New Millennium PR

Thoughts and Highlights of the WOMMA Research Symposium and Summit 2007

Last week I was at the Word of Mouth Marketing Association (WOMMA) Research Symposium and Summit 2007 in Las Vegas, which, in my mind, is one of the "must attend" yearly conferences.

Along with Jake McKee, I was one of the official conference bloggers. Being a designated blogger is a very different experience that being a regular attendee or even a speaker, and having now worked in that capacity, I have a much deeper respect for what goes into such a seemingly easy task. Aside from the typical challenges of racing from one session to the next, making sure your computer battery doesn't run out of juice when there is no available plug, being flexible with program and panelist changes, and writing without the luxury of reviewing and editing what you've written, there is the responsibility of trying to record the highlights of the covered sessions in such a way that readers are able to get value from what you've posted.

Without questions, for me one of the highlights of the conference were the research and measurement sessions. Not necessarily because they were the most entertaining (I'd put the lunch keynote by Richard Tait, Grand Poo Bah of Cranium Inc., the keynote by Andy Sernovitz, author of Word of Mouth Marketing: How Smart Companies Get People Talking or the session "No Fans, No Band" in that category), but because they provided the oh-so-important hard data validating the effectiveness of word of mouth.

Between the Research Symposium and the Summit, there were over twenty sessions on research and measurement. Additionally, attendees received the excellent Measuring Word of Mouth: Current Thinking on Research and Measurement of Word of Mouth Marketing, WOMMA's third annual research volume (available for purchase as well) that contains over twenty papers covering a wide range of topics with a particular emphasis on the influencer model.

What's also useful within the research volume is the section on WOMMA terminology, which aims to "provide a unified framework for describing and measuring word of mouth marketing." It provides definitions of word of mouth ("the act of a consumer creating and/or distributing marketing-relevant information to another consumer"), work of mouth marketing ("en effort by an organization to affect how consumers create and/or distribute marketing-relevant information to other consumers") and WOM Episode ("a single occurrence of word of mouth communication, which includes Participants, Actions, WOMUnits, Venues, and Outcomes"), among other things. There is also an excellent visual summary of what happens during a WOM Episode, along with the associated qualities thereof -- namely a participant taking an action on a WOMUnit in a particular venue that then results in an outcome. 

Using Social Media to Track Emergencies and Disasters

Social Media's ability to help businesses engage with their members, users and audiences is becoming increasingly more common, and something what many in the communications field have actively been encouraging their clients to do.

What's particularly interesting, though, is social media's broader ability to quickly share and disseminate critical information when things go wrong, wrong as in threatening, dangerous, and frequently life-altering, which we're seeing right now with the California wildfires. CenterNetworks points to some of the recent coverage of the fires on sites such as Flickr (see the search term "california fires"  for recent images), YouTube ( see the 2000+ results for "california fires") and Wikipedia (see "California Wildfires of October 2007") among others. CNET reports how microblogging site Twitter is being used by news organizations such as KPBS and L.A. Times and individuals Nate Ritter to give updates. And Ustream.tv is showing live coverage of the fires.

Meanwhile, on-the-ball international organizations such as the American Red Cross are using social media tools to help serve as vital and up-to-date information sources -- see the  Online Disaster News Portal, as well as the Red Cross and the Safe and Well Twitter accounts.

My prediction is that within a relatively short time frame, say perhaps three years, the majority of disaster relief organizations, both government and private, will fully implement real-time information dissemination  via text messaging, microblogging and an assortment of additional tools and social networking sites.

Voce Communications' Social Media Team Continues to Grow & Score

Well, as you can probably tell by the headline, I'm pretty excited. Earlier this year I joined the team, then Voce hired Scott Sigler, and now Josh Hallett is on board too. Of course let's not forget that Media Guerrilla guy who started it all and had the foresight to put this all in motion. You can read the full account here.

We've also relaunched the Voce Nation blog, so go check out the new cool multimedia design.

Yes, so this is a feel-good, rah-rah post... and I'm ok with that.

Blog Action Day Focuses on the Environment

Today is Blog Action Day, where thousands of bloggers -- over fifteen thousand and counting, with millions of combined readers -- write about a single important topic: the environment.

Well, "protecting the environment" has been a buzz phrase for a very long time now, and just as there are many people and organizations who understand that environmental protection isn't antithetical to business and can go hand-in-hand with it, there unfortunately are detractors who are more comfortable being cynics than taking steps that, on a combined scale, will make positive long-term change. Fortunately, important events such as Al Gore's winning of the Nobel Peace Prize along with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, lend great credibility to the importance of environmental causes and place them on the global stage.

