Everybodysagenius’s Weblog

Hey Everybody,

I’m here in San Fran for the 2008 Media Relations Summit. I am just minutes away from starting the full day session on Social Media: Strategies for PR. It is hosted by Sally Falkow and Doug Hay.

The speakers are promoting their service: PRESSfeed.

Do any of you use this? Is it worth it. I can build a RSS feed for my site with one line of code.

I’ll keep you posted on what I learn.

Hey Everybody,

But no catchy pun title here. Even though you are probably used to it from all the Generation Y stories out there.

Anyway I wrote this story for the Bozell’s Thinking newsletter. I know how futile it is to try to sum up a generation in about 750 words, but I tried to identify a few trends and changes in Gen Y (my generation by the way) that will change the way media, pr and business work.

I hope that you enjoy:

Meet the Millenials: 

We have been called lazy, greedy and over-coddled. We have been labeled fickle, self-focused and transient. And while it’s true that we will jump jobs more than any other generation, we will transform every work environment we visit.

We are the Millenials, the Echo Boomers, the Nexters or Generation Y. In the United States alone, we represent almost 80 million people and the second largest age demographic in the workplace next to retiring baby boomers.

Our personalities are as varied as those of any previous generation, but we do have a few common traits and experiences shaping our attitudes.

 Techies: 

We are the first generation to be plugged in from birth.  For most of us, Web crawling is as comfortable as home. Many of us grew up with digital cameras, high-speed internet connections, cell phones and iPods. As a result, our uptake time with technology is pretty fast. We tend to accept new technology and spread it faster than the older generations.

We are the first generation to voluntarily publicize our lives. We are comfortable giving away personal information, photos and video of ourselves to the world. From dancing on Youtube to dating on MySpace, we are the generation that lives in the ether. The once-desired goal of privacy has been transferred to the attainable goal of anonymity.

Our tech-influenced upbringing has also contributed to our ability to multitask. It is not uncommon for many of us to listen to music, work online and watch television at the same time. We are at home with challenging deadlines and fast-paced environments. We can juggle many projects at once. So, when you see the young Gen Yer at your office with an iPod on at his desk, that doesn’t mean he isn’t working or being disrespectful. In fact, it probably means that he or she is concentrating.

This is an important trend for marketers to keep in mind. As we are getting busier and multitasking increases, the less we are willing to acknowledge messages not catered to us. Millenials are also interested in creating mediums that cater to their attitude. For example, Facebook Creator Mark Zuckerberg, and Napster Creator Shawn Fanning are both millenials. One might have been looking for a more interactive way to keep up with his friends and one might have wanted an easier way to share music, but both new mediums prospered by relying on their users to create and share content. They turned their audience into stakeholders.

 Skeptics: 

We are a generation that has never known life without AIDS. We have grown up with recession, corporate scandal (Enron), global warming, rising health and education costs, and half a decade of unpopular war. We know not to count on Social Security or the company’s 401(k). We are a nation of young skeptics. And an over saturation of media channels and product messages have probably done little to ease that skepticism.

What that means to everyone else (marketers: listen up) is that we are not going to trust traditional advertising and corporate messaging. We want honesty and real conversation with real people. We want to be content creators and brand shapers. We will work to escape advertising that doesn’t include us. Can anyone say Tivo? If we dislike what a company is doing, then we will blog about it and let others know. There are more than 110 million blogs, so we have a strong community with which to voice our concerns.

This skepticism and truthfulness can also work to your company’s advantage. Involve us. Let us create videos for your online video channel or contest. Invite us to contribute to your company’s blog. Let us have a say in designing your new look. We can be your brand ambassadors and spread the word of your honesty and good deeds to others. Include us in your world and we will do the same.

We don’t want spam; we want opt-in and opt-out. We don’t want to thumb through a catalog; we want precise search terms and results. We don’t want you to sell us anything; we want you to recommend things that we like. We don’t want to be interrupted, we want to be engaged.

