The climate might have been cold but the buzz was hot at the New Media in Marketing and Communications Strategy conference on November 26 and 27, where 45 or so marketers and tech types from across Europe gathered to mix and match (in a manner of speaking) knowledge and experiences surrounding communication, engagement and social media.

It was a well planned and organized event.

David Lanigan and Niall Doorley, the two principals of Icon Events International (pictured with me in the middle: David on the left, Niall on the right), together with their skilled event team, put on a really memorable event combining business (the conference itself in a 5-star venue) with pleasure (dinner in a beautiful old hillside mansion overlooking Barcelona).

More than anything, though, David and Niall were able to attract a first-class and compelling range of speakers who did not disappoint. It’s worth outlining the topic of each speaker’s session to give you an idea:

• When advertising on your TV is becoming interactive - Frédéric Vaulpré, Orange.
• Broadcast your brand: optimizing online advertising – Laurent Cordier, Google.
• Building ecommerce with Nike – Rune Solvsteen, Nike.
• Wooing customers by helping them to learn – Gregor Gimmy, Sclipo.
• Innovative communication in a B2B environment – Marcel Baron, IBM.
• Blogging in a multinational organization – Kerry Bridge, Dell.
• The media value chain – Christian Kunz, eBay.
• eCRM at the tipping point – Beverly Smet, Across.
• Case study on social media implementation – Keith Childs, GM Europe (and you can hear Keith and I in conversation in FIR #401 podcast).
• Engagement mapping: beyond the last ad standard – Ciaran McConaghey, Microsoft.

As chairman of the conference, my job was to knit together the individual elements that made up the overall event and hopefully stimulate dialogue between everyone.

Get conversations going, in other words.

That definitely happened during much of the event, markedly so during Kerry Bridge’s session about Dell’s experiences online with corporate blogging in particular.

Prior to the event I’d set up a hashtag which anyone using Twitter could use in order for anyone else to more easily track relevant commentary. The hashtag is #socialbarcelona.

As it turned out, hardly anyone except me took part in my experiment by using it. I twittered during each presentation session; you can see the flow of comments in #socialbarcelona which might give you a sense of some of the atmosphere.

Still, if nothing else, talk about Twitter has prompted some conference attendees to join up and see what the fuss is all about. (Why not visit them and say hello?)

At least one participant did blog about the two days, with some pretty good commentary, here as well in Romanian (I guess it’s good!).

I think the event was worthwhile and, from first reactions I’ve heard from participant feedback, others think so too.

For me, the primary three takeaways are these:

1. As with every conference of its type that I’ve been part of during the past two years, the hunger for understanding why social media is worth paying attention to is as strong as ever. We still have a long way to go in reaching that broad understanding.
2. Reading about what’s going on in business with social media is fine, but nothing beats physically gathering with others to talk face-to-face that helps you put relevance to what you see and hear.
3. Hearing first hand what others have experienced which includes their successes and their failures is the most credible and trusted means of learning.

© 2008 - visit the author for more great content.

Of course,there is sometimes tremendous importance in improv (and life) in saying no and blocking. The discussions provoked about the merits of finding the right balance can be endless.

Here's the point Rob makes that really resonates for me.

.. blocks are assymetric. The emotional force of a block is directed at the person receiving, which means that when you are blocked, you feel it sorely, whereas when you block someone else, you might not even notice. Thus we tend to remember the blocks we receive, not the ones we give, which creates a blind spot.

Rob's point about blind spots is really interesting - it accounts for an awful lot of pain in disputes where each party is the martyr to the other's unconscionable behaviour. Because the real-life Statlers and Waldorfs may not even realise they're blocking, or the emotional consequences of it.

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When I met Rob a few years ago, he said something that lodged deeply in my mind. He repeats in in his book (my emphasis):

People laugh at improvisation not because it is funny, per se, but because it is joyful. If you go to an improv show and watch the audience rather than the players, what you will see is that they aren't laughing at jokes.

You - should - always - surf - near - the... There is a long pause until finally, the last player says ocean. You wouldn't expect this to be funny and yet the audience goes berserk... People often laugh loudest at something that seems obvious, even banal, which might seem strange until you realise that it is the way the improvisers work together that people really respond to.

Even though Rob told me this a long time ago, I still feel excited by this observation. Organisations are absolutely rife with demands for deliverables, for measurable and concrete results but take this too far and you easily miss the gigantic fuel that really keeps the whole operation alive - the interplay between participants.

