CorporatePR

Brands as Media: Platforms for Value Creation

Back in April I wrote that I thought brands today have an opportunity to become media companies themselves:

What is tremendously interesting here, is that consumer brand companies are finding themselves becoming media companies. Not in the traditional sense of media 1.0, but in media 2.0, or participatory/social media. This shift flies in the face of the old “core competency” business strategy where companies focus on what they do best, shedding or outsourcing the rest. But the shift in technology and audience expectations is driving a major evolution in marketing, which, at least initially, is leading companies to develop, purchase and/or maintain/support media properties, be they online forums, blogs, and social networks. (This is already starting to result in brands competing with traditional media, the very places they have supported by their advertising over the past decades. With large consumer products companies in better financial shape than media companies, this might result in some odd marriages in the next few years.)

Since then, I have been putting a bit of thought into what I meant by that, with a special focus on thinking about what Umair Haque has been writing about branding and media economics.  Let's start with Haque's definition of a brand:

What is a brand? It’s a promise: information from a firm promising you a set of costs and benefits from the consumption of a good or service. Brands shape your expected value.

A lot of people have taken him to task for this definition in the comments to this post and follow-up posts, but I tend to agree with him.  Contrary to what some commenters seem to think, this definition does still keep the idea of social meaning, happy associations etc.  The brand compresses information – it is a symbol – for everything a consumer can expect to achieve when he/she consumes the object the brand represents.  Economically, this can be broken down into costs/benefits (even if we don't usually think about it in that way).

The challenge facing brands today is that a brand can no longer be only a symbol; it has to become much, much more than that.  This doesn't mean it stops being a symbol – its shorthand promise will remain important, simply because not every consumer is going to have the time or desire to read and interact with all of the incredibly rich detail located behind the brand.  My argument is that brands have to become media itself – the medium or platform on which the symbol is co-created with its consumers. 

Let's back up for a minute and look at this from a couple of different directions.

What is media?  The dictionary definition states that it is “a medium of cultivation, conveyance, or expression”; whereas medium is “the means of effecting or conveying something” (a channel, environment, or mode).  Let us define it this way: “media is a platform for shaping expectations.”  By platform, I mean a place for the production and distribution of information.  I think we can agree that this meets our usual thinking of what media is (a newspaper, TV station, radio station, even social networks).  This brings us to a few important questions:

• Who owns the platform?

• Who shapes the expectations?

• In what directions does the information flow?

The answer to these questions are quite important in characterizing the media/medium, because as we have known since Marshall McLuhan, the medium itself is a message (especially about power).

In traditional mass media, publishing companies owned the platform and publishers, editors and journalists shaped the expectations (under the influence of readers, of course, but often not directly).  The information, for the most part, flowed outwards to readers, with limited incoming channels for interaction. Brands purchased space/time on these platforms in order to distribute their symbols.

Today anyone can produce and distribute information.  Anyone can be media: “a platform for shaping expectations.”  This is an important opportunity for brands to become something far more than just a symbol; they can become the means for shaping expectations.  Haque uses Google and Apple as examples of next-generation brands that are doing just this.  Furthermore, he writes that media is a platform where producers and consumers interact.

This brings me to another angle on the story: investment.

Haque tells us that traditional branding activities, especially advertising, imposes costs on consumers.  Costs of interrupted attention, time spent waiting for a TV show to resume, polluted visual fields in cities and countrysides, and so on.  Culturally, consumers are now expressing their increasing resentment of these costs and refusing to pay them (and technology is giving them ever more tools to easily do so).  Haque argues that brands today must invest in consumers instead, using Google's non-ad riddled home page as the primary example of a brand investing in its consumers.  What does investment mean?  First of all, listening.  Then thinking about how communications can benefit consumers.

