You may have noticed a slowing in my posting lately. I’m not very upset by this development, because it means that my work and family life is moving along quite nicely - but don’t take this to mean that I’ve lessened my commitment to blogging and social media.

I simply feel like making a blunt point about the rush to consensus and eagerness to endorse that seems to be coursing through the social media world, and particularly the suburb of public relations and marketing bloggers and podcasters.

There’s an awful lot of backslapping and overly enthusiastic encouragement that goes on in some quarters of social media - which is probably why this video never really hit viral status.

With apologies to Maslow, the hierarchy of needs for social media aficionados, evangelists, addicts and hangers-on.

Technorati Tags: SBUX, SXSW, wifi, Apple, Maslow, hierarchy of needs, social media, “a” list

I’m mulling over an idea - a Conversation Audit - that would help companies evaluate whether they need a social media component to their regular marketing and public relations campaign.

The idea behind a Conversation Audit is to actually stop and take stock of the many ways you communicate with audiences, customers, consumers, stakeholders and regulators.

Only at that point will a company be truly equipped to judge whether a social media campaign is important to its needs.

Technorati Tags: conversation audit

“Nostalgia is a feeling you have for something that never worked, but you think is great anyway.” (Ralph Bakshi, in NYT)

Technorati Tags: nostalgia, Expos, Jerry Ford, Sinclair, Pacer

Perhaps you were so inspired by Valentine’s Day that you spent hours sifting through thousands of songs to compile the perfect mixtape (or playlist, for you young kids). Or maybe you just slapped something together.

Either way, you’re probably still in high school or college.

But what were the chances you actually “scored” last night? Well, it all has to do with the Vicki Mendoza diagonal, illustrated above.

At the end of the night, did your soundtrack of love inspire sensual behaviour, or a frenetic and often confusing jumble of emotions?

THAT’s the product of the Mendoza diagonal. In an episode of How I Met Your Mother this season, Barney explained how your potential mate had to balance off their crazyness with a suitable level of hotness - much like the artists you picked for that mixtape.

Technorati Tags: HIMYM, Barney, mixtape, Valentine’s Day, playlist, How I Met Your Mother, Mendoza Line, Hot/Crazy

It struck me, listening to the abysmal music available on the radio today, that a lot of artists are affected by seasonal affective disorder. Not their music - their availability on radio channels. Take AOR stalwarts John Denver or Anne Murray: you rarely hear their songs at the height of summer.

Hall & Oates, on the other hand, are played all the time and no matter the weather.

I present for your enjoyment, an attempt to divide up the music spectrum according to seasons. In other words, in which temperature range will you likely hear specific genres or bands?

For example: Emo or Michael Buble are more likely to be heard (or received well) during the Fall. So is the soundtrack to When Harry Met Sally, but that dates me. A lot.

Technorati Tags: seasonal affective disorder, music genre, seasons, morrissey

Senator George Mitchell’s months-long investigation into the use of steroids, additives, clear and other enhancers is nearing an end, with reporters, bloggers and baseball fans eagerly expecting his report - and a long list of names.

Personally, I think baseball mascots are going to be the un-named co-conspirators in all this.

Just think about it. Heavy and poorly balanced costumes. Highly choreographed dances and 7th inning stretches. All that running up and down bleacher steps. The effective aim and discharge of hot dog and t-shirt cannons?

That’s a long list of ab, calf, hammy and tricep work. Mere hours on the Bowflex won’t prepare you for that sort of gruelling workday.

And don’t even get me started on the Milwaukee Sausage Race. If there’s anything the Tour de France has taught us, it’s that the French, Germans and Spaniards will do nearly anything to win an arduous race - including blood doping!

Technorati Tags: MLB, steroids, reputation management, crisis communications

Original photo by Chad Davis

I present a quick analysis of the character traits and scene-setting found in popular rock hits from the 1980s, and from hit music topping the charts today.

