Sunday Afternoon Thoughts Part 10

My brain is awash with info overload. (Picture, if you will, an awashed brain).

I just watched a Sun Microsystems –Project Dark Star press conference on MyRagan conducted on Second Life. I’ve been following Second Life since 2006 when Adam Curry (curry.com) was going crazy over it. Adam is the only business mogul I know who was cutting edge enough to discover SL and check it out as a business model, then have crazy cyber sex and talk about it with his wife on his podcast.

I’ve stayed away from SL it because I’m trying to avoid anymore addictions. I know professors teach courses on it. A few major companies set up businesses there and most failed.

I can’t get into it. I just can’t.

Why?

I don’t want to spend time creating an avatar and learning how to navigate. I also have a problem interacting with a beautiful woman who might really be a 60-year-old male pervert or talking with a muscular, tattooed green guy with black horns who’s probably a 14-year-old kid with more knowledge about code than I will have in 15 incarnations.

Finally, I realized during this SL press conference that I’m really uncomfortable watching a person make a presentation with a closed mouth. One thing basic to all human beings is that when we talk our lips move.

I want your opinion of Second Life – both Web developers and PR folks. What’s your feeling? Have you checked it out? Does Second Life have a future in higher ed marketing? If I’m missing something, set me straight.

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MyRagan, by the way, is a site (and a very good one) produced by The Ragan Report. It’s a grab bag of the latest in PR thinking and experimenting.

When you’re tired of serious stuff, they offer clips from The Onion (The White House Deputy Press Secretary putting a positive spin on his wife’s death (very dark humor) and Jon Stewart.

If you have a chance, check out the site (I know—NOT ONE MORE!) but there are some good ideas and conversations going on here.

IT folks should be interested in this myragan blog post: IT People. . . They’re Really Not THAT Bad

PR folks –well, everybody– will appreciate, Jon Stewart’s take on the “worst PR person ever.”

As an experiment, I posted my blog, The Passion of Bloggers on MyRagan just to see if I could attract more readers and if it would send visitors to BlogHiEd.

Which brings up another question. On how many social sites should we post our blogs? My personal blog (http://perfectsong.net/wordpress.com) is on my Word Press site and Facebook. This blog is on Word Press and BlogHighEd, and could potentially show up on Facebook and MyRagan.

A bunch of questions in this post but I’d love to have some conversations about them.

Sunday Afternoon Thoughts Part 9

This is a short batch of thoughts today.  There was an unexpected death in my immediate family and it’s taken its toll in time, energy and emotion. 

These are three articles from Ad Age which are thoughtful and relevant pieces by pros on the cutting edge of the industry.  I follow Ad Age because it covers the beat in a world where professionals live well when they’re successful and disappear like dust in the wind when they stumble.  And these days, many are stumbling. 

Read on and please have a very safe and happy Easter.

Troubles Continue for the News Industry

The news business may be in bigger trouble than anyone thought, and this has major ramifications on PR folks.  The core of the problem is how we pay for the news.

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Think Different: Maybe the Web’s Not a Place to Stick Your Ads

Should the Web even be viewed as an ad medium?  This article, whose lead sentence is “Steve Jobs  hates the Internet,” takes a look at the Web as a place to advertise.  The core of the article is that “marketers are in the same competitive set as media owners”.  Another playing field leveled.  You just have to understand the playing field.

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What Is Marketers’ Biggest Challenge When It Comes to Social Networks?

Fascinating article on marketing on social websites and case study of marketing the Disney movie Step Up on myspace.

 

PR Crisis Solution: Love Beats Lawsuits

In the previous post I related how a local DJ told the  world I was the worst PR person in the world.

I called my friend Jim, the dining services director.  “Did you hear Ange pummel us yesterday?”

“Yeah.  That was bad. Is it true you’re the worst PR director in the world?”

“I am if I don’t fix this,” I said.    I told him what I needed.  He said it would be tricky but it could be done.

Next I called Big Ange after he was off the air. “This is Dennis Miller.”