This is a tricky thing for brands, and requires a dramatic shift in thinking.  To restate: One cannot think only about how a product or service benefits its users, but how branding activities themselves can be beneficial.   As long as the only option for brand awareness to achieve scale was buying space/time on other platforms, their freedom to create new experiences was limited.  When a brand is itself a platform, worlds of possibilities open up.  Notice I didn't say, “when a brand owns a platform.”  It is very important that old ideas of ownership and control don't pollute this framework.  Rather, brands must invest in consumers by providing the infrastructure needed for the co-creation of the platform.  The development of the expectations, the development of the promise, must come through the relationships being formed on that platform between (co-)producer(s) and consumers.  In fact, the answers to the questions stated above become:

• Who owns manages the platform: Everyone

• Who shapes the expectations: Everyone

• In what directions does influence flow: Everywhere

Let's put it another way: the platform is where value is created.  Brands invest in the creation and management (with a light touch) of the platform, thereby “investing” in consumers. The return on this investment is the value that consumers add, by contributing content and ideas, mashing up information – basically by investing their attention.  Think about it: the platform receives investment from both sides!  The total value created can then be channeled into new products and services. Branding platforms as value generators has a really nice sound to it (and important implications for measuring the impact of branding activities, to say the least).

I am comforted by the idea that thinking about brand as media opens up vast new horizons for the practice of marketing, communications, public relations and so on. While some brands may become media companies themselves (as I previously suggested), I am sure this idea will manifest in other ways as well.  I will keep my eye out for  examples of brand platforms as value engines, and welcome any suggestions you may have.

The Question Concerning Social Networks: Existence or Meaning?

Over the past couple of weeks I have been bookmarking (del.icio.us/ealbrycht/socialnetwork) and reading a variety of articles and posts about social networks, with an emphasis on corporate or white label ones.  There is a wealth of material out there; Jeremiah Owyang tracks this area closely for Forrester, for one. What I thought I'd do is synthesize here what, in my opinion, is some of the more interesting advice and thoughts out there.  This isn't a "10 steps to successful social networking" article, but rather an introduction to some ideas about how to approach corporate social networks.

Today, I think that public social networks are pretty primitive things.  I don't like the walled gardens, and the awkwardness of profile and friending processes are laughable.  In the end, for the most part, these different social networks have become cages for pieces of my identity, which then stagnate as I forget about them.  Because once you've built your little home, there is nothing much else to do other than add old high school classmates that find you or join groups that I, invariably, never really do anything with.  I simply cannot imagine that translating this type of environment into a corporate garden would be successful.  And yet, I don't deny that the basic concept of social networking represents a potentially powerful tool for organizations.

From conversations I have had with people, reading I have done, and my own personal experiences, I don't think people will join and participate in brand communities sponsored by organizations, just because they are asked. Nor do I think that they will do it for earning promotional bonuses (free products etc.). For particularly high profile brands there might be some initial buzz value, but I don't think it will last.  Nor do I think that entertainment alone will keep people around.  You can give them games to play and contests to win, but in the end, that will fall flat.  So why do people join social networks?  What is a commonality among successful ones (public or private)?  I think it is that the networks are about something concrete.

There is a wonderful post from a couple of years ago on the concept of object-centered sociality that states "The fallacy is to think that social networks are just made up of people.  They're not; social networks consist of people who are connected by a shared object."  These shared objects can be jobs, dates, photos etc.  Flickr is a social network based on photos.  Del.icio.us is based on URLs.  Upcoming.org is based on events. LinkedIn on jobs. [Examples all from post].  I look at a successful corporate social network, that of Nestle Purina: petcentric.  At its core, it is about people's pets, not the brand.  Brilliant.

This post suggests that, "When it becomes easy to create digital instances of the object, online services for networking on, through, and around that object will emerge too."  Organizations need to ask themselves:  what is their object?

Francois Gossieaux has written recently about "interrupt marketing" and how it doesn't work in social networking.  He states, "It doesn't matter how a person feels about your product; it matters how they feel about themselves in the context of your product."  I would broaden that, saying, "It matters how they feel about themselves and their relationships (perhaps "emotional connection" is a better phrase) with their objects in the context of your product."