Like any other generation, we want to have a say in our own future. The difference is that we may just have the tools to demand our “say” at a young age.  

Thanks and hope to hear from you soon,

Will

Hey Everybody,

 I probably shouldn’t be so flattering to Richard Edelman as he is technically competition, but I gotta say, I love this guy. He has vision, guts and the will to work at things that he beleives in. And, of course, he is also a champion of everything new media and public relations.

This is a quote given by Edelman in the Book Naked Conversations during an interview with Robert Scoble and Shel Israel:

On Blogging:

Blogging is not a passing fad. Any brand, business or organization that fails to grasp [that] fact may very well be. It’s essential to any company seeking to connect in a spontaneous, continous fashion with its publics. It affords a window into a company unlike any other — more credible because it lacks the dimension of control, more sustainable because it is rooted in reality, more powerful because it can be connected to comments of others having primary experiences with a company’s product or service. Smart companies will take heed of what they learn from online critics, amending the product or process by being committed to continuous improvement from whatever source.

On Traditional Marketing and its coming demise:

Marketers could reach 97 percent of the target audience with three ads in prime time on network TV. They relied on a pyramid of authority in which elite audiences such as investors, regulators, retailers, and elite media received advance notice of company plans. A large commitment to advertising and appropriate monies for slotting allowances guaranteed favorable treatment at retail…and the consumer, lured by the ads, would purchase, especially if a big name celebrity is in the ad. The big idea — keep everything under wraps until the last moment before the ads break — give an exclusive to the Wall Street Journal and you are home free.

So now a smart company has a different approach — call it the “paradox of transparency.” Co-create your brand with key consumers. Talk to critics at NGO’s (non-government organizations) in advance to reach an understanding. Use your employees as your first line of offense. Use a real person as a spokesperson or maybe the winner of a reality show like American Idol. Create synergy among the promotions and talk across the silos, but offer real dialogeue, not hot air.

I love that he makes it so simple. I am sorry that I haven’t linked to his blog yet in my blog and this post is my tiny homage to the man that is making these strategies popular and profitable. I can preach the same ideals all day and then once a senior member of our PR team finds an Edelman interview in an AdAge article from 2 years ago saying the same thing, and it becomes fact.

So here’s to the guy that gives hope to all of us tired and haggard PR guy’s trying to push new media to clients and in our own companies.

Richard Edelman.

Hey Everyone,

Now that I finished Seth Godin’s Meatball Sundae. It was great. I really buy into the whole, every ad is spam and users hate spam idea.

So, now I am reading the Scobleizer’s treatise on blogging. Microsoft’s Robert Scoble, he comes highly recommended to me from a few friends. So, I am pretty excited to get into it. I just don’t know if he will be as funny and upbeat as Godin.

Has anyone read Naked Conversations before? What did you think of it? Is it only blogs, or does it hint at other new media realms.

Holla,

Bill

I don’t know about you, but I live in the Midwest of the United States. To be more exact, I live in Omaha, Nebraska. And let’s just say that the New Media explosion hasn’t really exploded here. So I spend a lot time searching for good resources on new ideas in this area.

When I started researching new media about half a year ago, I would have killed for a list of great blogs.

Well, I don’t know how great these are. But this is what I am reading now.

1. Seth’s Blog (www.sethgodin.typepad.com). Seth is a very smart and funny guy. He has written several books on the subject of new media including Meatball Sundae, Purple Cow and The Dip.

2. The Long Tail (www.longtail.com). This is Chris Anderson’s blog. He is also a very smart guy in the area of new media. He wrote The Long Tail. Hence the blog name.

3. On the Record (ontherecordpodcast.com). This is PR podcast/blog site that focuses on trends (namely new media) affecting the world of PR. They get a ton of good interviews and attend a lot of summits and conferences. I also like that it features a podcast, so I can learn while I work.