There was a silence, then a quiet, “Listen I’m really sorry about yesterday.  I shouldn’t have –“

“No problem, Ange.  But I would like you to do something for me.”  I invited him to take a tour of Elmira College.  To his credit, he agreed.  We set it for the next day.  I didn’t want too much time to go by.

I met Ange outside our building and gave him a quick tour of our offices.  The women were thrilled to meet him and he was careful to apologize to everyone, at the same time playing up on his on-air image. He took song requests which he promised he would dedicate to each requester.

 I took him to meet our president who pretended to be  mad. “What’s a guy your age calling yourself Big Ange?”

It took Ange by surprised and he stumbled for words.  Our president laughed, shook hands and said he was kidding.  “That was quite a drubbing you gave us the other day,”  he said.

Ange apologized.  We talked for about 15 minutes and left.  Ange was impressed.  He had met the college president, sat in his office.

I took the now mild-mannered DJ to the dining hall for the big moment.  On the air, Ange talked about three things – music, women and food. When I gave the signal, our dining services director entered grandly from the kitchen,  followed by two staff bearing a six foot sub.  Ange was at a loss for words.

I took photos of Big Ange, Jim and the six-foot sub.  After lunch he left he thanked me profusely.  The photo and article I wrote was in the daily paper the next day, making him a local print star.

That morning Ange spent most of his show talking about what a wonderful place EC was.  He mentioned secretaries by name.  He talked about meeting the president.  He talked about the six foot sub.  In fact, for the next month,  Ange found a reason to mention Elmira College and what a great place it was.

Whatever negative publicity we got with his snow day rant, we made it back a hundred times over with “The Big Ange Tour of EC.”  Ange’s unpaid, unsolicited endorsement of EC, and the way he personalized the campus, was worth tens of thousands of dollars in free publicity.

Sometimes you do have to stand your ground and fight back.  Most of the time there’s a better way to correct things—like forgiveness and a six foot sub.

PR Crisis: Attack of the Raging DJ

Back in the day when radio was live and mattered, the most popular DJ in the region was a middle-aged, overweight woman-crazy guy who called himself Big Ange.  Big Ange had a deep, Barry White type voice that he used to advantage, moving in close to the mic for a warm, intimate, often borderline lascivious feel. 

Despite his chauvinism (or maybe because of it)  women loved him. I didn’t pay much attention to Ange, whose controversial babble actually  helped set the stage for shock jocks.  I was assistant PR director at Elmira College in upstate New York.  My boss’s name was Martha.  One morning in January I woke up to a foot of snow.  I was trapped in my rural home.  I turned the radio on to get the local news.

What I got was  Big Ange ranting, “I don’t know if Elmira College is closed!  The PR people won’t call me.  I’ve pleaded with them to call me.  “Martha Horton, Dennis Miller, they’re the worst PR people in the world!  The worst!”

His screaming went on until my boss got through to our college president who confirmed classes were cancelled.  She called the station and the ranting stopped.

But the damage was done. 

The next day, the president called us into and wanted to sue the station.  “At the very least, you guys should sue for slander,” he said.  “Or get a public apology.”

I said no and asked to check into a couple of things.  I called a friend in the station news department. 

“Umm, Ange is really sorry about what he did,” he said.  “He was under a lot of pressure and it just broke.”

“Is he willing to do something to help us on campus feel better?” I asked. 

“I can’t speak for him, but I think so,” my friend said.

So I came up with an idea.  It was unorthodox.  In fact it was so crazy that it had to work.

It involved a master chef and a six foot surprise.

Part 2 tomorrow.

Sunday Afternoon Thoughts Part 8

Hmm.  The celebrated 100^th post slipped right by me.  Just noticed I’ve done 102 posts since I started in February 2007.  We’ll toot the horns at 200.

