Jane Genova: Speechwriter - Ghostwriter

LinkedIn: Content player, big time (probably figured out this direction from all its data)

LinkedIn started out as a no-nonsense (hold most of the photos) social networking site for professionals.  It drew plenty of attention, including from the federal government, for all the labor data it collected and had available for analysis in real time. 

We have to assume that, based on that data, LinkedIn concluded that it had to also provide content to its members, that networking opportunities weren't enough.  Security analysts have been speculating that the threat to LinkedIn isn't from me-too professional networking sites but from customized niches which focus laser-like on specialties such as family practice doctors or intellectual property lawyers.  For information and insight, professionals will go directly to those sites, bypassing LinkedIn.

So, it's no surprise, as MASHABLE reports, that LinkedIn has purchased Pulse for content.  Pulse has 750 publishers.  Earlier LinkedIn had grown in-house a content site which featured the material of influentials such as Richard Branson. 

Can LinkedIn become the one-stop shop for everything professionals need?  Could be.  Already it is leveraging its BigData for recruiting.  That could knock traditional recruiters and help-wanted sites like Craigslist out of the box.

Speechwriters As Communications Strategists: Leaders out there talking again

In keynote speeches to 1,000 attendees and in small meetups in Silicon Valley with innovators, leaders are out there talking. 

After a fall-off in demand for speechwriters which lasted almost a decade, there are plenty of searches going on for those with proven skills, including strategy, in executive communications.  For example, David Murray's Vital Speeches of the Day site carries these help-wanted from MetLife, New York University, DaVita Pharmacies, and the American Chemical Society.

Much of the demand is for full-timers.  However, for those of us who know how to market, opportunities have been opening up in contract work.  The challenge I faced was repositioning myself as an expert in executive communications versus one in social media.  The paradigm shift, within myself and externally in promotional materials, took about eight months.

One of the most effective moves was overhauling my LinkedIn profile to focus only on executive communications.  During a period of about six weeks, which entailed myriad revisions, I kept adding details such as publication credits and background information about full-time experience in the Fortune 100.  Even before prospective clients "google" us, they will go to LinkedIn, I have found. Currently, it is our most important credential.

Another tactic which has been on the  money was sending out unsolicited pitches.  Back in the 1970s, Richard Bolles explained in the book "What Color Is Your Parachute?" that most work comes in through contacting employers cold.  Don't wait for a job ad to appear.  That is still true.  Those who might need our services save those emails from us.  Ten weeks after my last marketing campaign a boutique public relations contacted with plum speechwriting assignments.

To be of use in strategy, what I have found necessary is viewing the many videos which feature public speaking.  At the top of the list are those who have been presented at TED.  Speakers want to be in the ballpark of that kind of tone and provocative material.

Jane Fonda: Sweet Jesus, save us from any more apologies

Perhaps with no more reinventions up her sleeve, Jane Fonda has sunk to the common attention-getter of providing an apology.  In this case it's for posing in 1972 with North Vietnamese soldiers aboard a tank in Hanoi.

We wish Jane would have spared us the apology.  After all, we are burdened with so many of them these days, the worst of the batches accompanied by tears.

Sweet Jesus, apologies have always been attention-getting nuisances.  Those making them are usually so self-centered that they don't realize that society just wants them to go away and stay away.

Since the 1930s when Alcoholics Anonymous had been founded there is a non-stop group of folks making their amends, usually to those who, as expected, don't want to even hear from them.  There's a rush of some kind that goes with amend-making and, I have a hunch, it's an addictive process in itself.  Therefore, like Jane, members of 12-step programs will reach deep into their past to find situations to apologize for.

In the public interest, the best and brightest in public relations can create a campaign to call a moratorium on apologies for 10 years.  In itself it could prevent some disturbed people from screwing up just so that they have a platform for an apology.

Anyone intending apologizing to me will have to encounter a moat stocked with alligators and the drawbridge drawn down.

Bro, Can You Spare Me a Link: Ham-handed SEO

Social media is mature.   It's light years since Robert Scoble triggered shock and awe with the book "Naked Conversations" which he co-wrote with Shel Israel.  In it, the two evangelists informed the world that business had become a conversation. 

