Arizona: what we've really lost and what we must do

By know everyone knows what happened to Congresswoman Giffords, Judge Roll, and the other victims in Tuscon. But I can't stop thinking about this.

Aspiring politician Christina-Taylor Green was born in the midst of tragedy on Sept. 11, 2001, and died Saturday morning while trying to meet Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords.

The strong-willed 9-year-old third-grader had gone to meet Giffords with a neighbor when she was shot. She died later at University Medical Center.

And not surprisingly, this:

Jittery members of the U.S. House of Representatives concerned about security jammed telephone lines Sunday during a rare bipartisan conference call a day after a gunman tried to assassinate U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords outside a supermarket near Tucson.

A bipartisan group of House leaders took the unusual step of inviting spouses and staffers to dial into the conference call held to update members about Giffords, brief them about the shooting and discuss steps being taken to tighten security.

I want to show some restraint in commenting on this because there was no initial "proof" that this (alleged) assassin's actions had any groundings in politics.  And frankly I found it disturbing at how quickly the punditry on both ends of the political spectrum absorbed this news and once again used it as proof they have been right about the other side all along. As usual, I won't hide my politics - the punditry on the right has gotten so defensive about this and the tone their rhetoric has taken it almost begs the Shakespearean retort, "the lady doth protest too much, methinks."

Before we delve into the depravity of today's political discourse, it's important to take stock of what we've really lost.

• We have, of course, the unfathomable tragedy of the loss of life - not only a vital public servant in the form of a federal judge, but also five other innocent people, including a nine-year-old girl.  And we have those who were badly wounded, and those who were traumatized by witnessing the event.
• We will likely see further physical separation of the government and the governed.  We will have fewer public events, more security and isolation for Members of Congress and this Administration, less access for the taxpayers and even the media.  This means that more government will be done in private, among only those privileged and moneyed enough to have access to those in power.
• We will see even less incentive to go into public service.  If I run for Congress I already know I'll spend most of my time asking lobbyists for money, I'll have a grueling travel schedule, I'll have to maintain two residences,  and I'll spend the majority of my "floor" time talking about symbolic things that have very little impact on the daily lives of people.  Now I get to wear kevlar while I do it. This is not a line of work I'd ever want my son to enter - not right now, anyway.  We used to worry about our children getting hurt if they joined the military.  Now we have to worry if they run for Congress.

I can think of two major changes we need immediately.  While we don't know for sure if the accused was listening to the political rhetoric of the right or saw the now scrubbed image of Congresswoman Giffords' district in the cross hairs of a rifle sight, we need to understand the status quo is not sustainable.

First, the news media needs to understand its own responsibility here and act accordingly - stop giving rhetorical bomb-throwers air time. We all know who they are.  We all know what networks put them on television. And sadly, we also know they drive ratings.  But you know what - it's really not news.  We've reached the point in our politics where you're rewarded not by working hard with people across the aisle but by calling those people un-American or worse.  It's time for our professional media to be the grown-ups in the room and say no, you don't get to go on TV if all you have are thinly-veiled references to guns, boldface lies  or asinine suggestions that people aren't citizens.  And don't give me guff about the first amendment.  Remember Daniel Webster: "liberty exists in proportion to wholesome restraint."  Editors edit.  Start doing your jobs.

Second, transparency in government just got a whole lot more important.  If we further restrict access to members of Congress and others in the government, we must know immediately who DOES have access  and where campaigns are getting money. Further, front-groups that don't disclose their funding sources - the groups that have fueled so much of the "vitriol" we've heard about without a shred of accountability to anyone - are a cancer on our democracy.  OWN YOUR WORDS.

One final point - there are moneyed interests who have contributed to the current state of political depravity.   I can't stop thinking about what I wrote in August 2009, when corporate interests were instructing angry, ignorant mobs to storm town meetings much like the one Congresswoman Giffords held this weekend.

There can be no doubt that people in my profession are organizing this sort of thing, stirring up fear and hatred and dehumanizing an enemy, in the name of "freedom," going on television and telling outright lies. They are actively trying to suppress discussion and debate. They are telling unstable people some unstable things, then they're pointing at someone and calling them "Hitler." And they're hiding their true identities (and their funding) by setting up "non-profit" groups that have names with words like "freedom" in them.

They are undoubtedly aware that the more they do this, the more likely someone is going to commit even greater acts of violence. They know this and they do it anyway.

Now those same interests find themselves more able to hide their funding, and actually have more access to government leaders as public meetings become more restrictive.  And of course, no one is accountable. 

