Canuckflack

Steve made a point last week about building influence and audience through generosity - the free sharing of information and a willingness to send your reader off to other parts of the blogosphere for further analysis.

Today we find out from the NYTimes that the Washington Post will be embracing the concept fully - by installing services from inform.com that will serve related news stories for other outlets alongside WaPo-sourced material.

The key for WaPo - the new material will be embedded in pages generated by the Post’s CMS - meaning more revenue for the Post as well as more information for the reader.

How to deliver an effective and entertaining conference presentation - while following the style of the iconic “I am Canadian” beer commercial. From Presentation Zen.

(To tell the truth, the advice covers some of the same ground as Guy Kawasaki and Presentation Zen’s own Gates vs. Jobs post.)

But those other posts did not appeal to Canadians in a very base way. Beer and understated patriotism. With a dash of hockey and Hinterland Who’s Who. And I can always jump on that bandwagon.

Hat tip to Michael Seaton’s Client Side.

Wonder who’s helping Fleishman-Hillard set up a blog? Like this password-protected blog over at Typepad?

Makes sense, considering their hiring spree lately.

UPDATE: As I think about it, I wonder if that’s the link for the internal blog being tested out by FH’s new head honcho, Dave Senay. David Jones has the scoop on the internal blog.

Technorati: Fleishman-Hillard FH

Underground blogosphere, eh? Drawing on my background in economic history, I present you with a medieval analogy:

Once upon a time, four young scribes frequented the same market square. They each had their own specialty - calligraphy, ornamentation, court documents and market hoarding - and each had built up a profitable clientele among the local carts and vendors.

Chance meetings at the nearby butcher, baker and candlestick makers brought the four together. As they found spare moments free from their demanding work, they eventually spoke about their craft.

As their skills improved, their markets grew. They discussed customers, competitors and business opportunities.

They expanded into other market squares across town, building on information they had gleaned from neighbours, family, suppliers and customers. Business was growing for all four - but one had greater ambitions.

Always a resourceful fellow, he had. been speaking to his customers, a fisherman. Hired to refresh his market stall hoarding, the scribe learned of a new lettering technique that helped cram more information onto each poster and sign he created.

This technique meant more effective work for his clients: their customers saw more information more quickly and more clearly. This meant more sales.

And since this new technique was unknown in their town, his work was lauded as imaginative, creative, innovative and a challenge to traditional conventions.

Naturally, any client who risked their business on this new technique had to be similarly gifted. That was plainly evident.

And no businessman was going to be outstripped by his peers - especially on something as simple, but obvious, as hoardings.

Town burghers flocked to the market square, looking for him. Business boomed. The other scribes benefited from the increased traffic, as well as the spill-off work he handed around.

Eventually, though, the burghers tired of standing among headless chickens, sacks of flour and rotting potatoes, waiting for his attention. Their business was normally conducted in hallways, not alleyways, and lunch was served on a tray, not on oilcloth.

The town burghers cleared a space for the still-young scribe in the town hall. There, he had acess to the guild offices, to the court registry, to the trappings of power and influence.

The new techniques could be applied to many facets of business: after all, there were many more ways to present information than just posters, signs and hoardings. The scribe began preaching the benefits of his technique to his new-found clients and colleagues.

His influence slowly spread beyond town hall: as the forward-thinking burghers showed off their new protoge and their pretty new signs, their friends and competitors returned to the market square, looking to their regular scribes for similar work.

Meanwhile, the other scribes in the market square, the ones who had previously specialized in calligraphy, ornamentation and court documents, had realized there was more business to be had.

It was obvious their old colleague had found great success. They had seen it with their own eyes. They heard it from their customers. Change was obviously necessary.

Talking amongst themselves, the three decided that simple duplication would not be enough. They would have to improve upon their old colleague’s work.

In practice, this meant collaboration. The fishermen had brought more examples of innovative work from ports abroad. Word of new techniques had been passed along by travellers from other towns. When clerics arrived, they brought along texts from distant centres of learning.

Innovation was progressing. Original techniques had become commonplace. Every scribe had to adapt to a more complex, but rewarding, profession.

For their old colleague, now comfortably ensconced in a community of notables and nobles, these developments presented a challenge.

How would he maintain his position of authority and influence if his innovative work was outstripped?

