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The Consumer Electronics Show, Cisco And AT&T

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Everywhere you look, news of the is rampant. The biggest names in sliced bread and IT will be present hawking their wares. My head is already spinning, and I’m not even there.

I’m going to predict, however, that and AT&T will steal thunder from many a company. I can promise that automobile manufacturers will have their hay day, too, as we’ve already seen new predictions about mobile computing in vehicles, new apps and email built into dashboards, self-parking cars for those who can’t parallel park, and autos that anticipate an accident before it occurs. BMW is a leader in consumer technology to elevate the status of the lowly automobile.

Cisco

In a full-page, color ad in the Wall Street Journal (yes, I’ve told you before, I read that thing in hard copy every darn day and tear out and mark up the stories I want to reference right here), Cisco published the most eye-catching ad to launch

Now as a hashtag, too, #IofE is just about every innovation bridging IT (internet technology) with consumers’ private lives, mostly in the home. Featuring sensors, apps, tags, and other IT gizmos, products and environments will turn into responsive devices.

  • Pill bottles will get empty and submit a refill to the pharmacist.
  • Clothing will detect when the kids get a fever.
  • Wearable tech is even now all the rage; it’s the biggest trend for the next two years hands down.
  • If the baseball breaks the window, an email shows up with recommendations for glass companies right in the neighborhood.

AT&T

Did you see its TV ad when the kids meet the parents at the get-away cabin? The dad asks if they locked down the house, and they said sure. When dad uses his smartphone to check, he clicks through and shuts down the lights, TV, thermostat, security system, and anything else electronically digitized. He probably closes the refrigerator door, too.

I wonder what all this innovation will do to the world? Will it create the haves and have nots, just like the current income disparity crisis in the country? Probably.

Recently, I went shopping for kidlet’s first mobile phone. There were only two models available not smartphones. Knowing those two models would soon be obsolete and I’d have to buy a smartphone anyway, I took the $.99 plunge for the iPhone 4S. Where they get you is in the data plan; that monthly fee to keep all the cell numbers functioning with Internet access.

I wonder how much it would be for me to wire up my house and connect every gizmo and gadget to AT&T. I also want to know how much Cisco is going to charge to “unlock the $19 trillion in potential opportunity.”

What do you think? Are we ready for this kind of exponential growth in smart technology to invade our homes? We may as well just turn over the keys to privacy right now; once the house is wired to a “secure” network via the behemoths, then Big Data is really going to the moon, eh?

Cisco & AT&T

I’m leaving you with this gem of a find via YouTube. I went looking for the AT&T home security commercial and look what I found? These two giants are already collaborating. As of exactly one year ago, this interview ran featuring peeps from each company. Take a look; it explains a ton about what’s happening in your home security automation.

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National Business Media, PR And Newtonian Theory

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If you’ve kept abreast of news about national business media of late, you’d know a few are on the auction block while others are undergoing close scrutiny about revenue and future performance. Still more venerable brands are splitting partnerships.

What does this have to do with media relations, the arm of the public relations discipline oriented to earned media – getting stories to appear in news outlets based on the strength of clients’ news?
It is turning the entire media chain on its head; let’s take a closer look:

  • National media need owners with deep pockets.
  • Business leaders in the executive suite are leaving in droves.
  • Journalists writing for the publication know their necks are on the chopping block, too.
  • Editors are trying for business as usual, while crooking the head over the shoulder to see what’s coming.
  • Media relations experts who have built strong relationships with these business reporters now find these relationships drying up with uncertainty and the inability to say “maybe” to a national news story.
  • Clients who shell out oodles of retainer fees to agencies that promise results by way of earned media now may be seeing less positive confirmed responses about media relations projects.

I bet you didn’t know that Newtonian theory applied to national business media and PR did you?

So, what’s a guy to do? I’m just going to come clean and say, “Run, and take cover!”

Forbes is for sale. Fortune is splitting from CNNMoney.com due to a Time Warner divestiture, and Bloomberg Businessweek is under review in spite of its new found success being owned by Bloomberg Media. Time, Inc. is seeking new ways to improve its bottom line while Money magazine is also part of the split from CNNMoney.