Technorati Tags: music videos, stereotypes, casting, music hits, Lee Aaron

Darren Barefoot is a genius. As rockers and alt-artists and indie bands turn to their fans to find revenue sources, Darren issues a challenge for us all to come clean about our music thievery:

“… I’ve owned over 250 CDs, but I’ve also downloaded a lot of music or received it from friends. That process has enabled me to discover a bunch of great artists, and in many cases I’ve gone on to buy their CDs or attend their concerts. That hasn’t been true for every artist, though, and I’ve always felt a little sheepish about that.

In the great debate about the RIAA and the future of digital music, I think we sometimes forget that musicians still need to make a living. So I thought I’d help out some of those musicians that I hadn’t otherwise compensated, and encourage others to do the same.

I also thought it’d be fun to get people to deploy their craft skills, in a vague homage to Post Secret. You don’t have to decorate your letter, but I think you’ll enjoy it more if you do.”

The result? Dear Rockers, a site where you send a letter and $5 to compensate a rocker.

Here’s my submission, which is in the mail:

Technorati Tags: Honeymoon Suite, Lee Aaron, Dear Rockers, Darren Barefoot

This is a point about corporate social responsibility, using consumer marketing and Canadian company Lululemon as an example. While consumers are willing to invest a fair amount of faith and goodwill in a company without proof of a detailed CSR plan, at the first sign of a crisis, they tend to look for evidence, independent testing and videotape of manufacturing facilities with happy and well-educated workers.

Which brings us to the upscale active wear chain Lululemon.

Seaweed or no seaweed? Health benefits from the product or no benefits? That’s the question the New York Times asked this week about a fabric called VitaSea and the products made of the fabric sold by the company. The newspaper (after a tip from a shortseller of Lululemon stock) had tested two of their products for presence of seaweed, as claimed. There didn’t seem to be any.

The company’s first response?

When asked about Lululemon’s product tags and the claims about vitamins and minerals, [Chip Wilson, founder, product designer and board chair] said, “That’s coming from the manufacturer. If you feel the fabric, it feels a lot different.”

And the quotes got worse:

Director for products and design. She said the company would test the fabric in the future.“We will be diving in deeper, so that our educators on the floor can answer those tough questions,” Ms. Schweitzer said. “Right now, we are relying on the mill and SeaCell’s information.”

That’s not the best of answers. Just ask Nike or Mattel how “the manufacturer is responsible” works as a rebuttal to criticism of product quality. Which must be one reason why Canada’s Competition Bureau got involved.

The company responded quickly, noting that they regularly ask an independent lab to test their materials and products, and that they did contain fabric derived from seaweed.

Still, you have to wonder why that fact wasn’t communicated to a BSD like the New York Times when they first asked. (a point Eric also brought up)

By the end of the week, the Competition Bureau had struck an agreement with Lululemon to stop making claims of health benefits for the fabric.

“Those claims have to be scientific and they have to be provable,” said Andrea Rosen, acting deputy commissioner of the bureau. “The onus is on the advertiser, not the government, to prove that the tests are adequate prior to making the claims.” (NYT)

Bob Meers, Lululemon’s CEO, issued a statement after the Competition Bureau announcement, noting that:

“In order to ensure the integrity of our product labelling, we are conducting a review of the therapeutic attributes described on all product hang tags.”

That seems to mean the score is product quality = 1, product attributes = 0.

Overall, their products are better made and more stylish than other active wear products on the market. Which means this contretemps probably won’t affect the company in the long term, since they continue to expand into the United States and abroad, winning converts and customers at the same time.

Technorati Tags: Lululemon, Chip Wilson, VitaSea, corporate social responsibility

Call it a workaround. Call it a hack. But I’m not sure twittering your status updates to your Facebook profile says anything other than “I don’t check Facebook regularly.”

That’s quite a bit of front-end setup for a tool you really don’t want to use.

Technorati Tags: Facebook, Twitter, TinyURL, status update

Depending upon the topic, it seems that people define the role of public relations practitioner, corporate communicator, and marketing fairly loosely. What exactly is the difference between the three distinct professions?

This graphic tries to separate them by indicating specific “benefits” of working in marketing communications (like travelling on business, having access to Super Bowl tickets) and then presenting the proportional odds of that benefit being available to one or all of the professions.

