Leveraging the Web for PR Practitioners
Notes from a March 11th Presentation
To the Independent Practitioners Group

A Few Questions We'll Explore:

• What are your sustainable competitive advantages (in other words, how can you better distinguish yourself from the run of plain-vanilla PR providers)?
• How can you leverage the web to strengthen and broadcast those advantages?
• How can you slowly increase the pipeline of candidates ready to engage with you, and eventually (perhaps) do business with you?
• How can you intelligently integrate your relationships (a big company would call it CRM, or Customer Relationship Management) into your marketing efforts?
• How can you continue to add to the universe of possible clients (the saddest story I’ve heard in months was about a guy in advertising who complained all his clients got bought by other companies. How long did he go without adding to his client base—20 years?).
• How can you find the time to deliver more value to clients while searching for business less?
• How can you broaden and deepen your intelligence network to find more business? Or better yet, how can it better find you?

A Couple of Phrases We’ll Illuminate:

Inbound Marketing
Relationship Marketing

A Mantra We’ll Dissect:

People Tend to Buy from those they Know, Like & Trust

Seth Godin on PR:

"Most PR firms do publicity, not PR. Publicity is the act of getting ink. Publicity is getting unpaid media to pay attention, write you up, point to you, run a picture, make a commotion. Sometimes publicity is helpful, and good publicity is always good for your ego. But it's not PR. PR is the strategic crafting of your story. It's the focused examination of your interactions and tactics and products and pricing that, when combined, determine what and how people talk about you."

A Few Sites Worth Studying Regularly

www.iwantmedia.com
Maintained by an NYU new media professor, it’s one of the best at keeping track of developments at the intersection of the business sides of PR and journalism.
www.micropersuasion.com
One of the earlier & better guides to how the web is changing PR. Its author now works in new media for PR giant Edelman in NY.
www.poynter.org/column.asp?id=45
The infamous Romenesko, read several times a day by nearly every journalist in America.
www.marketingprofs.com/
One of the better how-to sites about good online marketing.
http://sethgodin.typepad.com
Godin is simply the best, freshest thinker about the philosophies behind marketing in the 21st century. The original guru of “permission marketing.”
www.copyblogger.com
The best site on the web about the ins & outs (and value) of online copywriting.
www.clickz.com
Not what it used to be, but still worthwhile sometimes.
www.chrisbrogan.com
A newer-age Seth Godin (Seth was actually his mentor). Pretty sharp.
http://searchenginewatch.com
Never hurts to understand a little about how search engines work.

Some Good Local Resources/Ideas/Smart People to Watch

http://askinsivia.com
A great online tool for answering web questions and making new connections, by the Cleveland web development shop Insivia. A great example of an inbound expert tool.
http://toughsledding.wordpress.com
Bill Sledzik, a PR prof at Kent State, offers fresh thinking about PR on his blog.
http://technomarketer.typepad.com
Matt Dickman, formerly w/Digiknow, is now the resident social network guru with the Cleveland office of Fleishman-Hillard, and is increasingly becoming a nationally recognized thinker on the topic.
http://www.pr2020.com/blog
A blog by Paul Roetzer, who runs perhaps Northeast Ohio’s only true inbound marketing/PR operation.

'They're Cheering for You, Tucker' You, Too, Bill

So much to catch up on, and so little time, at least today. So I'll have to save for another day accounts of two fascinating, catalytic events I've taken part in within the last week. One was my friend Anton Zuiker's phenomenally successful, even mind-blowing blog conference in North Carolina last weekend. The other was a Tuesday afternoon encounter at John Carroll between nearly a dozen Russian journalists from Siberia, in town for a couple of weeks on an international exchange program, and five of us U.S. scribes. We spent nearly two hours helping each other understand the different challenges and opportunities of our respective systems, in the process challenging the lone interpreter's best efforts to keep up with the fast-paced group conversation and help both sides undertand all the language nuances. Let's just say that each of these events was an intellectual delight, and each stretched my understanding in important and complimentary ways. And to have them occur back to back felt like a special blessing.

