Social Media Audits

While waiting for the arrival of the next winter storm, here's a thought about your social media strategy. College athletics is the most guilty -- mainly due to lack of resources or time -- but the idea of a social media audit before retooling or launching a strategy is a good idea. Here's some quick tips from PRSA's feed earlier in the week. Priya Ramesh writes about not shooting blindly at social media.

And if there isn't much else in this space for the rest of the week, well, you know the snow got me or I've run out of fuel for the genny.

More About the "E"

From the Indiana University sports journalism center, a thoughtful column from Eric Deggans about the increasing entertainment news nature of our sports reportage.

If the story seems true, nobody gets sued and it’s juicy enough, we don’t really care how the story came to light; we just want to be entertained.

While Deggans makes the Farve-Deadspin story the axis of this universe, how many stories can you apply that pull quote to these days?

What is Public Relations

Picked up from the CoSIDA weekly newsletter, Rosanna Fisk writing about a counter-info project of PRSA on Image versus Substance, specifically taking on The Economist for pot shots at the growth of PR related hiring and the decline of journalism positions -- thus in turn leading to the end of Western civilization. Fisk's Tweetaway:

"public relations is not about image; it’s about reputation, trust and credibility. Advertising . . . is about image—the visual, the look, the controlled viewpoint. "

Interesting point, although one might be hard pressed to convince lay persons that image isn't a key part of PR. I get where she is going, and I've argued for some time that we have growing in the near term is branded journalism.

Yes, technically a sports information contact who is writing for the institution's website and then sending that information off to another media outlet as a "press release" is operating as a PR person. But what Fisk is really going for in her quote applies best there. If you're serving as the "reporter" of events, to use Fisk's phrase, your "reputation, trust and credibility" is wrapped up in how that story is written. If it is filled with "happy talk" and makes too much effort to downplay negative aspects of an event, it begins immediate distrust and damage to the reputation of both the individual writer and the institution.

I do agree with Fisk -- that reputation takes years to build. What I caution here, you can throw it away with a few stories. This is particularly apparent in sports, where it seems there is a little less tolerance for the practice of spin from politics. Fewer colleges or universities continue the practice of not writing stories about losses -- the first and most obvious way to undermine. Not leading with the result is also fading. We can't hide from defeat. We can explain it -- taking care to not look too much like excuse-making.

I feel for the journalists, particularly at the local and non-revenue sport level. They are being cut left and right as the media outlets try to maximize their profit centers (and overlook the Long Tail market). People will seek out the information and fill the void. If branded journalism operations try to be more like the myth that The Economist is perpetuating, the readers will head to the friends and neighbors social media network -- which by the way they are more inclined to believe than either the institution or the media.

Reinforcing the Hymnal

If for no reason than the graphic, click over to Sally Falkow's piece on Corporate Spokespeople Getting their Mojo Back. Wish I had this on Sunday when I was making my church analogy to the crowd approach to spreading the word on your organization. Falkow make many of the same points, and adds as one of her keys for 2011 PR groups:

The role of your employees is to engage in the conversation.

Falkow picks up a quote from Neal Fleiger that made me think twice: Does our fan base look first to a search engine for answers before going to the legacy or digital media for information? Fleiger's point being you need those multiple social media voices to increase the chance to being caught in the Googleplex.

Corporate reputations depend ever more on trust. People are looking for quality products, trust, transparency, and employee welfare.

Sound like something we've talked about before? It's because more and more the industry is beating the drum about employee happiness as the key to social media success.

Falkow says one of her 2011 keys for clients: social media training "for as many employees as possible" and notes that Dell, who we've talked about here an in presentations as one of the leaders in getting ahead of social media and digital media trends as a corporation, put 5,000 of its staff through social media training recently.

@ArkRazorbacks has Klout

Picking up on the CoSIDA note today and following the links to The Chronicle of Higher Education's story about a new ranking website for Twitter reach called Klout. Klout declared Stanford the top influential university on Twitter.

On the one hand, a solid metric here. On the other, well, I am proud to announce that not only is @ArkRazorbacks a "Thought Leader" -- which I of course believe we are -- the Razorbacks have the same Klout score as Harvard, Wisconsin and Syracuse at 64.

That's not the Crimson, the Badgers and the Orange. That's the university itself.

BaylorProud, the quite aggressive social media campaign leader from Baylor, is third in score at 59 for the top 10 by Klout. That's a better comparison to us. Just checking a few other random schools, Nebraska athletics was also a 64.

