One of the benefits of being Facebook and MySpace literate is I don’t cringe when my 13-year-old son opens a MySpace account, and launches his page. Instead, I realize it’s as natural a communication vehicle for youth today as is the telephone. And I teach, and set rules.

I explained safety, and made sure he understands that nothing goes on there that he wouldn’t want his principal, priest, or parents to see. I tell him about people who didn’t get a job because a would-be employer looked at their MySpace page. I tell him nothing negative about anybody or group ever goes on his page. And I tell him I have to have his user name and password, that I will be visiting his page, including private sections, frequently.

The other night, we sat and went through his entire page. To his credit, he didn’t see this as invasive or overly restrictive (like I care, if he did!). He really saw it as a chance to learn — maybe it’s because his Dad is a blogger, with his own Facebook and MySpace pages.

Oh, and how cool is this? In his profile, under heroes, he listed, “Dad.” Of course, he explained, “well I had to enter something!”

Last week, I was consulting for a day at a major social services provider in the northeast. We were exploring ways they can get information — news, events, fundraising — to target audiences in addition to or, at times, instead of relying on traditional media. We developed a strategy for utilizing parents who are involved with the organization as ambassadors, as living, breathing news services.

“And many of these parents will have Facebook or MySpace pages,” I noted matter of fact. “Those that do, ask them to post information, put it in their feeds.”

What I thought was a simple, end-of-the-conversation, tail-end addition to our strategic discussion launched quite a debate. The organization’s lead communications staffer was steadfastly against it. She didn’t want her organization in any way connected to the uncontrolled information and materials that one of these parents might have on their Facebook or MySpace page. Because she couldn’t control what somebody said or posted on his or her page, she didn’t want any news or information about the organization appearing on anybody’s Facebook or MySpace page.

I told her she was being short-sighted. (more…)

There is, admittedly, a streak of arrogance that runs through Blogenberg at times: my public relations firm knows where PR is going and we’re betting that the market catches up with us. (Read on and hopefully you’ll see we’re really not arrogant – just trying to allow clients to go where today’s communications market can take them.)

A number of businesses and organizations we work with are getting it, making me feel more and more comfortable with the business bet I’ve made. But nobody yet has gotten it like The Hitachi Foundation. We have put together and implemented entire rollouts that rely completely on blogger media relations, e-mail marketing and word of mouth, website placements, and partnerships with allied organizations.

As part of our work for The Hitachi Foundation, we are in the midst of rolling out the State of Corporate Citizenship Survey 2007, the most comprehensive survey of business attitudes and practices when it comes to corporate social responsibility. The linchpin of the rollout is a blog, www.corporatecitizen07.com. Every piece of a comprehensive communications strategy – including traditional media outreach – revolves around this blog. (Check out the contributors list. The heft of this list speaks both to the leadership of The Hitachi Foundation and its partners on the blog, the Boston College Center for Corporate Citizenship and Net Impact, and the import of the issues at stake.)

So I’ve been asking myself, how do I find more Hitachi Foundations? (more…)

In earlier Blogenbergs I’ve posted about how I’m betting that we know where PR is going – narrower and narrower, more and more segmented, embracing social networking and citizen journalism. Am I an “out in front” progressive business owner, or Don Quixote? The income statements will tell us.

We just submitted an extremely creative proposal to reach youth with messaging built entirely on a social networking platform, never touching traditional media. If we win, it will work. The question is, will the screening committee “get it”? I’ll let you know.

And once again, I’ve been asked by a potential client, one who has a track record of building successful organizations, why not hold a press conference? (more…)

The mainstream news media has a serious African American problem. Lots of blacks in this country are furious at CNN, MSNBC, Fox News Channel, Greta Van Susteren, Anderson Cooper, etc.

There’s no polling or focus groups behind my conclusion. Just listening to my wife, her siblings, and her friends, and hearing a healthy dose of The Michael Baisden Show on WHUR playing on my kitchen radio.

