A Twain approach to social media separation
They say any anecdote attributed to Mark Twain is probably apocryphal. So here’s one that probably fits that category. Twain, famously a critic of the telephone, supposedly once dismissed a ringing telephone by saying he installed it for his own convenience, not that of his callers.
That anecdote, whether or not it’s apocryphal, came to mind when I read USA Today’s story, “Some ditch social networks to reclaim time, privacy.” The headline pretty much captures the point of the story.
Their reasons run the gamut from being besieged by online “friends” who aren’t really friends to lingering concerns over where their messages and photos might materialize. If there’s a common theme to their exodus, it’s the nagging sense that a time-sucking habit was taking the “real” out of life.
Now people are joking (online, of course, via Twitter, Facebook and other tools) about Google Buzz. “Just got Google Buzz access. Thank God, I needed yet another place to post status updates,” buzzed Jim Brady, with tongue firmly in cheek.
The USA Today spends a lot of time on the trend of some people deleting online profiles or using software to handle the task for them. I favor clicking the “sign out” button when the connections get too much or they get in the way of real life. Accounts on social networking sites are for my convenience.
Journalists’ lessons — from companies like Dell?
Richard Binhammer (Credit: www.briansolis.com via Flickr)
I came across the social media engagement report in July from Wetpaint and Altimeter focusing on how companies measure the bottom-line effectiveness of their social media efforts. The report focused on four companies — Dell, Starbucks, SAP and Toyota. The online database/website focuses on a great many more. To me, it’s not surprising that the study found…
…that the most valuable brands in the world are experiencing a direct correlation between top financial performance and deep social media engagement. The relationship is apparent and significant: socially engaged companies are in fact more financially successful. So now we know it pays to be social, but it is important to note that by “social,” we’re talking about deep engagement, not merely having a presence.
The report ranked the level of social engagement by various brands. Dell was second. That, of course, is noteworthy four years after the “Dell Hell” period, in which the company seemed to turn a deaf ear to the rage in the blogosphere over various customer service issues. Chief among the negative bloggers was Jeff Jarvis, who shared intimately his own customer service issues with Dell, and later declared an end to Dell Hell in Business Week after having an opportunity to interview Michael Dell himself and spend time at the company.
Not long after the Engagement report came out, I was offered the chance to speak to Richard Binhammer, Dell’s senior manager of corporate affairs. This was shortly after the uproar over the Washington Post’s social media guidelines for its newsroom. So it was amusing to see how open and engaged a massive company like Dell was willing to allow its employees to be. Read more
Musings on the start of the college hunt
A mailer from Roosevelt University, featuring the 'Cloud Gate' in Chicago's Millennium Park.
My wife and I recently realized we wouldn’t be talking about anything else for the next eight months but college admissions and financial aid. Those of you who are parents: Remember when the kids were born and you couldn’t talk about anything but poop and sleep? This is the next self-absorbed stage of our lives, now that our daughter is starting the college search in earnest.
- I am flabbergasted at the amount of money colleges spend on marketing. They don’t even know if my daughter is interested in their program. They don’t even know if she’s academically qualified for admission. We have received extraordinary, glossy, four-color publications from universities that, frankly, I don’t think would accept my daughter.
- How do you like that mailer from Roosevelt University? See the name in the clouds, and (improbably) reflected in the Cloud Gate in Chicago’s Millennium Park? Well, that’s my daughter’s first name. Amazing.
- Thanks to my friend Scott Anderson, here’s a link to Mashable’s 10 Ways to Use Social Media to Pick a College. So far, we’ve just started to scratch the surface.
- Facebook, of course, is the go-to site for my daughter. She’s found and quizzed current students and alumni at several schools she’s considering.
- I’ve registered on Scholarships.com and filled out all the information about my daughter. So far, I’m not impressed with the results.
Cardinals’ GM slams troll in Post-Dispatch chat
St. Louis Cardinal's General Manager John Mozeliak.
This is wonderful. St. Louis Cardinals General Manager John Mozeliak has done a number of online chats with fans on the Post-Dispatch’s web site. He is candid and wants to hear and respond to the questions. But he let an online troll have it during a chat on Wednesday.
My colleague, Post-Dispatch columnist Bernie Miklasz, sets up the scenario better than I could in his column on Thursday. In it, Bernie (an active online participant himself) really captures the essence of online community and etiquette. I’m going to quote from it liberally, because the link won’t be good forever.
But first, the good stuff. Read more
Excerpts from social media intership essays
Several weeks ago, I posted an item here inviting applications for a social media internship at the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. The applications arrived, the decision was made (although I cannot announce it here just yet) and we are preparing to move ahead.
I asked applicants to submit an essay “describing why social media is a vital tool for journalists and ways they should embrace it.”
Unfortunately, I wasn’t prescient enough to think about asking their permission to post their essays with their names. Not sure they would have agreed anyway, since they all couldn’t get the internship. I am, however, posting several excerpts from their essays, because I think they’re worth reading. Read more
Kurt's Tweets- Funny. SW airlines magazine bothers to mention that pacemakers are always authorized electronic devices. #fb
- A disgrace, St. Louis. People still litter? http://post.ly/OUsk
- Redemption for Lindsey Jacobellis in snowboardcross? Only click if you really wanna know. http://bit.ly/99OgbM
- West Countians: If you're in the market for a pancake supper tonight, there's one here: http://stmartinschurch.org.
- The fiddling continues, even as Rome burns.