But not a lot: Arkansas leads the SEC with Kentucky and Auburn close at 63, and also thought leaders. Florida was a 58, Tennessee at 57, Georgia a 53, LSU a 52.

I'd guess we'll see a athletic list from Klout shortly.

ADDENDUM: Here's the SEC main athletic feeds as of this morning -- as a dynamic listing, I'm sure it's subject to change.

FEED NAME	KLOUT SCORE	KLOUT CLASSIFICATION
@ArkRazorbacks	64	Thought Leader
@AUAthletics	63	Thought Leader
@UKAthleticsNews	63	Thought Leader
@UAAthletics	61	Specialist
@GatorZoneNews	58	Specialist
@UTAthletics	57	Specialist
@GamecocksOnline	56	Thought Leader
@UGAAthletics	53	Thought Leader
@LSUSports	52	Specialist
@OleMissNow	51	Thought Leader
@MStateAthletics	34	Specialist
@VUCommodores	27	Explorer

Past Twitter Reminder

Missed this back-link in yesterday's Twitter note, but it's worth remembering that Twitter is news, but not always journalism.

What Twitter Isn't

Amen to Lauren Dugan with her 3 Things Most People Don't Understand About Twitter. Especially to her No. 1 point: Twitter is not a social network. This is why I have preached and preached it is a real-time reporting system. You can fake the interaction that comes with a true social system like Facebook. Twitter's primary strength is distribution, particularly to a mobile network. It's a generic push alert that RSS never really was and the promise of Topix and other web-based "personal newspapers" never delivered in the late 1990s-early 2000s.

You know what -- I can take Lauren down to the Tweetable nugget from her post:

"You don’t sign up for Twitter to socialize – you sign up to find information."

I hesitate to say more -- this is one of those links that requires little elucidation.

But as a shameless reminder of a constant problem I see every day, don't babble on the Twitter and keep in mind that it's reporting, but not always journalism.

Well, There You Pad

Looking back at early comments about the pad's role in our news distribution future, here's the latest development as my regional/local paper is launching its new free iPad specific app. Downloading later tonight, but I suspect it will operate like the website -- you must be a paying subscriber to read full stories, especially those that are proprietary content -- but the app itself is free.

I'd highly advocate that model -- as we did with iHog -- as we build forward. I foresee a "news reader" of our top content working a lot like Washington Post's app, or like Flipboard, to give the user a pad atmosphere. Content wise, the vast majority of the info is the same, just re-engineered into a new layout format. Cost wise, the world is trying to be subscription.

Think of it as two storefronts for your website -- one that is graphically based (read: Recruiting!) and one that is news based.

Two Ends of the Spectrum

No big surprise as they were taken off guard first by the Twitter revolution, Iran is forming its own cyber cop squad. Bit of a late story, I sense, as they did become extremely adept at knocking down proxy servers and other means of masking communications after the Nada incident. That they are after whoever dropped the Stuxnet virus on their industrial complex -- I'm thinking that's more cyber military than cyber cop, but Boston.com wants to cast it that way.

At the polar opposite end of the real world, the Pope has issued a limited blessing to social networks. Benedict made one important point brought out in the Reuters story that is worth noting by anyone, not just Cathloics:

"It is important always to remember that virtual contact cannot and must not take the place of direct human contact with people at every level of our lives."

Well put.

Three More Reasons on Facebook

Another great clip coming through via PRSA, today a lovely screed about the Five Reasons Facebook Won't Replace Your Website. Everything Maggie McGary says is spot on, but here's three more reasons why college athletic team websites won't be replaced with Facebook (or any other social media site).

1) Media guide. The term is rapidly becoming dated, but the repository of your institutional memory needs a static place. Even when this becomes a vbook or other portable digital document, there will always be the need for a storefront to present those items. It is your archives (more in a moment). Don't confuse this with the WIRED argument about the "web is dead" -- just like those who say there is no place for a printed paper version of vital messaging or information.

2) Central point of aggregation. Where can the end user go to get it all at once? YouTube won't have the box score, but plenty of highlights. Flickr isn't going to have the media guide PDF. None of us really let outside sources manage our streaming anyway. Facebook as McGary said severely limits your ability to format, and as we discussed yesterday, who's to say Facebook is here in five more years.