Technorati Tags: marketing, communicator, corporate communications, public relations, schwag

Let’s stop this facade, okay? Public relations is not dead. For the vast majority of the world - in terms of population AND landmass - public relations practitioners still have another five, ten or fifteen years of holding back information, constructing media events and counseling executives and technical experts to “stay on message” and “bridge” from uncomfortable questions.

The “PR is Dead” theme is really a variant of a larger philosophy: information is free, and each citizen is capable of interpreting information as he/she sees fit.

It’s a lovely idea. Too bad it depends on three (or more) economic and social factors:

• intensive broadband penetration
• media integration across platforms
• computer literacy

Oh, and the money to buy a computer, a job stable and well-paying enough to free up the time necessary to sort your own information, and a cultural predisposition to questioning authority and information sources.

As Phil and Todd have pointed out, most people making the “PR is Dead” argument really are assuming that “public relations = increasing volume and winning attention.”

If we define our profession so simplistically, we certainly CAN be replaced by a good search engine optimization program - but only once the rest of the world has caught up to the technical sophistication of Silicon Valley.

Until then, the community of social media advocates is being pretty presumptuous about the capacity or willingness of large swaths of the earth’s population to jump on board with their ideas and innovations.

Technorati Tags: PR is dead, PR 2.0, Web 2.0, SEO

I’ve taken the Gartner Hype Cycle, and interpreted it by applying the typical objects you might find in a company office or cubicle during each phase of the cycle.

Adwords. Bloggers don’t mind running Adwords alonside their text because the Google program usually produces national-level text ads or extremely targeted text ads that complement your content.

But what if Google signed up with Pennysaver, the international chain of free weeklies that specializes in very cheap and very temporary local classified ads? That may just be in the works:

“…The companies also are talking about running a “bid-for-print” advertising test between PennySaverUSA.com’s parent Harte Hanks and Google. Under the deal, Google also could end up training sales reps at the “shopper” publications to sell AdWords to offline merchants that Google otherwise would have a hard time reaching …” (News.Com Google Blog)

All those half respectable ads could be replaced by geo-targeted classified notices. Bake sales. Charity Runs. Car Parts. Lost Pets and/or Children. Blood Drives. Your neighbour selling his old fridge.

That would really drag down the perceived value of your blog, wouldn’t it? Ads like the ones below showing up alongside your blog?

Technorati Tags: Pennysaver, Adwords, online classifieds

Hey folks. Know what I’ve noticed? Bloggers are most likely to post a critical word or a sarcastic riposte under two conditions:

• a big company with a global brand identity
• a person or company far, far away from your keyboard.

Either way, a blogger minimizes his/her chance of confrontation.

Sure, there are plenty of exceptions. There are some global brands who respond positively to criticism. And there are bloggers who concentrate on local subjects.

But sometimes, the biggest target is the easiest target. And if you swim with the pack, the chances of being singled out are much smaller.

Technorati Tags: bloggers are wimps, blog authority, criticism

Yum Brands is drawing upon the experience of its brand partners in China to prepare a consumer education plan about avian flu, Ad Age tells us.

Some industry reps believe consumers may be aware of the problems overseas, but that knowledge does not translate into perceptions at home. Richard Lobb, communications director of the National Chicken Council, told Ad Age:

�American consumers are not usually inclined to panic. They know the chicken they eat is not a hazard. It�s pretty premature to put up posters saying your chicken is safe.�

Especially when your industry is following the same line, in response to union and activist demands for worker education and enhanced equipment:

“You don’t want to tell people so they come to work every day afraid,” said Bob Ford, head of the N.C. Poultry Federation. (Charlotte Observer)

“It’s kind of a damned if you do, damned if you don’t kind of thing,” [Ken Wilson, compliance director at Case Farms] said. “If you don’t do enough and something happens, you’re criticized. But if you bring it to people’s attention and nothing happens then you’re reactionary.”

Actually, if you bring it to people’s attention, you’re being cautious, Ken. Only telling your staff AFTER an outbreak would be reactionary.

Someone get this man some risk communications training, STAT!