I love using Improv games in my work, and it's often astounding how energising they can be, catalysing at least some of what may be otherwise unused potential for engagement. There's a very deep lesson in Rob's astute observation.

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It seems like kismet to me, for you see, it was almost 4-years to the day that Dana, Bill and I we were in Seattle for the very first national program on how marketers could use blogs - which was also sponsored by AMA. At that session we were joined by Robert Scoble, Ben McConnell and Dave Williams. Almost all of the speakers had met through some aspect of social media/blogs and most had never met in-person. It was a program build on digital relationships about digital relationships.

We learned a lot from those early days when social media, Facebook, Twitter and social networks were not even part of the vernacular. We were taught our first lessons in blogger relations by TDavid. What begin as a rather sticky situation ended up in a better program and a new friend. I'm thrilled that TDavid will be joining us on Friday. Lessons Learned from TDavid

One blogger can be the snowflake that can start an avalanche. There is risk and reward in a blogged economy. - TDavid

>Bloggers are people who want to connect. They want to know that they are being heard. Bloggers care.

>With the easy use of blogs, micro blogs, podcasts, vlogs and other social media tools marketers can not control how customers will reposition a carefully crafted message.

>You can not control customers’ conversations. The secret is you never could. However, you can manage those conversations by listening, participating, and caring.

Which has me thinking more about the challenges of building trusted digital     relationships using social media. It seems there are two aspects: the digital/web-based and the personal.

Although developed for traditional websites Stanford's Guidelines for Web Credibility provides some guidance on the first.

1. Make it easy to verify the accuracy of the information on your site.

You can build web site credibility by providing third-party support (citations, references, source material) for information you present, especially if you link to this evidence. Even if people don't follow these links, you've shown confidence in your material.

2. Show that there's a real organization behind your site.

Showing that your web site is for a legitimate organization will boost the site's credibility. The easiest way to do this is by listing a physical address. Other features can also help, such as posting a photo of your offices or listing a membership with the chamber of commerce.

3. Highlight the expertise in your organization and in the content and services you provide.

Do you have experts on your team? Are your contributors or service providers authorities? Be sure to give their credentials. Are you affiliated with a respected organization? Make that clear. Conversely, don't link to outside sites that are not credible. Your site becomes less credible by association.

4. Show that honest and trustworthy people stand behind your site.

The first part of this guideline is to show there are real people behind the site and in the organization. Next, find a way to convey their trustworthiness through images or text. For example, some sites post employee bios that tell about family or hobbies.

5. Make it easy to contact you.

A simple way to boost your site's credibility is by making your contact information clear: phone number, physical address, and email address.

6. Design your site so it looks professional (or is appropriate for your purpose).

We find that people quickly evaluate a site by visual design alone. When designing your site, pay attention to layout, typography, images, consistency issues, and more. Of course, not all sites gain credibility by looking like IBM.com. The visual design should match the site's purpose.

7. Make your site easy to use -- and useful.

We're squeezing two guidelines into one here. Our research shows that sites win credibility points by being both easy to use and useful. Some site operators forget about users when they cater to their own company's ego or try to show the dazzling things they can do with web technology.

8. Update your site's content often (at least show it's been reviewed recently).

People assign more credibility to sites that show they have been recently updated or reviewed.

9. Use restraint with any promotional content (e.g., ads, offers).

If possible, avoid having ads on your site. If you must have ads, clearly distinguish the sponsored content from your own. Avoid pop-up ads, unless you don't mind annoying users and losing credibility. As for writing style, try to be clear, direct, and sincere.

10. Avoid errors of all types, no matter how small they seem.

Typographical errors and broken links hurt a site's credibility more than most people imagine. It's also important to keep your site up and running.

Person-to-person. - Need your help .. let's build this one together. Please share your One Secret on how you build trusted digital relationships using social media. I've set a brief survey in Survey Monkey to collect responses. I'll let it run for about a week .. analyze the responses and post to Diva Marketing. Click Here to take survey

Regular readers of this blog know that I love gadgets especially mobile devices.

Over the past few years, I’ve had great enjoyment from a wide range of devices – ones I’ve either purchased myself or which have been given or loaned to me by companies via their PR agencies – which I’ve written posts or produced video reviews about, recently over on Next, my tech blog.

The latest device I have for such a purpose is an iPhone 3G which arrived by courier late on Friday evening, thus giving me much of the weekend to get to know it a bit.