3) Commerce. Facebook isn't set up for purchases -- now -- and do you really want someone else taking a taste off the top of your tee-shirt or DVD sales than is already happening with whichever provider you are using.

Here's where a unified plan is important, and even more so, knowing the specific roles required. The website is the catalog, library, archive, almanac, fixed point of reference. It may not be where the increasingly mobile fan base goes to consume our news, but it will be where they go to look things up later and if correctly integrated, will be where the other items are fed.

The social media tools are where interaction with the fans takes place. Think beyond Facebook -- interactive blogs like CoverItLive or if you so desire real-time places like Twitter. Again, INTERACT with the fans, not just sell to them. The reason why display advertising is disappearing from front-line websites is the research is telling both the content provider and the advertiser that the end users do not like the over pitching. The quickest way to reducing the interaction numbers (likes and comments) is to make everything a pitch to buy something.

Mobile news tools like real-time systems (Twitter) or news reading apps (in our case, something like iHog) deliver info direct to users where they are, especially when incorporating well-managed push notifications via mobile apps.

How Quaint

Found this graphic in my 2006 presentation to the CoSIDA Convention. Do you remember when this was relevant?



Five years ago. We thought MySpace held the world in its hands, and no one really imagined any social networking site having reach that would exceed the U.S. population.

Makes you wonder in this year of The Social Network if in five years we won't be looking back on how quaint that young Zuckerberg kid was.

Where's Your Hymnal?

Through the 1990s, the operations manual for corporate public relations was pretty clear -- speak with one voice through one spokesperson. That worked in the Ptolomey-like world before those darn internets. Now that networking atomizes single points of information distribution and the one-to-many decrees ring about as relevant to the masses as that scientific reference in the previous sentence, where do you turn?

Time to go back to church.

As surely as our current media models are not the product of the new age, but instead a revival of old (perhaps the original) opinion-fueled penny and party press of the 19th and early 20th century, perhaps the most effective paradigm for the large entity seeking to reach out to its constituency can be found in the same place.

Every church has a leader, but only in the most extreme cults of personality do you find a singular voice. There are assistants, lay readers and a choir. For the most part, they work from a single text, and sing from a single hymnal. The most effective religious leaders are the ones that can relate on a personal level with individual parishioners, yet at the same time appeal to the masses of the congregation. While they may hold the central spot within the service, the preacher or priest or devotional leader shares the space with voices are very different, even though they are carrying essentially the same message.

Now -- apply that to your strategic communication here in the oh-so-advanced 21st century. There may be a primary spokesperson -- and it still may be the CEO -- who gives the sermon. But the brands/institutions/teams with the broadest bases employ their lay persons to repeat and amplify that message. Others within the group handle the other tasks of speaking, and those that can sing provide the word according to Team in their unique voices.

Stop The News

How many times have you seen this response to difficult information?





Hey kids, I've got nothing else. Sometimes, you can't improve perfection.

Thought Leadership

One of the reasons arguing for the investment of time in things like social media or real-time reporting is to reach "influencers." Several recent surveys have pointed out that not as many people use Twitter, and that the penetration numbers for Facebook might not be as big as people thought. This has led some to conclude we are in the midst of a "social media bubble" like the Dot.com bubble of the last 1990s.

Leave it to Pew Research to slightly reinforce the not as many people as you think angle, but to absolutely blow out of the water the concept that you're wasting your time with putting social media techniques at the top of the priority list.

The Social Side of the Internet released by Pew shows that people who active in social groups -- for our purposes, think sports fans who participate through attendance or membership in booster groups, etc -- are influenced by and believe in the influence from the internet. From the summary paragraph:

And social media users are even more likely to be active: 82% of social network users and 85% of Twitter users are group participants

Move down past some of the general numbers at the top -- some which might lead you to feel, well, it's only 50-60% of the survey group impacted -- to the breakouts at the bottom of this on-line summary.

Look at the percentage of activity within groups for those who are internet users versus non-internet users. 60% or more of the internet active are likely to attend a meeting, volunteer to work in a group or give money to their social causes.

And then, this key conclusion:

Perhaps reflecting their higher levels of participation, internet users are also more likely than non-users to say that, in the past 12 months, they have felt really proud of a group they are active in because of something it accomplished or a positive difference it made (62% v. 47%) and that they have accomplished something as part of a group that they could not have accomplished themselves (48% v. 35%).

