Monday, September 26, 2005
HC+T Update: September 2005
The September 2005 email newsletter from Holtz Communication + Technology, blog/RSS format.
HC+T Update
September 2005
1) I’m Back
2) How Legitimate Is Anonymous Blogging?
3) What’s In Most Online Newsrooms?
4) More Than Half Of Journalists Use Blog
5) The Ethics Of Attention
6) Are Trackbacks Conversations?
7) Non-reporter Sends Field Report For Podcast
8) Geeking Out On OPML
9) Site of the Month
10) HC+T Update
11) Boilerplate And Subscription Information
As usual, this issue represents mostly material I’ve written for my blog over the past month. You can find the blog at http://blog.holtz.com. And don’t forget, you should seriously consider switching from the email subscription to the RSS feed. Just add the following URL to your RSS news reader: http://blog.holtz.com/index.php/update/rss_2.0/.
1. I’m Back
Somehow, I completely missed my August issue.
That’s never happened before. In the nine years I’ve produced this email newsletter, I have never missed an issue. Even when I was concurrently producing “NetGain Update,” I never missed an issue. But August was an unusually busy month and it was already September when the thought crept into my mind: “I never produced an Update.”
I have spent the last month consumed with guilt (even though I didn’t receive one single message asking, “Hey, what the hell happened to your August newsletter?”). I have been determined not to let this happen again. So here is the October “HC+T Update,” and it’s not even the last day of the month.
I promise never to miss an issue again. Honest.
2. How Legitimate Is Anonymous Blogging?
I recently caused a lot of grief. I posted an item on my blog about anonymous bloggers, taking aim squarely at “Deep Background,” a government communicator who had started blogging for Ragan Communications. Despite the fact that a hefty portion of my income comes from Ragan, I slammed the anonymity factor pretty hard. Shortly after that, the blogger resigned, afraid of being “outed.”
I had no issue with the blogger himself (whoever he was), just the fact that he wouldn’t identify himself. A lot of people agreed with me, but a roughly equal number took issue. Several pointed to a blog written by an anonymous bouncer in a New York nightclub. That, however, is apples an oranges. Nobody is going to make career decisions based on the advice the bouncer presents. Several might, however, make work decisions based on the advice of a government communicator touted by an authority like Ragan Communications.
Here’s my issue:
Before this latest blog, Ragan hosted two blogs that aren’t bad at all. In fact, I praised Steve Crescenzo’s “Corporate Hallucinations” as one of the funnier blogs you can read. And David Murray’s blog, “The Speechwriter’s Slant,” has its moments. But “Deep Background…”
The “about” link on the blog told us that Deep Background “is a blog for local, state and federal government media professionals. We cover strategies, tactics, non-political issues and other practical matters that are useful to government communicators.” The author, we learn, “has been a government public information officer at the national and local level for 18 years.” Beyond that, we knew nothing. The blog’s banner made it clear that the contents of “Deep Background” are “straight from the mouth of a senior level, unidentified source.” Get it? He’s on deep background.
Except, of course, for the fact that this is a blog and anonymous blogging —- especially when the blog is brought to you by a media organization -— makes about as much sense as casting a vote with invisible ink. Where’s the credibility of an anonymous blogger? When readers comment, to whom are the comments directed? Neville Hobson raised this issue when he first read the complaints by an anonymous blogger about his Land Rover experience. Neville’s observation about the lack of credibility inherent in anonymity led the blogger to reveal his identity (and, lo and behold, his credibility soared).
There are rare exceptions. Even the Electronic Frontier Foundation suggested an anonymous blog for people who just have to complain about work but don’t want their bosses to identify them. But even then, if you can’t identify the company about which they’re whining, what’s the point of reading the blog? (Perhaps these anonymous bloggers fill in their friends and family so at least somebody knows who the target of their poison keyboard really is.) In general, though, anonymous blogs are a lot like character blogs. In fact, a blog like this could actually BE a character blog. For all we know, it’s a Ragan staffer penning this blog, pretending to be a senior level government official with 18 years experience.