Ultimately every action starts with an idea, though. And so, I'd like to share, in his own words, what a very special young boy, with the wide-eyed innocence of youth, suggested we can all do to "help the earth." 

• Watering your lawn and watering your garden.
• Feeding wild birds in the winter.
• Cleaning up your toys.
• Picking up garbage outside.
• Don't burn tires, or don't use your car too much since that can pollute the air.
• Keeping the lakes and rivers and oceans clean.

If a six-year old can come up with ideas and get excited about how he can contribute, surely the rest of us can too. 

 

Pulling Out All Stops to Find Madeleine McCann

Back in July I got a Twitter notification that someone named Madeleine McCann wanted to be my Twitter friend . I didn't recognize the name and decided to have a look to see who this was.

The first thing I noticed were pictures of a little girl who looked like she was only a few years old. The second thing I saw was the Twitter bio, "has been abducted in Plaia da Luz, Portugal." I made "Madeleine" my friend and read her website where I learned that, as of today, she's been missing 116 days after being stolen from her bed.

In learning more about Madeleine's case and wondering what I would do to help find my child if he or she were missing, I saw the impressive efforts to keep attention and help collect information about the abduction --  the Bring Madeleine Home website, the Twitter site, a Live Spaces page, a MySpace page, many YouTube videos (as well as the YouTube channel Don't You Forget About Me that aims to reunite children with their families), the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre's Help Find Madeleine McCann page, electronic posters in multiple languages and desktop wallpapers, as well as an online store that helps raise funds to assist in her search.

While Madeleine's father, Gerry McCann, implied that he is concerned about the case becoming too sensationalistic and may return home to the U.K. with the rest of his family, one hopes that the strong online attention will soon help lead to a break in the case.

Tags: social media, children,  law, abduction

Fake It If You Have To

Recently I was part of a new business pitch for a technology company. My agency was one of several invited to present our A-to-Z strategy and ideas on how to take the company to the next level, and we spent a lot of time putting everything together.

The big day arrives, we walk in and get started. Within minutes we knew that the company had fallen in love with one of the earlier presenting agencies, and was only going through the motions with us. No, it didn't actually say so, but after you've been at this for a while you can tell. And the occasional yawns and other stuff that came later simply solidified the team's initial impression.

Yeah, you win some and you lose some. Happens all the time, and the sooner you get used to that the better. But here's the deal: Even if a company's already picked a favorite, there's no need to be obvious about it until everyone's finished -- there's time enough later to make it official.

Barring genuine interest, at least fake it until we've left the building.   

 

Tags: business pitch, public relations, PR

Back by Popular Demand

Alright, the title is obviously written tongue-in-cheek, but people have been getting in touch wondering whether I'd either fallen into a hole or taken up blog residence somewhere else. Well, neither is the case.

Rather, I've been listening and taking in what's been going on in the online, social media, and communications environments. Yes I know that's the standard line ("listening" sometimes being substituted for "playing hookey"), but in this case it's true. And I've actually been around -- on Twitter and Jaiku and Flickr and Vox and MySpace and Facebook and a bunch of other places, as well as talking and meeting with people in person -- just not here.

Which brings me to an observation I made during these past weeks as people would ask where I'd gone. They didn't put my name into a search engine, which would've shown the recent hangouts. Instead, they must've just assumed that if I wasn't here l wasn't anywhere. What does that say about social networking sites and online communities? Well, it drives home the obvious point that while there is some overlap between friends/contacts across groups (and in the PR & social media circles probably more so than average), all-in-all it's less than one would expect.

There is some news I'd like to share though, for those who haven't picked up on the clues along the way. As most of you know, I was based in the greater Washington D.C. area. And while that will always be home to me, I recently made the leap to the West Coast to, where else... San Francisco. I'm very fortunate to now be working at Voce Communications as a New Media Strategist alongside this Media Guerrilla. I'm thrilled to be here and look forward to mixing it up.

Introducing Black Star Rising, a New Blog for Photographers

Black Star, the legendary New York photo agency and leader in digital photography, today officially unveiled its new blog, Black Star Rising.

Aimed towards photojournalists, corporate photographers, marketers who purchase photography as part of their work, as well as others interested in learning more about the photography industry, the blog's goal is to educate readers and serve as a venue to share ideas and best practices.

Columnists and contributors include stock-photography expert Jim Pickerell, photojournalist Dennis Brack, Black Star executive vice president John Chapnick, and other noted photographers and industry experts (stay tuned for those announcements). Idea Grove president Scott Baradell is Black Star Rising's editor, and both Scott and I will serve as contributors as well. 

Scott explains in greater detail the idea behind the new photography blog, and provides a history of Black Star, from the early days in 1935 when its founders fled the Nazi regime in Europe to its plans for new initiatives in the photography business.

