Blogenberg is on Blogen-break through August 1. Please come back after the 1st – or read some old posts while you wait!

Over and over again our plans for media outreach to bloggers – a part of nearly every rollout strategy we put together – is met by confusion or incredulity by other public relations professionals. They seem to think we are suggesting that we do the communications equivalent of tossing their filet mignon program, study, or information to a pack of starving pit bulls.

We explain that our understanding of what is media has to expand because the way members of our target audience define media is expanding. For many of the people we want to reach, their personal view of media very much includes blogs. We explain that we can’t start with how we want to disseminate a message (that is, the same old same old), but instead by asking who we want to get our message and how they will get it. For many, they will get it through blogs. (more…)

Blogenberg Bit 1: My daughter said she wants to be in the military when she grows up. “Why would you want to do that?� I responded in such a way that both she and her twin brother immediately asked why I sounded so negative. Wow. Just the question had terrified me. I could only be honest. “I have great respect for the military. Serving is very honorable. Having one of my kids in the military would scare me.�

Imagine how I would feel if I were a parent of a son or daughter who was serving today – not just asking me about it.

Thank God we have parents brave enough.

Blogenberg Bit 2: My 13-year-old son had a lacrosse tournament this past weekend in Princeton, NJ. I’m driving him and three other 13-year-old boys to watch a high school game Saturday night. One of the boys asks my son if his 13-year-old twin sister is “hot.� My son is smart enough not to answer. I’m driving, wondering what would happen if I let one otherwise very nice, very likeable 13-year-old boy out on the side of Route 1.

Blogenberg Bit 3: Two things I’ll never enjoy in business. One is calling up a client and pushing for payment. I think I want to get big enough that I can have somebody whose job it is to do that. Second is busting our humps on a very strategic proposal and then being met by silence. Yep, can do without both.

Nobody wants this war,
Fewer seem to understand it.
Talking pundits (the non-talking kinds are better) scream
behind me on TV about Scooter not going to jail.
24-hours news predicts “spectacular� terrorism this summer.
“Spectacular� – TV talking heads’ word, not mine.
Wow, “spectacular� I wonder – should they sell tickets?
I’m old enough to remember when this was not a violent society in which we lived.
I’m old enough to remember when as a kid I left first thing in the morning for adventure with directions to just be home for dinner.
How did I survive childhood without Dateline catching predators on TV seemingly every night?
We don’t get along. We can’t get along. We’re terrified of immigrants. We’re nonchalant about young mothers killed as collateral damage in gang violence.
Is this the remix that Sam, John, Thomas, George, and the rest of them thought they were starting in steaming disease ridden Philadelphia?
Maybe.
I’m confused.
But that’s good. ‘Cause I live where nobody can order me how to act, what to think, when to have faith, and when to be enraged.
I live in America.
It’s good to be confused; it shows I’m not too old to pay attention.
Happy 4th.