To become part of that conversation, everyone who wanted to make a buck or have influence set up a site and sought the counsel of the search engine optimization experts (SEO) about attracting traffic and comments.  Those were the days before likes, shares, tweets, and retweets.  For most that didn't work out so hot.  That's because they didn't really understand how to conduct a digital conversation which resonates. Just as fatal they didn't know how to network with those who could provide them inbound links which had a lot of Google juice.

SEO is no different from any other business process.  You have to know what sells, what incentives will help you sell more, how to attract hotties on the net who will link to your material, and how to keep coming up with what's new and will resonate.

This month this blog is eight years old.  Compared to the big guys like BUSINESS INSIDER and DRUDGE REPORT, I am a two-bit player.  But from the get-go, I have been hounded by those requesting, usually in the most ham-handed way, links.  They will fail most tests for Emotional Intelligence (EI).  Currently, it's even more difficult for them to get the inbound links they want.  Yet, they haven't figured out how to play the SEO game.  They may never.  They may simply be stuck in the pre-digital era when business was not a conversation.

BUSINESS INSIDER + TIMES INTERNET: It takes an infrastructure

 

Henry Blodget's BUSINESS INSIDER is following in the footsteps of GAWKER in partnering with TIMES INTERNET, the digital part of TIMES OF INDIA.

That's what TECH CRUNCH reports today. Like HUFFINGTON POST, they are expanding their brand overseas.  This requires infrastructure.  And all three media properties have that.

The loose wild west days of digital are over.  Back then we early adopters in blogging, Facebook, and Twitter could make names for ourselves.  It was awesome how once-nobodies could receive links from powerful media like THE WALL STREET JOURNAL and THE NEW YORK TIMES.

Except for an occasional big hit - here is an example - most of us pioneers have become minor players in digital.  The social media expert who coached me in blogging in 2005, the marketing pro who used her blog to give mine traction, and I myself have all sought out full-time jobs.  Sure we do lots of freelance work on the side but essentially it's not stable enough to guarantee a good living.  Before, we had more offers to do freelance assignments than we could handle.

There are builders like Blodget, Nick Denton, and Arianna Huffington.  Then there are creatives like myself.  The Internet has gone to the builders, with mobile heading that way.  The best I can expect is to be able to remain part of the global conversation. 

In Buddhism, we learn: Everything changes. Often that change is an ordeal.

Blissed-out Monk in McDonald's

I had neither the orange robe nor the shaved head of a Buddhist monk.  But I took the license an official monk would be tolerated to take in McDonald's in lower Manhattan. 

I put my left hand over my right one, as I had been instructed at the New Haven Zen Center and made a tower with my two index fingers.  Then I directed a half gaze at the floor and began to meditate. I had to. In an hour I was going to meet the big boss for the new job I had in legal ecommerce (you bet, my legal blog helped me get the job).  This was my third week, mostly telecommuting from New Haven to lower Manhattan.  The big boss has a reputation for his genius in BigData. In the 70s, I dropped a statistics course.

Immediately, thanks to the coaching I have been receiving at the New Haven Zen Center from guiding teacher Ken Kessel, I entered a blissed-out state.  As I focused on the breathe, I repeated to myself, "May I be free from suffering." That mantra I borrowed from the book "Radical Acceptance" by Tara Brach.

Members of the staff at the startup company were astounded that the big boss gave me so much time.  What might have kept him in the room with me were the vestiges from  the glow from McDonald's.  One more thing: The powers-that-be agreed to pick up the tab (huge) for my extreme commute, including lunch, from New Haven to downtown New York City.  It consists of a bus, a walk to the train station, the Metro North to Grand Central, the #4 subway, a walk to the office building, and a sensible salad and Diet Coke at McDonald's.

 

A Blog: Power to delete

In the late 1980s, when Hedrick Smith published his landmark book "The Power Game," the blog didn't exist.  Otherwise, Smith probably would have listed it as a source of power, along with the ability to give access, self-confidence, likability, and prevent movement on an initiative.

