MEDIA deluge - Social Media, MSM Engagement

What Columbine Taught me about Crisis Communications

Mon, 20 Apr 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Ten years ago, I was living and working in Colorado for Jefferson County Public Schools. I left a startup in the Seattle area for the school district communications department where I was a twenty-something school district administrator primarily responsible for research and “high tech” communications. It was an unbelievably enriching time both personally and professionally. While I’ll always love Colorado, much of my memory of my professional time there is dominated by crisis communications.

Crises of varying degrees hit organizations every day and while even seemingly mild crises can threaten the future existence of the organization, the severity of the situation is heightened when there is loss of life. With the shootings at Columbine High School, Jefferson County Public Schools was forced to respond to the unthinkable and by any account, a major crisis.

Most crises hit seemingly out of nowhere and communications teams are forced to radically reprioritize scheduled activities and in some cases drop everything to address the crisis immediately and thoroughly. The communications team at Jefferson County Public Schools learned this first hand on April 20, 1999.

Tuesday, April 20 began with the “Good News Breakfast,” an annual gathering to celebrate positive happenings in the school district. Most of the communications staff (there were a total of four communications professionals and two support staff in the communications department at the time of the crisis) went directly from the breakfast to our weekly staff meeting. As we were completing our staff meeting, a call came in from KOA Radio (the region’s largest news radio station) asking for any information about a reported shooting at Columbine High School.

Columbine is one of 17 district high schools within Jefferson County. Jefferson County Public Schools is the largest district in the state of Colorado and one of the largest districts in the country with 18 middle schools and 92 elementary schools and 20 option and charter schools serving approximately 90,000 students at the time.

First 24 Hours

When the call from the radio station was received, we notified the area administrator responsible for Columbine High School, and then attempted to contact the school. When we couldn’t get through to Columbine staff, the head of the communications team and the area administrator traveled the 12 miles to the school. What they found upon arriving at Columbine was worse than they imagined and was continuing to unfold.

The two arrived at Columbine to streets blocked with emergency response vehicles and students and staff evacuating the school. Stories were emerging of multiple student-shooters roaming the school with bombs and terrorizing and shooting indiscriminately.

Upon arriving at the scene, they requested an additional member of the communications team join them on the scene to act as a liaison with the Jefferson County Sheriff’s office –- the agency in command of the scene. The district communications office was now divided into two teams. Two pros on site, communicating with responding agencies, students, staff parents, and the media on the scene. The remaining two communications professionals (myself and a seasoned pro) and two support staff remained at the district office to coordinate district response efforts and communicate with local police, students, staff not on the scene as well as communicate the district response and gather additional information.

While Columbine had a crisis plan and crisis training, and the communication team had managed a wide variety of school and district crises; nothing prepared us for what was unfolded. One of the first steps taken by myself and the team at the district office was to contact other schools where school shootings had occurred. These contacts proved invaluable to the superintendent as she attempted to guide the organization through the tragedy.

We also contacted other trusted school public relations professionals to come to the Jefferson County Public Schools district office and assist with local, regional, national and international media relations.

The superintendent convened district leadership including representatives of the PTA, Board of Education, employee unions and the other district-based communications pro. At the meeting, the group mapped out tasks and parties responsible for the first 24 and 48 hours, first week and ongoing.

This left myself and the support staff, with the help of other district employees to provide information to police about suspected shooters; coordinate school busses to evacuate students; set up and communicate an information hotline manned by district personnel to answer questions, assist parents, and receive donations –- all calls that had been flooding the communications office. This left the communications office phones available for media relations. The volume of calls swamped and temporarily crashed the district phone system. Communications coordinated with other district department personnel to contact all students and staff of Columbine in an attempt to account for everyone who may have been inside the building on April 20.

At this time, the on-site (at Columbine) communications team was collecting and relaying information between Columbine staff, police and the district offices; giving media interviews; and manning the alternative meeting place where parents could pick up students. Myself and the district office team conveyed information and updates to principals at other district schools and department heads to share in meetings with district staff. At the end of the first day (roughly 2:00 a.m.), the communications team convened to exchange information, discuss what worked and what did not and to plan for the upcoming day.

First Week

At that first of what would be many late night meetings, the team made two significant decisions. The first was the decision to utilize volunteer PR professionals. On April 20, several of our colleagues in school PR from across Colorado dropped what they were doing and came to help. They manned the district communications office phones and answered questions from media around the world about the size of the district, number of kids that attended Columbine, etc. The volunteers had proven exceedingly helpful and while their skills were not used very efficiently the first day, the communication team put together a program to better utilize this invaluable help. The communication team created media kits for use by the PR professionals to provide inquiring media with basic information about the school and district. There was a snag in this plan in that most of the volunteers came from smaller area districts where they were the only PR professional. In the days immediately following the tragedy at Columbine copycat incidences arose and the volunteers were needed in their home districts. To overcome this, the Jefferson County Public Schools communication team enlisted help from friends and colleagues from other districts across the country we had met through the National School Public Relations Association. Some of the volunteers were able to come for a few days. Some stayed for longer. Some were not able to come, but could provide support and advice via email and phone conversations. All were given specific tasks and all performed beyond what could have been reasonably asked.