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I’ve given in. I’m beaten.  I’ve taken the sex out of Lonely Girl.  I tried an experiment and entitled my July 3^rd entry Lonely Girl 15: Sex, Mystery and Web 2.0 just to see what would happen.  It’s an accurate title and I did get hits, lots of them.  Still does.  But a lot of them are coming through searches for subjects I don’t even dare mention.  Anyway, I want my readers to be those who share my interest in higher ed marketing.  I don’t care how popular I am (well, that’s a lie; I care a lot).  So I  changed the  title to Lonely Girl 15: S**, Mystery and Web 2.0.  Is that going to solve the s*x deviant problem?  If not, I may have to boot her off my blog, lonely or not.  I shudder at  the thought of how many testosterone-driven teens are disappointed when they hit my post. And if they are getting off on it, we have some major problems with American teen males.

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Found:  through Bob Johnson’s blog this site which just blew me away at the Virginia Commonwealth University Brandcenter   That’s right.  It’s no longer the Adcenter.

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Radio sales reps, to survive, must live in a constant state of denial.  A rep was selling me on her station. I said I was thinking twice about radio in the face of iTunes, etc.  She said it had not affected the listenership of her station a bit.  I knew she had daughters, ages  12 and 15.  “Do they have iPods?”  I asked.

“Oh, yes.  They  listen to them all the time.”

“When do they listen to your station?”

She smiled.  “When I drive them to school, I make them leave their iPods home and we listen to my station.”

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I couldn’t get out of my mind Karine Joly’s post about the study showing the TV-online activity among kids.  This has huge implications for marketers.

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Found this dichotomy while surfing Podcasting News.  Podcast guru Adam Curry’s company Podshow  just laid off 1/3 of its workforce.  At the same time podcasting network Wizzard Media announced it’s  working on the “first international geo-targeted audio podcast advertising campaign.” Tumultuous times.

But the biggest news?  There is a podcast dedicated to The Big Lebowski .  Dude, that’s awesome . . . .

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Scoble Rocks Out:  Came across this from a facebook friend.  Robert Scoble as rock star.  Hilarioius.  

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What do you do when the most popular DJ in the region goes off on a half hour rant calling you the “worst PR person in the world?”

That’s the subject of my two-part blog next week. 

 

Conference Notes on Changing Times

The College and University Public Relations Association of PA (CUPRAP) conference this year drew 159 PR/marketing/Web folks from four states. Here are some observations that may be a snapshot of higher ed marketing in general.

Observations

-For years, CUPRAP was composed primarily of middle aged white males. The last few years it’s almost evenly males and females.

- This year the majority were in their 20s and 30s. Only a handful were in their 50s and 60s.

-Ninety-eight percent were white.

-No one besides me is podcasting.

-No one, including me, twitters.

-A couple folks are producing and posting videos.

-The PR people in decision-making positions are still trying to figure out how to convince the administration that a mention in The New York Times is losing relevance and importance.

-Nearly everyone is familiar with Web 2.0. Most have not done much with it because they’re still tied up with producing print publications, writing traditional media news releases and stomping out the usual little fires.

-I was the only attendee with a digital audio recorder. I recorded three presenters.

-I was the only one there with a camcorder. I recorded an awards ceremony.

-I took my still camera but never pulled it from my hardware bag.

 

Conclusions

PR people are struggling to keep up with the huge changes in communications. They are still pressured produce home town releases, Dean’s Lists, check passing pictures, etc.

-Publications people are feeling more secure than they did a few years ago.

-Web folks are tired and excited.

-PR and Web people are working more closely with each other. Web folks welcome the more user friendly Content Management Systems which enable them to turn content responsibilities over to departments, freeing them up to experiment and explore. And this is a very good thing.

-PR folks need to move more quickly into the Web 2.0 phase because time and change are moving faster.

-Administrations, trustees and others need to be educated on the importance of the new media. Newspapers are still important, but in a different way. Our brand is reinforced not by a mention in The Chronicle but by our Google rankings, Facebook, Del.ic.ious, blogs, videos, etc.

-Not all conversations are produced by us, but by an increasingly active world around us. A growing audience of students, parents, alumni and others are contributing to the definition of who we are.

