Conversation Agent

Social Media and Marketing: Alan Wolk

You are probably aware that recently the discussion on pay-per-post ignited again. There is a fascinating need to keep things separate - social media and earnings. Yet, there are many who are working with social media to make a living.

For many years I curated the readers' network of Fast Company magazine. With help - at some point we even had a nice group of volunteers, then life separated us - I put together around 100 free events. It was a lot of work. If you have organized events you know it is. Sometimes we were lucky enough to get a food sponsor. The venue was always donated - I'm talking conference rooms at Universities, Steelcase showrooms, ING Direct Cafe' - all nice places. 

All events were free to attendees - they actually cost the work of those who put them together. There was this sense that charging for attending would be wrong. It was a social network, after all. It needed to remain pure. That was then. Social media is becoming more main stream now. Yet, we seem to be bumping against that same issue.

I'm left wondering then, what is the model that will not get people up in arms? What can sustain social media? I thought of asking my friend Alan Wolk to help me see the issue from where he sits - the Toad's Stool. 

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In a recent conversation around the sanctity of social media at Amber Naslund's blog, you distilled the issues into three fundamental questions: (1) sponsorship worth; (2) audience; (3) credibility. To me these seem to be also the timeless principles that marketers and advertising professionals have followed or should be following? What changed with social media?

Alan: Nothing changed.

Which is the problem.

Most of the Kool-Aid Drinkers have very little sense of history-- either they’re very young or they’ve never really worked in advertising or marketing. They never see shades of gray-- the whole world is black and white. That holds true on both sides.

So this became either a tragedy of biblical proportions as bloggers sold their souls to evil K-Mart or discovered the Northwest Passage to successful blog monetization.

What really happened was neither epic nor brilliant.

A company that used to called “Pay For Post” rebranded itself as IZEO and decided that using the euphemism “Sponsored Content” was far more palatable than “Pay for Post”

Then they found a bunch of bloggers, who, in the name of “experimenting” “proving that I am truly famous beyond this little bubble” or some combination thereof, were willing to make a big deal out of a rather uninventive online sales promotion event for just $500.

Now given that a quarter page in the local Pennysaver goes for around $500, I’d say KMart and IZEO made out like bandits. Not only did they get a case study, they also got a tremendous amount of buzz with the sort of people (the primarily upscale crew who read social media blogs) who may not even have been aware that KMart was still in business. And while most of the sites chosen made little sense from a demographic standpoint, for $500, if they reached 3 people, it was money well spent.

For the bloggers however, I’m guessing they lost more readers than they gained, giving them a net negative ROI. (And I’m basing that on the assumption that they did not gain any new readers, but lost a handful of formerly loyal ones and have lots of negative fallout to deal with.)

But is it a “model for blog monetization?”

Not in the slightest.

It’s a one-trick pony that got a lot of attention because it was new and controversial. If Pay-per-Post were to start to become commonplace, people would just stop paying attention. First to the posts and then, ultimately to the blogger him or herself. There are just too many other blogs out there putting out similar “how to do social media 101” content where the reader doesn’t have to wade through paid posts.

In addition, most marketing blogs are too niche to attract any sort of real audience. (Compared to sites like PerezHilton, HuffPo or even Gawker, which get millions of readers weekly.) So using marketing blogs to promote mainstream companies and sites doesn’t make a whole lot of sense. Promoting an app like Twirl or Joost for the iPhone is far more logical, but that’s a whole other post-in-the-making.

What in your experience is working or going to work as an advertising model in social media?

Alan: I think, funny enough, that sponsored content is going to be what works. And by that I mean taking something that people actually want to use and making it available by sponsoring it.

Twitter may work by selling hourly sponsorships, where there’s say an Apple skin on the Twitter site from 7 to 11 AM every weekday and when you first log in you get a tweet-ad from Apple.

It can be as basic as Pizza Hut building a Facebook app that lets you order a pizza without ever leaving Facebook (something they’ve actually done.) But it has to be something that proves to be a useful tool for your audience, that’s about them and their needs, not about you.

You shared your take on brands in social media in the series your brand is not my friend. Would you like to give a couple of examples of what steps you would recommend?

Alan: Well, building on the example above, I think that brands who are not “Prom King Brands” (the dozen or so well-known brands like Apple and Nike that have badge value, e.g. someone would unironically wear their logo on a cap or t-shirt-- plus entertainment brands and sports teams) that those non-Prom King brands need to find a way to provide something of value to their customers and to gradually get people talking about them that way.  

So first step is seeing what your opportunity is: if you are a spice manufacturer, maybe you’re aware that there’s an active community of crock pot users. And so you work with someone who actually does cooking sites to set up something for crock pot users- a recipe file, a recipe of the day-- maybe you even do a bit more research and learn that they’re big with working moms who like being able to have a hot meal waiting when they come home. And so your recipes are all about meals kids will eat, not super gourmet stuff. (I’m thinking that you could probably come up with something a lot more unique than a recipe file, but for purposes of this example, let’s run with it.) 

And the most important thing here is that you need to get out of your own way: don’t try and “capture names.” Don’t insert your brand into the recipe. Those are buzz kills and they do more harm than good in the long term. 

Once that’s established, you can start doing things like providing coupons to users, links to mail ordering your products, even start a blog. But the key thing is not to push, not to come off as overly aggressive. Yes, you are selling something, but you are never the sleazy salesperson. 

Why? Because this is social media and people are here to socialize- not hear sales pitches. The more unobtrusive you can make yours, the more that indicates to your audience that you “get” them, the better off you are. 

What's next? What do you see in the future of marketing as more and more companies (and brands) venture into the social media waters? 

Alan: The biggest question in my mind is how big brands will play in social media. 

Right now, much of social media is graspable because it’s still in its nascency. But as it grows, it becomes rather unwieldy. Take blog comments, for instance. Who is going to read through 647 comments on a blog? No one. So The New York Times is now handling this by having the first page of comments you see be “Editor’s Choice” - an interesting decision because it reintroduces the role of the all-powerful editor-as-gatekeeper, which was one of the walls that Web 2.0 knocked down. 

So we’re going to see a whole lot of chaos before we see some order restored and larger communities formed. And I think people like larger communities, like things like Facebook, because everyone they know is (or could be) on there versus a smaller, more private network. And it’s important to remember too that social media is a behavior, not a collection of web sites. It’s the ability to provide input into a site, via a comment, a rating or an upload. So no matter what happens to Twitter or Facebook, the behavior is not going away. 

But circling back to your original question, I think we’re going to see a lot of brands behaving badly in social media. 

They’ll behave badly- or foolishly- because they can’t fathom that the one-way conversation is over and that consumers aren’t fascinated by what they have to say. 

And they’ll behave badly because they’ll be advised by bad social media strategists, the ones who focus on quantity over quality, and by ad agencies who still see the clever punch line and the name capture as their most important goals. 

Some will get it though, either on their own or with a wise hand to guide them. They’ll realize that it’s a commitment to more than just responding to blog comments in a timely manner and keeping a Twitter account. That it’s about making the customer front and center of whatever you do and of giving them products and services that they’ll want to tell other people about. 

Those are the companies that are going to be shaping our future. At least in social media.

Journalism of the Future: Ashoka and Social Impact

I met Keith Hammonds at Fast Company Real Time Philadelphia in 2001. At the time he was Executive Editor for the magazine. Like many of the journalists and editors involved with the magazine, Keith struck me as very inquisitive. Someone interested in the social aspects of business - those intended (and unintended) consequences of commerce that could and at time do change lives.

Recently, Keith joined Ashoka's new Social Entrepreneurs in Journalism program as team leader. He graduated at Dartmouth College and Harvard Business School. Keith worked in London and Johannesburg as a freelance journalist, and consulted with New Nation, a weekly newspaper in South Africa, on publishing strategy. He also co-founded a drought relief food distribution network in Namibia.

In this series of conversations I like to explore how new media is changing journalism. Given Keith's work, I thought it would be appropriate to discover how journalism is having an impact in communities around the world. What follows is an email exchange I had with Keith.

How did you get involved with Ashoka? What made it a choice for you?