The second decision made in that first late-night planning meeting was equally important. The communication team decided to move our base of operation from the district office to Columbine. The district office is nearly 12 miles from Columbine High School. Local, national and international media parked satellite trucks and set up quasi-permanent locations primarily in Clement Park, adjacent to the school. In the first few days of the crisis, the district was giving or participating in media conferences throughout the day every day. This, in addition to personal interviews and coordinating interviews for school and district staff, took all day and eliminated any opportunity to go back to the district office. This, combined with the need to meet regularly with the other responding agencies, made it necessary to move the district command center as close to Columbine as possible.

The communications team was able to secure a space inside a library adjacent to Clement Park and Columbine High School. The library staff agreed to temporarily close the library to the public for use as a command center by responding agencies. The Jefferson County Public Schools portion of the communications center included:

14 phones connected through the district PBX. The regular communications department phone number was forwarded directly to the library.
12 computers (this was 1999. We didn’t have laptops as our primary machine) connected by T1 to the district email and Internet servers. This allowed the communication team to update the district Web site as new information became available as well as send email updates directly to district staff and key leaders in the community as information became available.
One dedicated incoming and one dedicated outgoing fax machine used to receive information and blast fax media. (again, it was 1999, we faxed press releases)
One poster maker used to enlarge documents. The enlarged documents were then posted on the walls and used by volunteers as giant crib sheets for sharing up-to-date, consistent information.
One copier used to make media kits and handouts for media briefings.
Six TV monitors connected via satellite to monitor local and national news coverage. One volunteer was assigned to monitor press conference coverage and any additional shows / coverage of Columbine (many times throughout the crisis, all six TVs showed Columbine coverage at the same time. The volunteer would provide the communications team with notes that the team used to determine what questions might be asked by the media the following day.
Multiple meeting rooms used for strategy sessions and coordinate with responding agencies.
A bank of cell phones and battery chargers. At the time, cellular battery technology only allowed for about three hours of talk time (we used the motorola bricks). We usually carried two cell phones each. We used one for outgoing and one for incoming calls. The batteries had to be changed out often because the phones were in nearly constant use.

The phone company, in addition to setting up a T1 line within 24 hours of our request, set up a temporary cell tower in the park to accommodate the increased cell phone traffic.

The communications staff of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, as well as federal, state and local law enforcement brought and assembled their own additional equipment in the public library.

During that first week, there were also a tremendous number of copycat incidents within the district and across the country. None resulted in loss of life. I was often the one to respond to those incidences. Before April 20, similar incidents received little to no media coverage, but in the days and week proceeding the tragedy at Columbine, nearly every instance was covered thoroughly by local and sometimes national broadcast media and required a PR professional on site.

We worked roughly 20 hours a day for six weeks without a day off.

Media Relations

The first strategies established by the communication team were primarily for media relations. Through the media is the fastest way to communicate to a large audience and while we continued to use other forms of communication, mass media was the primary mode, especially early on as the crisis was unfolding. The strategies or guiding principals the team established to guide their decision making regarding interview priority and who to provide to the media were as follows:

Strategy 1: Help heal, return to normalcy
 Strategy 2: Stay on message, speak w/ one clear voice

All decisions were based on one underlying question: “Does it help the Columbine students, staff and community heal and return to normal?” As with other communication programs, the team designated one district spokesperson (the superintendent) and one school spokesperson (the principal). The goal to “speak with one clear voice” is easier met when one person is doing the talking. Other district personnel spoke to specific issues as appropriate, but the primary spokespersons – Superintendent Jane Hammond and Principal Frank DeAngelis were the voice of the district and school respectively.

To achieve those goals is difficult in the best of times, but in crisis situations, the demand for information and people to deliver that information compounds. The communication team established some mechanisms that helped achieve their goal. First was the designation of an “air traffic controller.” This person was responsible for taking all media interview requests. Requests were coming in faster than one person could handle so the team created interview request forms that any volunteer could fill out and then pass on to the air traffic controller. The air traffic controller then prioritized the requests and set up the interviews.

In nearly all stages of the crisis the air traffic controller was a volunteer. Assigning this important role to a volunteer (seasoned PR pro) was not obvious to the team initially, but because the district staff communications team were often pulled out of the command center to do interviews or attend meetings, etc. We decided the most effective person to perform that important function was a long-term volunteer.

There were requests from across the country and internationally so the prioritization method was also key. The team rated the local media as the highest priority. The rationale being that the communication team had relationships with those media, those media would be around after the crisis and they too were part of the community. Included with the local media were the small neighborhood publications.

Second, were the national media with local correspondents. We called them “local-nationals.” Denver is a relatively large media market and is the biggest market in a large region. For that reason, many local correspondents live in the local community and report for national media. Third, were the national media and fourth were local affiliates from other parts of the country and fifth was international media.

