Phil's Blogservations

Never Forget

2009-11-09T18:39:00.002-06:00

For those of us who love freedom, this is a must-see.

More at Reason.Tv.

Technorati Tags: freedom, communism, cold war, berlin wall

Serve.Gov Needs Volunteers...

2009-09-19T19:17:00.002-05:00

...to watch the serve.gov site, presumably.

Found this evening, though I don't expect it to be up for long.

Technorati Tags: fail

One Vinod Khosla Is Worth 20 Al Gores

2009-09-01T17:36:00.002-05:00

From The NYT:

Vinod Khosla, the prominent venture capitalist who has been investing hundreds of millions of his own dollars in green technology companies for the last several years, will now invest other people�s money, too.
Khosla Ventures, the firm he founded in 2004 after leaving Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, is announcing on Tuesday that it has raised $1.1 billion in two funds that will invest in green technology and information technology start-ups.
This is the largest amount raised by a venture capital firm since 2007 and the largest first-time fund raised since 1999, according to the National Venture Capital Association.

Technorati Tags: vinod khosla, venture capital, al gore, greentech

Dear Government: The Venture Capital Industry Doesn't Need You Either

2009-09-01T08:53:00.003-05:00

Sorry... My Libertarianism has been showing the past couple of days. *blush*

Fruit-smashing comedian Gallagher used to joke that "If 'pro' is the opposite of 'con' then 'Congress' is the opposite of 'progress.'"

I can hardly disagree, given how our legislators are considering applying regulatory burdens on venture capital.

From the always-insightful Techdirt:

In a recent Congressional hearing where venture capitalist Trevor Loy explained this to our elected officials, Senator Jim Bunning of Kentucky apparently told Loy that he didn't believe him that VCs invest in private companies rather than companies likely to be rated by the various ratings agencies.... And, yet, these are the folks writing the regulations. This is why some of us get nervous about gov't regulations. Yes, in an ideal world, perfectly knowledgeable regulators might possibly be able to divinely create regulations that work. But that's not what we have.

To put things in perspective, the size of the entire venture capital industry is about $30 billion — not nearly enough to affect the banking system. If that were the case, Bernie Madoff would have been able to wreak extreme amounts of systemic financial damage (rather than personal or institutional), seeing as how his infamous Ponzi scheme was more than twice that size ($65 billion) after accounting for fabricated gains.

With that $30 billion, however, the venture capital industry has created untold amounts of private and, yes, public wealth.

In terms that our politicians can comprehend: By attempting to regulate something that 1) doesn't need it, 2) doesn't deserve it, and 3) legislators are apparently incapable of understanding, we'll never get the next generation of those Internet tubes!

Here is the full text of Mr. Loy's testimony to Congress:

Testimony of T Loy Final 7-15-09

Technorati Tags: venture capital, vc, congress, regulation

Dear Government: The News Media Doesn't Need You

2009-08-30T14:50:00.002-05:00

On September 15, the Federal Trade Commission is going to begin offering workshops for media organizations entitled "Can News Media Survive the Internet Age? Competition, Consumer Protection, and First Amendment Perspectives."

"I'm from the government, and I'm here to help."

For one thing, it's unclear how the FTC reconciles the delivery of this seminar with its self-stated mandate of working "for consumers to prevent fraudulent, deceptive, and unfair business practices and to provide information to help spot, stop, and avoid them." Lacking a "Ministry of Information" in the U.S. I suppose this had to be filed somewhere.

For another... Any media outlet that lets in the government, in any form, loses a proportionate share of its credibility. At that point, you might as well call it a "newsletter" or, less charitably, "propaganda."

The First Amendment implications, of course, are staggering.

Few government intrusions into our lives have ever been rolled back. This is real, and it starts as innocuously as this.

