LAPD Learn Sharing Key to Social

Watching Fox News this afternoon, a package on how the Los Angeles Police used social media to spread the word about the shut down of the 405.

Ever wonder where the phrase "carmageddon" came from?

Not the media. It did come from Tom Hanks and several other celebrities who co-tweeted info to help LAPD spread the word about the coming shutdown, and to encourage people to stay in their local neighborhoods for the weekend.

One of the PIO's for LAPD was on Fox explaining that well, if they can get information directly to people, they will do it through Facebook and Twitter. It works even better when they get others to spread the word also. Here's a solid breakdown of the whole campaign via Crasstalk.

Can you say . . . reverse distribution network?

Look, have fun with this. Organize your friends into that system that can spread your word. We are doing that right now with the info about the upcoming bus trip to LSU for Northwestern State's football team. I'm making sure that it isn't just locked into an athletic department twitter feed, but spread around our campus' new social media team -- a committee of everyone who manages official social media feeds on behalf of the campus.

Perfect example, Ashton Kutcher: "LAPD askd me 2tweet: 405fwy btwn 10 & 101 will b closed July16-17. In xchange I would like a free pass on that stoplight tickt IT WAS YELLOW."

Can you imagine the 1990s PR horror at that? But the word got out. And the story was a happy ending with less than expected disruptions and a earlier than anticipated reopening.

This is a reminder to all those who listened to the NCS4 talk and to my friends in both college sports and university media relations -- use your social networks to enhance, to reinforce, to drive your traditional media releases. Just remember the golden rule -- it's not 140 characters, its 120 or less and don't be lazy and double-post the same thing.

People, it works.

Resistance is futile.

Against the Grain

Arkansas' top running back and leading "all-star" candidate Knile Davis was elected team captain and promptly shut down his social media feeds - Facebook and Twitter - saying that he wanted to avoid any distractions during preseason camp.

Somewhat admirable, but also a lost opportunity for the country to get to know one of the great individual associated with the team.

Considering the growing social media phobic landscape of college football, it really isn't a surprise to see Davis' (or those around him suggesting he) shutdown.

I've Read the Future of Media Guides

And it works. Oh does it work.

Anyone out there subscribing to WIRED magazine via iPad?

I heard talk of the "new publishing techniques" that were a part of Adobe's rush to get out Creative Suite 5.5. In all the transitions this summer, I haven't had a chance to play with them from the "creative" end. (Someday, I might actually get that installed, but that's another story for another day.)

I have seen it from the consumer end. Taking advantage of the $19 bucks a year drop on WIRED's subscription and lacking a big Barnes & Noble or Hastings to just walk into and grab a copy, I ponied up for the in-app payment.

Even if you don't want to go the full $19, download their app and get the recent issue -- the 19.06 one with Extreme Science for the cover story. Scroll in several pages a you will begin to get a feel for what REAL interactive media guides will bring.

Ads that include video inserts and games. Layouts that slide left and right as well as up and down (look for the sly visual cues that your article goes down, not just to the left).

Then, get to the article PROCESS: How Con Ed averts blackouts. Scroll down and see how a chart that would be laid out across several columns in print becomes an elegant interactive. Look right below that for the killer payoff: How pigs grunt in foreign languages.

Oh sure, you get those little throw away factoids at the bottom of every WIRED page. The one right before it was about the FDA's acceptable amount of insect parts per gram of foods.

So here's this line of phonetics of how 11 different countries express "Oink Oink".

Except you can "Touch each button to hear the grunt."

No $h!t -- "Eff Eff" says the Danish pig. "Boo Boo" says the Nipponese.

Looks like they left out the 12th one -- how long until you can push that button in a Razorback press guide and hear "Woo Pig Sooie"? (Actually, I'd have a guess on that, but that's ANOTHER story for another day).

In all seriousness, this is the evolution of the print presentation into a multimedia, multileveled whole. It can include the numbers, but discretely hide them in the lower slides and below a level in links. It can raise the content for recruiting up front with video and tours.

And, it's all portable within the app space, and I'm betting, publishable out of CS 5.5.

To heck with all that custom flash -- here is the way back, SID folks.

Another Stop Everything and Read Link

A bonus story from PRSA by Curtis Olsen (I'm guessing, no relation to Jimmy) on Friday brings home the changing nature of public relations in a digital age.