Even Seth Godin Gets It Wrong. Most people I know who know anything about viral marketing guru Seth Godin, or have read any of his stuff, come away impressed. It's hard not to: he's smart as a whip and on top of so much of what's new and changing in the web-enabled world, while always managing to resist being swept away by the silly and superficial. But even he can occasionally get it wrong in a big way. In mid-January he wrote in defense of an unnamed friend who was being savaged by what he called the "mob justice" of the blogging community (sorry, but I'll keep intact my disfavor for that silly word blogosphere). So far, so good. But then he erred, I think, with this small bit: "...it will blow over. Blogging is about speed, and no news is bad news if you're in the hunt for the easy score..." Sorry, Seth, but blogging is only about speed if you choose to make it about speed. Blogs and blogging are mere mediums, tools or, as Anton Zuiker likes to say, pencils. They're used differently by different people. Can't we ever get off this childish reductionism of attributing all kinds of group descriptions to a simple communications medium that's as customized as one cares to be? Blogs are whatever their authors choose to make them. End of story.

Kukral Elicits an Interesting Nugget. For many, the newest guru to follow in the footsteps of Godin is a New York p.r. guy (of all things) named Steve Rubel, who writes brilliantly about the new media landscape on his similarly brilliantly named site, Micropersuasion. At the end of January, my Cleveland-based pal Jim Kukral, himself a budding micropersuader, posed a question to Steve on his blog, about his apparent policy against accepting advertising. It prompted Rubel to give this unexpected answer:

Jim, when I started this blog back in April of last year I vowed never to accept advertising. I am not in this to make a buck, but to engage in a discussion about the democratization of media and evangelize its possibilities. However, in recent months a few companies have approached me about placing ads on my blog. I am weighing if I will run these campaigns. If I elect to go forward, I will donate all proceeds to a charity to-be-determined that supports medical research for children with brain tumors. Believe it or not, I am a brain tumor survivor going on 22 years now and I would like to give back. If others have thoughts here, I would be eager to hear them. I promise, however, that if I do run ads I will keep the advertising simple, relevant and clean.

Which proves once more (as I like to tell my sons, ad nauseum): you only learn by asking. Hats off to Jimmy K.

And finally, we bring you the heartwarming story of Bill Belichick. When last we Clevelanders left him, Bill was the almost comically sullen, monosyllabic Browns coach. An obvious creep with borderline psychosis issues. What the hell is this guy's problem? we all asked. He has since, of course, morphed into a genius who's rightly being compared to Vince Lombardi, causing any honest person to reconsider their original assumptions about the guy. But this tender little story in the NYTimes just before the Super Bowl, by the dependable beat writer George Vecsey, made me root even more for Bill and his Patriots:

Way beyond the Doctor Doom stereotype, Belichick is a family man, anchored by his wife Debby, and three children. He makes friends, and keeps them. From his days with the Giants, he got to know Ingraham, a sports businessman and fellow graduate of Wesleyan U....when Belichick was settling on Long Island in 1997, he stayed with (the family) , becoming part of the family. Now 9, Tucker Ingraham keeps in touch with his pal Bill via email, and receives almost instant replies saying that he is turning over Tucker's critiques to his coordinators. Last year, Tucker got to play catch on the field before the Super Bowl and, after the Patriots won in te closing seconds, Bill whispered to him, 'they're cheering for you, Tucker.' Think of that when you think of Doctor Doom."

Call me a softie if you will, but that one brought a lump to my throat.

Permission Marketing Guru Seth Godin
Continues Serving Up Pearls of Wisdom

In the past, I've pointed to Seth Godin a number of times for his pithy wisdom about the web, marketing and business in general. He never seems to get stale. His latest wise musing is about the differences between thrill seekers & fear avoiders. Just in case the link is broken at some future date, I'll reprint it here in its entirety.

