Phil's Blogservations

'Bout Damn Time

2008-08-03T14:06:00.004-05:00

'Bout Damn Time

Spent the last half of last week talking to financial communications and investor relations experts about the long-overdue admission from the SEC that, ya know, publication on a company Web site can in fact be "disclosure".

Come on in, oh weary, creaky, rusty, seventy-four-year-old regulatory giant, too content for too long with wielding blunt instruments intended to restrain John D. Rockefeller and J.P. Morgan... The water is... Well... The water has been here for almost two decades or nearly a quarter of your lifespan.

It always struck me as funny that the SEC seemed to consider the Web (read: one of the world's most open, pervasive forms of communication) as actually less a forum for "fair disclosure" than, say, the wires.

The reactions online have ranged from thoughtful to amusing. (The rhetorical arc of the TechCrunch piece is more or less "The press release is dead! Long live the social media press release!" You find yourself humming "The Battle Hymn Of The Republic" about two-thirds of the way through.)

I'm paying closer attention to XBRL and related initiatives. In fact, look for standards and practices for how a company might use its Web site for material disclosure. (You can't tell me that the SEC is going to let companies slap together a "social media newsroom" any old way and have it pass muster.)

Can't wait for the reaction from Jonathan Schwartz and Mike Dillon, the Sun executives who have been pushing this issue the hardest.

Technorati Tags: sec, regulatory, investor relations, ir, public relations, pr

Birthday

2008-07-29T08:13:00.000-05:00

Birthday

Scoble On Tech Blogging's "Failure"

2008-07-25T17:21:00.004-05:00

Scoble On Tech Blogging's "Failure"

There's certainly a lot to learn from Robert Scoble's post about the insular, echo-chamber failings of the technology blogging community.

That said, I think that Scoble's problem isn't so much that the glass is half-full or half-empty. I just think his glass has been too small.

I can't help but think that Scoble's frustrations come from the fact that tech blogging's anointed leaders really missed the point in the first place.

Just like the dot-boom of 1999, the loudest voices in tech have allowed the term "technology" has been conflated with "Web stuff". Sell babyclothes? Fine. Sell babyclothes using a social network? Stratospheric valuation estimates abound.

Now, as before, real innovation goes largely ignored by the Web 2.0 crowd. As I told one of the heads of the consumer marketing group at a former agency some years ago, "Dot-coms make headlines. Science makes history."

He laments the he's "done too much of the 'business talk' and not enough of the 'let�s discover something that�ll improve our lives together' talk." Economics 101 tells you that the latter necessarily inspires the former and vice versa. It's awfully tough to have a meaningful discussion of one without the other in tech. Silicon Valley, at its best, is the most dramatic proof of this. A flying robotic caipirinha-maker would certainly "make my life easier", but I just don't see Sand Hill Road ponying up the dough.

Real innovation is what "technology" is all about and what has made Silicon Valley an economic miracle. Not whether one finds Facebook's terms-of-service onerous or thinks another Web 2.0 watering hole doesn't link to him enough.

This runs parallel to my ongoing criticism of TechCrunch or, rather, the gushing attention ascribed to it — it operates as if "tech" started in 1999.

My summer 2008 reading list (so far) is below. Recapturing the spirit described in these books is, IMHO, where technology blogging needs to go.

Broken Genius
The Chip
Creative Capital (about Georges Doriot)
Valley Boy (about Tom Perkins)

Technorati Tags: technology, blogging, scoble

Gone Fishin'

2008-07-14T23:27:00.001-05:00

Gone Fishin'

No Internet. No cellphones. Smoke signals don't even make it to the altitude I'll be at.

See you July 21.

The Vanishing "Hero Inventor"

2008-07-08T09:36:00.004-05:00

The Vanishing "Hero Inventor"

It's always fascinated me that people know the names Thomas Edison and Henry Ford, but give blank stares at mention of Robert Noyce and Jack Kilby. The two men invented the integrated circuit "separately together" — Noyce at Fairchild Semiconductor, Kilby at Texas Instruments — and are pretty much responsible for damn near everything you currently enjoy that has an antenna or wire coming out of it.

It's a shame that we don't lionize inventors the way we used to decades ago. However, if pressed, I'll admit that interest in Dean Kamen's work comes close.

