Archive for June, 2005
June 29, 2005
Taking It to the Streets
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Had a very interesting time this past Monday serving on a panel during the annual conference of the International Association of Business Communicators, organized by Debbie Weil. Got to meet Bill Betts of General Motors, home of the excellent Fastlane blog; and Paul Rosenfeld of Intuit, the evangelist behind the QuickBooks Online blog. We hit it off right away and enjoyed a good back-and-forth in what was, unfortunately, far too short a time to deal with all the questions we had from the audience (and for each other).
One thing I found particularly interesting: while there has always been a lot of talk about using blogs to “bypass” the mainstream media (MSM) and reach an audience directly, blogs can actually play a key role in reaching those very same establishment MSM types.
Bill pointed out that GM has discovered several journalists have quoted long passages directly from blog posts authored by vice chairman Bob Lutz (and yes, he writes them himself, usually on his BlackBerry) — when those same journalists might include only a brief excerpt from an official press release.
The conversational nature of a blog makes it seem more like a “discovery” than the latest quote pulled from a blowdried and vetted official statement. More “real.” And apparently, more likely to get quoted.
June 29, 2005
Voice & Viewpoint
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I have to give another shout-out to Pat Cleary’s blog over at the National Association of Manufacturers. One of the biggest questions I still hear from association folks is concern over whether or not an association-sponsored blog can develop the individual “voice” that makes blogs compelling places to visit.
Yes, you can, and Pat’s blog is proof. You want voice and viewpoint? Check out his ongoing “Dobbs Watch” posts, where he calls CNN’s Lou Dobbs to task over, well, everything. Or the “drip drip drip” posts about troubles at the AFL-CIO. It’s obvious that Pat, who is a senior vice president at NAM, enjoys posting to his blog — and that makes it enjoyable (and worthwhile) to read as well.
June 29, 2005
Killer App?
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Okay, so the new iTunes 4.9 may be the killer app for podcasting. I never really focused much on podcasts because I didn’t think it was worth the bother to figure out how to subscribe to and download them. Now that Apple has made it easy to find and subscribe, I might actually listen to a few.
June 28, 2005
So Information Wants to Be Free. Who Cares?
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Yes, as the old technophile saying goes, information does want to be free … which is exactly why we have copyright law. And the Supreme Court ruling yesterday on file sharing was the right one to make.
As one might expect, there are lots of opinions floating around the blogosphere that take an opposing view. Much gnashing of teeth over the decision, viewed — rightfully — as a huge victory for record companies. It’s amazing the hoops through which some of these bloggers jump in an attempt to justify the fact that they are too cheap to pay for music that they feel, for some inexplicable reason, entitled to listen to. For example, here’s uber-liberal-blogger Matt Yglesias:
“… the first thing to say is that it’s worth distinguishing between the music industry and the film industry. A world where you can’t make a profit selling albums would radically alter the music business but not, I think, kill it off. Recording music is relatively cheap, being a rock star is cool, the vast majority of artists make very little money off CD sales, and musicians have alternative sources of revenue. Movies aren’t like that. They’re inherently expensive to make, many of the contributors have totally ungalamorous jobs, and broad categories of movies don’t have real merchandising opportunities. Without copyright, you’d have less new music recorded, but by no means none. What’s more, music would be free — which is a real advantage. A film industry without copyright, by contrast, is hard to imagine. So I think there’s a solid case for treating these things differently.”
Uh, no, there isn’t. I’m quite thankful that we haven’t decided to carve out different versions of copyright law for different industries based on whether or not we think individual participants couldn’t figure out a different way to make money. I mean, really.
And, well, I guess music being free would be a “real advantage.” So would free HBO, free Internet access, free booze on Friday nights — hell, free just-about-anything. (I don’t see how free cauliflower could be viewed as an advantage for anyone. But you may disagree.)
In the association world — at least the one I live and work in — we sell information. That’s pretty much what we do. So I’m a fairly passionate supporter of copyright and IP protections, because my livelihood, and the profitability of our organization, depends on our ability to protect against misuse of our intellectual property.
Our members join us to get access to our knowledge and information. And that’s how we can afford to produce more knowledge and information. Which members pay for. So we can produce more. Etc.
Since we fully embraced this role as “knowledge broker” our membership has increased significantly (as have our product sales). But at the same time, we also began aggressively policing our intellectual property. The two go hand in hand.
Yes, there’s some information and content that we make available for free — some because we feel it improves our industry and furthers our mission. And some because it’s a “hook” that lures future sales. If we gave it all away, though, we wouldn’t be in business for very long.
If you have information that wants to be free — and you want to make it free — then by all means, do so. But don’t take away other people’s right to sell theirs. It’s what the creator wants that matters.
June 15, 2005
Corporate Blogging Policies
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In the evolving world of “corporate blogging,” a number of companies have published blogging policies. Here’s a comparison of the ones that have been made publicly available. (Hat tip: Debbie Weil.)
June 14, 2005
Innovation for Its Own Sake
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While I’ve expressed fascination for the wiki concept and wondered how it may best be applied in associations (and haven’t yet figured it out), yesterday’s NYT article on Michael Kinsley’s editorial shake-ups at the LAT left me scratching my head:
This week, the newspaper, will introduce an online feature called "wikitorials," as a way for readers to engage in an online dialogue with the paper. The model is based on "Wikipedia," the Web’s free-content encyclopedia that is edited by online contributors. "We’ll have some editorials where you can go online and edit an editorial to your satisfaction," Mr. Martinez said. "We are going to do that with selected editorials initially. We don’t know how this is going to turn out. It’s all about finding new ways to allow readers to interact with us in the age of the Web." Mr. Kinsley said that he was just trying something new with the wikitorials. "It may be a complete mess but it’s going to be interesting to try," he said. "Wikitorials may be one of those things that within six months will be standard. It’s the ultimate in reader participation."
I look forward to seeing what they come up with, but I can’t for the life of me figure out the point. (Hey, it may be kind of a dumb idea, but not nearly as dumb as NYT’s plan to start charging for access to its op-ed page online.)
UPDATE: Well, it was a nice try, anyway.