Note: If I’m off on any of this, let me know.

“Writing Right for the Web”

I’m going to do two or three posts on the College & University Public Relations Association (CUPRAP) spring conference, so I’ll keep them shorter than usual.

Bob Johnson of Bob Johnson Consulting, gave two sessions which were the conference highlights for me.  Here are some notes from , “Writing Right for the Web: Engage Your Visitors and Improve Your Search Engine Visibility.”

Bob compared  “Web friendly writing” to  direct mail marketing copy. 

Short sentences of 5-10 words.  Lot of punch.  Short graphs—50 words or less.

Use sub-heads with active words, not labels.

Use bullet points.

It’s essential that the reader can scan the page quickly.  On the Web, people are impatient.

Web readers scan for “care” words or words people care about.  A couple examples  are “advance your career” and “best school possible.”

While a Website can be seen as a series of magazines (admissions, PR, alumni), it’s an absolute no-no to just plop the alumni magazine article in as a PDF.  It needs to be slightly re-written, broken up with subheads and links, and reformatted using the above rules.

The Web, Bob said, is an informal place in which you need to be as personal as possible.  Use “you” often.

Black text on a white background is best.  Sans serif is easier to read quickly .  Verdana and Arial are in right now. 

Words in the title bar should have the same keywords as the news headline.

It’s all, he said, Reality marketing.

Bob listed the BBC  and National Geographic  sites as examples of good writing, layout, tagging, etc. (Visit these at your own risk. I visited NG to copy the url and didn’t come back here for a half hour).

As I mentioned in previous posts, I’ve been reading Bob Johnson’s blog for awhile and was happy to be at one of his presentations.  He has a lot of knowledge, which he presents in a down-to-earth, logical manner.  His power point, handouts and the fact that I recorded the sessions on my Zoom H2, helped a lot.

Note:  “Personal” was the key word of nearly all the presenters.  I guess we all know this by now.  You have to be personal and genuine if you want to attract and hold a Web audience. 

 

Sunday Afternoon Thoughts Part 7

I write three blogs. One is an offshoot of my novel, The Perfect Song. I started the blog thinking I would be doing posts about writing, but the humorous side of my personal life nudged its way in. As anyone who’s blogged a long time knows, sometimes you run dry.

This happened to me recently. I couldn’t think of anything to write about. I never force the issue. Writing is larger than the writer. Then one night a line came to me: “My name is Dennis Miller and I’m an eBayholic.” From there everything flowed out in 10 or 15 minutes. Why? Because I had found a platform (Alcoholics Anonymous) and a writing tone (that desperation-tinged tone of people fighting addiction).

I know we don’t always have the luxury of time in higher ed to wait for the muse, but with more and more content needed for content management systems, and audience demand to write in a compelling, even entertaining way, I think we’re going to have more freedom to experiment with styles, tones and approaches.

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While Brad Ward beat me to the punch by a few weeks, I did finally post a couple very basic videos shot on our Flip camcorders. My student intern and I attended a faculty-staff talent show. Check these for video and audio quality.

My intern, Katrina Brumfield, created the format and did the editing, so it cost me very little in time. If you don’t have time to watch them in full, fast forward on Dick Soderberg and listen to “Let’s Talk Dirty in Hawaiian” to lighten your day.

The trade-off on broadcast quality is this: you pull the vidcam out of your pocket, shoot and leave. Some basic editing and your up for the world.

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There will always be a need for broadcast quality videos and professional photography that tell your unique and compelling story, especially in the areas of admissions, alumni relations and fund raising. But our Website sucks up content like a moon-sized sponge. We’re all going to have to learn the basics of writing, video, photography, and audio recording—sooner than later.

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A new Zogby International survey shows that 2/3 of Americans are turning to the internet for their news because they’re dissatisfied with traditional media.

“Overall, the survey finds the Internet not only outweighs television, radio, and newspapers as the most frequently used and important source for news and information, but Web sites were also cited as more trustworthy than more traditional media sources – nearly a third (32%) said Internet sites are their most trusted source for news and information, followed by newspapers (22%), television (21%) and radio (15%).”