I do plan to write some commentary during the coming weeks, and maybe do a video or two. Meanwhile, here are a few initial immediate impressions as my Twitter comments this weekend remind me:

• Undoubtedly the iPhone is a beautiful-looking and -feeling device. Apple set the form and function bar very high indeed for competitors to follow (although I think the Googlephone comes pretty close).
• The icons and touch screen combination are so intuitive, I am certain even a very young child could figure out what to do with the device within a very short time, without opening the manual.
• Choosing and installing an application from Apple’s App Store is so simple and easy to do I just can’t figure out why only Apple seem to understand that what’s important to  users about their devices is simplicity and ease of use.
• The particular model I have is the 16Gb capacity one. How would I ever fill that up with content? (Do I hear “640k of memory is enough for anyone.”)
• The results from using the camera are not bad for a 2.0 megapixel device, although no match at all for cameras like the 5.0 megapixel one sported in the Nokia N95 8GB (which, ironically, is the camera I used for the pic you see above). Even 5 megapixels are looking distinctly entry-level now, though, compared to Samsung’s 10.0 megapixel SCH-B600 cameraphone. And wait for 12+ megapixels coming soon from Sony Ericsson.
• It’s not all peaches and cream about the iPhone, though. For instance, figuring out how to do things like transferring photos to a PC or uninstalling an app should be a whole lot easier than it is, as should be some of the choices for synchronizing content PC<->iPhone.
• The biggest negative for me so far is the iPhone’s inability to shoot video, with no native app for that, and no versions of Qik or seesmic (that I use on my N95) for iPhone.

In any event, I have an open mind about the iPhone and intend to keep that open focus as I use it over the coming weeks.

How I got this device might be of interest as much as any review of it, as it didn’t come from Apple, their PR agency or any organization, but from an individual.

That individual is Adrian Melrose, an entrepreneur and investor, someone I’ve known in the blogosphere for quite a few years, and who is probably best know in the online PR community as the man behind The Truth About the Land Rover Discovery 3, a blog with which an individual – call him a passionate citizen journalist – could use as his public platform to take on an automaker over product quality and customer service issues.

The bottom line: Adrian became an ex-customer – and Land Rover lost a passionate brand advocate – and went and bought an Audi Q7 SUV. You can read Adrian’s concise summary as well as the posts I wrote as events unfolded during 2005 and 2006.

So why did Adrian decide to provide me with an iPhone on loan (a pay-as-you go deal with O2 with me doing the paying and going for usage after Adrian’s initial set up) to use and think about? As he said in one of our email exchanges:

[…] after reading you for so long, I cannot believe that you are still on a PC and loyal to Vista! So, as I said to you on the phone, I want to slowly "Applefy" you! Secondary to that, I’d genuinely like to know how the iPhone compares to the G1.

I love a challenge and this is a good one!

© 2008 - visit the author for more great content.

I’ve known Guillaume since 2004, one of my earliest connections from mutual interests founded largely on blogging.

We worked together during most of 2005, along with Elizabeth Albrycht, in Blogging Planet.

So seeing Guillaume again in Barcelona was terrific. And catching up with him about his role with Ferrero as their New Media Manager was just great.

Interesting to see some of the fruits of Guillaume’s labours with social media at Ferrero. For instance, the launch of a new website for Ferrero France.

A major improvement in appearance, visual brand identity for the company and its different products, as well as a much better interactive experience for visitors, all wrapped up in a modern and highly attractive presentation.

Just compare the new look to the old one to see the difference.

The new website is just one of the things Guillaume has been doing regarding social media and communication since he joined Ferrero a year ago. Lots going on behind the scenes, for instance, with internal use of tools like blogs.

We’d hoped to record a conversation in Barcelona but time was our enemy. So I’m hoping that we’ll be able to talk on the phone soon and record our conversation for an FIR Interview podcast.

Stay tuned.

© 2008 - visit the author for more great content.

I’m not referring specifically to the awful events in Mumbai, India, where Twitter played a significant role in rapidly connecting online people with information (even if it was hard to really judge the ultimate value of some of that information as CNN’s “Tweeting the terror: How social media reacted to Mumbai” highlights), which I’m sure drove thousands of people to start twittering from their computers and mobile devices wherever they happened to be.

That is one focus in my mind, though: the recent growth in Twitter usage as more people have come to discover it and try it out, prompted surely by current events on a large and tragic scale like Mumbai.

Or maybe it’s on a more prosaic level: people they know or want to connect with in their own profession or just socially.

