The Bailey Blog

You may have heard the saying that if you put a million monkeys in a room with a million typewriters, eventually you get Shakespeare. Well, what do you get if you put a million humans with a million camcorders in a room with a million computers? YouTube.

YouTube is exploding faster than anything else: from a standing start a few years ago to more than 100 million videostreams a day. Until recently, almost all video-entertainment content was produced and distributed only by Hollywood. That time is over.

A recent Accenture study of 1,600 Americans found that 38 percent of respondents wanted to create or share content online. Advertisers have taken note – so did Google, when they purchased YouTube last year in one of the largest online deals in history. Even the election has been YouTubed.

YouTube has become the ultimate democratic medium. Many advocacy groups are smartly trying to take advantage of the popularity and use of videostreams. Why not tap into the creativity of your advocates by seeking their videos highlighting the importance of their issue?

This week, one of our clients – the Campaign for Smokefree Air – decided to do just that. It launched a contest across the state seeking entries for the Michigan Smokefree Video Challenge. Residents from across the country (or even worldwide since the Internet knows no geographic boundaries) can submit a video to YouTube telling state senators why they feel Michigan should go smokefree. Contestants can submit a two-minute video and are encouraged to be creative.

This contest will provide extensive exposure for the smokefree issue and the campaign, through media coverage, the video submissions and advocacy communications. It’s a smart tactic to employ.

The Internet has forever changed how communication works, in speed, messaging and usage. YouTube is one of the more recent developments, but it’s certainly not the last. Having been in the mainstream vernacular just a couple of years, it’s already seen as an “older” medium on the Internet. It’s up to communications professionals to stay on top of the ever-changing mediums and help guide clients and contacts to using the most appropriate tactic. Whether its blogging, podcasts, e-newsletters, or in this case YouTube, there are a lot of options out there. Just make sure you dig up the right one.

For more information about the Michigan Smokefree Video Challenge, you can visit www.MakeMiAirSmokefree.org.

I also am not an expert on juggling bean bags nor am I the creator of “Linglish,” which apparently is the cross between etymology and English.

I don’t live in Morrice or Rockford, Michigan – at least not anymore.

I am an adjunct instructor at Michigan State University. I have served as a legislative spokesperson. I used to be a fountain of knowledge about projects for the Michigan Department of Transportation and, of course, I work for John Bailey & Associates Public Relations.

You would find all of these things out about me – the truth, the former truth and the truly absurd – if you did a Google search of my name.

With the growth of Internet search engines like Google and Yahoo!, the amount of information one can find out about oneself is astonishing. When you start factoring in the miscellaneous web sites that specifically track people, the amount of information is either a) absurd, b) unsettling, c) somewhat amusing or d) all of the above.

It’s gotten to the point that it would behoove every one of us to spend some time on Google, Yahoo, Spock, Wink, and Pipl, not to mention the ever-expanding Wikipedia to find out a little about ourselves and the companies we work for.

Our tagline here at JB&A is, “Your reputation is our business.” It’s a great slogan, but it’s more than that. It’s a commitment we make to clients to help them understand how important their reputations are and how to keep them as polished and respected as possible. We always counsel clients about how it’s not enough just to know what’s being said about you. The old adage that the best defense is a good offense is true for the electronic age as well.

That might be tough for some of the younger generation today who are insisting on putting their lives on display for all to see at sites like Facebook and Myspace. But at least they are choosing to publicly post their antics. I don’t doubt they’ll truly regret that decision when their children become teenagers and whip out a Myspace entry to win an argument over their selection of clothing, friends and extracurricular activities. But, it is a voluntary decision.

On sites like Spock, your reputation is only as good as the coded “tags” that are associated with it by a computer that crawls through the Internet searching for ways to describe you in an ever-expanding database. That explains how one fellow who started blogging a lot about a suspected child molester is the same guy who scores high on searches for “pedophile.”

And on Wikipedia, corporations are routinely run through the public relations grinder as people edit entries to suit their own point of view, inserting their own biases and sometimes deliberately playing loose with the facts just to stir up trouble. It’s tough to keep track of these 21st century hooligans, and it’s even tougher to defend yourself against them.

Some companies have started making a point of checking their Wikipedia entries regularly to counter-edit what’s being said. It’s frowned upon by Wikipurists, which is a term I just made up but then, as far as you know, I created “Linglish,” so cut me some slack. One person even recently started another web site where you can track which companies are editing their own entries.

Apparently, if a corporation writes something positive about itself in Wikipedia or edits a negative posting, they are seen as doing something wrong. On the other hand, those who promote their personal or political beliefs about a corporation are seen as doing something positive.

