Artisan Journalism & Marketing Project Link Blog

Diversity Is About Voices Outside Being Heard

From Jeff Jarvis:

Laura Washington writes in the Sun-Times that journalism's mirror is cracked:

When the journalism profession looks in the mirror, it doesn't like what it sees.

It sees a public turned off by the news -- news of a never-ending succession of our journalistic crimes from plagiarism to fabrication; squabbles over anonymous sources; half-hearted mea culpas, and just-plain-old screw-ups. It sees a profession in crisis....

When readers and viewers look into the mirror that is our media, they don't see themselves. A recent report by Columbia's own Project for Excellence in Journalism found that in the last 17 years, Americans have "come to see the press as less professional, less moral, more inaccurate, and less caring about the interests of the country." Surveys taken between 1985 and 2002 reveal the proportion of Americans who view news organizations as "highly professional" declined from 72 percent to 49 percent. Those who considered news organizations "moral" fell from 54 percent to 39 percent. And news consumers who "thought the press got the facts straight" fell from 55 percent to 35 percent.

Joe Six-Pack doesn't read the newspaper over his morning eggs and coffee anymore. The couch potatoes are furiously clicking off the nightly news. Readers and viewers see the media as an elitist bunch that neither live nor reflect their reality. The news honchos who have the most sway over writing and producing the news are mostly white men over 50....

Whoa about there. I was fine until she turned this into a quota thing... and that's not just because I am a white man over 50 (not that there's anything wrong with that, right?). She falls into newsroom-think: that diversity is about the colors of the people you see inside the newsroom. No, diversity is about the voices and views outside and whether they are heard. They are beginning to be heard online, because they can be, so why do they need to go inside the newsroom? No, it's up to the newsroom to listen to what is happening outside its walls.

Head for the Personal Truth

Wish I'd seen this insightful comment from Brian Moffatt (at gapingvoid) before I posted, "We're All Journalists in the Age of Ordinary Art".

[References this Clay Shirky piece and this particular quote: "So forget about blogs and bloggers and blogging and focus on this -- the cost and difficulty of publishing absolutely anything, by anyone, into a global medium, just got a whole lot lower. And the effects of that increased pool of potential producers is going to be vast."]

The man can write. (Anybody can, if they just let themselves get out of the way.) Strip the control and compromise from the publishing, head for the personal truth, and you end up with some very engaging writing - Clay's cultural mashup, the Midwestern American in the NYC Iranian Bud Bodega, implies some greater insights - both personal and universal - more than the mere and routine 'Gee isn't NYC great.' I now have some notion of him beyond his ideas, which also puts his ideas into a more shapely context. This is the type of writing that will become 'regular' - running to the vast sea of producers idea. This is a threat to the old school. It undermines, as shirky implies, cynicism, snarkiness, sentimentalism, censorship, and aggregation. People aren't watching when they're creating. Big Media and their mini-media Gawkers will be left holding onto to nothing but Fred Dirst's penis.

Ah, yes, it's all in the getting out of the way.

Vespa Grassroots Storytelling Blog Launches

On the intro to this linkblog, I wrote:

I'm enjoying reading Seth's new book, All Marketers Are Liars. It's about stories. Only problem is it's still all about the corporation's story. Where are the customers' stories? MSM is starting to glimpse the value in real people - the guys and gals on the other side of the newspaper print or television box - telling their own stories.

Steve Rubel at Micropersuasion announces what looks like an excellent example of what I'm talking about (see also Wall St Journal's "Corporate Marketers Try Out Blogs"):

At CooperKatz we believe one of the most effective forms of marketing is peer-to-peer/citizen marketing. What better way to evangelize the benefits of scootering than empowering existing customers to tell prospective scooterati why Vespa rocks?

Vespa is in the fortunate position of having thousands of very expressive online customer evangelists. Given this, CooperKatz and Piaggio USA decided to try something unique. In the spirit of Jackie Huba and Ben McConnell's breakthrough book, Creating Customer Evangelists, we're going to give four lucky Vespa owners a voice. Together we're launching two lifestyle blogs this summer that will be written by Vespa customers. One will focus on urban mobility, while the other will be on the journey we call life - how to get from point A to point B. More details are in the call for Vespa bloggers.

Congrats!

UPDATE: Hmmm up way too late and didn't catch this, but here's information on the WITFM (what's in it for me) angle for the Vespa bloggers from the FAQ. This isn't secret info - keeping up a blog is a bigtime time-consumer:

What will the bloggers receive in return for their service?

In return for their services, Vespa bloggers will get an early look at Vespa products and services, passes to Vespa events as well as Vespa accessory merchandise and online/media exposure. Vespa is not paying for any of the bloggers to blog, nor is it trying to influence them on content. These are simply perks for blogging for Vespa.

