…on Wednesday. Been traveling again for the day job, just catching up here on a few noteworthy items.
1. Is the news conference dead? We can only hope. The Publicity Hound touched on something that used to irk me and my TV news colleagues: the non-story news conference.
Unless you’ve got something really big to announce, and your speakers will draw huge coverage, it might be time to quit expecting media to cover your “news” and actually pitch them in a creative way.
If government agencies think TV newsroom staff look at their boring news release about a boring news conference and jump up and down with glee they’re sadly mistaken. It’s amazing that years after the first ceremonial groundbreaking with gold shovels that mind-numbing photo op is still being done!
2. From Mashable, are you an early adopter? It’s an entertaining post laying out the stereotypes of people clawing out space to be heard in areas of technology and social networking.
Does it matter if you’re the type that wants to try the new stuff first, or if you like to sit back and see what is worth your time?
3. I read/watch D S Simon Vlog Views from time to time and I spotted a video interview they did with Steve Crescenzo, who is always funny and extremely honest about the realities of corporate communications.
He’s got a good quote in this interview that falls in line with my advice for anyone in a corporate setting still hemming and hawing about starting a podcast or a blog, though he smartly prefaces by saying you still need a strategy and a business purpose for what you do in social media:
“A lot of my clients are doing podcasting for the first time, they’re blogging, they’re helping their executives blog. They are not perfect when they start. They’re learning as they go, they’re making mistakes, they’re stubbing their toe. But they are getting better and better. These are new tools for all of us. So I think it’s important to just get started and get going.”
4. Much has been made about Barack Obama’s successful use of social media in his presidential campaign. It’s certainly a model for future candidates to build on. It’s also the cover story in the new Technology Review titled “How Obama Really Did It.”
5. In “YouTube in 1985,” Matt Koval and Kevin Nalts led the production and cast of a collaborative video showing us all why YouTube really needed a few more years to catch on.
