Will Presidential transparency thrive under Obama?

I'm as excited as the next "liberal elite" about the incoming Obama administration. Clearly, the use of technology, social media and the collective hope of billions of people for a more human and thoughtful U.S. administration has people expecting new and different things from the incoming leader of the free world.

But incoming Press Secretary Robert Gibbs isn't necessarily going to be that much different than the waffling, obfuscating Press Secretaries of days-gone-by, according to a recent New York Times Magazine article.

On The Media's Bob Garfield interviewed NYT reporter Mark Leibovich about his piece on Robert Gibbs on last week's show. Worth a listen, if not only to hear a clip of Obama cutting off a reporter in mid-sentence because he didn't want to answer a line of questioning about the Illinois Governor Blagojevich scandal. There's also a great clip of Gibbs baring his teeth in an exchange with Sean Hannity.



As we've seen before, it's easy to campaign on change, but not so easy to govern that differently from your predecessors. Will that follow on how the Obama administration communicates?

I know PR people are expecting a lot. I'm just hoping that we're not let down. One telling quote Liebovich attributed to Obama's campaign director, Bob David Plouffe: "we followed the Bush model when it comes to message discipline."

Ugh. Talking points are talking points whether they come on red paper or blue paper.

Conversations aren't Markets

The whole controversy around sponsored blog posts that's been circling around the blogosphere and forcing people to pick sides like some kind of geek-fueled Sopranos episode has been lacking a reasoned, thoughtful discussion by people who have some measure of experience in the image and reputation business.

Too bad, because that's where the real meat is in this controversy.  I don't care that Chris Brogan and Joe Jaffe disclosed that they were paid to post on behalf of Kmart and Sears.  They're big boys. They can do what they want.

The issue that's sorely lacking is an objective look at the impact of an episode like this on credibility and trust.

Mitch Joel gave it a good crack with his blog post and we've had several discussions offline about what the downsides are to paying bloggers to post about products.

Bottom line for me is I don't trust bloggers who do sponsored posts as much as those that don't.  I'd never suggest to a client that they get into a pay-per-post deal with a blogger because I just don't think they have an impact.

You may beg to differ, but you won't change my mind on this. I don't believe that bloggers shouldn't do pay-per-post. That's their choice to "rent their audience" if they so choose. But I do believe that brands shouldn't get involved with pay-per-post because it's a cheap and obvious shortcut.

I read somewhere that Markets are Conservations. I don't think the inverse is true.

And the authors of the Trust Economy e-book got it right too:

Understand that the digital natives know who’s there to market and sell, and who’s there to build relationships. We (the digital natives) know you’re new. We often can tell really quickly that you’re hoping to introduce your product or service to the conversation. Some of us will even be more responsive to this than others. But, then there will be many who will cry foul the moment you cross the line into pure sales or marketing. Remember, the Trust Economy is a conversation/relationship environment. We know you’ve got a job to do, but there are lots of people who prefer you do it elsewhere if you’re going to use traditional “bomb” marketing and sales efforts, versus “hand to hand” relationship building.

Capturing Canada's social media examples

Inspired by Peter Kim's excellent blog post where he captured 234 social media marketing examples, I've set up a wiki so that Canadian examples of social media marketing and PR tactics can be easily added and searched by organization type, tools used and language.

Go ahead and check it out, add the examples you know or have worked on yourself and help build a repository of Canadian leadership in the social media space that will benefit the industry.

I've even included a page for Canadian social media consultants to list themselves and link to their work if they like.

If you're not too comfortable with editing a wiki yourself and you have some ideas for tags or a better way to organize it, by all means let me know.

I also have to tip my hat to Dave Fleet who created the succesful Social Media Training wiki last year.  Hopefully some of the people who got their start there have projects they can share on the new Web 2.0 Examples in Canada wiki.

Niall Cook talks about Enterprise 2.0 in Toronto

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Niall Cook, my colleague from H&K London was in Toronto this week to talk to our clients and the local social media in-crowd about his new book, Enterprise 2.0.  With a foreword by Don Tapscott and research help from Robert Campbell at the University of Toronto, there is a certain measure of Canadian pride we can take from this seminal volume.  I know from my own experience that internal communicators are trying to figure out the best way to incorporate social media tools into their employee communications arsenal.  With so few references out there, I really believe Niall's book will be like manna from heaven to many in the employee communications world.