Two big takeaway quotes:

Understand that you’ve already lost control — You cannot control the Internet, but you can manage it. Social media wisdom begins with the recognition that any one of your employees (or your clients’ employees) might expose you to risk.

That one meets with a TON of internal resistance regardless of organization. No, simply spin it, tell our story, build (or rebuild) our brand, say only what we have to say, say nothing about what really happened. Well, good luck with that when you move on to part B of the two big notes.

Convince your management that they’re exposed — If your CEO or client leadership fails to understand this new reality, your leaders will eventually end up in a damaging post or headline. You need to know the intimate business details of a CEO’s career and private life if you expect to protect them. You must strive to become the ultimate insider for your company or client so that you can effectively defend their reputation.


The second one is always the hardest to achieve. I know that one from personal experience, both on how when you are on the inside you can help direct a crisis into a better outcome and watching in sheer horror from the sidelines as principals refuse to address situations or let others in to help, and it devolves into a fiesta of recriminations.

The Real Hook is What's Coming

I saw this Wall Street Journal story while in New Orleans at the NCS4 Conference. Yep, if Blackberry has a killer app that has kept it alive, it is the private messenger function and the ability to make your own special groups.

Amateur radio types will get the reference: you can have your own text nets.

But WSJ details how GroupMe is providing that today for Android. What isn't really clear from the Journal -- and is on GroupMe's website -- is they have an iOS app today. Still, the doomsday line in the story is this: iMessage is due via Apple as a part of the operating system in the fall.

If Steve Jobs can make his peace with Adobe over Flash -- or the rest of the world hurries up and gets HTML5 and true H.264 across the board -- there will be little need for any other space than iOS for a while.

The SEO Periodic Table

Call this the channeling of my inner child science geek (once upon a time, as a 12-year-old, I liked to get college prep books like Chemistry Made Easy for fun), but if you are just getting started into the black magic that is Search Engine Optimization, I highly recommend the SEO Periodic Table from SearchEngineLand.com.

Sure, this is a pretty old internet meme now -- but hey, it just might be new to you too.

The table is a perfect Edward Tufte-esque expression of broad concepts into super solid infographics.

Read more at The Search Engine Table's explanation page.

American Red Cross on Social Media

Not to be partisan, but Wendy Harman's presentation as a part of the panel at NCS4 had some eye-popping individual slides. Since it's her show (and NCS4) I will defer the posting of the actuals, but American Red Cross has new studies revealing that not the 25-30 percent I've seen in older (year plus) Nielson and other media tracking surveys, but a whopping 2/3rds of public EXPECT brands/governments/entities to listen to them in social media.

Let me repeat, that is a very clear majority of those you serve think you are listening.

Whether you are or not.

Let me repeat a key point of my own presentation: Get out your emergency comm plans right now. Dust them off. Check to see if social media is a part. Put it in there.

Oh, and her explanation of how ARC steered into the skid of #gettngslizzerd was priceless. Classic social media strategy. Don't think so? The ARC employee who accidentally did it -- check out her Twitter home page and short description.

You're THE Kate Starbird?

So all the past few weeks, I've been corresponding with fellow panelist for NCS4 conference Catherine Starbird. Seen the photo. She's a PhD student at Colorado. Toward the end, there's a passing reference in an email, you can call me Kate. Gee, that name sounds familiar, but I'm busy listening to the work this young researcher is putting out.

Dim wit. Don't put one plus one into a bonus set of free throws until the meet up at the pre-presentation meeting. Gosh, you're awfully tall.

Um. Undergraduate from Stanford. About the right time period. Certainly the right height.

Sheepishly I ask later, I'm sorry, but are you the Kate Starbird . . .

Equally humble, yes, I played for Stanford.

I remembered seeing you play when I was doing sports info for Arkansas.

It's a funny world sometimes.

So aside from my own borderline fan excitement, I was thoroughly impressed with yet another NCAA athlete success story. Sure, Starbird did get to go pro in women's basketball, both in the U.S. and in Spain.

But listening to her brief description of social media was employed in Spain by anti-government protesters during the aftermath of the 2004 Madrid train station bombings was fascinating. Oh, not because she just happened to be playing pro ball in Spain at the time. Because she was watching it with the eye of a researcher.

The things she presented at the conference were extremely useful.

Want to know more about the accuracy of the "wisdom of crowds"? Check out the E.P.I.C. work she has contributed to at Colorado.