While on vacation, I've been devouring books about the history of microelectronics. I just polished off T.R. Reid's The Chip, about the work of Noyce and Kilby. Just before, I finished Broken Genius about William Shockley, the co-inventor of the transistor whose ill-considered passion for eugenics eventually overshadowed his fundamentally groundbreaking work.

Perhaps we live in different times. To illustrate, I offer this passage from The Chip, about when Diane Sawyer interviewed Jack Kilby after his induction into the Inventors Hall Of Fame:

"I mean, if you have to think of one thing that kept the United States at the forefront of technology," Sawyer said, "it was really your invention." Kilby paused, stewing it over. "Well, I hadn't thought of it in those terms," he said quietly. "Have you made money from this invention?" Sawyer asked. "Some, yeah," Kilby replied. Things were just starting to get interesting when Sawyer got a signal from the director: time to move on. She turned quickly to the camera and said, "Coming up in a moment, Dr. Jerry Brodie on how to handle the death of a pet." Jack Kilby's moment in the sun was over.

So it goes.

Technorati Tags: history, electronics, robert noyce, jack kilby, media

"Giving Back"

2008-06-29T18:38:00.005-05:00

"Giving Back"

I often have a strong negative reaction when a business leader talks about "giving back" to a community. This tacitly assumes that achieving business success means that something must be "taken away" from that community. Further, it downplays the value that a successful business offers in terms of jobs, government revenue, increased prosperity, and so on. This attitude, in turn, plants the seeds for confiscatory, redistributionist tax policies, unnecessary regulation, and so on.

Consider this, though: I consistently avail myself of the donated efforts of open-source programmers around the world. At home, I run Kubuntu ~~7.10~~8.04, compiz-fusion, OpenOffice, GIMP, and a host of other applications developed in the free-as-in-speech-and-beer universe.

And I, for one, am not a programmer. Further, my perso-professional priorities pretty much preclude me from taking a lot of time to learn. (Time spent learning, say, C++, could instead be put to learning Portuguese, which I so desperately need as I write this from my wife's grandparents' house in Rio.)

So, how does a non-programmer contribute back to open source? Here are some ideas.

Marketing/evangelism: This is, quite simply, not an option for me at this point in my life. Not a matter for discussion or debate.
Testing: I'm torn on this topic. On one level, it's not only quite exciting to be testing fresh software, but proper testing is an exceedingly important part of a project's success. However, a lot of the time, I'm working on stuff that simply won't tolerate a memory allocation error or buffer overflow as just-one-of-those-things.
Documentation: This is a part of the volunteer effort that I think makes the most sense for me. I'm a decent writer, I think, and open-source efforts can always use better documentation.

So, I guess I should look for an open-source project to contribute documentation to. Watch this space for more.

Oh... And here's some background as to why I use Linux.

And a video:

Technorati Tags: linux, foss, opensource

PROpenMic's "Ask Phil" Group Hits 100 Members

2008-06-19T08:48:00.004-05:00

PROpenMic's "Ask Phil" Group Reaches 100 Members

Many thanks to the students, faculty, and practitioners who have made this experiment such a rewarding experience for me.

Of course, a special thanks to Robert French for taking the initiative to get this all started.

Technorati Tags: propenmic, pr, publicrelations, education

Re-Exploring "The Uses Of Argument"

2008-06-16T20:26:00.003-05:00

Re-Exploring "The Uses Of Argument"

(NB: This has been cross-posted to Authenticities, the Edelman Digital blog.)

