Mutually Inclusive PR

Time Pays to Have Billboard Defaced

Time Magazine hired a real graffiti artist to deface a billboard, drawing attention to the magazine's role as an commentator on art and popular culture.

The magazine hired Fernando Carlos (known in the graffiti world as Cope2) to tag its billboard. The New York Daily News interviewed Cope2 and a local politician who was appalled that Time would legitimize anything to do with graffiti.

"Time magazine should have spent its money rewarding legitimate artists, not some punk whose (sic) been defacing our city," the paper quoted councilman Peter Vallone.

The cheque for spray painting on the billboard? $20,000.

Update:  On reflection, "defaced" is the wrong word to use in the headline. I just thought using "tagged" might be confusing, because of the common use of "tag" to describe search terms for weblogs.

Thanks to :Habit Forming for the link.

Tags: graffiti, advertising, ads, outdoor media

CBC Show Looks at Advertising

Update:  O'Reilly's show has finished its run on CBC Radio for now.  No word on whether there will be future broadcasts.

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As part of its summer programming, CBC Radio One is running a weekly half-hour show about the advertising world, hosted by Terry O'Reilly, a writer and director of radio ads and frequent commentator/speaker.

O'Reilly On Advertising brings a refreshing perspective on marketing in general, but mostly on advertising in particular. The show also reflects his understanding of the effective use of sound and words to explore a topic.

The show airs Saturday at 9:30 11:30 a.m. and Mondays at 7:30 p.m.  For those who can't listen by radio, you can catch the show on streaming audio. The show plays once in every Canadian time zone, so once you figure out the appropriate time zone that is currently airing the show, you stand a good chance of catching the audio stream on CBC's web site. Of course, having the show available by podcast would be even better, but there are currently only four CBC Radio shows in that format.

Tag: advertising, radio, television, cbc

Innovation in Fighting Trackback Spam

You have to love the enthusiasm with which geeks tackle a problem. In this case, trackback spam aimed at Threadwatch.org -- a news and message forum cum blog used by search engine marketers to share ideas, post news and rumours and slag Internet behemoths of all kinds.

The challenge: how to make life miserable for Arsewipe Trackback Spammers.

Like e-mail spam before it, trackback spam exploit the goodwill of Internet users to spread promotional or just nuisance messages, clogging up systems that are meant for communication between interested parties. Trackbacks are an excellent way to follow discussions across several blogs, as one person sends a trackback indicating they have posted a related comment.

Nick W, the no-nonsense host of Threadwatch.org, had to suspend trackbacks recently because he was being hammered by spam. But instead of just accepting the loss of a valuable tool, he asked for some advice on how to disrupt the spammers, and preferably cause them some pain by routing the disruptive messages back to their source.

Note to self: don't piss off people who actually know what they're doing on computers.

See also: Spam Haters Given Right of Reply on Slashdot and Hacker Erased Spammer's Database on Security Awareness for Ma, Pa and the Corporate Clueless.  Thanks to Claus and Technorati for the links.

Previous related posts:   A Blacklist for Useless Pitches   

Put Your Finger in the Pitch Spam Dike

Russell Buckley and Carlo Longino of Mobhappy suggest that bloggers should post some sort of advisory about their openness (and closedness?) to receiving pitches about products and services.

They created three logos that could be posted on a blog to indicate that the blogger is: 1) open to pitches; 2) not open to pitches, or 3) open to pitches, with conditions.

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I sort like this idea, though I think the designs the Mobhappy guys came up with are too big and ugly.

What I would rather have is a prominent link on blogs that are likely to attract pitches that link to a short explanation of the preferred method of receiving pitches, the general kinds of things the person would be interested in hearing about, and the kind of pitching behaviour that will prompt the blogger to publicly shame the pitcher. Anyone who doesn't want pitches could have a "I do not accept pitches" button on their site.

