So I get an email the other day from a Linkedin connection. He wants me to invest in the next generation Groupon. It’s not going to happen. Why? Well because frankly it wasn’t a particularly creative idea. Creativity is what drives business success.

This is what I said in reply to the request:

“You don’t get rich by doing something somebody has already done. The Groupon space is getting pretty crowded, especially now that Facebook and Google are both jumping in.

“You get wealthy by coming up something entirely new, ala Facebook, Linkedin, or something like that. Each company founder identified an unmet need and filled it. That idea goes back to the founding of the Republic. Look at Edison, Bell, Ford, the Wright Bros., Watson, Jobs, Gates and others. They got there first and built empires.

“Come with up with a completely unique concept. I will be interested then.”

Being unique and creative are two keys to business success. It doesn’t matter if your company has one or 100 competitors. If your product and the way you market it are something new and exciting you will beat your competition like a drum. Actually the product doesn’t have to be that creative. If it a fills a need better than its competitors, you are going to be ahead of those competitors. Add in marketing in a way that attracts and engages your potential customers and you have driven the ball over the fence.

My agency works with established companies of all sizes. . Our clients, no matter the size or age of their company, are entrepreneurial. Their founders saw a need for something, came up with the product to fill that need, and took it to market. They didn’t copy anybody else. Because management has stuck with that, the companies are growing and dominating their competition.

Not wanting to just do what everyone else was doing in Milwaukee was why I decided to found my own agency. A lot of agencies still don’t understand what social media is or how to use it properly. A lot of them have seemingly rejected it. As importantly they also don’t know how to meld social media with traditional marketing and public relations. To ignore any of those three marketing channels seems to me to be the height of folly. It pretty much ensures creativity will be stifled. That’s the key to our success.

Entrepreneur and author Josh Linker drove that point home at Biztimes Milwaukee’s BizTech Conference-Expo last week. He spoke about companies have two choices: be creative or die.

In 1999 Linker founded an Internet copy called ePrize. He saw that while on-line advertising was taking off there was no online promotion company. ePrize is the company that developed all those games, contests and sweepstakes on-line companies offer. It has swamped its competition.

Linker points out in his book “Disciplined Dreaming” that: “Great companies are built on ideas. They discover new and compelling ways to solve problems for customers. They play to win rather than not-to-lost. In fact, we’ve reached a time when playing it safe has become the riskiest move of all. General Motors played it safe all the way to bankruptcy. Maxwell House played it safe as the more daring and creative Starbucks supplanted it as the leader of the coffee industry.”

Risk and creativity are two of the reasons I like social media and marketing in general. There are no guarantees, but the chances of success are much than just sitting on the bench. Think about it.

It is the fear of the uncertainty of creativity. I think to the average CEO or CMO who came through a business school being creative is a foreign concept. Most of those people are left brain types. Their dominant personality traits are that they are logical, sequential, rational, analytical and objective. They are not used to operating in an arena where creativity is demanded. Those traits often lead to the creation of boringly beige ineffective marketing.

The idea of doing something where possible outcomes cannot not always be predicted makes them nervous. So when confronted with something such as social media that demands creativity and intuitive thinking, their brains lock. The simplest thing for them to then do is either reject or ignore the ideas. The idea of a truly out there campaign – no matter how effective it might be – scares them.

I realized this at the Milwaukee-based BizTimesMedia’s 2011 BizTech Conference-Expo. EPrize founder and Chairman Josh Linker was speaking at the conference’s opening breakfast about how to empower employees to be creative. A creative company can develop a strong competitive advantage over its competitors, he argued.

Linker should know. The entrepreneur is also a jazz musician. He explained that any jazz musician that sticks strictly to the score is soon asked to leave. “This fluid, improvisation art form is all about taking risks and trying new things,” Linker wrote in his blog. “Going out on limb can be scary, but it is where the magic happens. Extending yourself outside your comfort zone is where the best rewards will be discovered.”

He goes on to say that “Jazz is also about listening. Listening to your fellow musicians, the audience, and your own creative voice. In business, that means listening to your team, your customers, your competitors, your industry, your suppliers, the latest trends and best practice, and of course, your own creativity. Through focused listening comes adaptation. Allowing the environment and your collaborators to influence the outcome as a group. Seeking inspiration and creativity from others, and adapting in real-time to your own Creative Challenge.”

At the breakfast Linker explained jazz musicians expect creativity from those with whom they perform. The jazz band is a collective creative effort.

The problem for many executives is they run their businesses from the top down. The modern corporate structure is essentially based on a military model. Think about it – there’s the CEO or commanding general. Underneath him are the division leaders. Do you think that designation was an accident? There are senior officers and junior officers, enlisted men and non-commissioned officers. The titles are different, but the roles are the same.

Not an atmosphere that lends itself to nurturing creative impulses. What those companies like is an ad agency coming in and saying we are spending $10 million on this television commercial. We are doing 15 million direct mail pieces and placing ads in 15 national publications. The campaign will look like the campaigns of all their competitors. Cut and dried – and there’s the rub. The CEO and CMO approve it and off it goes. The problem it is formulaic. It is result of that almost always fatal directive “that’s the way we have always done it.”

Many executives live the “fire and forget” marketing campaign. They feel they should not have to be involved in selling their own company. That’s the job of the marketing department and the outside agency.

Think about beer marketing or local auto dealers – all boringly the same.

All good marketing has to be creative. It is like jazz. There are core elements, but each player bends those elements, improves on them, while at the same time staying with the group. It demands that the company executives and employees take any active role in the campaign. It is their company, they should part of the effort to market its products. They need to learn to play with the band. Nine times out of ten, it is really effective. Good marketing works the same way.

There is always element of uncertainty in that. I always tell client not everything we try is going to work. We won’t know what works until we try it. Any marketer who says she does is not telling the truth. You can do all the research possible – from focus groups to surveys – and there is still no predicting the outcome.

As an aside don’t confuse that with measuring return on investment. ROI is measurable. That measurement takes place on what does work.

So if a CEO or CMO is told that the marketing effort is going to more jazz than symphony, they get nervous. It is way outside any envelope in which they operate. Someone needs to take them to a jazz club.

So it would seem at first glance that these companies are starting to embrace new ways of marketing. As most of you know, I firmly believe in melding traditional marketing and public relations with social media. That trilogy of marketing methods is the most effective.

However, I always dig a little deeper. I track these companies’ efforts. What I often find is that instead waltzing with social media, these companies are doing the “Zombie Dance.” All of you remember the Zombie Dance from the first dance you attended. The boy holds his rigid arms straight out and places them on the girl’s shoulders. Because of the distance created by the boy’s arms, the girl is forced to do the same. The pair then moves in a circle, barely lifting their feet off the ground and not bending their knees. It looks like the undead dancing.

That’s what a lot of social media attempts done by large companies especially remind me of – a stiff-armed dance that is about as a rhythmic as a drunk trying to play drums. These companies just don’t get it.

Now I know many CMOs would argue social media is not as important as search for attracting clients and customers. Current research would seem to back this contention up. For instance Google Inc.’s dominant search engine supplies about 30 percent of traffic to the top news sites, according to a study done by Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism. I would argue that same currently holds true for both business-to-consumer and business-to-business sites.

I know when I am looking for something in particular, I usually turn to Google. It is still one of the best ways to conduct research. However, the Pew study also found that “Facebook and other sharing tools, such as Addthis.com, are empowering people to rely on their online social circles to point out interesting content.” Although I do search for news, more and more I find myself reading stories friends have suggested or Linkedin. The same true when I shop. I will now often respond to tweets or Facebook friend pages when I am looking for a particular item.

This is where a lot of companies fall down, I feel. They are not integrating their social media efforts with their regular marketing efforts. Just having a Facebook page is not going to cut it. There has to be integration of all the marketing efforts. In this many companies are falling down.

Facebook is not the be all or end all. Blog, videos, and many other tools have to put to work. Yet which some notable exceptions – Dunkin Donuts and Southwest Airlines come to mind – most companies are doing all they could do. And I think I know why.

At major companies, people look at social media and consider it just too much work. Too many marketing departments are too used to using traditional advertising and public relations. It’s inertia. They want to move out of the ruts they are in. And then they wonder why they lose business to their smaller, more nimble competitors.

I also went to various news sites to see what they had to say. The only one that I could find that had anything was a three-paragraph story on the New York Times’ home page. It didn’t say much other than reporting that sources were saying Osama bin Laden was dead.

In the meantime, ABC news anchors were stretching, waiting for the President to make the official announcement. They kept showing the same stuff over and over again. My wife complained she was tired of looking at the same videos of the terrorist leader being constantly broadcast.