And you want to know how a career in college sports leads to a high-profile career? Check out where Kate Starbird has gone.

Project EPIC on Twitter || Kate Starbird on Twitter || Project EPIC

New Orleans Slide Deck

Here are my slide from Wednesday's event for NCS4 as PDFs. Obviously, not the entirety of the presentation, but just so those who couldn't write as fast as the slides were flying to write down my outline.

Social Media Awareness for Event EOC Operations

Gruen Returns

Our lucky fans in Australia get the fourth season of The Gruen Transfer starting Wednesday. It is without question the most hip, intelligent show about the advertising industry in the world.

Once upon a time, it was available via iTunes -- and I cherish the episodes I've saved before I discovered how to disable the auto delete.

Now, however, copyright from ABC down under is blocking me seeing the show, and it's no longer available for US viewers via iTunes.

To my geek brethren, can somebody hook me up with a proxy to Oz?

The Politics of Friending

Reviewing through the recent comments about Associated Press' continuing battle over how to manage social media with its staff, the hidden nugget that catches my eye is this one:

AP managers "should not issue friend requests to subordinates."

In speaking with a new colleague here at Northwestern State, he brings up a similar point in regard to teachers and students. I was advocating the free and widespread use of Facebook to help recruit high school students to the school, and to then give them a point of contact once at NSU. No argument there, but my friend brings up a point quite similar to that raised by AP.

He tells me the story of students that had come to him uneasy about a friend request from a tenured professor. The student was in a quandary by the request. If felt compelled to accept. To not accept the friending may or may not be reflected in future grading. Personally, I think that's a bit of a stretch -- there may be plenty of other points of discrimination more tangible than to think ignoring a friend request.

But it did make me think about the inequitous relationship between teacher and student. Other examples of the students the teacher perceives as the best in the class, or worse, friend requests to only the attractive students (call that the Anthony Wiener syndrome).

AP's throw away reflects a similar problem. What happens when the boss wants to be your friend? Is it to be collegial? Is it to monitor the staff?

We agreed that for teachers it may be best to recommend that if one friends students, one should friend the entire class or group -- no exceptions -- and then simply accept that some may not be willing to participate. It did seem better to have the relationship flow in the other direction -- students initiating the friending.

It reminded me of my long-standing point regarding official Twitter feeds (again, Wiener time) that who an institution follows creates an unofficial endorsement.

Meanwhile, I have to say that it's a little amusing that the focus of the discussion is that it's OK to have opinions on sports and work for the AP, but God forbid having political opinions. I must say, I'd favor the initial version of the policy that said no opinion at all. Harry King, the long time AP sports editor for Arkansas, comes to mind. Harry played it right down the middle as the head guy for AP, and not until he departed the service and became a columnist did his opinions surface. That's not to say there was anything particularly shocking there, but why does AP think it's OK to opine only in certain areas? If the goal is to be as neutral as possible, who is to say that a news side reporter won't find himself in the middle of a serious news story about the very sports teams he or she has rooted for or against?

Be Real

I resist the urge to say grow up to those who are saying that Google is doing the wrong thing in forcing real names in the new Google+. Yes, there are some dissident types who risk harm in their postings and relationships. For 95% of all users, simply toning down the disassociation factor in anonymous or handle-hiding trollism makes it well worth it. CNET provides a balanced look at the questions.


For the 5% of Arab spring protestors and other whistle blowers, I have really, really bad news.

They know who you are already.

Sure, you can Tor and proxy around to make it harder, but if you really are a threat, there is the very high likelihood you're already tagged.

So Google, please, for our sanity, stick to your guns and keep real name transparency in the system.

It's Audio First for Mobile

Following up one of my core beliefs about your mobile apps -- particularly those pitched at the smart phone -- it is all about streaming audio into that market. More research to back that up from none other than Akamai.

Here's the key takeaway bullet:

On tablets & smartphones, online audio, e-mail, software downloads, and social networking traffic are big consumers of 3G data traffic

What was first on that list? "Online audio"

What is the copyright you are most likely to hang onto (or at least your conference or other major television rights holder won't take)? Audio

Interesting within this for the app area: Akamai reporting one of the real growth segments is streaming video into the mobile 3G environment. I find that particularly vindicating after listening to the sales rep of a major provider for college websites proclaim with too much false confidence that "no one will ever watch more than five minutes" of video on a portable device at a time.