How could he keep his reputation as a thought leader if his profession advanced beyond him?

At the same time, how could he keep tabs on his competitors?

Especially if their work was largely conducted between individuals, among friends, and in market squares?

After all, it had become obvious business was much more easy to conduct after a warm meal, a good mug of beer and a convivial guild meeting.

It really was a sympathetic system of government: markets were influenced, to a large part, by the self-appointed regulation of the burghers, with the complicity of the guilds.

The trick, of course, was to drag, convince or connive your way into the ranks of the privileged - and then hang on with all your might.

It was all gravy from that point on.

Technorati: underground blogosphere blego

“10 habits of highly annoying agency humans“, courtesy of Advergirl. A sample:

“Eh, Why NOT Start at 2AM?

Who knows what he does during the actual work day. What with the towering workload that could keep three creatives busy 10 hours a day and all the meetings, the managing of people and expectations, the requisite long lunches, who has time to work at the OFFICE? Not he, not he.

Instead, he flips on the TV around 11, brushes the Doritos crumbs off a stack of coffee-stained briefs and digs in. Never mind the misspellings, the unanswered questions, the missing images that production can “drop in” at another time. He needs to send these PDFs out by 2AM to avoid missing the morning deadline.”

Pointer from HeeHaw.

Its entrenched fountain of grubby well-thumbed quarters under seige because of some trouble with its mix of titles and target markets, American Media may have to face further challenges from consumers’ preference for self-checkout aisles.

The owner of the National Equirer, the Star and the Globe, the overleveraged company controls most of the display racks at grocery aisles across America. Racks that top a wide selection of impulse purchases: gum, chocolate bars, batteries, NASCAR cigarette lighters, air fresheners and jimmy hats. Racks that are plainly missing from the growing ranks of self-checkout aisles being installed in grocery stores and other large footprint retail.

A survey from IHL retail consultants (based on only 533 interviews and very expensive) reveals that impulse purchases drop significantly when consumers use a self-checkout machine. Says Paula Rosenblum, VP of research and content for the Retail Systems Alert Group:

“… “For instance, on average, consumers will buy breath mints or chewing gum about 20 percent of their shopping trips when going through a standard checkout, but when going through self-checkout, it drops to about 11.4 percent. That’s about a 43 percent drop. The biggest drop is in chips and salty snacks dropped 53 percent and soda and water, which dropped 50 percent.” (StorefrontBacktalk)

Hmm. No specific mention of beef jerky sales. I bet THOSE are a destination item.

Really, wouldn’t it be better to post a notice like this in a liquor store? Don’t know whether W+K London is, in fact, looking for a creative director. They’ve linked to the picture on their in-house blog, though.

And for those of you not in the U.K., Tesco is a tremendously large chain of grocery stores/hypermarts.

Photo originally posted by Mik3yb.

I’m really juggling my thoughts about the anti-clown campaign launched by a New York law firm. If you haven’t heard, this firm has started sending out cease-and-desist letters to local clowns who portray popular children’s characters at birthday parties and the like. Included in the forbidden frivolity are Barney, Thomas the Tank Engine, Bob the Builder and Scholastic’s Clifford the Big Red Dog.

There’s a legitimate concern about protecting brand attributes and trademarks here, as the VP for Scholastic points out:

“… “It’s very important we help children only see Clifford in environments we think he represents,'’ she said, adding that Scholastic does allow Clifford to attend community and library events but not individual parties.

“Anyone would understand it’s an important property of Scholastic and that we protect our rights and protect children from ever having a bad experience around any of our properties,'’ she said.”

Imagine the psychological damage that can be inflicted by a poorly trained corporate mascot? But why would companies make available a wide range of endorsed birthday party materials if they didn’t want uncontrolled brand mascot experiences developed in the home environment?

After all, don’t we all prefer a perhaps mildly intoxicated parent in a rented costume over a somewhat professionally trained entertainer with at least a passing interest in movement studies and a disturbingly detailed knowledge of the effective application of makeup?

Or do we prefer brand experiences like the Kool Aid Man bursting through your wall. (now with legally required Dane Cook audio clip)

BTW - have you seen the (relatively) new ads for the Tomato McGrand burger, on sale in Japan? Imagine Ronald McDonald, as portrayed by J.T. or Michael Jackson. (YouTube)

Hat tip to MediaPost for the pointer.