The REAL State of the Media, 2010

CNN's media critic Howie Kurtz has a show called Reliable Sources that now broadcasts online.  Everything about the show's first segment - the topic, the panel, the format - goes directly to the state of journalism today.   Seriously, it's so dead-on it's ironic. It crystallizes where we are in the business of journalism so much it almost becomes a caricature of itself.

It's a panel featuring a pundit, a former managing editor of a newspaper chain that has had severe cuts, and a blogger.   They spend their time essentially saying that journalism has been reduced to a "he-said, she-said" spectacle of political sniping.  They talk about how the news media misses the real story and goes directly to the stupid/crazy show, and even throw in Michael "heckuva job, brownie" Brown.  The money quote, from David Frum:

A conversation that ought to be about how the President has not done a good enough job has turned into how a disgraced former federal official may or may not be insane.

John Aravosis is a long-time pal. All the panelists were great.

Activists' New Secret Weapon: Databases

A while back I wrote about the "scariest mobile application EVAH," Good Guide.  It's a leader in a new and growing field of mobile applications that use barcode-scanning technology, GPS, and a variety of databases to tell consumers about the product they just scanned. These applications give consumers unprecedented information about products, brands, manufacturers, retailers, and pretty much anything else at the point of purchase.  They include the popular Red Laser, which lets you compare prices among stores in your area and online, and Label Lookup, a production of the Natural Resources Defense Council that helps you "find labels you can trust."

Tech-savvy and issue-conscious consumers will be getting information not only about how a given product is a buck cheaper down the road or online, but also anything a database of that consumer's choosing says about the product, brand, or company.  And remember, this information comes just moments before the point of purchase, giving the company almost no time to share its side of the story.  So when I tried Good Guide I learned that the makers of my breakfast cereal "violated the Clean Water Act."   I never got a link to the company's explanation.

So think about the databases out there. Think about current events and politics. It's not just review sites/apps like Yelp (dealing with a somewhat iffy reputation lately). It's not hard to imagine a mobile app that tells you:

• If the CEO of the company that made a product contributed to Proposition 8 (Human Rights Campaign could probably tell you)
• If the manufacturer is headquartered in Arizona, where you can now be pulled over for looking Hispanic (I'm thinking National Council of La Raza might be interested)
• If a company is a "union buster" (just a matter of time before SEIU launches this bad boy)
• Class action lawsuits filed against a company (ATLA, anyone?)

Building a comprehensive, accurate, and huge database for mobile apps to access takes time, talent, and resources.  Even the Red Laser database isn't all-encompassing. However, it's not nearly as hard as it used to be. Some database developers may sacrifice a bit of accuracy to get more volume or speed.  Some will probably be built by crowdsourcing - my favorite crowdsourced database comes from the brainiacs at Cornell who helped put the Great Backyard Bird Count online.   In the not-too-distant future, government databases will be accessible from your phone - a company's EDGAR filings with the SEC, actions brought by the EPA, and so on. 

So there are a few things companies should be doing YESTERDAY to protect their reputations and their brands:

• Upgrade your social media monitoring efforts to see what's written about you in all these mobile-accessed databases.  Good Guide is a start.  Make sure the info is accurate. Contact them if it's not.
• Build relationships with the folks who make these databases and these apps.  Understand their motivation, work with them to make sure you're presented in the best possible light.
• Partner with credible organizations to build your own databases and applications.  Support some of these groups by underwriting some of the cost, providing technical support, and letting them know they can work with you. 
• Promote responsible efforts to give consumers all the information they want and need to make smart decisions.  Consumers reward the companies that advocate for them.

Or, sit back and wonder why people stopped buying your stuff.

ABC News Embraces Kubler-Ross Stage Five: Acceptance

"Media Convergence" starts with the death of "traditional media," which has been withering on the vine for a while now. The latest casualty is a big one - a huge chunk of ABC News.

It's not just layoffs due to the lousy economy. It's the simple fact that the news industry has held on to a business model and cost structure that hasn't worked well for years. I was struck by something ABC News honcho David Westin said in his memo to staff.

The memo listed several provisions of the news division's restructuring plan, including an expanded use of digital journalists (who both produce and shoot their own stories), the combination of weekday and weekend operations for both "Good Morning America" and "World News," and, at the newsmagazines and other long-form programming, "a more flexible blend of staff and freelancers."

"The time has come to anticipate change, rather than respond to it," Westin said in the memo.

Actually the time to anticipate, rather than respond to, change came about four years ago. But it's nice that the media is finally embracing the final stage of the Kubler-Ross stages of grief: acceptance. (I went through how the media grappled with the other four stages here.)