Once you know your object, and you have determined that there isn't already a strong social network in place around it (if there is, it is probably better to join and participate in some way vs. trying to create a new one), what kind of social network do you construct?  What kind of activities do you offer?  What do you want people to DO on your network?  If an important aspect of your social network is to market to its users, that marketing has to use some kind of contextual technology that inserts itself into the action stream, into what the people are doing.  Search ads work because people are looking for something, as Alexander van Elsas reminds us, then admonishes us: "There is no room for advertisement when people interact." 

So, what could you do on a corporate social network?  Obviously providing forms of interaction (chat, forums, photo sharing, etc.) are good bets. There are plenty of tips and tool articles out there that can help with that (see my del.icio.us feed).  I have stated before that companies should ask for contributions (ideas, etc.) and demonstrate they have listened. This quote comes from a profile of Communispace in the Boston Globe a couple of years ago:  "Consumers also participate in the online communities because it gives them a feeling of power.  They seem to love the idea of being consulted, and love even more the notion that they are being listened to."  And later in the same article, "The experience of being heard is so rare."

Remember, the activities you provide have to be appropriate to the context, to the object, and to the action stream.  Petcentric, with its "pet" object relies heavily on photo sharing and videos.  Of course!  Pets are cute, people are proud of them, they want to share/brag.  What is your organization's "pet"?  (Perhaps you can think about it another way.  What is unique about your product?  Is there anything that has an almost cult-like status or following?  It could even be an "alternative" use.) 

Another hurdle you will have to leap comes once you have a network and participants in place: participation inequality, which states that 90% of users are lurkers, 9% contribute a little and 1% contribute most. (Whether or not these are the exact figures, I think the basic idea is sound.) This means that for the organization, "Implementation efforts need to consciously manage participation and activity to compensate for a smaller population."  This same conclusion can be read from a different context described by Kevin Kelly in The Bottom is Not Enough.  He writes, arguing for some form of editorial control or leadership: "The reason every bottom-up crowd-source hive-mind needs some top-down control is because of time. The bottom runs on a different time scale than our instant culture."  He continues,

"The systems we keep will be hybrid creations. They will have a strong rootstock of peer-to-peer generation, grafted below highly refined strains of controlling functions.  Sturdy, robust foundations of user-made content and crowd-sourced innovation will feed very small slivers of leadership agility. Pure plays of 100% smart mobs or 100% smart elites will be rare.

The real art of business and organizations in the network economy will not be in harnessing the crowd of "everybody" (simple!) but in finding the appropriate hybrid mix of bottom and top for each niche, at the right time. The mix of control/no-control will shift as a system grows and matures. "

Perhaps the very core of the issue is a choice between existence and meaning. (I was inspired by this quote about social networks, "The existence of relationships is replacing the meaning of relationships.")  The first is relatively easy to create, but the second, quite difficult.  The question is: How can we create a social network that becomes a frequent/habitual part of someone's practices of meaning creation (for his/her life)?  Clearly, SuperSliderFunWalls aren't the answer here.  Then, the community manager comes into play, seeking to nurture meaning for all participants, which will require very special skills. (Here's a hint.)

I will be watching this space in the coming months, sharing further thoughts with you as they take shape.  As always, I welcome your comments and ideas.

Don't Become a "Walking Dead" Brand: Listen, Acknowledge, Demonstrate

The more I look at corporate social media (or conversational marketing) efforts (to use an umbrella term(s)), the more I think three things must happen: listen, acknowledge, demonstrate.

First: A company must listen to what its customers are saying.  Whether that is within a branded social network constructed by the company itself or among the forest of social media tools that currently exists, it is a foundational skill.

Second: The listeners at the company should acknowledge what they hear.  They can do this through engaging with the conversations via their own tools (blog, website, etc.) or by participating in the blogs, communities etc. where the conversations are taking place.  It may be as simple as a "thank you for your advice".

Third:  Companies must demonstrate that they have heard what their customers are saying.  This means making changes to their practices, products and/or services if they need to.  If you have introduced a new product based on customer advice, let them know!  If you have changed the way your call center works, communicate this.  And so on.