You might have seen this on digg, but yay hooray had a great thread today on redesigning famous logos in Web 2.0 format. Redesigns by graphicante, e3e, micah, broker and others

Oh - and check out the redesigns for Famous Amos cookies and Camel cigarettes.

Shoutout to Greg Brooks for the pointer.

Brad DeLong, an economist at the University of California at Berkeley, discusses the value blogging brings to his work and his university. On his blog and in the Chronicle of Higher Education.

” … every legitimate economist who has worked in government has left swearing to do everything possible to raise the level of debate and to communicate with a mass audience rather than merely an ivory-tower audience. That is true of those on the right as well as the left. Web logging is a promising way to do that.

… Plus — and this is the biggest plus — it is a play in the intellectual influence game. My blog got about 20,000 page-views a day last month. …

A great university has faculty members who do a great many things — teaching undergraduates, teaching graduate students, the many things that are “research,” public education, public service, and the turbocharging of the public sphere of information and debate that is a principal reason that governments finance and donors give to universities. Web logs may well be becoming an important part of that last university mission.”

Hat tip to Marginal Revolution.

Is your management team considering outsourcing your publicity/public relations function? Were your media mention measurements skewed by the inordinate coverage of your employee lockout? Ever wonder how stupid advertising value equivalency sounds as a measurement indicator in an actual interview setting?

You have to read Antonia Zerbisias’ discussion of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation’s decision to outsource their publicity machine. Now with added official spokesperson flavour!

Part 1: Profiles in Privatization

Part 2: Viewership sinking

Update: Part 3: I’d like to know where you got the promotion

Do you have an email list that seems slow and laggard? A virtual Commodore Amiga of electronic activity - once new and exciting, with many bells and whistles, but now outstripped by other tools? In Target Marketing Magazine, Regina Brady offered up some advice on prompting action (or at least reaction) from the most quiet segment of your list.

·Mix it up. Try sending text messages to this group in lieu of HTMLs.
·Re-confirm their permission.
·Obtain better email addresses.
·Ask them to update their profiles.
·Try a “We want you back” tactic.
·Change frequency.
·Survey them.

There’s more detail in the article itself, archived on her company site.

You may have heard about blogspot and other services being blocked by ISPs in India - purportedly at the behest of the Indian government in reaction to the bombing campaign in Mumbai earlier this month, or maybe in an effort to minimize online commentary that critcises some of the major religious groups in India.

The officials at the central Ministry of Communications don’t seem to be handling the situation very well. An excerpt from the NY Times:

“… Officials at the Ministry of Communications here did not return repeated calls. An official at the ministry’s department of information and technology, Gulshan Rai, said he was aware of “two pages” that had been blocked for spreading what he called “antinational sentiments,” but was unable to provide details.

The secretary for telecommunications, D. S. Mathur, that bureau’s highest-ranking civil servant, hung up the phone when reached at home. The minister of communications, Dayanidhi Maran, was traveling in San Francisco and unavailable for comment.

Perhaps even more seriously, the order to block some blog sites (.pdf) meant that Mumbaihelp, a blog set up for the citizens of Mumbai, was also blocked. It seems like this site wasn’t particularly targeted by the government, but was simply taken down with most blogspot sites as ISPs tried to follow the government’s directive.

In reaction, some Indian bloggers have begun discussing a possible code of ethics that could be incorporated into the country’s IT Act to help limit government crackdowns like this. One version has been proposed by Forrester Research’s Country Head, Sudin Apte.

I’m afraid I couldn’t find much more detail about this proposal. The idea that a specific blogger code of ethics be incorporated into federal legislation is novel, and also startling.

Quite a spectacle of man-preening and primping down at the beach today. Four guys arrived just after me and the fam, set up their portable volleyball court in the middle of the beach, stripped down to their shorts, and proceeded to play. With great seriousness. Chest-thumping, diving, high fives. Wrap-around Oakleys. All that was missing was the mellifluous voiceover work of Pete Stacker.

Sort of like this man’s experience - but without the lizaydies. Four guys, playing volleyball barechested for four hours.

Nothing unusual there - in fact, Mooney’s Bay is known for its volleyball nets and the annual Hope Volleyball Tournament. But the Alpha Male behaviour was a little out of place.