So, what do you think? Is there any credibility for you in anonymous blogs that provide subject matter expertise? Let me know your thoughts and I’ll publish them in the next issue.
3. What’s In Most Online Newsrooms?
Does your company need to beef up its online newsroom? After perusing a report from the Communications department at IBM’s Spanish operation, you may think so.
Online newsrooms —- sections of a company’s website dedicated to providing resources to the press -— have been de rigueur on the web. Some, like General Electric’s, are models. Others are nothing more than collections of press releases. (It’s been some 30 years since I was a newspaper reporter, but try as I might, I just can’t remember a time when I needed an old press release.) There have been numerous studies in which reporters and editors were asked to rank the most important elements of an online newsroom (contact information invariably tops the list). But now, thanks to communicators working for IBM’s operation in Spain, there’s a detailed report exploring what companies from around the world actually offer in their newsrooms.
The 118-page bilingual (Spanish and English) report—available for download as a PDF—analyzes sites from well over 100 companies in the US and Europe (along with one Asian country, Singapore), examining each on 51 different metrics. While the study didn’t ask whether these sites offered RSS feeds, they did check into the general notion of subscribing to content, along with the usual elements, like press releases, contact information, and photos. It also looks at the ability to submit inquiries and how quickly media relations staff responds.
It’s surprising, given the number of bad pressrooms I’ve seen, how many of those included in the report offer so many desired elements. The companies studied are listed at the end of the report, so it’s easy to point to samples you can use to bolster your argument for enhancing your newsroom with features they have that yours doesn’t. And it never hurts to be able to say, “By the way, of the newsrooms studied, 66 offer backgrounders and reports (or whatever).”
Download “Best Practices in Public Relations: An Analysis of Online Press Rooms in Leading Companies Round the World” at http://www-5.ibm.com/es/press/notas/julio/bestpractices.pdf.
4. More Than Half Of Journalists Use Blog
So only 11% of all Internet users read blogs, according to Pew Internet and American Life study. If you think that means blogs wield little influence, you need to break those numbers down. Among that 11% are are a lot of journalists, 51% according to an annual study of media’s use of the Net. And 28% rely on blogs for their day-to-day reporting.
It’s no great stretch to conclude that blogs are influencing the content that gets into the mainstream media.
The Survey of Media has been going on for some time; I cited it in the first edition of my book, “Public Relations on the Net,” which was published in 1999, and it already had five years’ worth of data at that point. Columbia University’s Dr. Steven Ross has been with the study since it started, partnering with Don Middleberg of New York’s Middleberg Public Relations. According to Ross—who is also a partner in Euro RSCG Magnet (which acquired Middleberg):
“As blogs continue to gain in popularity, quality and influence, it is becoming imperative that journalists and journalism students continue to integrate blogs, especially blogs that cover technology, into their reporting practices. A number of credible and influential Weblogs – such as Scobleizer, Gizmodo, and Boing Boing –- provide an invaluable trove of research, story ideas, and other information that current and future journalists would be remiss not to leverage in their reporting.”
You can retrieve a PDF file of the slides presented by EURO RSCG Magnet at the launch of the 11th Survey of the media at the following URL:
http://jackie.dvcotechnology.com/magnet_media/file.php/binaries/23/FinalDeck.pdf
5. The Ethics Of Attention
There is a commodity that is at the core of our work in the communications field, and the related fields of marketing and advertising. Without this commodity, we could never hope to wield influence. Unlike oil, it is a resource that will always exist, yet it is finite; there is only so much of it to go around. This commodity is attention.
In an information/knowledge economy, attention is at the heart of just about everything. If people pay attention, you have a shot at getting your message across. If they don’t, if they choose to focus their attention elsewhere, you might as well be firing your messages into deep space. What’s more, given the nature of the Net, you can identify what people are paying attention to and use that information.