The good news is the industry can look to several business models to overcome its many problems. Here's something I wrote back in March, and it sounds somewhat similar to what Westin wrote yesterday. (of course, I'm not the only person writing stuff like this.)

...if you want to see the news network of the future, just look at Global Voices Online or Green Options today. These networks leverage resources (i.e., writers) that are already in the places old-school networks would establish bureaus. Most of these independent writers already have their own platforms - and since they're freelancers, they have the ability to shop their work to a number of outlets at once. Right now it may seem weird to think you'd see the same reporter working for multiple papers or networks. But I follow the reporters I think do the best work, just as I look to specific bloggers who demonstrate their expertise in certain subjects. You could still have one network send a particular reporter to, say, a war zone and pay their way for exclusive content. But getting paid by the job might work best for both sides.

This business model would still be ad-driven, I think. I like the pro publica idea but it's limited to the resources of the foundation community. BBC is also an interesting model but difficult to justify in the US.

I'd argue that my pals at Live Oak Media are probably a better example today than Green Options, but I contribute there so take it with a grain of salt. And I readily acknowledge the ad-driven model has limitations, but we've already seen how paywalls fail.

I also think the news industry is ignoring a very important resource and process - business incubation. Non-profit media relies quite a bit on foundations; those foundations are not going to fund organizations forever. But if a few foundations got together to establish a virtual business incubator for the journalism industry, with a path toward "graduation" and profitability for fledgling news companies, we'd probably develop a few business models that worked.

Social Media in 2010: Nothing Important Will Change

So all the shiny social media gurus are out there inventing new terminology to restate the obvious for their "2010 predictions" posts.

But here's the truth: nothing of any consequence will fundamentally reshape the best practices of social media in 2010. NOTHING. Here's why.

Relationships will still be the single most important thing for social media. Opinion leaders in online communities will still be the ones driving most of the discussions. Content will still be king.

"Authenticity" and "transparency" will still be buzzwords, and some people will still try to come up with ways to get around both. A lot of PR flacks will still treat blogs like they're just online newspapers and send bloggers generic press releases.

Democrats will continue to use the Internet as an ATM, Republicans will continue to use the Internet as a way to write about what they heard on talk radio.

There will be a lot of useless blather about social media tools. Someone will come up with a new shiny toy and a select group of people will need to have it right away. Then in three months the price will drop. We'll see another iPhone-killer, Google-killer, Facebook-killer, and Twitter-killer. None of them will kill anything. This is the year that blogs will be dead. Again.

Someone will get burned for publishing something inappropriate on a social network.

Someone nobody knows today will do something creative and it will become very popular on the Internet for a short amount of time, and companies across the globe will say "we need to do something like THAT."

Social media flacks will publish astoundingly mundane things about their personal information gathering and processing habits. A few of them may actually think someone cares. Seriously.

Somebody somewhere will use a social network to do something that will do a lot of good for a lot of people, but very few people will notice it.

And the best in the social media PR business will continue to slowly, quietly, build relationships with online opinion leaders in interesting and important communities. They will continue to connect clients and bloggers and they won't rely on just conference calls to do it.

You know, just like 2009.

The Tinkering Continues

I realize this is the kind of post that no one else cares about. So I'll try to be brief about the changes to the blog.

I try to do "smart" - I'm just not wired for "shiny."

Other people write about "how to make your email pitch really sing" or "blogging/twitter/email is dead - now I'm all about the next shiny toy" or "7 ways you can sell social media." There are some great PR practitioners out there who discuss best practices and that's important. But I also think there are a ton of bloggers in this space who really just invent a new nomenclature to restate the obvious. If you want that go read a self-help book, where "getting off your ass and working" becomes "re-discovering your inner awesome" or something like that.

I'll still write the occasional "here's how I think you should do this" post. But rather than tell readers what to do, I'd rather show readers what smart people are doing. That's why I've created the link list of interviews in the sidebar, and placed it above all my own posts. And I've added a blogroll of places I frequent - if you think I've missed you and you should be there, just let me know.

I've also gotten rid of some distracting widgets and pushed the rest down - the blog looks a little text-heavy right now, so I'll probably do something about that. Oh, and I retired the feet.

So if you care to chime in, feel free - I don't think I'm done tinkering. But no pressure.

Bonuses, Bailouts, Social Media and Anger

President Obama's communications people are making the argument that the AIG bonuses issue is an obsession for the Beltway chattering class but little more than a distraction for the rest of us. So just for kicks, I went over to Blogpulse to track mentions of "AIG" in the blogosphere over the past six months - as well as mentions of AIG and "bailout" together and AIG and "bonuses" together. Here's what I saw:



Not surprisingly, online chatter about AIG spiked when news broke about the company's "retention bonuses." The smaller blue spikes coincide generally with news about more taxpayer dollars going to bail out the company, as the yellow lines tend to show. But since the blogosphere tends to extend beyond Washington DC, I'm thinking it's a fairly major topic of discussion these days. Nearly one percent of all blog posts Blogpulse monitors mentioned AIG on a single day.