Why The Shift in National Business Magazines?

The reason is quite simple; digital. Advertisers are truly hungry for more reach for the dollar, and the way to make this happen is by making websites work on higher digital scale than in the past.
Everyone knows how critical advertising revenue has been for journalism. It’s the elephant in the room. With now playing strong, business media executives are becoming hot commodities for this expertise so magazines can strengthen revenue.

Online publications designed for smart devices create opportunities for media to build new ad streams, too. If these, sometimes archaically thinking executives don’t get on board with digital and online publishing, then opportunities are weak to maintain a healthy bottom line.
I subscribe to about 25 different news outlets and other magazines monthly. The majority come via hard copy to my door because the deals I get are too good to pass up; something like $10 for the year with a gift subscription. Sadly, I’ve seen the ‘zines I rely on get thinner and thinner and then consolidate with sister publications. So, this shift in media is not just happening with the national business press; it’s happening in the verticals, too.

Media Relations Professionals

What this means for we who pitch media is the need to absolutely be on the money with stories reporters can’t refuse. Have you ever seen HARO lists of the queries reporters are seeking to write stories? They’re so bizarre and unconventional I’ve nearly stopped scanning for pitching opportunities.

It’s no wonder journalists are complaining every more forcefully about we who pitch stories. If you’re being paid by a client to pitch a story regardless of whether there’s news value, then please push back on the client and take a look at other ways to get that story some air time.

It will save your reputation; trust me. Meanwhile, media relations and public relations professionals need to and identify outlets, content marketing strategies, and other communication vehicles to share client news.

Because we come from a creative profession, this shouldn’t be too hard to do. I would look to content marketing and digital marketing as an opportunity to get some creative legs on client stories; it’s the next big thing in PR.

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12 Most Do Now Online Reputation Punch List Items

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When you sell, buy or build a home, there is a punch list of items on the to-do list to close or complete the deal. Bet you didn’t know social media had one, too? When you engage on social channels, you are building online reputation. You want it to remain pristine. That’s why these punch list items to uphold your personal brand are so important. You should take care of your online self just as you do your vehicle (5,000-mile oil change), your HVAC unit (annual inspection), teeth cleaning every six to nine months, or annual doctor visit.

Every six months or so, consider these online reputation punch list items for your social media presence:

1. Your Avatar Had A Birthday. The little picture you post in all your profiles is called an avatar. If you never change it, you stay forever young. That feels really good as you gaze at a gorgeous you, but what happens when you meet someone IRL (in real life) and they say, “My, you look nothing like your avatar!” What they’re really saying is, “You’re so much older!”

2. Delete Old Photos. While nothing is ever gone from the Internet, you should try to control which personal image you want captured on websites. When you update profile images, ensure the image you’re deleting is nowhere in use on other social media channels. Basically, you’re trying to limit the number of online photos people get to use.

3. Consider Using Gravatar. When you sign up with , a WordPress.com tool, you upload a photo and brief bio. This photo and personal info populate automatically across the Interwebz (all the online social channels). If someone needs your photo for a blog post or other marketing, they can grab it from Gravatar.

4. Update Your Bio. As you grow professionally, you accomplish more and the list of achievements grows. Every single bio sketch you have ever written must be updated on a consistent basis. If you’re at all like me, I update my bio sketch every few months. This means when you update it in one place you have to keep going and update it everywhere.

5. Delete The Year Of Your Birth. Facebook recently informed me a friend was having a 62nd birthday the next day. Shocked, I posted in my news feed that Facebook was infringing on privacy! No, actually, when you set up your Facebook profile you can elect not to include the year of your birth. That means people can wish you a happy birthday, but they won’t know how young you’re getting! Go to your Facebook settings and delete the year of your birth.

6. Check Privacy Settings. On every social media channel with which you engage, click on settings and carefully review the boxes you’ve checked for privacy. Do you want only “friends” to see your profile and share with you? Do you want to receive third-party junk mail (spam)? Do you want to block the ex-husband or stalker girlfriend from your stream? Be very aware of privacy settings although we all know sharing/living online is nowhere near private (right?).