Technorati Tags: media, government

Blaming The Victim

2009-08-14T16:05:00.004-05:00

An exchange today, reacting to a press release about a topic that I have never been even remotely interested in:

Sammy Spamalot: [Insert spray-and-pray release here.]
Phil: Please take me off of your list
Sammy: Use the unsubscribe link in the email please
Phil: Way to blame the victim, dude.
Sammy: Thanks Phil, it would just take me ages to find your addres in our database.
Phil: Probably no more time than it took for me to fish your note out of the trash and find the link, I'd imagine.

Almost as good as the time the PR person told me that she was blameless and advised that I call the company that sold them their media list.

Technorati Tags: pr, spam

Government to Kneecap Innovation

2009-08-06T23:45:00.000-05:00

From The Wall Street Journal:

In the Treasury financial reform proposal, who comes in for more regulatory retooling: Fannie Mae, or your average 14-man venture capital shop? If you said venture capital, you understand why one of America�s greatest competitive advantages is now at risk in Washington.

It's clear to me that government isn't interested in solving problems but, rather, interested in "problems" it can "solve."

Technorati Tags: venture capital, government, regulation

Semper (Wi)Fi? Not so much...

2009-08-04T18:57:00.000-05:00

I don't mean to spend my two most recent posts picking on our armed forces (which I do have a very deep respect for), but this strikes me as a little crazy:

The U.S. Marine Corps has banned Twitter, Facebook, MySpace and other social media sites from its networks, effective immediately.
�These internet sites in general are a proven haven for malicious actors and content and are particularly high risk due to information exposure, user generated content and targeting by adversaries,� reads a Marine Corps order, issued Monday. �The very nature of SNS [social network sites] creates a larger attack and exploitation window, exposes unnecessary information to adversaries and provides an easy conduit for information leakage that puts OPSEC [operational security], COMSEC [communications security], [and] personnel� at an elevated risk of compromise."

In any event, writer Noah Shachtman (whom I've followed ever since my agency-side days working for SRI) is quick to point out that "many within the Pentagon's highest ranks find value in the Web 2.0 tools." Fair 'nuff. At that level in the military, they've probably earned it.

That said... Am I the only one who shudders to think that "OPSEC" or "COMSEC" can be meaningfully foiled by... Facebook?

Then again, maybe if the government could just keep people in top cybersecurity posts...

Technorati Tags: defense, social media

"Lose Sight, Lose the Fight"

2009-07-31T10:36:00.000-05:00

We're at about six months since the United States Air Force's blog-response chart made its rounds online. Since then, it has crossed my desk often.

I've always found it well-designed and comprehensive, though something has always bugged me about it. The other day, I figured out what it was.

Somewhat incredibly, it ignores the number-one rule that all combat pilots must follow: "Lose Sight, Lose the Fight."

The flaw is in the little box at the lower right-hand corner.

INFLUENCE: Focus on the most used sites related to the Air Force.

Seems narrow to me. For example, let's imagine that, say, and influencer like Robert Scoble is talking with a buddy in the Air Force. One day over coffee, the buddy says that the plane he flew in Iraq had an intermittent issue where the readouts would blink for no good reason when he crossed 10,000 feet. Let's also say this friend implied that his plane wasn't the only one to exhibit this non-fatal, but ultimately disconcerting, behavior.

Let's then imagine that the influencer is later inspired to write about software quality and (presumably with his friend's permission and guarantee of anonymity) brings up the story of his friend's in-flight readout problem. The predictable number of links, comments, and "likes" ensue.

At that moment, an influencer who is hardly a "most used [site] related to the Air Force" just became very important.

And it falls outside the scope of the chart, at least until an Air-Force-related site picks it up. By then, it would be too late.

Recognizing that online interactions are "rich and complex" (as an acquaintance and former RAND analyst would say), one realizes that no flowchart will catch every or even most situations.

That said, this part strikes me as pretty severe, and certainly misses a core tenet of combat pilot philosophy.

"Always in beta," as they say.

Technorati Tags: air force, blogging, military

VCs, Wake Up

2009-07-30T15:19:00.001-05:00

From peHUB about video processor startup Novafora folding yesterday:

"'VC appetite has really dried up for later-stage semiconductor companies,' says a former Novafora executive, reached at his home this morning. 'They all want to do social networking and things like that.'"