You see, across the tiny bay sits a rowing club where national and international champions train. Just over a nearby hill, you can find a track and field facility where men and women were training for the upcoming national championships. And on adjoining fields, dozens of very serious house and junior-league soccer players were busy putting the unexplainable French victory in the World Cup behind them.

So. Within a square kilometre, there were probably 100 people in far greater shape than these guys on the beach. And doing a hell of a lot less self-congratulating.

To drag this little vignette back to public relations, it just goes to show you: sometimes the loudest talker has the least to brag about.

Jeremy Wagtaff’s got a list of cliches commonly used by media in the english-speaking world during the first six months of 2006. Number one? “At the end of the day,” which was used more than twice as frequently as “in the black.” The list is produced by Factiva.

In case you’re feeling spectacularly unoriginal, try using this handy cliche finder - it will list common cliches based on words you identify.

In September 2005, the BBC’s Magazine rhymed off the advertising cliches commonly found in British adverts. (Number 17: modern men own a cat).

Unfortunately, the cliche-a-day blog seems to have fallen into a torpid slumber. This blog led me to Robin Bougie’s “25 Cinematic Cliches I Never Wanna See Again“:

“12. If our protagonist goes to a sporting event, no matter who he is, his face will always end up on the fucking jumbotron.

CP+B’s work for Volkswagen continues to impress. These are images clipped from a Backseat Driver’s Manual for Jettas, as inserted in recent issues of Wired, Spin and other magazines.

Full scans of the booklet, including the Backseat Driver’s Exam, can be found on the VWVortex forum, courtesy of USCVWFan.

Hat tip to Advertising for Peanuts, and thanks to pvera for the images. Michael Seaton noticed it much earlier than I - then again, I haven’t bought the print edition of a magazine in at least a year.

Wal-mart has rolled out a tailored response to MySpace - with limited functionality and supervised posting privileges. Initial criticism has questioned the authenticity of the existing members, and others have noted the low membership numbers.

Don’t worry, Wal-mart! Even with the blantant association with your in-house clothing lines, your overbearing lawyer-driven approval process and limited interaction between “hub members,” I’m sure your membership numbers will explode.

… as soon as your 1.8 million employees can get their hands on a $100 notebook. They might need help with a big expenditure like that, though.

Big campaign against astroturf brewing, propelled by the energy of Paull Young. I’ve commented on astroturf before, and don’t think very highly of the perceptual sleight-of-hand that many astroturf campaigns rely upon. Like planting subject matter experts at public consultation sessions.

Much more cogitation about falsely fuelled public information campaigns at Trevor’s blog and Paull’s page on the NewPR Wiki.

Technorati: astroturf

Speedo’s enlisted Neville to produce the first in a series of podcasts featuring Olympic swimmers. As the father of two competitive swimmers, I can tell you they’ve nailed the format with this one. Interesting content, thumping bass-heavy intro music, it’s a podcast I’m loading onto my daughter’s iPod just in time for a meet this weekend.

My only suggestion for improvement may be the introduction of a second format: the current long-form traditional podcast for kids and adult swimmers with time and interest off the swim deck, and a more abrupt and motivational podcast for those moments between races on the deck.

This second format would break up the interview into shorter segments, interspersed with inspirational/deafening tunes. I’m thinking of something similar to the songs put together by Trek to build their Liquid brand of bikes.

It would serve as a motivational or “psych” podcast for swimmers killing time on the deck. Who knows, it could also be loaded with short video clips of important moments from the careers of Speedo’s Olympic swimmers.

The opportunity exists to reach out to a younger crowd - the ones I know drive purchasing behaviour at meets and throughout the season.

Voice. It’s a concept we normally associate with identity, opinion, the differentiation of personalities. Charlton Heston is the voice of authority. Dr. Ruth represents compassion. Will Rogers was your wise old uncle. Morton Downey Jr. was your crazy old uncle. David Leisure is your insincere cousin, ready to sell you a lemon and an extended warranty.

Today, it may be voice that keeps podcasting from being overtaken by the corporate training and outreach department. Is podcasting an opportunity to distribute repurposed content? Is it another vehicle for one-way communication? Is the podcast destined to become the medium of choice for, in effect, bootlegged academic presentations and the mutterings of beat columnists? There’s a battle developing between ideas and flair, between content and presentation, between spit and polish.

