Jane Genova: Speechwriter - Ghostwriter

NEW YORK DAILY NEWS - More Local

Let's see how this plays out.  The NEW YORK DAILY NEWS is going to add more local coverage through an "Uptown Section."  That, reports MEDIABISTRO.COM, will include Harlem, East Harlem, Inwood, and Washington Heights. 

Last week, NEWSDAY also announced it was going to go more local.  Meanwhile AOL keeps hiring for hyper-local coverage.  In the article in THE NEW YORKER [January 24, 2011], media guru Ken Auletta told us that AOL Chief Executive Officer Tim Armstrong had hired 900 reporters, at anywhere from $40K to $50K a pop.  As yet, that investment hasn't seemed to be improving AOL's profits.

Disclosure: I used to work for AOL.

Eminem's Super Bowl Spot: See what happens when you get sober

His unofficial recovery sponsor is Elton John.  And he's earning $1 million+ for a Super Bowl spot in a Lipton iced tea comercial.  His new album is a homerun.

Things couldn't be more rosy for Eminem.  Parents, spouses, teachers, and rehab counselors around the world are probably telling the drunk, drug-addicted, and depressed the wonderful tale of what could happen if they just pull it together again ... like Eminem.

The Fired Tell Their Story

Finally we who get canned have found a way to heal - and fast.  We tell our story.  That primitive ritual of recounting a trauma for the tribe is proving to be the way of recovery.  It also can bring in help for moving us toward what's next.

Here is my post on that ordeal.  It has been resonating.  CORPORATE COUNSEL linked to it and it has gone viral.

Julian Assange: Enigma Remains Mystery, despite "60 Minutes," NYT Magazine

Maybe it's the generational divide.  On "60 Minutes," WikiLeaks head Julian Assange is interviewed by a old-line establishment guy.  In THE NEW YORK TIMES MAGAZINE, he's written about by, yup, another old-line establishment guy.  Maybe it's a cultural divide we Americans can't decode.

Whatever.  Despite so much deconstruction by the media, including Bill Keller's noting the strong body odor, Assange remains an enigma.  Probably not since the mysterious and equally eccentric activist Ralph Nader has someone so baffled us.  Of course, we assume he must have some kind of personal agenda.  But, even if we accept that, we are still in the dark about what are internal forces which drive such an unusual creature.

All we really know from the print reporting is that he's not like us.  All we know from the broadcast interview is that he handles himself well enough to mask as much as he wants.  In that, he mirrors the mastery of Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg.

Perhaps we are asking the wrong questions in seeking to know: Who is that masked man.  Perhaps we should only focus on the questions the WikiLeaks have raised about the behavior of nations and its leaders.  If the next download relates to corporations we might also focus on the behavior of business.

 

Abby Joseph Cohen: Controls Interview with THE NEW YORK TIMES

Now and then we bear witness to those in business who know how to control the interview with media.  On "60 Minutes," Mark Zuckerberg managed that brilliantly, despite his relative youth.  And today, in THE NEW YORK TIMES MAGAZINE, Abby Joseph Cohen does that in the interview with Deborah Solomon.  Cohen is a partner at Goldman Sachs.

As a presentation coach, I recognize that Cohen can stand her ground so stridently with Solomon because of her power in financial services.  Most of the rest of us, in trying to turn an interview to our advantage, would do so more smoothly.  That could include get-off-the-hook phrases such as "I can understand your readers's interest in that issue," humor, and answering in a way which says little.

Cohen is very direct.  For example, she excludes as an issue to address the question "Do you feel any responsibility for the economic meltdown of 2008, which you failed to foresee?"

This interview provides one model of how to manage the media.  There are many others.  As she matures as a leader in her own right, Hillary Clinton has developed a broad menu of how to respond on television.  Today she took the gravitas route in discussing the revolt in Egypt.

Charlie Sheen Just Put Too Many TV Folks Out of Work

In 2011, the unforgivable sin is to cause others to lose their jobs.  That's just what Charlie Sheen has done.  Because of his antics, which put him in rehab, production on "Two and a Half Men" has been suspended. That means all those writers, film crew, makeup artists and actors are out of work, at least temporarily.

The backlash against Sheen begins.  Can he come back?  The art of the comeback is a whole other story.  You can check aspects of it out here and here.

Writers: We Need To Be Re-Branded

In the upheaval generated by digital technology, writers have become a glut.  Print tossed many out of well-paid positions.  At the same time, Generation Y has noticed the influence digital writers have and the potential to make it to the top like Ana Marie Cox. So, young people who might have gone off to get an MBA or take an entry level job at Ford are opting to write.  There is also career changers, such as unemployed/underemployed lawyers, who are leveraing their verbal skills to the writing parts of the communications industry.

