which is normal, and the doctor’s weaning her off of some of her meds now that her heart is stronger.  So my birthday present came early this year, and it’s all I really wanted anyway - my fiancee to be OK again.

Well, it’s time to crash and get ready for another exciting day of PR goodness!  Watch this space soon for my thoughts on “educational consumers,” or as I like to call it, WTF?

Peace out, Space Cowboy.

When you beat your swords into plowshares.  Who knew?

see Obama pictures

Hat Tip: Pundit Kitchen, brought to you by the I Can Has Cheezburger network.

It’s not over yet.  Actually it might just be beginning.

No, I’m not talking about the 2008 election, now moving into its 48,203 day.  There’s something much more important going on.

It’s summer again, the sun is hot, the days are long, and Brett Favre is looming on the horizon again, like some twisted football version of Groundhog Day.

Favre, one of the better players in the game currently, is threatening to come out of his long, arduous, four-month retirement and suddenly felt the desire to play football again.  The Packers had finally decided to stick with Aaron Rodgers, their quarterback of the future, as their quarterback of the now.  Once the Packers started preparing for training camp, the Drama King decided the camera wasn’t focused on him and turned Green Bay back into a circus.

The Packers should be used to this from the Drama King.  He’s been holding them hostage for a few years, never quite deciding if he should retire or not and coming back to the team.  Only this time he went though all the motions, filling out paperwork and everything this time.

Don’t get me wrong, in his prime Brett Favre was one of the best quarterbacks in the NFL.  Even now, at the young age of 93, Favre is still a decent quarterback.  Decent in that he’s got one, maybe two years left in him. But not good enough for a team to trade anything more than late-round pick for him.

Green Bay should call his bluff.  Take him back, if he wants to come back. But don’t trade him to any other teams.  Keep him on the roster and let him sit.  Green Bay has made it clear that Rodgers is the starter.  Of course, some people are upset that Brett isn’t going to have a shot to be starter, but like my rugby coach used to say - “this isn’t a democracy, I pick who starts.  That’s the bottom line.”

The Packers have already committed to Rodgers, and told Favre that “Golly Gee, you’ll make a great backup quarterback.”  I think they should go one better, and make Brett the best quarterback in the league again - the best scout team quarterback.

Wow, I go offline for a month and the next thing you know people are switching jobs!  Bob LeDrew - blogger, musician, house concert promoter and all-around good cyber-dude extraordinaire - is leaving his job at Thornley Fallis PR in Canada to move back to the dark side academia and become the Director of Communications at Algonquin College in Ottawa.

Congratulations Bob!

As seen on campus last Friday, two gentlemen were standing on Cornell Mall, right outside my office offering free hugs to all who wanted them.  Just the right thing for a long, drawn out Friday afternoon.

Suffice it to say, they didn’t let me get away after this picture without a hug.

In this age of advancing technology and Google’s growing hegemony in your online life, this is just a quick reminder to say that if you have a Google Account (Gmail, iGoogle, etc) then you might want to try out this old-school method of account security.

Write your password down on this thing called paper.

Before you scoff at this reuse of old technology, please hear my tale, it’s sad but true… about a girl that I once …er still know. (OK, cancel the “Runaround Sue” pun.)

Recently I bought a new laptop for my fiancee.  It’s pretty sweet, a new Dell XPS 1530, and I’ve been transferring data from her old laptop to this one.  But we didn’t get the passwords moved over from her old computer’s Firefox file to this one, and she couldn’t remember the password for her account.  No problem, you might think, just have Google send the password to her backup email account.  That would work great if the company hadn’t unknowingly shut down (since she used her Gmail account for everything there was no need for that email).

What about the backup question?  I’d like an answer to that one as well, because after typing in the answer, and any possible permutation of the backup question and that little cheesy captcha file, Google still would not let her reset her password.

So we finally found a way to contact Google, because being the big web company they are, they don’t actually want people to contact them when their stuff goes haywire (unless of course, you are a big consumer account, which being only two people, we aren’t).  We filled out the form with all of the information we had on the account and sent it in, only to get a response from Google telling us they can’t send her information because she didn’t have enough information to send in (aka, she’s not using enough of their services and she’s screwed, again we’re not a big corporate account).

The end result of all of this?  Well, my fiancee has another Gmail account for backup (that I created for her) and she still can’t access her Gmail contacts, or the businesses (bank, car payment, etc) that contact her through that email address and she’s getting stressed about all of this.  So thanks Google, it’s such a great plan to give stress to someone with a heart condition.

