Brad Marley's Blog

A Life in Thirty Posts - Post #4

For 30 days, I will be sharing random stories from each year of my life as the big three-oh looms. Consider it my way of coping. 

The year is 1982.

Little do I know that my parents plan to take away my freedom by introducing another baby into the mix.

A baby that will be living in my house.

Looking back, it was bad enough that our house was cramped with three people.  But four?

I only have a vague recollection of being shipped off to my grandparent's house while my parents went to the hospital, but this event has been confirmed whenever my Mom tells my brother the story of his birth. (My family is a sentimental bunch.)  I'm happy to report that I do not harbor regret from only having two-and-a-half years to myself.

Consequently, I imagine my daughter might have similar anxiety about welcoming a sister, even if that sister right now is just a blur of white on an ultrasound printout clipped on the refrigerator.

But wait until that blur of white is screaming her head off at 2:30 in the morning.

It's likely she has no idea what she's in for.  I can only hope that her recollections later in life, from what is shaping up to be a turbulent winter, are as vague as mine. 

A Life in Thirty Posts - Post #3

For 30 days, I will be sharing random stories from each year of my life as the big three-oh looms. Consider it my way of coping. 

The year was 1981.

I had yet to reach the full mastery of the English language that is so evident in this blog, so I waddled around the house inventing new words much to my parent's delight.

Especially my Dad's.

It's easy to forget our parents used to be our age and probably used to resort to the same juvenile humor we do now when hang out with our close friends.

For my Dad and his good friend, Larry, I provided hours of entertainment because my "tr" sound sounded more like an "f", and my p's sounded like b's.

So trolley would become "folley" and pears was turned into "bears."

But what tickled my Dad more than anything?

Telling me to call Larry a dump truck.

A Life in Thirty Posts - Post #2

For 30 days, I will be sharing random stories from each year of my life as the big three-oh looms. Consider it my way of coping. 

The year was 1980.

Al Michaels asked if we believed in miracles, and the country was about to be blindsided with the music that would define a generation - Totally 80's!

I, on the other hand, was likely more concerned with which toy felt better on my gums, conducting all-day experiments on the living room floor of the tiny ranch I shared with my parents.  They were still two years away from entering my brother into the equation, so the house likely felt larger than it would when we were squeezed into one bedroom.

Thus, I had the floor to myself. 

And that, my friends, is the gist of 1980 for me.

The only thing I can reasonably take away from that year, without remembering one iota, is that the choices I make today can be directly related to that single train of thought running through my tiny brain while I chewed on my toys: If it feels good, do it.

A Life in Thirty Posts - Post #1

For the next 30 days, I will be sharing random stories from each year of my life as the big three-oh looms. Consider it my way of coping. 

The year was 1979.

Mr. Ed is dead and a new national sports network goes live, unleashing Chris Berman on the world.

I was ejected from my mother's womb at 11:13 p.m. on July 26.

I know this because I called my Mom and asked, even though she tells me the story every year on my birthday.  One would think I would have the story memorized by now, but I don't. 

Nothing particularly memorable comes to mind from my first five months of living; maybe it's because I spent a large portion of it asleep.

My parents do, however, have pictoral evidence of that summer, so I am assured that I wasn't given a fake backstory as part of some super-secret government plan to breed super-intelligent humans.

Key takeaway: My Dad liked posing for pictures topless.  Must've been a hot summer.

In case you're wondering, I share a birthday with Kevin Spacey and Mick Jagger.

All It Took Was the Death of Michael Jackson To Show Us Why New Media Will Overtake Old Media

It you were waiting for the day when you could finally write that case study entitled, "The Day New Media Made Old Media Look Really Slow and Decrepit," yesterday was the day.

Frankly, I was shocked at how much longer CNN waited to announce that Michael Jackson had died than everybody else did.

I think they actually waited for their sources to confirm the death before putting it out there for the public's consumption. Imagine that!

Seriously, though, here is a rough timeline that gives you an idea of how long they took. 

• 5:30 p.m. - I was driving home when the local sports talk station broke the news via TMZ.com that Michael Jackson had passed away.

• 5:45 p.m. - Flipped to "The Drive with Chris Myers and Steve Hartman" (because they broadcast nationally out of Los Angeles) and they already had experts on the show to talk about Jackson's untimely passing.