A significant challenge we faced was balancing the media’s need for information and access with the community’s need to grieve in piece and begin to move forward –- something we found to be difficult with what seemed an omni-present media. To achieve our goal, we hosted a series of “summits” with the media to establish “pools” to cover events.

Before each major milestone like graduation or the first day of school, we invited media representatives to come together to discuss their needs for stories and coverage. Of course, the media did not share story ideas and angles, but most understood that all of them covering a memorial ceremony or special event would be exceedingly cumbersome and invasive. Most agreed to participate in modified media pools. We worked with the media to structure coverage of a given event such that each media outlet would provide a component needed for the coverage and all would share the footage. For example, one provided helicopter coverage, another provided satellite time another a camera crew, etc. This method enabled the media to cover an event and the community felt better about the coverage being less overpowering and invasive.

There were certainly media that disliked this method and there were parents and community members upset that the communication team allowed any media at all, but for the most part this solution satisfied both sides.

This intense media scrutiny availed many opportunities for missteps, mistakes and general screw-ups. For this reason, the communication team enacted what they called the “Sam Donaldson sessions.” During the crisis, there was a time crunch. The team had to do all the things that communication teams typically have to do to successfully get their message across, but they had less time. Usually, when time is short, time for media training / preparation is nonexistent. We leaned early on that this preparation was critical. We dedicated precious time in the “Sam Donaldson sessions” to do that critical work. During these sessions, the person preparing to be interviewed or give a media briefing would be peppered with questions by a panel of communication team members. The intent of the panelists was to rattle the interviewee and they asked the hard questions – always tougher and ruder than any media person ever did. This training proved invaluable to all members of the team. Not only did it prepare the interviewee, but also helped us better anticipate the kinds of questions to which we needed answers.

Ongoing Special Events

When a tragedy strikes and there is loss of life, there is a strong need for people to come together to give and receive support, to remember those that were lost, to try to figure out why, and to just be together. There were a series of events in the wake of the tragedy at Columbine that attempted to provide that forum. Some were private funerals. There were very public memorials where national figures came to share in the community’s sorrow. Both the Vice President and the President of the United States visited. These, in addition to events like Columbine graduation, the first day of school, and homecoming, presented the communications team with an event management role.

Of course some of these, like the funerals, only required a district or school representative to speak. Others were full-scale events and required event management, media coordination, staging, invitations, etc. These were all roles for the our team. The team had to work with other school and district personnel to decide what was appropriate, whom to invite, what kind of media coverage would be acceptable if any and much more.

Initially, many in the community and the staff wondered why the media should be invited to cover any of the events. What would it serve? Was the communication team too closely identified with the media and losing sight of the interests of the community? We consulted with experts in posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) who told us that each time the image of the students evacuating the school was shown, students, staff and people in the community were being retraumatized. The experts recommended working with the media to provide new footage that could be used when reporting updates on the story. The PTSD experts suggested replacing those negative images with positive ones.

We understood that especially the broadcast media would show footage while talking about milestones like graduation and the first day of school so we knew we had to work together with the media to provide those positive images. We went as far as to create a logo for the one-year anniversary in an attempt to change the images the media was broadcasting. The logo was used by the Denver area media.

The events were also helpful in illustrating to the country that Columbine was not a synonym for tragedy, but a high school with a long, rich history. No event better illustrated that the students and staff of Columbine still had their spirit better than when President Bill Clinton visited one month after the shootings. While students were in the auditorium waiting for the President to arrive some began to chant “WE ARE… Columbine.” The chanting grew to pep-assembly-like volume. The President heard the chanting when he arrived and when he got up to address the students; he asked that they repeat the chant. The chanting reflected the positive outlook of the community and the need to stay strong for each other.

Lessons Learned

The most important lesson learned was more of a clarification of the most important asset a PR professional has -– relationships. Strong relationships within the communication team, within the organization, with other agencies, with community leaders, and especially with students and parents can make or break a successful crisis communication program. The organizations and people with whom the relationships were strong prior to the tragedy made for an ease of communication that did not exist with the organizations and people where the relationship was not as strong.

The communication team also learned that there is no place for pride in a crisis. Every team member did every job. Everyone was needed and every task was important.

Another important decision was to meet daily to think and plan. The meetings usually occurred in the middle of the night and at the end of a long day, but they proved invaluable, as that was when all planning and decision-making occurred. Without the sessions, the team would have simply gone out each day and responded to whatever happened that day, meanwhile falling farther and farther behind. Strategizing allowed the team to assess what was working and what wasn’t and plan for the following day or days.

The stress and pressure of the situation took its toll on the team and some members had health problems as a result. Most team members worked from first thing in the morning to late at night for six weeks straight without a day off. The long hours and stress took their toll. In the moment, it is difficult to send people home because in a crisis there is always more to do than can be done, but the team could have done more to recognize the impact of the stress on themselves and others.

Recommendations

I shared some of these in my post about Dominos’ crisis response, but I think they are worth repeating.