Many companies are already doing the first, and a growing number the second.  I think a bare handful are doing the third.  We have to beware here of a crisis of expectations.  Once companies acknowledge they are listening, I think the clock has started ticking on a deadline: the proof that they did indeed, listen, is expected.  If you don't demonstrate, you will destroy the goodwill you have so painstakingly created.

I twittered this quote from Heraclitus today, and am repeating here for your reading pleasure: "Those unmindful when they hear, for all they make of their intelligence, may be regarded as the walking dead."

Update 2/21: Here is a good example of what I am talking about from the point of view of a community manager. Hat tip: Jeremiah Owyang.

The Infrastructure of Relationships

It seems I am going back to basics these days, reexamining the words we use to describe the practice of communications.  Today, I found myself thinking about trust and relationships.  This was sparked by my reading of a recent paper on Trust and PR Practice by Brad L. Rawlins. It is an interesting and useful article, particularly for its review of the literature of trust and its role in relationship building, a primary goal of public relations.  It got me thinking about relationships, however, as it didn't really address the content of them:  Who is involved in a relationship?  Is it only people? Or is there truly an ability to have a relationship with an abstraction, such as a brand or corporation?  What would "relationship" look like at this abstracted level and what could PR do here? 

I followed a trail of breadcrumbs at the Institute for Public Relations website, which has lots of good research.  Clicking on "Relationships" I found a number of articles, mostly about measurement. One was particularly interesting, by Elizabeth Dougall, Tracking Organization-Public Relationships Over Time: A Framework for Longitudinal Research.  In her review of the literature about measuring relationships, she identifies a weakness: measurement of relationships usually is based on the perspectives of the people involved.  But the question is, can relationships be measured as an entity in itself (abstraction or not)?  It seems it can, primarily through looking at the formalization of structures, the intensity of flows (information and resources), standardization and outcomes (effectiveness, reciprocity). Dougall's paper actually looks at corporate conflict with activist groups, and she identifies "relationship-signaling statements" as part of analyzing the flows.

This helped me think again about my questions above.  Perhaps there are two layers to relationships and PR needs to address both:  the personal side and the infrastructural side.  But before I get to that, I have to backtrack a bit.  One thing that neither Dougall's nor Rawlin's paper offered was a definition of relationship.  So, I headed over to my usual first source, the Mirriam-Webster Online Dictionary.  Here's what I found: relationship -- "the relation connecting or binding participants in a relationship."  Also, "a state of affairs existing between those having relations or dealings." Finally, "a passionate attachment."  Obviously, I had to look at the word relation in order to make any sense of this.  There are two definitions of relation I like:  "the attitude or stance which two or more persons or groups assume toward one another" and "the state of being mutually or reciprocally interested (as in social or commercial matters)."  And interested:  "having the attention engaged" or "being affected or involved."

Let's synthesize a bit: A relationship is a state of affairs connecting or binding mutually or reciprocally interested (affected/involved) people/groups.  The "state of affairs" is the structure and processes (flows).  Mutual/reciprocal interest ties us back to trust: 

"Trust is one party’s willingness—shown by intention and behavior—to be vulnerable to another party based on confidence developed cognitively and affectively that the latter party is (a) benevolent, (b) reliable, (c) competent, (d) honest, and (e) open." [Link]

Trust has also been identified as a key factor in persuasion, along with competence and goodwill. (I have previously written about how social media can help to foster trust, as it is particularly good (structurally) for creating goodwill.)

If the job of public relations is to foster trusted relationships, there is certainly a variety of best practices out there that can be followed.  These practices work both from a mass communications level (competence, trust) and on a more individual/networked communications level -- where social media tactics tend to play out (competence, trust and goodwill).  It doesn't seem, however, that these tactics really get at how to foster trusted relationships at the infrastructure level.