And the lesson learned from this little weekend debacle?  Just use some retro tech and remember to write your passwords down someplace safe (Dad, hint hint)

P.S. and if anyone from Google ever stumbles across this, a little help here?

Oh man, I came back from a meeting to find out that Tim Russert, one of NBC’s iconic journalists, died in the NBC offices today.  I’m still processing it now, I grew into my political maturity watching Russert, a fellow Buffalo Bills fan (one reason I liked him I think), on Sunday mornings, and later, with the advent of technology and my inability to get up on Sunday mornings after a 5 a.m. crash time the night before, downloading “Meet the Press” to my iPod, spending part of the day walking Pickles (my dog) and listening to the show. Sometimes arguing with him or his guests, like any political junkie does I guess. (my neighbors must think Pickles and I had the strangest arguments)

I never understood a lot of the vitriol thrown at Russert from partisans on the right and the left.  To me, he always tried to call it straight down the middle, being fair, yet tough, to the people he had on the other side of the table. To me that was the epitome of fairness - when both sides were attacking you for your “bias,” that usually meant you were doing something right. Watching Russert, I tried to learn how he was able to dissect a complex issue and present it to his viewers, and his guest, in a way that was to the point. I can fault him slightly for not having the biggest BS-O’meter in the world, but on a personal, and a professional level, I respected his candor and tenacity.

Being a political junkie himself, Russert will at least be able to enjoy this election from on high, sharing a drink, and debating the presidential election with people like Edward Murrow.  (Not to mention trying to get that post-death interview with Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan.)

The interview table got a little smaller today.  Via con dios, Tim.

As I mentioned a few blog posts back, I was debating whether or not to give up the pen name and start writing under my real name. After receiving an email from my friend Mark, he reminded me that I have already been blog outed in cyberspace. A while back Mark referenced one of my posts on the David Iglesias firing case, where I asked where the piles of evidence that Republican operatives out here claimed Iglesias was ignoring.

Without rehashing my post or the Iglesias case right now (I’m swearing off politics for the summer, hopefully) I realized what Mark was saying. Why be worried now? Plus I’ve been referring to this blog from my Facebook and Twitter accounts for a while now, so quite a few of you already know who I am. So why not just rip the bandage off and get it over with?

Here goes…

Name: Benson Hendrix

Rank: Futurist, trend watcher (as much as one can be from Albuquerque), videographer, movie maker, public relations specialist, media relations pitcher (batter up!), former rugby great (in my own mind), jazz and electronic music aficionado, blogger, social media maven, king of my world and all around good guy.

Location: Albuquerque, New Mexico

Serial Number: 666 (or something around there…)

I’m one of the PR guys for the University of New Mexico, a place that I’m proud to call my alma mater. I tend to focus more on social media/content creation, netcasting, crisis management assistance and media relations than traditional PR press release writing. Speaking of media relations, check here for one of my first press events after getting hired at the U of NM.

I’ll warn you now, although most of you who have been reading me for a while already know this, at times I’m snarky and sarcastic, with what I think is a heart of gold and a quickly developing BS detector. I wanted to come out from behind my pen name, because while I enjoy blogging it was getting harder and harder to blog in a stale, sterile voice and I wanted to put a little more of my passion and myself behind this blog, which I’m doing if I put my name on the line. And if I want to direct people about being true to themselves when engaging in social media, I should probably do this as well. 

What do I want to blog about? Well, some of the things that I’m passionate about:

The intersection of new media/social media and traditional communications, and how the Internet has impacted the media

Technology – I’m a geek at heart

Politics (although I’m trying to cut back on the political diet, because my blood pressure needs a break) – including a smackdown of both political parties, because both sides piss me off at times

The media

Public Relations and Advertising (it’s what I’ve made a career out of) and business

Albuquerque – home for my fiancée and myself for the foreseeable future

So what can I say?

I am Spartacus Benson.

P.S. To answer the question floating out there – Yes, I have a job. Yes, I have an opinion. One does not influence, nor should be connected to, the other.

P.P.S. It was pointed out that in my rush to get this up I had forgotten to include a photo credit, which I apologize for.  The pictures above were taken by my friend Mark Bralley at the 2007 New Mexico PRSA Fall Conference, which I co-chaired.

(Keep in mind this comes from a Windows fan…)

“Windows is a lot like the Democratic Party.  A loose coalition of things that don’t like each other working together.”

Paraphrased from Mark Hinton on an archived UNM Geek Talk.