Posts Tagged ‘for immediate release’

A reminder that on January 27, I’ll be hosting the first edition of the FIR Book Club.

This is an outgrowth of my position of Book Reviews Editor for the wonderful podcast For Immediate  Release, created by Shel Holtz and Neville Hobson.

In a quick 30 minutes, we’ll have a chat with an author and a call-in so that you can ask the author questions.

Our first guest on the FIR Book Club will be Christopher Barger, author of the new book “The Social Media Strategist.”

Join us on Blog Talk Radio on the 27th.

And two other book-related notes:

1. If you have a book you would like to hear reviewed — or if you’d like to do a review yourself! — get in touch and tell me about the title.
2. If you’re interested in being a guest reviewer, let me know what book you’re thinking about. In the past, we’ve had folks like Shel and the mellifluous Donna Papacosta do reviews. More voices are better.
3. If you’re a book publicist or an author of a book that is related to public relations, social media, communications, marketing — get in touch with me. I’d like to hear about your book and perhaps review it.

It’s a little surprising (maybe not very surprising, actually) that I don’t hear very often from authors or publishing companies asking me to review books. Try me.

Christopher Barger has found himself in some pretty hot seats — including leading the social media team at General Motors during its bankruptcy. In addition to being a senior vice-president at Voce Communications, Christopher is also a blogger for Forbes. But will all that have prepared him for 30 minutes in an entirely new sort of hot seat as the inaugural guest author on the FIR Book Club?

This is a new idea that I’ve been working on with Shel Holtz and Neville Hobson, the hosts of For Immediate Release (if I may say, the pre-eminent PR and social media podcast out there.) Since last year, I’ve been doing book reviews for FIR, and really enjoying the opportunity to get into some great (and maybe not so great) books on PR and social media.

So now we’re taking the book review idea a step further, and poor Christopher is our guinea pig.

Christopher is the author of the hot-off-the-presses book “The Social Media Strategist” from McGraw-Hill Ryerson.

According to the McGraw-Hill site:

Conquer the unique challenges of driving social media success within a large company

From the social media director who built successful programs at both GM and IBM, The Social Media Strategist provides the tools you need to meet all the challenges of building a social media strategy in a large company, which include corporate culture, legal barriers, and the kind of bureaucratic resistance that that are unique to large organizations.

The Social Media Strategist explains how to get legal departments to say “yes” to social media programs; get employees engaged without exposing the organization to risk; build “buzz” that parallels business goals; and avoid the internal turf wars that can doom new initiatives.

I am starting to read the book now, and will have an audio book review up sometime soon.

And on January 27, we’ll do the first FIR Book Club with Christopher as our inaugural guest, using the services of Blog Talk Radio.

In a fast-paced 30 minutes, we’ll talk a little about his book, and then give listeners — that’s you! —  the opportunity to talk with Christopher and me about his book. Listeners can call in or they can participate in a chatroom on the BTR site.

Keep watching this space and the FIR site for more promos and information as we get closer to the 27th.

The 5Ws:

WHAT: FIR Book Club #1
WHO: Christopher Barger, author of The Social Media Strategist, with Bob LeDrew, FIR book review editor
WHEN: 2:00-2:30 pm Eastern time, January 27, 2012
WHERE: Blog Talk Radio
WHY: For lively chat with a leading social media thinker

So it is New Year’s Eve²  (New Year’s Eve Eve, that is) and the time for all bloggers to either post a “best of whatever”  or a look-forward list.

I am of the opinion that Mark Blevis is on to something when he talks about someone aggregating all the best of, top 10, etc. lists that people create, so you can save time and read the “best of the best of” and save time.  But it won’t be me.

So I guess that leaves looking forward, mostly.

What am I looking forward to in 2012?

First anniversary cake -- what will the fifth anniversary bring?

