Mutually Inclusive PR

Social Media Suggestions for High School Reunion?

My 30 year reunion is coming up this fall, and I've said I'd pull together a website. Any suggestions for a good combination of web tools to help people post information, sign up for events, share photos, and generally stay informed about plans?

I'm looking at various wikis as possible platforms for most of the information. And I was assuming I could possibly piggyback on a platform like Facebook, a photo sharing site, or something like that.

Any suggestions would be gratefully appreciated!

Leave me a note here, or e-mail me at eggertson (at) gmail. (dot) com.

Tags: reunions, wvss, high school, wikis, blogs, websites, west vancouver

Social Media - Where to set up shop?

Ed Lee looks at the three options for reaching an audience with social media.

Building your own hub of activity has its risks.

The Web wasteland is strewn with ghost towns that thought they would become the next great portal.  I like Ed's idea of experimenting before making a final decision about where you want your content to be, and how people will find it and interact with your organization.

Says Ed:

clipped from bloggingmebloggingyou.wordpress.com Should you join a community or start your own? As someone advising clients on how to market using the Web and social media, it’s the ultimate existential question. 1. Joining the Community 2. Grow your own 3. The alternative While the ultimate goal is to make your organization a trusted source of information, a leader in the field and the hub of a community of passionate users, the first step is a small one. Find out where the conversations and chatter around your brand are and get involved. Interact with your customers and stakeholders. Have a real conversation with them. Once you’re part of the community you can start to Instigate. Lead those conversations, become the reason for the buzz and the source of the chatter. The BMBY recommendations (for) building a community Monitor. Assess. Interact. Lead Look>Listen>Learn>Lead Get: Informed; Immersed; Interactive; Involved; Instigating (previously i-ddicted)

Second Life Backlash Continues

The virtual natives are restless.  I'm waiting to see if this is an uprising of citizens for better corporate behaviour, or an effort to squash expression of opinions that don't please some Second Life pioneers.

Residents of a portion of Second Life have voted to ban companies and agencies from their portion of the virtual world who make unwarranted claims of accomplishments.

"The resolution: Some PR agencies and RL companies have abused SL and made claims in RL media of being first to do things many SL residents have done long before them ('1st radio station in SL', '1st fashion brand', '1st tabloid').

"SHOULD WE BAN THEM FROM DREAMLAND?
Group Dreamland Citizens  Proposal PASSED!"

Complaining that companies jumping on the Second Life bandwagon are unethically claiming credit for the work pioneered by others, "real" estate developer Anshe Chung issued a statement that the ban (see below) can take place if a company or avatar is judged to have falsely claimed credit for a Second Life innovation and hasn't apologized for the offence. (whatever that means) will take place.  Some form of quasi-judicial review will also take place online. Screenshot of Anshe Chung courtesy Second Life Herald.

According to the Second Life Herald, the gesture seems to be a call for repentance by anyone who is claiming to be "first" at things that have been done before in Second Life.

The Herald, meanwhile, takes offence at comments about Second Life by Shel Holtz and Neville Hobson on their podcast.

Update:  I missed this part of Chung's news release that explains the terms of the ban:

"Organisations and their avatars will be warned after a violation has been determined by a jury of residents. A ban will be issued if no adequate retraction and public apology is made by the offending party. In case of repeat offenses or especially severe violations a ban may be issued without prior warning."

Update II: With BL Ochman commenting that "IBM CEO Samuel Palmisano's avatar will become the first Fortune 10 CEO to appear in SL" next week, does that mean Palmisano will get spanked by a Second Life jury if it turns out not to be true? Has IBM called each of the other Fortune 10 CEOs to verify that they don't already have a Second Life avatar?

Previous post:  Backlash against Crayon's Second Life Launch

Backlash Against Crayon's Second Life Launch

The claim that new marketing company 'crayon' was the first new company to launch in Second Life raised some eyebrows and hackles among the virtual world's denizens.