Looking at the chart it's easy to assume, though perhaps not conclude, that people are not necessarily angry about AIG getting bailed out, but they're angry about AIG getting bailed out and AIG employees making large sums of money in the process.

But there's more to it than that. To me, the anger is so strong because people feel this information has been intentionally hidden for so long, and because people don't feel they have any ability to correct a mindnumbingly obvious problem. And more importantly, developments in both mainstream and social media over the past few years have given people the expectation of more access and control.

The development of the 24-hour news cycle by cable networks such as CNN conditioned consumers to expect news as it happened. As other networks and news outlets were forced to compete, consumers were literally inundated with information. They remain so to this day.

As social media technologies developed and matured, consumers began to share their own voices and created a new set of expectations. Consumers often want news to fit their own world view, so they go to the outlets that suit their ideology or interests. They helped shape the news by providing faster and more powerful feedback. Finally, consumers started reporting the news themselves - we hear about earthquakes and terrorist attacks via twitter before any news network can even get the sattelite truck in place.

These developments have created a cultural shift and have altered our expectations for information. While it's never really been acceptable to cover up injustice, it's easy to argue the frustration is amplified today.

This cultural shift remains at odds with some of America's most venerable and powerful institutions. Wall Street, certainly. Many corporate board rooms. The halls of Congress. And yes, at times, the traditional media.

The AIG situation is just the latest example. Look at the relatively slow pace information has been released and the questions that remain unanswered - who are the 11 people who received "retention bonuses" but are no longer with the company? Who negotiated the bonus agreements? Who rejected the Senate provisions capping executive pay in the bailout legislation?

To be fair, I think it's understandable at times to want to resist providing this kind of information. But this isn't one of those times, and there's been a profound cultural disconnect between the Washington-Wall Street axis and the rest of the country - and that disconnect has played itself out through social media channels.

Bloggers call you out when you call a cap of $500,000 on annual executive pay "draconian." Or when you call struggling homeowners "losers." Or when you ask for only half of the bonuses back. People see the hypocrisy of railing against "socialist" healthcare or insisting on "merit pay" for people like schoolteachers - all while threatening armageddon if trillions in public funds aren't handed over to banks without strings, and then given away in annual bonuses for an underperforming derivatives trader worth more than a schoolteacher will see in several lifetimes.

But what really sets people off is when you try to hide it or, when discovered, spin it. Some advice: bottom line, the public is going to find this out eventually. Don't prolong the agony - come clean, say you're sorry, and show how you won't do it again. Subpoena-driven drip, drip, drip stories like this one will kill you. Further, don't insist that the people who caused the problem are the only people who can fix it. It's just not true.

In my career in politics and communications, I've heard the same refrain from corporate execs, lobbyists, and politicians more times than I can count - "it's not our ideas or our actions that are the problem - we're just not explaining them very well."

In this case, actually, the people understand you just fine. The solutions are obvious. That's why they're so mad.

Jim Cramer would like his testicles back

Umm... wow. John Stewart has really kicked the crap out of CNBC for the past week. And it really came to a head last night. (warning - there are some nasty words in these videos.)

The Daily Show With Jon StewartM - Th 11p / 10c

Jim Cramer Unedited Interview Pt. 1

Daily Show Full Episodes
Important Things w/ Demetri Martin

Political Humor
Jim Cramer

The Daily Show With Jon StewartM - Th 11p / 10c

Jim Cramer Unedited Interview Pt. 2

Daily Show Full Episodes
Important Things w/ Demetri Martin

Political Humor
Jim Cramer

The Daily Show With Jon StewartM - Th 11p / 10c

Jim Cramer Unedited Interview Pt. 3

Daily Show Full Episodes
Important Things w/ Demetri Martin

Political Humor
Jim Cramer

I've now read that Jon Stewart is the next coming of Edward R. Murrow.

I think that's the worst statement you could possibly make about the state of journalism.

I come to praise newspapers, not to bury them. OK, maybe I do come to bury them.

This is a rant - the first part of a 2-post gig. I'll offer my solutions to save investigative journalism tomorrow.

Watching and listening to the news industry's collective hand-wringing and navel-gazing about the impending or actual demise of some of its most storied names - Rocky Mountain News, Philadelphia Inquirer, Seattle P-I, Chicago Tribune, McClatchy, and so on - leaves a rather bitter taste in my mouth.