As many who know me have heard by now, I harbor a somewhat strong dislike for marketing books. This aversion started around 1995, when I was first exposed to the genre, and has only softened occasionally since. (The most recent concession: Matt Mason's excellent The Pirate's Dilemma, after enjoying a speech by the author at a client event.)
That's not to say that I somehow believe such works don't have value. It's just that I prefer to obtain inspiration from other corners. Often, I hope that I can move forward by going back, "fishing where the fishermen ain't" as I've alluded to before.
I discovered the work of logician Stephen Toulmin from one of my college professors, Dr. Barry Eckhouse, who has built a career in part by applying the precepts of classical rhetoric to modern business. His book Competitive Communication, now in its third edition, is an essential tome.
(I should say at this point that I prefer the less-pejorative connotation of "rhetoric" as "the art and, to some degree, science of persuasion". Unfortunately, the term has been somewhat sullied, with most believing it to solely mean intellectually dishonest, jingoistic, podium-pounding oratory.)
While I haven't studied the art of rhetoric with sustained academic rigor, it occurs to me that many commonly taught models of argument — if any are taught at all — suffer from a fatal flaw: they don't anticipate that your audience might talk back!
This I find to be a strength of how Toulmin looks at argument — a far cry from the insular "Socrates is a man / All men are mortal / Socrates is a mortal" logic. Arguably, Toulmin appeared to have dissected some element of the Conversation Economy long before the Web or the modern computer, to say nothing of Web 2.0.
Toulmin's The Uses Of Argument (first printing: 1958) is a dense but rewarding read. The meat of the work is in Chapter III, which begins:
An argument is like an organism. it has both a gross, anatomical structure and a finer, as-it-were physiological one.
He next outlines a simple-yet-comprehensive framework for constructing an argument:

Claim: What is it that you set out to prove?
Data: What material supports this claim?
Warrants: What makes the data at all true to the claim?
Backing: What gives the warrant any authority at all?
Rebuttal: What might the reasonable person counter with? How might you respond?
(I'm over-simplifying, of course.)
In all of the excitement around Crossing The Chasm, Unleashing Your IdeaVirus, Tipping, Blinking, Cluetraining, Groundswelling, Long-Tailing, or what-have-you, a fundamental truth is often forgotten: We're in the business of making a case, persuading an audience, and articulating a point of view.
QED.
Sure, one might say that reading these marketing books is my responsibility as a professional communicator. After all, one must keep up-to-date in one's field and be able to communicate in the latest metaphors that field's participants develop.
The fact is, though, that enough of you read these books and, in so doing, have become my "information processing nodes" for that content as you blog, discuss, Twitter, incorporate invoke, and reference such works. I hope, perhaps, that I've kept things in symbiotic balance by, in turn, processing a book you haven't read in some small way.
So, I'm saying this: By examining what makes for a truly persuasive argument in today's world, we can once again focus on mastering chess instead of trying to be the best at checkers. The basics are decades-to-centuries old. Perhaps in adapting them, we'll find new truths.

Technorati Tags: rhetoric, writing, books, persuasion

Economist On Paths To The CEO Suite

2008-06-01T11:22:00.000-05:00

Economist On Paths To The CEO Suite

Great article in The Economist (sub req'd when archived) on current trends in terms of how folks get to the CEO chair. The report cites a variety of studies.

Some highlights:

The value of company loyalty: "Lifers" in America and Europe take 22 years and 24 years, respectively, to get to the CEO position, whereas "Hoppers" who bounce around between four or more firms take 26 years.
Reflecting faster times: In 1980, it took an average of 28 years to reach the top spot. In 2001, it's been compressed to 24. Average time in each interim position is four years, with the number of interim positions going from six to five.
Easier on our side of the pond: 26% of Americans are "lifers", versus 18% in Europe. CEO turnover is higher in Europe (17.6%) versus US (15%) and Japan (10%). Most interestingly: 37% of the European CEO turnover was due to firings, versus 27% in US and 12% in Japan. The cited cause: Shareholder activism.

Of course, there's an inherent flaw in the wrap-up of these various studies: As our European CEO David Brain once told our U.S. leadership "There's no such country as 'Europe'." Comparing "America" to "Europe" seems kind of funny, on the face of it.

That said, if it feels like modern business is getting faster and faster, you need only look as far as the compressed career path.

Cynics might say that, with a progressively shorter path to the top, leadership quality diminishes. There may be some truth to that. I choose to believe, though, that leaders learn more in a shorter amount of time.

Technorati Tags: ceos, industry, careers

George Wright Of WillItBlend.Com Answers PROpenMic's Questions

2008-05-22T10:17:00.000-05:00

George Wright Of WillItBlend.Com Answers PROpenMic's Questions

I offered the PROpenMic membership an exclusive opportunity to get questions in front of George Wright, the man behind BlendTec's successful "Will It Blend?" videos.