In a crisis, there are people in the organization that will want to keep to business as usual as if nothing has happened. It is important that top leadership clear their calendar if necessary to address the crisis. It is the job of the PR professional to insist that leadership do whatever is necessary to address the crisis immediately and credibly.
Do all that you can to view the crisis from the outside. The PR professional must have a sense of how people are reacting. Be a good listener.
Location, space and infrastructure are critical to communication during a crisis. Move to an onsite communications command center if necessary.
Know your key messages and stick to them.
Identify your target audiences and stick to them.
Better to flood your audiences with information than to starve them of it. Send out information as you get it and use all available communication vehicles. People will look to you for the facts, so provide them.
Use the media as a pipeline initially, then broaden your communication tools and focus your messages.
Take control of the situation it is okay to say, “No.”
Do not let media dominate your team’s time and attention.
Take time to plan

I could go on and there is definitely more to talk about and share. What’s most important is that we remember Cassie, Steven, Corey, Kelly, Matt, Daniel M., Daniel R., Rachel, Isaiah, John, Lauren, Kyle, and Coach Dave and we do everything we can to live well and make sure it never happens again.

Dominos Responds to Brand Crisis Through Social Media

Thu, 16 Apr 2009 16:07:00 -0700

Dominos Pizza employees posted a YouTube video of themselves at work at a Conover, N.C. Dominos. One films the other intentionally sneezing on a sandwich, putting the cheese in their nose and doing other unseemly things to the food before delivering it presumably in :30 or less.

According to the New York Times,

“By Wednesday afternoon, the video had been viewed more than a million times on YouTube. References to it were in five of the 12 results on the first page of Google search for “Dominos,” and discussions about Domino’s had spread throughout Twitter.”

(Update: the original video has been removed from YouTube)

This isn’t a crisis like a natural disaster or a shooting (the latter I’ve been thinking about a lot lately as we approach the 10 year anniversary

of the Columbine shootings). This is, however, a brand crisis.

Companies need to be constantly monitoring their brands online such that they can address crises such as this one head on and as it’s happening. Motrin is an example of how social media can go wrong.

Dominoes, however, responded quickly and appropriately. The company very quickly had its own video on YouTube — a very good response to the original video. This is a lesson in crisis management — especially online crisis management. One lesson few large companies understand with crises online or spreading through social media is NOT to issue a press release. Instead speak directly to people on the medium where the crisis is happening. For Dominos, that was YouTube.

The original video was removed from YouTube, but duplicates have since been re-added.

From the NYT:

By Wednesday afternoon, Domino’s had created a Twitter account, @dpzinfo, to address the comments, and it had presented its chief executive in a video on YouTube by evening.

Dominos did several things very well and a few things not so well.

What Dominos did well:

1. Dominos responded swiftly, appropriately, on the media where the crisis was happening (I’m dealing with the social media crisis here and am not addressing what Dominos did or didn’t do with customers of the store where the video originated)

2. The president of Dominos USA was the spokesperson. Always address communications with the right spokesperson. Of course, that’s not always the CEO nor should it be. Dominos recognized the significance of the situation and used the right spokesperson.

3. The Dominos uses conversational language and is noticeably frustrated with the individuals that did this. He was “sickened.” His level of outrage over what they’ve done is appropriate. His delivery is familiar, not stuffy. He’s not in a suit and not in a board room setting.

4. Instead of being frustrated that the initial video was viewed millions of times, he thanks the social media community for bringing it to his attention.

5. Over address the problem: He communicates that Dominos shut down the store and is cleaning it “from top to botom.” He goes on to share that Dominos is reviewing hiring practices ”across the board.” He hammers their focus on cleanliness and high quality food. He also shares that Federal felony warrants are out for the arrest of the workers who have already been fired.

6. He does well what many companies in crisis forget. He reiterates what Dominos is in business to do.

7. He thanks viewers of the video for “sticking with us.” Also good, he stuck with addressing the crisis at hand and how Dominos is working to correct it. He did not start offering.

What could have been better:

1. The Dominos president is clearly reading from a prompter or cue cards. Preparing remarks and sticking to the script is a safe way to go, but it doesn’t feel as heartfelt and the outrage can fall flat when read.

2. Dominos set up a Twitter account to interact with people discussing the YouTube video there. In a crisis is not the time to be creating relationships. Brands should be building those relationships all the time so than when and if a crisis occurs, the brand can quickly address from a position of trust.

Other things to consider:

In a crisis, there are people in the organization that will want to keep to business as usual as if nothing has happened. It is important that top leadership clear their calendar if necessary to address the crisis. It is the job of the PR professional to insist that leadership do whatever is necessary to address the crisis immediately and credibly.
Do all that you can to view the crisis from the outside. The PR professional must have a sense of how people are reacting. Be a good listener.
Know your key messages and stick to them.
Identify your target audiences and stick to them.
Better to flood your audiences with information than to starve them of it. Send out information as you get it and use all available communication vehicles. People will look to you for the facts, so provide them.
Use the media as a pipeline initially, then broaden your communication tools and focus your messages.
Take control of the situation it is okay to say, “No.”
Do not let media dominate your team’s time and attention.

