Hi. I'm a former journalist and Malaysian correspondent to CNet, ZDnet, Newsbytes (Washington Post-Newsweek Interactive wire agency),
Nikkei Electronics Asia and AsiaBizTech.com. I also previously contributed to The Star, The Edge, The New Straits Times,
The New Zealand Herald and various magazines. Currently, I train and advise managers and executives on strategies to optimize
their use of social media and online channels to reach customers. My company, Trinetizen Media, runs media training workshops on social media,
media relations, investor relations, corporate blogging,multimedia marketing, online advertising, multimedia journalism and crisis communications. You can
connect with me on Facebook , LinkedIn, Twitter or Google+.
Just to show you how far removed and laughable the supposedly "smartest people in the room on journalism" are, here are the recent rules introduced by WSJ for its staff's social media activities:
* Don't recruit friends or family to promote or defend your work. * Consult your editor before "connecting" to or "friending" any reporting contacts who may need to be treated as confidential sources. Openly "friending" sources is akin to publicly publishing your Rolodex. * Let our coverage speak for itself, and don't detail how an article was reported, written or edited. * Don't discuss articles that haven't been published, meetings you've attended or plan to attend with staff or sources, or interviews that you've conducted. * Don't disparage the work of colleagues or competitors or aggressively promote your coverage. * Don't engage in any impolite dialogue with those who may challenge your work -- no matter how rude or provocative they may seem. * Avoid giving highly-tailored, specific advice to any individual on Dow Jones sites. Phrases such as "Travel agents are saying the best deals are X and Y..." are acceptable while counseling a reader "You should choose X..." is not. Giving generalized advice is the best approach. * All postings on Dow Jones sites that may be controversial or that deal with sensitive subjects need to be cleared with your editor before posting. * Business and pleasure should not be mixed on services like Twitter. Common sense should prevail, but if you are in doubt about the appropriateness of a Tweet or posting, discuss it with your editor before sending.
“That is what real revolutions are like. The old stuff gets broken faster than the new stuff is put in its place. The importance of any given experiment isn’t apparent at the moment it appears; big changes stall, small changes spread. Even the revolutionaries can’t predict what will happen.”
The old stuff has broken before the new stuff is ready. Old stuff is certainly broken, many of our old media brands: ITV, The Independent, The Scotsman, Five Channel 4….in fact, outside the very deep pockets of News Corporation, the family commitment of Associated Newspapers, the unusual funding structures of The BBC -and the Guardian for that matter – just about everywhere the economy and broadband delivery are breaking bits of the media at an alarming pace….
Just to really cheer you up so far this year, and remember companies also cut jobs last year, 900 jobs have gone from newspaper groups, a similar amount from TV stations, a couple of hundred from magazines and radio – but this doesn’t include the many more casual contracts that have been terminated or the contributor budgets that have been cut.
All of this is very sad, but much of it is inevitable, and, more than that, once the pain has gone away and countless titles and brands have closed, which I still believe they will, there will be a new order of journalists and organisations, many of them shaping a future in a way which it is difficult for pre-revolutionary businesses to even imagine and whilst it might seem unsympathetic to say so we will look back in a few years time and wonder at why it took us so long to change.
We can carry on describing the problems journalism and news organisations face until the cows come home, or indeed are shipped off for slaughter in the wake of foot and mouth...
If there is not a cast iron solution, already, still in the depth of recession there are many clues, and clues are useful because cluelessness is one of the media’s key problems at the moment.
CLUE ONE – any communication organisation needs an audience. So find one. If you build it they won’t come because they are busy elsewhere. So go where the audiences is.
The idea that we can shepherd viewers or readers or listeners into one place at one time is gone – we all consume our news comment and analysis through many, many different sources.
If your audience is declining as it is for primetime analogue tv, newspapers, and radio stations, but reading, watching, listening is growing, as it really is, then go where the growth is, be on all platforms. Use Twitter, Facebook, mobile, youtube, podcasts, email and sms. Don’t be afraid to let your content go – what’s the worst that could happen.
Do not just do more of the same – Einstein’s definition of insanity was to do the same thing over and over again expecting different results.
CLUE TWO – networks work better than silos. Rules of networks are that if you are a hub not a destination your traffic will be higher….the same is true of media outlets, the same is true of individual journalists or stories – if you are at the centre of your community not on the periphery, many people will go through you.
CLUE THREE – utility and reliability never go out of fashion and trustworthiness and transparency are crucial. When people know you will tell them something useful they will seek you out, when they know you are trustworthy they will tell you things so you can tell others. And journalism means journalists – trust is placed in people as well as brands.
Robert Peston, the BBC’s business editor is an exponent of this – he is a tall poppy who has gathered a following which gives him 1m hits on every blog post – people want to find the good stuff and to have a personal relationship with a trusted source.
The internet allows that. But Robert Peston has a following because he is very well informed by his sources and can tell you things which, on the whole, other people can’t. He is a classic example of where the BBC, the country’s largest journalistic employer, is moving from a bulletin led model to a correspondent led model. They pay Peston to spend time understanding complex stories and cultivating sources… This is basic stuff but oh so important, and there can be no better use of a news organisation’s resource than allowing its journalists that space and time.
CLUE FOUR – Wikipedia is often a better historical source on news stories than news organisations themselves. There are two lessons here – one is that the news business is struggling to understand the language of the web, the second is that tools plus users equals content, both are key to the future of journalism.