It’s interesting to reflect on the term “pay attention.” “Pay” suggests some kind of barter arrangement. When I pay money for something, I expect to get something in return, whether it’s a pack of chewing gum, a new laptop, a novel, whatever. When I pay heed, I also expect something in return, such as information of value. As more and more organizations jockey to attract the attention of key audiences, what are they giving in return? Are they even thinking in terms of an exchange? And what of those organizations that use services like Technorati and PubSub to identify where people are focusing their attention in order to use it to better hone their own messages? Are they employing any ethical guidelines to their application of the information they obtain?
These questions are new to the information age, but a non-profit organization has been launched to advocate on behalf of the people who own the commodity organizations crave. AttentionTrust maintains that individuals own themselves, their data, and their attention. Further, this ownership assumes certain rights:
- Property—You own your attention and can store it wherever you wish. You have control.
- Mobility—You can securely move your attention wherever you want whenever you want to. You have the ability to transfer your attention.
- Economy—You can pay attention to whomever you wish and receive value in return. Your attention has worth.
- Transparency—You can see exactly how your attention is being used. You can decide who you trust.
AssociationTrust defines attention, in part, as
“...the substance of focus. It registers your interests by indicating choice for certain things and choice against other things. Any time you pay attention to something (and any time you ignore something), data is created. That data has value, but only if it’s gathered, measured, and analyzed. Right now, you generally lack the ability to capture that data for yourself, so you can’t benefit from it. But what if you could? And what if you could share your data with other people, who were also capturing their own data, or if you could exchange your data for something of value with companies and other institutions that were interested in learning more about the things that interested you? You’d be in control—you would decide who has access to what data, as well as what you’d accept in exchange for access to your data.”
The site also includes links to some research and writing on the subject of attention.
The mission of AttentionTrust isn’t clear, and its activities aren’t defined, but the association is inviting memberships for those who are willing to abide by the four principles. In any case, this is no fly-by-night group. The volunteer board includes the likes of ZDNet columnist and attention advocate Steve Gillmor (president), Nick Bradbury, designer of the FeedDemon RSS newsreader, Seth Goldstein, Clay Shirky, and Mary Hodder, among others. Since there’s no dollar figure attached to membership (other than a suggested $25 donation), I’m signing up if for no other reason than to see what comes next.
More information is at http://www.attentiontrust.org
6. Are Trackbacks Conversations?
On his MicroPersuasion blog, Steve Rubel’s posted his reason for rejecting a trackback from Jeremy Pepper. That post produced a blizzard of comments —- 26, along with three trackbacks, at last count. In case you missed it, here’s the story in a nutshell: Jeremy posted an item in May about PR’s role in customer service. Steve posted a related topic last week. Jeremy went back to his post and updated it with a trackback to Steve’s new new post. Steve rejected the trackback, noting, “A trackback is a continuation of a dialogue, not a traffic-building gimmick” and “this tactic is bordering on trackback spam” and finally “This is about following blog etiquette.”
(In case you don’t know what a trackback is, here’s the Wikipedia definition: “TrackBack is a mechanism used in a blog that shows a list of entries in other blogs that refer to a post on the first blog.”
I’m not about to criticize either Steve or Jeremy. Micropersuasion is Steve’s blog and he can do with it as he pleases. But he raises two interesting issues that are worth a few sentences. First is the assertion that “a trackback is a continuation of a dialogue.” I know that dictionary and encyclopedia entries are of limited use in a discussion like this, but I checked out Wikipedia anyway and found no reference to dialogue. Wikipedia defines a trackback as “a mechanism used in a blog that shows a list of entries in other blogs that refer to a post on the first blog.” So the question becomes whether a trackback is, indeed, a continuation of a dialogue. My definitive answer: It depends.
Sure, it could be, if the blogger creating the trackback intended it that way. But I can’t uncover any requirement that it assume the characteristics of a conversation. As I see it, a post to a blog is dated, but it is also permanent (hence the notion of a permalink). Jeremy’s post may have appeared in March, but if I searched the right combination of terms, that five-month-old post could appear at the top of a Google query. In this sense, it’s not only a blog post, but an article that could be useful to somebody conducting research. As such, I find no breech of etiquette in an effort to keep the post current. Some argue that Jeremy should have added some text; Steve thinks he should have produced an entirely new post. These may have been good ideas, but on the other hand, the addition of the trackback is, as an integral part of the post itself, an update.