This is where I think the tools of social media can really help.  I think that particularly in the area of information and resource flows, social media can amp up the intensity, both in terms of more channels as well as more "buzz" or conversations.  By identifying and open new channels of communication between an organization and its publics, for example, particularly for mutual influence and mutual exchange -- communication that moves in both directions -- we can potentially impact the level of trust on both sides of the communications.  This is without even considering the content of the channels themselves.  We also need to better identify the signs of relationships at the infrastructural level, so we can more accurately identify and measure them, as well as trace them backwards to the individuals or groups involved.

Perhaps that is a good research project for someone: putting some rigorous thought into the infrastructure of relationships in a world of social media, and the impact on organizational trust.  Perhaps then we can betting figure out what PR can accomplish at the abstraction layer.

What is Control and Does a Company Have Any?

I offered my two cents in a debate about influence and control between Mike Driehorst and Geoff Livingston.  Entering these types of religious debates is always interesting, because one's contribution or position can be so easily misconstrued. However, I think it is important to try to start questioning what the words we use mean, because I think there are some serious miscommunication happening because we aren't clear in how we define words. What is influence? What is control?  I tried to parse this a bit in a comment to Mike's post.  After reading other comments and Geoff's post, I thought it would be useful to offer what I think about control.

I think the context of all of this debate is this:  What does a company actually CONTROL?  Is is the brand? The messages?  Most people who are writing and blogging about social media in a corporate context believe a company does NOT control its brand or messages. I am one of them!  However, there are some things that companies DO control, and Mike was trying to get to that, starting with the fact that if a company didn't exist, there would be nothing to control, so that the company at the VERY least, has control over its first existence.  But what happens after that?

Let's back up for a moment. There are good reasons to conflate control and influence, because they are so intertwined.  Can we really say that any decision that anyone makes has not been influenced by anyone (or anything) else, even it is is an authoritarian command?  And yet, for the purposes of the arguments we are making in social media marketing, it would behoove us to try to separate the two, if only to clear up fuzzy thinking which, in my opinion, is creating arguments where there doesn't really need to be any.

Looking at the definitions of influence and control we can immediately see the problem. The definition of control, from Mirriam Webster Online:  (transitive verb): to exercise restraining or directing influence over : regulate b: to have power over : rule.   If we are trying to differentiate control from influence, this definition doesn't really help.  Obviously in this case, you could argue the company itself cannot have singular control because clearly other audiences offer directing influence.

The noun control is equally as fuzzy: 1 a: an act or instance of controlling; also : power or authority to guide or manage. The introduction of authority is interesting, which is power to influence or command thought, opinion, or behavior.  But again, it still conflates influence and command.

Things are a bit clearer when we look at the definition of influence.  According to the dictionary it is: the act or power of producing an effect without apparent exertion of force or direct exercise of command or the power or capacity of causing an effect in indirect or intangible ways.  In my opinion, it is the indirect or intangible that separates out influence from control.

What if we defined control as the ability to make a decision about corporate actions?  What then would be under a company's control? Off the top of my head, I came up with this list:

1)  Whether the company exists or not
2)  The ability to sign a contract (employment, partnership, real estate, financial)
3)  The ability to pay a bill or salary
4)  The ability to decide what products will be produced at what quantities
5)  What official corporate collateral, image will look like:  logo, signs, annual report, brochures, website (unless they have turned their website into a wiki, which is unlikely for the vast majority at this point)

Now, I am not saying that any of these items can't be influenced by outside parties.  Of course they will be.  The very definition of decision admits this (a determination arrived at after consideration).  Yet only official corporate representatives can actually make the decisions that put these things into play.  They can choose to ignore influence (particularly in #5), which may even result in the company failing.  These people who "actually make the decisions" do indeed have control, as we have defined it.

In this case, the company does not control the brand or the messages, for example.  They can only influence. And this has always ever been the case.

Let me know if you think this helps!

My (Philosophical) Take on "Influentials" v. Watt

With a bit of trepidation I am entering the conversation about Duncan Watt's research, as profiled in the Fast Company article, "Is the Tipping Point Toast?"  I say “trepidation” as there has been a great deal already written about this, much of it by smart, influential people.  However, as it is easier for me to really grok what I read by writing about it, I thought I'd share my perspective for those who are interested!