In July, I speculated that Twitter’s tipping point is coming, my view stimulated largely by the service outages Twitter was going through at the time and the fact that users were nevertheless not forsaking Twitter for alternatives.

I don’t have access to Twitter’s overall usage data that might show a tipping point for when any wide-scale take up by people happened. I can look at my own Twitter usage since I signed up on December 6, 2006, though, nicely captured in this TweetStats timeline.

Looks like my personal tipping point with Twitter happened in March 2007. Hmm, that’s when I said that Twitter could become compulsive.

[…] I think it’s got legs. It’s just beginning to gain traction. Tweets show up in Google searches. Technorati will rank your Twitter profile, just as it does with blogs. Indeed, that makes your Twitter a blog (or a micro-blog, as some are calling it).

There are now hundreds of journalists and PRs using Twitter as Stephen Davies’ lists illustrate. Plus individuals in hundreds of companies and other organizations including government agencies as well as politicians, famously the communicators at 10 Downing Street (“The official Twitter channel for the Prime Minister’s Office”) and Barack Obama’s presidential campaign team (no, not the man himself, a question I asked of Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd).

Taking a look at the professional usage level, there are lots of IABC members who have joined Twitter during November, now more than 140 in total worldwide when I looked at the IABC on Twitter blog just now (sorry, visible to IABC members only), plus the official IABC Twitter presence and a handful of IABC Chapters with generic accounts.

I’ve had a flurry of new followers during November, including fellow IABC members, more in any one month than I have had before.

For a good sense of what to think about Twitter, take a look at  Geoff Livingston’s ‘10,000 Tweets: Heaven and Hell’ post.

I just tweeted for the 10,000th time. So what the heck does that mean? I am a Twittering fool? 20 months, 10,000 tweets, 3,000 followers. What learning have I gleaned from all this?

Geoff’s 14 observations – and those of the Twitter friends he asked – are ones with which others will undoubtedly nod in some agreement. I did with most especially his points about how many tweets you post (see my timeline above) and the number of people you follow and who follow you.

And just for comparison with Geoff, here’s my own Twitter profile: 24 months, 11,073 tweets – averaging 18 per day according to the timeline – 2,055 followers (and I follow 730).

Then there’s an equally good post from Tim O’Reilly who writes about why he loves Twitter.

[…] Like a lot of people, I tried out Twitter early on, but didn’t stick to it. Most of the early twitter conversation was personal, and I didn’t have time for it. I came back when I noticed that about 5000 people were following my non-existent updates, waiting for me to say something. With that many listeners, I thought I’d better oblige. (There are now close to 16,000.) I soon realized that Twitter has grown up to become a critical business tool, ideal for following the latest news, tracking the ideas and whereabouts of people who will shape the future of technology, and sharing my own thoughts and attention stream.

O’Reilly lists six specific points he believes are compelling about Twitter, all of which I agree do precisely that – make Twitter compelling.

So has a tipping point arrived for Twitter?

Note I’m asking about a tipping point not the tipping point: unlike my thinking last July, I no longer believe there is a single tipping point for Twitter.

So has it? I believe the signs are there for many people.

© 2008 - visit the author for more great content.

Two books were recently published about how people achieve world-class success: Geoff Colvin’s TALENT IS OVERRATED and Malcolm Gladwell’s OUTLIERS.

Both books are remarkably similar. They each dispel the notion that talent and intelligence are predictors of success. Both rely heavily on Anders Ericsson’s research into “Deliberate Practice.” And both highlight the success pathways achieved by Mozart and Bill Gates.

Colvin’s approach is geared towards business-interest and focuses mainly on one determinant of success. While Gladwell’s approach is much more general-interest and is inclusive of a variety of success determinants. Both are worthwhile reads.

To help give you a basic understanding of both books, we’re going to give each one the "WHAT? | SO WHAT? | WHAT NOW?" treatment.

WHAT?:
“Talent is overrated. The gifts possessed by the best performers are not at all what we think they are. You are not a natural-born clarinet virtuoso or car salesman or bond trader or brain surgeon—because no one is.” (pgs. 6, 7)

Great performance isn’t a result of inborn abilities, intelligence or experience.

“The fact that seems to explain the most about great performance is something the researchers call deliberate practice.” (pg. 7)

“Such findings do not prove that talent doesn't exist. But they do suggest an intriguing possibility: that if it does, it may be irrelevant.” (source)

“Deliberate practice is hard. It hurts. But it works. More of it equals better performance. Tons of it equals great performance.” (pg. 7)

WHAT?:
It’s not extraordinary talent that makes you successful. It’s the extraordinary opportunities that you take advantage of which make you successful.