The backlash against the launch was as much about a community feeling invaded by corporations that threaten to suck the creative life out of the online world as it was about the semantics of the claim, set against the history of Second Life's three years of creativity and development.

Jason Pettus, editor of a magazine about Second Life says it best in a comment on company president Joseph Jaffe's blog:

"I think there are a lot of people worried right now about the potential 'MySpaceization' of Second Life; of the entire thing becoming just a glorified environment for corporate advertising, and with the creativity and innovation that has usually defined the grid suddenly having to take a back seat. I think marketers entering SL would do themselves some good thinking about this issue, and asking themselves, "So okay, how do we impress -those- people?" I think RL veterans will find a lot of resistance melting away for their new SL companies, once they start answering this last question more."

Jaffe's post in response to the backlash:  A Learning from Second Life

"Coming through the launch process, I'm learned a pretty important lesson. Opening up a storefront/presence in Second Life is not dissimilar to a Wal-Mart opening up in a small town.

"Let's leave it at that."

The critics are right that crayon's claim that it's "the first" to do anything in Second Life comes off as hubris in the eyes of people who have put in years of very uncorporate hard work building a new online world. Having been pummelled by their neighbours in their first week of operation, I suspect the crayon folks will do a bit of reaching out to those who were offended, and will get on with serving clients from their virtual head office.

I'm not a Second Lifer, so I don't claim to have special insight into the online experience there.  Steve Hall, another blogger who knows very little about Second Life, suggests the backlash would be better aimed at clueless corporations than at a startup like crayon.  As Steve points out, most of their work will probably be to help their clients connect with social media communities and others far outside of Second Life.

Backlash:

Second Life Madness - Mimi Harris, Eastwikkers
A Gallery of Lies - Urizines Sklar a.k.a. Peter Ludlow, The Second Life Herald
Backlash Week - Ed Lee, Blogging Me, Blogging You
Fucktards in Cyberspace - Peter Ludlow a.k.a. Urizines Sklar, in The Strumpette

Response:
Marketers Will Not Destroy Second Life - Steve Hall, AdRants

crayon's launch news release

Disclosure:  I'm virtual pals with a few of crayon's founding employees.

See also:  Second Life Backlash Continues

Tags:  crayon, socialmedia, promotion, publicity, secondlife,marketing

Lee and Sachi - 301 Days and Counting

  Red Rorbu - Lofoten Islands, Norway 
  Originally uploaded by LeeLeFever_TwinF.

I've been following Lee and Sachi Lefever's trip around the world on their The World Is Not Flat site.

Their most recent destination is Norway, with some amazing photos of the fjords and craggy cliffs that drop straight into the water.

I used to read a lot of travel magazines, but not so much any more.  Following this Seattle couple on their journey has been fun, partly because it's not neatly wrapped up into a feature article, with colourful locals and a pithy moral for each location.

I like the fact this is a real couple reporting on their trip, along with contributions by other travellers who want to share their own travel experiences.

Tags: travel, leelefever, photography, blogging, norway

Virtual Public Relations Services

Dubious about the need for professional intervention among the 350,000 denizens of Second Life, Darren Barefoot ran a quickie poll of some Second Life forum members, asking them "How do you feel about PR firms in Second Life?"

Results - 25.9% thinks it's a good idea; 74.1% think it sucks.

Okay, now we need an opinion poll on whether people think PR firms should exist in the real world.

The results will be pretty much the same.

Ad agencies? Ditto.  And human resources consultancies, corporate law firms, lobbying companies, consumer research companies, management consultancies, and just about any other professional services operation you can imagine.

Of course, if people realized that HR firms handle outsourcing, support would rank that even lower. 

And collection agencies -- can their popular support even be measured?

A lot of professional services have a pretty good reputation with their clients, but not with the public.  I suspect the people interacting in Second Life would have no interest in a PR firm.  But the businesses trying to shoehorn their way into the Next Big Thing may just want some PR advice. Whether it's money well spent is yet to be seen.

Tags: second life, services, business, agencies, social media

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Another Sask Bloggers Meetup

  Saskboy 2006 
  Originally uploaded by Mutually Inclusive.