What does it mean? It means that goal of converting Fan to Friend starts through those social media connections, by reaching out and getting involved with others and having the organization becoming more active in interacting through social media means (interactive blogs, actually posting and answering through social mediums). The way to reach your leadership is to get out and talk with them -- sounds simple because it is.

Know it When You See It

First, a moment of Gump-Ian clarity: the PRSA membership is worth it's weight in daily informational links. What's the connection, Forrest? Ah might not be a smart man, but I knows things when I see them. Probably three or four a week from the emails along, and many of them becoming core ideas heading into this blog and getting picked up by others, reinforcing that again, I'm some sort of smart guy. More than once, I will confess to simply being the one eyed man in the land of the blind.

That humble-ation aside, here's today's pure gold nugget of social media info, courtesy of one of those (fill in the number) things you need to do today. This one was five keys to being a socially engaged company from Soren Gordhamer, but number one pretty much was enough for me.

Within the first point on culture of a company, Gordhamer said that:

trying to force unhappy staff to treat customers with respect and joy was a losing battle. You cannot ask staff to give what they do not receive. What is inside the company will be felt by those outside it.

Or to further distill it:

The Old Paradigm: “Force people to do what you want.”

The New Paradigm: “Give people what you want them to offer.”

Pano+iPhone 4.0

Another opportunity to show off what the tools can do when you take the time. Here, I'm using the iPhone 4.0 camera plus the app Pano to make an awesome low-light shot of Jackson Square in New Orleans for our blog. Above is the original, which needed some edit down to fit in our 16x9 window on the blog. Sure, our standard photographer Wesley could have gotten something better (and it would have been gorgeous with his Nikons and poster quality), but think in terms of web presentation -- more than adequate.

I'm quite pleased with the way the phone and the app handled the low light. The shot was at 4:45 just before the park closed, and dusk was already falling inside the square. But as you an see, the cathedral was still catching sunset light from over the French Quarter. This is one of my favorite travel shots of the Sugar Bowl trip, and to have done it with my phone is pretty impressive.

GoPro Hero Shots

The GoPro Hero gets really, really cool wide angle stuff, and sometimes, you better wait until you're well away from where you took the photo before you reveal the shots you got. Don't ask, won't tell.

The Cost is Human

One of the takeaways I hope athletic administrators get from today's presentation is that the real cost of what I'm talking about is manpower. And it only makes sense -- you can throw all the money in the world in the way of tech at social media. What connects? Human interaction.

So yes, a year-long CoverItLive contract may be around $1,200 to $1,500 -- but that's for unlimited blogging during the year. The real cost? Finding and training people who can handle the task.

Facebook is free. And it will be worth exactly what it cost you if there isn't a lot of care, planning and prep put into the work. Or, as one PR pro said: You can Ready, Aim and Fire in social media (meaning planning and strategy) or you can Fire, Fire, Fire. Which one do you think gets a return?

A GoPro camera is only $300, but the imagination to put it in unusual places and find those unique views make it's value real.

Getting into Apple TV? Same as getting into iTunes for a podcast. You can spend as much or as little as you wish. A lavish five-figure production budget, or an iPhone 4.0 and iMovie.

As I've said earlier this month, the key is taking the people who know your program best -- the sports information contacts -- and putting them on the front lines of your social MEDIA campaign. They don't call it social MARKETING or social ADVERTISING. People want info. Give them the people who know the info and enable them to carry your university to your waiting audiences.

Emerging Trends in Sports Communications

In advance, here's a few things.

A) Can I get the powerpoint? Yes, Ronnie Ramos will make it available. But, you might be a little disappointed -- only in that we've structured this as a conversation, and the slides aren't a bunch of bullet-point lists that we are going to read to the crowd. We'd be a little hypocritical if it wasn't interactive and more illustration than outline.

B) So what if I am not in San Antonio? Fear not, snow-bound NCAA members -- this is one of three streamed events from the convention. Plus, there will be a CoverItLive that you can ask questions.

C) But I'm in San Antonio and I still need the slides for notes. Again, Ronnie will post, and I'll make this additional promise. If you're here, you know the blog and the twitter feed -- ask any questions, and I'll be happy to give you more in-depth answers.

Our pre-conference dinner with all the presenters brought up a ton of new points, and we know we are going to be jamming a lot of overview into tomorrow's hour and a half. So you really do need to know that the GoPro shoots a very unusual format, but I'm not going to stop and explain tomorrow -- just show you how it can be a very inexpensive means of bringing the athlete's point of view to the fans.