Obviously, voice is an essential part of podcasting. Rough, hesitant, noisy, easily distracted voice - as listeners we will tolerate ambiguity, trains of thought that miss the station and poor audio quality in the pursuit of original and incisive analysis. In some ways, we imply authenticity and authority from the unprofessional tics found in podcasts today.

Podcasters who came from the world of blogging understand this. They’re struggling with format issues: do they need intros and outros? Are professionally voiced interstitials necessary to keep the listener engaged? How do they handle audio comments to the podcast? What is the relationship between their podcast, their blog, and do the two actually align? Why must I sell my soul to the machine that is iTunes?

A column from Poynter made me pause, however. Chip Scanlon interviewed Tom Opdyke, the morning metro editor of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution and the narrator of the paper’s “Through Hell and High Water” series on the aftermath of Katrina.

Opdyke is both a journalist, a professional narrator/voiceover specialist and a dramatist. He discussed how he prepared for a dramatic spoken presentation of the AJC’s original printed word - not what I would consider an original podcast.

Scanlon characterized podcasts more bluntly, and more commercially. In the end, he also seems to have overlooked the value that podcasts can bring to a developing story: first, the capacity to deliver real voices from the scene, to share true emotion from an event’s actual participants. Second, the ability to reflect reader’s reaction. Third, and most importantly, an opportunity for a print medium to break out of its constrained frame of reference.

“For news consumers who like nothing better than a good listen, and for newspapers who desperately want to hold onto their business, podcasts offer a note of hope. Combining the power of audio with the freedom to choose when to tune in, podcasting — think of it as TiVo for the ears — they offer an alternative way for consumers to get their news and information on a schedule, through a medium of their choice.

In print newsrooms, where audio is limited to the quiet mumbles of reporters reading their stories, a new skill set is becoming increasingly necessary: The ability to voice a story with the same competence of a skilled broadcast journalist. ” (Poynter)

A skilled broadcast journalist, as well all know, does not hold much currency with the digerati anymore. Scripted news is as scripted news does.

I’d like to see news outlets make a dedicated effort to developing a real dialogue with the readers - and not just the eight guys who write to the op/ed section three times a week. A “community advisory board” doesn’t cut it either.

I’m probably not giving Scanlon enough benefit of the doubt. He’s a blogger, and he has discussed the reader reaction that can be generated by effective spoken presentation of articles.

But where’s the connection for other readers? How can we tell that a story has resonated with others? In some ways, I feel like this sort of podcast should be delivered in RealPlayer: they represent the same sort of thinking about control, presentation and risk avoidance that we first saw in 1997 and 1998.

Man. David Bradfield is being called up. He’s going to the Fleishman-Hillard shop down south. To quote:”In August 2006 I join the New York office of Fleishman-Hillard to set up a new interactive, digital and social media group. The timing is perfect for this move.”

New York. The Big Show.

“Crash Davis: Yeah, I was in the show. I was in the show for 21 days once - the 21 greatest days of my life. You know, you never handle your luggage in the show, somebody else carries your bags. It was great. You hit white balls for batting practice, the ballparks are like cathedrals, the hotels all have room service, and the women all have long legs and brains.”

It’s always a daunting challenge: explaining an ever-fragmenting market to your clients while building your consultancy’s intellectual capital. That old stand-by of risk-shy and ad-aware behaviour, the middle class, seems to be disappearing into smaller niches characterized by individualistic behaviour and apparently irrational market behaviour.

“The old class-based definitions have become redundant. We need new, sharper tools to distinguish the nuances and subtleties of the recently enlarged middle classes,’ [Dan Halliday, the managing director of the brand communications agency TheFishCanSing,] adds.

‘We characterise ourselves almost exclusively with regard to taste, in particular taste as defined by consumer choice; more specifically still, taste as defined by brand loyalties.”(Campaign magazine, via TMC)

Halliday’s shop has put together The Class of 2006. A Guide to the New Middle Class, which attempts to break down the British middle class into market segments. The names are witty and will ring a sociological bell if you’re at all familiar with British society:

· THE DOING VERY NICELY THANKYOUS
· POSH CHAVS AND AGA LOUTS
· WHITE VAIN MAN AND NO SUGAR BABE
· NORMAL ACTUALLYS
· (JAMIE) OLIVER’S ARMY
· LOFT WINGERS

Campaign’s piece offers highlights of each segment, but the report goes into more detail with many illustrations. it also attempts to forecast where these segments may play on trends currently developing in general society. One example:

Put a blog in it: the new citizen media

Blogging, the axis-point of being very opinionated and having too much time on your hands, should be fundamentally middle-class. But not every tribe is doing it. Some, like the Normal Actuallys, are by nature suspicious of new trends, and frequently entirely ignorant of them. Others, like White Vain Man, just aren’t burdened by the
desire to read or be read by anyone outside their set.