Oh, BTW, who is Akamai? They are the heavy lifting back end delivery company for almost all of your streamed video. Think of them as the AT&T of streaming -- long distance, industrial through put. In other words, they by God know what is and what's coming, because they are the company that the college website companies hire to do their streaming.

Gauging Born Digital Journalism

PR News brings us a link to Gary Lee's column regarding the need to understand the true impact of on-line postings.

Lee makes great points, the gist of them reinforcing what many already knew: it remains a somewhat art form not a science to gauge how much impact a blogger or digital only poster has.

Shameless Plea and Self-Promotion

Know anyone who wants a job in athletic marketing? Northwestern State has an opening. Contact me direct for more details.

New Tools for Mobile Emergency Comms

Elert is getting a lot of traffic on the #SMEM hashtag and among the emergency communications community. Sounds a bit like bringing CERT to the smart phone crowd. My only hesitation here is be careful of the data you generate (and receive). While Fast Company gives it a nice positive spin of:

Elerts is reminiscent of the old Civil Defense system, the plane-spotters of World War II that gave way to the fallout shelters and duck-and-cover drills of the Cold War.

Remember that the same kind of untrained citizen reports often lead to over-reporting of severe weather, or worse, flat out hoaxes.

As a side note, the Washington County Sheriff's office iOS app that I mentioned earlier is now active in the iTunes stores. More counties are set to be on-line with it soon.

Rules of Engagement

A happy weekend to all as I travel back and forth from FYV to NSU.

This flow chart has been around the internet and back again -- recently saw it attributed to a university for its adaptation. But count on CyberCommand to have put together the rules of engagement in such an officious, military manner.

The U.S. Air Force put out this response flow chart in 2008. It was picked up and adapted by Pfizer Canada later.

Do Not Confuse Serious with Solemn

John Cleese said it, and made a post-Python side career of corporate training talks and videos to emphasize that just because you have a sense of humor does not mean you are flip or flighty.

In fact, well placed humor is vital to making "boring" key competencies interesting. The New York song factory and Motown share this in common with good messaging -- find a catch hook, and the public will remember your tune.

Thus FEMA strikes with the creative headline and tweet:

What do Waffle Houses Have to Do with Risk Management?

Well, you have to click on that link. Kind of like CDC's guidelines for the Zombie Apocalypse.

This stuff is brilliant. Yet far too many in athletics in particular, and often universities in general, are too damn scared of looking silly to inject some fun into their daily lives. They are, for the most part, confusing dress, attire and attitude with some "brand" they seek to achieve or a level of omnipotent respect they are wanting to accrue.

If bankers are now dropping coats -- and sometimes ties -- to relate to customers, why do I look down on fields of play from minor league baseball, to professional soccer to BCS athletics and see a bunch of interns forced to run around in skirts or shirts and ties to project a "brand look." No one in the stands is wearing those clothes. Who looks out of place more -- a crisp Oxford and fashion tie on a sideline or a team-issued polo and khakis? Which one will the fans know they should listen to in a crisis?

Conversely, if the university is hosting the opening of a play, and the attire of the audience is mostly formal, that's not the night to bust out the Birkenstocks.

Hey Blogger, What Tha' Hell?

Um, is anyone else getting just a liiiiitle bit peeved by these random insertions of: http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif.

Each time I put in a link or image, I have to go back and edit out that random drop in.

Anyone smarter than me on Blogger know what that gif drop is there for?

Branding? No. Strategy? Yes.

This is a late add to the blog stream, but a wonderful column from last year on his blog by David Rosen that is of great use for people in my old world and my new one. It dove-tails right along with my core philosophy regarding "branding" -- it's what you do when you don't know who you are -- and that it is more important to build reputation and bonding with core groups than pure technique.

Rosen's money quote:

Organizations that establish their communications priorities and programs from a marketing rather than public relations perspective (which I fear is becoming the norm), run the risk of ignoring or alienating important constituencies and substituting short-term gain for long-term development.

How many groups do we know that take that approach, trying to make "sales" rather than long-term friends?

And for those of us in higher ed -- either athletics or university wide -- here's the closer:

Consumers choose a college to attend or a charity to support based on its reputation. While having a good reputation is desirable in the corporate world, it is essential for colleges, universities and nonprofit institutions, which are held to higher standards.

The bold is my emphasis. Discuss among yourselves.