“Success arises out of the steady accumulation of advantages: when and where you were born, what your parents did for a living, and what the circumstances of your upbringing will all make a significant difference in how well you do in the world.” (pgs. 175, 176)

“People don’t rise from nothing. We do owe something to parentage and patronage. The people who stand before kings may look like they did it all by themselves. But in fact, they are invariably the beneficiaries of hidden advantages and extraordinary opportunities and cultural legacies that allow them to learn and work hard and make sense of the world in ways others cannot.” (pg. 19)

“Ten thousand hours is the magic number of greatness.” (pg. 41)

“The 10,000-hours rule says that if you look at any kind of cognitively complex field, from playing chess to being a neurosurgeon, we see this incredibly consistent pattern that you cannot be good at that unless you practice for 10,000 hours, which is roughly ten years, if you think about four hours a day.” (source)

“The other interesting thing about that ten thousand hours, of course, is that ten thousand hours is an enormous amount of time. It’s all but impossible to reach that number all by yourself by the time you are a young adult.” (pg. 42)

You will need extraordinary opportunities in order to reach that amount of practice time. Such extraordinary opportunities will include having encouraging and supportive parents, having the financial wherewithal to allow yourself the time to practice, and having the fortunate experience of being enrolled in a special program where you can focus on practicing.

Here’s an extraordinary tale from Robin Wauters of a prominent politician’s cavalier attitude to public funds and contempt for people’s opinions.

As described by Robin, the story is about Belgian Minister of Defence Pieter De Crem, pictured above, whose recent junket to New York for a meeting at the UN that never actually happened involved a visit to a Belgian bar, barmaid Nathalie with a critical blog post, subsequent alleged pressure to fire the barmaid, commentary from Belgian bloggers and media alike, questions asked in the Belgian Parliament, culminating in this statement from Minister De Crem:

I want to take this opportunity and use this non-event to signal a dangerous phenomenon in our society. We live in a time where everybody is free to publish whatever he or she wants on blogs at will without taking any responsibility. This exceeds mud-slinging. Together with you, other Parliament members and the government I find that it’s nearly impossible to defend yourself against this. Everyone of you is a potential victim. I would like to ask you to take a moment and think about this.

Oh, the arrogance! Or maybe it’s the ignorance.

Or maybe he’s right, as one Belgian blogger illustrates with tongue heavily in cheek:

Anyway, Robin Wauters’ conclusion is as good a riposte to Mr De Crem as any:

People, and especially politicians representing them, need to wake up and smell the coffee. The world is changing, and blogging is now a big part of it, with all of its good sides as well as its bad ones. Live and learn. The sooner you get the hang of social media, the more you’ll see the opportunities in there rather than the threats.

All I’d add for Mr De Crem is that old English saying: people who live in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones.

(Photo credit: Bart Claeys via TechCrunch)

© 2008 - visit the author for more great content.

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For Immediate Release: The Hobson & Holtz Report, for November 24, 2008: A 62-minute podcast recorded live from Wokingham, Berkshire, England, and Concord, California, USA.

Links for the blogs, individuals, companies and organizations we discussed or mentioned in the show are posted to the FIR Show Links pages at The New PR Wiki. You can contribute - see the show notes home page for info.

• FIR #400 show notes at The New PR Wiki

Share your comments or questions about this show, or suggestions for future shows, in the FIR FriendFeed Room. You can also email us at fircomments@gmail.com; call the Comment Line at +1 206 222 2803 (North America), +44 20 8133 9844 (Europe), or Skype: fircomments; comment at Twitter: twitter.com/FIR, or at Jaiku: fir.jaiku.com. You can email your comments, questions and suggestions as MP3 file attachments, if you wish (max. 3 minutes / 5Mb attachment, please!). We’ll be happy to see how we can include your audio contribution in a show.

Join the FIR Discussion Forum and extend your conversations with the FIR community. You can also join the FIR Facebook Community and become an FIR friend.

So, until Monday December 1…

(Cross-posted from For Immediate Release, Shel’s and my podcast blog.)

© 2008 - visit the author for more great content.

