1. Why is the Brett Favre fiasco worthy of some emergency PR work for former White House press secretary Ari Fleischer? Well, it’s not quite like that. He’s actually making the rounds to several NFL teams to talk to players about public and media relations. But he will consult for the Pack for awhile, according to several reports.
His recent visit to Green Bay just happened to bring Fleischer to the center of the NFL media circus right now. Personally, as a Viking fan, I wish the Pack would just realize they’re backed into a corner and have no choice but to welcome Favre back. Bleacher Report has a nice take on the PR aspect of this mess. The Pack should come clean and realize the only way to get this behind them is to tell their fans “This was a mess. Obviously. But we wouldn’t dare let Brett play anywhere else” and just get him on the practice field. If you’re interested, NBC also had some quotes from Fleischer on his PR tour to the Pack.
I wonder if Fleischer had anything to do with Packers team president Mark Murphy’s statement in a news release over the weekend: “Having crossed the Rubicon once when Brett decided to retire, it’s very difficult to reorient our plans and cross it again in the opposite direction but we’ll put this to our advantage.”
Sounds like #4 will be the starting QB, doesn’t it?
2. Keeping the focus on sports, WebTVwire has an informative post on the technology in place to broadcast the Olympics in China on and off the Web. Read this and realize how far the technology has come in just a few years.
3. The Online News Association has posted the finalists for the 9th annual Online Journalism Awards. Since I’m in Minnesota, I’ll note the Minneapolis Star Tribune’s nomination in the Breaking News, Large Site category. Their staff did some remarkable work telling the stories of the dead, injured and heroes in the I-35W bridge collapse in August 2007. The winners of the awards will be announced at the 2008 ONA Conference Awards Banquet next month in Washington, D.C.
4. Chris Brogan is passing along some great advice, as usual. In his post, “Twelve Ways to Sell Social Media to Your Boss,” In #9, Brogan suggests “Blogging helps a business differentiate and establish a thought leadership position.”
Couldn’t agree more. I see this as particularly useful if someone on the Web is suggesting your company is not innovative, or doesn’t care about x, etc… You can use your blog to let your “smart people” talk about some of the new things they’re working on, discuss trends in the industry, or ways in which your customer service department is committed to providing top-shelf service.
5. Lastly for today, from the Church of the Customer Blog, an interesting apology ad and some details on how J. Crew is trying to make things right for customers affected by a recent glitch with their Web site.