I spent 26 years as a print reporter. As I watched the bin Laden coverage, it help crystallize an idea I have been mulling – the way my generation of reporters and I learned to do journalism is obsolete.

The old rule was get it first, get it fast, and get it right. Well, traditional media ceded the first two as soon as Twitter and other social media sites grew up. There is no way that any traditional news site is going to beat someone on the scene of a news event who has a smart phone with a camera app. Remember the U.S. Airways flight that landed in the Hudson River a couple of year? Well, there were pictures of the plane floating in the icy water on the Net within about 60 seconds of it coming down.

Traditional media seems to have half-heartedly recognized this change. More and more news outlets are turning to Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and blogs for information. All four local stations in Milwaukee now constantly ask viewers to submit video of anything deemed newsworthy.

The problem is people are cutting out the middleman. Why wait to watch something on the 10 p.m. news when you can go to YouTube and find it right away? Why watch a news anchor flail while waiting for an official announcement when tweets about the event are flowing at rate of hundreds a minute?

Now, there is that third part – getting it right. My friends who are still in the news business pride themselves on that. They argue that while they might not be first anymore, the information they provide is more accurate and explains the nuances of a situation better than 140 character Tweets.

I have two related thoughts about. Let provide some background about the history of news gathering to explain my points.

The template for modern journalism – both print and broadcast – evolved shortly after World War II. That model includes the three ideals I mentioned above, plus accuracy, neutrality, and objectivity.

Neutrality and objectivity are fairly recent additions to the journalism canon. I think those two words would have made the press barons of the 19^th and the first half of the 20^th century laugh. William Randolph Hearst used his papers to help start the Spanish-American war. If you want to get a better idea of what most newspapers were like prior to World War II, picture the National Enquirer marrying USA Today and spawning a newspaper.

For those papers, getting it first was always the first thing on an editor’s list. Accuracy was important, but not paramount. You have seen movies where newsboys would scream “Extra, Extra. Read All About It” at the top of their lungs. That happened a lot. As soon as something big broke, newspapers would rush to get the information out. If a regular edition was already off the presses, than an Extra was printed and rushed out. People really did shout “stop the presses” so information could be added.

Now, the first reports might not have been as accurate was we would expect today. As the events unfold, papers would keep rushing out Extras to update and clarify what was happening. Nobody excoriated a newspaper if those early stories had incorrect information. People knew more was coming.

If traditional media wants to stay relevant, that’s the model I think they need to adopt. I think they need to get it first and get it fast. As the events unfold, they can keep updating and correcting. If they make a mistake, say so and move on. These days people have short memories anyway.

There is one more thing about newspapers a century or so ago. They weren’t boring. They fairly screamed at you.

I think that colored weather maps and giggling anchors not withstanding, a lot television, radio, and newspapers are often just plain boring. Whether you think of that, most under 35-year-olds will not hang around anything that bores them.

Oh, I almost forgot something – the whole nuance thing. I don’t want that. As Sgt. Joe Friday used to say, “just the facts, ma’am.” I will rely on editorial writers and columnist to provide their take on the events. And then I will make my own decisions.

The cancellation of both shows marks the continuing decline of a once powerful marketing machine. I think social media is doing the same thing to conventional marketing. It won’t happen overnight – and traditional marketing and public relations should still be part of any marketing plan. However, it is going to happen.

What many people don’t know anymore is that soap operas were started in the 1930s on radio by Proctor & Gamble to sell soap and other products – hence the name. According to P&G’s corporate history in 1933 “‘Ma Perkins,’ a radio serial program sponsored by P&G’s Oxydol soap powder, aired nationally. Its popularity leads P&G brands to sponsor numerous new ‘soap operas.’ Faithful listeners become loyal buyers of P&G brands at the grocery.’” The soaps helped P&G get through the Great Depression. When radio gave way to television, the soaps easily made the jump.

The soap operas came to dominate daytime television. Soaps were “once considered the stable revenue generator of the broadcast television model: the consistently popular daytime staples that helped fund primetime experimentation,” Fast Company Expert Blogger Sam Ford said. But not anymore.

There were once a dozen soaps on the air. There are now just four. Ford wrote that many in the television industry feel those four on their last legs. I think the demise is inevitable.

Like medicine shows and Burma Shave Road Signs, soaps apparently just don’t move product anymore. And that is the ultimate aim of most television shows and other marketing mediums. If it doesn’t sell something, it isn’t going to stay around. The audiences went elsewhere for any number of reasons and the advertisers saw that.

In the case of soap operas, “Many may say it’s because the fans abandoned the genre,” Ford wrote. “The story you often hear from fans is that it’s because the shows lost their way and their interest. As soaps tried to battle over the dwindling daytime audience as if ‘soap opera fans’ were all fans of the genre more than fans of the show, little thought was put into a sustained effort to bring lapsed fans back.”

Does this sound familiar? Let’s look at what’s happening to some other mass media.

“The Audit Bureau showed that average weekday circulation at 635 newspapers declined 5 percent compared with the same six months last year,” the New York Times reported last October. “The decline last year was more than twice that, 10.6 percent, as newspapers struggled through the recession and more readers abandoned print copies for the Internet.” (emphasis mine.)

Just like in soap operas, the advertisers are going away. “Newspaper publishers are still laboring to reverse a massive decline in advertising revenue – the Newspaper Association of America reported that total industry ad revenue fell 6% in Q2,” the Reuters blog MediaFile reported in September.

The same thing is happening in television advertising. “Advertisers are losing confidence in the medium,” respondents to the Association of National Advertisers/Forrester study of national advertisers said. The survey respondents said they have “a lack of confidence in TV ad effectiveness. Sixty-two percent of respondents think that TV ads have become less effective in the past two years.”

So, where are these advertisers going? You know the answer – they are heading to the Internet, of which social media is a part. I could fill this blog with the statistics – 740 million Facebook users, 100 million-plus Linkedin members, Flickr now hosts more than five million images and so on.

Mashable predicts that in 2011, $3.08 billion will be spent on social media in the United States.

“That’s a 55% increase over the $1.99 billion U.S. advertisers reportedly spent on social networking sites in 2010, and nearly 11% of what they are expected to spend on all online advertising in the U.S. in 2011, eMarketer says,” Mashable reported. “Worldwide spending on social networks is expected to rise 71.6% to $5.97 billion, approximately 8.7% of the total amount advertisers are predicted to spend online in 2011.”

Online advertising, which includes social media, is starting to snowball, the Economist reported. “Global spending on advertising will grow by 4.5% in 2011, double the rate of the previous year, according to ZenithOptima, an ad agency,” the Economist said. “This will be led by online advertising which will increase by 16%.”

Look at the Economist chart below. Online advertising is the largest, but it’s the fastest growing.

Chart courtesy of The Economist

So like medicine shows, Burma Shave Road Signs and now soap operas, conventional marketing is slowly going away. It will take some time, but just like those other things, it will happen.

Doing branding so it’s effective means melding traditional media, public relations and social media. Using just one of those methods might be effective in creating a brand. While there are never any guarantees, using the three methods as a trio greatly increases the chances that your product will resonate with potential customers.

Remember, a brand does not exist until it is fixed in a customers mind. Until then it is just something up shelf space.

So, what do you to meld the three? Well, the first thing is to sit down with the client and discuss their goals. Then take a deep breath and do that client sanity check I have talked about. One you have realistic goals, write a plan.

This is what I do. I sit down with a client and talk. We hammer out what is unique about the product or the client themselves. This is important for doing traditional media. You need a hook, something that will make a journalist take interest in the story.

Make no mistake; traditional media should still be in the mix. By that I mean free media. There is no need to buy an ad in a publication or spend thousands of dollars for a broadcast. Those efforts rarely, if ever, resonate with a consumer anymore. Yes, there was a time when they did, but there was also a time when people had to start their car with a crank.

If you convince a journalist to write or broadcast a story about a product, that is a huge endorsement. I think print journalism still has come cachet with consumers, especially those over 50. Yes, print is dying, but it’s not dead yet.

The same goes for broadcast, only more so. With the rise of DVRs, fewer and fewer people are watching commercials. But every study I have seen shows they are still watching local news. A piece of local news is another good way to build a brand. Most local news shows still have credibility.

Of course, that is only leg of the marketing stool. Social media has to be part of the plan – in fact it should lead the plan. The tools are many and should be used in tandem with traditional marketing methods.

I usually start my clients out with blogging. Every study I’ve ever read shows blogging is the best way to build credibility. Remember, a blog is not a sales document. It is a way to build credibility. No one is going to think a product is credible if the company making it is not viewed that way.