This isn't going to be one of those posts about how the blogosphere killed newspapers. (I wrote about corporate media's five stages of grief nearly a year ago.) It didn't. Dozens of factors led to this decline. It will take dozens of significant steps to save the most important thing newspapers give us - investigative journalism.

To me, the bottom line here is simple - the quality of the product has diminished. Instead of being truly innovative, the corporate leaders of the news industry has taken one model and driven it into the ground - and in the process they've lost credibility and effectiveness. Here are just some of the ways they've done that.

The fundamental lie of being unbiased. There isn't a single news outlet - not today on in the history of mankind - that has been unbiased. Not even close. It's just not possible for a human to exist without bias of some kind. (for the record, the media does NOT have a liberal bias, or a conservative bias. It has always had a NEGATIVE bias.) So every time a news outlet claims to be "fair and balanced" or giving "just the facts" or "no bias, no bull" they lose a bit more of whatever credibility they have left. Everyone has a point of view. Just say so. People look for news to fit their world view. They really do. Let people know yours and let the market decide. I'm guessing there's plenty of variety there for multiple outlets to grow and thrive.

An amazingly thin skin. I've been in politics and communications in one way or another for nearly 20 years now, and I've seen my share of politicians and businesses bristle at criticism from journalists. But I've also seen how rarely newspapers correct their mistakes - and when they do, it's in a small section near the back. I've witnessed far too many "media panels" where journalists do the same type of back-slapping and excuse-making that politicians and CEO's do. If I hear one more reporter call for a "blogger ethics panel" I'm gonna puke. Look in the mirror.

Dropping the ball. I'm biased here, but I don't think it's a stretch to say a lot of corporate media did more cheerleading than reporting in the lead-up to the Iraq war. I'm amazed at how hard news outlets today are advertising the fact that they'll be "keeping the Obama Administration honest" and I keep wondering where that sentiment was in 2002 and 2003. Perhaps you can't go back in time and maybe the best thing you can do is keep government accountable moving forward, but it's not as if the Bush Administration is ancient history. I still think there are plenty of good and important stories that deserve resources and attention. We need to know more about issues such as torture and secret renditions, and the politicization of the Justice Department, and the decisions that led to America's greatest economic collapse since the Great Depression. If the corporate media spent half the resources on these issues as, say, earmarks that anyone can find by reading the damn bill, then I'd think much more highly of them. News outlets really don't have a lot of fans among conservatives. The light touch they gave the Bush Administration for so long lost them a lot of supporters among liberals as well. They still don't have them back.

Bad business decisions. Hey, I'm not a corporate whiz. But it occurs to me that when you have substantial revenue and relatively fixed costs, you should be able to turn a profit. Most newspapers still have decent revenue, and have the same kinds of cost issues that other companies do. When corporate parents take on the kinds of debt they did, that's a problem. When they do nothing but complain when consumers found other sources of information, Charles Darwin smiles and says "I told you so."

Still thinking it's a lecture. This is the fundamental point that many newspapers and corporate media outlets still don't understand. Brian Williams still doesn't like the fact that he has to compete against Vinny the basement-dwelling blogger and he doesn't get Twitter. That's fine. Brian Williams is smart, works hard, and is a really good journalist who tries to be creative and deserves the success he has, so he doesn't really have to worry about Vinny or telling people what he's doing. The problem is when his network and so many other networks out there want to use the tools that bloggers use but still want to own and control all the content. Everyone gets to talk and everyone should listen now. Brian Williams shouldn't try to control the discussion. He should take heart that he's offering the best stuff in it. But if he tries to denounce Vinny or suggest his opinions or contributions are somehow less important than others, Brian is in trouble. Let the contributions and opinions speak for themselves. Cream will still rise to the top.

Tomorrow, how we rescue investigative journalism from the news industry.

SEIU's "Scary Movie"

I think the social media folks at SEIU (hey there, Brad) may be on to something - one way to get your message across online is to mock your opponent for being over the top. So they're pushing out a video that highlights some of the more, umm, colorful comments from the business community on the Employee Free Choice Act:



I think they're distributing this video out rather aggressively. There's been a discussion of the legislation on the merits inside the beltway but to be candid I haven't seen a lot about it here in the Bluegrass beyond snippets of political rhetoric. Of course, the online audience that will be interested in this video probably already understands the merits of the argument. I think if this video is part of a series that includes another video that explains, in simple terms, what the legislation is and what it does for working families SEIU may be able to expand its online base a bit. They could effectively use humor in such a video.