Sure, you want to go where the money is and where a quick exit can be had, but isn't that how you got into that whole mess in 2001?

NB: If we don't invest in keeping pace with Moore's Treadmill, the next-generation social network, entertainment device, toaster, or garage door opener simply won't happen.

As I told a colleague some years ago: "Dot-coms make headlines. Well and good. But science makes history."

Technorati Tags: vc, pe, investing, semiconductors, transmeta, novafora

Fishin'

2009-07-13T12:13:00.001-05:00

Fishin'

Important Updates

2009-05-18T08:59:00.002-05:00

If you're wondering why there haven't been a lot of updates here lately, it's because of this:

But, more importantly, this:

More news as it develops... *8-)

Technorati Tags: phil gomes, leticia gomes

Sad

2009-04-01T21:28:00.002-05:00

Sad

At a volunteers' meeting at UIC tonight, I noticed that this Silicon Graphics O2 workstation was serving as a doorstop in one of the Science & Engineering Lab's rooms.

Funny thing was, I hadn't yet heard the news that SGI was sold to Rackable Systems for $25 million.

Remember when SGI was synonymous with "Hollywood blockbuster?"

What a long, strange trip it's been.

The Fairness Doctrine Is Not A PR Tactic

2009-02-07T09:45:00.001-06:00

The Fairness Doctrine Is Not A PR Tactic

PR Week discusses the quite inappropriately dubbed "Fairness Doctrine" and basically ends with the the following message in the form of a quote by Chris Battle of the Adfero Group: PR people can use this crusty old regulatory idea to browbeat broadcasters into covering their clients.

From the article:

However unlikely its reimplementation, Battle adds that the Fairness Doctrine � even if applied only to now-conservative-dominated talk radio � could benefit the PR sector.
If the measure were to gain passage, PR firms could, in theory, demand airtime for their clients, he says.
�In a sense, it could be a boon for the PR industry,� he says, �because any time Rush Limbaugh [or a liberal host] makes an argument that goes against the message or mission of a client, [a PR pro] could call up with the law on [his or her] side and demand an opportunity to put the client's views forward.�

I imagine that this news whipped around some agency email lists with blind enthusiasm. I also really hope no working PR practitioners actually take this stercoraceous nonsense seriously.

For those who don't know, the Fairness Doctrine (which I have previously mentioned) came into being during a time in American broadcasting when available spectrum — and, therefore, variety in broadcast content — was meager. Thus, rules had to be put in place to ensure that the airwaves, considered a public trust, would carry all major viewpoints of a particular issue. (This is very different from the equal time rule, which is only relevant during a campaign, or the personal attack rule, which only applies to when someone is attacked on-air.)

Today, we don't have that problem. In fact, I argue we have the opposite problem — no one in America ever has to consume content they're likely to disagree with. (That's a debate for another time.)

Suffice to say, the Fairness Doctrine has been dead since 1987. Newly empowered congressional Democrats, however, seek to resurrect it.

There are various reasons why the Fairness Doctrine is a bad idea, to say nothing of its possible use as a PR tactic:

