From the Democratization to the Corporatization of Content
Mar
13
After several years doing communications for higher ed, I'm familiar with marketing strategies that focus on reputation development as a driver of "sales" (enrollments and research sponsorship in academia). Effective use of proprietary content to establish thought leadership and credible authority was a primary objective of my work and I came to believe that marketers in other kinds of organizations could learn from higher ed in that way. ... Read more
SXSW – Day One
Mar
11
I have to admit, I’m pretty pumped up for my first session today. It’s actually a writing workshop all about “saying it short.” At JS, we work with a lot of clients on telling their stories via digital content. In some cases, it’s content for their website or an HTML e-mail, other times it’s helping them with content for their social media channels like Facebook or Twitter. In each case, words count. The fewer, more ... Read more
JS is Headed South (by Southwest)
Mar
11
Last night, as my plane came in for a landing, I looked out to my right and could see the beautiful sunset over the Texas Hill Country. After just a few minutes, I headed up Congress Ave. toward the Texas State Capitol. All of a sudden, I was taken back in time – back to my college days at The University of Texas. That’s right folks, I’m in Austin. While it’s easy to think that ... Read more
Storytelling on Tap
Feb
8
If you live in or around Athens, Ga., grew up here, went to UGA or just passed through town once, you have a Georgia Theatre story. As a long-time local, I have many. I saw The Goonies there. And Jennifer Nettles before she went to Sugarland. And when I lived in North Carolina, a black-and-white photo of the Theatre on my wall represented a little piece of home. The iconic landmark is more than a ... Read more
Say Hello…With Conviction
Feb
3
How are your hellos and goodbyes? Something to focus on in 2011 is how you greet people and how you say goodbye. It says a lot about you or a leader’s genuine warmth and the heart of your business. ... Read more
More Than Just a Pretty Face(book)
Feb
1
There I sat Friday morning, sipping my coffee, enjoying a sesame seed bagel and catching up on articles in my RSS feed. As I scrolled through the 200+ headlines, one in particular caught my eye – it was from Chris Brogan’s blog and it was entitled “Compelling Facebook Fan Pages.” A couple of us here at JS noticed a few days prior that he asked his Twitter followers for suggestions of compelling pages, so we were dying to see what fan pages this social media guru chose as his “best in class” examples. ... Read more
BuyLife.org: A Grave Misstep
Dec
3
In case you missed it, Ryan Seacrest and Kim Kardashian died this week. Unlike most celeb news these days, the story did not break on Twitter. Because Seacrest and Kardashian died digitally. Both vowed to silence their social media presence, symbolically snuffing themselves as part of World AIDS Day. Through social media suicide, celebrities angled to motivate fans to “buy their life back” via text messages and online donations to the AIDS organization, Keep a ... Read more
Explore the power of the Dark Site
Nov
10
On the afternoon of Feb. 4, 2010, a man wielding a samurai sword attacked a post-doctoral fellow at the Georgia Institute of Technology. Within minutes of police arriving on the scene, twisted reports of the incident spread across Twitter, Facebook and other online channels. Fears that the attack might be the first of a coordinated attack on campus led students, faculty, staff, parents and the media to turn to the main Georgia Tech website for ... Read more
10 ‘musts’ for a successful career in PR
Nov
5
I recently spoke with undergrads and grad students at Grady College at UGA. I shared with them 10 MUSTS for a successful career in Public Relations. ... Read more
Extra, Extra, Read All About It (Online)
Sep
22
Earlier this month, the Associated Press released a set of guidelines for providing credit and attribution to sources that originate news. While this sounds benign and like it’s nothing new, there was some interesting language in the fine print. More precisely, under these guidelines, AP will begin crediting bloggers as sources. While this is a huge step for online journalism, it ushers in conversations on issues like breaking news, ethics and credibility, to say nothing ... Read more