What a blog is a way to demonstrate expertise and ability. No one likes it when a company thumps its own chest. What readers do like is when a blog provides answers to questions or solutions to problems or just general knowledge.

A blog is also good for monitoring what customers think. I know I continually hammer on this point, but you want to hear both the good and the bad comments. The good can be used to help build the brand; the bad can help correct mistakes.

Facebook pages can be used the same way. Twitter is a billboard that allows you to tell people wants going on with your product. YouTube is invaluable for actually showing people what a product does.

Then there are such things as trade shows, samples and all that other good stuff. I could write a complete blog on each of these items. But enough for now.

Next week I want to talk about once cutting edge marketing vehicles that no longer work.

The method for turning a product into a brand is a bit like the old alchemist’s dream of turning lead into gold. Expect that converting a widget into THE WIDGET is a process that actually works.

Still, as I said last week, making that conversion is as much an art as it is a science. It involves mixing the hard sciences of research, planning, and design with the art of marketing. And make no mistake, good marketing is an art.

When I first got involved in marketing 10 years ago, I was told the rule was that public relations created a brand and advertising maintained it. It was usually a fairly long process. And although does happen sometimes, an established brand rarely goes away. There were exceptions obviously – the Ford Edsel comes to mind.

Social media has changed all of that. While it is still takes awhile to build a brand, social media can destroy a brand faster than you can say “United Breaks Guitars.”

So what has to be done in this era of social media to create a brand and make it stick in a consumer’s mind as something they need to have?

To be a successful brand, a product not only has to be different, but it has to have value in the consumer’s mind. A brand has to standout from all of the various messages a consumer it hit with. It has to convince a consumer that it will provide quality, it will be dependable and it has value. It has to convince a consumer that this product is the one which to spend money.

The obvious thing is that the campaign starts with a great product. Generally, that’s the foundation of a branding campaign. However, to this day I do not understand how the pet rock ever got popular. Sometimes there is just no accounting for taste.

Now, remember a brand does not exist until it is fixed the consumer’s mind. Until a consumer assigns value to the product and decides its different from other products, there is no brand. So the key is to convince the consumer to see the value in the product.

The product needs to be defined by what makes it unique. The brand needs to not only sell itself by what it does, but it needs to resonate emotionally with a potential customer. In addition, the product has to be able to demonstrate it delivers consistently better performance than its competitors.

That brand message has to be consistent. A lot of brands lose their mojo when for some reason; someone decides to change the messaging. All that does is confuse consumers. Confused consumers go someplace else to fulfill their needs.

The three key points of branding are:

• There needs to be a central point from which the brand flows. Think about Apple Inc. – all of its marketing focuses on creating a digital lifestyle.
• Any slogan has to agree with the central branding point. Think about the Apple IPad slogan: “Thinner. Lighter. Faster. Facetime. Smart Covers. 10 Hour Battery.” It dovetails extremely with Apple’s central branding point.
• The campaign has to define the product’s personality. Again, think about Apple. Go to any of its product’s websites. The same message resonates over and over – its products help you create a cutting edge digital lifestyle.

This where social media makes things better, and at the same, makes things a lot more dangerous. Social media can build a brand faster than any other method. But it can also destroy a brand faster than any other method.

I will talk about that next week.

I am working with a new client who made a major announcement last week. My first instinct was to go the social media entirely -I was going to ignore the traditional public relations channels. The decision was up to me alone. The client had put himself and his company completely in my hands.

There wasn’t a lot of time to plan for this – the things that needed to happen so this announcement could be made coalesced very quickly. The client had come to me shortly before the announcement was to be made. We wanted to make sure the client’s competitors didn’t preempt our announcement with one of their own. So we had to move quickly.

As an aside, I will never, ever reveal the name of a client unless I have their permission and I think it serves a strategic purpose. I detest marketing people who put themselves out front of their clients. They are not serving the client’s interest, they are serving their own. A client should always come first. The best marketing people leave no traces. I will have more to say about that Wednesday.

I am a planner. Before I do anything for a client, I do as comprehensive a plan as possible. It lays out what the issues are and how I think the client’s goals can be reached. I always collaborate with the client on the plan to ensures everyone knows the destination and how we’ll get there.

In this case, I had about 24 hours to do a plan and get it approved. As I am a social media maven, I was planning use the usual social media tools – Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube and other sites. I was also planning to use PitchEngine, the best social media news site on the web.

As I thought about it though, I realized I should not ignore traditional media, especially television. I also added newspapers into the mix.

I added television because viewership of television stations, especially local news, is holding steady, and in some cases rising. It is an efficient, cost effective way to reach the desired audience. Yes, it is a shotgun approach, but as long the desired audience is hit, who cares?

Newspapers were added because of their websites. Yes, print circulation is dropping at almost every daily publication in the United States and around the world. However, web traffic to most news sites is rising. It is a good way to reach out to that same desired audience.

In addition, web mentions increase search rankings so it makes sense to talk to a newspaper. The story is going to placed on their website and the same is true for television stations. Their videos are usually posted on their websites.

Remember, the more mentions of a particular story, the higher the Google ranking. So, why would someone ignore such an obvious way to increase those rankings?

It is very effective to generate publicity through a combination of traditional and social media marketing strategies. Blanketing the traditional public relations and social media channels hits both targeted and broad audiences alike. That in turn stretches a client dollars to their fullest potential. It is the most effective, efficient way to ensure success.

Bloggers note: It is due to the editing skill of Heather Asiyanbi that this blog has no errors in grammar and no typos. If any crept in, it is my fault for tinkering after the blog was edited.

I have to say that as criteria for buying a personal hygiene product, knowing that the manufacturer  sponsors concerts is not even on the list. I tend to select the brands that perform the best according to my needs.

As I was taking the survey, I started thinking about companies that sponsor concerts or buy stadium-naming rights or plaster their names all over race cars. I know the theory is that potential customers will buy a product because of the company sponsorship. Frankly, I don’t buy it – figuratively or literally.

As an aside, I have to again laud my Green Bay Packers. They have played in Lambeau Field since 1957. They still play in Lambeau Field. There is no Lambeau Field sponsored by Acme Meatpacking. The Packers will not allow their stadium to be sullied by some company seeking to market its products. Ditto for the New York Yankees.

I think social media has changed consumers’ attitudes. Companies have, for the most part, learned they have to sell a quality product. If they don’t, the Internet will rise up and slap them down. It doesn’t matter whether the logo is plastered on the side of a race car.

I think the companies who spend some of their money on sponsorships are, for the most part, wasting their money.

There is an exception to that though. If I see a company supporting a cause I agree with, I am more likely to consider their product. My wife and I back a number of charitable organizations, including the American Diabetes Association and the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation. If I see a company contributing to those organizations, I will take a look at what they are selling.

Even then, I will take the time to check the company out. There are companies that will make charitable contributions as a way to hide their real image. Tobacco companies, as an example, can make all the contributions they want, I will never buy their products.

Which brings me to another point. I will sometimes not buy a product because of something the company has endorsed. I am not going to discuss my beliefs here. But if a company endorses something I feel is morally wrong, I am not going to buy their product.

Frankly, I think it would be a lot smarter if companies used their endorsement dollars to make products. They would probably make a lot more money that way.

When I was a newspaper reporter, there was axiom that went “never get into fight with man who buys ink by the tank car load.” The meaning was that is was almost impossible to win a fight with a newspaper because the paper’s editors controlled the means of communication. For every punch the newspaper’s opponent might throw, the newspaper could throw a 100.

Social media is assuming that position of power.. A western Massachusetts magazine editor found that out. Now social media might be a more democratic means of fighting as it can involve literally thousands people. Their only connection is the cause for which they are united. But, it doesn’t mean the punches are any softer.

The latest example of social media’s power erupted when Judith Griggs, editor of the Sunderland, Mass.– based Cook’s Source magazine, emailed a blogger that anything published on the Internet is not subject to copyright protection. The subsequent reaction from the people who use the Internet to what Griggs did, and the changes Cooks Source has made because of this brouhaha, show the power of social media.

This started when someone at Cooks Source lifted and rewrote from a food blog an article called “A Tale of Two Tarts” and published it in the magazine’s October issue. The blogger, Monica Gaudio, saw the article and asked for an apology. She also asked that a $130 donation to the Columbia School of Journalism be made.

Griggs’ replied thusly: “I have been doing this for 3 decades…I do know about copyright laws. It was ‘my bad’ indeed, and, as the magazine is put together in long sessions, tired eyes and minds somethings forget to do these things.

“But honestly, Monica, the web is considered “public domain” and you should be happy we just didn’t “lift” your whole article and put someone else’s name on it! It happens a lot, clearly more than you are aware of, especially on college campuses, and the workplace. If you took offence and are unhappy, I am sorry, but you as a professional should know that the article we used written by you was in very bad need of editing, and is much better now than was originally.