The following was recorded (and edited in under an hour... buya!) at John Gerstner's "Executing Social Media" conference in Pasadena this week.

Find more videos like this on PROpenMic

Technorati Tags: propenmic, george wright, willitblend, blendtec, video, viral video

But It's Her Personal Email Address

2008-05-10T13:18:00.000-05:00

But It's Her Personal Email Address

Lose the groveling and public self-flaggelation.

Let it go. Dust yourself off. Concentrate on fixing the problem.

"Teach. Test. Correct." as the elder Edelman says.

I am.

Technorati Tags: pr, public relations, blogging

Students: Help Me Help You

2008-05-03T21:22:00.003-05:00

Students: Help Me Help You

As many of you know, I make it a personal policy to always make time for students. I call it the "Dimebag Darrell Rule", in honor of the late Pantera/Damageplan guitarist whose Rule-Number-One was (I'm paraphrasing) "Make time for the folks who came to see you, no matter how tired you are at the end of the show."

(Well... He also recommended taking acid for long bus trips, but we won't take it that far...)

Anyway, this all means that I'll happily volunteer to help if your assignment or project requires you to interview a PR professional, survey him/her, ask him/her to fill out a questionnaire, etc.

As the end of the school year nears, the number of these requests predictably increases. Well and good — it's to be expected. However, an increasing number of these student requests are around 24-48 hours ahead of the students' deadline. That won't do either of us any good.

So, here are some basic ground rules:

I intend to give priority to PROpenMic members. If you're not a member, join.
If I don't have at least 10 days before you need my input, it probably isn't going to happen. I typically hit this kind of thing on a weekend. It's in both of our best interests that I be allowed time to deliver a quality response.
If the questions require essay-length answers, I'm not likely to get it done. Besides which, it just looks like you want me to write your assignment for you.
Sometimes, my workload just simply precludes participation. Please don't take it personally. I'll do my absolute best to tell you this right up front if I think this is going to be the case, rather than leave you totally hanging.
THIS ONE IS THE MOST IMPORTANT! My answers will likely point you in other research directions, or I might refer you to another PR pro for additional information and context. Please don't be upset if I add a good chunk to your workload.

With those reasonable guidelines in mind, I'm happy to help.

Technorati Tags: pr, public relations, education, homework

Instructor's Notebook: Redefining "History"

2008-04-29T13:08:00.003-05:00

Instructor's Notebook: Redefining "History"

From the Edelman Digital blog:

In my opinion, the invention of the integrated circuit is at least as groundbreaking as that of the radio or telegraph. However, I suspect that these names are passed up in communications history course because they are what many would call "technology history" not "communications history".

More at the Edelman Digital blog, and in the PROpenMic Forums. (Members only.)

Technorati Tags: pr, public relations, history, tech, education

Priorities

2008-04-28T08:29:00.003-05:00

Priorities

For more than just the very minor paternal reasons, I can tell you that it was a great NewComm Forum this year. (I'm a founding fellow of the nonprofit that puts on the forum, SNCR, though I only have a very small role in the conference itself.) This year's Forum was light-years ahead of the conference-sprawl that was 2007's event in Las Vegas. Smaller group, far greater impact, passion, and thoughtfulness.

For me, it started on Tuesday with a great group of folks who attended my Tuesday workshop. Then I got to see the folks that I typically get to see only a couple of times a year. Even met some folks for the first time whom I have followed online. And, of course, there were the attendees, coming from all kinds of professions and exhibiting varying levels of new-media experience.

But it's time for some tough love here, gang.

Our priorities are way screwed up.

There's no other way to put it. We're staring through the hole and missing the doughnut.

It started when I was walking to the bathroom and passed a conference-goer I had met at the cocktail reception the night before.

"So, what presentation did you just get out of?" I asked.

"Oh, it was a presentation on the Social Media Release," he offers somewhat breathlessly. "Standing room only."

This exchange resulted in:

Now, I'm typically the kind of guy who resists making value judgments, but our professional heads are in a truly strange place when:

Presentations about more-or-less easy-lift changes to the basic tools of our profession, such as the Social Media Release (SMR), receive standing-room-only attention, while...
Presentations about the fundamental, critical issues that matter most to our business go very nearly ignored.