I now firmly believe that there are two polar opposites at work: Thrill seekers and Fear avoiders. Notice that I don't use the word 'risk' to describe either category. More on that soon. How do we explain the fact that Forbes finds more than 700 billionaires and virtually none are both young and retired? Why keep working?
How do explain why so many organizations get big and then just stop? Stop innovating, stop pushing, stop inventing...
Why are seminars sometimes exciting, bubbling pots of innovation and energy while others are just sort of dronefests?
I think people come to work with one of two attitudes (though there are plenty of people with a blend that's somewhere in between):
Thrill seekers love growth. They most enjoy a day where they try something that was difficult, or--even better--said to be impossible, and then pull it off. Thrill seekers are great salespeople because they view every encounter as a chance to break some sort of record or have an interaction that is memorable.
Fear avoiders hate change. They want the world to stay just the way it is. They're happy being mediocre, because being mediocre means less threat/fear/change. They resent being pushed into the unknown, because the unknown is a scary place.
An interesting side discussion: one of the biggest factors in the success of the US isn't our natural resources or location. It's that so many people in this country came here seeking a thrill.
So why not call them risk seekers and risk avoiders? Well, it used to be true. Seeking thrills was risky. But no longer. Now, of course, safe is risky. The horrible irony is that the fear avoiders are setting themselves up for big changes because they're confused. The safest thing they can do now, it turns out, is become a thrill seeker.
Who do you work with?

Seth Godin on Resisting

The Forces of Mediocrity

'There's a myth that all you need to do is outline your vision and prove it's right, and then quite suddenly, people will line up and support you. In fact, the opposite is true. Remarkable vision and genuine insight are always met with resistance. And when you start to make progress, your efforts are met with even more resistance. Products, services, career paths--whatever it is, the forces for mediocrity will align to stop you, forgiving no errors and never backing down until it's over. If it were any other way, it would be easy. And if it were any other way, everyone would do it, and your work would ultimately be devalued. The yin and yang are clear: without people pushing against your quest to do something worth talking about, it's unlikely to be worth the journey. Persist.'

--from Tribes--We Need You to Lead Us, by Seth Godin.

Seth Godin Suggests: Write Like a Blogger

This morning, I spoke to a journalism class at Cleveland State University, and was met with more questions--and great questions--than at any other time I've talked about writing, anywhere, ever. My friend (and their teacher) Cliff Anthony is obviously doing something right (two years ago, I wrote about him a little). These students were an invigorating reminder of what it's all about. This afternoon, the marketing guru and writer Seth Godin provided me with another important reminder of what it's all about. Below is his entire entry. His most important point, I think: "Waiting for perfect is a lousy strategy." Remember, you can get closer to perfection with rounds of rewriting and revising. But nobody begins there, or even close to there. You have to work at it.

You can improve your writing (your business writing, your ad writing, your thank you notes and your essays) if you start thinking like a blogger:

Use headlines. I use them all the time now. Not just boring ones that announce your purpose (like the one on this post) but interesting or puzzling or engaging headlines. Headlines are perfect for engaging busy readers.

Realize that people have choices. With 80 million other blogs to choose from, I know you could leave at any moment (see, there goes someone now). So that makes blog writing shorter and faster and more exciting.

Drip, drip, drip. Bloggers don't have to say everything at once. We can add a new idea every day, piling on a thesis over time.

It's okay if you leave. Bloggers aren't afraid to include links or distractions in their writing, because we know you'll come back if what we had to say was interesting.

Interactivity is a great shortcut. Your readers care about someone's opinion even more than yours... their own. So reading your email or your comments or your trackbacks (your choice) makes it easy to stay relevant.

Gimmicks aren't as useful as insight. If you're going to blog successfully for months or years, sooner or later you need to actually say something. Same goes for your writing.

Don't be afraid of lists. People like lists.

Show up. Not writing is not a useful way of expressing your ideas. Waiting for perfect is a lousy strategy.

Say it. Don't hide, don't embellish.

What would happen if every single high school student had to have a blog? Or every employee in your company? Or every one of your customers?

The Daily Discipline of Blogging:
We Heartily Concur With Godin

'Someone asked me the other day if posting a blog post every day is intimidating or a grind. I view it as something I get to do. I spend most of my blogging time deciding what not to post. The best work, at least for me, is the stuff you get to do. If you are really good at that, you're lucky enough to have very little of the have to stuff left.'
--from a recent item in marketing guru Seth Godin's wise and wonderfully reflective blog. To review earlier mentions of Seth, go here.

Friday Stuff

Another Book Blog to Consider. The New Yorker magazine starts a book blog. In the past, I've pointed you to book blogs maintained by the NYTimes and Washington Post. But you can never have enough good ones. What do you think of the new entrant, Darby?