It seems to me that what’s good for the crusading goose should be good for the Gander Corporation.

Whether you agree with me or not about who has the right to edit your reputation, you should take a few minutes today to follow the links in this blog and see just what people around the world are learning about you. The possibilities are more numerous than you can imagine.

Who knows, you, too, could be a juggling porn star who created a whole new language.

From interactive Webinars with PR professionals and national media to spreading a client’s message virally on YouTube, the face of PR is rapidly changing. While our tried and true techniques can still achieve the desired results, as professionals we have a responsibility to explore the latest technology that can maximize results for our clients.

JB&A is currently working with Campaign for Smokefree Air (CSA) on a podcast series that was launched in late June 2007. Since its launch, the series has resulted in more than 200 podcast downloads and contributed to a nearly 50 percent increase in CSA Web site visits – serving as an effective way to reach an increasingly tech-savvy public.

More people are embracing technology now than ever before, especially in their daily communications. In May 2007, blog search engine Technorati was tracking more than 71 million blogs worldwide. What started as an online “Dear Diary” has grown into an important communications avenue for PR professionals to consider. From individuals to businesses to media outlets – the powerful and ever-present voices of bloggers can’t be ignored in the next target audience section of your strategic plan.

So what’s next…a press conference in Second Life?

For those of you still living only in First Life, Second Life is an online virtual community where residents, known as avatars, live and work in a variety of 3D environments. Second Life now has 9,164,372 total residents and $1,200,897 U.S. dollars spent in the last 24 hours – that’s right spent. The virtual world has its own built in economy where your client can launch their own island and conduct First Life business in meeting spaces ranging from an amphitheater to a relaxing spot virtual beachside.

No, this is not an episode of the Jetsons; this is PR in the tech age. Welcome aboard.

The two-year-old Web site pasadenanow.com, has posted a job opening for journalists in India to cover news in this wealthy city just outside Los Angeles. The editor said it can be done from afar now that weekly Pasadena City Council meetings can be watched over the Internet. And he said the idea makes business sense because of India’s lower labor costs.

The founding fathers who felt freedom of the press important enough to include it in the first amendment to the Bill of Rights must be rolling over in their graves.

And you can’t just chalk it up to it “being California.” Right here in Michigan’s state capital, the Booth Newspapers chain has decided to gut its Lansing bureau by forcing out seasoned veterans of political and government news coverage.

Journalism has lost its focus. Who is to blame? Just about everybody.

Corporate owners are to blame because they are focusing on the bottom line. When you look at a newspaper’s structure, every division brings in money directly, except the newsroom. So where do they cut the budget first? You guessed it: the newsroom.

Journalism students are to blame because the current crop is full of the entitlement generation. They expect a “dream job” where they get to write on the subjects they choose all while making great money and leading fun lifestyles – right out of college.

Journalism schools are to blame because they are putting too much emphasis on how to write for the Web, how to post a blog or how to create a YouTube video production on-line. You can’t ignore technological advances, but no matter the medium of delivery, a good story is one that is well-reported and well-written.

Many journalists are to blame because too many of them are content to report on the news by reading press releases and contacting sources by phone or e-mail. They have lost their drive to get out on the street and actually sniff out the real newsworthy stuff.

And alas, readers and viewers are to blame because we don’t protest enough. The 24-hour news cycle held so much promise because of all the time and space journalists would have available to them. Instead, the airwaves are filled with nonstop tabloid journalism that sounds more like a script from a nighttime soap opera than an actual newscast.

When we do protest, we tend to send the wrong message, telling newspapers that the Internet is where we are headed. A recent letter to the editor of the Lansing State Journal read: “Your product is delivering less and less local and national news. Where are the interesting articles that used to be published? The sections of the paper are getting very thin and lack content due to the ads. We plan to cancel our 35-year subscription and find news of interest on the Internet.”

If you want to affect change at an organization, never tell them you’ve given up on them already. And remember, the Internet is outstanding at making the world a smaller place, but it’s still not local. Just ask the folks in Pasadena reading about their city council meetings under a byline from India.

In the most recent barrage of on-line and technical advances that are changing every sector of business, like YouTube, MySpace, podcasts, Second Life and blogs, I have come to a realization…I’m a bit of a nerd. I love all of those things and am fascinated by how they have captured many peoples’ way of living and working.

I have not posted a video to YouTube or set-up a profile on MySpace, but I have always been interested in the application of these “non-commercial” means as far as my work and personal life go.

I created an avatar on Second Life, vowing never to spend my money there, but just to check it out and see what the fuss is about. I can see the potential to become addicted to something like this. It allows you to interact with other people around the globe and do things that you cannot do in real life (like fly and beam yourself)- which gives you a new-found sense of freedom.

