Category Archives: Blogging

What IS the best tool for the job?

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ReportersA bunch of ag reporters (including one of ours) are at a media event in Johnston, Iowa (near Des Moines), hosted by Pioneer (big ag company). Not sure how many of the reporters were blogging the event but a couple for sure. As I watched the blogs I started wondering, what is the “best” medium for covering an event like this.

While highly unlikely that a broadcast station (radio or TV) or network would cover a day-long event live…would that, in fact, be better coverage? Probably the closest thing to being there yourself but unless they put the video/audio online for later, on-demand acess (and did so almost immediately)…you’d have to catch it live or miss it completely. And live broadast coverage (TV or radio) would offer little opportunity for some context and perspective by the reporter covering the event.

Is it even remotely possible that a really well-done blog (with still images, video, audio, RSS feed, etc etc etc) could have advantages over traditonal live coverage of the event? My heart wants to say “no way,” but my head is saying, “maybe.”

I’ve been doing radio for almost 35 years and blogging for just four and this just blows my mind. And I could be missing something here. For example, the print reporter might argue that his/her 1,000 word story in tomorrow’s (or the day after) newspaper/magazine offers greater depth and insight and detail than a few short blog posts. Good point.

A TV guy might point out that his/her well-edited, high quality video package on the evening news is far superior to a few minutes of poorly-lighted video from a camcorder. True enough.

I’m not sure what the technical or content advantages radio has in this scenerio. I’ll get back to you.

This sounds heretical –more blog hype– until you actually watch a first-rate blogger cover an event and compare that to the more traditional media. And in the end, it will be the public that decides where to get the latest/best info.

Dave Winer on blogging

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Henry forwarded a link to a Slate piece that suggests blogs –as businesses– have peaked. If you’re a regular, you aleady know my thoughts on blogging. Companies with a clue, confidence and a good blogger… can/will make valuable use of blogs. As to the Slate article, I refer you to Dave Winer who sees blogging as “part of life”:

Blogs are where new businesses will spring from. Think of blogs as being like dorm rooms, and remember that’s where Dell Computer came from. Blogging communities are incubators. Some communities incubate negative stuff, plenty of those, but occasionally a blogging community serves as the launching pad for something good. There will be a steady stream of those, and they will be on the cover of magazines, and will belong there.

2006 Commodity Classic in your pocket

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This is such a good idea. First time I’ve seen it but I predict it will be routine in the not-to-distant future. AgWired’s Chuck Zimmerman will be blogging the 2006 Commodity Classic:

All the pictures I take and video and audio I record will be pre-loaded onto a video iPod. One of those things will be country music star Michael Peterson’s performance that’s being sponsored by New Holland. Once we know who the winner is Michael will record a personal message which we’ll also load onto the iPod. And, there’s more. We’ll also load Michael’s newest CD, “Down on the Farm,” which you can currently only purchase from your local New Holland dealer. It won’t be out in stores until later this spring.

Or you could hand out some key-chains.

Agribloggers wanted

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Chuck Z. (AgWired) already has more business than he can take care of and he’s looking for bloggers and podcasters:

Passionate about agriculture. Willing to write one or more articles per day at least 5 days per week. Can be brief and yet offer significant information and ideas. Computer literate (knows how to make a hyperlink, Google’s to find out stuff, etc.). Already blogs would be nice. Can take a decent digital photo and edit it. Owns a digital camera and notebook computer.

I don’t care if you have a “day” job. I don’t care if you’re currently unemployed even. What I will care about is quality, self-initiative and dependability.

My first thought was anyone with this skill set has or can land a full-time gig. They don’t have to take digital piece work. But maybe you like your day job (with 401k and health benefits) but would like to indulge your “passion for agriculture” in your spare time…be part of a communications revolution…and pick up a few bucks to boot. Maybe you’re an FFA student working your way through college. Maybe you’re a radio news guy making $22k.

I have no doubt Chuck will find his bloggers and podcasters. And he won’t care if they work in their pajamas.

Looking back

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Rear view mirrorFour years ago today I started jotting this stuff down. My first post was a quote from Carl Hiaasen’s novel, Basket Case, describing two types of journalists. I’m hardly a prolific blogger (just 1,800 posts in four years), but I’ve been reasonably consistent. I spent a few minutes browsing, trying to get a sense of what I thought was interesting or important enough to write about. My tags tell the story: Advertising, blogging, books, dogs, friends, family and home, journalism, radio, Kennett, movies, music, podcasting, Sheryl Crow, television and work. And death.

My father died in 2002 and my brother couldn’t get home from Indonesia in time for the funeral. I recorded the service and put it online so he could hear it. I said goodbye to Larry Joe and Mr. Rudy. I shared John D. Macdonald’s view of death and my own thoughts on reincarnation.