The Yuck Factor. Slate asks the burning question you've all no doubt been wondering about: should you drink your own urine if pressed by extreme thirst?

Tired of Reading or Thinking About Baby Boomers? I'm not, since I'm among them. So I did check out this list of supposed myths about boomers. Nothing too earth-shaking in there.

Godin on Nonprofit Marketing. My favorite marketing guru, Seth Godin (whose fresh, literate insights I've often pointed you to in the past) recently fielded questions on marketing nonprofit causes in an online discussion with the excellent Chronicle of Philanthropy.

McCain Tops List of Senators Missing Votes. I'm a little surprised we haven't heard more about this from the Obama campaign. But give them time. Until recently, all the opposition research has been targetted at Hillary. It's now turned to McCain. So expect to hear about this soon, unless the Obama folks figure that their guy coming in at #3 on that same list would render this a little less useful.

Trumanesque Musings and State Media

Seth Cuts to the Heart of It. Viral marketing guru and author Seth Godin always seems to have a way of cutting through the yackety-yack to get to the heart of things. The other day on his blog, he wrote: "There's a lot of mythology in our lives, especially at work. Most of the time, that mythology is a lot more important than whatever fact you're in love with right this minute."

State Media? In The Nation's annual media issue, the muckraking radio & TV host Amy Goodman surveys media coverage of the Iraq war before asking an important question: "...the media's adoption of Pentagon nomenclature raises the question: If this were state media, how would it be any different?"

The Right's Embrace of Truman. You've gotta love how nonpartisan conservative Republicans are in their search for heroes. Armed with precious few presidents whose records grow rosier with time, they're forever adopting the names of Democratic presidents (and British stalwarts like Winston Churchill) as ballast for their current pet causes. The latest to be lionized by the right is Harry S. Truman. The dippy one-time Reagan speechwriter Peggy Noonan did one of her usual overheated swoons about how much Bush reminded her of Truman shortly after 9/11, and the word "Trumanesque" has been popping up all over the place ever since. The Weekly Standard's Bill Kristol recently hearkened back to "the hard, Trumanesque truth" that war is hell, and that all this liberal handwringing over the apparent atrocities in Haditha must end. There's of course a main subtext in using this name. Truman left office among the most unpopular presidents ever, but eventually regained his popularity as historians reconsidered his record and his blunt, Midwestern outspokeness came to be seen in a different light. The right is of course hoping there's a precedent in all this for their Bully Boy Bush, he of the collapsing poll numbers. Don't count on it, folks.

For Talese, It's All About Perseverance. The author Gay Talese, interviewed in Sports Illustrated, talks about why he thought boxer Floyd Patterson was an ideal subject for him: "Patterson got knocked down more than anybody in the history of boxing, but he got up more than anybody, and that is a real achievement. What I write about is perseverance more than anything else."

Wolcott Considers The New Yorker's History. In this lovely piece in a semi-obscure intellectual journal, The New Criterion, the always-interesting James Wolcott uses the occasion of the release of a boxed CD set of the New Yorker's entire archives as an occasion to fondly recall the place he called home from 1992-'97. As he samples highlights from decades of the magazine's greatest hits, it occurs to him that the magazine "was never as monolithic as its reputation." Knowing something about the magazine's storied history makes the current magazine's continued successes only that much more remarkable.

Sunday Stuff

It's blizzard time in Cleveland, and the Browns just won, so all is good. Here are just a few quick things for your Sunday reading pleasure.

Important news for those of you who only read the articles.

Permission marketing guru Seth Godin rightly calls Whole Foods Market "an amusement park for food."

I'm glad someone's still keeping the pressure on Don Rumsfeld, who's arguably a war criminal. Earlier this year, we told you about his possible legal difficulties, and now comes this update. I'm guessing that this fellow is related to the Forest City Ratners, since there's a New York branch of the family. We'll try to find that out.

The Nation offers up an interesting new coinage: permalancers.

And finally, L.A. Times rock critic Ann Powers (who previously served as rock critic for the NYTimes) thinks this year's new Rock Hall inductee class is pretty weak. We wouldn't really know about these things, because we're about as up to date on rock music as we are on sci-fi, but perhaps a few readers might educate us about this. After all, there's been one hell of an interesting conversation going on about science fiction in the comments section, if you skip down just a few entries ago. I've found it quite enlightening.