Technology has made the spectrum-scarcity argument absolutely moot, and I know that I probably don't have to go into too much detail with my readers on this point.
The Fairness Doctrine is 100% unconstitutional, as it creates a First-Amendment-violating environment of "prior restraint." In other words, a broadcaster would be reluctant to tackle any issue worth discussing for fear of triggering the Fairness Doctrine. In such a media environment, no one wins. (For more on prior restraint, review Near v. Minnesota, Austin v. Keefe, U.S. v. Progressive, The New York Times Co. v. United States, et al. I'm not a lawyer, but I nevertheless find media law fascinating.)
Enforcing "fairness" is simply not the government's job, justice is. Few people understand the difference between the two. Life, unfortunately, is inherently unfair. (And there's no Santa Claus either.)
The Fairness Doctrine is as impossible to enforce as the term "fairness" is to even define. That said, perhaps some percentage of the 91,196 regulators that George W. Bush added to the Federal payroll in the past eight years need to be kept busy. Who knows?
This is little more than a "Hush Rush [Limbaugh]" idea, pure and simple. It has nothing to do with "fairness" so much as silencing the harshest public critics of the current legislative majority and the executive branch. I'm not terribly fond of Rush, to tell you the truth, but he got to where he is through his own hard work, his knowledge of his audience, and his deep confidence in what he believes. Agree with his views or not, he certainly doesn't deserve to be punished for them. In any case, the net effect of forcing a Fairness Doctrine on "El Rushbo" would have the net effect of shutting down his program. The Democrats must know that using the Fairness Doctrine to silence a leading conservative voice evokes that scene in Star Wars when Darth Vader kills Obi-Wan Kenobi: "If you strike me down I will become more powerful than you can possible imagine."

Sure, enterprises like Air America struggle to gain an interested listenership. Why? Because no one is interested in what they say or how they say it. That's fine. There are plenty of other places where someone can obtain left-leaning opinion commentary, and most don't rely on an executive's highly placed spouse, either.

Most certainly, some outlets would love the reinstatement of a Fairness Doctrine. However, using the Fairness Doctrine to achieve a PR goal is for PR folks who don't know how to change minds, but do know how to run to daddy.

In any event, PR people need to always think in terms of chess, not checkers. So, best-case scenario, say you're successful in using the Fairness Doctrine to get your client time on the airwaves. Exactly what do you think it does to your client's credibility if the only way it could get its message out is through bureaucracy and procedure?

I can hear it now:

You're listening to WANK-AM, newstalk 790. Last week, we received a Fairness Doctrine notice from the FCC's Ministry Of Fairness. So, today, we have to bring on Mike Romaneger...

I don't want to live in that media environment.

And I definitely don't want the public relations industry to be even partially responsible.

Technorati Tags: fairness doctrine, broadcasting, pr, public relations

One Name Missing From Atlantic's "End Times" Piece

2009-01-12T06:36:00.004-06:00

One Name Missing From Atlantic's "End Times" Piece

As The Atlantic speculated about the fate of The New York Times, it occurred to me that one name was conspicuously absent from the writer's list of possible acquirers:

It�s possible that a David Geffen, Michael Bloomberg, or Carlos Slim would purchase The Times as a trophy property and spare the company some of this pain. Even Rupert Murdoch, after overpaying wildly for The Wall Street Journal, seems to be tempted by the prospect of adding The Times to his portfolio.

Why not George Soros? His net worth is not quite Michael Bloomberg's, but more than David Geffen's. Moreover, his politics are most certainly in line with the paper's op/ed page.

Is it that far-fetched?

Technorati Tags: media, nytimes, newspapers

Having A "Message" Is Fine, It's "Messaging" That Sucks

2009-01-04T18:22:00.003-06:00

Having A "Message" Is Fine, It's "Messaging" That Sucks

In PR 2.0 circles, it has long been hip to say that there is no place in modern communications for a company with "messages" and that any company with "messages" is somehow lost in the digital weeds. A PR person who says otherwise is derided as a knuckle-dragging troglodyte while the supremely useless you-don't-get-it crowd gleefully jumps in and piles on.

I disagree with the premise that messages are necessarily dead. This was a fallacy that was allowed to progress because the some PR folks were too busy ingratiating themselves with a small set of influencers to think the issues and distinctions through.

If your company doesn't have a "message" — a set of clear ideas that codify how it sees itself, its industry, and the world at large — then why the hell does it even exist, let alone communicate?

Frankly, a distinction needs to be made.

Messages aren't dead. In fact, in an age when meaning is more important than ever, I argue that that having a message or clear set thereof is vital and necessary.

It's "messaging" that's dead, defined as the development and cloying repetition of corporatespeak statements devoid of meaning, rendered in a language that no one uses, delivered without the benefit of listening first, and presented in venues and contexts where they are clearly inappropriate.