It's impossible to list all the ways in which a blog creates power. Those range from being able to participate in the digital conversation to creating a web presence.  But one of the most emotionally satisfying sources of power is that we can delete what's been posted on our site.  And if we are not stuck in over-valuing sunk costs like the huge time investment in producing content we will do just that.

This week a real estate broker on one of the various "Gold Coasts" in the wealthy U.S. made a good case for mentioning one of his properties on my blog.  Fine.  Then he committed the ultimate crime against social intelligence by complaining about a link in it.  Without a blink of an eye, I deleted it.  The next morning through email and phone he huffed and he puffed. But he, of course, couldn't bring the deleted post back from its final resting place in cyberspace.

That's power. 

Infographics: And the word was made graphics

Words aren't going away.  They just can't be stand-alone any more.  Text mandates graphic support. 

No surprise Huffington Post has a help-wanted on Craigslist - here you can read it - for a communications professional competent in Infographics and other kinds of graphics.  For a while we have been a visual society.  However, the migration to graphics being a must-do has been accelerated by all the digital content competing for our attention.  Text accompanied by graphics will win out over naked words, both in short and long form.

Mashable had been an early adopter of Infographics everything.  Soon enough, on sites I blogged for the editors featured those contributions which had graphics such as charts.  It's obvious for us in writing that we have to add to our toolbox the wrenches and hammers to put together ways to graphically illustrate the points made in the text.

Juan Monteverde, Partner, and Alexandra Marchuk, Junior Lawyer: A juicy scandal raises all traffic figures

On a slow traffic day for blogs, a juicy sexual scandal seems like a gift from the search-engine gods.  A scandal which occurs at a white-shoe law firm like Faruqi & Faruqi allegedly between powerful partner Juan Monteverde and junior attorney Alexandra Marchuk is one that will keep giving.  The details have been reported by Peter Lattman at THE NEW YORK TIMES.

Marchuk contends in a lawsuit that Monteverde, who's a big name in plaintiff "say on pay law," forced sex on her in the office.  Our minds. of course, wonder was it on the carpet, on a leather sofa, under the desk in the conference room, or maybe in a closet.  As Lattman reports, Faruqi & Faruqi plans to defend itself so this lawsuit could make it to trial.  A good time could be had by all in the courtroom and those who cover the proceedings will continue to have heavy traffic. 

We in the media thank Lattman for bringing this legal matter mainstream.

Social Media: Where Science and Spirituality Intersect

 The great promise of low-cost, convenient digital communications organizations could leverage for marketing and advocacy often has given away to frustration. 

Even those who hire the brandname experts in scientific fields such as search engine optimization (SEO) and initially get results find the methodologies soon reach the point of diminishing or no returns. The reason is that the web and mobile are just-in-time mediums.  They are always changing.  Simultaneously the marketplace also is changing, often in hours.  The competitor inserts the keyword "predictive analytics" on the website and Twitter.  That move leaves your commercial messaging, as well as your business which doesn't leverage BigData, at a disadvantage which will continue to grow.

How to navigate Fast Time?  Of course, we have to do continual course correction.  Last month's bundle of tactics which generated a viral communication - here is a case study of an example -  might constitute a flawed approach today. 

But the prerequisite to being able to "course correct" on a dime is to be able to embrace change as a fundamental reality.  Not easy, especially for us Baby Boomers who were trained and rewarded in Corporate America for conforming to set policies and procedures.  That kind of professional socialization can keep us stuck.

To get unstuck or at least try to, I had to turn to Buddhism, a way of thinking which the Beatles, Steve Jobs, and Leonard Cohen also found the tool for staying open.  For several months I have become a "regular" at the New Haven Zen Center in Connecticut. On Sunday mornings and Wednesday evenings, the group of monks and ordinary people like myself meditate.  The most useful mantra I have stumbled upon is breath in, focus on "Clear Thinking" and breath out, focus on "Don't Know." 

The mindset of Not Knowing takes the heat off us in this time of unprecedented economic turbulence for having all the answers.  Instead, we are free to search for what might be effective today.