A Few Of Our Favorite (and Least Favorite) Things

• The best magazine subscription come-on of the week, month and year, from The Nation: "We're like Fox News. Only Smart. And not crazy. And we don't lie. Click here for 4 free issues."
• The silliest academic mumbo jumbo we've seen in quite awhile: Womanist Theology.
• Glad to see we're not the only ones who hate those infernal traffic cameras the City of Cleveland uses to nab scofflaws. To us, they merely provide one more reason not to head downtown.
• Some recent Seth Godin wisdom, on the need to occasionally push yourself by sprinting.

Breaking the Fourth Dimension of Greed

It's become worse than a cliche to complain about the overcommercialization of everything in America. After awhile, you can begin to sound a little like NYU prof Mark Crispin Miller, the hyperarticulate if sometimes humorless scold who long ago became an all-purpose media go-to guy on the subject. But I found myself in particular agreement with a recent column by Sports Illustrated columnist Rick Reilly, who knows a tipping point when he sees one.

It happened when I was halfway through my Raisin Bran. My spoon plopped into my bowl and my forehead clunked down hard on the table and my arms hung like Hebrew Nationals at my side. And what was I reading when the end came? This: The Chicago White Sox will start their home games next season at 7:11 p.m. And do you know why they're going to start their games at 7:11 p.m? Because they signed a three-year deal with 7-Eleven for a half-million dollars a season. Yes, the Chicago White Sox found a way to sell their game time. That was it. That broke it. My switch toggled over to I Give Up. There was no fighting it anymore. For years now, I've slobbered and screamed against selling our sense of place (Mile High Stadium is now Invesco Field. Yeeesh), our history (remember the Suzuki Heisman Trophy? Yikes!) and even our sacred moments of utter jubilation ("I'm going to Disneyland!" Yuck). But now we're through the looking glass, people. These evil geniuses have found a way to sell time. They've broken the dreaded fourth dimension of greed.

For an archive of Reilly's always-thoughtful columns, go here (unfortunately, it's subscriber-only. On the other hand, if you're a sports fan and an admirer of good writing, you could make a lot worse investment this holiday season for yourself or a loved one than a subscription to SI, which continues to fight the good fight for quality, serious, long-form narrative journalism).

UPDATE: The incomparable Seth Godin explains why one advertiser (Verizon) is tremendously short-sighted to scratch for the last dollar in ad revenue while simultaneously pissing away its customers' precious goodwill.

Assorted Stuff

Now That You Mention It... As I've observed many times before, permission marketing guru Seth Godin has made a good career out of smart takes on the most ordinary subjects. He's one part brilliant marketing guy and one part superb cultural critic. He makes another good point here. I'll never look at another "Under New Management" sign quite the same way.

The Future of Journalism? Maybe, maybe not. But either way, I still think this is an interesting example of the highest form of citizen journalism, so-called networked journalism, a pro-am combination that gets people collaborating in intelligent ways. I hope we have lots more of it in our future. If you're interested in this subject, please consider helping out a good cause by taking this survey.

Who Says Middle-Aged Terrorists Can't Have Fun? I got a kick out of this story. I especially enjoyed the odd detail about how the lady was actually observed smiling her way through the experience. Obviously, these randy folks aren't the sort to sit around and get depressed over the likes of this.

Calls From DiNiro & DiMora

This dead-on complaint from permission-marketing guru Seth Godin about the phone spam during election season rang a bell with me. His problem is with the actor Robert DiNiro's taped message, while my beef is with Cuyahoga County Commissioner Jimmy "Goodfellas" DiMora . Besides the fact that I know him to be a corrupt fellow, I can now add to my list of grievances against him the fact that he's an obnoxious spammer, those unsavory types who presume to send unwanted mass messages to complete strangers. There wasn't a chance in hell that I would have voted for the slimy & misleading Issue 3 "learn and earn" before his call on its behalf. But now I'll probably do my best to convince a handful of friends to vote against it too.