I get offered the opportunity to expose myself to marketing pitches on a weekly basis. Sites that offer me free information, or an online service, or even just online registration, routinely invite me to open the floodgates from their marketing department. I rarely allow such pitches, because I don't trust the companies to show discretion and to only contact me when they truly have something useful to report.

I suspect if people adopted something like this, most blogs would come under the "don't accept pitches" or "pitches, with conditions" categories. The only ones likely to indicate they're open to any and all pitches are bloggers who don't currently receive much e-mail.

A Blacklist for Useless Pitches

I'm beginning to come around to the argument from various bloggers who hate indiscriminate pitches. The vitriolic outpourings of anger have seemed out of proportion to the offense. But we are talking about bloggers whose inboxes get choked with inane e-mails that are either irrelevant to the person's area of interest, or so poorly handled that they enrage rather than intrigue the recipient.

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In response to a call for a pitch blacklist by tech blogger Jeremy Zawodny, Shel Holtz argues that as a profession, public relations practitioners should respond to the growing number of complaints:

... We have to do something about cleaning our own house. We have tolerated the worst practices of public relations long enough. Enough bad PR from the highly visible minority of practitioners who engage in it will result in more blacklists, more reporters who dismiss agencies and turn to alternate sources. Without any influence, why would clients hire agencies?

He calls for an effort from professional associations to encourage the worst offenders to clean up their act, and to educate others to adopt best practices.  He also suggests a PR bloggers association. I don't know about that one. It wouldn't resolve the problem of pitches that come from people who aren't bloggers.

Still, I like the idea of some action, rather than standing around wondering why bloggers are getting increasingly annoyed and enraged by the pitch spam they receive.

Zawodny's idea of creating a blacklist for pitch spammers will probably pick up steam, since there likely be more pitches in the future, not fewer.

Of course, every time a blogger writes "I just received an e-mail about a great product..." they are encouraging the kind of behaviour they say they detest.

Media Companies Tinker with Blogs, RSS, Podcasting

Josh Hallett describes a chat/brain-picking session the Orlando Sentinel had with him this week. The description of what the Sentinel has done and is planning to do reveals the dilemma many media outlets face: you can't change one part of your operation without affecting another part.

The Sentinel's use of specific RSS feeds for various categories, and their experiments with event-based blogs are a move toward a new way of serving their market. Their reliance on paid subscriptions for archived online content is at odds with many of the trends in blogging. It will be interesting to see how media companies adjust as the RSS wave rolls through the Internet.

For an example of a media company that is taking chances with new media and new ways of distributing new- and old-style programming, look no further than BBC. Newsnight correspondent Paul Mason does a post-mortem on an event-based blog the show tried around the G8 summit in Scotland. BBC is also getting into podcasting in a big way.

Thanks to Doc Searls for the link about BBC.

To Get the Work, You Have to Network

A colleague was coming to the end of a work contract, and started to get antsy.  So I put out feelers to  a couple of people.  Now, whenever an opportunity comes up, I get an e-mail or a phone call, wondering if my colleague is available. Not really. Now I need to find someone else who's available, so next time people call I can suggest someone.

That's how term work and consulting work flows. You let people know you're available, and you use your network of contacts to spread that message as far as they can. There's a similar network of people who are trying to find the right resources for their projects. And the networks overlap.

It's great if your contacts can spread the word about your area of specialty. But don't expect a lot of the opportunities to apply to your preferred area of work. The opportunities come as they come, and proving you can do one kind of work may lead to your preferred work.

Turning down opportunities because they don't perfectly fit your plans may be right for you if you're actively pursuing a narrow field that has lots of earnings potential. On the other hand, you could be earning money and building your reputation while you wait for your ideal gig to come around.

Perseverence Pays Off

  Aikido Testing 
  Originally uploaded by Mutually Inclusive.

My son Sam (on the left in the photo) passed his test after a solid week of practice and learning at Seishinkan Aikido in Regina.  In the photo, his friend J.D. helps Sam demonstrate some defensive techniques.

Sam's sensei is a very patient teacher, who has a real gift with kids.