4. New Media Currents (www.newmediacurrents.com) This is mainly a podcast site. It is run by John Houghton. Again, good interviews and conference attendance. I also like that I can learn at work. John (from is site):

John Houghton is the CEO and Founder of MobileCast Media which performs production, buying, and syndication of new media. On this program he shares his insight on the rapidly changing media industry.

A combination of marketing, artistry, and technology, John is a pioneer in electronic commerce and has twice successfully built $100 million dollar e-commerce brands, in one case growing new license revenue from $4 million to $76 million in one year.

So, it is a really simple post today. But I thought that it might be useful.

Thanks and enjoy.

And Remember in the world of user-generated content and 1-to-1 communication, Everybody’s a Genius.

Usermercials, or user generated commercials are a cool new form of promotion that I have just learned about. What I like about them from a marketing standpoint is that they let use user participate in the brand, create content, they are cheap and they promote a company using the most trusted from of communication, word of mouth.  

I do not endorse products on this Web site, just ideas. And I wanted to share with everyone this Web site with an ingenious idea: Qoof.com. At www.qoof.com users can upload their commercials (made at home for a low budget) and get Paypaled $5. Companies can then log in and buy the commericals as content. Users can also take a widget (snippet) version of the ads to post on their blogs or wherever. Then other viewers can purchase right from the snippet or widget. It is so easy that I have included an example below:

PHILLIP STEIN WATCHES

( I don’t know if the purchase function will work or not.)
Oh and here is a Youtube.com video that I found with more information on their $5 usermercial submission program. So readers go out there an get your $5.

I have nothing against traditional media sources. In fact, I work with them everyday. And, of course, I acknowledge the ability of a big media hit to leverage the opinions of management,  distributors and consumers. But I must say that from what I have recently seen, the level of penetration and staying power of many forms of new media is a very impressive alternative.

 Think of it this way, if you produce a traditional ad and place it. It would get seen by a percentage of the current circulation population. While its influence may still have a little life after publication, the piece itself would likely be gone forever. And its message would have to reinforced again and again to gain continued effect.

On the other hand,  if you invested (money and honest time) in a podcast, blog or podcast sponsorship you may be investing in a long lifeline and multi-channel pickup. Let’s try the example of a podcast. You build a reputable podcast and people who listen to it, like it. Then they want to post it on their blog, their facebook, their linkedIn or on their own Web site, to show that they too are knowledge. Or maybe to share it with friends. Maybe you see that others want to use your information so you create a RSS feed of the podcast so that people can more easily receive updates from you and add your podcast to their sites.

Now if the feed gets enough coverage, maybe you can join a RSS feed aggregator and get information hosting from them. Maybe a pay service podcast aggregate hosting site likes your stuff and wants to feature you in their pay site. Or other people take the code snippet of your podcast and embed it in their sites. So, now you are at maybe five to seven different levels of penetration. With the information linking back to you every time. Remember that the Web is all based on interconnectivity. Not to mention that in the eyes of the media (online and maybe traditional), you are now an expert on your particular subject. If people think that you are an expert, then surprise, you are!

So now you have multiple levels of penetration and many of them do not have a defined lifespan. It is possible that your information could live forever on your site and many others. This long life and multi-level penetration is no dream. It is happening today. And the people who are pulling it off are making money and pushing into traditional media sources.

Just a thought.

Everybody’s a Genius
P.S. And we can all create, publish and review. Age of the printing press eat your heart out. Welcome to the age of the user.

Well you guessed it. I just learned how to embed YouTube videos in my blog.
And since I have a lot of New Media RSS feeds and in my “About” section I mention that I work in New Media; I thought that I would share this video that I found that tries to define new media.

Here is a lot of industry people doing their best at defining the undefinable:

Later,
Will (aka Everybody’s A Genius)

Hello All,

I thought that this was really cool. Gotta love Wired.

Enjoy!

Will

Hey everyone (or anyone),

What have you heard on C.C. Chapman and his podcasts “Managing the Gray”?

I just started listening to his podcasts, is he reliable?

Later,

Will