• 6:00 p.m. - "Broke" the news to my wife and parents, who were visiting for dinner.  My one-year-old was largely unconcerned.  Meanwhile, CNN was still reporting only that Jackson had been rushed to the hospital.

• 6:45 p.m. - Finished eating dinner.  (If you must know, my wife prepared a delicious meatloaf.) We convened in the living room.  CNN is now speaking with the family spokesperson who is unable to tell us if Jackson has, indeed, died.

• 7:00 p.m. - Finally, nearly two hours after the news first broke, the anchor interrupts entertainment reporter, A.J. Hammer, to say that they can confirm the King of Pop is no longer among the living.

Talk about one of the most anticlimactic announcements ever.

I read an article in the Chicago Tribune (via TechCrunch) that claimed it was the stalwarts of media, like the Los Angeles Times, who did the "heavy lifting" and reported the news with the most accuracy.  I can only guess they were implying other sites' news be taken with a grain of salt.

While I do not dabble on the sites cited in the article, the Tribune's claim that other sites should not be trusted is basically unfounded and provides a clear explanation as to why newspapers are losing out: they refuse to identify these new forms of media as anything more than a passing fad. 

All it took was the death of a pop star to show us what they really thought.

Weekly Grab Bag of Links - June 26, 2009

Apparently, summer was lying in wait until the official first day of summer to pounce upon the Midwest, because it has been downright sweltering. 

But you won't find me complaining; it beats the snot out of ten inches of snow.

Let's get into this week's hot links.

• Rick Reilly Before He Was Rick Reilly(Deadspin) - Deadspint might be the biggest Rick Reilly-haters on the Internet, but I give them credit for showing readers why they hate him by linking to five of his best articles from his Sports Illustrated days.  Great reads.

• MaxFunCon: Merlin Mann on Doing Creative Work (The Sound of Young America) - This is the podcast I blogged about last week.  In it, Merlin Mann explains his four rules for doing creative work.  I won't spoil the fun here, but I require you to listen to his speech from MaxFunCon.

• Did I Tweet or Did I Twitter?(Grammar Girl) - In this blog post, Grammar Girl shares some of the recent changes made to the 2009 AP Stylebook in regards to Twitter usage. For us PR nerds, this is big news.

• 6 Ways to Measure Your Twitter Voice(iMedia Connection Blog) - This post lists six tactical ways to measure your Twitter voice, including one way which uses "linguistic analysis algorithms" to paint your psychological portrait using your tweets.  Mmm hmm.

• Tigers doing their best for struggling city; 'It's the least we can do' (Detroit Free Press) - You and I both know that, at the end of the day, professional athletes have their millions to fall back on.  But it is nice to hear them talk about doing their part for a city in the dumps, even if that part involves playing a game.

• Twitter Creator on Iran: 'I Never Intended For Twitter To Be Useful' (The Onion) - I find it ironic that The Onion ran a made-up response around Twitter's role in the Iran election so soon after I wrote a serious post.  It made me feel good until I realized The Onion's satirical response probably implies that Twitter really is important.

You can find all of my links on my Delicious page.

Thanks for reading.

Is Twitter Really That Important?

Count me among the minority (I'm sure), but I'm still not completely sold on Twitter.

Actually, let me rephrase that.

I think its importance is overstated.

Yes, I use it, and I find it is a great resource for direct contact with journalists and other influentials in my field.

But I hesitate to label it as anything more than that (a resource), and I stop cold when I hear Biz Stone, essentially, put in the same group as Jimmy Carter and Kofi Annan (no offense to Biz Stone.) 

I can turn my user icon a delightful shade of Pro-Democracy Green if I want to, but what does that really accomplish aside from showing the audience that I have rudimentary Paint skills?  That I  pretend to understand, and care about, the events in a country that is a charter member of the 'Axis of Evil'?

The hue of our headshots does not hide the fact that we are still more likely to read an inspirational quote tweet, or a mini-rant about Jon and Kate, than we are something deep and meaningful about an oppressed society.

Chalk that up to the character limit, I guess.

At the end of the day, we are showing our solidarity because it's easy and costs significantly less money and exertion than donating money to the Red Cross, or racing for the cure.

Maybe Twitter just makes us lazier?

For my money, Twitter is best used when it sparks conversation around its original question -- What are you doing? -- then around what everybody else is doing.