Blogs have re-revolutionized the way that news is reported. News junkies – as many, if not all PR people are – can get the scoop before even the TV stations can. RSS feeds make it even easier to keep in touch with your subscription list of favorite blogs as the newest posts are put directly in front of you with an aggregator.

Across the hall from my office, a colleague and I have been debating the benefits of Linux and whether we should try it out. Of course, Linux is not a new trend like the rest of these listed, but it does go along with the spirit of user-generated freeware. Linux users can create their programs and edit them as they use them, or as I like to call it, collaborative programming. Answer this question. Can you change the programming of MS Word so the “track changes” function is gone forever and can you incorporate features that you want your word processor to do? No.

What does all this mean to you? Maybe not as much as it means to me, but it should at least affect the way you do business. The companies that take advantage of this new media, or Web 2.0, or whatever you want to call it, will thrive in the virtual world while the others scratch their head and wonder what hit them.

So, for now, I will go and watch my “Photoshop Killer Tips” podcast, followed up by the “Coffee Break Spanish” podcast and be the nerd that wants to learn how to better utilize this technology.

In the last blog post, Mike talked about how his co-worker didn’t see the promise of inter-office e-mail because it’s just as easy to write a note and drop it on the desk.

Don’t be that person.

In a recent staff meeting, one of our team members was giving an overview of the latest online phenomenon, Second Life. The interactive fantasy world allows you to create your online alter-ego who lives in the online community of Linden and interacts with other “residents” – real people who have created their own second lives.

My first reaction… “It ought to be called ‘Get a Life.’ Who is going to waste their time on that?”

And then, a conversation I had with a co-worker in 1991 hit me like a ton of bricks. I had suggested …inter-office email, which was jus taking off at the time.

“Why do we need THAT?” he shot back. “We can just get up and drop notes on each other’s desks!”

Okay, he wasn’t exactly a visionary.

But, maybe I’m not either. After a little digging, I found out more than 6 million people have created an “avatar” (the technical name for the online alter-ego) and are currently residents of Linden.

Even more surprising, major brands are using Second Life to extend their brand and create relationships online. These include household names like Pepsi, IBM and Pontiac. Residents can accumulate Linden dollars (a fraction of real US currency) and buy and sell every type of product imaginable. In fact, over the last 24 hours, over $1.5 million has been spent in Second Life.

So to anyone who rolls their eyes when they hear about Second Life, I say give it a shot. It is certainly different, but it’s also immensely popular. Though it’s in its infancy today, smart marketers will learn to use it to their own advantage. I’m probably not going to log on and create my own avatar today, but we will be keeping an eye on this thing.

After all, that email thing back in ’91 wasn’t such a bad idea!

I’m hoping to say that soon when I call my mother as all good sons are supposed to.

Calling home took on a surreal tone for me this past weekend when I discovered I didn’t know my mother’s phone number. Now, before you judge me for not calling my mother enough, that’s not the case at all. The issue is that I’ve become too reliant on calling home via speed dial.

I grabbed my cell phone on Sunday to call her. But for some reason, her number was not in my cell phone’s speed dial anymore. So, I simply grabbed the next closest piece of technology: my PDA. Lo and behold, that last time it synced with the computer something went wrong. My mother’s entry was gone!

After a minute of guilt – and a touch of panic over possibly having to call my sister for our mother’s phone number – I discovered that I had Mom programmed into my cordless home phone.

All this panicked searching for a phone number got me thinking about technology and how over-reliant on it we’ve become. Before joining John Bailey & Associates, I worked for the state Senate, where I carried a fancier PDA that was a phone and scheduler and handled e-mail. When it died from overuse, I had a startling realization that I couldn’t remember the last time I looked up while walking to a meeting. I couldn’t remember when my brain had some down time to simply process all the minutia I’d been collecting all day long and needed to sort out. I couldn’t remember the last time I actually stayed focused in a meeting – on that meeting.

It’s amazing how much more focused I’ve become lately without a Blackberry buzzing on my hip, without a wireless laptop to drag around with me from meeting to meeting, and with the newfound strength to send a call to voicemail.

It’s startling how much more you can learn from people when you are actually willing to listen and focus on what they are saying. It’s a little thing called communicating – and we could all use a refresher course on why communicating isn’t the same thing as communication.

I’m proud to say I have fought the temptation to replace the Blackberry but I can’t pat myself on the back just yet. True rehabilitation will be achieved when I can call my mom without the safety net of speed dial.

So, wish me luck. I might be calling on some of you for support, assuming I can remember your number.
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