“Now it will work well for your portfolio. For that reason, I have a bit of a difficult time with your requests for monetary gain, albeit for such a fine (and very wealthy!) institution. We put some time into rewrites, you should compensate me! I never charge young writers for advice or rewriting poorly written pieces, and have many who write for me… ALWAYS for free!”

That was a mistake on so many levels. One of primary mistake for Griggs is that Gaudio is very savvy social media user. She posted on the reply on LiveJournal. It went viral very quickly. The reaction was just as fast and it wasn’t kind.

Can you see the iceberg Griggs’ hit? Hundreds of comments were posted on the magazine’s Facebook page. They are still coming in – if you want to read them, go here.

This is how Cooks Source initially responded to the negative comments:

• “Apologies for the issues on the old page. Unfortunately there’s nothing we can do about hackers!” (My comment. This was not hacking. No one broke into the magazine’s site. This was simply people commenting on Facebook. That’s one of the central parts of social media.”
• “For those of you who wish to be negative. Please use our other group. For those who are here as readers welcome!”
• “There’s lots of people here that do not seem to understand a few basics yet they seem to all be experts in the print business.”
• “Any posts considered libelous will be removed. Thank you to Christian for his assistance on the page mechanics. We shall be temporarily adapting the wall. Apologies to our regular fans.”
• “I don’t know what some of you think you are going to achieve? We apologized, now go find a rabbit to catch or something”
• “Numerous derogatory posts have been removed and members banned and reported. Those people here to cause trouble are wasting their time. Don’t you think that jumping on a band wagon just makes you look lily-livered?”

Talk about not knowing anything about social media. Whoever wrote those posts poured gasoline on the fire. All those comments seem to have done is increase the number of anti-Cooks Source posts. As companies from United Airlines to Proctor & Gamble could tell the editors, you cannot win a fight with the Internet.

To their credit, Cooks Source now appears to be getting it. This was recently posted on their website:

“Last month an article, “American as Apple Pie — Isn’t,” was placed in error in Cooks Source, without the approval of the writer, Monica Gaudio. We sincerely wish to apologize to her for this error, it was an oversight of a small, overworked staff. We have made a donation at her request, to her chosen institution, the Columbia School of Journalism. In addition, a donation to the Western New England Food Bank, is being made in her name. It should be noted that Monica was given a clear credit for using her article within the publication, and has been paid in the way that she has requested to be paid.

“This issue has made certain changes here at Cooks Source. Starting with this month, we will now list all sources. Also we now request that all the articles and informational pieces will have been made with written consent of the writers, the book publishers and/or their agents or distributors, chefs and business owners. All submission authors and chefs and cooks will have emailed, and/or signed a release form for this material to Cooks Source and as such will have approved its final inclusion. Email submissions are considered consent, with a verbal/written follow-up.”

That’s a good apology. It shows that someone woke up to what was wrong and corrected the error. I would urge people to lay off Cooks Source now. They get it.

Of course, legally Griggs was way off base to begin with.

As Hollee Schwartz Temple, a faculty member at West Virginia University College of Law, wrote in her excellent blog: “It’s easy to copyright your work (applying a copyright symbol and date of first publication is a best practice), but if you want to sue for copyright infringement, you’ll need to register your work with the United States Copyright Office.

“It’s not OK to steal content, particularly without attribution! Images count, so be careful. (my emphasis)

“Works that have entered the “public domain” don’t qualify for copyright protection; most creative works enter the public domain because their copyrights expire.

“Not everything is subject to copyright. What’s not? Ideas, short phrases, and government works, for starters. There are also “fair use” exceptions.”

Of course, I have a feeling Griggs’ was not being malicious. She was just showing her ignorance of the law and of social media. Apparently the lesson has been learned.

At last a guy has taken the time to write this all down. Finally, the guys’ side of the story. We always hear “the rules” from the female side. Now here are the rules from the male side.

These are our rules! Please note these are all numbered “1″ ON PURPOSE!

1.   Men are NOT mind readers. FIRST & FOREMOST RULE

1. Learn to work the toilet seat. You’re a big girl. If it’s up, put it down. We need it up, you need it down. You don’t hear us complaining about you leaving it down.

1. Sunday sports, it’s like the full moon or the changing of the tides. Let it be.

1. Crying is blackmail.

1. Ask for what you want. Let us be clear on this one: Subtle hints do not work! Strong hints do not work! Obvious hints do not work! Just say it!

1. Yes and no are perfectly acceptable answers to almost every question.

1. Come to us with a problem only if you want help solving it. That’s what we do. Sympathy is what your girlfriends are for.

1. Anything we said six months ago is inadmissible in an argument. In fact, all comments become null and void after seven days.

1. If you think you’re fat, you probably are. Don’t ask us.

1. If something we said can be interpreted two ways and one of the ways makes you sad or angry, we meant the other one.

1. You can either ask us to do something or tell us how you want it done – not both. If you already know best how to do it, just do it yourself.

1. Whenever possible, please say whatever you have to say during commercials.

1. Christopher Columbus did NOT need directions and neither do we.

1. ALL men see in only 16 colors, like Windows’ default settings. Peach, for example, is a fruit, not A color. Pumpkin is also a fruit. We have no idea what mauve is.

1. If it itches, it will be scratched. We do that.

1. If we ask what is wrong and you say “nothing,” We will act like nothing’s wrong. We know you are lying, but it is just not worth the hassle.

1. If you ask a question you don’t want an answer to, expect an answer you don’t want to hear.

1. When we have to go somewhere, absolutely anything you wear is fine – really!

1. Don’t ask us what we’re thinking about unless you are prepared to discuss such topics as Football or Hockey.

1. You have enough clothes.

1. You have too many shoes.

1. I am in shape. Round IS a shape!

Thank you for reading this. Yes, I know, I have to sleep on the couch tonight; but did you know men really don’t mind that? It’s like camping.

Pass this to as many men as you can – to give them a laugh. Pass this to as many women as you can – to give them a bigger laugh.

That is changing however.

“It was probably inevitable, but we have seen a steady growth in litigation over content on the Internet,” Sandra Baron, executive director of the Media Law Resource Center in New York, told the Los Angeles Times

“Although bloggers may have a free-speech right to say what they want online, courts have found that they are not protected from being sued for their comments, even if they are posted anonymously. Some postings have even led to criminal charges,” the LA Times reported.

This is my rant for this week. Just because you have a laptop and an Internet connection does not mean you can ignore the rules.  As many bloggers are now finding out, pretending those laws don’t apply get them into a whole heap of trouble.

Yet for some reason many bloggers continue to act like they can write and say what they want. There is something about the Internet and the feeling of anonymity that leads people to write things they would never say in person.

What also bothers me is that many blogger could not define libel if it bit them on the butt.

Here for your edification is the definition of libel from the Associated Press Style Book: “at its most basic, libel means injury to reputation. In some states libel is distinguished from slander, in that a libel is written or otherwise printed, whereas slander is spoken; in either case, the word defamation generally includes both terms. Words, pictures, cartoons, photo captions and headlines can all give rise to a claim for a libel.”

One of the very first things drilled into every rookie reporter are the rules of libel. Lawsuits are expensive. Editors don’t like to use their budgets on legal fees.

“Most people have no idea of the liability they face when they publish something online,” Eric Goldman, who teaches Internet law at Santa Clara University, told the LA Times. “A whole new generation can publish now, but they don’t understand the legal dangers they could face. People are shocked to learn they can be sued for posting something that says, ‘My dentist stinks.’”

Under federal law, websites generally are not liable for comments posted by outsiders. They can, however, be forced to reveal the poster’s identity if the post includes false information presented as fact.

That’s right, you cannot hide behind a false identity. Keep in mind that to everyone at your Internet Service provider – with the exception to those who send you the bill – you are a series of numbers. Those numbers are unique and cannot be changed by you. In other words, they can identify you quite easily.

“There’s a false sense of safety on the Internet,” Kimberley Isbell, a lawyer for the Citizen Media Law Project at Harvard University said to the Times. “If you think you can be anonymous, you may not exercise the same judgment” before posting a comment, she said.

So, think before you hit that publish button.

As I was cleaning and oiling the machine, I realized there was a metaphorical relationship between social media and that typewriter.

The typewriter was my wife’s college machine. It is really nice Smith-Corona manual. For those of you who never used a typewriter, manual means that it’s not electric. The insides are quite elaborate and sophisticated. It takes a series of levers to move each key so the letter strikes the paper. This thing was state-of-the-art 40 years ago.