Keith: While an editor at Fast Company, I helped to create the Fast Company/Monitor Group Social Capitalist Awards—a program intended to identify, assess, and honor the leading social entrepreneurs in America. In that realm, Ashoka is the Big Kahuna: its founder, Bill Drayton, literally came up with the term “social entrepreneur” to describe people who pursue innovation for large scale social impact, and it has named over 2000 Ashoka Fellows around the world. In fact, I wrote about Drayton and Ashoka in 2005.

Late last year, Ashoka received a grant from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation to create a program aimed at identifying, supporting, and connecting social entrepreneurs in knowledge and news. The idea was to use Ashoka’s existing global network to find innovators using journalistic strategies to create transformative social change—and to create a sort of incubator whose leading-edge ideas would, in turn, inform the future of the news field.

What do you like most about your job? Why?

Keith: First, I’m thrilled by the sheer ambition and fearlessness of the social entrepreneurs we work with. To be in the same room with these people is to confront our capacity as humans for audacity: They see staggering social problems—and rather than throwing up their hands, they devise ingenious responses and then marshal the resources to make change happen. They not only believe in the possibility of change, they believe that they—and everyone, really, but especially them—must be the ones to make change happen. Second, I’m excited by the potential leverage of this work.

The fields of news and knowledge are foundational to vital democratic society. People who enjoy access to free, fair, and high-quality news media per se become more effective citizens: they understand more about how their community works, and they’re more likely to participate in making the decisions that shape their lives.

Confronted by that sort of transparency, government, business, and other institutions necessarily become more accountable for what they do. The free flow of knowledge makes possible other forms of social change—advances in health care, wealth distribution, environmental policy. The upside is incredible.

You talk about journalism as an field with transformative social impact. What does social entrepreneurship have to do with journalism?

Keith: Journalism’s potential for social impact is clear and profound, as I’ve discussed. We believe that a free, fair, and high-quality news media is, per se, transformative; without it, society is simply less effective on all levels. If you buy that, then you recognize the huge opportunity for entrepreneurs to create impact through innovative and effective journalism strategies.

Just look at Nordine Nabili whose BondyBlog engages young Muslim immigrants in some of France’s poorest neighborhoods to blog about what’s happening in their communities. Instantly, an important dynamic has changed: Rather than being isolated and alienated from the mainstream of French society, these young people are helping to inform the mainstream about their world, breaking down historic barriers.

Or take Gregor Hackmack: His Parliament Watch site has fostered new transparency for German politics and government, not least by creating direct connections between citizens and public officials. Want to understand how your government works? Ask the government! Gregor has opened up the dialogue on German government in very powerful ways.

Do you make use of new media and social networks at Ashoka?

Keith: Yes and yes. The effect of these new technologies has been no less powerful for non-profit entrepreneurs than it has been in other realms. They have, obviously, dramatically lowered barriers to entry for news providers, so pretty much anyone can throw up a blog, or write a Wikipedia entry, or SMS text. They also are making that content accessible to many more people—on the Web, but also via mobile phones and radio. This dynamic has subverted the traditional economics of the knowledge and news fields, allowing entrepreneurs to compete head-to-head with much larger media entities or to subvert state-controlled news monopolies.

In Sri Lanka, for example, our new Fellow Sanjana Hattotuwa is using pretty much every medium at his disposal—the Internet, cell phones, texting—to create a safe space for citizen journals where people write exhaustively and passionately about war, peace, human rights, and social justice. You have ordinary people texting each other news of what’s happening around them. This at a time when traditional media in Sri Lanka faces severe censorship. It just wouldn’t have been imaginable a decade ago. And Fabrice Florin’s NewsTrust.org allows anyone to go online and rate any news story from any source—a community-rated news service, basically.

So, yes: New media and social networking, in the hands of social entrepreneurs, are enormously powerful levers of change.

Quality and journalism, can they still go together?

Keith: I wouldn’t be doing this if I didn’t think it were possible. For every bit of evidence that hints at the demise of quality journalism, there’s another that speaks to the promise that new technologies, new business models, and new participants will make journalism even better—more inclusive, more transparent, and of higher quality.

It’s appropriate to worry about the demise of The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal as we know them—and there’s going to be a lot more pain at the institutions that we’ve historically considered the standard-bearers for the field. But there is enormous energy in the realm of knowledge and news—in mature markets like the US and in emerging democracies around the globe.

We’re witnessing historic opportunities to invent new strategies that, by exploding traditional thinking, more effectively inform, engage,and connect people as active, change-making citizens. It’s just incredibly exciting to watch.

Inside Economist.com with Andreas Kluth and Daniel Franklin

I reached out to Andreas Kluth, Bay Area Technology Correspondent of Economist.com, after listening to one of his podcasts. Later, I learned that it was the first one he did. It did not surprise me that I had not noticed the podcast had been recorded a while back - digital records have a long memory, and the content was still very new and applicable.

Andreas introduced me to Daniel Franklin, Executive Editor of The Economist and Editor-in-Chief of Economist.com. They both speak many languages - an already impressive skill - and have been very responsive and most kind with their time. They would have reason to be busy - this is one of the world top publications.

Four million readers for print and over three million unique visitors online, 54% from North America, 17% from continental Europe, 16% from Asia Pacific and 9% from the UK. Worldwide, the page views are 24,654,517. This is also a great example of an online press kit.

Join us Inside The Economist Story

As a long time reader of The Economist print edition, and then online, I find that the value I derive from the publication is two-fold. The special reports have been a fundamental resource over the years. Looking at a topic and developing it through research and stories makes it come alive, actionable. The other value point I derive is from the lessons learned-type of articles, often those that highlight a leader who has had an impact (positive or otherwise). Do you have a sense of why your readers choose The Economist online?

Andreas: Daniel would know much more about our online readers than I do. I know that initially (i.e., in the Web 1.0 era) our online readers were our print readers, for the simple reason that we only ALLOWED our subscribers full access. Wow! It still stuns me.

Then again, ALL newspapers did that, because what did we know? These days, there are almost certainly also many people online who don't get the print issue, which I've always welcomed and argued for, because those people link to our articles, and incoming links are Google PageRank votes, et cetera.

Demographically, I expect that our online readers are slightly younger, but even our print subscribers have a relatively young average age--early thirties. We skew male and educated.

Daniel: Online our readers often come to us in a slightly different mode than in print: they are more likely to be looking for something specific, searching for a particular article or seeking our view on a certain subject, whether it's an important news story or some background on a subject of interest to them.

With the print paper, they typically make time to sit back and read the weekly view of the world; online, they are often at their desks, during the working week. Of course, there are also many readers who come to the website for an early glimpse of what's in the weekly Economist, since we publish online by around 7pm London time on Thursdays, before the print edition reaches newsstands or subscribers.

Has the "voice" of The Economist evolved online in your view? Is it an extension of the print publication, how do they integrate them for your readers/listeners? I'm interested in how you determine your reach and audience composition, and whether this suffers from the print edition. Are you talking to the same audience? If not, how is the content different?

Andreas: We always imagine the same audience when we write (or talk, in the case of podcasts): educated, cosmopolitan, open-minded, intelligent, demanding, et cetera. So we don't have a different voice online than in print. In fact, most content online IS the print edition, with the addition of web-native analysis on breaking news, but even that is written by the print journalists.

So, for example, I would write the stories on Microsoft-Yahoo in the print edition, but if there is big news on the weekend, I might pump out some web-only analysis as well. But I always assume the same audience. That said, there are some subtleties online: Our tradition is not to have bylines, and we are famous for that anonymity.

But you can't do an anonymous podcast, say. So the web cracks open our anonymity, and we are always thinking about where that might lead us in future and whether it might create tensions. Another issue is how informal to make the tone of the blogs--clearly an evolving space--and future content types, such as video.

Daniel: Yes, it's the same audience we're writing for--exactly as Andreas describes, educated, internationally minded, smart and curious about the world--but there are a couple of important points about this audience online. First, it's potentially much larger than the one we have in print.

The growth of The Economist in recent years suggests that there's a big and expanding universe of people who fit this profile, and the internet offers a fantastic chance to reach them and introduce them to our content - to spread the word, literally. Second (and crucially), online the audience itself can become part of the conversation, contributing views and ideas. We think our readers are particularly interesting and therefore have a lot to contribute.