Some Tidbits That Caught My Eye at Week's End

Let the 'Trial' Begin. I say good for these kids. At the very least, they should learn something, and a whole lot more than from those mock UN debates that schools are so enamored of. Maybe the whole country will slowly begin following their lead and begin waking up from this six-year nightmare, holding this renegade administration to account.

Here's How Not to Search for a Mentor. From the casually brilliant guru of viral marketing, Seth Godin, comes a harrowing tale of a young author's search for a mentor gone bad. This made me alternately laugh and cringe. Just try to make sure you never do anything similarly bone-headed.

George Costanza is Now a....Writer. Jason Alexander, who achieved massive fame by playing my favorite character on Seinfeld, George, is apparently trying his hand at a new discipline. The poor guy has had some trouble finding his next thing (a couple of failed series). And because of his lack of ownership in the show, he's not growing nearly as rich on the rerun residuals as the show's two developers, Seinfeld and Larry David. But George always knew how to make lemonade from lemons, and his alter ego seems to have done so too. I noticed that he wrote a fun little piece a couple of weeks ago in the L.A. Times magazine. It isn't brilliant or laugh out loud funny (as his character always is to me). But it's just plain nicely done. In style and voice it reminds me just a bit of Woody Allen's celebrated ventures into comic writing in the New Yorker many years ago. Anyway, the piece made me look forward to more of the same from him. As George would say, at the top of his lungs as he charges out Jerry's apartment door and down the hall: "I'm back, baby, I'm baaack!"

My Notes from a Kent State Panel Yesterday

Many months ago, I got an invite to take part in a panel about blogging and new media at Kent State Univ. Journalism School. Originally set for early fall (or was it late spring?), it was later moved back to November. It was convened by PRNewswire, and hosted by the J-School, whose director Jeff Fruit I know (though just a bit) from an earlier life. Could our only regional journalism school be getting increasingly serious about teaching students to harness the web in new ways to tell stories, report news and connect communities? I think it is and will. I'm hoping to be part of that effort and conversation, and yesterday was just a first quick dip of the toe into those waters. But this conversation happened to be more a general overview for the p.r. community (and their corporate clients) about what this new online medium is all about. Curiosity from that quarter seems boundless.

Anyway, below are my cheat sheet talking points I prepared ahead of time, a copy of which I left for anyone interested in more information. I didn't get to all the points in my brief slot, but got to work in some more during the Q&A. I'll add some more detail and context about the discussion/venue/etc. tomorrow. Meanwhile, you can enjoy (or perhaps take part in) the ever-blossoming conversational thread this event touched off on my friend George's ubiquitous BFD. Mr. IWAS (Instapundit with a Soul) was also good enough to post the PDF version of the event announcement here, since neither of the co-hosts (PRNewswire and KSU J-School) ever managed to get around to that.

Working With Online Media & Blogs • 11/2/’05
PRNewswire Media Coffee @ Kent State Univ.

Why Blogs Matter
• More influential than any web function but email, the free, easy-to-use blogging tools have meant an end to time when “freedom of press belongs only to those who own one.”
• But, contrary to myth, blogs are not necessarily by/for techies. They were just first adopters.
• Despite much blogger triumphalism about the medium being revolutionary, and it is in some respects, its evolutionary aspects are more important. Blogging (and its audio twin, podcasting) and traditional journalism/media are increasingly converging into a hybrid: online media.
EXAMPLES: Washingtonmonthly, NYObserver, NYT.com collects blogs on Judy Miller
• As blogging matures and ad business models (Google Adsense, Blogads.com, Lulu.com) are refined, increasing numbers of people with journalism skills will be blogging, and putting more time and energy into it. “Tip jar” tales already abound.
• Some one-person blogs have audiences similar in size to major papers/magazines, and even many smaller blogs have influence out of proportion to their size because they’re followed by people in media, tech and business and other positions of influence.

Implications for P.R. Industry
• Audience eyeballs are increasingly moving to online media, and ad dollars are following. Your clients & their reputations are already being affected (sometimes not by the blog posts themselves but by comments from readers).
• Yet, almost by definition, the majority of blogs are inhospitable, if not outright hostile, to PR pitches, at least as traditionally constituted. They prefer authentic communication from principals. Just as in all PR (doubly so here), know & understand your target first.
• Web search is crucial, & blogs are uniquely effective search optimization tool.