A communications environment where a company needn't have a "message" would be great for lazy communicators who don't want to be bothered with the qualitative measurement of the success or failure of their programs. At that point, "just having a mostly positive conversation" is considered "success".

I should hope that, as a profession, we can do better.

Now, only a fool would expect that online communities would ever speak "on-message". Only an irresponsible communicator who is unfamiliar with how online communities operate would set that as an objective.

However, we're in the business of making a persuasive case on behalf of clients — helping companies, organizations, and even individuals to convince other individuals and third parties of a particular vision or point of view.

That's a "message".

How the message is conveyed — either by entertaining one-off YouTube video or sustained, mutually beneficial conversation with online communities over a period of time — is a lengthy discussion for another time. The fact is that a company should have a message, or risk irrelevance.

Technorati Tags: pr, public relations, social media

2009: Hoping For Audacity, Believing We Can Change

2008-12-30T10:16:00.002-06:00

2009: Hoping For Audacity, Believing We Can Change

From the Edelman Digital blog:

The first few years of my PR career in Silicon Valley were marked by a singular frustration � most PR professionals did not aspire to be, nor were they particularly expected to be, as driven to innovate in their own field as their clients were in theirs.
"Just get into the Journal," seemed the dictum. "Everything else is secondary."
For a number of reasons so tangential to this story as to be distracting, the advent of social media is what kept me in public relations at a point in 2001 when I asked myself "Is this all that there is?" Years later, I'm glad to see there's a lot more. A hell of a lot more.
For what it's worth, 2009 will be the year when real innovation starts to come back into PR � not in the relatively cosmetic form of press releases gussied up in Web 2.0 regalia and such, but fundamental changes in how the art of communications is applied day-to-day. Some of these changes won't be all that sexy. Most of them will be perhaps only operational in nature. However, they will be no less important.
I won't venture into trying to predict the innovations themselves but, rather, discuss the emerging conditions that make them possible.

Read the rest...

Technorati Tags: pr, public relations, 2009

Media Postions GM PR Adviser As 'Auto Analyst', While Arrington Derails PR's Focus

2008-12-20T18:13:00.002-06:00

Media Postions GM PR Adviser As 'Auto Analyst', While Arrington Derails PR's Focus

Yuck:

CBS�s 'The Early Show' included a statement in its Dec. 18 report on the Big 3 bailout from 'auto industry analyst,' Dan McGinn. Letting the massive car companies fail 'would be like 10 Katrinas hitting America at the same time,' McGinn asserted. 'The American public understands that.'
What the report didn�t say is that McGinn is also an adviser to General Motors. Furthermore, TMG Strategies the public relations firm McGinn heads, lists GM as a client. McGinn has been making the case for an auto bailout in many news stories and issuing some compelling statements on behalf of his client.

You'd think media organizations would know the difference before booking such a guest.

And, yet, nothing from the you-don't-get-it crowd!

I guess there's just too much else to be angry about... I'm sure we'll see a post soon about the growing horror (shock!) of corporate blogs that don't allow comments, or companies who don't follow as many people who follow them on Twitter.

Or maybe we'll see examples of highlighting the extreme and making it the norm, a favorite tempest-in-the-teapot rhetorical tool for those to wish to defib attention a little.

Seems that TechCrunch's Michael Arrington dealt with a few bad flacks who were dishonest about embargoes. His solution: Be dishonest right back!

I've never been dishonest about an embargo and, in fact, I've always had a deep respect for what asking a journalist for such an agreement entails. I've also been smart enough to actually, oh I dunno, develop real relationships with the media and influencer communities to determine who is and is not an embargo risk! (A concept that you spray-and-pray PR folk have yet to grasp.)

The two best commentaries about this mess come from Charles Arthur and Allen Stern.

The point that TechCrunch and most of its fawners don't understand about embargoes is that they don't matter as much as they used to.

As Stern offers:

Some blogs like the embargo as it allows them to look like a news-breaking organization. The truth is, any exclusive that goes up on any blog, I can have a better post written about the story in 5 minutes.

