What's the Feeling You Get?

You've been Dooced

2008-03-28T11:00:00.008-04:00

Dooce (Heather Armstrong) is an American blogger who was recently chosen as one of the world's 50 most powerful blogs by the British newspaper The Guardian. Dooce came in at #5 and the accomplishment boggled the mind of even Dooce - "Do the people who write The Guardian drop mushrooms on a regular basis?" - Dooce.

The 'phenomenon' of online journals/Blogging continues to evolve, but Dooce is a great example of the power of social media. Many Bloggers are now able to make a living off the advertising revenues from their blogs, which although is quite a feat in itself, seems to pale in comparison when you realize that "Dooce" is a personal journal.

Dooce's blog started in 2001 when she moved to L.A. to work at a webdesign company and began to blog about her job and her coworkers. Unfortunately, most of those blogs were made up of comments that weren't exactly positive. Somehow, a fellow coworker stumbled upon this and all hell broke loose. Dooce was fired from her job because of the blog .

Dooce is a social media pioneer in the sense that she was one of the first Bloggers to be fired from their jobs because of its contents. The term "Dooce" has even been coined, with an entry in Urban Dictionary

Dooce -

To be fired from you job because of the contents of your weblog.

Dude, did you hear what happened to Mary? she got dooced.

Fortunately, Dooce was able to make lemonade out of lemons, and after losing her job, the popularity of Dooce skyrocketed. She continued to write about the struggles with her depression, Mormon past, and motherhood, and less serious but still popular topics such as constipation, Britney Spears, and of course everyday life. My friend is an avid reader of Dooce and has been for a few years now, but is still amazed at the popularity of Dooce. Not surprisingly, my friend is also immersed in many other aspects of online social media and follows a variety of blogs ranging from politics, technology, to music, but Dooce is the only blog that she reads on a daily basis. She has no idea what makes people come back to Dooce's blog, but feels that her honesty, humour, and great writing (Dooce graduated as an English major) is what keeps people interested.

Regardless of the phenomenon that is Dooce's popularity, the fact remains that through the rise of social media as a routine part of everyday life, Dooce is now able to support her family through advertising revenues, and just recently finished the manuscript for her first major book deal.

As for advice to fellow Bloggers who are tempted to vent out their workplace frustration online? Dooce says "BE YE NOT SO STUPID".

The Body of Facebook

2008-03-19T10:24:00.011-04:00

Now that Chris Avenir's academic fate has now been decided, his 15 minutes of fame is close to over. He's the first-year Ryerson engineering student that ran the risk of expulsion after creating a Facebook group for a chemistry assignment, that was supposed to be done individually. He wasn't expelled, which is a win, but received a mark of zero on the assignment and had his passing grade restored.

In a nutshell, "Facebook is a social utility that connects you with the people around you." It has only been around for four years and was first limited to connecting Harvard University students. Then they expanded to university students, high school students, and finally to any one over the age of 13.

If anything it might have given Ryerson some bad publicity and PR; why would you condemn a student for something he would have done anyway? What's the difference between having a group discussion on an online space or in person? My once professor, James Norrie has made numerous statements since the beginning. I heard him this morning on 680 News, saying that Ryerson doesn't discourage the use of technology, but rather have it used in the right manner.

The difference is now we can track it.

Events such as Chris Avenir's case isn't uncommon in today's social media world. We constantly hear social media tools being called to the forefront due to alleged 'misuse' - anything from the personal journal of a mass murderer, to racially charged social groups on the internet - the tool can vary, but social media is here to stay, and this can affect PR in two ways:

One
Facebook's PR (and other social media sites) must learn to deal with the publicity of its high profile effect on social media - from monitoring how users use the tool, to dealing and reacting to controversies regarding member usage.

Facebook itself is having PR issues: not banning pro-anorexia groups, but forcing a mother to pull pictures of her breast-feeding her child off the site. Sites like Facebook will need to learn how to balance the ability to network anyone and everyone by being smart about its terms of use and excluding the right people. Monitoring on a case by case basis will be essential, where as general, wide sweeping restrictions will negatively affect its popularity amongst users.

Two
As PR people, we have to understand the beast that social media is and what it means. As we've learned, we couldn't control the media then and we definitely can't control social media now. A case like Avenir's re-enforces Facebook's popularity and its continual growth. Another social media tool that the PR person has to handle.

We need to incorporate social media in our communication plans. We need to recognize the power of social media sites such as Facebook and learn to adapt to situations where our client or industry maybe "called out."

The goal here is not to develop a game plan to deal with when we need to react to a PR crisis related specifically to Facebook, or MySpace - but to be able to recognize social media and its long term effects on PR, regardless if Facebook eventually bites the dust as the "Friendster" of 2008. The tools may come and go and users will be quick to jump on the next big social media craze, whatever that may be.

The point is that the vision of social media and it's ability to network the entire world is here to stay.

What's your FTYG?

Here's a quick evolution of social network utilities, all of which I'm a part of. This is not an exclusive list and doesn't include any professional networking tools.

Asianavenue – where all Asians united. It was my first taste of simple html code, which then led to my extreme annoyance of thousands of "Angel.Music.Baby" names.
Friendster – expanded my network because not only did I get to connect with my Asian friends but all of my other friends as well.
Hi5 – which is more popular with Central Americans.
MySpace – which everyone thought would be the "kicker-sticker." The one and only online friends networking website that would be here to stay. Was I ever wrong.
Facebook flooded the online networking-sphere with a ferocity to behold no others before it.

Informational Interviews

2008-03-04T14:03:00.008-05:00

Maybe I haven’t been in the working world for too long, but the idea of an informational interview was new to me. So you’re telling me that you go into a company and you interview them, too see if YOU like it?

