Archive for February, 2010
Writers as “Curators” of Communication; Is the Term Journalist Passé?
Posted by: | CommentsIt’s enlightening to hear a respected professor at the prestigious Journalism School of Columbia University say he doesn’t know what journalism is going to look like in five years. Join the club.
Sree Sreenivasan, Dean of Student Affairs at the School, and his student, Vadim Lavursik, were panelists recently in New York City at the Mashable conference on “The Future Journalist” where Sreenivasan made that comment. It’s a bit of a misnomer to call Lavursik only a student, because he writes for Mashable and reported for other publications like the Minneapolis Star Tribune.
But what keeps swirling around in my mind is that journalists, we’ll still call them that for the time being – indeed, everyone who writes for a living – are really becoming curators of news and information. This isn’t an original idea on my part. There has been a lot written about it, including a story Lavursik wrote for Mashable in which he referred to, “journalists as curators and contextualizers.” Both speakers called on the media to become “community managers,” facilitating conversation on the web and pointing their audiences to other sources of information.
We’re accessing this information from an infinite variety of sources, with Google as our guide, and social media sites like Twitter sending us a non-stop stream of news and tidbits. What are we to believe? What’s fact and what’s, frankly, crap? We need to find out.
That’s why writers have to become more like curators in a museum. As John Thomson of the City University London, Graduate School of Journalism, wrote in an excellent post last month: “You are a curator. Like it or not, part of your role will eventually be to aggregate content (but not indiscriminately). You will need to gather, interpret and archive material from around the web using tools like Publish2, Delicious, and StumbleUpon. As Publish2 puts it: Help your readers get news from social media. More signal. Less noise.”
The Role of the Publicist Has Diminished
At the Mashable session, I got up and put in my two cents about how the relationship between journalists and suppliers of information, like large corporations and PR agencies, has fundamentally changed. Journalists don’t need publicists pitching them stories. Sure, they’ll take a press release and put it on the pile of other bits and pieces they’ve gathered online. But journalists have become more important than ever at ferreting out what’s real and what’s – what I wrote earlier. They can bypass PR people (and I love PR people, having been one most of my professional life after a brief stint as a business reporter). If a reporter wants to find someone to give her a juicy quote, say, on nuclear reactors, she can just go online and find the real expert. Now PR people need to feed social media so their companies and clients get found. The blogosphere is a beast with a voracious appetite. It devours information, but indiscriminately.
So, back to the idea of curator. As writers, it’s our duty to feed the beast, but also to whet the appetite of our readers with information we extract: taking just the tasty morsels and making sense out of them in terms that readers can chew on and understand.
Social Media Experts That I Trust
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This post is adapted from an article that I wrote for The Bloggers’ Bulletin
When I embarked on my journey as a blogger last year, I began to search out sources of information and inspiration on the web. Over time, I discovered a number of people who, by most accounts, are considered social media experts on blogging, Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. I get feeds from most of them and I also regularly visit a number of other social media sites. Read on for my list of favorites.
A lot of these mavens can be found on “best of” lists. But my choices weren’t just because everybody else said so. Please note, these are authors and sites that I consider most useful for business bloggers (there are many other blog categories). I’m sure I’ve missed experts that other readers follow and I’m aware of experts that I don’t follow because I only have so much time. If you’re so inclined, please add to the discussion by including your favorites in the comments section. Here we go, in no particular order –
Seth Godin – Seth Godin’s Blog
One of my favorites because he has a way of putting a new twist on ideas. His posts come into my mailbox everyday and I almost always find something I hadn’t thought about in just that way before. He also publishes Squidoo, where you can create your own “lens” or article to promote yourself and earn a royalty for you or a charity.
Darren Rowse – ProBlogger
Excellent tips on blogging. He is also very open about his own challenges and sharing the mistakes he’s made on the way to becoming one of the best-read blogs on blogging. Along with Brian Clark, Chris Brogan, and Sonia Simone, he just started a new paid membership organization called The Third Tribe, to build a community of internet marketers and others who use social media for branding and relationship building. Will offer courses, seminars and a forum for discussion.
Chris Garrett – Chris Garrett on New Media
Also writes about blogging and is the co-author with Darren Rowse of “ProBlogger: Secrets for Blogging Your Way to a Six-Figure Income.”
Michael Stelzner – Writing White Papers
He’s considered the guru of white papers and how they can grow your business. Last summer, he organized the highly successful “Social Media Success Summit 2009” featuring well-known social media experts, as well as this past fall’s “Copywriting Success Summit 2009.” Now, in February, he’s organized “White Paper Success Summit 2010” on how white papers can generate quality leads for your business.
