Jane Genova: Speechwriter - Ghostwriter

Ricochet: NYT Co Michael Zimbalist discusses this, with print books in background

In a Google state of mind, The New York Times Company created Ricochet, for digital marketing.  Essentially, the advertiser, for example SAP, selects articles from company's digital properties which are relevant to its commercial message.  Then the Ricochet Platform generates a unique web address that bundles the articles to the brand's advertising.  That could be for any period of time the advertiser wants. 

The analogy here is the way Google allows advertisers to place their click ads in the sections with specific keywords or phrases.  So if a person is searching for "Ghostwriter, High Tech Experience" and I buy the ad space on that page, the odds are good that the ad will attract the right kind of prospects.

The funny thing about the way the NYT Company is promoting Ricochet in online videos is that spokesperson Michael Zimbalist, Vice President of R&D, talks with a bunch of print books in the background.   Here you can view the interview with Beet.TV.  That could be transmitting exactly the message the NYT Company wants to get out there:  We have our focus in two worlds, digital and print.  Think about it: Baby Boomers, who grew up in print, are still in positions of power and influence.

Herman Cain et al.: When money is irrelevant in staying part of the conversation

Despite his new-found wealth, Boy CEO Mark Zuckerberg may become less valued and credible for input into "the conversation."  This is an era in which fresh ideas and the ability to package information and insight into entertainment count much more than money.  Sure, in the capital of wealth Manhattan everyone chases those with money.  But those being chased get attention for only that: money.  Not for what the influence of their views.

Former idea man Herman Cain is struggling, reports POLITICO, to recapture the right kinds of attention.  His magic moments were cut short by allegations of sexual harassment.  What we in the influence business watch is if and how he can pull off a return to being a voice that's heard.  As we know, that's tricky.

Some like Paul Volcker have had a comeback.  His insight about the operations of investment banks has been proven out in the JPMorgan Chase losses.  Others who have fallen off the radar screen aren't so fortunate.  Despite several tries, including aligning with Occupy Wall Street, Eliot Spitzer can't get traction. 

That's a case study for PR: Why do some influentials bounce back and others don't? My hunch is that it has a lot to do with being able to let go of their earlier identity.  Oprah can't stop being Oprah of the talk show space.  Her voice is fading out.

From Smart to Dumb in 34 Minutes: AT&T's James Hales hero of aging Baby Boomer

I walked from my car in the North Haven, Connecticut parking lot to the AT&T mobile store as if I were headed for the gallows.  The time has come: I had to go from a dumb cell phone to the smart one.  I even wondered if they would allow an aging Baby Boomer like myself into such an advanced wireless center.

Right from the get-go, the transition was lacking both in angst and melodrama.  A Generation Y salesperson actually came to me once I was about 1.5 feet away from the door.  His name was James Hales.  For the next 34 minutes he would gently and patiently lead me through the steps of selecting a phone and the appropriate plan and getting down the fundamentals for use.  We - Hales had that wonderful way of creating the feeling that the two of us were in this together - chose a Nokia.  Then we determined the best plan would not include migrating my Internet service from the current AT&T DLS service to a hotspot through the smartphone. 

That done, what could have been the end of the world didn't end the world.  I asked Hale to set up my voice features, including making a message for when I was wasn't there.  In addition, I pushed it and requested he do my email account too.  That he did. It involved a call to AOL.

The one last piece was for me to learn the fundamentals.  A born teacher, Hales walked me through the basic menu and the swipe-throughs.  They included getting through to the apps, taking a photo, and making video.  He even informed me the software I could download for free from Microsoft for transferring photos from the phone to the my laptop.

I left the store knowing that I had accomplished the most important rite of passage of my career.  I had crossed over from dumb to smart.  I also realized that age has nothing to do with anything.  It's all about not fearing technology.

Every Baby Boomer in Connecticut who hasn't yet made this passage should journey to North Haven Shopping Center on Universal Drive and ask for James Hales.  Tell 'em Jane sent you.

Joe Muto Puzzle: Hustler or self-destruct?

We have had a weekend to mull over whether whistleblower Joe Muto is a hustler (that is, totally in sync with capitalist America) or a self-destruct who sacrificed not only a job but one in the glamour industry of broadcasting.

Given the end of the traditional social contract between employer and employee, whistleblowing has become more common.  I take a look at this for financial information company Motley Fool.  Here  you can read that and think about the whole kettle of fish.

On the one hand, a relationship with the high traffic high profile Gawker, the platform for Muto's whistleblowing, can lead to the big time.  Authoring the column "Wonkette" gave Ana Marie Cox the ticket to just about any job she wanted in brandname media.  Also, Gawker paid Muto $5000.  Not a million bucks but a bird in the hand always beats a possible fortune in the bush.  Nice chunk of change to pay down credit card debt or the vestiges of student loans.