Robert Scoble led a conversation about Dominos’ response on FriendFeed.

Generate Word Clouds with Wordle

Wed, 08 Apr 2009 00:03:40 -0700

Wordle is a tool for generating “word clouds” from text, sites or blogs. The clouds give greater prominence to words that appear more frequently in the provided text. It’s a great visual representation of recent coverage, your company blog, or what you’ve been tweeting about most recently. With a Wordle word cloud, you can create a powerful visualization that gives readers a sense of what you write about.

Here’s the word cloud for recent posts on MEDIAdeluge.

You can personalize your clouds with different fonts, layouts, and color schemes.

Susan Scrupski (ITSinsider) Joins ReadWriteWeb

Tue, 07 Apr 2009 13:32:00 -0700

ReadWriteWeb, the Web Technology news blog, announced today:

“Susan Scrupski (a.k.a. “ITSinsider”) has joined ReadWriteWeb as VP Enterprise Content and Programs. Starting today, Susan will assume responsibility for building our editorial and expertise in applying the principals of Web 2.0 to the Enterprise. With a focus on how the Web is disrupting traditional business processes and operations, ourEnterprise channel (which will soon be re-launched with a new design) will focus on new products, case studies, and innovative developments involving Web strategy and execution in a B2B context.”

ReadWriteWeb is one or our favorites here at MEDIAdeluge. It’s great to see they are doing well and expanding the staff. Any self described “snarky e2.0 guild master… Skater mom, NJ shore lover,” promised to add some interesting color to RWW.

Susan (@ITSinsider) joins fonder Richard MacManus (@RWW), Marshall Kirkpatrick (@marshallk), and Bernard Lunn (@bernardlunn) on the full-time staff at RWW.

Twitter's Biz Stone on The Colbert Report

Fri, 03 Apr 2009 15:42:00 -0700

The week during which Twitter has been everywhere culminated in an appearance on The Colbert Report and a rumor that Google and Twitter were in late stage acquisition talks.

Twitter needs to worry about media over-saturation. It seems the company has been everywhere from CNN and FOX to Today to Colbert and the Daily Show.

The social media buzz is all about gauging the probability of Google or Microsoft buying Twitter for between $250 million and $1 billion depending on who you believe.

Twitter should be actively playing down this attention. The company should play up competitive and complimentary sites so as not to be seen as the only player in the space.

As a brand, you don’t want to appear to explode onto the scene. You want to appear to be on the front end of a large trend — the company that is doing it best. You build the brand steadily over time. Most companies of course don’t have to worry about this. Any attention at all feels like a gift. But, for the SecondLifes of the world, the fall — post blinding attention — can be pretty hard.

More about branding and marketing here.

Celebrities a-Twitter

Sun, 29 Mar 2009 18:11:00 -0700

What is the single biggest driver of the Twitter rocket sled you ask (right after asking what Twitter is)?

Answer: Celebrities twittering.

CelebrityTweet and WeFollow (celebs) are two easy ways follow Twittering celebs.

The NYT is even tracking celebritweeters.

Biggest Tech / Venture Blogs

Tue, 24 Mar 2009 01:16:00 -0700

Duncan Riley had an interesting post on The Inquisitr tonight, talking about the possibility of Mashable overtaking TechCrunch (and sub-domains) as the leading Web 2.0 blog by Traffic.

Riley included graphs from Compete, Alexa, ComScore and Quantcast to illustrate his point. Of course, what and how you count matter. What is clear: Mashable is a close second and definitely within striking distance.

Compete shows Mashable at roughly 1.5 million uniques a month and TC at just over 1.7 million. Both are up significantly for the year. Compete says Mashable grew a bit last month and TC lost a few paces. That could have been due to TC founder Michael Arrington taking the month off. My guess is that trend is reversed with Arrington back and the addition of “Valley Girl” Sarah Lacy.

What is most interesting however is the graph Riley left out of his post — perhaps for obvious reasons… The ComScore graph shows the phenomenal growth of his own site.

Riley says he doesn’t believe the graph. Compete.com shows a more modest growth curve for The Inquisitr, but recall that Riley started The Inquisitr less than a year ago. He was a TC blogger so he knows what a successful tech blog looks like.

What’s the key takeaway? All three of these guys (Pete Cashmore of Mashable, Michael Arrington of TechCrunch and Duncan Riley of The Inquisitr) are exceedingly bright, know how to work hard and have great teams around them. All three blogs should be at the top of your list if you’re looking for smart, thoughtful and influential coverage in the tech space.

Additional highly influential tech blogs you should be reading include:

Sarah Lacy Joins TechCrunch

Fri, 20 Mar 2009 22:29:00 -0700

Michael Arrington, founder of TechCrunch announced today in a post that Sarah Lacy will join as a permanent member of the tech blog’s editorial staff.