Today that state-of-the-art machine is viewed as a quant reminder of a bygone era. Sure some people still use typewriters, but some people still use candles. But just as almost no one relies on candles for their primary light source, almost no one uses a typewriter as their primary source of document production.

Computers have taken over almost completely from typewriters. It has changed the way things are done. I tried to type something on the typewriter yesterday. I found the way I think and formulate ideas has changed. My MacBook is much more efficient and a lot faster. No more using White out correction fluid to paint over mistakes.

Yet when the first word processors came along, there was a lot of a resistance. I worked in newsrooms then, a typewriter dense environment if there ever was one. The old reporters argued those word processors were just not as good or efficient as a typewriter. They were too complex, to prone to error and what would happen if the power went out? Better to stick with the Royal upright typewriters. Again an explanation – an upright typewriter looked like an upright piano.

A lot of people look at social media the same way as those old newsroom bulls looked at word processors. It is too complex, it will never work, why don’t we just stick with what has worked for the last 100 years.

The reasons why not are obvious. Social media works better.

The people who ran newsrooms had the foresight to realize that those word processors were the best choice. They saw they were more cost efficient. Sections of the old production processes could be eliminated, keeping costs down and the product competitive.

You know how most newsrooms got the old ones to accept the word processors? One day it was announced that new equipment was being brought into the newsroom. Anyone who wanted to could take their typewriter home at no charge. It was theirs to keep.

When everyone got in the next day, there were shiny new word processors sitting at each desk. A course in how to use them was given. It was a swim or sink move. It worked. It was a pretty painless change. The veterans realized the change was for the better and it was inevitable.

I think a lot of companies need to do the same thing. Instead of dithering about social media, they need to make the change. It will be for the better. And it is inevitable.

I’m an executive and I hate social media. There, I said it. It’s finally “out there.” But before you Twitter a flaming flash mob link to assemble pitchfork-wielding Second Life villagers outside my door, I urge you to take a deep breath, put down your double frappuccino, remove your earpiece, step away from your iPad, and set your iPhasers to stun, for I come in peace.  If you’ve ever wondered why your CEO also hates social media, social networking and, well, socializing in general, I urge you to continue reading.

Just as Fox TV’s Masked Magician series demystified the tricks of the world’s most famous illusionists, I offer the following as both a behind-the-scenes peak and a confessional of sorts, into the mind of the executive. For to truly understand the conflicting yet predictable stonewalling in this domain, one must search deep below the surface, plumbing the depths of the executive psyche, motivations, and worldviews, for only then will you be able to “crack the code,” engage us in our native tongue and communicate in a vocabulary and language to which we will respond.  Consider this your own personal backstage pass to the inner sanctum of the Executive Suite.

Executive: More Perception Than Position

For starters, the term “executive” isn’t a title as much as it is a mindset or a set of attributes – often leading to career success and the achievement of such rank – but what might surprise most is that this ambition and executive mentality often begins to manifest itself early in life.  For example, while most were partying and hanging out in high school, we were already taking college-level classes while holding down several part time jobs.  And when most were “finding themselves” in college and still deciding on a major after three years, we were serving in student leadership, doing internships, or doubling up on classes to finish college a semester early. And when most were finally in the workforce, instead of clubbing and playing in multiple softball leagues, we were completing an advanced degree in night school, pursuing professional certifications, and framing out retirement plans.

Executives are high achievers – that’s just how we’re wired. Give me a mountain and I’ll climb it. And if you don’t have a mountain, I’ll find my own mountain and I’ll climb it.  And if I can’t find a mountain, I’ll build one – just so I can climb it. But here’s what most people don’t get about executives. Once a CEO climbs a mountain, he doesn’t feel the need to Tweet to the world that he did it. He doesn’t have the natural desire to blog, “Look what a great climber I am” and include multiple pictures with links to his Facebook and LinkedIn account. He did it because it’s in his DNA. He doesn’t require the attention, approval, or applause of others, and therein lies the fundamental source of the problem – executives are non-narcissistic in a YouTube world. We’re outliers. In a society that brags, blogs, and Tweets about the tiniest personal minutia, we could care less because, frankly, we expect success, it’s normal to us. It’s like Vince Lombardi’s admonition to his running back after an overly exuberant display, “Next time you make a touchdown, act like you’ve been there before.”

Eagles Don’t Flock

Executives are “eagles,” and unlike seagulls, eagles don’t flock. We’re not joiners and we’re not groupies, which is why we overwhelmingly prefer challenging single-person sports like running, cycling, weightlifting, and our one concession to “group sports” – golf (which is still technically a single-person sport, but more fun in groups). Lance Armstrong didn’t win his titles without leaving the peloton,and ditto for greats like Sampras, Tiger, and Arnold. They had to go above and beyond the group to achieve greatness, and for this reason it truly us lonely at the top (not that we mind).

Social Networking: The Problem is “Networking”

The reason we hate social networking is the same reason we hate regular networking. Exchanging small talk for two hours in a room full of strangers, with a drink in one hand and a business card in the other, and a “Hi, I’m Doug” name tag peeling off my lapel, and standing – my goodness the standing – and looking unsuccessfully for any food with some protein in it, and wondering if this guy with the too-firm handshake is going to see if we can “LinkIn” after sharing an elevator ride, before glancing at my watch and counting the minutes until I can leave and get back to work. It’s a nightmare. Why? Because – surprise, surprise – most executives are actually introverts, who value their time and their privacy and are constantly evaluating the ROI trade-offs of every hour of every day. (Quiz:  How many times have you heard a CEO describe himself as a “People Person”?)

To say that we are anti-social would be a huge misrepresentation, but when you combine the word “social” with “networking” – let’s just say it sends shivers up my spine. Do I like the company of others? Sure I do – but I want the time to be well spent. Instead of random, shallow, unfocused small talk, CEO’s would much rather sit around with a small group of peers for 2 hours and discuss BIG specific challenges – and their solutions. In fact, the reason so much business gets done on the golf course is because it’s one of the few places leaders actually congregate and feel relaxed enough to discuss what’s really on their minds.

Social Networking: The Problem is “Social”

The next hurdle for executives with social networking are the implications of the root word “Social”, and, by its very spelling, its association to Socialism. Socialism is defined as, “Any system of social organization in which the means of producing and distributing goods is owned collectively,” and further, “An economic and political theory based on public ownership or common ownership and cooperative management of the means of production and allocation of resources.” (At least that’s what someone wrote on Wikipedia). The premise and value of the “social media” movement is the power of the collective in the production, distribution, and ownership of goods, and the reason executives resist this model is that it flies in the face of their existing worldview which, quite frankly, has been pretty successful to date. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it, right? Most of us have a pretty big chip on our shoulders, attributing our career success to the years of diligence, education, ambition, delayed gratification and sacrifices we’ve made to reach the leadership levels we’ve achieved.

Therefore, the anti-capitalistic notion that my work and contributions would be homogenized with the uninspired masses, and that ultimately my value would be determined by the randomness of the collective is a jarring and unpalatable departure. I want to control my company! I want to control my brand! I want to determine my destiny! It’s too important to leave it to chance (or simply be outvoted by the uninformed bourgeois)! Unfortunately and tragically for us executives, the beauty and power of social media is only fully unleashed when we let it go, and that, my friends, is the hardest thing for us to do (…and also explains why we hate checking luggage at the airport).

Beware of Geeks Bearing Gifts

Okay, I promised that this would be a confessional, so here’s a shocker. Over time, there is a tendency for CEO’s to get inflated egos.  Now granted, a healthy ego can serve as a necessary defense mechanism to provide protection from the relentless attacks from subordinates, peers, and the media, but too much amounts to just plain pride. We like to think of ourselves as a pretty smart bunch, and our position is such that even if we don’t completely understand something, we often project to our colleagues that we do.

A classic example of this phenomenon transpired during the Enron debacle, where ranks of senior executives refused to admit that they couldn’t comprehend the mechanics of this powerful conglomerate, until it was too late. It’s the same with new advances in technology, which has accelerated during our careers from “hit or miss” to “mission critical,” going from bricks to clicks and from mortar to mind share, while serving as a platform for everything from infrastructure, billing, and product development, to security, scheduling, and sales. The rapid rate of change in digital innovation has caused CEOs to feel extremely vulnerable around technology because it is something on which we have become very reliant, but which we understand and “control” so little, and this vulnerability leads to fear, and this fear to irrational decisions and suboptimal outcomes. When CEOs don’t have the confidence in their staff to delegate, or lack the humility to admit their ignorance regarding technology advances, they get defensive and act out in fear – or fail to act altogether.

Social Media: Justified Fear?