7. Check Third-Party Apps. When you sign in to a new app or online tool using Twitter or Facebook, you’ve essentially given permission for that app to crawl personal information, friends’ lists and liking behavior. Click the settings buttons on Facebook and Twitter until you find third-party apps or permissions settings. Delete the apps you’re no longer using or engaging with. This is important to pay attention to, and few do.

8. Google Yourself. Everyone should Google themselves! When was the last time you did? You need to see what’s popping up under your name and whether you need to kick into high gear and fix anything negative. If your name is the same as a serial killers, well, that’s going to be a problematic for your online reputation. There are things to do to ensure your reputation remains stellar, and the steps what to do require an entirely new blog post!

9. Update Your Website. Never forget to update your “About” page on your website. You can be a maker of artisanal jewelry or the CMO of a mid-tier company. The information about you is critical, and it cascades across all social media profiles beginning with LinkedIn.

10. Add Personal Info To Comment Systems. When you blog, you get to use a comment system like CommentLuv, Disqus or Livefyre. For each of these, you also can add an avatar (typically automatically taken from an existing photo on Twitter or Gravatar) as well as a tagline describing what you do. Here’s my example to help clarify. I use Livefyre as my blog’s comment system, and I used to have “B2B Social Media Marketing with PR” as my descriptor. It appeared next to my name and avatar. Because I recently updated my professional tagline, this now says “Hybrid PR” with my name and avatar. Do take advantage of things like this; it helps you build your professional brand.

11.Add Your To Social Sharing.Add Your Twitter ID To Social Sharing. For bloggers who use social sharing buttons from AddThis, AddToAny, Shareaholic and others, you are able to customize the retweet content of that blog post share. Let’s say someone wants to share your blog post and they click on the Twitter sharing icon. When it pops up, they see 1) @Wordpress.com 2) @AddToAny or @Shareaholic 3) no personal branding at all. What you want instead is your Twitter ID on every retweet so you can see who’s retweeting your content at various levels of sharing. You’re not owning your content without this type of personal customization; you’re allowing the share bar vendors to capitalize on your content marketing.

12.Use This is the most fun and easiest way to develop an online reputation. See Number 8! If my name was the same as a serial killer’s name, I would run to this website and immediately engage. You add positive links about yourself, your bio, your avatar, and this site tells you how to boost each link for maximum search engine exposure. If you lead a highly professional online life, like me, then privacy is out and working daily to keep a positive online reputation is in.

July 17, 2013 (and it’s still relevant!).

Your Blog, You and 2014

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Confidence-Thermometer.jpgBet you didn’t notice this blog had nearly a two-week hiatus, or maybe you did. There wasn’t a day that went by I wasn’t guilty to not be writing despite the lowest-trafficked periods of the year.

What I continued to tell myself is that this holiday break was critical for my need to rejuvenate and refresh my moxie while getting inspired to write about a whole bunch of new topics.

You see, blogging becomes part of you; it gets under your skin, and courses through your blood. There’s never a conversation or interaction in which I don’t identify a topic or two to write on. It makes me a better listener; it’s inherent now with easy thought to add to the endless stream of ideas.

How about you?

If you’ve been blogging on nigh a year, perhaps this sort of topical instinct isn’t happening yet; no worries! Trust me when I tell you it will!

If you’ve been blogging three years, you should absolutely have blog topics written all over the place on scraps of paper. Maybe you’re truly an electronic wizard (which means you use the other side of your brain a tad more than creatives), and you can organize your thoughts into a list. Does List.ly have private list-building?

It’s A New Year

What I’m trying to say is that a new year is always psychologically, well, new. You know? The ball drops at midnight, and the pressure is on to be more…you know, more.

Let me try to explain.

As the years go by and blogging becomes part of your inner psyche, you want to grow. Your blog has to change with the times and become more exciting in parallel to your own growth journey.

As you transform, so, too, does your blog.