We have opened all our content to comments, and it's clear that there's a pent-up demand to "join the conversation", as Andreas might put it. We have launched a series of online, Oxford-style debates to tap into this. We are also encouraging our readers to contribute ideas on how this aspect of our site could evolve, through the publisher's blog.

If you were to ask yourself about the current direction of the publication out loud, where would you observe it moving towards? Are you using a content strategy to attract readership, or are you building content on the basis of where readers find attraction (metrics)?

Andreas: That's a question you best ask John Micklethwait, our editor-in-chief. I can only give you my own opinion, based on my ten years at The Economist: We, the journalists, ignore metrics utterly and just write the best, most fun or most challenging, stories we can think of. Everything else follows.

The site redesign feels less cluttered and still manages to convey depth - it even retained a very strong component from the original brand. Was there an event or piece of research that prompted the make over? Was it just a natural evolution of your online presence?

Andreas: For this one I defer to Daniel. Bur for your own edification, try to find that page where we invited readers to comment on the redesign. Fascinating reading. It was a controversial redesign. All I can say, there will be many more changes over time. I think we're just entering Web 2.0 on our site.

Daniel: In fact this latest redesign was rather modest in scope - a new homepage and some tightening of the navigation - but it's had quite a big impact. It helps to bring us more up to date and make it easier for readers to find more content. But it's only a start. I see it as just part of a much larger process of redesigning the whole site.

Everyone is after the same attention pool, which keeps shrinking. Online is fast becoming a very competitive business model -- how do you keep the value from turning into commodity?

Andreas: I'm not sure I totally understand this question, but I'll try. The shrinking attention pool is the bull's eye we're aiming for. In fact, though, we have had that same problem for a century and a half. Our proposition has always been that, in a world of too much information, we bring you the world in a digestible and yet challenging format. So some of my colleagues, such as Tom Standage, like to say that the more "noise" out there the better for us.

The more bloggers and news sources, the more SOME readers will yearn for a few places that do the heavy lifting on their behalf. We have a good shot at being one of those places. That said, I'm not sure I agree that "online is fast becoming a competitive business model." the problem (for others more than for us) is that online is not becoming a competitive business model FAST ENOUGH.

If the NYT's advertisers valued the SAME reader as much online as in print, the NYT would be swimming in money. But the advertisers still have to make the migration that readers have in large part already made. For us, though, that is not such a problem, because we are unusual in that our print subs are still growing furiously, so there is no crisis driving us from behind.

How do you create a culture of participation? Do consider yourselves members of a community? In a podcast you participated to I heard you talk about authority. In my view new media is about linking (see post I wrote about it here). Is The Economist tracking the links it gets? Are you linking back?

Andreas: Couldn't agree more. A couple of years ago, after that Special Report on New Media that you saw, I flew to an offsite management meeting outside of London to give a presentation about our future. One of the points I made and still try to drive home is that links are our new currency. (Which is why, at that time, I advised making the whole site free. Today the site is free, so everyone can link to it). I want as many people coming in "from underneath and sideways" as come in through the front door (the home page). That means they come in through links.

In future, I would expect that most people will come to us from their RSS readers, email and IM links, and of course Google results. Fantastic! My dream is that when a student is doing a research paper on, say, World War II, the first link on his Google search is our original archive article from the week when Hitler invaded Poland. Or something like that. But you can only get that magic when all our articles are deeply, richly linked. And part of that is linking OUT.

As Dave Winer says, the more you send them away, the more they come back. I think we can do much better in that way. I'd love to have every article full of outgoing links to the specific pages that support the point being made....

You raise another point, which is "community". yes, we have found that our readers identify strongly with our brand almost as if it made them a personality type, a bit as Mac people are NOT Windows people, for example. In short, we already ARE a social network (in the old-fashioned sense) and could well become an online social network as well. That does not mean that we will open a Facebook challenger. But social networking is becoming part of all successful sites, and we won't be an exception. Stay tuned....

Daniel: Just a footnote on Facebook. The Economist has a fan club on Facebook, now with nearly 15,000 members, called "Sir - I am rather fond of your publication The Economist". It points to the sense of community that can grow up spontaneously around our brand. This is something we can tap into online.

What is The Economist definition of success?

Andreas: Funny you should ask that. I'm writing my first book right now, and it's about success and failure in life, and how they're both impostors, as Kipling said. But that's on a personal note.

Wearing The Economist's hat, as corny as it sounds, I would guess that John M might actually answer with our motto: "to take part in a severe contest between intelligence, which presses forward, and an unworthy, timid ignorance obstructing our progress." Success would be to keep winning that contest. Ideally, while being read by ever more people and charging ever more to advertisers trying to reach those people. In short, nothing "new".

In the advertising business, creatives keep swipe files for inspiration. Musicians have artists who have helped sharpen their style. What influences you?

Andreas: All the great writers I have every read, and all the great conversationalists, thinkers, and questioners and storytellers. I personally think that we at The Economist can do better in story-telling, so I try to inject more people and wit and humour and anecdote into my articles than some of my colleagues do. My favourite writer and page in our magazine is probably Ann Wroe and her Obituary column, which does all those things very well.

Is there still a place for traditional editors in the 21st century? I believe we do need editors.

Andreas: For a while I was afraid that there might NOT be, but now I think the editors will be needed more than ever. Check out, for instance, TED . I was talking to Chris Anderson (no relation to my former colleague who is now editor of Wired) who is TED's "curator". TED is, in a way, like The Economist.

It aims at the most demanding people in the world and tries to challenge them. It does this by curating content. There is a role for algorithms, but human beings will always want to be exposed to ideas that the people they trust find most interesting. It's as simple as that. And a few editors will become those trusted curators. Media brands are nothing more than the reputation of the curators behind them. It will be a golden age of editors/curators.

Anything I have not asked you'd like to comment on?

Andreas: Actually, I don't know what you're planning to write, so I don't know. We could go on forever. So much to discuss.

And so we could. Thank you Andreas and Daniel. This has been a most interesting exploration behind the scenes at Economist.com.

What would you, as reader and listener, suggest as the next implementation for Economist.com?

[UPDATE: Videographics are a new feature of Economist.com where the static charts of the print edition are brought to life. This is an image, go to Economist.com for the video.]

Jason Alba on The Future of Work

I met Jason when he linked to one of my posts on career months ago. In our conversations, I learned that it was the difficulties of a job search he experienced first hand when he was downsized in 2006 that led to the creation of JibberJobber.com. Given his extensive software and IT experience, he was able to build a tool that was more suitable to managing not just a job search, but a whole career.

In addition to authoring four blogs, one of which is at JibberJobber.com, he has written two books: I'm on LinkedIn - Now What??? and I'm on Facebook - Now What??? (co-authored with Jesse Stay).

I recently sat down with Jason to have a conversation around the future of work.

In many of your posts and talks, you draw a difference between career and job. Certainly things have changed in the last 5-10 years and we are drawing more security from our core skill sets and abilities than we are from any one employer - or we should. Do you still see a pervasive need to continue making that distinction between work and job?

Jason: Absolutely … I thought that the entire world was making this distinction as “job security” means less than it ever has, and I saw the message all over blogs and articles. It seems, however, that for every person who reads the blog, there are 999 people who don’t read, or think, about it. I don’t see anything in the future that would decrease the need for us to be career oriented, thinking about CEO of Me, Inc., and hope to see more people take this seriously.

There's also another curious thought I have about the future of work. More and more, I find that we are defined (we learn, grow, become more experienced) by project instead of by design. Do you find that to be true? Is a career now, in fact, a succession of meaningful and game changing projects?

Jason: A career should be defined as such a succession, because a project might be what you and I think, or what a professional does for 18 months at one company (instead of many projects, wrap it up as “helped XYZ company achieve …”). I read somewhere that the tenure of a CXO could be as short as 12 – 18 months… imagine changing jobs (unwillingly) every year! How do you define what you did? It was, in essence, a project. And you are collecting a string of this type of project work.

I hear this from many companies that are hiring today. Although there does not seem to be scarcity in the number of resume submissions, there is rarely a match for what they are seeking among them. Part of the question may be one of format - I've seen some great candidates show up with very poor resumes, and vice versa. The other part may be the fact that the hiring process is old and tired - we need to reinvent a new one. What is your take?