Executives justify their fear of social media by pointing back to a historic drumbeat of disappointment and unfulfilled promises. They recall with vivid detail the never-ending parade of new online engagement vehicles and “paradigms” introduced over the past 15 years by turtleneck-wearing gurus with names like Kip or Seth, which were then propagated by self-proclaimed “New Economy” experts sporting titles like “Chief Innovation Officer” and “Director of Chaos,” and then championed by side burn-wearing hipster foot soldiers who never met a filter they didn’t like. In the 90’s, we were promised that customers would beat a path to our door if we created something called a “web page” and then “posted” it on this thing called the Internet or World Wide Web or something. Then they convinced us to buy electronic lists and send out “Email Blasts” to our target markets, and next it was a website redesign, push technology, pull technology, exchanged links, partner intranets, eBusiness, eCommerce, blogging, webinars, podcasts, search engine optimization, YouTube videos, LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, yada, yada, yada. Each time they promised that this time it would be different, and that this new product/protocol/portal/potion would somehow (magically??) drive revenue, increase efficiency, and optimize utilization (or some other buzz word or invented metric). You told me to blog, so I blogged. You told me to Twitter, so I Tweeted. What’s it going to be tomorrow – scan my body into a mashup simulator to create a hologram so I can telepresence myself into sales calls in Madrid via FourSquare using Flickr? All I know is that I’ve spent a lot of time and money on a series of disjointed initiatives and campaigns and so far none have performed as advertised.

Don’t Feed Me Another Fad

Look, executives aren’t that complicated. While I can handle the many nuanced “gray areas” of business leadership, I prefer to see things in black and white; victories and defeats; profits and losses. I don’t mind making significant, strategic multi-year investments and committing to enterprise-wide initiatives which will improve the future performance of my company – in fact, I ENJOY it – what do you think got me to the Executive Suite in the first place? Just don’t insult me. I don’t want to waste any more time or money on the hype of  “the next big thing” or the newest tool or toy, only to be disappointed when the latest flash-in-the-pan fad fades and goes the way of Harvard Graphics. It’s not that I have a fear of commitment – frankly, it’s just the opposite. I have a healthy fear and distaste for doing things randomly just to be doing something; or because someone saw an article in USA Today, or CNBC did a story on it, or out of fear that I’ll be the last one in my circle to “get on board.” (Believe me, the things that keep me up at night can’t be solved in 140 characters or less). The truth is, I would love to commit to social media in a significant way, but so far nobody in my organization has stepped forward with a cerebral, strategic, multi-generational, integrated, systematic, and sustainable methodology and road map for synergistically capitalizing on this medium over the long haul.

Your Network is Your Net Worth

Executives are uniquely conflicted because we know better than anyone the power of relationships, and the truth of the old axiom, “Your network is your net worth,” yet we are inherently introverts, and gravitate towards solitude versus socializing. We understand on an intellectual level that none of us individually are “too big to fail,” and that even the Lone Ranger had Tonto and Batman had Robin, yet we find initiating conversations and exchanges with others to be draining, distracting, and exhausting rather than invigorating and inspiring. Hence we yearn; as a group we pine; for deep within our heart of hearts burns a great bright hope that somehow and in some way this social media movement or platform or culture or whatever could be harnessed and leveraged to cross that chasm and create valuable, authentic exchanges and relevant, real-time dialogue with stakeholders of all persuasions. If we could just develop an all-encompassing framework for how this would integrate into our enterprise-wide strategy, and manage it like a mission-critical project (complete with milestones, deliverables and accountability instead of fuzzy metrics like “buzz”), I am supremely confident that we could achieve escape velocity and – for the first time – truly establish and be able to articulate a synergistic, sustainable, and quantifiable strategy for leveraging “Best-In-Class” social media options to achieve desired corporate outcomes and maximize financial returns.

A Gift From Media To You

You know, it’s interesting. Somewhere in the convoluted catharsis of composing this confessional, I came to a surprising realization.  Maybe I don’t HATE social media after all. Maybe I just hate the Quixotic context in which most social media conversations exist, featuring a perpetually moving target, combined with an obsessive, cult-like worship of the default worldview, “If Something is New = It Must Be Good”, and where subjective criteria like “mindshare” and “impressions” are considered quantifiable deliverables and irrefutable barometers of success.

Come to think of it, maybe it’s high time that a C-level individual engaged this topic, and – once and for all –created a high-level overview and synopsis, crystallizing all of the strategic benefits and critical value streams, and distilling them into a language that speaks to executives everywhere in our native tongue – bottom line stakeholder value.

Part Two will run Wednesday.

In giving a report on the state of one of the oldest franchises in the National Football League, Murphy stated the team was actively exploring using social media to stay in closer touch with its fan base.

At first, I was surprised. You have to understand there is no more fanatic fan base in all of sports than the Packer Nation. As a note, I am a proud member of that green and gold clad horde.

Before you start bringing up other teams and their fans, let me give you a few facts:

• According to the Packers’ website, the team has sold out 285 straight games at Lambeau Field – 269 regular season, 16 playoff – since 1959. Packer fans go to away games just to get a chance to see the team play in person.
• Heck, 20,000 or so people will show up to watch an outdoors practice.
• The Packers do not sell single game tickets. There is no need.
• Murphy said there are approximately 80,000 people on the season ticket waiting list. According to former Sports Illustrated writer Rick Reilly, an average of 70 people a year give up their tickets. Tickets are usually handed down through the generations. You do the math on how long it will take to cut that season ticket list down.

So, why would a team who is not just in touch with its fans, but seemingly joined at the hip with them, consider jumping into the social media pool? Because like any other small business, the team knows that it cannot rely on what has worked to keep working.

Yes, the Packers are small business in the NFL sense. Their home base is the 257^th largest city in the United States. Yes, they are the state of Wisconsin’s team. Even adding the people who live in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, those people in Northern Illinois who decide to root for the Pack and those from Iowa who aren’t Viking’s fans – the Packers have a potential fan base of around six or seven million people. I think there are that many people trying to get through New York City’s Lincoln tunnel on a Friday night.

Plus those fans are changing.

“My kids don’t read a newspaper,” Murphy noted. Most under 30s do not. So while the older of those in Packer nation still read print media, the younger do not Murphy clearly knows he needs to go where the fans are. For in this time of decreasing brand loyalty and fickle fans, no smart company is going to take anything for granted.

So rather than rely on Wisconsin’s newspapers and television stations, the team is turning to channels such as Facebook and Twitter.

There are several lessons to be learned, but I think the major one is that the Packers are being pre-emptive. They are morphing their marketing efforts before there’s a problem. It is a lesson all businesses should learn.

Let me set the scene for what set me off this time. The western suburbs of Milwaukee were hit hard by tornadoes Monday night. There was extensive damage, but thankfully no one was killed or serious injured.

Of course, the local television stations were all over the story. Although I often criticize local news coverage of weather because it is over-hyped, this is one instance where the coverage was mostly justified. Although at one point last night, I did turn to my wife and note that we wouldn’t know if the US had decided to bomb Iran. The local weather took precedence over all other news.

What set my teeth on edge when one reporter noted that some buildings were “destroyed beyond repair.” Someone badly needs a dictionary. Or when another reporter noted that a building was “totally flattened.” Is there an alternative?

The reporters go on and on like this. I could listen dozen of other examples. As I said, I am not looking for Shakespearean actors here. I just want someone who knows how to put six words together into a sentence.

While I am on the subject, another reporter asked a person whose house was damaged by the storm how they felt. That almost made me throw something at the television.

Now, for those of you don’t know, I spent 26 years as a print reporter. I covered plane crashes, major car accidents, multiple murders, all kinds of natural disasters and even ship sinking. Not once did I ever ask someone how they felt. It might be the dumbest possible question any reporter can ask. How does one feel after finding out a relative was dead or having a home destroyed? What do they expect people to say?

“Well gosh Biff, I feel great that Aunt Henrietta got swept away by the storm. We are in the will. We can pay for that trip to France we always wanted to take.”

Of course, what television people are looking for is emotion. Tears look much better on the evening news than someone dispassionately discussing how they are going to rebuild their lives.

I could go on with this, but you get the idea how I feel about reporters who don’t do their jobs.

As a note: reporters cannot accept anything of value. It is against most publication’s ethics code. So don’t send anything. Anything I received went to charity if possible. If it was food, it went to a food bank. If it was perishable food or beer (hey, I work in Milwaukee) I shared with the entire newsroom. I always said – maybe I have my price, but other than Bill Gates, I doubt anyone could pay it. A box of cookies wasn’t going to influence me.

When I left journalism just over seven years, I went to work for any agency run by a former reporter. It was a great place to learn. Like everyone else, I did the traditional things one does in P.R. and marketing. The only difference for me was that my pitches and writing were better. I had a good track record there and at my next job.