Congratulations, Sam!

Shorthand Blog Entries

I've been busy with family stuff the last couple of days.  Here's a synopsis of what I would have said if I'd been posting regularly:

• Number 10 (see A Modest Proposal for PR Blogs)
• Maybe the PR bloggers went a bit overboard reacting to Russell Beattie's "moron" posting, but it was fun!
• I'm glad John Wagner has a blog. Any time I'm not posting, I can just point someone there and say, "What he said," even when he's wrong about something.
• After getting dragged into a debate about RSS feeds and press release sites on Shel Holtz's blog, journalist Chris Edwards has started a blog For More Information....  An even better name is his URL: hackingcough.com! (Thanks to JG for the link)
• The pitching to bloggers debate is interesting. On the one hand, I think the people who do the complaining sound like whiney prima donnas. On the other hand, having been on the receiving end of mindless volumes of semi-useless information, I can empathize.
• Fur flying in IABC Cafe comments section. Fight! Fight!
• Interesting item by Tim Bray on The New Public Relations
• I'll be golfing tomorrow at the beautiful Tor Hill municipal course, then watching my son Sam test for his aikido belt. Life's good...

Fight the Prevailing Trends

The Internet, digital rights management and other techno-economic factors are influenced by private companies, nations, cultures, key people and communities that rely on them. The fact that some of those influences at times seem irresistible and inevitable should not lead you to believe they will necessarily prevail.

But damn, it's hard to push against the flow of a trend that has a powerful source.

Joi Ito talks about the isolation that comes naturally to online communities in Japan, China and other linguistically and culturally distinct nations/spheres of influence:

In countries like China and Japan where there is sufficient content in the local language and most people can't or don't like to read English this is even more so. I would say that the average individual probably doesn't really notice the Internet outside of their country or really care about content not in their native language.

He calls for people to not let the Internet be segmented by differing standards. Keeping consensus about the current and future state of the Internet will be a struggle, but one worth the fight. Says Ito:

Lets fight to keep the Internet and not let it turn into the internets... It is a difficult process with various flaws, but if we give up, it will be very difficult if not impossible for all of to talk again very soon.

For his part, Doc Searls warns of the infringement on freedom that comes with every inclusion of barriers to sharing and using files and information. The creation of proprietary modes of storing and using online music, for example, is a move away from open source software, open standards and open access to information, entertainment and other things.

Says Searls:

All the big boys: the PC makers, the chip makers, the mobile equipment providers, the "consumer experience" deliverers (including Virgin, its many holdings and the rest of the entertainment industry), the patent, copyright and IP (Intellectual Property) absolutists, the parochial national interests, and — most of all — the carriers by the grace of whose fiber and wiring the Net is made available — all want to control you: what you can do with their services and devices, what you can buy, who you can buy it from, and how you can use it. . . .

This is what we are fighting, folks. The open and free marketplace the Internet provides is shortly going to look like the best darn mess of few-to-many distribution systems for "content" the world has ever known. It will not be the free and open marketplace it was in the first place, and should remain. The end-state will a vast matrix of national and private silos and walled gardens, each a contained or filtered distribution environment. And most of us won't know what we missed, because it never quite happened.

Next time you download a file, send an e-mail, visit a web page, make an online purchase, or send an instant message, stop and think. Don't assume that because the online world has evolved the way it has that it will always stay that way. The e-anarchists paved the way for a very non-hierarchical online world that corporations have been chewing away at ever since.

The sky isn't going to fall tomorrow. But the pressure to move further and further toward closed  and controlled systems of information exchange, economic transactions and ownership of "content", is powerful, driven by some of the biggest and most influential companies in the world.

What Ito and Searls are both saying is that seemingly mundane decisions about file protocols and information standards can have a profound effect on your future enjoyment of liberties you think are yours forever. And those decisions get debated and negotiated whether we pay attention or not.

So pay some attention, before you find out the Internet isn't the cool place you once thought it was.