So have a look around (you can subscribe to the main blog here and the photoblog here) and let us know what you think. And of course, if you have any suggestions or comments, please feel free to get in touch. We welcome your participation and look forward to hearing from you.

Tags: Black Star, Black Star Rising, photography, photojournalism

Well, I Guess I Can Retire Now

Below is the e-mail I received claiming I won the "online cyber lotto." If there is a hell, there's got to be a special dungeon just for scammers. At least I hope so. 

---------------------------------------------------------

LUCKY No: X-XX-XX I.D
RESULTS STAATSLOTERIJ.NL AWARD.
No 21 MANNI-STRAAT 1309HA AMSTERDAM/NETHERLANDS
FROM THE DESK OF THE DIRECTOR:
BATCH No: XXXXXXX-XX/2007
TICKET No:PP XXXX /XXXX-XX
SERIAL No: XXXXX LUCKY No: X-XX-XX
WINNING EMAIL NOTIFICATION [FOR CATEGORY "A" WINNER ONLY].

ATTENTION!
We are pleased to inform you of the result of the last final annual draw of our LOTTERY INTERNATIONAL Programs.  The online cyber lotto draws was conducted  from an exclusive list of 25,000,000 e-mail addresses of individuals and corporate institutions,picked by an
advanced automated random computer search from the internet. No tickets were sold.After this automated computer ballot, your e-mail address emerged as a winner in the category "A" with the following numbers attached Ref Number: XX XXXX XX XXXX,Batch Number: XXXXXXXXX-XX/2007
and Ticket Number: PP XXXX /XXXX-XX.You are therefore to receive a cash prize of $1,500,000.00 (One Million, Five Hundred Thousand Dollars) from the total payout.

CONGRATULATIONS!!!
Your prize award has been insured with your e-mail address and will be transferred to you upon meeting our requirements, statutory obligations, verifications, validations and satisfactory report. To file in for the processing of your prize winnings, you are advised to contact our Certified
and Accredited claims agent for category "A" winners with the information below: Name: Donald Asbury

To file for your claim, please contact our /your processing agent.
CONTACT:

**********************************************
Name : Donald Asbury
Email: Donaldincome@aol.com
Tel  : +31-619-703-844

**********************************************
You are advice to provide him with the following information:
1.Given Name (As Stated in your ID)
2.Telephone/Fax number:
3.Nationality:
4.Age::
5.Winning reference and Batch numbers:

NOTE: All winnings must be claimed not later than 14 days, thereafter
unclaimed funds would be included in the next stake. Remember to quote
your reference information in all correspondence. Members of the
affiliate agencies are automatically not allowed to participate in this
program. Furthermore, we call on you to make sure that you save a copy
of this mail and note every letter clearly as stated for we will not be
held responsible should there be any complications in this transaction
due to laxity on your part. Congratulations once more from our members
of staff and thank you for being part of our promotional program. Should
there be any change of address do inform our agent as soon as possible.
Congratulations once more from our members of staff and thank you for
being part of our promotional program.

Yours truly,
Walter Jones
Promotion Manager.
THANK YOU AND CONGRATULATIONS!!!

Tags: scam, scammers, fraud, online fraud

Hyperlocal Will Gain More Traction in 2007

Last year was exciting on the communications front. From the introduction of many new and useful technology tools (ok, also some where you just wanted to go "huh?"), to talk of whether we're nearing another bubble, to the social media news release and its variations, to discussions about the value of virtual reality environments, to several online scuffles, to talks of the death of this or that, to the umbrella term "social media" and everything it encompasses... things were moving so fast. And this year looks like it'll be just as stimulating, with, I hope, lessons learned and a little bit of maturity added in.

One development that gained traction last year and will become even stronger in '07 is the development and growth of local information and sites. As Mike Driehorst says in the aptly named post Localize. Localize. Localize., "if newspapers can involve their readers in their revived local focus, newspapers will again become communities' mainstay for news and information."

Last November, Fast Company published an excellent article, Hyper-Local Hero, about the approach Rob Curley, now Vice President of Product Development for Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive, took in making newspapers and newspaper sites more valuable to their readers. Curley expanded on some points within the article in this blog post, in which he wrote:

"Anyone who has worked with me for even an hour knows how much I *love* huge enterprise stories....

...if you were to ask a roomful of editors or reporters if they would rather work on a huge enterprise series or a big package that gave a nice overview of one of the big events that happen in most people's lives (such as the prom), my guess is that the majority of those journalists would say they would much rather do the big investigative piece. And that's not a sin, or even a wrong response as I see it.

But to me, there also is nothing more honorable than documenting the living history of a community and that's one of the things I strongly feel a local newspaper should do. People turn to their local newspaper for so many reasons, and I don't think as an industry we should overlook that many of our readers look to us for a sense of community."