Listen to FIR now:

Get FIR:

• Download the MP3 file (37.7Mb, 78:33)
• Subscribe to the RSS feed
• Get the show at iTunes

Messages from our sponsors: FIR is brought to you with Lawrence Ragan Communications, serving communicators worldwide for 35 years, www.ragan.com; Save time with the CustomScoop online clipping service: sign up for your free two-week trial, at www.customscoop.com/fir.

For Immediate Release: The Hobson & Holtz Report, for November 24, 2008: A 79-minute podcast recorded live from Las Vegas, Nevada, USA, and as live as it can be from Barcelona, Spain.

Links for the blogs, individuals, companies and organizations we discussed or mentioned in the show are posted to the FIR Show Links pages at The New PR Wiki. You can contribute - see the show notes home page for info.

• FIR #401 show notes at The New PR Wiki

Share your comments or questions about this show, or suggestions for future shows, in the FIR FriendFeed Room. You can also email us at fircomments@gmail.com; call the Comment Line at +1 206 222 2803 (North America), +44 20 8133 9844 (Europe), or Skype: fircomments; comment at Twitter: twitter.com/FIR, or at Jaiku: fir.jaiku.com. You can email your comments, questions and suggestions as MP3 file attachments, if you wish (max. 3 minutes / 5Mb attachment, please!). We’ll be happy to see how we can include your audio contribution in a show.

Join the FIR Discussion Forum and extend your conversations with the FIR community. You can also join the FIR Facebook Community and become an FIR friend.

So, until Monday, December 1…

A utopian vision has emerged in which every expression of human endeavor once conveyed via physical media is transformed into digital media. Micro Persuasion blogger Steve Rubel, a vice president at Edelman, has bet that “by January 2014...in the US almost all forms of tangible media will either be in sharp decline or completely extinct.” Steve lists print—books, magazines and newspapers—but also DVDs, boxed software, and video games.

The examples Steve lists to support his argument are mostly good ones. But they are not signs of a tangible media apocalypse. Rather, they are examples of what happens when new technologies produce more advantages than the existing technologies. In almost every instance, the old media adapt, abdicating much of what they used to do to the new kid on the block, but carving out a niche based on their remaining strengths.

I’m dismissing the DVD/CD/software category from the mix, as these are solely about distribution methods. When you buy software in the box, it’s so you can install it on your computer. The fact that you downloaded it instead of buying the box doesn’t mean you wind up with a different approach to the application on your hard drive, it’s exactly the same. That’s not the same as an ebook, which on a Kindle doesn’t look or function anything like a paper book with its 80-pound book stock.

Books

Let’s start with books. Steve notes that Oprah Winfrey’s endorsement of the Amazon Kindle as the next big thing sparked a surge in demand for the electronic book hardware. (Of course, if Oprah waxed enthusiastic about a new brand of paper towels, they’d fly off the shelves.) I have a Kindle, and I do like it a lot, some usability issues aside. But I use it primarily when I’m traveling so I don’t need to figure out how to carry a 900-page book without exceeding the airlines’ carry-on limit. At home, I still prefer to hold a real book in my hand. It’s easier on the eyes, it never loses its charge, and I never accidentally turn a page.

But there’s more to printed books. I can make notes in the margin. I can put it on a shelf and refer to it (and my margin notes) later. If the book has graphics, they are sharp and clear. Artwork—such as Gilbert Stuart’s oil painting of John Adams appearing in a biography of America’s second president—are reproduced with brilliant four-color process printing that simply cannot be duplicated with the limited palette of colors built into web browser technology.

In fact, coffee table books featuring photography and artwork still display the images with far better fidelity than you can get on the Web.

So at least these forms of books will survive because they are better at what they do than their digital counterparts. But print is also finding new life as a channel for creative expression through print-on-demand (POD) services like Blurb and Lulu. Blurb continues to grow despite current economic conditions that are hastening the demise of some other print-based enterprises. According to a friend who works there, POD’s popularity is largely attributable to the ease with which people can channel their creativity into print without incurring the costs that once kept it off limits.

“Look through the Blurb bookstore for 10 minutes,” he told me. “You’ll see what I mean.” In addition to the expected collections of photos from weddings and Bar Mitzvahs and the like, there’s a book of photos of people in their underwear in their bedrooms titled “The Underwear Experiment,” Piers Fawke‘s book of nine good ideas and various implementations of them, and a book of paintings by an artist who says, “My books are currently a way of publishing to my friends the stuff they have never seen and paintings they can’t afford.”