To wit:

Exhibit A: Elizabeth Fletcher's presentation on net neutrality had but three attendees — me, my wife, and one other. Arguably, this issue is one of the most important ones affecting communicators in the U.S. For all that, if you added up all the people in that room, we wouldn't even have had a basketball team.
Exhibit B: John Yunker of Byte Level Research delivered his analysis on trends in Web site language strategies, taking a look at what languages are enjoying spikes in deployment on multinational sites and why.

You simply can't convince me that the 250+ attendees were already so familiar with the details of the net neutrality debate — and it is a debate, keep in mind — that the discussion we had would've bored or insulted.

And what about global trends in corporate Web site localization and translation? The Web's Anglo-centricity isn't going to last forever, people. We should consider ourselves lucky, for now, that the domain name system works on Roman characters and that it relies on TLDs like ".com" rather than "". Sooner or later, that's going to change.

I'm not writing this to pick on Todd Defren and Maggie Fox, who delivered the social media release presentation. Personally, I think any attempt to improve or modernize the press release is a good thing.

Furthermore, there were most certainly other provocative presentations going on at the same time as Elizabeth's and John's. I certainly wouldn't fault anyone who was intrigued by presentations entitled "How To Measure Progress & Success In Business Communities" by Francois Gossieaux, or "The Changing Face Of Journalism In A New Media World" by Tom Foremski, Steve Lubetkin, and Andria Carter. Even with so many multitaskers in one place, one can only see so many presentations in two days when there are five tracks.

But, c'mon... Out of 250 professional communicators, three cared about net neutrality? Web localization and language trends and strategies mattered to four people?

We need to look hard at our priorities as public relations professionals. Otherwise, we truly deserve what even our most uninformed critics throw at us.

Technorati Tags: pr, public relations, sncr, newcomm

Cass Asks: Cluetrain 10 Years On

2008-04-19T00:24:00.001-05:00

Cass Asks: Cluetrain 10 Years On

I'm convinced — convinced — that something's wrong with Technorati's indexing. I only just this week saw this post from John Cass, asking me and others to comment on The Cluetrain Manifesto.

Unlike some folks who chide me for not making their every utterance my highest priority, I'm sure a true gentleman like John will find it in his heart to forgive me for taking a few weeks to get to this, the lovely chap that he is.

Besides which... I'll see him next week at NewComm Forum anyway.

John asks:

1) What does the cluetrain manifesto mean to you? How has the book and theses influenced or not influenced you?

To be honest, I typically prefer not to read business, marketing, or related books, almost as a matter of policy. (Cluetrain was a rare exception.)

If you want to be successful, you gotta be a good fisherman and go where the fishermen ain't. These days, though, the Cluetrain hole has a helluva lot of lines in it. You occasionally find a couple folks from the pro-circuit, sure. And you'll bump into few more folks who have learned to read the river over time, keep to the Dept. of Fish & Game's in-possession limits, and are polite to their fellow fishermen. Mostly, though, you find yourself standing shoulder-to-shoulder at the shoreline with looky-loos who can't bait their own hooks and showed up with their coolers, Fisher-Price rods, Abercrombie & Fitch, radios, faddish bait in garishly fluorescent packages and, of course, little spring-mounted bells alligator-clipped to the ends of their rods.

"Shhhhh...It's the secret Cluetrain fishin' hole!"
"But there are six dozen people here, for chrissakes! Some secret!"
"But it is the secret Cluetrain fishin' hole! Hell... Just ask anybody!"

But I digress...

I read Cluetrain, though, sure. Fortunately, I was able to do so by choice. It wasn't like in the mid-'90s when I had a gun to my head to read (and, dammit, like) Geoffrey Moore's Crossing The Chasm. So, alas, these many years later, none but the Cluetrain's main precepts have remained lodged in that stomach-for-information between my ears, though I will bounce over to the Web site every so often. There are some great, thoughtful, and interesting ideas therein, for sure, but I'd have to admit that the reasons for the tome's sustained deification — even among those who I am convinced never actually read the thing — continue to elude me.