Bloggers are getting together Aug. 19 Sept. 23 in Saskatoon.  Check out the details.  There's also talk of making the trek to Kipling the first weekend in September for the big housewarming party planned by Kyle MacDonald of OneRedPaperclip.com fame.

That's Saskboy on the right, from the last bloggers meetup.

More photos:

Tags: saskatchewan, blogs, bloggers, meetup

Career Suicide in Three Easy Steps

Update:  At the request of the Flickr member whose illegitimate use of others' photos prompted this story, I've deleted his name from this post.  (He asked nicely.)

A short blog post by Vancouver web developer and photographer Kris Krug caught my eye back in February. He accused a fellow Flickr user [name deleted] of claiming credit for photos Krug had taken.

End of story, I thought, but a cease and desist letter last week from a lawyer demanding that Krug delete the blog post set off a blogstorm that will last a lifetime. See Krug's post, [Name deleted] Stole My Photos and Now is Sueing ME!?!

If [Name deleted] wants to pursue a career in the creative arts, journalism, or any other field that requires a reputation, he'll need to either change names, or turn this into a selling point for his future.

The Google Juice involved in raising awareness of his apparent plagiarism is so powerful, this story will probably always be at the top, or near the top, of an Internet search for his name.  He will always be "the photo plagiarist who tried to sue his victims." See Thomas Hawk, Diane Ensey, Chris Garrett  and Jeff Nolan on the subject.

Assuming he decides to try to resurrect his name (not a lot of evidence yet, except a couple of apologies), [Name deleted] will need to be very clear, vocal and consistent with his apology, and throw himself on the mercy of the blogosphere that has allowed him to so publicly tarnish his name.

The assault on this guy's reputation was massive. Bloggers were very deliberate about including his name in the headline of their posts, to ensure they would show up in a search for the name. People on Flickr and on Digg related their efforts (including addresses and phone numbers) to contact him, his freelance clients, his web hosting company and others, to spread the news about his transgression..

Pretty harsh, maybe, but right in line with the summary career assassination that would have taken  place if he was a journalist.

Tags: reputation, photos, legal, apology, kriskrug, lawsuit, creative commons

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Pushing Back at Web-bashing by Media

Stowe Boyd has a response to established media organizations that pooh-pooh the online revolution that's been taking place with social media in recent years:

1. Web culture is happening: a spontaneous global culture is emerging, and it is based on openness, inclusion, acceptance of diversity, and the desire to make the world a better place to live.
2. This movement is driven both by the failure of traditional organizations -- media, government, and religious -- to cope with the modern world, and the stresses we, as individuals, are confronted with.
3. Web culture is a return to earlier elements of human social life, especially the importance of social relationships and the central importance of self-expression through art, principles that have been devalued for the past few hundred years. This is almost a reversion to tribal norms, although the tribe may be a diffuse network of woodworkers that you submerge into everyday via Yahoo Groups.
4. Web culture is living at the edge, where people are interacting with others directly, and organizations form organically, as groups seek to legitimize order that has emerged within the group, not impose order on supposed chaos.

Right on, Stowe. Blogs, vlogs, podcasts and other online tools aren't the answer to all the world's problems.  But ignoring their emerging importance is like complaining that kids listen to music too loud and wear weird clothes.

Tags: media, social media, online, culture, yahoo, blogs, vlogs, podcasts

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If 43 Things Doesn't Float your Boat, Try 43 Thongs

Richard Eriksson has launched the latest social networking site.

The foot fetishists of the world, having tried 43 Things, 43 Places and whatever other variation on 43 the Robot Co-op came up with, can now visit 43 Thongs.

This parody site looks and feels like 43 Things, but thankfully doesn't take the joke too far. I tried 43 Things when it was starting out, but I just didn't have the stamina or the interest to live my life large for my online neighbours.

If you have always wanted to see flip-flops in action, this is the site for you.

Link via Darren Barefoot.

Tags: humour, parody, 43things, robotcoop

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