While some print companies suffer, my friend told me tens of thousands of books were published by Blurb last week alone, and the number continues to grow. This is a classic case of an old medium adapting by transforming into something people want that cannot be duplicated using the newer technology.

Magazines

In his post, Steve doesn’t offer any particular evidence to support the demise of magazines. I suspect he figures they’re just caught up in the general collapse of tangible media; he also notes that he hasn’t bought one in a couple years. (I share Steve’s passion for digital content, but still like to pick up a magazine at airport newsstand to read on the flight—I’m allowed to have it open during takeoff and landing, which isn’t true of my digital devices.) Magazine publishing has always been a dicey business, but the circulations of popular magazines continue to grow. Despite the move to all things digital, titles like Vanity Fair, Esquire, In Style, and Ladies’ Home Journal continue to gain subscriptions. The secret here is knowing your audience, producing compelling content, and creating a total package between the front and back covers that offers a self-contained experience you just can’t get on the Web.

Other tangible media

Steve doesn’t list a lot of other tangible media on his post, but he is explicit in his view that all tangible media will be gone or on their way out by 2014. I wonder if this would include…

• Artwork for your walls—Digital picture frames are nice, but I’d rather have a Peter Max on my wall than a digital image of one
• Billboards—Some are going digital, but these are wildly expensive and outdoor advertising is still mainly a print business
• Direct mail—Maybe we wish it would go away, but I don’t see any signs that it is. In fact, people I know in the DM industry suggest it thrives because it works. And, to be honest, I would never remember to order my company holiday cards if the packages from four or five different suppliers didn’t show up in my mail every August or so.
• Table tent cards and other collateral—Based on what I’m looking at in my hotel room, and what I see in other hotel rooms, restaurants, and other venues—this is another form of tangible media that doesn’t seem to be suffering.
• Brochures—Here in Las Vegas, where I’m visiting for the Thanksgiving holiday, they’re stuffed into pockets of cabs and available in hotels by the thousands. After riding one of the thrill rides atop the Stratosphere Hotel, I grabbed a brochure that detailed the tower’s height and other characteristics. Do you see these going away any time soon?

This is a short list; I’m sure you could add to it.

But the point should be clear. The notion that tangible media will be gone by 2014—or even 2054—is ridiculous.

(I don’t mean to take aim at Steve Rubel, by the way—he’s hardly alone in this digital fanboy perspective that can’t imagine how anything that isn’t digital could possibly have a place in the world. Besides, if Steve were the only one promoting this nonsense, I wouldn’t include it on my DeathWatch list, which is made up of items popularly believed to be on their way out. Steve’s post is just the most recent item I could find that articulates this point of view.)

As I noted early in this post, old media adapt, embracing the uses at which they are better than the new media and leaving everything else to the newer technologies. 

Had the good fortune to have coffee last week with Shashi Bellamkonda from Network Solutions and Geoff Livingston of Livingston Communications when they were out here in the Bay Area.  As part of the conversation, we came up with the idea of seeing if we could pull together a useful tool for customers who were trying to get their holiday deal planning together.  After bouncing around a couple of ideas, we ended up putting together a plan to create an iPhone app and web widget using Cerado Ventana.  Success!  It shows both the deals, as well as the Twitter buzz about Black Friday (click on the "buzz" link to see it).

Dave Jeyes had some nice things to say about the iPhone version here.  (And here's a link to the iPhone version directly, at http://bffeed.com.)

Here's the widget itself, if you want to use it online as well.

One thing that is super cool is that it's only two clicks to add this to an iGoogle start page.  Just click on the "Get Widget" link above, then click on the big "G" - super easy.

It may seem strange to some, but for me, on the day before Thanksgiving it seems right to join with the voices of many people in social media who are dedicating posts to this cause. Taking these words from Alexandra Drane's speech (video below) I invite you to .. Make a toast to those that you love and those that you miss and have this conversation with your family.

We make choices throughout our lives - where we want to live, what types of activities will fill our days, with whom we spend our time. These choices are often a balance between our desires and our means, but at the end of the day, they are decisions made with intent. But when it comes to how we want to be treated at the end our lives, often we don't express our intent or tell our loved ones about it.

This has real consequences. 73% of Americans would prefer to die at home, but up to 50% die in hospital. More than 80% of Californians say their loved ones "know exactly" or have a "good idea" of what their wishes would be if they were in a persistent coma, but only 50% say they've talked to them about their preferences.But our end of life experiences are about a lot more than statistics. They're about all of us.