For those of you who got the chance to see Niall speak while he was here and want to review or pass on some of what you learned, I've included the audio of his talk to Hill and Knowlton clients and embedded the slides he presented.  (Thanks to Niall for making these available through SlideShare.)

For those of you who are reading the book, Niall's got a great Enterprise 2.0 blog and wiki so you can leave your thoughts on every chapter and keep the collaboration going.

Updates:  Forgot to mention that Niall was interviewed by For Immediate Release about Enterprise 2.0 while he was in town.  You can check out his interview on Shel Holtz's blog.  Mitch Joel's latest SPOS episode also features a conversation with Niall.

Also, the PhotoJunkie, Rannie Turnigan, has a great gallery of photos from Third Tuesday, including the one of Niall I used above.

Enterprise 2.0

View SlideShare presentation or Upload your own. (tags: socialsoftware enterprise2.0)

Shill Podcast - Ads, Fads and Two Cads

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Show Notes:

0:30 - Dave admits to flaking out on Shill (again) and so begins Shill like a rafter of turkeys released from a helicopter.

1:22 - Discussion of Microsoft's recent "ads" elicit a characteristic F-bomb response from Doug. Dave verbally scratches his head in confusion and starts trying to conjure up bad celebrity mash-ups with no help from Doug. The Shill boys regret even drawing attention to it.

4:30 Dave rails at Apple for not allowing podcast updates via WiFi on the iPhone. Doug passes the Mac Fan Boy hat to Dave only to have him set it on fire, leaving both hatless and showing some embarrassing bald spots.

7:55 Dave hands over the rights to Shill to Apple for free (which is still a sucker's deal). Doug uses one of his three wishes for his car to synch up with his WiFI, but the genie in the bottle gives flips him the bird.

9:09 Doug waves from the anti-DRM bandwagon and discusses how the totalitarian DRM on the video game Spore resulted in a user comment backlash on Amazon. Meanwhile Dave sits on his life-preserver, preferring to watch Doug drown in his own drivel. Doug attempts to discuss the financial consequences of misguided mobs, but Dave thinks gaming the system is part of the system.

16:30 Dave crowns the new heavyweight YouTube Champion, Avril Lavigne, but has issues with the auto-loading website landing all the punches for her. Dave wonders if the rules need to change,

19:44 Doug booze-addled brain splutters out, while Dave reveals his inability to take an editing cue. Apology to Shill audience: Shill Bloopers Vol. 1 will not be issued - we used up all the outtakes in the content. Doug struggles to get the chain back on his mental tricycle.

21:20 Dave tiptoes through the big ad agency minefield and struggles to find meaning in Cossette's Bloom. Doug makes a truly pointless scatological reference and pleads with agencies to have an opinion on the future, or at least a point. Doug and Dave long for some specifics and wave their favourite protest sign: "Community not Campaigns".

29:30 Dave wonders aloud how ad people get money from clients for Social Media. Doug believes agencies need to find a way to make money or production instead of media. Dave believes that agencies have managed to wedgie themselves with their own business model and thinks digital people should be driving the bus.

34:35 As if Shill weren't long enough, Dave tries to squeeze in a discussion on Social Vibe. Doug laments that advertising is more than slapping a logo on a charity sponsorship.

37:20 Dave drops his mic, Doug loses his train of thought again, while the audience wonders why he continues to listen. Adding insolence to injury Dave gets lost in Facebook's facelift, while Doug calls 700,000 Facebook users "ingrates".

39:55 Dave gives the agencies a thanks-for-coming-out participation award, while waxing poetic about the good old sexist days of MAdvertising. And like a salaryman getting the pink slip, Shill is not allowed to clear out its desk before being escorted from the building.

BONUS HIDDEN TRACK (after theme music): Dave fails to be funny, Doug reverts to an old standby joke. Girlish giggles ensue.
Music:

“I Want To Hear What You Have To Say” by the Subways via the Podsafe Music Network.

Comments:

Let David and Doug know how dumb they are at shillpodcast@gmail.com or visit the blog at shillpodcast.com