Category: Personal Reflections

Speed is a core part of the blogosphere. Current event discussions happen fast, pretty much instantly. To be relevant in that dialog, one must write fast, post quickly. That’s dangerous, I fear. It’s how innuendo and rumor become accepted facts. We writers become so focused on relevance that we lose sight of accuracy.

Consider disaster coverage. Networks feel obligated to divert all coverage, even when there’s nothing to say. So desperate for something, and wanting to get the “scoop”, pure junk often gets dumped into the discussion. I’ve found that it often takes days to weed through the initial coverage to find accuracy.

Ironically, that said, I still feel a compulsion to watch that event unfold. I’ll remain glued, catching every detail, all the while knowing that a high percentage is pure bunk. I drive me crazy, I guess.

Another example, methinks, of change begins with me. I understand at a deeper level, so why do I engage the same way. I need to let my knowledge guide me. And don’t continue rewarding that media behavior. Ultimately, news is driven be views. Needing eyeballs upon itself, viewership (whether page hits or Neilson ratings) pays the bills.

Just read this piece over at PCWorld. Geez, it just seems that the parties involved are hell-bent on damaging their own brand. First, Facebook still is denying that they were trying to smear Google. Please! Gotta call BS on that. If this was about “the people”, then do it openly. Facebook seems to think we’re stupid. Own up, grow up and move along.

And Burson-Marsteller…the “pros”. I’m shocked they accepted this project, though give them credit for owning up and giving a mea culpa. But I’m stunned that they went and deleted a negative comment from their Facebook page. At times like this, you must be hyper vigilant and extremely sensitive.

Both Facebook and Burson need to grasp they’ve damaged trust. Angry denouncements only expand that divide. Every decision in the near-term needs to be focused on rebuilding trust. I don’t know if they’ll find themselves with lost profits or such, but the potential exists. Trust is the currency of the modern economy. Especially in social media (Facebook) and PR (Burson).

As I’m updating my resume and looking over past work, I came across some media tracking spreadsheets I’d crafted. The company is international, but the data I had was (mostly) national (US), with little bits of Canada thrown in. Anyway, what I received were spreadsheets from an agency covering all media stories. The main thing I did with this was break it down by focus (positive vs. negative, for the most part).

So, I’ve been considering what I would do differently now. This is just a stream of ideas, so please understand them as such. I would like to build reports with more depth. Look at regional coverage. Map out city by city, etc, across the globe if possible. Layer this on top of a map. Then with that report I’d break out positive, negative & neutral focus. It’s important to note that it’s hard to ascertain focus when one doesn’t see the coverage. Anyway, I also thought it would be good to look at what’s generating the coverage: new products, new markets, “issues” (which should be tracked by individual issues/campaigns. It would be elucidating to track how the issue moves across the landscape.). I also would add social media to this. I want to see/show how awareness is impacted by those tools.

On a technical note, I would not use Excel for data collection. Collect raw data in a database. The challenge is being proactive with the structure. I’d love to build something that was accessible at a more macro level. Perhaps with SQL and displayed in a Sharepoint site. I have an aversion to myriad individual databases globally distributed.

Anyway, I’m learning and growing.

I’ve been enjoying Storycorps for years. The ones aired on NPR always seem to touch me, either warming my heart and bringing tears. And each one seems to be my new favorite.

I’ve just discovered the little animated bits that they’ve been putting together with the articles. This one (below) follows the tradition of becoming my new favorite. The grandmother of this story reminds me so very much of one of my own.

So, enjoy!

I sit here watching one of those “save the world and starving children” pitches. You know the ones; watching some child in the ruins of poverty, tears flowing down their face. As I’ve developed a deep and abiding cynicism of marketing of any stripe, these tend to annoy me (and I’m a liberal). Yet, yet I know the reason these tactics are used; it works. It’s what gets people off the couch and to the phone/web. I suppose I should embrace this, the effectiveness. However, I wish that we could become deeper, that we could be reached by the logic and compassion of the need. That we weren’t so numb. I guess I shall continue with that wish for some time to come.

With nearly 42% of 2011 completed, I can clearly say that is shaping up into a rough year. Well, at least career-wise. Rough spots, though, are when you get the deepest insights and, for me at least, tend to be the most life changing. Part of what’s telling is the lack of angst I feel right now. The past few years have taught me the value of work and career. Most specifically, that’s it’s not the inner core of my being. There are things far more important. What’s really amazing me is how much better I feel about myself right now. My last two roles, though rather successful on the surface, left me feeling quite empty, and struggling with lingering feelings of anxiety and exhaustion. Those feelings are blessedly absent now.

Oddly, life seems to reinforce the notion of Murphy’s Law. Thus, both of our cars have needed work, medical bills came steaming in, and that sort of fun. Not economic implosion, but certainly annoying.

The absence of call-backs right now is a bit disheartening. Doesn’t make you feel valuable and vital. I worry that, with my career focus on administrative assistant roles, that I’ve been competing with far too many people. As a role that needs “little preparation”, pays modestly well, and is (technically) a growing occupation (per the Occupational Outlook of Snohomish County., I expect that many, many applicants are in this pool. Thus, I am starting to expand my focus, mostly into more project management roles. We’ll see what comes.

John Richard played this tune onKEXP earlier this week. I think I might adopt it as my 2010 theme song.

The Mountain Goats “This Year” from A Bruntel on Vimeo.

Maybe I should pursue this career option?

If you’re in the Portland, OR area in May, check this out.

Just watched a spot for a prescription eye-lash grower. Watching it makes me think of the treatments for gas, hair-loss, and all sorts of trivial ailments. Seems rather superfluous and silly. Clearly, even such a noble endeavor as medicine looses its ethical compass in the face of profit.

How do we get treatments developed for serious diseases that don’t have large markets? The invisible hand won’t bring them about. A disease, no matter how dreadful its affects and the suffering it causes, that only has a minute number of “customers” won’t attract the medical industrial complex. Is there any way to build these treatments, products? To alleviate these diseases and mitigate suffering? This ethical concern is one, unspoken, draw for me towards a nationalized (perhaps globalized?) system. I hope that we could find a non-socialized system.

This afternoon I chose to stroll along the waterfront in Edmonds. A lovely, quiet downtown, I enjoy taking an hour or so to walk along the beach, past the marina, enjoying the views. Today, though, was unique. First, I heard the (surprisingly loud) cries of eagles. The nesting pairs of bald eagles are back. They followed my path for quite some time. Of course, my walk took me a block from their aerie. The several other walkers and I conjectured the crows trying to dissuade the eagles from their nest were doomed to fail.

The entirety of my walk was haunted by the eagles, but they weren’t my only wild moment. A small family of sea-lions were passing outside the marina. And, lastly, at the end of the waterside stroll of my sojourn, I watched an otter in the Sound. I adore these wild moments, brought to me right in the heart of town. Solid reminders of why I love it here.