So the first thing we need to do is start talking. Engage With Grace: The One Slide Project was designed with one simple goal: to help get the conversation about end of life experience started. The idea is simple: Create a tool to help get people talking. One Slide, with just five questions on it. Five questions designed to help get us talking with each other, with our loved ones, about our preferences.

And we're asking people to share this One Slide - wherever and whenever they can.at a presentation, at dinner, at their book club. Just One Slide, just five questions. Lets start a global discussion that, until now, most of us haven't had.Here is what we are asking you: Download The One Slide and share it at any opportunity - with colleagues, family, friends. Think of the slide as currency and donate just two minutes whenever you can. Commit to being able to answer these five questions about end of life experience for yourself, and for your loved ones. Then commit to helping others do the same. Get this conversation started.

Let's start a viral movement driven by the change we as individuals can effect...and the incredibly positive impact we could have collectively. Help ensure that all of us - and the people we care for - can end our lives in the same purposeful way we live them. Just One Slide, just one goal. Think of the enormous difference we can make together. - Written by Alexandra Drane and the Engage With Grace team

The story of Za, that began this innovative journey is told by her sister in-law Alexandra Drane.

Engage with Grace from Health 2.0 on Vimeo.

Toby -
Proud sister of Susan Ellen, proud daughter of Anne and Lou.
Believer in the Power of Conversation

Read more on Engage With Grace

A pre crack-of-dawn flight from Gatwick tomorrow will take me to Barcelona, Spain, and the New Media in Marketing & Communications Strategy conference that starts tomorrow Wednesday November 26 and runs through the end of Thursday November 27.

The event is organized by Icon Events International, an event organizer based in Barcelona. This is my first relationship with them and I’m looking forward to meeting Niall and David for the first time.

I’ll be there as conference chair which gives me a unique opportunity to learn a great deal from each of the session leaders and the results of their interaction to engage with the people participating who come to Barcelona from across Europe.

‘Engage’ is the operative word, given that this event broadly addresses the role of social media in the marketing mix. I’m really looking forward to hearing the thoughts and about the experiences in engaging with customers and other stakeholders from communicators in the companies whose logos you see pictured here.

Some will be as familiar to you you as they are to me as early adopters in embracing social media in their communication activities. Who hasn’t heard what Dell has been doing, for instance (and see how Dell views social media as a strategic marketing tool). IBM, too. Or General Motors, not only in the US but also in Europe.

So during the next two days, we’ll be hearing from such early adopters as well as the other participating companies and what they have to say about social media. I’ll also be doing my best to discover who among the people participating are doing what with social media.

I doubt I’ll have time to blog anything – I need to pay attention to what’s going on – although I hope to tweet now and again at least (and will encourage everyone there to do the same). With that in mind, here’s a hashtag to follow: #socialbarcelona.

As conference chair, I have the closing presentation slot on Thursday afternoon to wrap up the proceedings and present for 30 minutes or so on what the future might look like. Gazing into a crystal ball, always a risky yet pleasurable venture!

But that’s two days away still. Meanwhile, there’s an event to chair, people to meet and lots to learn.

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Looking through the website, though, it seems to me that the service is more likely to appeal to people who care little for copyright and recognition of the intellectual property rights of others, given that a major aspect of its ease of use is that it will suck in content from almost any RSS feed for republishing.

So no need for original content, for your own creativity and opinion, just set this thing up and wait for it to churn out other people’s stuff as you surround “your” content with ads.

It couldn’t be plainer: spam blogging by any other name is what it looks like to me.

Is that how it looks to you? Love to know what you think, especially if you’re using this service.

(Via Mashable.)

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Chuck Hester, communications director for email company iContact, is a LinkedIn power user and author of an upcoming book on the social network. In this FIR Interview, Chuck explores the various ways LinkedIn can serve a communicator in his or her work.

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About our Conversation Partner

Chuck Hester is Communications Director at iContact, the industry-leading web-based emarketing communications software. Chuck has over 25 years experience in public relations, marketing and branding. Some of the clients Chuck has worked with include TEAC, Western Digital and the US Department of Defense Technology Transfer Program.

A LinkedIn power connector, Chuck has more than 7700 direct connections. He is a sought-after expert on the subject of using LinkedIn for personal and professional branding, and how to use social media to build business contacts. He is the author of the forthcoming book, Linking In to Pay it Forward: Changing the Value Proposition of Social Media.

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(Cross-posted from For Immediate Release, Shel’s and my podcast blog.)

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