There may already be such a video out there. If not, I think that's something else to keep Brad and his SEIU buddies busy.

The Mom-O-Sphere Goes Corporate and Cultures Clash

I've been watching with interest some of the discussions taking place in the Mom-o-sphere. (hey, it's my job.)

Specifically, I'm interested in a couple of posts from Kristen Chase and Liz Gumbinner - you may have heard of them as the co-founders of Cool Mom Picks. In a very real sense, they represent an important case study in next-gen online entrepreneurship.

In addition to CMP, Kristen and Liz have built strong online platforms (i.e., personal blogs) that have attracted a significant readership - and in doing so, they've gained the attention of marketing and PR firms. No surprise there. Further, beyond the raw numbers of unique visitors and inbound links, the above-average flacks will see the value that Kristen and Liz demonstrate as credible and influential members of an important community. I still remember Liz essentially shutting up an executive from the Conference Board who questioned the validity of social media metrics with a single line - "how do you measure the value of placing a can of Diet Coke in George Clooney's hand?"

(WARNING: I'm gonna get all PR-speak for a second. I'm even gonna use pictures. Don't worry, though - we'll get through this.)

However, I think Kristen and Liz (and dozens of other online moms) are frustrated right now because they thrive in a multi-directional communications environment that depends on transparency and encourages people to participate in multiple community discussions. (You know, SOCIAL media. It's SOCIAL.) The environment they and other online moms have entered - the world where you get paid essentially for what you do and what you write - is still largely transactional and one-way, tends to be more opaque, and emphasizes hitting a very specific demographic and staying there. To me, the old PR/marketing world looks like this:

THE OLD LECTURE



So a company's message gets shaped and filtered through media to an audience, who simply receives it and acts accordingly. Companies and their PR firms simply expect bloggers to serve as one of those intermediate media outlets in the middle. It's much easier for them, because they've done this forever and really aren't interested in doing it differently because that would cost time and money. But then there's...

THE NEW CONVERSATION



Today's reality simply shows that companies are just one player in a larger group discussion. Yes, the traditional media is there and they still wield disproportionate influence on opinion and behavior. But in this world, everybody talks and (hopefully) everybody listens. I could put any number of communities up here and even more arrows, but I hope you get the picture.

(OK, I got that out of my system. It's ridiculous, I know.)

Call it whatever you want - new media rules vs. old media rules, the people who "get it" vs. the people who don't, or even good vs. evil - the bottom line is the two worlds operate on different terms and it's an enormous struggle to find a situation where both companies and bloggers are completely comfortable.

So Liz gets frustrated when she sees other moms who don't necessarily assert their position in the new communications environment, or worse, disclose that they're getting compensated for what they publish. And Kristen gets frustrated when the organizers of a marketing conference choose to introduce her with a "dramatic reading" of one of her sassier posts - positioning her as the "prominent mom" that transactional marketers value - and not with a rundown of her entrepreneurial endeavors or her expertise. That's more than a "personal branding" issue - it's a reflection of conflicting corporate cultures.

And they both get demonstrably upset when PR flacks treat them as they'd treat any other media outlet, only with less attention to detail.

I can say that some of us in the PR/social media world are struggling with the same issues that Kristen and Liz are. As they try to explain the new reality to flacks, we're trying to do the same to some of our clients, and even some of our colleagues.

Moving forward, I see three options:

• the moms (and everyone else) do everything they can to accomodate the institutional flackitude, since PR firms have the money and the stuff they want;
• the PR/marketing world moves to accomodate bloggers and other social media mavens; or
  
• the two groups meet somewhere in the middle.

This is typically where the "meet in the middle" option presents itself as the moderate and essentially preferable model, but I tend to lean toward the flacks accomodating the bloggers. The larger communications environment continues to evolve toward the social media model. Even mainstream media is starting to adopt social media tools, even if they're not yet completely embracing the concept of multi-directional communication - so we should try to get ahead of it . The cost of publishing high-quality multimedia continues to decline, giving more people a voice and the ability to persuade larger groups of people. Finally, I've found that the more you can accomodate people where they are, on their terms, the more success you have. If someone wants to try to accomodate me, that's great - but I can't and shouldn't expect it.

President Obama On The "Bloggers vs. Journalists" Question: I DON'T CARE

Last night President Obama held his first press conference as President in prime time. All the usual suspects were present - Helen Thomas was as feisty as ever. ABC, CNN, Reuters, Bloomberg, NBC, all the titans of media were there.

Sitting in the front row was Sam Stein of Huffington Post, who was called on to ask a question. Also present was Joe Sudbay of Americablog.