Jason: I’m disgusted in the hiring process. You may be the perfect “candidate,” but if you are missing on criteria they will discount you early on. I think it’s a shame that the hiring process is trying to be automated and efficient, and it is so problem-ridden. I’ve even heard of situations where HR has deleted all of the resumes they have on file just to clean it up and start over, not because they were junk, but because the HR person was overwhelmed and needed a fresh start.

These are not paper submissions, these are human beings, with families, bills, and talents. I have no idea how to really get beyond the issues, but I’ll say that this entire process is broken, not just with HR, but with job seekers, and recruiters, and interviewers, and hiring managers, and … yep, it’s all broken. That’s why we’ve seen all of these “solutions” pop up over the last year or two.

On the candidate side, I hear it continues to be difficult to run an organized job search campaign, if we should still call a job search a campaign.

Jason: It should be actually, if you are doing the job search right, this should be very hard to organize. Think about it – if it takes one month for every $10,000 in salary, you might be in a job search for over seven months, right? In those seven months you will have hundreds, maybe thousands of new network contacts.

How do you nurture those relationships, and know where you need to focus your efforts? Then, pile on all of the target companies, places you submit your resume, jobs you apply for… and the phone numbers, action items, dates, etc…. this is a lot of information that you should manage and track. And think of how valuable all of this information will be in your next job search!?

I know you created a tool to stay productive and on top of all activities. Is it easy to use instead on a spreadsheet? What are the benefits of using that system vs. an home grown one? Sell me!

Jason: When I was in my job search I used a spreadsheet to manage all of that information, and ensure that I did all the follow-up stuff you do in a job search or networking situation. Within about a month my spreadsheet had hundreds of line-items, and it was getting out of hand (especially as I started networking more).

I realized that a salesperson would never be able to run a successful campaign on a spreadsheet, and that is why there are products like Salesforce.com, ACT! and Goldmine… what if I could marry the job search process with one of those CRM tools? We built a website to do just that, which is JibberJobber.com. The free version of JibberJobber, which is available to you for life, is more functional and powerful than an Excel spreadsheet would be for most people. There is no sales jargon… it is a relationship management tool designed to help you manage your career.

If you want to upgrade you get a number of bells-and-whistles which aren’t necessary to do a job search campaign, but definitely help as you network and proactively manage your career relationships. You can, of course, go the “home-made” route, which I did, but when it gets frustrating, or you spend more time on design than on doing the job search, you’ll want something that is sophisticated, a long-term solution, and designed for you. That’s JibberJobber.com.

There's a lot of talk about specialization - being really good at something. Yet, when I see job openings, the descriptions are very general. Is there a disconnect, you think, between what we consider the jobs of the future and what companies still need?

Jason: Yes, I definitely think there is a disconnect. I think this is one of the “broken” things about the job search process. Job descriptions are biased with company culture and jargon, which might be meaningless to outsiders… how do you apply to a culture that you don’t know or understand?

In fact, I’m guessing that most hiring managers are not thinking about the line-items in a job description when they are hiring as much as “can this person do the most important job,” which might not be on the job description! It becomes the job seeker’s job to figure out what the hiring manager’s hot spots are (while still addressing the job description, especially if HR is involved in the hiring process).

One need just take a look at how social media is creating new opportunities for writers and publishers. Now we're hearing about community managers and even chief bloggers. Do you think those titles will take hold and stick?

Jason: I hope so… I am really impressed with companies that are doing this right, and really engaging a community in real conversation. It’s very consumer-oriented… I’m not sure too many companies are really ready for something like this. Kudos to those who are there, and moving forward!

After all, many of the white collar jobs we have today did not exist even a decade or two ago. Is change more rapid now? What would you suggest for individuals entering the work force today?

Jason: You have to think about this “flat world” thing, and how you are going to stay competitive over the course of your career. Think about your network, and the depth of the relationships, as this is going to be just as critical as knowledge or skills.

Become the CEO of Me, Inc, and do stuff a CEO would do: contingency plan, get a board of directors, strategize, grow and develop, prepare, etc. I think about how my career is different than what my son (who is now 7) will be faced with, and it’s a totally different world that we’re preparing him for.

What about mentors? Is it still important to have mentors to be successful? Do you have a mentor?

Jason: I have people who mentor me, but no official mentor or coach right now. It’s rather fluid – depending on what I need, I tap into my network to find someone who has already paved the way and can help me through an issue. Mentors are critical, and that’s one reason to grow and nurture your network.

Where do you draw inspiration?

Jason: From various sources. I have a vision of what JibberJobber could be, and what that would mean for me and my family. I am very driven by my users, who I know are career-oriented and passionate about preparing for their futures.

I get inspiration from companies I read about at TechCrunch, learning about what other entrepreneurs are doing, their successes and failures. I have about 30 career experts who have partnered with me and they are very inspirational and encouraging.

And, none of this would be possible if it weren’t for the support of my wife, kids and family. I’d stubbornly move forward, but they are so supportive and it’s great to not have to worry about them not having a vision that permits me to do what I do. Finally, I believe this is what I’m supposed to be doing, and that what I’m doing will really help people in a big way. I read somewhere that that’s a characteristic of entrepreneurs, so I’ll take it.
__________________

Thank you, Jason.

Recently, Geoff Livingston addressed how social media beefs up the resume. In my experience with hiring, the hardest part of reading someone's resume is figuring out what this person accomplished and the business results of those accomplishments - their story. I am still seeing piles of poorly written compilations of things a candidate has done, often in no particular logical order.

How about using social media learnings to clean up those resumes? If you've been looking for a job and wondering why you have not gotten calls, take the red pen and try an edit. You may get your resume noticed with tags, for example. What other elements of the world of social media can you utilize to refresh your resume and job search?

However, remember that the goal with your resume is sell me, not tell me.

The TED Talks Model

$6,000 to attend, invitation only, and the best of is accessible to anyone with a computer and an online connection, for free. These are the TED talks. TED is for technology, entertainment, and design, and it stands for much more than that - the power to connect the world.

Call it inspiration, breakthroughs, information, innovation, storytelling, predictions, and many other things - what was and what's next is content. Delivered with passion and care by many of today's global top thinkers and doers.

An aside on the term "global." As an adjective, global means of the globe, literally. Associated with the noun "thinker" it means expansive, inclusive, who pushes the boundaries, works at the edges, connects, illuminates.

Want more value? How about the 200-page scrapbook Autodesk compiled of the 4-day event? Sketches, illustrations and idea maps of the talks are included in an easy-to-download PDF, indexed by speaker, topic and connections. Yes, Jill Bolte Taylor is there, too. Why did Autodesk go through the trouble of creating all this good content for free?

Autodesk is committed to fostering design innovation through technology as a means to solve many of today’s global problems, and believes that visualization allows for the conceptualization and collaboration of design solutions prior to the digital design process.

Would you use Autodesk as a result of their commitment to this conference and to the principles that allow the organization to provide value to you?

In addition to content, which has helped build its community, TED promotes two important assets - talent and resources. It supports those who are gifted to grant them one wish to change the world, which leads to collaborative initiatives with far-reaching impact.

The other two sponsors of TED Talks are BMW, stemming from the company's passion for technology and design, and Nokia, on the strength of its shared mission to connect people across the globe. These are not just "a word from your sponsor" situations, they are opportunities to join the conversation through shared values. I've touched upon this in many posts.

Through this partnership with TED, Autodesk, BMW and Nokia are not repurposing content, they are helping create anew. They are doing so for themselves (their values through products and services), and for you (free access to content and community). This is what we still call win/win, and/and, best of both worlds - or how about a better world for all?

I call this the TED Talk model because it is the "how" where I hope we can take marketing next. Think this can be implemented only by large companies with deep pockets? Think again. The only thing that stands between you and your opportunity is the willingness to seek and find - what your values and mission are, and your community - how you can go to market by context building. The first community a company has is that of its employees.

For BMW, it's sustainable mobility, which led also to the Club of Pioneers.   

For Nokia, it's connecting people around the globe, which led also to the collaboration with Pangea Day.

For you, it's ___________________ fill in the blank, today.

[still from video from Italy plays Tibet]

The Cluetrain Manifesto Conversation

You’re either participating or you’re not, writes Micheal Walsh at Lingolook. There's no in between. It would be like being half pregnant, or half baked - the first one improbable, the second indigestible.