The battle fronts forming online run along the lines of “the theory of Influentials is dead” vs. “Duncan Watt's research is bunk.”  Or, to put it another way: word-of-mouth marketing targeting a small group of highly connected/influential individuals vs. mass marketing “target everyone” campaigns.  Does influentials marketing work or not?  Actually, how does influence work?

After reading a variety of articles/responses on this subject, I have come to the conclusion that we don't really know “scientifically” how influence works.  We do know that highly connected people can push a story/meme/trend along faster than non-connected people.  But when it comes to starting a meme/trend/story, it seems that luck has a lot to do with it.  Watt says that it comes down to the social setting being ripe for a trend to take off.  And the so-called “influentials” have little to do with actually starting a major trend. From the article:

Mind you, Watts does agree that some people are more instrumental than others. He simply doesn't think it's possible to will a trend into existence by recruiting highly social people. The network effects in society, he argues, are too complex--too weird and unpredictable--to work that way. If it were just a matter of tipping the crucial first adopters, why can't most companies do it reliably?

Actually, if you believe Watts, the world isn't just complex--it's practically anarchic. In 2006, he performed another experiment that chilled the blood of trendologists. Trends, it suggested, aren't merely hard to predict and engineer--they occur essentially at random.

Word of mouth and social contagion made big hits bigger. But they also made success more unpredictable.

A trend can be started by any “Average Joe.”  If the social conditions are ripe, it will take off.  If not, it won't, not even with the help of Super Joe Influential.  To me, this makes sense.  I am increasingly of the opinion that communication, as it actually works among people, is illogical, unpredictable, or, as Watt says, anarchic.  Even – perhaps especially – mass communications. Philosopher Alain Badiou writes:

Our world also exerts a strong pressure on the dimension of logic; essentially because the world is submitted to the profoundly illogical regime of communication. Communication transmits a universe made up of disconnected images, remarks, statements and commentaries whose accepted principle is incoherence.  Day after day communication undoes all relations and all principles, in an untenable juxtaposition that dissolves every relation between the elements it sweeps along in its flow. And what is perhaps even more distressing is that mass communications presents the world to us as a spectacle devoid of memory, a spectacle in which new images and new remarks cover, erase and consign to oblivion the very images and remarks that have just been shown and said.  The logic which is specifically undone there is the logic of time. It is these processes of communication which exert pressure on the resoluteness of thinking's fidelity to logic; proposing to thought in the latter's place a type of imaginary dissemination. (p. 30, Infinite Thought)

Badiou offers philosophical thought as a defense against the anarchic, frenetic content of mass communications.  Now, it is clear that his statement above does not take into account social media; it refers more to the old comment/control communications.  And yet, to anyone who spends a little time online, his mad, disconnected universe is a familiar, perhaps even comfortable, place.  And I am increasingly skeptical of the existence of a dualism between social and mass communications.  There are too many similarities (more on that another time.) Now, Badiou is noted for his placement of philosophical truth (ontology) in the realm of mathematics: set theory to be exact.  Not for him the philosophy of difference (Derrida) or desire (Deleuze, Lyotard).  And yet, he doesn't leave behind difference and desire, as it simply cannot be left behind. Rather, his subject is defined, actually created, by his/her decision to be a witness to something, acting in fidelity to an event, a decision born of difference or desire.

Badiou's subjects are the true influentials.  You can find them, according to Badiou, in the fields of politics, science, art and in love between two human beings.  These type of influentials interrupt the temporal madness with long thought, which in today's day and age, is actually a revolt.  Through their fidelity, their constant witness to something life changing (an event), they define themselves and influence those around them.  Can we find them in business as well? I think it is possible, although Badiou would probably have a hairy conniption at the thought.