That said, few books in its space are so notable for being, at once, provocative, iconic, widely referenced, and indicative of a unique moment in time.

2) Which companies have best implemented the cluetrain manifesto in your opinion and how were they effective?

As I told someone recently: Dell in 2005 looked at social media the way that Americans looked at the Sputnik launch in 1957. Now in 2008, Dell is like America 12 years after that launch — waving at everyone else from the surface of the moon. Amazing market-as-conversation metamorphosis. (And proving, just in case you were wondering, that the tech-years-versus-real-world-years ratio is about 4:1.)

3) In thesis 57, the cluetrain manifesto states, "smart companies will get out of the way and help the inevitable to happen sooner." In light of that thesis, is encouraging employees to use social media and blogging a good idea? Is it really effective, when an employee is encouraged but not directed?

I remember having a strong reaction to this one when I first read it. Frankly, years later, I still can't see an executive going on-stage at a Morgan Stanley investors' conference and saying "In the next three quarters, we are going to do the smart thing, get out of the way, and help the inevitable to happen sooner." (Reads like a page from DEC's "GQ-Bob"-era business plan, circa 1995.)

Let's just say I would hate to be at the next board meeting.

That said, I do believe that it's good — even advisable — for companies to encourage their employees to engage in social media, provided there are narrowly drawn policies in place that codify what the organization deems acceptable behavior.

Such policies are, really, about protecting the employee just as much as a corporation, if not more so. Looking what happened to Joyce Park and Mark Jen, for example, I see fault on the sides of the company and the employee.

4) How can a company encourage employees to use social media, and empower them to answer customer questions and learn from customers?

I default to a quote that continue to find inspirational:

"I don't have the advertising budget to get our message to, for instance, Java developers working on handset applications for the medical industry. But one of our developers, just by taking time to write a blog, can do a great job getting our message out to a fanatic readership." - Jonathan Schwartz, Sun Microsystems, FORTUNE, 2004

That, and pretty much any other social media implementation that you can spider-graph out of that core idea, is justification right there.

5) Do all employees want to talk with customers? If not what percentage want to internetwork and converse?

The answer to the first question is a "no" just in terms of the way it's phrased. As to what exact percentage? I'm sure it varies widely by company, market, day of the week. Besides... It's Friday night and I'm not quite disposed to to look it up right now.

As I've said before: When the many of the Cluetrain's most breathlessly vocal adherents find themselves wondering why more employees at more companies haven't joined in the conversation online, they really need only look in the mirror.

The following attitude has made me successful in media/analyst relations, client service, and my current role: Approach the task as an educator would, not a salesman. All that many of the loudest voices know — as well as those who often seek to curry their favor — is that it's just easier to get more links, friends, attention, and subscribers when you play the you-don't-get-it card. Self-righteous indignation, pointed at minutiae, is the empty-calorie snack that only meagerly sustains a personal brand.

With that, I now leave it to the masses to take various parts of this post out of context in order to try and generate linkbait or help sell their books.

You're welcome.

Technorati Tags: cluetrain, pr, public relations, john cass

STOP IT!! STOP IT!! I'M NOT LEAVING EDELMAN FOR SPILL.COM!

2008-04-16T14:50:00.003-05:00

STOP IT!! STOP IT!! I'M NOT LEAVING EDELMAN FOR SPILL.COM!

I'm still catching people with my April Fool's joke.

While I still think that Korey and his crew are doing great stuff in Austin with Spill.Com, I'm quite content to be a fan.

Had a lot of fun with the gag, though.

Technorati Tags: edelman, philgomes, pr, public relations, april fools

I'm No Loren Feldman, But...

2008-04-16T14:38:00.003-05:00

I'm No Loren Feldman, But...

And, really, who else is? In any case, occasionally I put videos up on PROpenMic.

Usually the vids are responses to students and instructors in the "Ask Phil" section of the site.

Today, something funny struck me about the Pope's visit to the U.S.

Find more videos like this on PROpenMic

Technorati Tags: politics, religion, pr, public relations, propenmic

Join Edelman's Digital Integration Group

2008-04-15T10:41:00.000-05:00

Join Edelman's Digital Integration Group

Yup... Our little/big group is hiring.