Why should you care?

Your payoff is that, whether you like it or not, chances are your customers (and increasingly employees) are talking about you online.

If your customers are not talking about you... well, that's a worse scenario to contemplate, isn't it?

These are not necessarily negative conversations, mind you. They well could be constructive discussions filled with chances to learn about your customers and what you need to do to make them happy. Happy people buy more and tell their friends. It's your prerogative whether to join the conversation or not.

The best outcome is that those who are talking about you are spreading the word on your business - Jackie Huba and Ben McConnell called them Citizen Marketers. The worst case scenario is that those customers who talked about you even once stopped doing so, they did not think you cared about what they were saying, so they stopped caring about you and your business - you become invisible to them (and increasingly their friends).

This kind of conversation is a commitment, not a savings account for your marketing spend. When I speak about social media, the tools and dynamics, I often say that they are the container, the context in which you get to:

• engage
• educate
  
• entertain

The fourth "E" is emotion, the human quality that is memorable because it touches us. While blogs and other social media seem (and often are) extemporaneous, they do allow you to show the personality of your business. Your personality is still what differentiates you from your competitors - and, after years of industrial age treatment, what makes you likeable. Before you develop a relationship with your customers, you thus have the chance to:

• encourage participation (yours and theirs) with engagement
• show your passion with education
• ask for permission through entertainment

Those are as solid as the classic four P's of marketing - product, place, price, promotion. If The Cluetrain Manifesto is still news after 10 years from its publication, the conversation that ensued has evolved. My good friends RichardatDELL and Michael Walsh provided their take on a meme that celebrates its anniversary. Here is mine.

1. What does The Cluetrain Manifesto mean to you? How has the book and theses influenced or not influenced you?

I'd like to extend and build upon what Micheal says:

As the Cluetrain makes painfully clear, marketing departments were introduced to bridge the gap between mass products and mass markets and in doing so, wiped out conversations between producers and their customers and replaced them with alienation and mystery.

Recently I had the opportunity to discuss what social media means with Lori di Magno and her husband Tom. I started by talking about the bazaars and markets of old, where people who sold items on display talked with people who were there to find a treasure they could make theirs. Stop for a moment and think about it: is this how you buy? Chances are it is, even in a B2B scenario.

Companies, especially large ones, are still very much in the industrial age. Hierarchies and silos are preventing the people on the inside from being close to the customer. Mass production requiring mass marketing have in many cases killed the personality and voice of the business.

The manifesto is a wake up call to go back to listening, talking with, being human, and learning.

Like Richard, I want to be part of the business that gets it as judged by customers. Has the Cluetrain influenced me in that direction? My personal brand promise for Conversation Agent is to connect ideas and people. Do I get it? I am learning to listen every day.

2. Which companies have best implemented The Cluetrain Manifesto in your opinion and how were they effective?

Companies are just entities, empty vessels (and for some still bastions of power) without people inside them. Some individuals inside organizations get it - they treat others with the respect, and the equanimity that leaders and good managers have.

Here I celebrate RichardatDELL, and his colleagues Lionel Menchaca who just added this blog to Direct2Dell's blogroll (a company open to the outside does that) and JohnatDELL who are participating to the conversation and contributing their energy to moving it forward. Have they been effective? If you're reading this, you are online. What do you think? Have you come across them? Chances are you have, and your experience was good.

I do not know enough about what other companies are doing to implement the principles of the Cluetrain. But here's some homework from the manifesto. Businesses can begin:

"by searching out people with the organization who understand what's going on. In Almost every case, they're there. Make friends with them. Make friends with the marketplace again. Start listening. Find your voice. Then start talking as if your life depended on it. It does... There may not be 12 or five or 20 things that you can do, but there are 10,000 possibilities. The trick is you have to figure out what they are. They have to come from you. They have to be your words, your moves, your authentic voice.

The Web got built by people who chose to build it. The lesson is: don't wait for someone to show you how. Learn from your spontaneous mistakes, not from safe prescriptions and cautiously analyzed procedures. Don't try to keep people from going wrong by repeating the mantra of how to get it right. Getting it right isn't enough anymore. There's no invention in it. There is no voice."

This is where small businesses and entrepreneurs have a tremendous advantage: they can choose to get it and implement quickly. There are less layers, there's less history and attachment to what worked in small businesses.

3. In thesis 57, The Cluetrain Manifesto states, “smart companies will get out of the way and help the inevitable to happen sooner.” In light of that thesis, is encouraging employees to use social media and blogging a good idea? Is it really effective, when an employee is encouraged but not directed?

Recently I had a painful exchange with an employee who blogs on behalf of her company. This is a large, global company. The exchange was about a misunderstanding on a post, her version of a resolution was quite drastic - delete all comments and references. When I probed as to why, she responded: "I'm just an employee, I'm not at liberty to discuss this stuff here."

Is this the result of encouragement or direction? Can we please all use common sense? I work inside an organization, there is no need to change who you are for it, I can assure you.

4. How can a company encourage employees to use social media, and empower them to answer customer questions and learn from customers?

By walking the talk, just like with everything else an organization does.

Guess what? Your business has policies in place for about everything it does, and processes for many of those things. People watch what those high up in the organization do, where and how they spend their time. If they do what they say they do or what they say you should do, then you follow the example and feel confident someone is noticing (that's all empowerment is, really).

If they don't, there is no amount of programs you can throw at the employee base. They will know they are walking a very fine line, with no mistakes allowed at all, and that will be enough to hold back and to take their lessons and talents elsewhere at the first opportunity. Social media tools are so new, by and large they are uncharted territory. But they give us the chance to bridge back to being in touch with the reason why we are in business: to serve customers.

When we learn from customers, we have the chance to improve, make the business work better and as a result, sell more. Respect, trust, and loyalty are the greatest assets a company has.

5. Do all employees want to talk with customers? If not what percentage want to internetwork and converse?

It takes practice to want to talk with customers. Especially in those organizations that put the fear of the gods in you about making mistakes and needing to follow rules and regulations to the letter. Before you do the talking, before you roll out shiny new blogs, before you get all excited about pushing messages through a new, SEO-friendly tool, ask yourself one question: are you listening?

Are you listening to each other internally? Are you listening to the people on the front lines who are in contact with customers? Start there. Start listening to what they are saying - they represent your customers. The more eagerly you listen to them, the more they will be putting energy into listening to customers.
_____________

Who can enrich this conversation? I would like to listen to Jason Fall's take, what Tim Brunelle would tell MCAD students, Scott Monty's unique point of view, what would Tangerine Toad say, and Connie Bensen's advice on these five questions.

[image by Hugh MacLeod. I often talk about Stormhoek as a case of a business that gets it]

Conversation with Dan Pink, Author of Johnny Bunko

Johnny Bunko trailer from Daniel Pink on Vimeo.

Dan Pink is one of my favorite storytellers. One of the characteristics I most admire in him is his curiosity. In addition to being an engaging writer whose clear and simple style conveys the full power of action, he is a very likeable and generous individual.

After meeting many years ago via my involvement with the Fast Company community, I had the good fortune of hosting two events for Dan Pink in Philadelphia - one about what is still the best book written on the the future of working for yourself, Free Agent Nation; the other about moving from the information age to the conceptual age, A Whole New Mind.

Now Pink is dispensing career advice with a comic book - Johnny Bunko. We had a conversation recently about the differences between job search and career management. This is how I see it:

• Job search can be seen as temporary, frustrating, subject to the highs and lows of energy we all experience and to the vagaries of the marketplace on which we feel we have no control. We see a job search as totally focused on the immediate need.
• Career management is the ongoing discipline of developing relationships (inside and outside your industry, company, and line of work), learning new skills, sharing contacts and information freely, mapping out your options at any point in time, and taking control of your destiny. We see a career as an active pursuit that can open new possibilities for us.

With all this in mind, a career is something we all manage continuously, no matter the level or title we achieve. Do you think CEOs are immune? Think again. I met David Pottruck at a Wharton Leadership Forum a couple of years ago. Pottruck was the CEO of Charles Schwab until he lost it all and got his identity back as he dealt with the blow. "I slept like a baby," he shared at the event, "I woke up every two hours crying." There are many lessons in his story.