Some Key Recent Developments
• New Tech Bubble? AOL pays $20 million for Weblogs, Inc., consortium of 100 blogs.
• Wonkette on cover of NYT Mag with old-time reporters (including Akron native R.W. Apple) looking over her shoulder. Seen as a tipping point by many.
• Dan Rather/Trent Lott cases, among others. “Age of Omniscience is over” – Jeff Jarvis

To Dig Deeper –Some Sites to Study
http://www.micropersuasion.com/ -New York ad guy’s excellent overview of blogs’ impact on PR
http://sethgodin.typepad.com – viral marketing guru Seth Godin’s thoughtful blog.
www.iwantmedia.com – NYU prof’s blog on intersection of new media & ad/pr industry.
www.ojr.org -- USC Annenberg J-School’s excellent Online Journalism Review.
www.cyberjournalist.net/cyberjournalists.php -- best list of blogs by journalists.
www.brewedfreshdaily.com – Portal to NEOhio blogging community. Look for blogroll.
www.dix-eaton.com/blogs/kevinpoor --Maybe best blog by PR practitioner in this region.
www.poynter.org/column.asp?id=45-Romanesko, media’s online watercooler/ethics ump

Is Your Work Noun or Verb?

In a recent post on his blog, permission marketing guru Seth Godin again shows why he's so consistently though-provoking. The guy seems congenitally unable to write an uninteresting thought. But decide for yourself:

I had two great seminars in my office this week. Not only do cool people show up, but it pushes me to think hard about new ways to talk about things that work. Today, we talked about nouns and verbs. Investments are a noun. Investing is a verb.Paint is a noun. Painting is a verb. A gift is a noun. Shopping for or giving one is a verb. People care much more about verbs than nouns. They care about things that move, that are happening, that change. They care about experiences and events and the way things make us feel. Nouns just sit there, inanimate lumps. Verbs are about wants and desires and wishes. Is your website a noun or a verb?What about your management style or the services you offer? A few years ago, the rage was to turn products into services. Then it was to turn services into products. I think the next big thing is to turn nouns into verbs.

Read It And Weep

Finally, after nearly three years and some monumental attempts at stonewalling from the White House and its various henchmen, we have a clear picture of how the 9/11 plot played out. I recommend that you read the full staff report which outlines the plot, which you'll find here. It's just 20 pages, and brilliantly explains how it all happened. A tip of the hat to the commissioners, who patiently pushed on through all kinds of opposition to get at the truth. Meanwhile, the witty wiseacres at The Onion, like their video brethren at The Comedy Channel's The Daily Show, do a better job of getting at the underlying truths through tongue-in-cheek coverage than does most of the media through its straight reporting. This piece zeroes in on how the Republicans messed up on protecting their own by failing to kill the commission when they could have.

Back to the New Deal? Progressives are going all high-concept these days in trying to sack Bush. Moveon.org is raising millions for its aggressive attack ads in print and on TV, and the latest round of campaign finance reports showed that Kerry has actually outraised the vaunted Bush money machine in recent months. But now that the Dems are swimming in cash, I hope they won't forget some more basic blocking and tackling that easily gets lost in the shuffle: voter registration. Chicago-based lawyer/activist/author Thomas Geoghegan (get thee to a library or bookstore and pick up any of his books) recently made an interesting observation. "I know that the country's turned to the right. But we'd still have the New Deal if voters were turning out at New Deal-type rates." Good point, and no wonder that he's been called the Romantic Realist. My friend, labor activist Sandy Woodthorpe, would especially enjoy Tom's '92 book Which Side are You On?: Trying to be for Labor When It's Flat on Its Back. It may be the best argument ever made for giving unions the benefit of the doubt in the modern era.

Some Real Job-Hunting Advice. Finally, here's a riff from the sharpie viral-marketing guru Seth Godin, on how the hiring process really works. I think I'll send it to a bunch of recent college grads and some other friends who are searching for jobs. He asks the key question that anyone trying to sell anyone else (be it on hiring them, buying from them, marrying them, etc.) must first answer: How do you make them feel?