How do you value Twitter?

Sometimes, you're just going to suck.

To sum it up, that is the main point of the speech given at MaxFunCon by my new hero, Merlin Mann.

While it's still too early to know for sure, it might one of those game-changers that we only encounter a handful of times in our life, like meeting your spouse, or landing your dream job.

His speech was on doing creative work and, if you're one of those people who have the urge to be creative but can find 10,000 reasons not to start, you owe it to yourself to listen.

I don't want to give away everything he says, but there are four key points that he thinks are absolutely essential to trying your hand at creative work.

1. You have to start.

2. If this is something you care about, set aside time on a regular basis.

3. Develop an insane amount of tolerance for having no idea what something is turning into.

4. Move beyond starting. 

Trust me - it's worth the 28 minutes.  My blog post doesn't do it justice as he expands upon the ideas I've listed above.

It's highly entertaining and just might be the creative pick-me-up you need.   

Weekly Grab Bag of Links - June 19, 2009

I love RSS readers.  There is so much good stuff out there on the Web that it's impossible to read everything.  But the stuff I do read manages to capture my attention.  I hope these links do the same for you.

• "Not for you, Bud." (Jeff Pearlman) - This post sums up nicely what is wrong with professional athlets.  A lifetime of being pandered to and told they're better than everybody else has given them the impression they can be dicks to sports writers.  Dealing with the media is part of their job, a job they are paid very well to do.  Get over yourselves. (BTW, Jayson Werth is merely average.)

• Literary Lesson: Authors, Poets Write the News (Forward.com) - An Israeli newspaper sent home almost its entire writing staff one day, and replaced them with 31 authors and poets to cover the news.  This unique approach resulted in a departure from traditional journalism rules, at least for one day.

• Exclusive Interview on Social Media Offered by One Who Knows Nothing About Either (Bad Pitch Blog) - How many more times will we need to read about a PR person sending an e-mail to a publication or blog that has nothing to do with their spokesperson's subject matter?  Many more times, if the Bad Pitch Blog has anything to say about it. 

• Summer, Baby, Is Coverage Time: Tips for Real PR (Bad Pitch Blog) - Another post from the guys at the Bad Pitch Blog, but this one gives PR people some valuable tips on how to maximize coverage during the slow summertime season. Making a spokesperson available on holiday weekends is especially brilliant, but you need to be prepared to exhort the value of this to the spokesperson who's missing the family barbecue to go on the air for ten minutes.

• Signals for radio's future anything but clear (Denver Post) - When it comes to determining the media vehicle that is least in danger of disappearing, radio usually rises to the top of the list.  But not so fast.  This article wants us to believe that even though listernship is high, the amount of money that radio stations are pulling in is low.  Maybe so, but it is my belief that as long as we drive cars, there will be radio. 

• A visual representation of the number of layoffs and buyouts that have hit the newspaper industry in the United States (Paper Cuts) - No description needed.

As always, you can find all of my links on my Delicious page.

That's all I have for this week.  Enjoy your weekend responsibly.  Wear sunblock.

The Press Release is Dead

Okay, if the press release isn't legally dead, it's safe to say the priest has already administered Last Rites, and the doctor is glancing impatiently at the clock, waiting to call it.

A public relations staple since 1906, this tried-and-true, yet long-winded, weapon in the public relations professional's arsenal is becoming irrelevant in today's rapid fire news cycle. 

While most newsroom populations have begun to accept and utilize the succinct media pitching tools in use today, there is still the belief that a press release provides value.

Here's my question: Why?

When the entire process is added up, it costs hundreds, if not thousands, of dollars in man hours to write the release and go through the back-and-forth of the approval process.

And for what?

Reporters no longer have time to sift through the text of a press release; they want the news given to them in easily digestible nuggets.

Some reporters have become so conditioned to shorts blasts of information that they will only take pitches through Twitter or Facebook.  Somehow I doubt they would appreciate 27 direct messages that, when combined, contain the full press release.

Like Bob Dylan once crooned: "The times they are a-changin'."

And while I doubt very much he had public relations in mind when he wrote those lyrics, it's undeniable that we are experiencing a time when the tactics we have traditionally held in high esteem, such as the writing and distribution of press releases, are coming under heavy scrutiny for their perceived value.   

It's time to pull the plug.