weekly grab bag

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15
Jun 12

Weekly Grab Bag – June 15, 2012

Every Friday, I share the best stuff I’ve read on the Web with you, my dear reader.

Here’s the best of the best from this week.

Millennials: They Aren’t So Tech Savvy After All (ReadWriteWeb)

Millennials. They’re all the rage in marketing circles. And they were practically born with a piece of technology in their hands. But one survey claims millennials, who are usually seen and savvy adopters of tech, only use it for fun and games. Excel spreadsheets are a foreign concept. Will they be positioned to take over the jobs you and I retain right now? Or are we giving them too much credit?

Proof That Marketing Execs Are The Only Ones Who Care About Brands In Social Media (BusinessInsider)

I have long maintained that PR and marketing professionals exist in their own little bubble of self-importance, and this infographic pretty much proves that. According to the stats, only 33 percent of “normal” people use Twitter to follow brands they like. Are we just preaching to the choir?

10 Signs Of A Horrendous Press Release (PR Daily)

I used to think the press release was dead. But now I see that there is real value in them, if they’re used for good. Are you still writing press releases? If so, you should read how to make them not horrendous.

Malcolm Gladwell On Why History Will Remember Bill Gates and Forget Steve Jobs (BusinessInsider)

Gladwell thinks entrepreneurs will eventually be remembered for how they helped mankind, not for their ability to make a lot of money and beautiful products. And that’s what Steve Jobs cared about above all else: making beautiful products. His philanthropic efforts are well documented. It’s preposterous now to think that Bill Gates will one day be more revered than Jobs, but stranger things have happened.

NASCAR And Twitter Team Up For Audience Growth (Fast Company)

A few months ago, I saw Twitter was looking to hire people for to do something that was sports-related. Well, this team up between NASCAR and Twitter is the result. For the Pocono 400, the two companies teamed up to debut an augmented television experience that would serve as a companion to the race. I’m not a huge NASCAR fan, but I would definitely use for other major sporting events. I think they’re on to something…

The 22 Rules of Storytelling According to Pixar (io9.com)

This one pretty much explains itself. A storyboard artist from Pixar compiled 22 nuggets of storytelling wisdom that she had gleaned through the years, and shared them on Twitter. If you’re in the business of telling stories, you owe it to yourself to read all 22 of them.

What did you read this week?

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08
Jun 12

The Weekly Grab Bag – June 8, 2012

Every Friday, I share the best stuff I’ve read on the Web and share it with you, my dear readers.

After a long hiatus, the Grab Bag is back.

Without further ado, please let me share what I read this week.

Nicklas Lidstrom’s Perfect Career (Grantland.com) – For the past twenty years, Nicklas Lidstrom has been a fixture on the blue line for my beloved Detroit Red Wings. That ended last week when Lidstrom announced his retirement. As he puts it: “Retiring today allows me to walk away from the game with pride, rather than have the game walk away from me.” We should all be so lucky.

If You Want to Succeed in Business, Read More Novels (Forbes.com) – According to this article by Erika Anderson, studies show that reading fiction increases our emotional intelligence: our accurate awareness of ourselves and others. Citing her professional coaching experience, Anderson says she has noticed a difference between the execs who only read non-fiction, and those who dabble in fiction. As if you needed another excuse to finally start reading The Passage, here it is.

32 Innovations That Will Change Your Tomorrow (New York Times) – We’re always innovating. When we stop, we die. But the innovations that are a few years away? Mind-blowing. Underwear that analyzes how hard you’re working your quads? Check. Terrifying playgrounds? Double check. The future is coming. And it’s pretty amazing.

7 Ways to Disrupt Your Industry (Fast Company) – Seems like everybody is disrupting these days, so why not you? That’s what this article is asking, but not in so many words. Contained within are seven ways to disrupt your industry. (PR people: Let’s cut our fees by 90 percent and see what happens.)

Polish anti-hooligan squads armed with testicle biting dogs, sonic cannons (New York Daily News) – Euro 2012 starts today. In order to combat hooligans, the Polish police have armed themselves with cannons that induce involuntary urination and shotguns with baton rounds that “probably won’t kill you as long as you’re 30m away.” I don’t think we’re going to see any streakers on the pitch.

What did you read this week that struck your fancy?

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24
Sep 10

Weekly Grab Bag – September 24, 2010

Each week, Brad recaps the best stuff he’s read on the Web and shares it with you, the reader.

There’s quite an array of stuff to sift through in this week’s Grab Bag, but I think there’s something for everyone. So why don’t we get started?

On The Media: Fake news flourishes under the feds’ noses (LA Times.com) – I don’t know if this is a national phenomenon, but the local sports talk radio station requires their hosts to read the ads on the air right before they cut to commercial. The advertisers pay the hosts to speak as if they can actually vouch for the services they’re discussing, but we know better. Er, at least most of us know better. This is just one example of “fake news.” It’s a troubling trend.

New Journalism Degree To Emphasize Start-Ups (NYTimes.com) – I wish this program had been around when I graduated from college. And, honestly, I’m surprised it took this long to introduce a similar program. It’s exactly where journalism is headed, and could spark interest in an entirely new generation of students.