Well, that’s what I did a couple of weeks ago. I went to National PR, one of the largest PR agencies in North America, with clients such as TD Canada Trust to Becel.

I spent the day acquiring an abundance of knowledge and seeing how challenging agency life can be; mostly for the comprehensive experience and diverse clientèle. I met with 10 employees and spoke with each one of them for about 15 minutes each. However, with each person I met, I found it difficult to keep track of time. They all had so much to say and offer me. I appreciate them taking the time out to speak with me. I guess that's what happens when you’re trying to cram so much knowledge into a short 15 minutes.

I must say I lucked out being chosen for this mentorship. I always wanted to do non-for-profit. But as I did the interviews from each practice, it’s like I saw myself liking each practice for a different reason.

When I spoke with Nina, in the Corporate practice, she explained that every practice has their own little sub-culture, from what they wear to how they socialize. I definitely observed it as I was there. Marketing was described as a more laid-back, casual bunch, while the Clinical Research practice was a totally different from the rest of the firm; in terms of what they did and how they accomplished it. But still, no one would work as effectively as they do without help from other practices.

This interview has shown me the importance of an informational interview; even though you are interested, you still have to fit. I guess what’s most impressive is that every one there has found a place that works for them, because there’s so much variety.

Two reasons for an informational interview; see if you fit and to substantiate your interests.

Back to Reality Again

2008-02-27T14:42:00.003-05:00

I'm back from the Philippines. It was a most excellent trip. We definitely made good use out of a short two weeks. I got to see plenty of family with plenty of food. I don't know how or why, but food just tastes so much better over there.

The reason for going on a 21 hr flight for such a short duration was because it was more of a business trip. I got to speak with some of the top people from VIVA Records, and witnessed first hand some of the differences between business practices of the east and west. From the two-handed presentation of a business card to them walking you to the elevator after every meeting, to wind down.

Real good things came out of the trip, but now it's time to play catch up.

The Pinas

2008-02-21T12:23:00.003-05:00

I haven't posted for a while. I was planning on posting form the Philippines, which is called Pinas, locally. I've had internet problems for the past week, but am online now and ready to go.

Extremely fun, but extremely exhausting. In the day, I'm in the Philippines; in the night, it's Toronto time zone. Bags under my eyes and loving it.

Super Roone

2008-02-03T18:57:00.000-05:00

I'm sitting here watching the Super Bowl wondering how this whole sports thing got so popular and stumbled upon Roone Arledge. He was an " American sports broadcasting pioneer who was chairman of ABC News from 1977 until his death, and a key part of the company's rise to competition with the two other main broadcasting stations, NBC and CBS, in the '60s, '70s, and '80s" (Wikipedia). Turns out he made quite a contribution to the wonderful Wide World of Sports, literally.

He took the generic football game and asked, "How do I make people care?" In the 60s, there were no exciting shots or digital effects to rely on. No scrolling score banner. He wanted to change viewers' behaviours and increase ratings by making them care about all teams and their rankings other than just their hometown team. Now, we know how one loss affects the ranking of another team and we check the score to figure out who's barely winning.

He needed to find a way to attract and retain an audience for their low-budget sports programming. He gave viewers context. He made each game mean something to the viewer by taking away the wide boring shots and getting close with fans interviews before games, added tidbits about game rules, created a mood between rival teams, and instant replays to name a few. For Monday Night Football it is the "Thrill of victory, agony of defeat."

He found a way to target an audience and change their behaviour by creating a gap in knowledge and helping viewers close it. Now the NFL, ESPN, Wide World of Sports take in millions of dollars a year on contracts and licenses, which is a whole other post in itself.

The Super Bowl has now become one of the most anticipated sports events of the year. This year's match up is interesting: A truly undefeated year, or brothers win back-to-back. Either way, someone's gonna get a hurt real bad

Back to reality

2008-01-14T14:41:00.001-05:00

2007 has brought many surprises, but not as many as 2008 has brought in a short while. Coming back from a cruise with 74 people in our group is all about communication.

What has it taught me? You can't just bring whoever you want on a cruise. There's a saying, "You haven't lived till you've cruised." I can concur with this statement to a certain degree. However, quoting my uncle who cruises quarterly, might not be the best idea.

Communication. Who is doing what, when, how, until what time? It was absolute communication mayhem. Lots to do, little to say. No matter how many times you think you have it down right, someone will always be left behind, be late for dinner, go for a smoke break on the wrong deck, when you were told exactly where to go.

My FTYG, tired. I think I need a vacation from that cruise. You want to make sure you get all you can in. If it means sacrificing some sleep, then it means sleeping two hours a day.

The struggle to keep harmony between family is probably one of the best examples I can come up with when it comes too communication. The five conflict behaviours identified by Thomas (1976). I don't remember his first name, but it's something I picked up from OB.

You have:

The Compromiser - who is willing to sacrifice doing a wine tasting to sleep an extra half hour.

The Accommodator - who doesn't care what they do, even it they don't want to do it, just for the sake of a) doing something b) not wanting get into the middle of things and c) maybe just didn't care

The Competitor - who will by any means get everyone to do what they want to do, or else...Which usually means, the accommodator is not far behind.

The Avoider - who will try to avoid miscommunication and conflict by not recognizing it until it has imploded to a point of no return. Which usually means the compromiser is not far behind trying to explain why such things have happened.

The best would have to be the Collaborator - who I would like to say is myself, but would be talking total rubbish if I did. They try to amalgamate all the ideas that each of the other four have and make this one great outing that everyone would be happy doing. Which usually ends up being drinking at SkyWalker's on deck 18.

Communicating a message to each one of these people has to be done in a certain way, so one message that I thought would be universally easy, ended up having to be said five different ways.
All to accommodate the audience.

Not to hard to figure out which one I am.