There’s also information about blogs. The trend, by the way, includes older Americans, as well. This huge shift, as we all know, has implications for web folks and PR people, in the way we communicate not only with potential students but parents, alumni and constituency as well.

The quoted graph is from the Podcasting News story.

Also, I see Kyle James has included a blurb about it in the newest post of his always excellent Links of the Week.

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Final note: The dumbest prediction I ever made. In the mid- 1980s I persuaded Sony to give us a used professional camera and editing equipment. We produced our own shows and won a couple awards. I was invited to speak at a conference on emerging video use. During the talk I predicted the demise of still photography, or at least a greatly reduced use. I immediately alienated all the photographers in the audience, a few of whom gave me a piece of their mind after the presentation.

I couldn’t have been more wrong.

Now I stick with such predictions as “there is a very good chance that darkness will follow dusk.”

We’ve all been wrong about something. Share your prediction or thought that was, well, off the mark.

Sunday Afternoon Thoughts Part 6

I’m learning a little more about the blog world everyday.  The link I included last week on vasectomy did several things , some expected, most not.  In a small way it enabled  me to help Abel Pharmboy  find some new readers.  What I did not expect was the fact that his site, Terra Sigillata became my top referrer for two days. Visitors to my site tripled.  Now, over the past five days I’m seeing older blog entries being visited.   This tells me they’re newer visitors checking out the site.  I will make a tiny leap and conclude that some of these new readers first came from Terra Sigillata and decided to poke around.

 If I’m wrong with any of my speculations, please let me know.

Previously my top referrer was BlogHighEd and, and sure enough, when the excitement died down, it returned as #1.  Veteran bloggers know all the above but to experience it is a whole different feeling.  So I guess it reinforces the basics: reach out, connect and share. 

The vasectomy blog wasn’t exactly viral but the Chronicle mention and the number of bloggers who picked up on it made a huge difference.  See Abel’s  figures under “comments” of  Sunday Afternoon 5.

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The podcast interview I did with Ed Washington on Black History Month was a winner.  PR tip:  When I posted the podcast, my news director sent a two-graph release on it and fired it off to the electronic  versions of the local newspapers.  The electronic versions of local and regional papers are starving for content.  It’s a huge and growing outlet that we should take advantage of.

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Thoughts on Joe Gaylor’s  fascinating post last week and his analysis of competitions.  I agree with him and other  comments that many competitions aren’t what they should be.  

At the same time, I enter a couple competitions every year.  Our department has won a fair number of bout in various fields.  I do this solely for PR reasons.  Publicize in campus publications, on the Web news sites and local news outlets.   It gives you credibility, maybe prestige, with the administration, faculty, community and your peers.

 Hypocrisy?  Not if you know what your goal is.  Just as we market our universities and our programs,  we  need market ourselves.  This goes for Web and publications pros, too. 

Having said that, I thank Joe for all his work on the stats.  His post was an eye-opener.

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This week’s Tales From Redesign Land post entitled “I Curse You All”  was funny and right on.  The beauty of BlogHighEd,  as I’ve said before, is the variety professionals in higher ed.  BlogHighEd readers have an advantage over those who just read blogs in their own circles because we’re learning points  of view of folks  in a variety of fields.

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Visit eduGuru and prepare to lose hours exploring Kyle’s new Links of the Week plus a New Resources  section. 

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This week I head to the College and University Public Relations Association spring conference at the grand Hotel Hershey in Hershey, PA.   (Yes, they really have a chocolate spa!) CUPRAP membership is composed of PR  directors, publications directors, Web folks, and marketing pros from colleges throughout Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Ohio.  The featured speaker is online marketing consultant Bob Johnson whose blog I’ve been reading for some time.  There’s always some solid stuff here.   I’ll report highlights. in between sessions, chocolate, and, mm other refreshments.  Things get pretty loud after 10 p.m. in the Hugs and Kisses Suite (I’m not making this up.)