Johnny Bunko also learns many lessons about his career thanks to a supernatural career adviser and a series of situations he encounters at work. I sat down at the keyboard with Dan Pink to talk about his new project.

You wrote Johnny Bunko in Manga, which is a form of literature, fiction and fantasy on the rise especially in Japan. Do you think this form will become pervasive in relaying business ideas?

Dan: I hope so!   Graphic novels in general, and manga in particular, are incredibly efficient and expressive ways to convey ideas.  Since people are so strapped for time these days -- and since so much raw information is available on the internet -- there's a premium on books people can read and absorb quickly.   That doesn't mean dumbing things down.  No way.  It simply means telling stories and making arguments in more inventive ways.    

How popular is Manga in Japan? Why?

Dan: Manga is insanely popular in Japan -- in some sense, it's as popular and wide-ranging as television is here.  You can buy manga titles for just about any topic -- not just love stories and ninja tales, but also manga for time management, manga on political topics, manga history, manga financial guides, and so on.  In Japan, 22 percent of all printed material is in this comic form.  Amazing.    

Are you saying that the anatomy of a business book is changing? How?

Dan: Yes.  Take career books.  People today get their tactical career information online.  If they want to know what keywords to put in a resume or what a company does, they go to Google.  That means that books can no longer deliver only this kind of tactical material.  It becomes outdated before the book reaches store shelves.  What books can do, though, is offer strategic information -- big picture advice.  That's what I'm trying to do here.  Plus, most business books are too long.  Not JOHNNY BUNKO.  You can read it in an hour. This is a career advice manual for just about anyone who wants to find a better direction.

Do you expect that it will be job seekers to purchase the book?

Dan: Maybe.  The book is keyed around six broad lessons about work that I wish I'd known 25 years ago.  I think these lessons are always valuable to remember.  But I think they're especially clarifying for people who are at career inflection points -- whether they're just starting out in the workforce or whether they're seeking (or forced) to make a change.    

In reading the book it occurred to me that the advice may seem simple, yet the dynamics between the characters and the ideas put forth as the story comes to life can be a challenge for someone who goes through them.  Do you think that the presentation and format will help readers figure out all those connections better?

Dan: Again, I hope so. This is story -- a quick, zippy tale you can read in an hour.  I think it's precisely because of those qualities that the lessons will stick with readers for a long time.   We keep hearing about a shortage of talent. I'd argue that that shortage shows at every level, all the way to the top gun in companies.

Many organizations, especially agencies, plan to hire young talent they can groom (hopefully). What lessons are there in this book for people who are interested in hiring and keeping great talent?

Dan: There are lessons on both sides of the fence.   These lessons apply with equal force to recruiters as to other professions.  So I think those looking for talent could apply these principles and do better at their work.  In addition, the more companies honor the values inherent in these lessons, the better off they will be.  Places that allow folks to "Think strengths, not weaknesses" or to "Make excellent mistakes" or to "Leave an imprint" are places that are going to attract the best talent.

____________

Thank you, Dan. What about you? Do you take the time to think about what you have done and what you could have done better? Do you have a career management strategy? For companies - how are you going to address ways to attract the best talent?

New Media - Alan Levy, BlogTalkRadio

BlogTalkRadio is a social radio network that allows users to connect quickly and directly with their audience. You can use an ordinary telephone and computer to create free, live, call-in talk shows with unlimited participants that are automatically archived and made available as podcasts.

No software download is required. Your listeners can subscribe to the shows via RSS into iTunes and other feed readers. Since August, 2006, the BlogTalkRadio network has produced tens of thousands of episodes.

Today's new media conversation is with Alan Levy, the co-founder and CEO of BlogTalkRadio. He is also the host of the Alan Levy Show.

Radio has always been a truly broadcast media. But the web is inherently interactive. How does this change the game for next generation radio people?

Alan: The game changes when you realize you’re having a dialogue with your listeners, not a monologue at them. When you bring a traditional medium like Radio to the web, it would be foolish not to take advantage of the web’s capabilities. So the nextgen broadcasters must change. BlogTalkRadio takes advantage of the talk radio format and blends it with the capabilities of the web. Like most traditional radio the shows are live and there is a call in number. But that’s where the similarities end.

We have the capacity for dozens of concurrent shows, hosts can broadcast shows for lengths that fit their needs, not stretch 20 minutes of content into 30 minutes or cram a two hour show into an hour. Our segments are recorded and RSS enabled so minutes after the show ends, an archive is available on the site and via podcast subscription. We’ve taken the technology out of it for the users. We also provide text chat rooms for another layer of interaction with hosts.

In conventional radio, it's generally supposed - as a rule of thumb - that only about 1% of your audience will ever make a request, turn up for a remote broadcast, or participate in a contest. These active listeners have traditionally exerted influence on the programming of their stations far in excess of their numerical importance. If we assume a higher percentage of listeners will contact a nextgen broadcaster, how will this effect programming decisions? Is this a good or bad thing?

Alan: The interactive nature of the new web alters the way listeners respond and react – and how they expect online entities to react, as you mention. The good news is that many online entities are responding to this and engaging in conversations. We’ve no way of knowing if that influential 1% speaks for the majority or not. As more people begin to respond, we may find the exact same reactions or requests or a completely different set. It’s too soon to tell for terrestrial radio, but at BlogTalkRadio, the host is his own programming manager and makes his own decisions.

We also see a larger percentage of interaction, especially with the text chat room. We see hosts reacting in real time to that information, and, honestly, in an hour long segment, that text chat can sometimes steer the entire show and hosts allow it. Conversation is powerful.

Sirius and XM satellite radio both know that the overwhelming bulk of their listenership isn't being generated by high-dollar talk and specialty programming, but by generic music formats. Why are you invested in talk?

Alan: We’re more than just a “radio” station, and that’s a huge distinction. The combination of the telephone and the Internet in BlogTalkRadio has created a new medium. Never before has the barrier to entry for broadcast been so low for personal and business use. We’ve empowered people like never before.

As a network, we can have an unlimited number of shows. These shows broaden and deepen the network in a way that no satellite or terrestrial station can compete with. We can parcel our advertising by category (sports), topic (baseball), geographic area (New York), and so on. And we can do that for every advertiser across the network of over 64,000 segments and 2.4 million listeners per month.

I’ve invested in talk because I believe in conversation. Passionate people have never had this global forum before and businesses have never had the simple option of our Business Solutions platform. Our white label business offering brings conversational marketing to business and their publics, seamlessly integrated into a company’s own branded environment. We create a direct path for people to connect, sports fan to sports fan, business to employees, political leaders to constituents, companies to consumers.

Radio has often been described as a local media. Is this distinction possible for online stations?

Alan: BlogTalkRadio is both local and global, it depends on your topic. The benefit of the Internet is that like-minded people can gather regardless of their geographic location. But on the flip side, if your topic is local, local people will gather to hear it. Better yet, we can now bring local topics to people who still feel a local connection, but live outside of the geographic area.

Imagine college alumni tuning into the University’s BlogTalkRadio station. Imagine a die-hard Mets fan who moves to Texas and still keeps up with the local coverage through shows like MetsBlog Radio. BlogTalkRadio provides both local and global coverage. Advertisers can still reach the local clients through the BlogTalkRadio network because we can track, segment and tailor every campaign and touch just the relevant shows.

At what point will broadband mobile internet access make streaming, internet-delivered content competitive with terrestrial radio? How long do you think this will take?

Alan: Soon. I expect that to happen in the next 12 months if it isn’t happening already. As you hint at, in addition to computer streaming, mobile Internet radio devices like the Reciva enabled radios, with whom BlogTalkRadio has just partnered, will soon be a reality.

Follow up to the above: can you last that long?

Alan: Without question. We’re on a steady growth curve in terms of users – hosts and listeners. The more people find out about us the more people join the network in one way or another. We haven’t yet reached our tipping point for exposure, which will bring a flood of new users. We’re just getting started. We only came out of beta in November of last year. By January we’d seen a 40% growth in listeners. Advertisers are taking notice.

What are the most likely revenue models for nextgen broadcasters?