• In 2011, I found myself in the “smorgasbord” period of my life. I saw an even better description of this this morning, when Stuart Bruce in the UK describes himself as having “‘gone plural’ and decided to pursue a portfolio career.” I love the idea of a “portfolio career” as a descriptor of what he’s doing, and of what I’m doing — PR & social media consulting + podcasting (hopefully as a part-time sources of income) + part-time teaching at Algonquin College + private training + handling membership services for OCFF + doing promotion and media relations for musicians I love. Sounds more professional than smorgasbord (unless you’re Scandinavian, maybe). In 2012, I want to get a better handle on managing every part of this “portfolio career.”
• As I have for the last five years, I am looking forward to more house concerts. When I first got bladder cancer (and turned 40) five years ago, I went through a bit of a struggle to figure out ways of pursuing what made me feel fulfilled and happy. At the top of that list was music. Thus was born BobCat House Concerts, with the support and patience of my partner Cathy. We are going to celebrate five years of those concerts, which bring amazing musicians to our house to perform for us and our guests, in February. It has been wonderful to expose people to the musicians that I love, and to have become friends with so many talented people. I have to single out our friendship with David Ross MacDonald, which has become really important to us. It helps that he’s a musical treasure. But even if he never wrote another song, I’d still want him in my corner.
• And that initial splash into the “music industry” has led to a recently-ended term of service on the board of the Ottawa Folk Festival, to working with OCFF, and to the plans I currently have underway to launch a new “commercial” concert series in Ottawa.
• I’m looking forward to inaugurating the FIR Book Club this coming January. It’s been a real pleasure reviewing books for the For Immediate Release podcast (and hopefully the authors would agree), and I’m hoping this new “talk-radio” call-in with authors of interesting PR and social media books will be lively and entertaining and informative.
• I’m looking forward to finding out if a podcast about Stephen King can actually make its owner a little money. I suspect that the “nichiness” of my podcast the Kingcast may make it an attractive enough target for people seeking to find and reach Stephen King and horror fans that they’ll be willing to pay for it. Time will tell.
• I’m looking forward to continuing my conversations with friends and podcasting partners Mark Blevis on PR and other Deadly Sins and with Joe Boughner and Susan Murphy on The Contrarians. Sometimes you don’t know what you think about something until you write about it. Or talk about it.
• I want to spend a little more time on fiction writing. I’ve spasmodically worked on fiction projects. But I’ve got finishitis. So I want to FINISH some fiction and see if anyone other than me thinks it’s any good.

Andrea del Sarto (subject of Robert Browning's poem)

A man’s reach should exceed his grasp, or what’s a heaven for?

Zap Brannigan, nobody's idea of a strong leader. Except his.

After I posted my little rant about social media ideas last night (Sunday late-night posting bad for traffic? IN YOUR FACE), there was some Twitter talk, including this from Scott Monty: “Au contraire. Social media *leaders* need to be strong enough to withstand criticism. #socialmedia”

I agree. Let’s test this: Scott Monty, YOU SUCK!!! Just kidding.

I think that Scott Monty and I are actually in agreement (as you’d expect from a guy who does a Sherlock Holmes podcast and a guy who does a Stephen King podcast), but that we’re coming to a place of agreement from two different directions.

While I argued that ideas must be strong enough to stand up to criticism, I read Scott’s tweet as saying that those who make the ideas must also allow their ideas to stand on their own merits.

There was a medeival French philosopher named Michel de Montaigne. He once apparently wrote “We need very strong ears to hear ourselves judged frankly, and because there are few who can endure frank criticism without being stung by it, those who venture to criticize us perform a remarkable act of friendship.” 

True, dat.

When you’ve worked to develop a concept, a program, a web site, something — it’s hard to hear it criticized. The natural tendency is to protect it. And sometimes, the most accurate critiques are those that sting the most. We clutch our ideas in our metaphorical arms, desperate to keep them from harm. And we sometimes lash out. Or, in the case of social media, our friends lash out on our behalf.

I think we need to ensure that if we’re the target of criticism, we first take the time to recognize whether the criticism is of us or our work. Then, be courageous enough to decide whether the criticism has a basis of truth. If there’s something in it, then USE it. If there’s nothing, then choose whether to ignore it or to respond.

I think there’s one more post in me about this — about the rights and responsibilities of critics in social media. Maybe today, or possibly tomorrow.

Are our ideas just a house of cards? Image from Flickr user Privatenobby

There’s a technique in improvisational comedy called the “Yes And.” The “Yes And” is a principle that states that if two people are in a sketch, each line they create should build the sketch up, not block its progress. Here’s how Wikipedia defines it:

“In order for an improvised scene to be successful, the improvisers involved must work together responsively to define the parameters and action of the scene, in a process of co-creation. With each spoken word or action in the scene, an improviser makes an offer, meaning that he or she defines some element of the reality of the scene. This might include giving another character a name, identifying a relationship, location, or using mime to define the physical environment. These activities are also known as endowment. It is the responsibility of the other improvisers to accept the offers that their fellow performers make; to not do so is known as blocking, negation, or denial, which usually prevents the scene from developing. Some performers may deliberately block (or otherwise break out of character) for comedic effect—this is known as gagging – but this generally prevents the scene from advancing and is frowned upon by many improvisers. Accepting an offer is usually accompanied by adding a new offer, often building on the earlier one; this is a process improvisers refer to as ”Yes, And…” and is considered the cornerstone of improvisational technique. Every new piece of information added helps the improvisers to refine their characters and progress the action of the scene.” 