Arrington writes in TechCrunch: ”I’d like to welcome Sarah Lacy to Team TechCrunch as a permanent addition to our editorial and writing team. Lacy, …will continue to write Valley Girl, a biweekly column for BusinessWeek. She will also continue to co-host Tech Ticker on Yahoo Finance.”

Lacy joined the TechCrunch on an interim basis this last February to fill in for Arrington, who took the month off. Our guess is that was a trial run for both sides to see if a permanent gig at TC might be a good fit. It seems to have been.

Lacy joins a strong group of current and past TC writers. Notable TC alums include Marshall Kirkpatrick (ReadWriteWeb) and Duncan Riley (Inquisitr).

Having just visited the new TC world HQ in Palo Alto and meeting the current editorial team, I can tell you TC only hires the best and the brightest. Lacy will fit in quite nicely.

Unlike TC writers before her who made their name at the august tech blog, Lacy is very much an established personality in Silicon Valley.

From Sarah’s BusinessWeek bio:

Lacy has been a business reporter for 10 years, most recently covering technology forBusinessWeek. Her book, Once You’re Lucky, Twice You’re Good: The Rebirth of Silicon Valley and the Rise of Web 2.0, was published by Gotham Books in May 2008.

With that experience comes history — not all of it rosy. Lacy hosed a Q&A with Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg at South by Southwest Interactive (SxSWi) last year that went anything but smoothly and for which she was attacked mercilessly. coverage here, here and here. In the video below, shot immediately after the session, Lacy shares her point of view.

In my interactions with Lacy, I have found her to be smart, fair and responsive — key attributes of a successful journalist. She also has a likability, familiar style and air of approachability that provides a nice balance to Arrington’s perceived gruff arrogance. I say “perceived” because I personally find Mike to be fair, receptive and thoughtful. He’s a very smart guy and he made a very smart hire.

How To Do Social Media Right In 2009

Wed, 18 Mar 2009 09:23:24 -0700

Marta Strickland of Organic, an interactive agency, posted an interesting deck on SlideShare. She does a nice job of giving specific examples, how-tos, stats and case studies on how brands are diving into social media. This ties in nicely with my post, Social Media How-to Guide: Getting Started. Marta uses terms like Web 1.0, 2.0, 3.0 that you can disregard, but on balance, this is a quality deck that is well worth having a look at.

Facebook Takes Top Spot in Monthly Attention

Mon, 16 Mar 2009 11:48:00 -0700

For the first time, Facebook overtook the top spot in Monthly Attention (time spent as a percentage of total time spent online by U.S. Internet users), commanding nearly 6% of all time spent online by Americans in the month of February.

Google and Facebook continue up and to the right on the graph below, but perhaps more compelling than Facebook overtaking Yahoo! is the trajectory of MySpace. As recently as July ‘07 — according to compete.com — MySpace accounted for 13% of time spent online. Today it is less than 2% and declining.

Monthly Attention - Facebook, Yahoo, Google, MySpace
(The total time spent on a domain as a percentage of the total time spent online by all U.S. Internet users, February ‘07 - February ‘09)

(via compete.com)

(Update 3/23/09) Michael Arrington drives a few more nails in MySpace’s coffin here.

Robert Scoble Leaving Fast Company

Fri, 06 Mar 2009 10:29:00 -0800

“Hi, I’m Robert Scoble. Who are you.” Not quite, “now you know the rest of the story,” but very well known in tech circles. Robert Scoble, the highly influential “tech geek” blogger and videographer is leaving FastCompany.tv for parts unknown — at least for now. (UPDATE: Robert will be going to Rackspace and focusing on community building. Read more on TechCrunch and Scobleizer.com)

He will continue to write a column for Fast Company, blog and Scobleizer.com and be omnipresent on Friendfeed and Twitter. If you’re pitching Scobleizer, you should be aware of this move and pay close attention to where he lands.

Robert is incredibly talented and his enthusiasm is infectious. We’ll be very interested to see what the the future holds. Best of luck, Robert.

Check the MEDIAdeluge here:

Scobleizer.com, Why I Haven’t Posted for Two Weeks
ThomasHawk.com, GOOD LUCK SCOBLEIZER!
TechCrunch.com, Robert Scoble To Leave FastCompany
Inquisitr.com, Robert Scoble leaves Fast Company

John Stewart Talks Twitter on the Daily Show

Tue, 03 Mar 2009 08:47:36 -0800

Twitter seems to finally going a bit more main stream. kind of…

Michael Arrington is Back at TechCrunch

Tue, 03 Mar 2009 08:37:34 -0800

Mike Arrington announced in a post on TechCrunch that he is back from Hiatus. An excerpt from his post:

“…In short, I’m back. I’m tanned, rested, and generally grumpy about not being in Hawaii any more, but back I am. And somehow TechCrunch did just fine without me.

More soon on my plans for the future and my thoughts about the events that led me to take a month off in the first place. Just as soon as I get a couple more days of skiing in.”

It will be interesting to see what he does from here. It will also be interesting to see if the rules for pitching TechCrunch change.