Alex – Blogussion
Alex (no last name) owns this site with “blogging discussion, tips and tricks.” He’s the principal author and destined for big things because he’s still a teenager.
Denise Wakeman – The Blog Squad
Considered a leading authority on blogging. Author of “Build a Better Blog: The Ultimate Guide for Boosting Your Business with a Professional Blog.”
Mari Smith – Social Media Consultant, Speaker and Trainer
Considered the leading authority on FaceBook. Recently launched the membership organization, International Social Media Association (ISMA) which offers training, seminars and certification program.
Dave Kaminski — Web Video University
Offers tips on creating, generating traffic and getting paid from web videos.
Dan Schwabel – Personal Branding Blog
Considered a leading personal branding expert for Gen-Y. He writes the Personal Branding Blog and “Personal Branding Magazine.”
Brian Clark – Copyblogger
One of the earliest social media experts with a huge following. Tips on copywriting and social media.
Peter Cashmore – Mashable
Mashable is the world’s largest blog focused exclusively on Web 2.0 and Social Media news. I don’t have a particular expert on Twitter, but Mashable does so check out http://mashable.com/2009/08/10/twitter-usability/.
Chris Brogan — New Marketing Labs
President of his own social media agency. Runs the Thesis theme for WordPress.
Jason Alba – JibberJobber.com
Leading authority on LinkedIn and author of “I’m on LinkedIn – Now What??” Jibber Jobber is a networking site designed to help people in job transition, which he founded when he was in the job market.
Guy Kawasaki – How To Change The World
Tips about blogging. Also owner of Alltop, a site that collects the headlines of the latest stories from the best sites and blogs that cover a topic and aggregates into individual web pages.
Joost de Valk Yoast – WordPress Newsletter. Contains general WordPress news, information on new plugins he’s found and ones he’s invented, SEO, etc.
Toma Bonciu – Optimizing the Web
Lots of good SEO tips.
The LinkedIn Blog – Various authors
Tips on leveraging your knowledge and use of LinkedIn.
I look forward to learning about the experts you favor (and, yes, I know that I’ve probably left out social media experts that you swear by).
Annual Report Time: Don’t Forget Your Employees in Communication With Shareholders
Posted by: | CommentsWell, PR Departments in public companies are surely beginning work on their annual reports. They can smell spring in the air – when these symbols of capitalism come rolling off the presses once more. In a reprise of my past admonitions, with a few additions, I implore writers and designers to keep a few things in mind.
- Please make the report more exciting. Notice I did not say interesting. Splash some color on the pages, use a large typeface so oldsters can read the copy, especially if you’re using reverse type. Use bold, brash headlines. Most readers will be viewing the report online so make it compelling and dispense with flash and any other doohickey that slows down loading or distracts the viewer.
- Remember the company has employees. Yes, many fewer of them, but they still are the backbone of the company. I was shocked last year when I perused the annual reports of several of the largest Fortune 500 companies and found they had not a single photo or story about an employees. It is disappointing to think they merited so little recognition.
- Make it sell. The report should very strategically position the organization as the leader in its space, developing new paradigms of products and services.
- Use Testimonials. Words out of the mouths of your customers and employees can bring the vision statement to life. Let them tell the reader what a great company this is.
So, if you’re assigned to create this year’s annual report, how do you ensure it accurately represents the organization and has a long, active life after it’s been printed and distributed? Here are my suggestions:
- Get the CEO involved from the get-go. Do not even think of hiring a writer or design firm until you have met with the CEO to understand how s/he wishes the organization to be positioned in the document. S/he cannot delegate this discussion to someone else.
- Write a creative platform that describes the overall theme and tone of the annual report, its content and “look.” Get the CEO to sign off on it.
- Solicit in-put from the key people in your organization who would most likely use the annual report throughout the year such as the head of sales, director of development, director of public and community affairs, and so on. What do they want emphasized in the report? Find out what would make them use it during the year to help them achieve their goals.
- Make a mock-up of the report, page by page. It doesn’t need to be fancy. Take some legal paper and fold the sheets in half. It’s essential to know the content of every page and ideas for photos, charts, etc.
- Now you can meet with your design firm and writer, if that’s not you. Everyone should be working from the approved creative platform and mock-up. Believe me, they will love you for it.
- Show two to three designs to the CEO with the mock-up. If you’ve done your job right, s/he will have a tough time picking out the winner, because s/he will love them all.
- Be true to the creative platform as you go through the process of developing the report. Be excited as it begins to unfold as a living, breathing document that will take on a life of its own for a year. Don’t be afraid to be a little gutsy with the copy and design. You’re not creating the next Bible, after all.
So, with these humble bits of advice, good luck and go forth!