The appearance of social media four years ago changed everything. It was also when I learned that traditional public relations and social media go very well together. I had a client that couldn’t get employees to open emails. After doing some research, we decided to a series of podcasts. The podcasts were very successful. It wasn’t even called social media then, the usual title was Web 2.0

The employees found out about the podcasts through the traditional channels. There was an announcement in the company’s newsletter; each department head received a written announcement to read to their employees. We also got some press coverage because at the time what we did was unique.

Without going into a lot of tedious detail, I soon learned when I went out my own that social media is becoming the dominant form of marketing. I have done everything I can to learn about it and how to use it. Still, the growing dominance of social media doesn’t mean that there is still not a place for traditional methods.

Do not discount the power of a story on the front page of a local newspaper or on the local television station. While it’s a shrinking group, many people still get their information from traditional media. That includes elected officials. It is silly to ignore those people. They are probably also on line, but what’s wrong with reaching them through multiple channels?

Yes, I advise sending out a social media press release. See last Monday’s blog for the reasons. But it is still a press release. Just in a super-charged form.

Twitter is a great place to release news. Many, many journalist now follow Twitter. Rather than call 50 reporters, you can send out one tweet and get journalists to call you. They might be working for a traditional outlet, but you reached out using social media. See, you married the two methods.

As for employees, I always advise a combination of social media and traditional methods. In any kind of many workplaces, manufacturing, retails, and others, employees are not going to have constant access to the Internet. They probably have it at home, but they are not at home at times when you want to get the word out. If it’s really important, you should have a face-to-face meeting. If it is not that important, but if you want employees to know something, there is nothing wrong with posting a notice where they can see it.

None of this changes my opinion that CEOs should be blogging, companies should have Facebook Fan pages, should be posting videos on YouTube, creating groups on LinkedIn and tweeting company news. That should be the primary focus.

But just as I use a hammer on home improvement projects that first belonged to my grandfather, traditional tools still have a place in marketing and public relations.

Last Wednesday, I said Toyota was slow out of the blocks to respond to the various crises it has faced of late. I think I was blogger 10,143 to state the obvious. However, I also said the company is showing signs of regaining its equilibrium.

Note: I drive a 2000 Camry. Both my children drive Corollas.

The company is running ads in every print and broadcast outlet it can find – including a lot of radio. It has shown pictures of its idled factories to demonstrate how serious it is in identifying the accelerator and brake issues. It also has a very active presence on Facebook.

Still while this is a good start, I think the company could do more. I think they if they handled it as I suggest, they would turn a negative into a positive.

Do What Datsun Did

The first thing Toyota’s C-Suite executives should do is plan road trips to every dealer in every country where Toyota is sold. The road trippers should be Chairman Fujio Cho, Vice Chairmen of the Board Katsuaki Watanabe and Kazuo Okamo, President Akio Toyoda, and in North America, Jim Lentz, president and chief operating officer of Toyota Motor Sales, USA. If there are people who hold the same positions as Lenz in Europe, Asia, South America, the Middle East and Africa, they should also pack their bags.

They need to take a page from the handbook of retired Nissan executive Yutaka Katayama.  It was Katayama who made Datsun (which later returned to its original name of Nissan) into the first Japanese automobile success story in the United States, according to the late journalist and author David Halberstam. It was Halberstam who detailed Datsun’s success in “The Reckoning” – his account of the rise the Japanese auto industry.

Katayama lived in the United States. He traveled constantly around the U.S., meeting, customers, dealers, reporters and anyone else who talk to him. Halberstam explained that Katayama made Datsun a powerhouse because “he (Katayama) was a rare man. He brought a face to the Japanese mercantile presence; meeting him, Americans felt they knew, understood and liked the Japan that was behind his products.”

This is what Toyota’s executives should be doing. Going to every place in the world where there have been problems. Once there, they should personally apologize to their customers. They should be interviewed by the media in each city and repeat the apology. They should honestly answer the tough questions about what they knew and when they knew it. They should be speaking to every group that will listen. There should be town hall style meetings at dealerships for the customers and the general public to air grievances.

These public appearances will, in my opinion, do much to quell the anger and rebuild trust. Most people are willing to forgive a mistake, as long the one who makes the mistake sincerely apologizes.

Cut Prices

Second, a simple thing to do would to be slash prices on all models. Not a token five percent cut – a real one in the neighborhood of 25 percent. For those who have a car with a defective accelerator or brakes, give them a new car. I would throw into five years free maintenance for every car sold. Not just for oil changes and other minor things, but for all repairs from replacing a headlamp to replacing a transmission.

More Social Media

Third, I would make better use of social media than they are. Both Cho and Lenz should be blogging every week. Craig Newmark – the Craig of Craig’s List does, as does Jonathan Swartz, president and chief operating officer of Sun Microsystems and my personal favorite CEO blog, that of Southwest Airlines Gary Kelly. It has helped all three companies when they have hit rough patches. Explanations sound so much better when they come from the person in charge.

Finally, there are many, many people out there who are still strong Toyota supporters. Anecdotally, I know that because as Chester the Wonder Dog and I walk each day, I talk to Toyota owners. I have yet to find one who would get rid of their car.

I have also been on the Toyota Facebook page for U.S. owners. The level of support is amazing. Toyota needs to get those people more organized around company support. Most kind of companies would kill for that kind of support.

Put this all together and I think Toyota will be just fine.

Print publications are still a viable way to spread the news, a trio of business editors said last week. Print is still a vital to tell people what’s going, the three argued in a panel discussion held before the Southeastern Wisconsin chapter of the Public Relations Society of America.

“We are bullish on print,” Mark Sabljak, publisher of the Business Journal of Milwaukee. “Some people still enjoy a print product.”

All three seemed to be cautiously embracing electronic media. Salbjak seemed to be holding out the most. For instance, he noted he said in 2009 there would no blogging at the Business Journal until the paper found a way to make a profit on such an effort. The paper’s is now blogging because it has found a way to monetize the effort.

However, social media is changing the way news is being covered, said Steve Jagler, executive editor of Biztimes Milwaukee. Sites such as Twitter are not competition, he explained. Rather, it is helping the paper extend its brand, Jagler said. Social media amplifies the paper’s ability to report the news.

“We have a staff that understands the possibilities of social media,” Jagler said.

Social media has turned newspaper in 24-7 operations, said Chuck Melvin, assistant managing editor/business for the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. The paper now has new ways to deliver the news. The paper is not longer just print-based. It now uses Twitter and other services to disseminate its stories.

“We are not just print-based anymore,” Melvin said. “Social media is a new way of delivering the news.”

Social media has actually improved the Journal Sentinel’s ability to cover news. By using blogs, the paper can pay more attention to niche markets. He cited reporter Tom Daykin’s real estate blog and art critic Mary Louise Schumacher’s blog on the Milwaukee art scene as two examples.

“I see a lot of growth in our blogs,” Melvin said. “We are also working to add more video to our website. It adds a lot of value to the reader experience.”

All three editors said the key to a successful story pitch is keeping it simple, providing relevant information and making sure the proper journalist is targeted. It is important the person making the pitch is talking to the right reporter. That means knowing what people cover and what their interests are.

“Make sure you know the media company’s mission,” Jagler said.

All three also said it is still okay to over an exclusive story to one publication.

“It is the same situation as it has always been,” Sabljak said. “It is more challenging to get one in these days of 24/7 news coverage. But, my reporters are paid to get exclusive stories.”

The increasing dominance of technology has made the role of the public relations practitioner more important, Melvin said. A good P.R. person can play a vital role in telling reporters what’s going on. I would add that because there is so much information being circulated that no one person could ever keep track of it. A good, targeted pitch probably has a better chance than ever of getting a reporter’s attention.

While acknowledging that the need to get the news out faster than ever can be strain, all three also said that hasn’t made their staff’s lose perspective.

“We have not lost the ability to do the in-depth story,” Melvin said.

This is the headline from the Dec. 11, 2009 crainsnewyork.com online business magazine: “367 magazines shuttered in 2009.”

The article goes on to report that: “As bad as the news is, the pace of decline appears to have slowed. In 2008, a total of 526 U.S. magazines ceased publication. In 2007, there were 573 that shut down.

The number of titles that folded may actually be higher, said Trish Hagood, president of Oxbridge Communications, parent company of MediaFinder, which describes itself as the largest online database of U.S. and Canadian publications. She explains that it will take until well into the new year to do a final tabulation.”

A knowledge gap is being created

I decided to write this blog because of last week’s announcement that two venerable magazines were shutting down: Editor & Publisher and Kirkus Reviews are being shuttered.