The Digital Integration group is the function within Edelman that's charged with melting digital thinking into all levels of the organization, from new recruits to industry veterans. Within that effort, my specific focus is education in new media and online community principles, especially with regard to how it's integrated into a strategic communications program.

So far, the education effort has gone quite well. The "T4" online community immersion program continues to get high marks... and Edel-folk can be a very critical bunch. Attention and encouragement from the firm's worldwide leadership continues to be very high.

Now, this is where you come in.

As forward thinking and aggressive as Edelman has been in the social media space, keep this in mind — we have 3,100 people here. That's a lot of folks to reach.

Also consider: At the nxt.pr conference, Chris Brogan mentioned that He-Whose-Name-Is-On-The-Door has tasked us with training all 3,100 of those folks. That's how critical the Digital Integration work is.

Now, perhaps in the hands of a lesser team, this would be a problem. Nevertheless, we're looking to add to our crew.

I've blockquoted the official job description below. Unofficially:

Looking for someone with some PR experience, social media or otherwise. Reason: From an organizational perspective, you simply have to know the language of the people you're trying to teach.
That said, a working knowledge of social media enables you to talk to your own group, so bear that in mind. You'll be asked some tough questions.
Know the difference between "education" and "training". We do both here.
Our group has a considerable amount of executive visibility, so you should be prepared to comport yourself accordingly (while having a helluva lotta fun).

The position is in Chicago. Sorry, but I just can't see someone being effective at this job while separated from the core team. (And I speak from experience.)

Job below. Send resumes to phil(dot)mylastname(at)edelman.com.

QUALIFICATIONS:

Intellectual curiosity and passion for digital communications
Strong familiarity with social media, Web 2.0, Web technologies, and their impact on business, consumer, and political communications
Facility with desktop multimedia production, including Adobe/Macromedia Captivate, Audacity, Windows Movie Maker, Windows Media Encoder
Willingness to learn from the Edelman global network and absorb/contextualize communications insights
Passion for being a "change-agent"
RESPONSIBILITIES:

Work closely with Digital Integration leadership to develop, produce, maintain, and update distance-learning modules and curricula
Assist the Digital Integration leadership in surfacing and evaluating new media developments and determining if/when they should be inserted into training curriculum and, eventually, standard operating procedure for the agency
Assist in evaluating the local, regional, or global necessity for various training modules
Contribute to the Digital Integration team's knowledge management efforts in terms of the state-of-the-art in social media, learning technologies
Assist in internal communications and digital evangelism efforts
Co-teach live training classes, including T4, global Edelman University, and in-office seminars (some travel required)
Help maintain production calendar
Recruit and maintain training schedule for T4 social media immersion program
Contribute to team external blog and internal Sharepoint environment

Technorati Tags: pr, public relations, edelman, jobs, careers

Instructor's Notebook: PROpenMic Launches

2008-04-03T20:59:00.002-05:00

Instructor's Notebook: PROpenMic Launches

From over at the Edelman Digital blog:

Bravo to Robert French, who launched PROpenMic — a Ning-based network for students and educators.
In just a few days, well over 130 members have signed up. It will be exciting to see this grow over time.

Read the rest in the complete entry.

Technorati Tags: education, pr, public relations, edelman

Leaving Edelman

2008-04-01T08:41:00.000-05:00

Leaving Edelman

After two-and-a-half years at Edelman, I've decided to pursue other opportunities.

In a couple of weeks, I will be joining Korey, Carlyle, Cyrus, Leon, and Co-Host 3000 at Spill.Com — a movie review community site based on the animation work of Korey Coleman.

Since meeting the real-life Korey in Austin earlier this month at an Edelman event, I have grown to admire his humor, enthusiasm, candor, online-community instincts, and passion for his chosen craft.

Many have tried to join The Spill Crew, and I don't blame them. I mean, really... Who wouldn't want to hang out with these guys, have A Couple Of Cold Ones (abbreviated ACOCO), and even voice an animated version of oneself?

So, before the jealous haters start with me, know that I've been brought on board because I have distinguished myself in the following ways:

My encyclopedic knowledge of Cold-War-era science fiction film and television
My dazzling profile on the Spill.Com site
My contributions to the "Metal Heads Unite" group

Anyways... I shall miss all of my Edelman colleagues. I've learned an incredible amount this past quarter decade.