Some tribes took to citizen media immediately, though. Both Doing Very Nicely Thankyous have erudite professional blogs like Phosita or Law Blog. The Hornby Set blog about politics and culture, and their comments sections are a litany of feuds between members of the Berliner and Independable sub-groups. Initially fans of the lively, up-to-the-second and media-rich blogs of Loft Wingers, the Hornby Set now find that the young turks’ posts make them self-conscious of their own efforts, and read only other Hornby Set blogs.

For their part the Loft Wingers read Holy Moly and make a great deal of noise about getting all their news from ohmynews.com or Indymedia – unless something important has happened, in which case they go to the BBC website like everyone else. Stephanie Oliver’s Army has a passing interest in photography, and has a stream for their local area on flickr.com (which is in reality a series of photos of garden birds, her dog or her car).

The Fair to Middlings were fascinated when their grown-up children introduced them to flickr, and now post pictures of their grandchildren online after every family get-together. The Fair to Militants, meanwhile, are coming to embrace the new media landscape with sites like The Grey Vote. Expect citizen media, and blogging in particular, to rise in proportion to middle-class disillusionment.

Wondering where you might fit into this new brand-relevant grouping? Try out the quick quiz at the back end of the report/deck (found at a specialist site)

Your idea machine stuck in neutral? Take some inspiration from Sam Harrison’s IdeaSpotting: How to find your next great idea. It’s been excerpted by How magazine.

I’ve had plenty of thoughts since hearing a doping scandal has eliminated a posse of contenders from the Tour de France. I was cheered when I realized George Hincapie was still in the race and had a chance of winning a maillot jaune of his own.

Which is why I agree with everything Olivier has to say on this subject.

The Prime Minister of Canada is podcasting, after a fashion, as Joe points out. This puts our Conservative government out ahead of its peers in Old Blighty, who have only made one attempt in the format. It was a funny and imaginative attempt, however.

In June, comedian Eddie Izzard accompanied PM Blair on a trip to the European Council meeting in Brussels. His ersatz podcast is missing the formal professional elements Joe suggests are necessary in a Prime Ministerial podcast (summary, professional intro, formal host), but it does attempt to cast an amusing light on the complexities of the UK’s relationship with the European Union (hint: many Brits don’t understand it).

Neville and Stuart first had comments on Izzard’s podcast. I have to agree with Neville that the attempt didn’t come across as a stellar piece of public information or public policy analysis, but it is one of several steps taken by the government to make information about the EU more accessible to the average Briton.

More impressive is the effort of the US Embassy in London to move its public diplomacy efforts into podcasting. There are now 18 podcasts available on differing themes, issued quite regularly. The material may be skewed towards US interests (naturally) but it does make public the work of accredited and visiting US officials in the UK.

(Back during the Canadian election, mynameisKate discussed the social media initiatives of the Conservative Party of Canada in greater detail at onedegree.ca)

From McSweeney’s - Eight Ways to Kill Someone by Using an iPod Nano:

2. Take off one sock (a dress or tube sock; pantyhose will work in a pinch), place the Nano in the sock, swing it around as fast as you can (being careful to not hit yourself), and whack the intended target right on the temple. …

7. Download to the Nano “We’ve Only Just Begun” by the Carpenters. Tell someone you will give him or her your Nano if they listen to that song a hundred times in a row.

And choice Out-of-Office messages:

… I will have e-mail access through my laptop on June 17 from 5:36 a.m. to 5:39 a.m. (GMT), but will be using the bandwidth to download an A-ha ringtone. …

… From June 25 through June 28, I will be traveling to the homes of various friends, trying unsuccessfully to borrow money, except for June 27, when I will be attending a Bobby Vinton show in Branson, Missouri. …