On the other hand, Fox tracked down the miscreant through a digital trail.  Muto doesn't seem too smart to have left one.  For example, tipsters to legal tabloid Abovethelaw.com know to leave the building and leak only on their own smartphones.  In addition, Fox News is not particularly vulnerable at this time.  Its powerful head Roger Ailes is holding a strong hand, including the ability to hire a Manhattan law firm. Whistleblower Greg Smith attacked Goldman Sachs when all of Wall Street has become an easy target.  No surprise he received a juicy advance of $1.5 million to continue to rat out his former employer.  There a precedent there in Michael Lewis' taking on The Street.

The next weeks will tell the tale about Muto as an entrepreneurial type or naive.  Monitoring that story will continue to bring heavy traffic to Gawker.  However, Muto could find himself out in the cold with only $5000 to show for taking this risk.

Madonna: The art & science of comebacks

C.S. Lewis observed that experience is a brutal teacher but we learn, god, how we learn.

With the current volatility in the economy and how the media can upend careers, comebacks are more common.  Or at least the attempt at them.  Also, another force driving comebacks is simple aging and there is a lot of that these days.

So, many of us are watching Madonna, now over-50.  Can she pull off a comeback?  She performed at halftime during the SuperBowl.  She did a film on the Duchess of Windsor.  She produced a new album MDNA. 

It is frequently with some glee that both the official media and twitters opine critically about this comeback.  In FORBES, for example, Roger Friedman reports that album MDNA had the second week biggest drop in sales history.  It went from 359,000 the first week to 46,000 the second.  The first week's numbers were partly due to the CDs included with the sale of concert tickets.

Is Madonna, who always had more than the average share of highly vocal critics, under the microscrope because what she has recently been turning out is not exciting?  Or is it because her aging makes her a target in the entertainment world which can be brutal on those over even 40?

The interesting thing to watch here is what Madonna does, both in the art and science (proven promotional formulas), to remain relevant.  We have noticed how former New York Governor Eliot Spitzer has yet to catch on again.  He has tried being a columnist and a talker on TV.  Former politico Al Gore has never really made it back after his splash in positioning global warming as the cause.  His Current TV isn't doing so hot.  Oprah Winfrey is starting out yet again to make OWN a go. 

On the other hand, Hillary Clinton roared back as Secretary of State after her defeat in campaigning for the White House.  Me? To my surprise I have been able to come back yet again.  Most recently it was from the error of trying to have a young - read that "snarky" - voice on the web.  Among others, Gawker panned me.  But here I am back.  My list of clients from the establishment and startups is growing.  If there is a secret to the comeback it is to become hopeless or bottom out.  Henry Cloud has lots of wisdom on that in his book "Necessary Endings."  That dynamic also underlines 12-step programs: Surrender to win.  Before this, my last comeback was around 2004 (Download Geezerguts).

 

Gossip: Changing Industry

From the get-go, civilization learned that gossip was a necessary survival tool.  Cave men depended on information from each other about the most productive hunting spots and who was dallying with whose mate.  In addition to helping human beings make it in harsh circumstances, what was gossiped about informed them of social mores.

So, it's no surprise that in capitalist America gossip grew to be a big industry.  After his ouster from Hollywood, the late Dominick Dunne built a second career as a high end gossiper.  Thanks to the sources he developed his gossipy pieces were published in VANITY FAIR.  Bonnie Fuller was one who have good run with celebrity gossip. Media properties in the gossip niche thrived and some like THE NATIONAL ENQUIRER even gained establisment credibility.

Gossip isn't going away.  It can't.  But the industry is changing.  For example, in JOURNALISM.CO.UK, we find out that in celebrity gossip OK! circulation is down 13.9%, STAR, down 16.4%, and HEAT, down 12.1%.  There, as well as in just plain-vanilla gossip about professionals in business, law, and so on, gossip has migrated from specialty coverage to almost becoming a must-have in all media. Of course, it must be managed artfully for the media property not to lose its credibility.  An example of that is THE WALL STREET JOURNAL Law Blog.  Reporting on developing problems in a law firm where partners are defecting is mixed with careful analysis of a U.S. Supreme Court decision.

And because of social media, low cost and high reach, Everyman and Everywoman can become a kind of Dominick Dunne.  We can do that directly by setting up a blog, Facebook personal and/or fan site, Google+ hangout, and twitter account.  Indirectly, we can do that by leaving comments on other sites.  Those comments are taken so seriously that more media properties as designating staff to monitor the traffic.

Not embedding gossip can be a competitive disadvantage.

 

Brand Ivy League: Is Harvard et al. going way of linear careers in journalism, law, and business?

