Keeping the news close to home...

Today my friend Rob McIntosh sent me a great link. It's a site called NowPublic, and it's all about getting you the local news you want.

Local news is important to Canadians, and what with the demise of local TV and local papers being more and more of a concern, sites like this one might be the next big thing! Of course, I checked the Guelph site... the last time it was updated was 46 weeks ago. I'm sure that's just because Guelphites are busy... right?

Even the Toronto site needs updating. As of right now, the last time the page was updated was four days ago.

All the same, I've signed up. I'll keep my eye on it for now and see where it goes in the near future (and see how long it takes someone to update the Guelph page...)!

After that, I wish T-Bay was MY home town!

So today, in my travels around the interwebz, I was sent this video by a friend. It's by Jordan Burnell of Burnz 'n' Hell, and it's all about Thunder Bay, Ontario.



What an awesome piece of music! And it's not just me who thinks so: this video is going viral. It was uploaded to YouTube less than a week ago, and it's already gotten more than 173,000 hits. Actually, it's gotten another thousand since I watched it an hour ago. Quite the social media success story!

It's also a great piece of Canadiana. Not every community is lucky enough to be put on the map by its local talent. Thunder Bay natives across the globe are beaming with pride after watching this video. And why shouldn't they? It's creative, it's catchy and it's getting lots of attention.   

Good luck with this Jordan! I hope you score a record deal if that's what you're after. And if you ever need a little PR, let me know.

How to decorate your John Deere for Christmas

Every small town has its own quirky traditions, right? Rockwood, Ontario is no exception.  Since 1992, my tiny hometown has been decorating tractors, combines and Bobcats and parading them down Main Street in mid-December.

The Rockwood Farmer's Parade of Lights is a tradition that really brings back great memories for me... Hot chocolate in styrofoam cups, candy canes, clear winter nights and spending time with my family.

 

If you want to have your own Farmer's Parade, it's easy! Just follow these few simple steps:

 

1) Round up your tractors. If you don't have an industrial size tractor around your house, feel free to use a riding lawnmower, roto-tiller, whipper-snipper or similar.
2) Round up your friends to do this with you. After all, you would look weird if you did this all by yourself...
3) Wrap your farm implement/yard tool with as many strands of lights as humanly possible. You may get to a point where you think you've gone too far, but trust me, you can always add more.
4) Add tinsel and garland.
5) If you can add a blow up snowman, Santa Claus or reindeer, feel free! 

6) Now add as many other Christmas decorations as you like. Feel free to get creative - I know the Rockwood farmers do!

It looks like you're done! If you've followed these six steps, you should have a pretty spiffy looking yard tool. Now get out there and show your hometown what you've got! Rockwood is wishing you all the best.

Merry Christmas!

Five answers about social media...

I'm just going to go ahead and admit it: social media scares me. I don't think I'm scared that I won't understand it, or that I'll be defrauded of my identity, I think it's that I'm scared of change. Every time I'm presented with a new application, tiny alarm bells go off. They usually say something like "Who on earth would find this useful?!" or "Who needs this?!". Sadly, the alarm bells are often wrong. The more I use social media, the more I find myself wondering how I lived without it!

At college, we have a weekly four hour class that is dedicated to proficiency in social media. Last week, we were presented with an online midterm exam that posed five important questions about social media and its implications for PR practitioners. Here are the responses I came up with.

one. 

In her article “PR 2.0”, Deirdre Breckenridge asks Brian Cross, director of Fleishman-Hillard’s Digital Group in Saint Louis, to evaluate PR’s ever changing role. I think Cross is pretty accurate in his assessment of how PR’s role is going to change with the advent of PR 2.0 and increasing use of social media. The tides of PR are changing, and a big part of our role as PR practitioners in the future will involve helping the companies we work for to access their niche markets. However, as Cross wisely points out, we need to develop blogger relations and online community contacts just the same way that we would develop other media contacts. This is where personal brand comes in. By having a great personal brand and actively participating in the online communities that interest you, you can build some social capital for yourself. That capital is sure to come in handy, especially when trying to market products and services. If you, as a PR practitioner, know what a certain niche market wants, you can help your company to either develop something to suit the niche market, or tweak an existing product to be more beneficial to consumers. It makes sense to employ a PR professional to “keep an ear to the ground”. 

 

two. 

Who has the authority to write history? And what gives them the right? Technically, everyone has the authority to write history. Everyone’s version of events and life experiences will be different, but when added together, the whole has the ability to be far greater than the sum of its parts. In the past, history has been written by the winners, but now it’s time for ‘everyman’ to step up and give input. Twitter and blogs are great for this, because they are platforms which are largely uncensored where users can post their thoughts, feelings and ideas. Arguably some bloggers and tweeters are more popular than others. Is that because of some sort of hierarchy of authorities? Maybe. But all of us have the capability of becoming an authority on a subject – it’s not some sort of feudal system that you need to buy your way into. Instead, you buy your way in with social capital, which can be difficult but not impossible to obtain.

Out of all of this mish-mash, what is important? And what should we take as canon? I’m not sure yet. I think only time will tell what has shaped our culture and what hasn’t. In the mean time, we need to keep filtering through the drivel to find the things that matter to us. 

three. 