No, they're not the first bloggers to attend a White House press conference. But I think they're the first ones who attended in such a high-profile way and nobody made a big deal that they were there. By calling on Stein, the Obama Administration sent a very clear message that whether you call bloggers journalists or not, their impact is real and the White House needs to reach their readers.

The press conference also demonstrated that some in the mainstream media might want to look in the mirror before they charge that bloggers are "unprofessional" or can't be taken seriously.

Before you take a look at the transcript here, take a look at these two questions and try to guess which was asked by a blogger and which was asked by the Washington Post:

Today, Sen. Patrick Leahy [D-Vermont] announced that he wants to set up a truth and reconciliation committee to investigate the misdeeds of the Bush administration. He said that, before you turn the page, you have to read the page first.

Do you agree with such a proposal? And are you willing to rule out right here and now any prosecution of Bush administration officials?

OR:

What is your reaction to Alex Rodriguez's admission that he used steroids as a member of the Texas Rangers?

Now, you could argue that both questions are "off topic" at a press conference designed to spotlight the economy and the President's proposed stimulus package. But seriously, A-Rod? You get one chance to ask the President of the United States a question at a time when the economy is in free-fall, the armed forces are engaged with the enemy in two countries and rest of the world is hanging on every word the President utters, and you ask him about a juiced infielder?

So are bloggers journalists? Like President Obama, I don't care. They're important, and that's good enough for me. But if you're looking for opinions from the bloggers themselves, Greg Sargent asked Markos "Daily Kos" Moulitsas about the newfound clout of the blogosphere and the attention bloggers are getting from the White House, and he said simply

We are media, and should be treated as communications outlets.

Notice he said MEDIA and not JOURNALIST. Maybe because he sees the difference, but I suspect it's because he realizes the difference just doesn't matter as much anymore. Yes, you absolutely need to know if you're dealing with a journalist or not when you work in communications, but media is media. I think John "Americablog" Aravosis added more detail to where the bloggers - at least the liberal political bloggers - are coming from:

While we are media, we're more than media. We are activists and advocates too - akin to the ACLU, the unions, the gay lobby, and more. We're not even partisan media, such as the Nation, in my view. We're far more activist-oriented, and, I'd argue, many of us are long-time political operatives as well (though I've also worked as a professional journalist).

All that is to say that bloggers are a bit of a mutt, and should be treated as such (after all, am I a blogger, a liberal activist, a 24-year-Washington-insider, a gay rights leader, a prominent Greek-American, or a journalist?) . If you corner us off with the mainstream media, you'll be missing out on harnessing our advocacy. But if you treat us simply as activists, you miss out on our media megaphone. In the end, the one thing that would hamper Jesse's job, in my view, is to treat him as a techie. Blog outreach long-since graduated from the days when it was the domain of the computer guy. The computer guy is a genius, but he's not a political genius. The blog outreach person in any organization has to have political and media savvy, and good 'ole activist/organizing sense. He has to be multi-disciplinary, and thus needs to straddle several departments, with a leg in media, political, and even tech (I know, 3 legs).

And most importantly, he has to be connected to what's going on in the White House. It's of no use, to us or the WH, having someone work with us who isn't really authorized to speak on behalf, negotiate on behalf, of the administration. We are here to help, when our interests coincide. But we need someone who's truly part of the WH team, and not simply passing us press releases.

To me, this is why you can't just treat "blogger outreach" as if it were just another PR or marketing exercise. Bloggers don't exist for the convenience of flacks and we shouldn't expect them to adhere to a set of rules simply because they're familiar or convenient to us. They have special interests and special needs. Bloggers have their own turf and it's our job to adapt to them, not the other way around.

Talking Points Don't Always Cross Cultures Well

Back in November 2007 Craig Fuller said something on Virtual Vantage Points that sticks with me to this day. Our social media team was built on a community-centric philosophy - we identify opinion leaders in online communities and help clients build relationships with them - so we've always paid close attention to what was discussed in specific communities.

Craig took a look at the "community clouds" of the day - essentially we blended the rss feeds of the most authoritative blogs in well-defined online communities and pushed the blended feeds through a text cloud generator - and noticed that none of the communities were discussing the same things. Each of the communities we tracked at the time had different top-ranked keywords. You'd expect a difference in, say, personal finance bloggers and military bloggers, but you'd at least expect liberals and conservatives to be discussing the same issues, albeit from different perspectives.

Not really. The point is online communities, even to this day, remain somewhat isolated from one another. The reason this isolation exists is fairly simple - it's really just a reflection of the isolation that exists in the offline world as well.

