Whenever a journalist writes a blogpost with an angry rant against public relations practitioners, the word spreads like wildfire. Agencies cross their fingers and close their eyes before reading the forward that gets past around.
I didn't really believe it before but journalists apparently do get angry about being under appreciated for their talents. Good writers are getting quickly trumped by technology and the paper boy isn't worth much to me either. As far as I am concerned, I don't want a wad of paper delivered to my home every day, especially when my News Central is right at my desktop after I check my e-mail.
I visited The Angry Journalist and the most recent gripe by Angry Journalist #2201 is a fairly amusing gripe about Social Media:
"Does journalism even exist anymore? A five-line blurb on the Web? Whoop de doo. Get a real job."
It's not really clear what his gripe is about exactly, it could be the idea that newspapers don't publish new news and blogs are ubiquitous at this point. But yeah, I get that. Journalists are struggling to keep up, but just like everybody else, journalists have to innovate themselves. After a few months at a local daily paper, entirely paid by local advertisers, I knew I had to get out. The newspaper's publisher at the time refused to even archive their paper on the web.
As a girl who met her first Apple computer at age 9, I thought this was just ridiculous.
Angry Journalist #2201, I get where you are coming from. News quality is decreasing and the level of information on the web is just crazy. But maybe, just maybe, "if you can't beat 'em, join 'em." Who said journalism has to be owned by a select few? The first newspaper was probably started by a guy who was experimenting with a printing press and just went around talking to people. No joke.
Friday, March 14, 2008
Angry Journalist Gripes About Social Media
Wednesday, March 12, 2008
Start-Up 101: The Beat of a Different Drum
This may be stepping away from the norm but one of the challenges in the hi-tech world, but it seems necessary to take a different perspective. Social media-ists are really into their social media world and just waiting for creative tools to take off.
We really forget that Silicon Valley isn't made up of just social media-ists or web 2.0 or those who support all these new ventures made possible by the Internet.
True--Silicon Valley is a place for start-ups and it is only here that people are willing to try, financial pros are willing to fund and overall, everyone is prepared for failure, if it happens.
I spoke with a professional drummer with a 20+ year career, Dave Gary, Jr. and asked him what he thought about Silicon Valley. Dave has talent--at age 14, he picked up a drum set for the first time and impressed a teacher.
I couldn't tease much information out of him with the typical interview questions. When asked about his professional goals, he asked in return, "What is the goal in life?"
When asked about his passions other than drumming, he wouldn't answer. "I do what most people do as a hobby, and that's just what I do."
But really, Dave isn't any different from your VC, entrepreneur or the next CEO. His biggest frustration is "bad musicians that think they're good, and they just don't have any idea what it takes to be good." Not even people with talent cannot take their gifts for granted.
He says that whoever you are, whether a doctor or a businessman, you will always face challenges. "A lot of college kids come out of college thinking they can just get a job. But what about the guy next to you who also has that piece of paper?"
He also sees Silicon Valley as a working beehive and he isn't sure if most people know how to think for themselves. "Most people in Silicon Valley attend (music) shows, but they don't really listen. They hang out because they have money to pour into The Place (whatever is trendy) but they don't really listen. They don't know what to do--they're a bit robotic."
He talks about passion and doing what you love. At age 18, he majored in accounting at university for "almost a semester--I quit right before finals." But when he went to college, he realized fast that an accounting major may please his parents but it wasn't making him money. When he played music, he was making money--at 16, "I made more money than most of my friends playing music than they made working at McDonald's."
But Dave is making money because he is doing what is important to him. He says people in Silicon Valley face a lot of competition and work hard, but it's not enough to just work hard. "Make money or invent something--those without vision perish."
As I spoke to Dave, it was simply clear that it's not enough to just work a 9 to 5 job, not enough to do what everybody else does. And, career paths aren't linear. Without redacting the message, it seemed to me that this was just a man who has done what he is passionate about all his life. It has made his personal life simple and his professional life challenging.
Tuesday, March 11, 2008
Cookie Monster Goes on a Diet
I noticed an article in Point-of-Purchase Times, an in-store marketing trade magazine about how fruit vendors in grocery stores are putting Cookie Monster and Elmo as spokespeople in their stores to diminish child obesity.
I love the ingenuity of this campaign and the irony. It's comical that Cookie Monster would start motivating children to eat fruit. He isn't named the Cookie Monster for nothing. Can Cookie Monster throw around crumbs of fruit the same entertaining way he has done with cookies over the past 20 years?
But from a marketing standpoint, this isn't a bad transition. Some stats show that the rate of obesity in children 2 to 19 is about 17% and it's great to see marketers putting themselves out there to truly benefit customers.
Monday, March 10, 2008
Social Media for Everyone
Well, I can't say it's not true. There are still very few people who use the wide range of social media tools that are out there and most people think it is about YouTube and Facebook or MySpace.
Mack Collier on Marketing Profs is talking about social media tools like Twitter, Seesmic, and Viddler.