Andy Pawlowski is going to roll through a lot of slides -- probably 50-60 images -- of recruiting angles in new media presentations. Again, you can hit his twitter feed with questions about the details. Same for Dan McKane from the Division II conference office perspective, and his powerpoint on emerging media is available via CoSIDA here for more details on his parts tomorrow. And Ronnie Ramos leads off with his new social media video with a new sports twist and updated stats -- if NCAA administrators see nothing else tomorrow, you need to soak in that part (for example, NCAA's Facebook at 450K would be where in the daily circulation list nationally? Come to the meeting to find out).

On the Road

True to the travel part of the blog, I'm headed today to the NCAA Convention in San Antonio -- privileged to be asked to speak on new trends by Ronnie Ramos with the NCAA.

But you know, life on the road always turns up new signs. While I'm flying, here's a classic from my last road trip to New Orleans.

All I can say is that in almost any other city in America, this warning sign near railroad tracks has only one meaning.

Shameless Self Promotion

Wednesday I'll be on the Ronnie Ramos panel at the NCAA Convention talking about emerging communications technology. It's a solid panel and I'm just privileged to be along for the ride. Here's the best part: the NCAA is streaming the panel for free. Learn more on this email blast from CoSIDA. http://bit.ly/fy72cw

New Ways for Old Releases

Heather Whaling provides a nice overview of 10 Press Release Alternatives, many of which you likely use in your daily work at the colleges and universities you serve. I know we use our Twitter feed to spread both news and media alerts -- the recent decision of Ryan Mallett to declare for the NFL was done with a on-line set of statements from Ryan and Razorback head coach Bobby Petrino, and the media alert to check the website (and the media's email boxes as they get it emailed as soon as it posts on-line). Check out Heather's list and see how many you already use, and which might be great additions to your tool set.

Kids These Days

In the past, you could only prank call one person at a time. Not today if you can make an official sounding Twitter feed name as the Rogers, Ark., school system battles back to let everyone know that school is on for tomorrow.

Oh what a difference a space makes as @RogersSchools is the official feed, and the very good fake is @Rogers_Schools.

Sure looks like a pair of mirror sites.

NOLA Follow-up

Nothing is better than when what you do through your blogs can have an impact on people. You may remember the cross post I made here to promote the Save NOLA blog I made during the Sugar Bowl coverage with ArkansasRazorbacks.com. My intention was to try and get some traffic for the good folks in New Orleans, and Clare reports back:

We did do better this year than last year..about 20% more. Everyone said the Arkansas fans were awesome...all the vendors I spoke to. It was obvious who was from Arkansas...supporting of the city and spending money. . . . Several folks mentioned they knew about the store, so we are very thankful for your blog.

The human connection. A human benefit. There is your brand making a bond.

Those Darn Internets Strike Again

Pew finds that among younger demographics, the internet has surpassed TV or is about to pass TV as the primary news source. In the broad numbers, TV is down to the 60s while internet has passed newspapers at 41% to 31%. There is a ton of interesting numbers in the story, but here's the one thing I find missing.

What is the internet?

I read through the article, and yes, I get that as a delivery system, younger consumers like the computer or tablet for their news. But where is the news coming from?

Is this survey really just about delivery? Are those indicating the internet is their source saying that born digital news outlets (HuffPo, for example) is where they get their information, or are they simply replacing sitting on the couch with the remote to watch Fox News or CNN with a mouse and a desktop?

My sense is that true internet based news hasn't caught up, and what the surveys mean is that delivery of news -- whether from TV or newspapers -- is desired to be via the internet.

What worries me here is that once the eventual full collapse of the ratings & subscription based advertising system happens, who pays for that journalism that folks want to read via the internet? Yes, dropping terrestrial transmitters and old-school print and throw delivery saves a lot of money, but as I noted earlier in the week, someone has to still generate enough revenue to pay the talent to create content that is not only compelling, but in the case of news, accurate.

One of Those Books

Throughout the blog I make references to Neil Postman, and one of his books in particular, Amusing Ourselves to Death. Postman died several years ago, and often you have to go used bookstore route to get a copy of the book. I noticed today a newer paperback edition is still on Amazon. It's inexpensive, it's short . . . and if every time Postman says "television" you substitute in your head either "internet" or "computer" this book from the 1980s rings shockingly true in the 21st century. In fact, a lot of Postman's concerns about what TV was doing to society weren't really able to come to fruition until the rise of the networked media.