Alan: We’ve already seen more and more companies putting  ad money on the web and studies (BIGresearch’s Simultaneous Media SIMM 11, Dec. 07 e.g.) show that new media is driving more purchases. BlogTalkRadio tackles it two ways. As I said before, the web is about niche content which draws people from all over the world. We can provide those niche markets to our advertisers across a wide and deep network.

Also the trend is clearly towards more conversational marketing. And what can be more conversational than actually having direct, real-time conversations with your customers, constituents and fans? Our Business Solutions service offers just that for companies and individuals.

Is nextgen broadcasting waiting for a device or technology?

Alan: We’ve already built the nextgen broadcasting service that uses technology people already have. BlogTalkRadio – host your own show with just a phone and a computer. I don’t know what they’re waiting for.

_____________

Thank you, Alan. BlogTalkRadio leverages the power of the web to allow you to have a real time conversation with your listeners, manage and produce your own shows, and create a niche market for your content. Catch the Alan Levy Show here. Have you ever thought of hosting your own radio show? Why not? All you need is a phone and a computer. Well, you also need good content.

Meet the (New Media) Editor -- Robin Hamman, The BBC

Many of the online publications in my media diet are written and produced in Europe. That includes blogs. There are stories and conversations on European wires that I would never find here.

A case in point was the free flow of information act for bloggers. I learned about it from an Italian publication. It may come as no surprise to you, after all, I have spent most of my life in Europe where I learned to appreciate the differences in reporting style and philosophy from country to country.

The world might or might not be flat, the news is still very much imprinted with cultural references. That is good.

That is why I am thrilled to have had the opportunity of a conversation with the editors of one of my daily news destinations, the BBC. Recently, the BBC Trust chairman Sir Michael Lyons has unveiled a list of "promises to audiences" for the corporation's regulatory and governance body, which includes delivering "spin free" reports and statements on BBC activities as drawn in consultation with the public.

When I reached out to the BBC, I was pleasantly surprised by their responsiveness and willingness to participate in this series of conversations about new media. Robin Hamman is a Senior Broadcast Journalist for BBC English Regions and currently leads the BBC Blogs Network. He blogs at Cybersoc.com about the collision of journalism, online community, blogging, citizen journalism and, sometimes, law.

_____________________________

I've noticed that many European media groups have been quite on top of their online models, integrating mobile news with their digital homes and linking to bloggers -- in many cases ahead of US media corporations. The BBC News is a well established brand and a well respected news source. One people have relied on for years. When was the transition to blogs implemented? Was it fairly smooth to execute?

Robin: In early 2006, following several forays into blogging by the BBC, most notably BBC Scotland's Island Blogging, Ouch! and Nick Robinson's Newslog, the decision was made to customise and install an off-the-shelf blogging solution and create the BBC Blogs Network, which launched in April.

The graph below provides four snapshots, taken at six month intervals, of the unique visitors and visitor sessions for the BBC Blogs Network, starting with that first month and ending with October 2007.

Implementation was done very quickly, even though we made fairly extensive customisations to the software to enable it to work within our existing infrastructure, but we have suffered recently from some instability caused by database issues. Over the next few months we intend to install a new engine to drive our blogs based on recommendations provided by a recent technical review we commissioned from an external agency.

How have you made the transition to the publication's online presence as a specific destination for readers, a complement to the rest of the BBC's properties? Are the blogs an extension of the regular news columns?

Robin: We currently have around 50 active blogs. A lot of people outside the UK tend to think only of news when they think of the BBC but we do all sorts of other things. On the publicly funded side,  we have eight network television channels, ten national radio networks, over 50 local and regional radio stations, interactive television services and bbc.co.uk. There's also the BBC World Service, funded by a grant from the UK Government, which provides 33 radio language services and websites in native languages around the World, commercial channel partnerships in the UK and abroad, including BBC Food, UKTV, and BBC America.

The BBC Blogs Network comprises around 50 blogs, tied to our domestic (UK) publicly funded operations and those of the BBC World Service. As you can imagine, the blogs reflect the diversity of our offerings and are, in that sense, often an extension of our existing brands. Each blog is a distinct offering with its own purpose. In November 2006, in a lengthy post titled “What’s the Point of TV and Radio Blogs?”, I explained that blogging would:    

• Allow us to join in conversations about the topics we cover and programmes we make
• Bring some of the BBC’s best and most widely recognised talent closer to their audiences
• Make it easier for journalists and programme makers to gain exposure to and learn from the knowledge and experiences of our audiences
• Make our editorial decisions and policies, as well as our production values and techniques, more transparent and those who make them more accountable

These remain the core reasons why the BBC Blog Network exists and, because our blogs each tend to have a different style, voice and audience, they each tend to focus more or less strongly on each of the goals above.

For example, Radio 2 Presenter Chris Evans' blog is much like a personal diary, bringing audiences closer to the man behind the microphone. As one blogger said of Evans’ blog:

"He actually comes over as being quite like how he is on TV, which is to say that he seems to be a happy-go-lucky, decent bloke. All in all, the kind of chap you wouldn’t mind spending some time in the company of.”

Newsnight, Radio 5 Live’s Pods and Blogs, and the new Radio 4 programme iPM are all using their blogs in a different way – to engage with and tap into the knowledge and creativity of their audiences.

The Editors, Sport Editors and the BBC Internet blog, are all about bringing transparency and accountability to the services provided by different divisions of the BBC.

Everyone is after the same attention pool, which keeps shrinking. Online is fast becoming a very competitive business model -- how do you keep the value from turning into commodity?

Robin: It's increasingly important that we get our content out to new audiences rather than remaining insular and stuck in a channel mentality. One of the great things about blogs is that, where we're able to embrace the blogging techniques of sharing content, quoting others, and linking out to become part of the wider conversation, we're able to get our stuff in front of new audiences.

A broadcasting company at heart, we used to think that our content went out and that was it. Now many of us at the BBC understand that the moment we put content out there need not be the beginning, nor the end, of the conversation - that a broadcast has a social life of its own.

Sure, we get value out of becoming more transparent and by bringing audiences closer to BBC reporters and talent, but for me, the idea of using the blogs to engage in wider conversations with our audiences, and potentially new audiences, is the most interesting part of having programme related blogs.

How do you keep things relevant and sustainable at your publication? What is your definition of success?

Robin: Measuring success has, so far, been something that has been done by the editorial teams who author or produce blogs within our network. The first 18 months have helped us learn more about what we, and our audiences, from different types of BBC Blog offerings. Now that we have that learning behind us, we may very well decide in the coming months to begin to apply editorial standards across the board and close down BBC blogs that don't meet those standards.

As far as making blogs sustainable, I often argue that the more integrated blogs are into the overall planning, production and output of programmes, the less they drain upon scarce resources. That's why we're starting to have blogs, some of which are listed in my response to the second question above, which really are part and parcel of the production process - helping teams plan and organise, sometimes with some help from their audiences, in the run-up to transmission and to make additional material, as well as gather audience feedback, and extending the life of the programme.

Where our blogs aren't integrated closely into our production and output we really miss a trick.

What is your strategy for inviting blog contributors? What about free lance contributors just online?

Robin: Our bloggers are, for the most part, members of BBC staff. The exceptions to this are where freelancers have been brought in to post and on BBC Scotlands Scot Blogs where we supply a blogging platform to volunteer citizen bloggers in the Scottish Islands. We haven't, and I don't expect us to, gone down the road of providing a blogging platform for members of the public.

We have, however, been quietly wondering if it might be a good idea to try hiring one or two bloggers to come author blogs for us rather than trying always to turn our journalists, production staff, on-air talent and editors into bloggers. It's an interesting idea and I hope we are able to try it somewhere.

How do you create a culture of participation? Do your writers consider themselves members of a community?

Robin: All of our bloggers, as far as I'm aware, read the comments on their posts. However, we don't always do a good job of responding to those comments publicly, even if they do affect the way we do things.

We're also not particularly good at linking out to other bloggers and websites - recent research commissioned by us shows that just one in eight BBC blog posts links out.

These are areas we are going to focus much of our attention on improving over the coming months because we think it's important that our bloggers, if the BBC and our audiences are to gain as much as possible out of blogging, to participate in the conversation.

Where do you draw inspiration? Do you read other online publications? Which ones? How are you influenced by them?