In any case, I don’t believe this use of trackback has anything to do with dialogue, nor does it need to.
I might question Jeremy’s motives if the trackback had no connection to the theme of Steve’s post, but in fact they were directly related. And while I don’t know it for a fact, I seriously doubt Jeremy would even consider using Micropersuasion to build traffic for his own blog. But that’s only because I know the guy. Ultimately, the issue comes down to currency. Is the revision of an old post with updated links a legitimate practice? I think it is, by virtue of the fact that the post will continue to stand on its own as a permalink.
The second issue that arises out of the debate is whether there is any defined blog etiquette at this point. While a Google search reveals nearly 15,000 posts containing the term, a quick review of the top posts reveals most are bloggers offering up their own opinions. It’s not like email etiquette, where defined guidelines have emerged and can easily be found. Blog etiquette is still evolving, and while there are certainly egregious violations (e.g., stealing somebody’s feed and posting it as your own blog entry), something like Jeremy’s use of trackbacks remains in a fuzzy grey area.
As I say, I’m not criticizing Rubel, who (like all of us) can do what he thinks is right with his blog. As for me, I wouldn’t have given the trackback a second thought.
7. Non-reporter Sends Field Report For Podcast
I was part of an intriguing new channel for delivering content, and it has me thinking about the potential for this type of process for getting the word out through non-traditional means.
You’ve probably heard something by now about the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation’s lockout of its employees, including writers, editors, producers, and reporters. And you may have heard (since it’s been the subject of considerable discussion in the blogosphere) about how the locked-out journalists are continuing to produce content for distribution as podcasts. There’s even a site where all the various blogs and podcasts from locked-out journalists have been aggregated. The topic has been of interest to one of the listeners to the podcast Neville Hobson and I produce, “For Immediate Release: The Hobson & Holtz Report.” Howard Harawitz was so interested that he took some recording equipment to the CBC offices in Hallifax, Nova Scotia, where locked-out employees were manning a picket line, and he interviewed one of them. Then, he sent the audio file of the interview to Neville and me, which we included in our discussion of the labor situation and the means by which the locked-out journalists are continuing to “broadcast.”
So let’s see what happened here. We had Howard Harawitz, who is neither a reporter nor a communicator (he works in the world of music and technology), interviewing a subject who wouldn’t be able to get his views onto the CBC airwaves but ultimately gets them spread through our podcast (in addition to the podcasts they’re producing on their own). I can see this model emerging as another form of citizen journalism, in which anybody with a microphone and recorder can conduct interviews in the field and send the files to podcasters who cover that particular area of interest. Since podcasting already appeals to niche audiences, those with a particular interest in that topic will hear interviews they won’t be able to get anyplace else. Fascinating. I was thrilled to be part of this first crack at such citizen journalism—at least, the first of which I’m aware.
8. Geeking Out On OPML
Ever since attending the Berkeley stop of Dave Winer’s OPML editor roadshow, I’ve been playing seriously with the outlining software (which you can get at http://support.opml.org/). A number of its capabilities are exciting to me, notably its collaborative capabilities. For example…
- You can add the URL to somebody else’s OPML file as an outline element of your own and all of its pieces will become part of your outline
- You can store an OPML file online and allow others to revise it
It’s going to take a while for the benefits of a collaborative outlining tool to spread. Hell, I’m still working to wrap my mind around it myself. But in the meantime, I decided to try my hand at it in a couple of ways. First, I’m creating the show outline for “For Immediate Release: The Hobson & Holtz Report” in OPML and storing it online. Neville simple opens a copy of the software and opens the file from its URL, and he’s able to make additions and changes. That’s a lot easier than emailing attachments back and forth.