Twitalyzer Shows Twitter Influence

Fri, 27 Feb 2009 09:57:00 -0800

(UPDATE) Twitalyzer, the new Twitter-influence-measuring site that was down for much of the morning (see below) is now back online.

The site is simple. You input a person’s Twitter user name and Twitalyzer spits out it’s take on that person’s “influence.”

Here’s how Twitalyzer describes influence:

“As Twitter becomes increasingly important to online communication, the creators of the Twitalyzer believe that the need to measure the impact of our efforts in Twitter will increase a commensurate amount. While some believe that “popularity” is an appropriate measure of success, we disagree, eschewing this easily gamed metric in favor of something more robust, more fair, and more difficult to cheat.
The Twitalyzer solution is our measure of “influence in Twitter” calculated based on:
Your relative reach in Twitter, measured by the number of followers you have

Your relative reach in Twitter, measured by the number of followers you have

Your relative authority, measured by the number of times you are “retweeted”

Your relative generosity, measured by the number of times you “retweet” others

Your relative clout, measured by the number of times you are referenced by others

Your relative velocity, measured by the number of updates you publish over a seven day period

Each of these measures are weighted but otherwise the calculation is incredibly simple. We believe that what you get is a measure of success in Twitter that can be applied in a variety of ways. We know this measure is not perfect but, well, we’re not perfect and we don’t believe in holding software to a higher standard that we ourselves live up to.”

Twitalyzer presents it’s findings in bite sized chunks that are very consumable.

While the site does a nice job, it feels only superficial. For example, it does not show you how your influence is changing over time. It only shows a moment in time. For this reason the analytics don’t feel overly actionable. You can see where you are, but cannot correlate that to what got you there.

However, Twitalyzer is interesting in helping determine how influential others on Twitter are. This could be very powerful for those looking for Twitters to help get the word out about a specific idea, product, event, etc.

Currently, the offering is limited in that it does not calculate influence among a group. It only shows influence against all of Twitter. This significantly hamstrings the site’s usefulness in measuring personal or corporate brand on Twitter.

Right now, Twitalyzer is another interesting tool to see where you and others sit in the Twitterverse. It will be interesting to see if Twitalyzer adds the necessary functionality to become more than that.

(END UPDATE)

Earlier today, Twitalyzer was pounded by super Twitterers like @mashable and @Leoleporte. So much so that the site was down for much of the morning. Here’s a video by @erictpeterson illustrating what can happen to your site when Pete Cashmore (@mashable) tweets about your Twitter service.

Eric did great job of keeping people informed while his site is down.

Twilayzer does look interesting and may be a promising way to measure Twitter influence. The site has been processing my request for nearly an hour. So I can’t get overly specific yet. I did see @bwana’s results and will share more when the site is back up.

For now, here is a list of Twitalyzer’s most influential people on Twitter.

Username:

On the site, you can also “sort these fine folks by their influence, their signal-to-noise ratio, their contribution, velocity, and clout.”

Other lists: Top 10 Influencers, Top 100 Influencers, 100 Most Signal-Rich, 100 Most Generous, 100 Most Prolific, 100 Most Referenced, 100 Most Recent Analyses

(via @bwana tweet)

Media on Twitter

Wed, 18 Feb 2009 13:49:00 -0800

If your PR people aren’t on Twitter, fire them. The media is flocking to social media sites like Twitter and Friendfeed. (By media of course I mean journalists at traditional print, publications, broadcast journalists and bloggers.)

They are flocking to social media sites to find sources, distribute their content, network and participate in the conversation. Sure Twitter may not continue to be the key destination, but it is for now. And, for now, your PR people and brand managers should be following them and listening.

Did you know for example that Michael Arrington took a leave from Techcrunch and Sarah Lacy is filling in? It was on Twitter.
Did you know Erick Shonfeld had a baby? Probably not the best day to pitch him.

These key influencers are sharing information that will help you not only know who to pitch, but how to best pitch them and tell a story they will be interested in.

Here are a few resources:

Know the name but not the Twitter handle? Try https://twitter.com/invitations/find_on_twitter
There are also lists upon lists of media on Twitter with links so “following” them is easy

How to Change Your Twitter Username

Wed, 18 Feb 2009 11:02:27 -0800

Rick Butts has a very helpful post on his blog about how to change your Twitter username without impacting your followers or forcing you to re-follow people.

From Rick’s post:

“You will keep ALL your followers - and everyone’s address book will be automatically updated - so you are totally cool.

Everything on Twitter will note the change - you just want to insure that old links go somewhere that people can find you - but, once again, all your Twitter stuff will work perfectly!”

Good stuff. Thanks, Rick!

iPhone 3-Way Calling (Merge Calls)

Sat, 14 Feb 2009 00:18:00 -0800

Have you tried to make a “three-way call” on your iPhone only to have the phone toggle between the two people you have on different lines? We can help.

Apple calls it “merge calls.” This is used when you have a person on the line and you call another person with the hopes of adding them to the call. We bet you can’t do it.