Wow, I have gotten a little off base here in the long grass of philosophy.   What can it tell us about marketing?  Well, at the very least, it leaves me skeptical of traditional influencer-style marketing, at least when it comes to starting an important trend. Rather, perhaps it is passion that starts it off, passion that is reflected and rebounded within a social context ripe for it.  Passion that actually creates the subject who speaks of it: Average Joe becomes Subject Joe Passionate/Dedicated to (political event, scientific event, art event, love event – business/commerce/market event?).

I am not sure it is really possible to manufacture a trend via word of mouth marketing to influentials.  I welcome Watt's research as it starts to question some sacred cows of marketing, which is always a good thing.  For those seeking to start trends, I wish you luck.  I think you'll need it.

Why PR Isn't Dead (And Facebook Might Be)

Josh Quittner of Fortune's Techland writes this (my emphasis):

What’s surprising here is the speed with which this thing is coming undone — and the ease with which it could have been avoided. What’s harming Facebook - perhaps to a terminal degree - is enormously bad PR. For a social media company, these folks don’t understand the first thing about communication; they have alienated the press by being arrogant, aloof and dishonest. Their idea of press relations is sending a stupid message to a What’s New at Facebook Group that directs you to another website for a canned statement.

And it is killing them. That bad press extends from the blogosphere to mainstream media. No one who writes about Facebook likes it anymore. And while that might seem insidery — who cares what the press thinks? — it’s having dire repercussions. For one thing, advertisers care what the press thinks. Bad press is causing advertisers to jump ship. And that’s begetting even more bad press. It’s the opposite of a virtuous circle; it’s an economy being undone.

360 Degree Marketing and Communications: Problemmatic

I have been thinking about the 360 degree marketing/communications methodology (if you can call it that) lately.  I guess this was sparked by one of my classes, where the students are split into agencies and have to pitch a piece of business.  I introduced the brief a couple of weeks ago (and they introduced their agencies to me), and the pitches take place this week (Wednesday).  Every one of the agencies identified themselves as 360 degree practitioners.

Honestly, I really don't know what that means.  There is a lot of talk of "surrounding" the consumer with brand impressions, for example.  To me, that reads "bombardment".  Notice the war/battle metaphors here, something I am always aware of.  And how can one surround a consumer?  People aren't singular spaces or creatures.  They are multiple, with multiple identities.  How can one surround a rhizome? 

Think about your digital identity for one.  I have a blog, a Facebook profile, I Twitter, I have an Amazon account and an SNCF account.  I comment on other blogs, read and occasionally contribute to Babycenter.com, participate on a variety of wikis, listen to podcasts and troll YouTube.com for funny videos.  I have a del.icio.us feed, study online at EGS, maintain a mailing list for my 18 first cousins on Yahoo Groups, have a Gmail account and reader.google.com account.  And I could continue on for probably another 10 types of profiles, accounts etc.  How can I be surrounded? 

The whole mindset of 360 is wrong, and dangerous.  Wrong as it is simply logically impossible to accomplish and reeks of buzz.  Dangerous because it holds people to a way of thinking that is the antithesis of true conversation and interaction.  With a target at the core, there is no way out of that trap.

Total saturation marketing has led us to an ugly world where one is surrounded by ads, bombarded by messages and treated with a total lack of respect for our attention.  Now, believe me, I am not anti-marketing, anti-advertising and the like.  Rather, I would like to see more organizations embrace a better way of interacting with people, that puts listening and respect for attention at the forefront.

Sigh.  Now I feel better having got that off my chest.  (And I am sure I am going to hear from people who define 360 differently, who will extol its virtues etc.  And they are quite welcome to do so.  But I feel better for making my point (rant?) here.)

Citizen Journalism Timeline

Lazyweb time.  I am trying to put the history of global citizen journalism (journalism 2.0) on one slide.  I was wondering if you could point me to one that is already done.  Full attribution, of course!

Journalism in a Social Media World

I am preparing a 3-hour lecture on Journalism 2.0 or Journalism in a Social Media World (I don't have the title nailed yet - just the topic) for university students in PR here in Paris.  If there is something you think that it is vital that these students know about the evolving state of the practice of journalism today, please let me know.