Blogging in the News

This is just a brief post for others interested in blogging. NPR has assembled a collection of stories about blogging, including podcasting, photo sharing and vidcasting. I haven’t read/listened to all of them yet but I was intrigued by the story on the life of the blog. It again underscores much has changed in a short time. While the story begins the time line with the 1967 invention of the Web, you can see that 1992 is when things really started happening

I’m also including a link to a story on Ultimate Blogs. I starting reading one of the featured blogs, “In The Middle,” a couldn’t stop.

Flip and Text

We bought my daughter a Flip Video at her request. She’s 33 and not a techy type but she had it figured out in a few minutes. Within an hour she had something posted. The Flip comes, as it says, “YouTube ready.” My daughter’s goal with the Flip is to send us video post cards from her home in Alaska via YouTube. Millions of kids and young adults are communicating in a way pretty much unimaginable a decade ago.
At $179 they’re going to be one of the next big things. Communication continues to morph and expand before our eyes. . . .
When a new form of communication is born, an existing one is pushed further back.
Later in the day we all went to my mother’s house. I noticed that my 16-year -old niece kept looking at something in her hand. I finally realized it was her cell phone. She spent the entire afternoon checking messages and texting. I experienced what my faculty friends have already seen for a couple years. My niece was with us in body but not in mind. She was smiling at us and deftly (and silently) communicating with friends.
My point? Millions of kids are texting and I’m predicting that soon nearly as many will be “flipping.”
Once, we were reasonably sure they’d flip through a magazine and maybe see our ad, listen to their local radio station and hear our spot or watch TV and see our production. Now we can be just as sure they’re not doing any of those things. Instead, they’re downloading their songs from the iTunes store. They’re ripping, pirating and exchanging music. They’re creating their own video productions and videos to share with each other.
Web 2.0 communication is rapidly becoming the norm.
Our challenge, as PR people, is finding an effective way to get our messages in front of them and to actually register.
They’re like my niece. They’re with us but they’re communicating with all the unseen friends through text, Facebook, Myspace and YouTube.
It’s one thing to read the statistics. It’s another to watch it happening in real time. . . .

2007 Top Tens

It’s a warm gray Sunday morning.  Light rain is melting the 10 inches of snow.  Hours are collecting into days that are quietly trudging toward the end of the year.  Al Gore was one of the few bright spots in another year cluttered with drug-dumb entertainers, lawmakers  who aren’t gay and never have been, baby battles and and Paris Hilton.  (I have never seen her on TV, listened to her or watched her have sex.)

The  final days of 2007 are a frenzy of Top 10 lists.  I read them, recognizing or understanding maybe half of the listings.  I always wonder:  why 10?  But it doesn’t matter.  It’s an encapsulation of our collective year.  I’m gong to search  the Net and share as many top 10 lists as I can.  As PR and marketing folks we need to understand the fast-shifting culture we’re in whether we agree with it or not.

First top 10: Simon Dumenco’s Epic Media Meltdowns from the Dec. 17, Ad Age on Line.

Second: John Rash’s Most Watched Shows of 2007.

Both are from Adage.com 

Reality check:  We’re hawking Socrates while the media is serving up Britney.

Okay.  I’m off to find more top 10s.

Dance Your Job

In my last post I mentioned playing with our dogs and how their play is meaningful, energetic, in the moment and graceful. Wouldn’t it be nice if we all could combine seriousness with playfulness and turn our jobs into art as the dancing cop does?

Surgeon’s Knife, Time, Revelation

I’m standing at the counter at home finally writing  a new blog after some minor surgery which is taking a long time to heal.  (Several friends and associates have reminded me that there is no minor surgery.  I now believe them).  Up to this point, I’d  gotten through life with no surgery.  (I had 24 stitches in my leg after a chain saw accident, but that was local anesthetic and out the emergency room door when finished, so it didn’t count)
For the first time in my life I’ve forced to stop all regular activities.

As I lay on the couch watching movies, listening to healing music tapes, reading Journey of Souls, Firefox for Dummies, and playing with my Mac, I’m finding this:  There are more important things than college presidents,  (and I love my president).  There’s more in life than the latest technology, the fact that Web advertising will out pace radio advertising in 2008, and on and on.
For the first time in my life I’m unable to drive, sit or move fast.  I have entire days and nights with no appointments or deadlines.  I have to create my own life within the parameters of my physical limitations.  While I believe that we do, for the most part, create our own reality, now it is before me with no distractions  It is morning, the day is ahead, how do I want to fill it?  It was all up to me.
I find myself watching movies that had lounged on my shelves for years.  I read books I’d been meaning to for a long time.  I’m forced into a pace I’m not used to.
And as I get used to it, it feels good.
For the first time I appreciated how frenetic my life had become — news releases, publications, podcasts, blogs, speaking engagements, special projects and meetings.  I was counting my life out in minutes, and the problem was I knew it.
The real revelation?
I’m not alone.  Just about all of us in higher ed or any profession, are experiencing the same thing.
I know it’s easy to say we have to slow down, but now that I’ve experienced a slower pace, I can say it with authority.
We’ve allowed  time and technology speed us up to such a degree that we delete art, entertainment, culture, education and contemplation because they take too long.
I’m not kidding myself.  When I’m back on my feet, I’ll probably get sucked back into the fast pace.  But right now, moving very slowly and playing with our three dogs outside and watching their grace, energy and total commitment to play, reminds me that there’s more to life than the professional rush.
If you have kids, they grow up too fast and every moment you don’t spend with them is a moment gone forever.  The moments you do spend with them are eternal.
If your kids are grown, there’s your spouse, the ever-changing art of clouds, the glorious living mathematics of nature.
I love my profession.  It uplifting, challenging and a continual learning experience.
But there’s more.
A one-hour surgery has kept me down for more than a week, a week of introspection, relaxation (okay, a little painful) and quiet enlightenment.
If you want to see what I actually did for more than a week, see my personal blog.
Meanwhile,  just for the heck of it, fill in the blank below, send it to me and share it with others. We’ll all benefit.
There’s more to life than ____________________________
There’s ________________________________