Matt Waite is 32 and he has just won a Pulitzer Prize for his Politifact website for the St Petersburg Times in the US. It checks facts around what people in Washington put in their speeches. Matt is now a news technologist, but WAS an investigative reporter – he’s a brilliant example of how you can reinvent a strand of journalism in line with the way the web works..The site is based on DATA – and allows the user to study that data – it tells a story, not in the conventional way, but in a way more powerful on the web.
CLUE FIVE – not really a clue more a statement of the obvious, as Dan Gilmour, the famous media journalist said in his seminal book “we the media” “there’s always someone closer to the story than you”, or as my mum said, at the kitchen table, “whenever I read or see something I know anything about I’m always struck by how wrong it is”.
It amounts to the same thing – your readers and audience know and see more than you ever could. Find ways to let them add their knowledge.
We stumbled upon him after searching for a related case study for our participants at a recent Corporate Social Media training workshop.
Rob was kind enough to respond via Facebook:
Q1. Were you invited randomly or did the ESO have some contact with you before?
Rob: My fiance had been invited to blog the ESO symphony back in spring of 2008. I went as her guest and helped her with the technical issues. Bloggers at that time had to sit in a room where we could see the orchestra, but heard piped in sound.
The same bloggers were invited back to live blog the “symphony in the park”, an outdoors venue in one of our parks here. William Tell’s 1812 overture was featured along with our Canadian military shooting the guns at the finale.
I was not asked to, but chose to tweet the event. When we left, I spoke with the fellow who had invited my fiance and told him that I had tweeted it. He was not aware of twitter at the time. This was the summer of 2008.
Then, yes, we were both asked to come back, to blog and to live tweet this specific ESO performance once again. Now Twitter was more mainstream and the media relations guy for the ESO was making his public move into the twittersphere.
Q2. What did you use to live-tweet - a Blackberry?
Rob: Live tweeted with my Blackberry Bold
Q3. Were the live-tweeters seated together - and was your presence and activity during the performance obtrusive to the others in your seating area?
Rob: We were seated together at the very back of one section with a wall behind us. The level above us had a bit of a balcony, so we were under it. Our screens and keypad clicking did not bother anyone. Bloggers were NOT allowed to blog within the chamber, but tweeters could use their phones. I asked a blogger who was in front of me (taking notes by pen and paper) if my keypad clicks bothered him. He did not hear them at all.
Photographs from within the building are not possible. Cameras are not allowed. However, I turned off the flash on my Blackberry and snapped a shot because the twittersphere was asking for a photo. I uploaded it to Twitpic with the disclaimer that I might not be asked back.
I’m pretty sure the no photo rule is because of disruptions. I did everything I could do so that the photo from my cellphone would not cause a disruption.
Q4. Orchestral halls here have strict policies barring all forms of recording equipment and photography. Do you think in future, like the ESO, they need to change this policy, or be more flexible towards reaching out to bloggers, tweeters and other social media enthusiasts?
Rob: I think there could be a change allowing for a section of tweeters, but no need to allow phones or cameras throughout the orchestral hall. I think that the changes should be gradual.
To mix technology with the arts has to introduced slowly. There are hardliners who want their rules so they can appreciate the music. I think they “think” there will be disruptions when there clearly was not.
So... flexibility. Give some space where the tweeters can tweet. Computers are another issue all together. Big, bulky and the screens throw off a lot of light so no to the computers.
Q5.How else can ESO and other orchestras engage bloggers and tweeters?
Rob: How can they engage us? Don't really have an answer. Tweeting is quickly becoming mainstream. I think nothing of popping open my phone and sending off a tweet as I think about it. They’re random thoughts or tweets that I simply want to share. It's the same as sending a text message, so it seems perfectly normal to open up the Blackberry while in the orchestral hall. One has to be respectful of the space we’re in as well.
Other than that, I’m not quite sure I understand or have an answer for this question.
The whole tweeting thing would be confusing to someone not aware of what it is or how it works. That does not mean they should stop it, that’s for sure. One can “know” about Facebook, not be involved, but still appreciate the power it has to connect. Same for text messaging, tweeting and the like.
When it comes right down to it, the orchestral hall is a place to be respectful of the other patrons there to enjoy the arts. I for one respect that. If you're “at” the symphony, my guess is that you're educated enough to understand how reverend it is.
Below is a video of the bloggers and tweeters invited by the ESO:
Wrote to Tony late Wednesday night and received this reply from one Dylan Morris:
"Hello Julian,
"Thank you for contacting Tony with your feedback! He reads every email he receives and asked me to respond on his behalf so you could receive a timely response. Tony receives over 2,000 emails each day, and has handpicked a small team to help him address some of them. He would have responded directly, but he doesn't have the hands necessary to type up 2,000 responses at the same time. We are currently working on replacing Tony's body with one from an octopus, so look for more Tony responses in the near future!
"We would be happy to send you a Zappos.com Culture Book! We've loaded one up in our Zappos mailing cannon and blasted one off to you."
Dylan provided other helpful info and even invited me to Las Vegas for a tour of their HQ. Very cool.
Today's Monday and the UPS guy showed up at my door with a package. Yes, it is the Zappos Culture Book 2008 - flown over 14,000kms in about 96 hours from the time I first sent the email. (It would usually take a two weeks to a month for such a delivery from USA to Malaysia.)
Thanks Tony and Dylan. You made my day. Now, I know why you make US$1b in annual sales.
Subscribe by email