I know neither of these of magazines would be the kind likely to be sold at the grocery store checkout (except maybe for grocery stores in Cambridge, Mass, the lower East Side of New York and Berkley, Calif.). But, they served important purposes in their niches.

The century-old Editor & Publisher covered the newspaper industry. When I started as a reporter in 1975, it was a must read. If you wanted to know what going on in the business, you read E & P. I got my first two reporting jobs from classified ads in the magazine. It was a magazine in which readers’ actually read the ads first, especially the classified job listings.

Kirkus Reviews published over 5,000 book reviews annually. It was an important outlet, especially for new authors. It was often the first public exposure a first novel received. Kirkus was an important resource for bookstore buyers. They would often choose a novel to offer to their customers based on something they read in the magazine.

Personal note: As one who is writing a novel, and hoping to get it published, I mourn the loss of Kirkus. I also mourn the loss of E & P. It was an important press watchdog.

The closing of those two, and other magazines, is creating a knowledge gap.

Magazines used to occupy a unique place in news and information publishing. Newspapers were looked to as a daily source of information. That role has largely been taken over by Web-based news sources, including Twitter. Magazines were the source of the longer, more in-depth pieces. Magazines had the space and time to really tackle a subject. But, they were more immediate than a book.

With the death of so many magazines, a valuable source of explanation and analysis is going away. Oddly, to me at least, many newspapers are trying to turn themselves into daily magazines. They write long investigative stories that often run for several pages. That’s not why people read newspapers. They want to know what’s going on in the neighborhood. People don’t have time to ready long stories in the morning – when newspapers are delivered.

There is a solution

Yeah, you guessed it – I think magazines should be moving on line completely. I know Editor & Publisher has been on-line since the ‘90s. Kirkus is also online.  However, I don’t think either did a very good job of bringing readers to their websites. Like a lot of other publications, I think they saw the websites as an auxiliary to their print editions. It should have been the other way around.

There is precedent for this – the move of soap operas from radio to television in the early 1950s.

A little history first. In 1946, there were approximately 10,000 television sets in the United States, according to questia.com. By 1950, there were 3 million and by 1953, half of all households in the United States had a television. Kind of sounds like the growth of social media, doesn’t it?

Proctor & Gamble started soap operas on radio during the Depression. It was a marketing decision to sell more laundry soap and other products. When television began to dominate, P & G moved the soaps to television. After all, you go where the customers are – which is a rule of social media by the way.

So, why can’t magazines do the same thing? The web is becoming the dominant media – so why not move to the customers are? More and more people are doing their reading online. I still get Sports Illustrated’s print edition, but I also read it online every day. SI and other publications can do more on the web – post videos, run a lot more pictures, link to other relevant sites and be a lot more immediate in their analysis.

I think that move would save a lot of magazines. In cost alone, it would be a good move. No longer would a publisher have to factor the cost of production and printing.

Seems logical to me. Any thoughts anyone?

Note: I will not be posting on either next Monday or Wednesday. It is a holiday week and I am taking some time off. The next blog will run Jan. 4, 2010.

This sight could soon be a thing of the past.

I hate it when I agree with press baron Rupert Murdoch. But The Alien (as the late, great Chicago newspaper columnist Mike Royko called him) is correct. Newspapers should start charging for their online efforts. However, Murdoch’s suggestion is half-uh, planned. In my view, newspapers should stop printing completely and go exclusively on line. Think Kindles and IPods. Throw in a heaping helping of social media and I think newspapers would again be successful. I feel it is going to take something that radical to save quality journalism.

What’s killing newspapers is that the so-called Millennials get their information from the Internet – primarily from social media. They make decisions on purchases by reading other customers’ online comments, and get their news from sites such as Google News, Twitter, Digg and Facebook and go to Craigslist for classified ads. Their lifestyle does not lend itself to reading a newspaper as they sip a cup of coffee at the breakfast table.

Editors around the world have tried valiantly to reach out to those readers. Hiring younger reporters, creating special sections aimed (hopefully) at younger reader’s interest and sponsoring concerts and other events. None of it has worked.

Newspapers need to survive. I could talk watchdogs and the Fourth Estate, Thomas Jefferson and others. But, for the Internet generation, I will provide a major reason. Where do you think all of the aggregated content on news sites comes from? It comes from journalists around the world gathering that information. Who will provide that if news organizations go away?

As marketers, we still need news outlets. It is still one of the best ways to reach potential customers.

“By undermining the financial viability of traditional media, marketers are jeopardizing the only viable means currently available for reaching mass audiences,” Karlene Lukovitz wrote in the Aug. 4 issue of MarketingDaily, “That’s the core premise of “The CMO’s Dilemma: Can You Reach the Masses Without Mass Media?,” a new white paper co-authored by John Rose and Neal Zuckerman of The Boston Consulting Group. Rose and Zuckerman argue that it’s critical that marketers, agencies and media companies start addressing the issues surrounding this dilemma together.”

So, what to do? Well, I would scrap the presses and everything else physical used to produce a newspaper. In their place, I would provide every reader with a Kindle or IPod. I would sell subscribers the electronic reader at a reduced rate and then provide everything from breaking news to crossword puzzles on the Web.

“Wireless can offer newspapers a distribution platform that can provide a new source of revenue, as well as replace revenue loss from a readership transitioning from a physical to a digital product by providing enhanced value,” Mark Desautels, of The Wireless Association wrote in an NAA blog.

I agree and it also would save a lot of money for newspapers, I think. I could not find an aggregated figure for newspaper production costs. But, the Business Insider estimated it costs the New York Times twice as much to print the paper as it would to give all 800,000-plus readers a Kindle. The blog estimates the Times spends approximately $644 million a year in production costs – that’s printing and distribution.

It currently costs $680 a year to subscribe to the New York Times, according to its website. According to Amazon’s website, a Kindle retails for $299. When I was a reporter, it was assumed that four people read each paper. So, the Times would need to procure 200,000 kindles, give or take. I am willing to bet Amazon would discount the price for buying in that kind of bulk. And that’s a one-time expense.

So, the Times cuts $644 million in expenses by going to an electronic only newspaper. It also has the means to reach out to all those Gen-Yers who wouldn’t be caught dead getting newsprint all over their fingers. This is a generation who gets its information from the Internet. So go where they are and give them the news by sending out The Electronic Gazette.

My Electronic Gazette would send out news 24-hours-a-day, seven-days-a-week. There would be podcasts and video. The advantage it would have over current Internet news sites is that it would be news geared toward where it was based. That’s key. It’s easy to get national and international news. What’s hard to find out is what is happening in your community. As newspapers have made cuts, one of the things that has been thrown over the side is in-depth coverage of local news.

It is well documented that newspaper websites are recording millions of hits. The market is already there. It just needs to be monetized.

“Surprisingly, research conducted by Frank N. Magid Associates in June indicates that consumers are willing to pay for access to the content they enjoy,” Lindsey Schutte wrote in the Aug. 7 edition EngageGenY, a Media:Post blog. “In fact, members of Gen Y are more likely to say they will spend money than Gen Xers and Baby Boomers.

“For instance, 80% of Gen Yers say they would pay for music, whereas only 52% of Baby Boomers say the same,” Schutte wrote. “Sixty-nine percent of Gen Yers would pay for professionally produced television programming, whereas only 51% of Baby Boomers say the same. The gap narrows when it comes to news and information, 43% of Gen Yers say they would pay versus 36% of Baby Boomers — but the gap still exists. Paying is defined as exchanging money; it does not include accepting ads for content.”

Social media would need to be part of the mix. I think electronic papers could drive circulation up by social media. If I were the publisher of The Electronic Gazette, I would make sure links our stories were tweeted, Dugg, and were on Friendfeed. I would invite bloggers to link to our site. Facebook would be a big part of my effort. I think social media would deliver the so-called “golden readers” advertisers want: the 18- to 25-year-olds who do not yet have much brand loyalty.

What this would do would be to create a community around the newspaper – the same has been built around Apple or Zappos shoes. Once that happens, newspapers might actually survive.

NOTE TO MY READERS: If you are interested in a free, introductory course on social media, email me. This is the last week I will make this offer. Myself and some other social media acolytes are giving away an EBook written by social media guru Simon U. Ford. Ford sold several thousand of the books for $67. However, we have permission to give it away for a limited time. In addition, you get five free podcasts. We also will be holding a series of four virtual “book clubs” to go over the book. Between the book and the sessions, you will receive a comprehensive overview of social media. Because we want to provide the best possible training, there are 25 spots left. For more information, go to the Social Boomers site. That’s right, we are actually marketing to Boomers – and anyone else who is interested.