Marshall McLuhan developed a tetrad of media effects that asked four questions about any medium. They are:

1.       What does the medium enhance?

2.      What does the medium make obsolete?

3.      What does the medium retrieve that had been obsolesced earlier?

4.      What does the medium flip into when pushed to extremes?

This model can help us to interpret social media.

The medium enhances a knowledge free for all, and the ability of subject experts to add value to discussions. It also allows people who are seeking an understanding of a topic to connect directly with the experts in order to further their knowledge. Social media also enhances face-to-face contact. If you have been involved with discussions with an individual online, you probably know what they look like, and therefore can seek them out if you’re at a conference. You can also cut out a lot of small talk. Take Twitter, for example. If I ever see @GuyKawasaki on the street, I’ll be able to ask him some great questions about alltop and how to build a social media empire. Ditto for that Mashable dude.

The medium is starting to make one way and structured communication obsolete. Of course, it will take a while before everyone adopts this way of communicating, but we’re well on our way there. Again, Twitter is a good example. If you’re following a celebrity or personal hero, all of a sudden you’ve reduced your degree of separation from six to zero. That’s incredible. You now have the opportunity to be directly heard by someone in a different social strata than you, without ever having to leave the comfort of your own home.

Social media is retrieving a feeling of community that people have been lacking over the last couple of decades. With the internet taking off, people found that they were able to sit in seclusion at home and conduct a lot of business from there. Let’s face it, you can do pretty much anything online: you can buy all of your clothing and food, bank and pay bills, connect with the office and play games. You never need to actually contact another person to do any of those things, just click through automated pages. Social media has brought people with similar interests into online communities, allowing them to share common experiences and knowledge. In fact, one could argue that online communities are better than geographical communities, strictly because you can choose who you associate with: you’re not limited by who lives up the street or around the corner.

When the medium flips to extremes, it becomes social media overload. Personally, I’ve experienced a bit of this myself at times: it’s challenging to filter through all of the material that is available and determine what is interesting and informative, and what is just plain ignorant. This overload has the potential to discourage users from engaging with social media. 

four. 

Who IS Jamie Zawinski, and why does he matter to PR practitioners? Zawinski a.k.a. jwz is responsible for a lot of the freeware that computers operate today. With the advent of freeware came the public’s ability to access more of the information that the internet has to offer. Freeware is also more easily manipulated than software that is owned by larger corporations, so it’s easier to build off it and develop new applications. He lead the way for other developers to market other freeware and online applications that are making the world of social media expand. He was also all about simplicity and functionality, which is key for any social media application. The less desktop application clutter we get and the more we can organize the necessary clutter, the better. Facebook (before all the apps!) is a great example of a fairly clean online application: it’s white and blue, you can’t customize it, it’s all one layout, and it’s tabbed for ease of use. Essentially, what jwz has created, the world has taken and run with. What he has done is important, because without him, social media and online applications might be radically different, or worse, not available. 

and lastly...

five. 

What can we expect to encounter when using social media as a PR tool? You can expect open and honest feedback from content consumers, especially if there is room for anonymous comments. Content consumers expect to see their concerns replied to in a timely manner: you can’t just leave comments (especially negative ones) unadressed. To do the best PR you can, you need to monitor content posted online and reply promptly to address any concerns of consumers. Listen, monitor and adapt to what your content consumers are saying. 

Well world, there you have it. Five not so simple answers about a not so simple tool. 

How cool is GarageBand?!

If you like independent music, you’ll love GarageBand. Garageband is a site that allows music lovers to log in and discover up and coming unsigned and indie-label artists. If you are an artist, you have the opportunity to upload your own music, have it rated by other users and gain exposure to the industry.

GarageBand is owned and operated by parent company iLike, which is most recognisable from its Facebook application. Founded by twin brothers Ali and Hadi Partovi, iLike boasts some 50 million registered users between its various platforms, which include apps on iPhone, iTunes, Ticketmaster, MySpace and Bebo.

As a non-musician user, you can sign up for an account and get your own personalized “garage”. From there, you can choose what kinds of music you would like to listen to and review by genre. It’s easy to scroll through the top charts or to find your own artists to follow, and GarageBand posts a track of the week so that you can find new bands to enjoy. Once you start listening, you can then tag the music with the “sounds like:” feature. Tag for tempo, style and artist recognition, so that other users can find their preferred music more easily. After that, you can review the music as well. The site likes you to review the music that you find, and so do the artists themselves. Bands with better ratings move quickly up the GarageBand chart, and therefore have a better chance of being noticed by the industry. Playlists and podcasts are easy to post and share. You can also sign up to receive email notices about upcoming concerts and events in your area, so that you’ll never miss a concert again!

Let’s say you have a band, and you want to put your music on this site. Great! Just sign up for an account and away you go! You can upload your own tracks to be rated by other site users. The site will also allow you to promote your shows and get in touch with potential fans in your area. Not only that, but there are forums where bands can go for advice on topics like radio promotion and legal issues and support from other bands. Some of the features are pay features, for example, GarageBand allows you to buy some radio time, but it is a $200 one-time fee. GarageBand offers contests to its artists as well, for which you can either buy entries or, even better, you can review other music and earn your entry. The current contest offers a number of incentives, including written feedback for bands, online marketing tools and guaranteed exposure to new audiences.

All told, I think GarageBand is a pretty cool site! I had a blast listening to music I’ve never heard of before. If you’re a music lover like I am, make sure you check it out!