Good comment from Marion Page on Steve's post:

However, I think that seeking independent bloggers who won't be paid is a mistake. Personally, I think that an advertising firm giving away the actually task of blogging is equivalent to Yahoo giving away search to Google.

I think it is best to just get rid of this "independent blogger" concept "up front", from the "git go". No one is ever going to believe that someone officially blogging on behalf of a product or a company is independent. So, why waste time on this issue?

As far as seeking to become an official blogger for Vespa, I can make [more] money by just creating my own scooter blog and putting Adsense ads on it. Other than providing some blogger with the opportunity to make himself/herself so valuable to Vespa that Vespa doesn't need Micropersuasion, I don't see what appeal the "offical Vespa blogger" designation holds.

Blog like Ben Roethlisberger

Great example of a celebrity being 'real'. From Church of the Customer:

[Pittsburgh Steeler's quarterback Ben] Roethlisberger is wisely following the dictum of connecting with readers. Some believe that blog posts must be witty, grammar-perfect and professional. Eh. Roethlisberger proves that blogging works when it comes from the heart.

Authenticity is All, Says PR Firm Burson-Marsteller

Authenticity is All

• Blog writers often have very personal motivations and passions – these are the voices that rise above the noise
• Real people write readable, credible blogs, corporations don’t
  • If I’m only saying, ‘Use Microsoft products, rah rah rah,’ I lose all ability to have a conversation,” said Robert Scoble, prominent blogger and Microsoft software evangelist. Fortune, January 10, 2005
• Openness is essential
  • Be as candid as possible; be clear about what you can’t discuss and why
  • Respectfully acknowledge dissenting opinions
  • Marketing “hype” will be evaluated with skepticism and cynicism, or worse ridiculed and treated with sarcasm.

From Guideposts for the New Communications Ecosystem a.k.a. The Blogosphere Survival Guide" (PDF) via Constantin Basturea’s weblog, http://blog.basturea.com/archives/2005/03/02/burson-marsteller-is-blogging-folks/

Real Celebs or Real People Blogging for MLB?

Could MLB have guys like Derek Jeter blog? Or will it be blogs by baseball nuts like me. (Apparently…. its going to be both!)  -

From Om Malik's blog: http://www.gigaom.com/2005/04/21/major-league-baseball-six-apart-deal-in-the-works/

A Most Excellent Blogger Interview

EXCELLENT interview with Ernie the Attorney by Shel Israel. Read the whole thing.

Snippet:

His father was a psychoanalyst, and as a child he was fixated on figuring out what exactly his father did.  Other kids’ parents had jobs that were easily understood, even by young children.   The grown-ups who surrounded him, discussed comfortable matters, like the weather.  But he sensed that his father’s profession dealt with things that no one wanted to discuss, certainly not in casual conversation. One day, at about the age of 11 Ernie snuck a peek at his father’s notes—case studies that were two-page summaries of a patient’s history, without the names of the patients identified and was stunned by the sorts of personal things people were willing to tell his father.  “I learned then that what most people talk about as being ‘personal’ in ordinary conversation is a far cry from the really serious personal stuff that we all like to keep concealed. “So what seems highly personal to some who read my blog is not really the kind of stuff that I am wary of revealing.”

Of the people we interviewed for this book, Svenson was the most reluctant to participate, particularly for a section called, ‘consultants who get it.’ “I don’t blog to market myself. It isn’t about self-promotion.  I write because I’m not sure what I’m thinking.  I discover insight about myself by writing and growing up with a shrink for a dad seems to have made me comfortable sharing a lot of personal stuff with others. I just hate the thought of being seen as Mr. Marketing Guy. I think that sort of stuff fails on blogs. People just want a story: What’s the deal?  Just tell me how it works.  That’s the best thing you can do if you want to market on a blog is don’t. Just talk.”

No, really, read the whole thing.

From Robert Scoble and Shel Israel's Red Couch book project: http://redcouch.typepad.com/weblog/2005/04/interview_with_.html#comments

Businesses Don't Do Blogs? Hmm, But People Do

Tom Ascacker points to Enough with Blogging Already from Darwin Magazine. The author Graeme Thickins pooh poohs blogging, big time.

Among Thickin's reasons... Business doesn't do passion; business doesn't like gossip; business doesn't like doing public experiments; business doesn't bare its soul; business writing style and blogger style don’t even come close.

Each of these arguments falls at the first word; the fanciful notion of a single, monolithic thing called "business". Well, this imaginary creature may not like passion, or gossip, or public experiments... but people do, and that's probably why the numbers of bloggers keep growing. - Johnnie Moore, http://www.johnniemoore.com/blog/archives/000894.php

Fake Blogs Attack on Blog Core Values

Fictional Character blogs is like a direct attack on the Universal Blog Core Values Mantra:

"Authenticity. Passion. Transparency. Originality."

Comments from Robert Scoble and Shel Israel's Red Couch blog, http://redcouch.typepad.com/weblog/2005/04/rubel_character.html