Perhaps I'll hear from the MATTER folks? I'd welcome it.

In any case, thanks again to the Edelman gang for a wonderful couple of years at the forefront of communications.

As for now, "ACOCO" await! I'll raise a few in your honor.

Technorati Tags: sucker, dumbass, pr, public relations, edelman, april fools, april 1

Instructor's Notebook: Ning As Teaching Tool

2008-03-24T22:14:00.003-05:00

Instructor's Notebook: Ning As Teaching Tool

Over at the Edelman Digital's Authenticities blog:

Since May 2007, I've been teaching week-long social media and online community immersion programs for Edelman's mid-level consultants, in addition to shorter form seminars for clients.
As various classes worked together in developing a final project, they've sometimes selected social-network-creator Ning as the platform to try out ideas.

Read the rest...

Technorati Tags: edelman, pr, public relations, education

Blogger Arrogance Follows Economy

2008-03-23T23:55:00.000-05:00

Blogger Arrogance Follows Economy

As many of you know, I absolutely despise the smug phrase "so-and-so doesn't get it" and all of the arrogance that it implies. Repeat offenders, no matter how influential I'm supposed to believe they are, get unsubscribed.

So, with all of this talk about the economy's downward trend, I amused myself this evening with the notion that a refreshing amount of humility might now be creeping into the mix.

Behold:

I wonder if this means that the tourists are finally going home.

Technorati Tags: blogging, web20, internet, social media

Peter Shankman's "Help A Reporter"

2008-03-20T11:48:00.001-05:00

Peter Shankman's "Help A Reporter"

What started out as a Facebook group quickly exceeded the confines of that service. Peter Shankman has launched Help A Reporter.

I built this list because a lot of my friends are reporters, and they call me all the time for sources. Rather than go through my contact lists each time, I figured I could push the requests out to people who actually have something to say.

My main thought is: Having started in PR twelve years ago, my "graduating class" kind of grew up with ProfNet. Why? Because our executives, managers, and supervisors did.

What's next, then? How will ProfNet and its ilk defend its brand when pretty much anyone can/will develop a similar service? There certainly isn't any patentable or copyrightable IP at play here. Actually, for your convenience, I've graphically rendered all of the the barriers to entry in actual size:

.

The only real (and relatively small) challenge I see for bootstrapped services like Peter's is that maybe reporters might shy away from a service that's owned/operated/branded by a single communications consultant or agency. Then again, as I've observed (despite contrary popular opinion), PR pros aren't "damaged goods" on the face of it — it depends on their behavior.

I don't see this as a problem for Peter, though, so we're back to my original thought: WWPD? ("What Will ProfNet Do?")

Really, in the short term, it all comes down to ProfNet and similar services 1) continuing to remain relevant to successive generations of PR pros, and 2) leveraging their relatively independent status.

Longer term, though, the picture just gets a lot more more murky. Help-A-Reporter-like services can quickly scale to a comparable quality/quantity of users.

More news as it develops.

Technorati Tags: pr, public relations, peter shankman, profnet

Instructor's Notebook: "Collaboration" Or "Cheating?"

2008-03-12T10:03:00.002-05:00

Instructor's Notebook: "Collaboration" Or "Cheating?"

A scientist-turned-business-leader acquaintance of mine once said, "In the workplace, they call it 'collaboration'. In academia, they call it 'cheating'." Preferring an environment where the free exchange of thoughts and ideas was actually encouraged, this scientist went into industry and hasn't looked back.

So I wonder what I'm to make of the case of Chris Avenir. To oversimplify, Ryerson University has told him:

Study group wherein it's entirely possible that solutions for chemistry and math problems are freely swapped: Perfectly okay.
Study group on Facebook, where it is demonstrably clear that no solution was traded, only helpful tips (as in any IRL study group): Expulsion-worthy!!

Read the rest over at Edelman Digital.

Technorati Tags: education, ethics

Thinning The Herd

2008-03-10T10:09:00.003-05:00

Thinning The Herd

Mine may not mean much to some of you, but I do have plenty of friends.

Technorati Tags: blogstorms, web2, sheep