This morning, I just read a friend’s post about taking a huge hiatus and coming back to find fewer folks who’ve stayed the course, fewer comments, and fewer success stories with nil banter. Indeed. Bill Dorman is right; it’s a tough road blogging. That’s why you need goals and aspirations.

Have you thought about how you want your blog to grow and what you’d like to see happen in your house? Do that; it’s time.

Used to be we blogged more for the fun of it and to have a party in the comments; maybe a good old Team Blog Jack, too. Now, though, that’s pretty much dried up; you’re gonna need to reach deep within and find the divining rod into your heart. Then? Let the floodgates open and turn it up a notch; pour out your passion like never before aligned so closely with your business goals. You need your blog to make that happen; it’s the only steady you have on the social sphere.

Blowing Up Your Business

In 2013, I successfully blew up my business. I’m told that’s what entrepreneurs do; they reach a brick wall and rather than go over, they dynamite. Perhaps they get to the other side, or perhaps they drown in TNT. I’m the latter, and here’s the good news. I KNOW IT. I know I blew up my business (and only I can define internally what that means), and I also know that 2014 is critical to regroup and rebuild.

What that also means is the blog is part of the larger plan, too.

Want to know something really simple? There’s nothing like blogging to showcase smarts, expertise, personality, and to give gifts.

Soulati-‘TUDE! Is Turning Four!

My blogging birthday is coming up; we’re gonna be FOUR! That is HUGE! It’s so #RockHot I can’t even tell you.

I’m seeking ideas for how to celebrate Soulati-‘TUDE! IS FOUR.

Perhaps I’ll plan a virtual party; perhaps I’ll launch 4 guest posts on the same day, perhaps I’ll donate to four charities, or…what? What shall I do to celebrate?

My journey has been so rewarding, and here’s a secret. Without this blog and you, I never would’ve made it (I am not kidding).

 

 

PLEASE SUBSCRIBE TO MY BLOG!

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The Happy Friday Series: 5 Always Reasons To Be Happy

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Kitties.jpgNew Year’s Eve is my favorite holiday. I like the edge of things, the precipice. I like the feeling of a shared global experience. I like that you can say Happy New Year! to anybody you like. It’s happiness you can spread.

The secret to enjoying the new year is not to make resolutions. My family either focuses on a theme, or else I think about life changes in February – when the gym is less crowded.

5 Factors Contributing To My Happiness Right Now

1. Snow. It snowed last night. I love snow when it’s not inconveniencing me. It’s pretty, and I throw a mean snowball.
2. Prevent guest blog crime! I hate the camera, so I was surprised when I had a blast filming this video for the Communications Network (the association for communicators in philanthropy & nonprofit). In their Zero to Ninety Series, you have to give one takeaway for your viewer in fewer than ninety seconds. Watch my video and you’ll find out how to steer clear of guest blog crime. Plus I think the video is really funny and I’m proud of it.
3. Math. My stepson actually enjoys having me grill him on his multiplication tables. What!
4. Kitties. Two new kitties came to my house for Christmas. Their names are Johnny Shutup and Ernie Shutup. They are extremely affectionate. I’m working from home today, and they still want their lap time. Here’s a picture of them snuggling together when we weren’t looking.
5. Seattle. I’m going to Seattle in June for my sister’s graduation. Seattle is my favorite place in the US, hands down. I can’t drink coffee anymore and I still love Seattle. St. Ignatius Chapel, known as “The Gathering of Different Lights,” is my favorite place, hands down. You really should look at the pictures here even if they don’t do it justice.

I’m still thinking about a theme for this year for me & my family. What do you think it should be? I’m sincerely stuck. Maybe the year of no regrets? The year of new experiences? The year of kitties (that’s my stepson’s suggestion). I’ll be even happier if we can figure this out.

Jenn-Whinnem.jpgAbout The Author

Jenn Whinnem has been more than a loyal member of this community, she has been a stalwart (is that a noun?). She is a communications guru, maven, and #RockHot mastermind (there, I used them all) at the Connecticut Health Foundation by day. In other moments, she’s waxing jargon on Facebook and contributing to this blog while working behind the scenes to keep Jayme in top form. Connect with her on Twitter @TheJenn. Love this girl.

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