"Watching the Ivory Tower Topple" - THE WALL STREET JOURNAL, March 24, 2012, by Holly Finn.

Will higher education become the latest battleground for leveling the playing field in opportunity in America?  We all know that life isn't fair.   However,
a fundamental value in this nation has been the priority to eliminate obstacles to professional success.  Among the tools have been affirmative action, formal and informal mentoring, and funding for entrepreneurial activity. 

Now, as THE WALL STREET JOURNAL reports, a new tool - and perhaps the most powerful of them all - has been free online education provided by some of the most seminal and respected minds in academia. This knowledge and insight into issues such as what could be the next frontier in digital technology could equip the determined among us to make it big, without a degree from the Ivies.  As has been hammered into us, many wildly successful business leaders didn't even have a college degree.  The names are familiar: Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Michael Dell, and Mark Zuckerberg.

These online courses such as Sebastian Thurm's dealing with artificial intelligence aren't new.  After all, MIT has been providing them free for a while, although participating doesn't award a degree.   But, again, many degrees both the entry level BA/BS and the advanced kind in journalism, law, and business, no longer guarantee much.  The media are constantly calculating the poor return on investment for such paper credentials.  At best, degrees can open the first door or two.  After that, buddy, you're on your own.

Often the big break comes from, to paraphrase the Nike meme, just having the confidence and drive to get out there and do it.  We might get noticed and/or we might produce an entity which those with money want to fund.  Or we might be offered a plum job such as at Google or Facebook.

Reflection: Should parents still target the Ivies for their children's education? Yes, if the children require that experience and credential to build their professional platform and network. It's a start.

 

MASHABLE PR Must-Dos: Video, customized pitches

MASHABLE, an early adopter of infographics, provides some PR must-dos.  In an article by Heather Whaling, we hear yet one more time about the importance of video. Forrester Research found that when video is attached to text, there's a 53 times better chance versus naked text that it will wind up on the first page of Google.  Increasingly, media, both standard and digital, expect video attached.  As one media expert told me, "Consider video the new photo.  Without it, the media won't bother with you.

The other must-do is the customized pitch.  Just as with sending out cover letters, the pitch has to contain specific information why that particular media person should be interested in the topic and topical information which makes covering the topic urgent.  For example, right now but not for much longer Slutville provides a good platform for pitching a story on the seeming desperation of the GOP.

Over-50, Communications Pros Struggling on Web/Mobile: Why divorce might be a good thing

By 2013, 90% of traffic on the web will be video, up from 30% today. (Source: Cisco Systems) 

By 2014, 60% of the world's mobile data traffic will be video. (Source: MeFeedia)

No surprise, AT&T has established new rules on the terms and conditions for its unlimited data downloads for smartphones.

Also, no surprise is a recent study.  That study "Gray Divorce Revolution" by Susan Brown and I-Fen Lin, reports Susan Gregory Thomas in THE WALL STREET JOURNAL, found that the rate of divorce has doubled in the past 2 decades for Baby Boomers.  That is at a time when that rate has leveled off in other generations.  Maybe, just maybe, we are finding that to simply keep up in our field of communications, we have to re-evaluate the return on investment (ROI) on marriages.  Holding them together may drain off too much of our energy + distract us from our game.

We all know that a well-put together marriage provides the platform for the emotional, social, and economic support most of us humans need to navigate the demands of professional life.  Examples of that seem to be the marriage of Ron Paul, Rupert Murdoch, and, yes, Hillary Clinton. We have also witnessed how dysfunctional and fraying marriages become obvious in how people operate.  Something is off, or at least missing.  Boy, does it ever show.  Examples are Alicia's marriage on "The Good Wife," Marilyn Monroe's to Arthur Miller ("My Week With Marilyn"), and Mr. Bates's first on "Downton Abbey."

The wisdom of lopping off what doesn't work, despite the trauma, isn't anything new.  Way back in 1987, Judith Viorst published what was breakthrough at the time "Necessary Losses." It contained the rationale for the meme of our time: moving on.  The 2010 version of that is "Necessary Endings" by Henry Cloud.  The 2012 update is "Aging as a Spiritual Practice" by Lewis Richmond.

 

New "Sacred" = Where, when we don't bring our smartphones

This has become the era when we have to create our own concept of "sacred."  After all, even on Christmas, given the global economy, some of us put in almost a full day of work. 

What that sacred might consist of, offers MIT professor Sherry Turkle, is the places and times we stay clear of our smartphones and other devices.  In an article in MASHABLE by Adam Ostrow, Turkle explains how our fiddling around with digital means of communications often distracts us from really connecting with ourselves - and others. To remedy this, we have to take charge of what part devices will have in our lives and work.

Prediction: Marriages will break up because one or more parties are bringing devices into the bedroom and other intimate spaces.