I posted a lot of quotes from books and lines from movies. Which was one of the reasons I started this journal. I discovered a fascination with tattoos I didn’t know I had. I wrote about shoes more than is probably healthy. And I felt it important to tell you about every dental check-up.

I stumbled across the term “podcasting” in October, 2004. In August of last year I moved from Blogger to Typepad. I met Steve Mays West.

I confessed that I thought I looked my best in theater restrooms. I sold the family home and got my best clue, if not my first. I shared some great blues; helped some friends start blogging and watched this little girl dance for hours on end.

I spent a lot of time feeding and caring for this beast. But it’s been good for me. Time well spent. I don’t want to spend too much time looking back but it’s nice to know I can.

Naked Conversations

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Robert Scoble and Shel Israel co-authored this excellent book on “how blogs are changing the way businesses talk with customers.” Just a couple of chapters in but finding a nugget on almost every page:

  • Tool Lust –People develop emotional attachments to things that empower new, faster, easier or cheaper activity (blogging)
  • Interruption Marketing — Unanticipated, impersonal and irrelevant ads, repeatedly hurled at involuntary audiences. (Seth Godin)
  • “First there were phone books, then web sites and [businesses] know that if they don’t have [one], it works to their disadvanatage. Blogs are just the next logical step.” — Betsy Aoki, Microsoft blogger
  • Corpspeak — An oxymoronic hybrid of cautious legalese seasoned with marketing hyperbole. Corpspeakers talk to people when they want to speak, not when people want to listen.
  • If you’re afraid to share ideas, you shouldn’t blog. One time someone asked Walt Disney if he wasn’t worried about telling so many people about his ideas. And Disney said, ‘Those were last year’s ideas.’ (pg 94) If you’re paranoid about your ideas being ripped off, don’t blog.
  • If the company culture is manipulative, employees are not treated with respect, and customers are thought of as commodity items, then that company should not blog. That company should close its doors. (pg 95)

If you’re not sure if your sales proposal or corporate brochure or news release is corpseak, stand in the middle of a room with some of your co-workers and read the copy aloud. If they laugh, it’s corpspeak.

I’ll update this post as I move through the book.

Death Row Blogger

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“Vernon Lee Evans Jr. — amateur advice columnist and convicted murderer — is scheduled to die next month by lethal injection. He is one of the very few death row inmates to have a blog and, activists say, perhaps the only condemned man worldwide to use a blog to take questions from readers.”

— washingtonpost.com:

More Squirt Cheese in History

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“It was against this backdrop that Marco Polo floated into Japan in a hot air balloon, carrying with him the most luxurious goods from his homeland: extra virgin olive oil, Venetian blinds, and his 5 remaining bottles of squeezable parmesan cheese. The Japanese people, after years of gustatory oppression, gobbled Polo’s golden ribbons of delight with gusto. They rose up against their oppressors, won their freedom, and never looked back.

Is there a lesson for the modern reader in Japan’s tragic romance with its scrumptious first love? Perhaps it is this: we fight the good fight for that which we hold dear, but ultimately, to win or lose is a mere footnote to our having tasted our bacon-flavored life to the fullest.”

Wouldn’t you love to know and hang out with someone that can write like this? I am so pleased to know David Brazeal and so sad we don’t get to hang out.

Who are your “alpha customers?”

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Chris Anderson (The Long Tail guy) looks at why big companies should have public blogs. Among other reasons, they serve as a peer-to-peer product support channel for “alpha customers”, whose opinion can sway others.

Does Learfield (the company I work for) have “alpha customers?” Who would that be? Our university partners? Our advertisers? Our affiliated radio stations? I would argue that the correct answer is: D) All of the above.

Those charged with knowing and influencing “alpha customers,” whomever they might be…might argue that we are already doing a fine job of this. No argument here. But “deep in my heart, I do belive” we could do it even more effectively with some savvy blogging.

RobotWhich brings us to a DWR moment: Pushing your company or organization to blog before they are psychologically ready or have the will and talent to pull it off, is like showing motion pictures to the indigenous tribes of Borneo. They might cheer and make you Tribal Witch Doctor, or they might stab you to death with tiny little spears.

Anytime you see this little robot, you know you’re reading something that could get me –and you– in a lot of trouble.

J-School head poo-poo’s political blogs

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Cub Reporter Bob Hague sends along this link to an interview with James Baughman, head of Journalism/Communications at UW Madison. Bob says what started as a discussion of celebrity journalism spread to political blogs. Baughman thinks they’re going to be great for political geeks, but is pretty pessimistic about new media’s impact on the electorate. [Thanks, Bobby.]