As much as we love our gadgets here at MEDIAdeluge, we don’t usually write gadget how-tos. There are several blogs that do that very well. That said, when we ran into trouble three-way calling on our iPhone and could not find an answer online, we thought we’d post what we learned.

Long story short, we wanted to three-way call on our iPhone and couldn’t. AT&T told us there was nothing they could do with an iPhone. We’d have to schedule an appointment with a genius at an Apple store.

After lots of fiddling, checking reference manuals, changing out the phone, swapping sim cards, the many geniuses who had gravitated to solving the three-way calling problem were stumped. Ultimately they decided it must be an AT&T account provisioning problem.

They were right. AT&T had three-way calling flipped on for our iPhone as part of our plan, but it didn’t work. We tested that feature on the two in-store demo phones. They couldn’t merge calls either. Not until one of the AT&T people flipped on six-way calling did it work.

That’s right, AT&T had to go into it’s “Telligence System” under the “Agreements” tab and turn on six-way calling for our three-way calling to work. It did the trick.

We now have three-way calling and can probably get up to six people on one call.

My guess is most iPhones cannot currently make three-way calls. If you want conference calling functionality, call AT&T, not Apple. They don’t even need you in the store to make the fix.

Many thanks to the AT&T Woodinville store and Apple Bellevue Square for putting up with my pouting and ultimately fixing my phone.

Why Twitter Matters

Tue, 10 Feb 2009 16:41:00 -0800

Check out #3 on the chart below. That’s Twitter. The most visited social network that’s not Facebook or MySpace.

(UPDATED)

While this graphic shows Twitter as just ahead of Flixter, LinkedIn and the rest, consider how significantly under counted Twitter’s visits actually are. Compete measures web traffic. Consider that only 32 percent of Twitter’s users are actually hitting the web page. The vast majority are accessing Twitter via its API though apps or SMS.

How users are accessing Twitter:

See the live list at http://www.twitstat.com/twitterclientusers.html.

The following chart show Twitter’s growth in monthly attention

Unique visitors from the U.S. and worldwide is also growing at an increasing rate.

The coveted 25-54 demo is on Twitter.

Caroline McCarthy has more on the compete numbers here.

Additional Twitter stats here.

Steve Baker of Business Week had a piece last May entitled “Why Twitter Matters.” My apologies for the title duplication. Not sure how forgot, given he quoted me in it.

Amazon Crowdsources Holiday PR

Wed, 26 Nov 2008 08:49:04 -0800

The New York Times Bits blog has an interesting post today about how Amazon is tapping several of its regular customer reviews contributors to talk to media about holiday gift advice.

This is a great way to go if you have users / customers that are passionate about your offering and more importantly are getting value from your products. This particular approach can work for Amazon becuase its users will be talking to interested medai about the products… that just happen to be available on Amazon.com.

Its not like the typical use of customers for media. Normally, when a journalist is covering a product or company, customers are served up by the company to talk about their experince as it relates to the company / product. This is basically to humanize the story.

In the Amazon case, customers are actually fielding calls directly from media. The customers then share with the media the hot gifts, good deals, what is popular this season. This is usually a task for junior PR staffers at the company or the partner PR firm.

During the holidays, the demand for this kind of information can be a lot for PR teams to handle. That’s why Amazon’s approach makes so much sense. Instead of upping the PR budget for the holidays, Amazon can instead rely on passionate customers to carry this burdeon. They aren’t delivering company messaging or positioning a story, they are simply assisting journalists with a simple task and something they know a lot about.

To be clear, this is nothing like GM’s ill-fated attempt at user-generated ads. GM hoped Chevy fans would make their own ads and that the ads would spread virally across the web. This worked to a degree, but the most popular ads were negative.

Marketing to Millennials

Tue, 18 Nov 2008 10:33:18 -0800

BusinessWeek.com is running an eight-part series of Viewpoints by the author of Grown Up Digital, Don Tapscott. Tapscott explains how digital technology has affected the children of the baby boomers, a group he calls the Net Generation.

He talks about how the “Net Generation’s” arrival means that many of marketing’s fundamental tenets must change because of discoveries like “they (Millennials) spend a lot of time online, researching products they end up buying in stores. They always consult the Internet before making a purchase. This sort of behavior doesn’t show up in the cold, hard e-commerce data.”

He goes on to talk about how Millennials — born between 1980 and 2000 — are better able to filter out marketing than their older counterparts.

Tapscott:”I think the Net Generation will cause marketers to rewrite the rules of marketing for this generation, and ultimately for the future. Companies will play by ABCDE rules of marketing—Anyplace, Brand, Communication, Discovery, and Experience. Net Geners want to buy things Anyplace, where and when they want. They’ll help shape the Brand, and the product. And they won’t tolerate a lecture, however amiable. The standard ad will be replaced by Communication, a two-way conversation. As in any relationship, integrity will be one of the key building blocks of this new interactive brand. Since Net Geners research the product and its price online, they’ll negotiate the price. I call this the Discovery of Price. And finally, they expect products to be at the same time an Experience.”

“Net Gen Transforms Marketing” was posted today. The entire series is worth a read.