And there’s a similarly familiar concept in brainstorming that states that “There are no bad ideas.”

Social media is neither of these things, and we who work and think about it do ourselves a disservice when we pretend otherwise.

At this point, you’re likely asking “What in God’s name are you talking about, LeDrew?” Fair enough. There have been enough incidents in within earshot of me recently where criticism is construed as insult very quickly. There was the Gini Dietrich-G+ contretemps. Then there was the Neicole Crepeau-Copyblogger kerfuffle. Now there’s the Olivier Blanchard-Social Media Club shitstorm, er, foofaraw.  I could go on a lot longer, but you get the idea. I’ve heard it said that some of my book reviews here and on For Immediate Release have raised hackles (although I’ve never been contacted by anyone about them to complain.)

I am partial to the idea of debate. In fact, I love it. My partner and I met at a debating society meeting in university. She claims that the relationship won’t end until one of us acknowledges defeat. She could be right.

But I am getting the feeling that debate, criticism, and argument are becoming the “fights that dare not speak their name” in the world of social media. And that feeling was strong enough that I horned in on a BlogTalkRadio show hosted by Joe Hackman and featuring the aforementioned Gini and all-round pot-stirrer Danny Brown last week called “If you’re not making enemies, are you really doing it wrong?” to blather about debate for a while, until everyone got bored of me.

What does all this come down to? What am I saying? Here’s my manifesto:

1. You are not your ideas. If people criticize your blog post, program, sales offering, etc. — they aren’t by definition criticizing you.
2. If your ideas are challenged, don’t shut down the challenger, and if you are the lucky person who has fans and supporters, police them.
3. If your ideas are so delicate and filigreed that the merest critique will cause them to crumple into a 52 pickup… maybe you need to have some better ideas.

If we’re going to tell ourselves — let alone our employers or our clients — that social media is robust, that it makes sense, that it’s worth going into, we bloody well better be able to defend our ideas amongst ourselves. Because if we can’t convince our comrades in arms, how are we going to convince the CAs, the lawyers, and the CEOs?

There might not be any bad ideas in a brainstorm. But there are in real life. And we need to do to put those bad ideas out of our misery. We need strong ideas. Weak ones won’t even support… a house of cards.

Shockingly enough, I appear to have missed an opportunity for self-promotion.

I started off 2011 with yet another contribution to the world of podcasting. Not happy with doing The Kingcast, The Contrarians with Joe Boughner and Susan Murphy, and PR and Other Deadly Sins with Mark Blevis, I’m also the new “book review editor” for one of my absolute favorite podcasts, For Immediate Release.

Shel Holtz and Neville Hobson, the hosts of FIR, have been pioneers and examples of how business can use podcasting to inform, to engage, and to entertain too. Now approaching their 600th episode, they’re respected and followed by many people. Their past and present columnists, including Lee Hopkins, Sallie Goetsch (rhymes with sketch), Michael Netzley, and Dan York offer great content — to the point that I’m still a little intimidated to be sharing the webspace with them.

But never having been one to let my own inadequacies hold me back from grasping the coattails of the great and good, there I am.

You can check out my audio reviews of Deadly Spin by Wendell Potter, UnMarketing by Scott Stratten, and most recently Resonate by Nancy Duarte on their site. For a permanent fix of these reviews, there’s an FIR Reviews feed you can subscribe to. Or you could just subscribe to the For Immediate Release “Everything Feed.” If you work in public relations, communications, marketing, social media, or have a professional interest in those fields, you will find it a source of great news and analysis.

I’m looking forward to continuing to review books for FIR as well as posting new entries to the Translucid Bookshelf, and I hope you enjoy listening to them as much as I do making them. If you have books you think I should review (even if it’s YOUR book), please let me know about them.

I’ve got a bit on the tumultuous visit of Ann Coulter to the University of Ottawa in episode #538 of For Immediate Release. You can check it out on the site or subscribe using iTunes. I’m not gonna make you listen to the whole thing (but you should) — I’m at the 42 minute mark, so you can fast forward if you want.

UPDATE: Here’s the audio of my comment only. But you should really listen to the whole podcast.

If you’re in PR you should already know about Shel Holtz and Neville Hobson‘s podcast. They’ve been producing a minimum of two hours of great content per week on the main podcast for about the last five years. Add to that FIR Live and the many interviews they toss into the feed, and they are examples for all of us.

Speaking of which — we (being Mark Blevis and I) are THIS CLOSE to releasing the first episode of our new podcast, PR and Other Deadly Sins. Soon, soon.