Another development that I've been eagerly watching is Placeblogger, which just officially launched. As the site explains,

"Placeblogs are sometimes called 'hyperlocal sites' because some of them focus on news events and items that cover a particular neighborhood in great detail -- and in particular, places that might be too physically small or sparsely populated to attract much traditional media coverage. Because of this, many people have associated them with the term "citizen journalism," or journalism done by non-journalists.

Placeblogs, however, are about something broader than news alone. They're about the lived experience of a place. That experience may be news, or it may simply be about that part of our lives that isn't news but creates the texture of our daily lives..."

What's exciting is that the site lists not only blogs from within the United States (although that's the largest group to date), but also ones from around the world. Check out what others are saying. And if you're curious what the Top Ten Placeblogs in America are, have a look here. 

Tags: Mike Driehorst , Fast Company, Rob Curley, Placeblogger

Flickr Fan Kevin Dugan Strikes Again

For all you Flickr lovers and hacks addicts out there, Kevin Dugan posted a follow-up to his popular 10 Flickr Hacks.

10 More Flickr Hacks, fun stuff.

(Image created through Warholizer).

Tags: Flickr, consumer-generated media, social media

Speaking at the University of Birmingham, U.K.

I had the great pleasure of speaking to a combined audience of marketers and technology professionals at the University of Birmingham in the U.K. on December 8th.

Many thanks to Sam Smith, Head of Online Corporate Content at the university, for making all the arrangements, and to Liz Murphy, Director of Student Recruitment, and Ian Upton, for asking me to present the two sessions, one on blogs and social media, and the other on Second Life (which was held in the magnificent HP Visual and Spatial Technology Centre, making the SL demo even more life-like).   

At the end of the day, Sam gave me a brief tour of the beautiful campus. Here are a few pictures.

Tags: University of Birmingham, Sam Smith

Thanks to Those Who Made My Europe Trip Enjoyable

While I was in Europe the past two weeks, I didn't mind living out of a suitcase and traveling from one city to another every few days. I didn't mind the exhaustion, brought on by a six-hour time change and staying up late every evening to catch up with people I was trying to see. I did mind having almost no Internet access during the first week (ok, about five hours worth, but come on, that's pretty much nothing for an entire week). With work to do, a presentation to put the finishing touches on, and needing to stay on top of what was going on in the news, being virtually cut off like that was disconcerting (and made worse by the fact that my cell phone doesn't work outside the U.S.). Fortunately I managed to get done what I needed to get done by doubling up my efforts once I got access to high-speed Internet in Birmingham. But still, my forced withdrawal drove home the point, once again, how reliant I've become on online information and communication.   

I did succeed in fulfilling one of my goals, however, namely to memorialize my trip by taking lots of pictures. If you're interested, have a look at my Flickr photostream here (as well as The Adventures of Telly for kids).

There are a few people I want to thank for making my trip really enjoyable and giving me the benefit of having someone locally show me around. There are Claudia Troescher and Robert Szasz of Augsburg, Germany (as well as Matthias Troescher and his lovely family who invited me over for Advents tea); Edgar and Inge Guenter and their dog Emma of Hannover, Germany; and Sam Smith of Birmingham, U.K., who arranged for me to give two presentations at the University of Birmingham.  A big thanks also to Serge Cornelus of Belgium who traveled to Paris to spend the afternoon taking in the sights with me.      

Tags: Europe, Sam Smith, Serge Cornelus

Another Toy... Er, Tool

This is crazy. I just had a look at how many different accounts (and corresponding passwords) I have, and I'm up to 29. And I know I'm not at the top of the list as these things go. There's the usual such as Typepad and Technorati and Del.icio.us and MySpace and Flickr and Yelp and There.com and Second Life and NowPublic.com... and most recently Twitter.

I can't decide whether I love or hate Twitter. But from the mundane to the inane to the insane to the occasionally hilarious, its darn addictive.

The "Five Things You Probably Don't Know About Me" Meme

Susan Getgood tagged me with this newest meme, probably as a subtle hint that it's about time I posted again. So here goes...

1. I become kind of grumpy if I don't get to drink my mug of coffee in the morning. And yes, I mean mug, not those mini-size cups they serve you in France.

2. I'm addicted to hugs, the real and the <H> kind. Hey, there's worse things.

3. Ok, I probably dance like a white girl, but from now on, that's not going to stop me.

4. One of the most important things I've learned in life is that love is magical, but without trust and acceptance, it just isn't good enough.

5. Laughter gets me high.   

Next up? Kristie, Paull, Joe, Jose, and Peter.

Tags: meme, five things meme