Robin: Personally, I find most of my new web based content via my del.icio.us network and, what I don't find that way, I hear about using Twitter, Facebook and other services where I network with others who share my interests. I also subscribe to around 100 RSS feeds. I try to encourage the BBC's bloggers, and just about anyone else I come across, to learn about and start using del.icio.us and RSS - there are some great videos for beginners at commoncraft.com.

I'm also a firm believer that the best way to learn about social media and blogging is to participate yourself. I try out just about every social media service that comes along but tend to stick with a few firm favourites - those mentioned above as well as Flickr, Plazes and Dopplr. I also have a few blogs of my own including a private baby blog for my daughter, a blog about the town I live in which consists almost entirely of mobile cameraphone posts, and my main blog, cybersoc, which, apparently, is one of the leading "journo blogs" in the UK.

Do you feel threatened by the idea of user created media? How is what you do different from user created content? Is there still a place for traditional editors in the 21st century?

Robin: Although it's probably true that bloggers, who generally focus upon a niche, and others who create and share content online are gaining audiences, I don't think that this necessarily indicates a decline in audiences for other forms and sources of media. I think that the two - amateur and professional - can quite happily not just co-exist but can learn and benefit from each other.

At the moment, most journalists and editors think almost exclusively about content they create and own. In the future, we're going to need to improve our abilities to find, curate, quote from and editorialise links to the content of others. People will always find having a known and trusted guide more useful than a simple search engine result. At the BBC we’re increasingly trying to think of the whole web as our canvas. I guess that means that, regardless of the topics we cover or geographical areas we report on, the web is also increasingly going to be part of our beat.

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Thank you, Robin. A couple of thoughts you put forth that really resonated with me are your willingness to participate to social media and choose what fits your style best and the idea that journalists' role is increasingly that to "find, curate, quote from and editorialize links to the content of others." You have the experience and the access to more resources -- for example research and news networks -- so that reporting can take on a depth and richness we can all benefit from.

Editors' (New Media) Models

"I will say one thing. We never lost tons of money chasing down ridiculous online ideas. Right now we have two online, two Web sites [for Rolling Stone and Us Weekly] that are both profitable and big and well-used. [...] We’re not just trying to replicate the magazines, but we’ve got strong brands that stand for something, and we are going to build those Web sites up.

[..] The Internet . . . I don’t know that it’s primarily a medium, in the sense that it’s primarily a transactional service and media delivery system. My formulation is this: Rolling Stone represents a really good idea of a brand, concept, whatever you want to call it. Community, any one of those buzzwords. You can integrate the Internet into your brand, if you do it correctly, and you can broaden the depth of the experience. That’s what you can bring to peoples’ lives, beyond what’s on the printed page--if you do it correctly."

[Jann Wenner, Rolling Stone]

As I was sitting down to write an opinion piece and revisit the conversation we've had with new media editors so far, I glanced at the in-depth interview with Jann Wenner on Jon Fine's blog at BusinessWeek and couldn't help but catch the skepticism about the online model. Jon defined Jann Wenner The Last Tycoon of Print in his article. You can read the full 40th anniversary issue of the magazine online and the crazy thing if you try and read it that way is that the ads really pop out, while for the actual content you need to zoom in. I do not buy Rolling Stone, but just sampling it online is not enough for me. Especially for an anniversary edition, I'm thinking that the actual magazine would be nice to have.

Which is quite interesting given that John Byrne, editor-in-chief of BusinessWeek.com shared here that:

Online journalism is a conversation and a dialogue. [...] the most permanent and influential of all journalism today is, in fact, digital. Unlike the journalism in a magazine or newspaper that gets thrown away, digital journalism is a permanent searchable record. You can access it anywhere around the globe at anytime, whether you are at home or work, in an airport lounge in Warsaw or a cafe in Bangalore. Unlike print, it doesn’t disappear with the garbage. You can’t line a bird cage with it. Instead, digital journalism lives on forever.

Gina Trapani, editor of Lifehacker feels that print and online complement each other. In our guest interview here, she stated:

Readers are shifting more of their attention online, but new media and traditional publishing complement one another and will continue to do so. Newsy blogs deliver stories faster than magazines and even daily newspapers can, but you don't get the kind of research and editorial polish that you do in those outlets.

There are cost advantages with an online only format, for example an e-zine costs probably under 10% compared to a print publication. Yet, Tim McHale editor of the Madison Avenue Journal shared some thoughts about the advantages of print:

When reading a print publication, audiences generally spend upwards of 2 minutes with the medium.  The physical handling and thumb-through experience contain numerous incentives visually -- be it an ad, a photo, a headline or insert in the magazine. All these sensory stimulations provide reasons to keep reading. 

In fact, it has been documented that once the reader has chosen to commit more time to the print medium, the magazine often slows a person’s heart rate down and puts the reader into a more leisurely mode, which adds to the benefit advertisers have compared to a net-based publication.

Wenner talked about the importance of strong brands that stand for something. Chris Baskind is editor of LighterFootstep.com and Vida Verde Media, two brands that stand for green. Chris said that online, we’re bombarded with great ideas. The fun part is picking the ones to run with.

New Media Editors are the web’s brand managers — they’re responsible for keeping their publication moving in a coherent direction. My business partner, Lisa Cagle, and I both come from radio backgrounds. Program Directors are the people who are the most directly responsible for what you hear on the air. They choose the talent, define the mission, and represent the interests of both their listeners and the station’s ownership. That’s what New Media Editors do. They even have to watch out for payola, just like their radio counterparts.

What to make then of those publications that have had strong histories both in print and online? In my conversation with Lynne Johnson, editor of FastCompany.com, we uncovered a few timeless ingredients for success. I warn you, when it comes to this magazine, I'm quite biased -- it totally changed the conversation about business, community, and learning for me.

We like to go in-depth with our content and give you all the legs to a story, in a way that's not only complementary for the Web but necessary to exist online. We also offer exclusive stories and Q&As that we treat in the same manner as we do our magazine content.

We've always had site contributors in the form of columnists, and now we still have them, but we have also added another layer by including Expert bloggers on a range of business topics of interest to our readers -- innovation, technology, leadership, change management, careers, design, social responsibility, and work/life. These are very pointed and niche focuses for us to provide our readers with what they're looking for.

Likewise we have one of the oldest business networks online. Company of Friends has been around at least eight years, and has given not only our readers, but anyone with business interests, who is also interested in sharing ideas with like-minded business leaders, a space to network.

Tony Hung, editor of The Blog Herald, understands the importance of creating a brand that will resonate with people. While he hires slowly and fires fast, Tony thinks:

Creating a worthwhile brand is an activity that most entities online are striving for, whether they realize it or not. The Blog Herald is no different in that respect and it’s a challenging activity. I think it starts from understanding who and what your brand is about, and where it fits in the minds of your existing and prospective readers -- keeping in mind who your competitors are. While it’s the oldest of old saws, I think there are a few simple, but not easy, ways to avoid 'commodity' status, and these are really common sense "tips":  Invest in trying to create uniquely helpful content that is high on quality, personality and verve. That's it. 

What makes it difficult is in trying to keep up to that standard over time, and persisting with that formula even if you're rejiggering the details from time to time, because the easiest thing to do is give up too early.

Media should be reaching their audiences wherever they are, and more and more people are online these days. Ann Handley, editor of the Marketing Profs oversees the amazing pipeline of content coming through the site.

It's an editor's mission to be the caretaker of content quality, to meet the needs of the audience or community first. I know that ambition probably sounds a tad grand, but it nonetheless is the ultimate goal of any good publication, in my mind.

Publishers can leverage the quality that editors and writers build with advertisers and sponsors, certainly—that's the dance between editorial and advertising. But the quality of content has to be in place first.

My editorial focus at MarketingProfs is to shine a beacon of light for our readers—leading the way through the clutter.

This is a really exciting time to be working in media online. The advent of Web 2.0 applications and rise of social media is adding an incredible amount of texture and nuance and twists to publishing.

Each of the publications listed and interviewed here has had a different life cycle and is run by people who are very different from each other yet all have one thing in common -- an absolute belief in their mission to provide great quality content and experiences for their readers. As we're rolling out the carpets to celebrate one of the most iconic publications of the last half century we cannot help but wonder -- where are we going next?