Next, I figured it would be easier to maintain my blogroll for this blog as OPML files. That way, whenever I want to add or delete a blog from the roll, I can do it in the outlining software rather than mess with my blog template. The template just points to the various files. The only problem here was getting the template to recognize that it was pulling in an OPML file. Confused about how to do that, I went to the Expression Engine support forum and asked. I was pointed to a plugin developer named Yoshi Melrose, who cranked out an OPML plugin for me (and everyone else using Expression Engine) in about 10 minutes. And it rocks…as does Yoshi.
As a result, my blogrolls are now all OPML-enabled, so not only is it easy for me to keep them updated, but I’ve been able to add a link to each OPML file so anybody can download them and use them as they wish.
Okay, so OPML may strike you as overly geeky, especially for a right-brained communicator, but I think it’s exciting.
9. Sites of the Month
PRBlogs
Robert French has caught the Constantin Basturea bug. This is a condition that prompts someone to make a contribution to the public relations professional basically out of the goodness of their heart. The condition has manifested itself in French—a professor teaching public relations at Auburn University—through his development of a blogging community focused on the PR world.
Initially, PRBlogs.org had attracted only students. Perhaps it’s the visibility several PR bloggers have given the community that has finally led to a couple of blogs from non-students, including one from Chris Thilk, author of the Movie Marketing Madness column for FilmThreat and a blog devoted to trailers, posters and other movie marketing. Another comes from Scott Kidder, a student who works for Gawker Media, which owns (among other blogs) Wonkette and Gizmodo.
PRBlogs.org has real potential to become a full-fledged community. Ultimately, however, it will take more PR people signing on to make it happen. I have no doubt there are many who work in the profession who read this and other PR blogs but have not yet taken the plunge themselves. Since French is making it free and easy to get started, I’d urge you to grab up your own blog today. The more of us out there, the better.
Screencasts Online
A new website marries screencasts, blogging and vidcasts in a pretty interesting way. The site, Screencasts Online, is the brainchild of Don McAllister, who has decided to make his work available via blog and RSS feed.
In case you’re unfamiliar with a screencast, these are movies that display a computer screen while a voice narrates what’s happening on the screen. Jon Udell of InfoWorld has produced some very nifty screencasts, including one outstanding entry that explains various uses of del.icio.us.
What separates McAllister’s effort from other screencasts is the fact that it’s being produced in blog format, allowing you to subscribe via RSS to have the screencasts “delivered to your PC or Mac automatically directly into iTunes.” Very nice. McAllister’s first screencast showed how to subscribe to the screencasts using iTunes; the second “gives a quick overview on how you can use RSS to automate your web surfing and remove the tedium of manually checking websites and blogs.” McAllister notes that his screencasts will be based on Macintosh applications, but “Windows users are welcome to access the screencasts as many of the demos will be cross platform or platform independant (sic).”
http://www.screencastsonline.com
10. HC+T Update
- Shel is producing a series of podcasts for The Conference Board related to its communication technology conference in New York later this week.
- Shel is presenting his “Writing for the Wired World” workshop at Duke Energy in early October.
- Shel is speaking at the IABC Canada conference in Halifax, Nova Scotia later in October.
11. Boilerplate And Subscription Information
You received this newsletter either because you asked for it or somebody who likes you forwarded it to you.
Please feel free to forward it to someone =you= like!
HC+T Update is published monthly by Holtz Communication + Technology.
You can subscribe by visiting the HC+T site on the World Wide Web at http://www.holtz.com and selecting the FREE email NEWSLETTER page. You can subscribe ,unsubscribe and view back issues at http://darkstar.holtz.com/hct/mamboserver/cgi-bin/dada/mail.cgi?f=list&l=hct.
You can subscribe to an RSS feed of this newsletter by adding “http://blog.holtz.com/update.xml” (without the quote marks) to your news feed reader.
Holtz Communication + Technology helps organizations apply online technology to strategic communication efforts.
(C) 2005, Holtz Communication + Technology. All rights reserved.