Stuck In An Intellectual Silo (Becky-Johns.com) - This is an extremely well-written post that explores the idea of an “intellectual silo.” Basically, Becky wonders aloud if the upper echelon of entrepreneurs and communicators using social media are setting the bar too high for others. I, for one, agree with her take.

Why Environmental Activists Embrace Social Media (Fast Company) – The obvious answer to the headline is that social media is very grassroots-ish. (And the fact that it’s free doesn’t hurt.) It’s another in the long line of articles that explores why @BPGlobalPR was so hugely successful, but it’s worth your time.

Running in place? 14 Ways to Break Free (The Simple Dollar) – Like the headline says, this post contains 14 simple, logical things to keep in mind when trying to attain that huge goal, but feel like you’re stuck in wet cement. We can get so focused on the end, that we have a difficult time seeing the twists in the road. This is a great read if you’re striving toward a goal, but are not seeing what you think is progress.

5 Mistakes Everyone Should Make (Yahoo.com) – Striving to be perfect? Maybe you should re-think that strategy. Read this.

That’s all for this week.

If you read anything this week that struck your fancy, tell us about it in the comments.

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17
Sep 10

Weekly Grab Bag – September 17, 2010

Whew. Hard to believe it’s Friday already.

The 59 blogs I subscribe to yielded some good content this week, which compliments a few links I came across in my daily monitoring.

So, without further adieu, let’s dive right in. I hope you find some value in this week’s Grab Bag.

RIP, the Press Release (1906-2010) — and Long Live the Tweet (AdAge.com) – Seems like every other week somebody is “calling it” when it comes to the press release’s lifespan. This time, Ad Age is suggesting that marketers take their PR cues from celebrities, who fulfill our desire to know intimate details of their life with 140-character tweets, by limiting their news to short bursts of information. Seems like a decent thought, but wouldn’t the Twitter announcements need to be accompanied by some context?

Open Letter to PR Pros From the Press Release (Laurenafernandez.com) – Here’s Lauren Fernandez’s rebuttal to the piece above.

Share what you know with the Charlotte Observer (CharlotteObserver.com) – Hmmmmm. Verrrry interesting. The Charlotte Observer has started something called the Carolinas Public Insight Network, which gives people living and working in the Greater Charlotte area the chance to connect with the Observer’s newsroom through the Web. Essentially, when the paper is working on a certain story, they’ll cull their database of experts via email to find sources for those stories. Sounds like something Charlotte-based PR people should investigate, doesn’t it?

The Problem With PR (Waxing UnLyrical) – Frankly, this is a post that needed to be written. Public relations professionals get a bad rap from people who don’t know what PR is. (I’m often asked if PR means advertising.) Kudos to Shonali Burke for breaking it down for everyone, although, will anybody outside of the PR universe read it?

That’s all for this week.

In the comments, tell me what grabbed your attention this week.

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10
Sep 10

Weekly Grab Bag – September 10, 2010

Based on the majority of the content featured in this week’s Grab Bag, the subtitle for this edition could be, “How To Do Things Wrong On the Internet.” (And don’t think I didn’t consider it.)

Included below is a post on social media doubling as a popularity contest, why updating your media lists is crucial, and why using Twitter to bitch and moan can be an exercise in futility.

Please. Read on.

101 Ways To Live Your Life To The Fullest (Personal Excellence Blog) – We will start with the good stuff. Quite often, a list of ’101 Things…’ loses momentum around number 75. Not this one. There are seriously some great ideas in here for getting the most out of your life. #24 is one that I’m particularly fond of.

How The Seattle Times Is Using Mobile Video, Twitter To Report News Fast (Poynter Online) – This is where journalism is headed, frankly. We’re seeing the Journal Register Company experiment with digital means as a way to deliver the news, and now the Seattle Times is bringing it to the mainstream. Won’t be too long until this is the standard news delivery model, methinks (I hate that word.)

The Internet Has Become A Big Popularity Contest (SimplyZesty) – One of the best things I read this week, and I thought about devoting an entire entry to it. Basically, it operates under the premise that numbers (Twitter followers, “likes”, etc.) make social media too numbers-heavy when it comes to identifying valuable content. Read the whole thing for gist. I think you’ll dig it.

Why I’m Tired of #Fail (Brass Tack Thinking) – Amber Naslund is one of those people who writes exactly what I’m thinking, and I admire the shit out of that. I’m also extremely jealous of her abilities. This post captures something that bugs me about Twitter: a rush to complain. If you’re going to read two articles in this week’s grab bag, make it this one and the one above.

Magnalight.com’s Rob Bresnahan and the Dim Bulb Pitch (Bad Pitch Blog) – The key takeaway, if you will, of this post is that you need to keep your media lists updated, especially in today’s day and age of high turnover rates. The reporter who was covering technology last week might be this week’s food & beverage correspondent. So, if you send them a pitch for a new Web browser, for instance, they’re going to think you are stupid, and we don’t want that. This post takes a PR professional to task for this very sin.

That’s all for this week.

What captured  your interest?

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