So in the interest of both your opportunity to read Postman and my shameless commerce, here's the Amazon link I found.

Tablet World Gets Real

As CES touts 2011 as the "year of the tablet," Google and Apple are poised to do battle in what becomes the content to drive those tablet sales. Apple delayed launching Newsstand recently. Google is moving to get into the on-line book business with their new book store, and in turn, subscriptions. Read more on their plans here and from the Wall Street Journal.

This is the holy grail for publishing, and threatens to do for journalism what digital music did to music publishers: destroy their profit margins in an all-consuming end-user driven furnace.

Think back to CDs. The music publishers were a consortium that maintained their infrastructure with the somewhat artificially high price of the medium upon which the content was delivered. First Napster made digital possible; iTunes made it popular and safe for the mainstream.

Paper is already fading fast for real-time news and sports, and while media companies aren't conspiring to keep the cost of pulp high (as was accused of the music and movie industries on CD/DVD stock) they do have a real risk.

So what if Apple's Newsstand becomes the delivery mechanism for your local/regional/national paper and the way you get your Sports Illustrated in the future?

Then just like Apple TV, the opportunity for athletic departments, universities and other rights holders to get into the news delivery game is a more level playing field.

The advantage the local paper and television station had over the university was the huge cost of the infrastructure of distribution.

If the distribution network is digital, the huge cost just became manpower. With a more stable revenue base (state appropriation, tuition and fees, television rights fees, multimedia rights holders), who suddenly can afford to have their own branded journalism?

Digital Media Economics 101

Quick post during the day and more later -- Nieman Journalism Lab has an excellent primer on why the Wall Street Journal and others are working hard to transition its subscriber base from paper to pad.

The three numbers to watch: subscription pricing, advertising pricing and costs.

Enlightening breakdowns of each in the article.

Why it Really is 120 Characters

Tonight I can give you the perfect example of why brevity and clarity are essential in communications; but on Twitter, it's brevity. Just because Twitter gives you 140 characters, doesn't mean you should use them. Especially if you want to have your message repeated accurately.

Why? You need room for the RT and your Twitter handle.

I cannot take credit for this idea, kudos to Ron Harlan from last year's NAB convention.

Here's your real-time example. Knowing that our junior quarterback was declaring for the NFL tonight, and our football media relations director wanted a 7 p.m. press release on the website, I crafted the following supporting tweet:

Please see main Razorback website for statements from Ryan Mallett and Bobby Petrino http://bit.ly/hu87SI

That's 115 characters, including the shortened URL.

Tonight, I've seen almost as many fans with this message:

RT @ArkRazorbacks Please see main Razorback website for statements from Ryan Mallett and Bobby Petrino http://bit.ly/hu87SI

Even leaves a few characters for them to get credit if they have a short handle when their friends retweet.

If I had put "University of Arkansas" or "football" or other extraneous words in the tweet, I risk A) clipping on the URL at the end or B) people editing the retweet.

Why do I care about the retweet? Reverse distribution network.

Yes, we want our media to put out the word, but we recognize that friends go to friends directly. Adding this secondary mechanism of distributing messages -- from the audience to the audience members (thus the reverse distribution, rather than media distribution).

In the first hour after the release, we are about even of media tweets in our area, who of course will for the most part reformat our tweet or media release to have it coming from their feeds, as we have twitter fans of the Razorbacks retweeting. Yes, the media is likely followed by more people than the combined fans, but as time goes on, the chance that more fans will repeat our message to their fans makes for the probability that the eventual the total reached by reverse distribution could exceed (or at least equal) the media.

The same thing about keeping it short applies to SMS text systems and Facebook (esp on FB which teases you with the ability have 450 characters but it really only displays around 120 before the truncation).

More on Too Much Connection

More thoughts on last week's USA TODAY story about the dire consequences of our mobile society. Once upon a time, there was great fear that many might not survive the incredible speeds of trains. That the telephone was an unwanted invasion of privacy. It violated the codes of polite society of sending a card to inquire about visiting in person. Instead, you put yourself in someone else's home.