The early bird sometimes might get the worm, but it's the second mouse that always gets the cheese.

Technorati Tags: gm, pr, public relations, techcrunch

In Defense Of The "Purist"

2008-12-09T04:27:00.005-06:00

In Defense Of The "Purist"

I while ago, I was having lunch with my friend "Bart" whose supervisor "James" had left the firm he worked for at the time. Naturally, this meant that Bart had to take on some of his former boss's responsibilities — some considerable shoes to fill.

James was a leader in this company's online communications strategy, not just because of his considerable technical knowledge but, rather, the instincts he developed over a period of time.

During one of the necessary transition meetings, Bart had a meeting with James' former boss.

"The thing is about James was," the boss said. "He was just too much of a purist."

Considering Bart and James were pretty much parallel philosophically, this wasn't such good news for my friend. Bart would leave the firm soon afterward.

Since Bart told me this story, I've been asking myself, "What did James' former boss mean?"

It occurs to me that there are some folks within the marketing profession who are dismissed as "purists" when they confront supervisors or clients with the basic rules of how online communities operate. Typically, this purist is challenged by someone who feels — and is indeed quite desperate to believe — that there is nothing that he or she needs to learn.

Far from being simply naive, these purists respect the nature of online communities and are smart enough to know that companies can't merely "activate" those communities on a campaign-by-campaign basis to achieve a short-term marketing needs. The long-term potential out of the short-term gain you sought but never got is squandered.

These purists have enough experience to see that the best engagements are ones where objective value meets mutual benefit.

Go ahead... Ignore that purist. Keep telling yourself and your boss that you have an "online community strategy" when you really just spam bloggers under the faux nobility of "reaching out" to them. The competitors who listen to the counselor that offers a strong, intellectually honest basis for online counsel will have more sustainable and compelling success.

Ultimately, those purists will be counted on to do the right thing, and the agencies and companies they work for will greatly benefit in the long term.

The only time a "purist" gets in the way is when he or she loses sight of the companies they represent or forgets who signs his or her check. Such folks become much more interested in becoming advocates for the groups or individuals they seek to influence. Noble-sounding, but dangerous. Neither Bart nor James, of course, fall into this trap.

Again... Mutual benefit. Objective value.

The purist may not tell you want you want to hear, but the good PR folks — digital or otherwise — have the stones to give that "there ain't no Santa Claus" kind of bad news.

The best ones develop a compelling solution.

Technorati Tags: pr, public relations, social media

NYT Profile On Jolie's Media Management Shows Profession Has A Long Way To Go

2008-12-01T06:20:00.002-06:00

NYT Profile On Jolie's Media Management Shows PR Profession Has A Long Way To Go

I'm still not sure whether The New York Times was repulsed or intrigued by the fact that that Angelina Jolie exhibits greater media savvy than the average Hollywood type, taking more than 1,500 words to tell its very literate readership what it already intuitively (or explicitly) knows about celebrity PR.

Where The Old Gray Lady sees a "carefully orchestrated image", I see a very smart woman who has a greater level of media savvy than the average actor or actress. Like Princess Di, Jolie also knows that she can channel interest in her celebrity life to bring attention to the topics and world issues she cares about.

Putting aside for the moment that the article puts "celebrity magazines" and "strict journalistic standards" in the same sentence, and appears to give more credence to anonymous sources than quoted ones, it clearly aims to portray anyone who manages their media presence as manipulative in the extreme. (While putting onerous conditions on coverage does smack of a certain arrogance, the most egregious examples are quite easily explained away in this piece, somewhat contradicting the slant of the headline and the lead paragraphs.)

It might raise almost as many questions as putting... Umm... Angelina Jolie and Princess Di in the same sentence, but I digress.

In the popular imagination, it's clear that anyone who manages how he, she, or his/her company is portrayed in the media must be some kind of Svengali... As cynical as Aaron Eckhardt in Thank You For Smoking, as vapid as Colin Farrell in Phone Booth, despicable as Tony Curtis in Sweet Smell Of Success, or as even as promiscuous as Samantha in Sex In The City. In any case, such a person must be worthy of examination.