We're seeing an important exception of sorts to this play out in a political context today. Two completely separate communities are essentially saying the same thing, for essentially the same reasons. But both communities remain as isolated from one another as ever. Not surprisingly, one is having measured success in policy debates while the other is struggling and seeing its reputation savaged. The nature of each community is such that they can say almost exactly the same thing and watch their message get received in completely different ways.

I'm talking about entrepreneurs who sell handmade toys - you know, the entrepreneurial moms - and bankers.

You may not be aware of the fairly robust debate that took place over the implementation of the Consumer Products Safety Improvement Act, which would have imposed fairly rigorous testing standards for toys and other products. The goal was to keep things like phthalates and lead out of toys - makes sense to me.

However, the people who make these toys and other products aren't usually millionaires. We're talking about home-based businesses or single-workshop outfits run by people who do what they can, when they can, because they love it. And we're talking about very slim profit margins.

Testing for this stuff is kinda complicated and expensive. The independent, sole-proprietor types - most of whom, by the way, don't even use materials with phthalates or lead to make their products - can't afford to do all the testing the law requires. For small business owners, this law sounds nice at first but it's downright draconian. It's a door-closer. The New York Post had this to say in defense of the small-business crowd:

Dozens of small, family-owned New York businesses, already struggling, will shut down and/or lay off their workers. The city could lose a quarter to a half of its 8,000 garment-industry jobs within weeks.

So the mom-trepreneurs got active in the social media channel and encouraged these small business owners (and their customers) to contact their Members of Congress to figure out a fix. And it worked. The Consumer Product Safety Commission delayed implementation of the new rules for a year so they could work out a plan to help small businesses comply.

Now we come to bankers. We're all aware that President Obama has imposed a compensation cap on the top executives of financial services companies that are accepting TARP II bailout funds. The cap is set at $500,000 annually. The reaction from some in the banking industry?

“That is pretty draconian — $500,000 is not a lot of money, particularly if there is no bonus,” said James F. Reda, founder and managing director of James F. Reda & Associates, a compensation consulting firm. “And you know these companies that are in trouble are not going to pay much of an annual dividend.”

So we have people in two communities making basically the same argument - that burdensome government regulation is draconian for business people facing hard times.

Do you think one community has more credibility than the other?

Obama Won't Change Much

About a week ago, my pal Mark Story and I were kicking around the idea of discussing how an Obama Administration would change things. For political hack/PR flack/social media mac daddies like us, it's a fun topic that allows us to call in other folks and sound "smart" by writing another one of those "the world has changed, utterly and forever" posts. And Mark did me proud. So here's the cold, hard truth about what the Obama Administration will change.

Not much.

Sure, the military will leave Iraq sooner. And policies will dramatically shift on things like stem cell research, and how we approach rebuilding the economy, and how we address the fates of the detainees at Guantamo Bay. There will be a lot less political editing of scientific documents from EPA, NSF and NIH. If Congress kicks in, we'll see a realignment of the tax code to spark an explosion in clean and renewable energy technology investment, and a lot more people will have health coverage.

And while the Obama Administration will be the ones who implement these changes, the truth is the American people have decided to make them. The only real change that President-elect Obama has made himself - at least so far - is he's convinced enough people that he'll actually do the things that people have been demanding for quite some time now. Americans think he'll do more than lecture and that he'll do more than listen. Americans think he will respond.

I've heard it said the Bush Administration believed that by voting for them, the people gave them the mandate to decide everything for us. It's not that input wasn't welcome; it's that input was already given on election day in 2000 and 2004 and no further input was required. I'm not sure that's exactly how it was but I can see why some might say that.

However, we've reached critical mass over the past eight years. With instant communication people now demand instant accountability on issues that happen in real time. The cranky blogger living in the basement, writing screeds that only he will read has been replaced by millions of people in constant communication with each other, who feel varying degrees of ownership over the issues that affect their lives and who believe that working together they can make some progress, despite the disagreements that still exist.

President-elect Obama didn't create this change. He's said so himself. He simply understood its existence. He used the tools people use today to communicate with each other, and by doing so he convinced us he knows politics is not a lecture.

Now he has to prove he gets it, and I'm not just talking about social media. We're long past the point where you convince people you get it by publishing a blog or putting together a spiffy YouTube channel. They're just tools. He'll have to listen and respond.

Personally, I'd love to read the thoughts on how an Obama Administration will change things from:

Tim Hurst, a master of green policy
Julie Marsh who shows strong leadership in the mom-o-sphere every day
Susan Getgood who continues to show the rest of us how social media is done
Chris Hogan who is the best-dressed man I know and lives in the DC area to boot