A glut is a terrible situation to be part of.  The only way out and return to a position of strength in the marketplace is to re-brand ourselves.  Obviously, the term "writer" has to go.  It connotes the same low value that "housewife" did when Betty Friedan was writing "The Feminine Mystique" in the early 1960s.  [Interesting essay on that in the January 24th THE NEW YORKER by Louis Menand.] Perhaps Jack O'Dwyer, publisher of Odwyerpr.com, can create a contest for that, funded by corporate sponsors and large public relations agencies.  O'Dwyer was always a genius at identifying and outing what wasn't working.  In 2001, it was O'Dwyer who told me to drop the "M." in "M. Jane Genova" when  I was struggling to change my personal brand. The result was the effective "Jane Genova" rising out of the ethnic cuteness of "Mary Jane."

So much for the macro level.  On the micro or everyone is a brand level, we have to define the unique space we need to own in order to keep working and getting paid a decent wage.   Words should be a commodity that can be leveraged in the marketplace for bread.  For some of us, there might be several unique spaces as more of us find we need multiple sources of income.  Currently, I operate several niche businesses, all in some way related to communications.

With any re-branding project we have to do the tough job of figuring out what turns browsers into buyers.  This is totally pragmatic.  Hold the abstractions for the BigFoots like GM and Kraft.  Actually, though, as I discuss in this interview on personal branding, we should all be doing this continuously.  Sometimes all that might be called for is finetuning.  Other times an overhaul.  The market is too volatile for a static brand identity.

So, what would provide that wonderful pull force that brings assignments and jobs to us effortlessly, with respect, and a better than living wage?  A useful place to start is the thinking of W. Chan Kim and Renee Mauborgne in the book "Blue Ocean Strategy."  Then when it comes to the language, what might be helpful is the guidance in the book  "Made to Stick" by the Heath Brothers.

Those of us in the Northeast have been blessed with the paralysis of the snow and have the opportunity to focus on our re-branding the rest of the winter.

 

Egypt - The Revolution Might Be Digitally Delayed

Clearly, a testament to the power of social media, it's reported that in protest-plagued Egypt, the Internet is down.  Sources state that through their DSL lines they are unable to gain access to the web.  The largest of the protests had been planned for later in the day.

Influence: Lifestyle money can't buy

Wikileaks folk hero Julian Assange likely doesn't give money a thought.  Even when the issue of bail came up, he could leave the gritty monetary details to his supporters who seemed tickled pink to get in the loop on that one.  Years ago, before influence was understood or properly respected, that attitude would have been labeled eccentric, just as many perceived muckraker Ralph Nader who lived in a boarding house.

Now, of course, so many members of Generation Y will work free just to have even a little influence.  That's why when HuffingtonPost.com fired unpaid writer Mike Elk the story made waves.  Everyone in the know knew that the kid has lost his influence perch.

Sure, the wealthy and very well paid can purchase influence.  Nothing wrong with that.  The problem, though, is that for us clever kind it's more doable to find ways to gain influence and expand the base than to secure wealth or a position which compensates well enough.  For that reason, those who understand how the world works simply forget even chasing money and go directly to a path which could lead to influence.  That includes web startups, journalism, NGOs, entertainment, and simply knowing how to get attention. 

Until the early 21st century, I had money, at least a lot for a hustler from the working class.  Then the money went and I found out that I could become a force of influence.  There's no temptation to look back. 

Not everything about influence reeks of narcissism.  Weekly I get calls and email that my e-books such as "Geezer Guts" [Download Geezerguts] and my talk [pro bono] on career transition [Download NYSBAtalkinVITALSPEECHESOFDAY] have saved lives.  Like Madonna, I have credibility when I tell women, "Love yourself."  And after swapping money for influence, I ended my long streak of clinical depression, dating back to 1956.  Yeah, research should be done if influence is nature's antidepressant.

How to grab onto and expand influence?  Focus on what's going on in the world, not in your own earning capability.  The less I make, the stronger my voice and the more it's being heard.  

BBC Laying Off 650: What kind of journalism can survive?

The global gold standard for journalism, the BBC has not been able to duck the upheaval in media.  As Sarah Lyall reports in THE NEW YORK TIMES, the BBC will be laying off 650 during the next three years.  The reason is primarily funding cuts by the government.

We are still a long way from finding the model in journalism which can make it in the world which digital created and continually reinvents.   The big brandnames of the past, ranging from THE NEW YORK TIMES to THE WASHINGTON POST, are experimenting with approaches.  As yet, there are no best practices.