Or... Such a person exhibits a new standard of self-comportment and care in an always-on, media-saturated, 90-second-news-cycle world.

Again, it will be a long time before PR can cast off its pejorative connotations.

Worth keeping an eye on... Especially People's Larry Hackett's response...

Technorati Tags: celebrity, pr, public relations, angelina jolie

How To Behave In An Internet Forum

2008-11-09T04:41:00.001-06:00

How To Behave In An Internet Forum

How To Behave On A Forum - video powered by Metacafe

Technorati Tags: online, forums

Quick Update

2008-11-06T20:41:00.004-06:00

Quick Update

So, I spent some time here:

Met this way-cool guy:

Stayed around Chicago long enough to do this:

And this.

Now back out to here, here, and here.

Learning an amazing amount... The intersection between media, cultures, education, perception, reality, opportunity, challenge, expectation, and influence.

Y'all know where to follow the action...

Technorati Tags: travel, propenmic, edelman, pr, public relations

Instructor's Notebook: PROpenMic At Six Months

2008-10-05T18:39:00.001-05:00

Instructor's Notebook: PROpenMic At Six Months

Cross-posted from Authenticities:

Auburn University's Robert French is to be congratulated for what he's accomplished with PROpenMic. In just six months, the site stacks up quite favorably in every measure to the likes of myragan.com (the closest thing I can compare it to) and even some other well-known PR-focused sites.
I'll let Robert's analysis speak for itself. For my part, there are a number of lessons for all PR practitioners here, both new and experienced.
First, no Web 2.0 app has a "sweat equity" plugin. If you're not willing to put some serious hours and effort into building a useful digital watering hole, then it's probably a wasteful exercise.
Second, PROpenMic was a site that truly filled a need — a place where students, faculty, and practitioners can interact on a level playing field. If you don't have that — something either new, highly focused, or dramatically better — then there's not much you can do.
Third, if you want a community like this to be successful, you have to enforce some rules. Robert has been great in terms of making sure that hucksters, fakesters, and poachers are kept in line.
Fourth, you have to roll out the red carpet. It's the rare newcomer that doesn't get a personal welcome from Robert on their profile page. That means Robert has probably written more than 2,300 such welcomes in six months. My Ask Phil group is just north of 120 members and I'll occasionally miss some. (Nothing personal.)
In short, building a successful online community (however you define "success") is not merely a technical issue of plugging one widget into another widget and tagging the blood-vessel-bursting bejeezus out of it. Those that think so richly deserve failure.
So there's a lot that we can all learn from Robert's example. I strongly encourage readers (especially students and faculty) to join PROpenMic and learn from (and through) this resource.

Technorati Tags: propenmic, auburn, robertfrench, edelman

The Big Dow Drop Meets The Nanny Index

2008-09-29T15:53:00.003-05:00

The Big Dow Drop Meets The Nanny Index

I recently read David Harsanyi's excellent book Nanny State: How Food Fascists, Teetotaling Do-Gooders, Priggish Moralists, and other Boneheaded Bureaucrats are Turning America into a Nation of Children. It was a thoughtful birthday gift from my folks, who thoughtfully indulge my libertarian bent with such works.

In this book, Harsanyi says that the five most frightening words than can be uttered by the typical U.S. government official are "Something needs to be done."

Starting last Friday and cresting today thanks to the stalled mega-bailout, that devilish phrase is at a six-month all-time high.

Technorati Tags: bailout, david harsanyi, nanny state

About The "Collapse" Of "Print": Wisdom From Tom Britt

2008-09-09T16:51:00.002-05:00

About The "Collapse" Of "Print": Wisdom From Tom Britt

Great quote from Tom over at the Edelman Digital blog:

Yes, print is alive and kicking, no matter what the newspapers tell you. Their printing presses aren't killing them, it's using them 7 days a week and losing money 5 days a week that is killing them.