The authors touted in the article, of course, are current. No one ever remembers Stephen Kern's The Culture of Time and Space. If you want the work on the moment when modernity crushed the separation we once had, Kern came out with a 20th anniversary edition in 2003. He is the original in the area. What we get today are folk riffing on him into the mobility and never off part. I had some emails with Kern once about did he think today was unique or repeating what he found.

A concession I will grant, and admit to some concern about, is the 24/7 accessibility provided by mobile lifestyle. Claude Fischer of Cal puts it best:"the idea that you are available to everybody in your social circle at every minute and they are available to you."

The lack of downtime to think, meditate or recharge is a part of this go-go mindset where as one author touted cell phones convert wasted time walking places into contact with others. Sometimes, we need to be alone to let the thoughts of the day rattle around and get sorted out in our head.

Bad enough that I was reading the article in the bathroom to "kill time" and that I admit to using the iPad similarly. I've made some conscious decisions to not us the iPod in the shower - because the distraction of the podcast or music is going to interrupt that mental flow. It has always been - and continues to be - where the best ideas come, and precisely because there ISN'T any other outlet than listening to myself.

It is generational. The various authors point out how they don't like the expectation of always on connectivity, but the 12-year-old children think it is great.

The amusing note: Bushnell Boyer's "discovery" of the old Robin Williams joke that you can't tell the difference any more frothe crazy people and the ones on the cell phones.  "It use to be if someone was talking to themselves, they were usually not in their right state of mind," Boyer said.

But I do respect where Boyer takes his thought: "They're not connected to the time or place they're in."

Which brings us back to Kern's Time and Space.

But this same tool allows me to be able to get an alert via text on my mobile in New Orleans about a tornado warning in Fayetteville, Ark., turn on my iPad to evaluate the radar data and even though I'm really not in a position to assist the local weather net from here, I can fulfill one part of why I've volunteered with that service for the past decade - I can text my family members and let them know they are OK and the storms are on the other side of the county at this time.

Similarly, after days of being "on" here at our bowl game, I tried to take three outs off the grid - and the texts and calls followed me right into the event. And for about half of the time, I wasn't there, I was mentally away dealing with a pair of crisis.

Community and connectivity are one in the same. "Social graphs" are just a fancy demographer lingo for "your circle of extended friends" - and they are so important because we are at our roots not just social beasts, but tribal ones.

How Has Your Job Changed?

Another Ronnie Ramos query for the NCAA Convention presentation. Well, I think the photo says it all. I doubt I thought five years ago that the term "stand up" would be part of my world. Granted, I'm not the most natural for TV. The idea is adding value, and a voice over and a open and close makes a video blog -- well -- a video blog rather than a series of clips assembled together.

Content generation is the future for sports information. Actually, I see the manpower of the old SID office going into digital media creation -- writing, voicing, dare I say even stand ups -- and a much smaller number of people managing media relations. The large staff is going to be the content side.

Consider what the NCAA is doing with the restructuring of its "media" relations area -- strategic communication and media creation are two parts of the new equation in Indianapolis, and I applaud that move.

More on Too Much Connection

More thoughts on last week's USA TODAY story about the dire consequences of our mobile society. Once upon a time, there was great fear that many might not survive the incredible speeds of trains. That the telephone was an unwanted invasion of privacy. It violated the codes of polite society of sending a card to inquire about visiting in person. Instead, you put yourself in someone else's home.

The authors touted in the article, of course, are current. No one ever remembers space and time guy.

A concession I will grant, and admit to some concern about, is the 24/7 accessibility provided by mobile lifestyle. Claude Fischer of Cal puts it best:"the idea that you are available to everybody in your social circle at every minute and they are available to you."

The lack of downtime to think, meditate or recharge is a part of this go-go mindset where as one author touted cell phones convert wasted time walking places into contact with others. Sometimes, we need to be alone to let the thoughts of the day rattle around and get sorted out in our head.

Bad enough that I was reading the article in the bathroom to "kill time" and that I admit to using the iPad similarly. I've made some conscious decisions to not us the iPod in the shower - because the distraction of the podcast or music is going to interrupt that mental flow. It has always been - and continues to be - where the best ideas come, and precisely because there ISN'T any other outlet than listening to myself.

It is generational. The various authors point out how they don't like the expectation of always on connectivity, but the 12-year-old children think it is great.

The amusing note: Bushnell Boyer's "discovery" of the old Robin Williams joke that you can't tell the difference any more frothe crazy people and the ones on the cell phones.  "It use to be if someone was talking to themselves, they were usually not in their right state of mind," Boyer said.