They’re furious about the Jena Six – with good reason. And they’re disgusted that, except on September 20 when tens of thousands marched in Jena, Louisiana, the mainstream media spent no time talking about what clearly appears to be vile prosecutorial racism. From the perspective of many, Greta, Anderson, etc. pull out all the stops when it comes to reporting on a young white girl gone missing or – talk about manna from heaven for the media – OJ getting arrested. But when it comes to reporting on nooses hung from a playground tree, racial fights, and African American youth being charged with attempted murder after a schoolyard brawl, the television news coverage might as well fade to black. Well, actually, I guess not

Over the last year I have conducted media training with approximately 75 people. I think it’s fair to say that every one of these individuals benefited. And I think it’s fair to say that the vast majority, if not all, would hire me again. Certainly the parent organization that’s paid the bill has received very positive feedback.

But ultimately what I do is pretty simple, which is probably what makes my brand of media training better, frankly, than most. I have one basic goal for every media training session: give the “subject” one or two suggestions that will make them more comfortable and confident in dealing with the media and communicating, whether that communicating is on television or in a conversation in the grocery store line. That may be giving the person a specific interview skill, giving them permission to be themselves on the air, or offering a “mental paradigm” they can use to approach an interview (for example, viewing the interview as a conversation in which they are delivering their messages). (more…)

Last Friday The Washington Post ran a front-page article slamming the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services for toning down a television campaign promoting breastfeeding following lobbying from the baby formula industry. The ads changed from scare tactic – one ad showed an insulin bottle topped by a nipple (highlighting a correlation between not breastfeeding and future diabetes) – to softer advertising that tried to highlight the positives of breastfeeding. Here’s my reaction, based on nearly a quarter-century doing public relations in Washington, DC: so what?

Let me be perfectly clear: I am an advocate for breastfeeding. My wife breastfed all of our children. It is clearly the healthiest choice, and I’m very thankful my wife did so. But, depending on what year you look at the data, only about 60 to 70 percent of new mothers attempt to breastfeed and, by the time their babies are six months old, the figure drops to 40 percent – at that age, less than 15 percent of mothers are only giving their babies breast milk. That means there are a whole lot of parents relying on baby formula. What ex-government official called what current government official aside, did we really need the federal government scaring the heck out of millions of mothers who do not breastfeed? (more…)

Blogenberg Bit 1: Today, on Fox News Channel, 24-hour cable continued its steady erosion of American society, reaching a state of sensational nirvana. FNC ran a split screen. On one side of the screen, a tragic mining disaster. On the other side, a live car chase.

Blogenberg Bit 2: My wife and I took our family to Italy for Blogen-cation. This I can report: to a 13-year-old girl, Florence is a shopping mall surely created by the hand of God. From Michelangelo’s David, to open air markets selling Italian leather goods, to a Chanel store. So this is what the Renaissance was all about, she must conclude!

Blogenberg Bit 3: A sad scene came across me in the Washington, DC train station today as I walked toward my gate. Two very cute boys, looking about nine, were begging in the station for “my mom who needs two dollars.‿ Their mother stood to the side, looking overwhelmed by about four additional children. At one level they were cute. At another level it was so sad to see boys this age learning to beg. I gave them a dollar. (I didn’t have two.) I figure I don’t know if Jesus put them in front of me. (more…)

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…)

My three teenage kids tell me that only 6.7% of what I say has any value. Thus, I am introducing a new, occasional feature: Blogenberg Bits:

Blogenberg Bit 1: Starburst, Please Stop Selling Candy by Sounding Severely Disabled – In one radio ad, a character complains that he never learned his colors. What do you mean? the other character asks, showing a yellow Starburst. The color challenged one responds by making a noise that sounds like somebody who can’t speak, painfully trying to say the word “yellow.�? Here’s a hint for the Starburst ad agency: with a bit of creativity, you could have done the same concept without being offensive. Creativity – try it, you might like it.

Blogenberg Bit 2: Spotting a Man in 13-year-old – All three of my kids give me lots to brag about (I love to brag but don’t because it’s boring, even boorish – except to my staff because I pay them and they have to listen [it’s in their contracts].) I took my 13-year-old son to visit my dad in the hospital – he had unexpected surgery, but results were perfect. (more…)