I don't know what it is about these social media tools but the average person doesn't just integrate social media tools into their life, probably because they aren't quick software gadget adopters. Sure, if you go to the South by Southwest conference, you have a microcosm of bloggers and social media chatters. Unfortunately, this won't catch on with everybody.
It would be cool to see Twitter grow big but Facebook status messages seem to work nicely for most people. This is a dilemma for those who want to add more social media tools to the webosphere.
By the way, here's a video posted by Guy Kawasaki on his blog about how he and Steve Ballmer had a witty tete-a-tete. To me, this is like web 1.0 vs. web 2.0
Friday, March 7, 2008
The Start-Up 101 Series: Sumaya Kazi
The Young Entrepreneur in Millenia 2.0
With the rise of web 2.0, social networking and RSS feeds, there is a lot of noise out there in the marketing world. But how about marketing yourself?
I had the pleasure of speaking with Sumaya Kazi over the phone last weekend. Recognized as one of CNN’s Young People Who Rock last year, we spoke from our individual home offices—she in San Francisco East Bay and me in San Jose.
So how exactly does Sumaya rock? Nicknamed the “media maven” by Brass Magazine, she’s got the stuff to rival Mark Zuckerberg because she practically holds down three jobs as a social media manager at Sun Microsystems and the founder of two entrepreneurial ventures: The Cultural Connect and I Give a Damn! (IGAD) network. She is also incredibly smart: she can identify pressure points quickly and qualify questions to get her message across.
Sumaya has accurately identified two pressure points for young people in Silicon Valley and elsewhere. In Silicon Valley, entry-level jobs are hard to come by and with her website, The Cultural Connect, Sumaya pushed the envelope on entry-level jobs. Job titles don't faze her. Her belief is that it doesn’t matter how old or young you are, all it takes a little creativity and resource management.
Second, the need for role models and inspiration is fierce and The Cultural Connect inspires people to consider that young people (particularly those with hyphenated cultural backgrounds who aren’t as exposed in the media) have the tools and skill sets that they need to succeed. The Cultural Connect features five separate media outlets (DesiConnect, AsiaConnect, MidEast Connect, LatinConnect and AfricanaConnect) to showcase young professionals and encourages others to connect if they are interested in learning more about someone in their profession.
Sumaya may not think of herself as an entrepreneur, but she tells me that opportunities for business stem from complaints that people have. “If there is a problem and there’s an ability to fix a need, then you have a business.”
But while most people have one business, Sumaya is juggling three. What is her secret? Like Grégoire Gentil, she says it’s important to delegate.
Delegating tasks is key. It is what allows her to have time for friends and family, salsa dancing, and other activities that let her bring stress levels down. "The busier I get the more I would go out dancing."
She admits that juggling three businesses is tough, but she keeps going because it’s exciting to work with young people who are so inspired themselves. Some are recent college graduates and they are the people who make The Cultural Connect and IGAD network come alive.
In other words, young people aren't limited by the opportunities that are out there. All we have to do is open our eyes to the fact, create our own opportunities and chase after our dreams in a new way.
Monday, March 3, 2008
Montreal Canadiens vs. San Jose Sharks
I have a special place in my heart for the French Canadians due to informal family ties but there really isn't any other place like home. The game is on the radio while I babysit my nephew.
His French Canadian parents are out at the game for the first two sessions and I can't help but think it would be a lot more fun if I were there too. I could add to the suspense, holler myself silly for the San Jose Sharks amongst the Montreal Canadien fans and release tension.
The funny thing is that I've never been a team sport fan and I'm not super patriotic seeing that I am more of a global citizen than a San Jose local. But San Jose is the closest place to home I have in my adult life, so when the American anthem came on, I could not help myself. I had to sing along.
It's Round 1 and San Jose Sharks are leading 2 to 1.
GO SHARKS!!!
More on the game on Yahoo! Sports.
UPDATE:Sharks won 6 to 4 and Campbell scored a very last shot and he says he did it "just for the fans." Canadiens played a little bit sloppy which gave Sharks a bit of an advantage but it was a fun game. I saw the last 10 minutes at HP Pavilion!
Sunday, March 2, 2008
Clean Tech Trade-offs Affect Trees, Birds
As more residential homes are outfitted with solar panels, these zero-emission homes are demanding that neighboring homes
cut down their redwoods. While there is a suggestion of ironic humor, it becomes more apparent that clean air technologies also demand trade-offs compared to traditional methods of energy.
For example, some animal rights groups have raised an issue around wind power turbines. Some say that wind power farms are endangering bird species, including the current population of 255 whooping cranes.
While it's great that engineers are making progress with discovering new technologies, sometimes it seems that these engineers haven't considered contingency planning in their design. Of course, there's been a lot of controversy around clean tech for some years now and it's challenging to solve these kinds of problems. I just wish there was some way that humans, plants and animals can get along so that we can all live on this planet in balance.