But I do respect where Boyer takes his thought: "They're not connected to the time or place they're in."

Which brings us back to time and. Space

But this same tool allows me to be able to get an alert via text on my mobile in New Orleans about a tornado warning in Fayetteville, Ark., turn on my iPad to evaluate the radar data and even though I'm really not in a position to assist the local weather net from here, I can fulfill one part of why I've volunteered with that service for the past decade - I can text my family members and let them know they are OK and the storms are on the other side of the county at this time.

Similarly, after days of being "on" here at our bowl game, I tried to take three outs off the grid - and the texts and calls followed me right into the event. And for about half of the time, I wasn't there, I was mentally away dealing with a pair of crisis.

Community and connectivity are one in the same. "Social graphs" are just a fancy demographer lingo for "your circle of extended friends" - and they are so important because we are at our roots not just social beasts, but tribal ones.

Socially Challenged

The big change for 2011 is human, not tech. It starts at the top. It has to continue all the way to the bottom.

It's a willingness to commit to being social.

Everyone talks it. Everyone wants it. Lots of places have hired young bright interns to do it.

Not a lot of people understand it.

A white-hot passion for what is new is driving the talk to social media.

It requires a serious commitment and well thought out planning to make it work.

The ones that do, will succeed. Those that don't, will remain frustrated by it and likely will back away from it.

I admit, that's nothing but a screed. It's something that everyone has talked about with a lot more detail, and I am trying to rehash.

Save NOLA

I rarely crossover my daily blog work for ArkansasRazorbacks.com into this space, but today's entry is one that many of you may be interested in as well. I had the chance to catch up with a high school classmate during this trip to the Allstate Sugar Bowl, and find out how her life was changed by Katrina. She's one of the founders of Save NOLA, and I hope this can be an example of the intersection of the voice you need to have to stand out as branded journalists in the brave new digital world and how you can take some personal stories to your individual brands. The blog is here.

In the New Year

One of the questions to answer for the NCAA Convention presentation posed by Ronnie Ramos is what will be the big thing in 2011.

Three tech-based answers:

A) Real digital media guides. No offense to the folks that make the on-line, page turning, shockwave driven ones we've seen for a couple of years, but they are not portable, they do not work in the iSpace and they are not really what Seth Godin and others call "vooks" or "vbooks". I've enhanced what we did last year in the bowl season with our 2011 bowl guide -- it is indexed within the PDF, linked to the website for further info, and launches video (league rules would prohibit embedding it to make the document fully portable). Pull our post book down, put it into your iBooks and go to town. It's a document that can actually function in the press box, and it will be at my side on the iPad as ready reference for the Jan. 4 Sugar Bowl.

B) Mobile goes tablet. What makes that guide usable is a solid tablet. It won't be only iPad in 2011 as the category breaks out. We read on Kindles. Look, USA TODAY didn't waste one of its own full pages to make the ad photographed here. And study those numbers: 1.8 million print circulation and 1.1m iPad downloads. Sure, there's going to be a lot of overlap in those two groups. Focus on this thought:

In 2009, how many iPad app downloads were there? Uh, that would be ZERO. One year, and the game is changed. Mobile will do that

B-1) Too closely related to be it's own topic, but worthy of your individual attention: mobile done right. Nothing -- NOTHING -- will turn end users off more than crap code, bulky re-skinned interface (I'm talking to you, major providers -- we're not stupid, we can tell when you just changed the logos, the colors and the RSS targets) and products that don't present them your news and information in a genuine mobile platform. The newspapers are spending the money to get there; prepare athletic directors to spend that $20K-$200K printing budget you were counting on just becoming the NCAA equivalent of the Cold War defense bonus that the Clinton administration was counting on. If you were on the $20K end, double it to get into the mobile game.

C) Apple TV. The quote of the week read in USA TODAY was "when Steve Jobs decides Apple TV isn't an afterthought" the world changes. Of all three of these tech gear shifts, this is the one you can attack today and perhaps at the lowest cost of all. This is where I want to go next in our resources at Arkansas, and with any luck, there won't be resistance. We have run a podcast for years, now we need to think in terms of creation of video podcast as soon as we can. We have some products that could go there now with some extra effort, and not a lot of new cost.

However, there's one philosophical item that trumps all three. I'll give you that one tomorrow.