Below the Fold

We Are the Firemen

In May 1993 – the exact date and time escape me – my inner world, the one where thoughts are born, developed and processed, lost its ability to be silent. I since have lived with constant noise, the result of a tumor that, in an ironic nod to God’s comic grace, left me deaf in one ear yet covered in a perpetual blanket of ringing static.

Sometimes it’s not too bad, other times it’s so loud it sounds like there’s a KISS concert in my cranium. But it is always there, never fully abated, never completely quiet. It will never be quiet, and it has been so long I have forgotten what quiet is, what silence sounds like, what kinds of thoughts stillness brings. How much smarter, how less painful the headaches and seizures, how more aware of my environment would I be if only I could hear more – and then, like most people, dial down the volume and hear nothing but thinking.

Rather than go insane, I did the next best thing – I went into marketing. Turns out my decision was less pathos than it was prescience, as I watch my former trade of journalism in some cases melt away, in others morph into a new kind of socially-driven journalism enabled (if not always ennobled) by modern technology.

THE DESCENT OF PRINT alone is not a problem for a our society. But the descent of thought is. And this death of reasonable thinking and discourse has given rise to a ringing in all our ears, a cacophony of “social media” for its own sake rather than the sake of the consumer.

Don’t get me wrong (though I guarantee someone will) – I love technology and Web 2.0. I believe in the power of conversation and the promise of connecting people to each other with authentic communications. But in this new silicon rush we far too often discount what’s gone before, throwing judgment into the intellectual pyre like so many worn newspapers.

In other words, in our well-meant effort to broaden and share our knowledge, are we also destroying the very knowledge and reasoned discussion we so boldly claim to seek?

Because we can connect with people like ourselves, we do. And then we act as if other opinions don't exist -- or if they do, then don't matter. We do this within our social networks, the pseudo social media intelligentsia do it at conferences and on their blogs, and the news media does it by giving us news tuned to whatever ideological frequency we desire.

We jump to conclusions and applaud hyperbole until the slightest chance of digesting an idea is gone. That idea is destroyed forever, lost in the echo chamber of self-important consultants and rash Twitter feeds.

Never before in human history has so much information been available so readily to so many. Yet although we are creating and writing more, we are saying less.

IN FAHRENHEIT 451, RAY BRADBURY’S seminal novel about censorship and intellectual intolerance, a “fireman” was someone who burned books. Well, we don’t burn books per se, but we burn discourse. We don't destroy newspapers, but our actions are killing them off just the same. We are the firemen.

So this is my warning and my plea: don’t get caught up in the social media panacea. Instead, experiment and decide what works for you and your company. Focus on the customer first and the technology second. It’s okay to take small steps, to do what’s best for your business, to embrace new tools at your own pace even if it goes against the “purists” who argue that there’s only one way move forward.

And above all, take time to think, to plan, to discuss and learn. Embrace the unknown and reject those who insist they know it all. Find some silence and make decisions without being surrounded by so much noise.

I would give anything for just a few seconds of mental peace and quiet. Don’t squander yours.

Ten Tweets I'd Like to See

Hillary08: Stuck in Indiana, please send money

God: Creating the world in seven days was a piece of cake, but writing something meaningful in 140 character fragments is a real pain in the a...

SocialMediaGuy1: if you’re not using Twitter then you are obsolete

ADD: Twitter is the coolest what yeah Pounce is the greatest what totally you going to finish those fries

Dr. Phil: As if I wasn’t overexposed already

SocialMediaGuy2: Twitter is obsolete

Dubya: Which one of the Internets is this?

G24khamr: If someone who publishes a blog is a “blogger,” how come people who use Twitter aren’t called “Twits”?

PhilGomes: I hear that guy from Bladerunner is in another movie this summer called “Indiana Jones”

SocialMediaGuy3: Does anyone remember the URL for my blog?

                           

Hillary08: Stuck in Indiana, please send money

God: Creating the world in seven days was a piece of cake, but writing something meaningful in 140 character fragments is a real pain in the a...

SocialMediaGuy1: if you’re not using Twitter then you are obsolete

ADD: Twitter is the coolest what yeah Pounce is the greatest what totally you going to finish those fries

Dr. Phil: As if I wasn’t overexposed already

SocialMediaGuy2: Twitter is obsolete

Dubya: Which one of the Internets is this?

G24khamr: If someone who publishes a blog is a “blogger,” how come people who use Twitter aren’t called “Twits”?

PhilGomes: I hear that guy from Bladerunner is in another movie this summer called “Indiana Jones”

SocialMediaGuy3: Does anyone remember the URL for my blog?

                           

Journalism's Next 100 Years

I got a call from the University of Missouri Journalism School, my alma mater, reminding me of the 100th anniversary celebration this year. Founded in 1908, Missouri was the world’s first journalism school and is still regarded as one of the best.

Yet while overall it was a great first hundred years for American journalism, it’s the next 100 I worry about. Or in the prescient phrase uttered by ABC News anchorman Charles Gibson at Pennsylvania’s recent Democratic presidential debate, “the crowd is turning” on how professionals report the news.

History is the art of hindsight, so writing about an event before the ink dries and the digital bits settle is at best unfair. Nevertheless, you don’t need Galileo’s vision to see that the Pennsylvania debate marked another in series of dark turning points for the news business.

The financial pain we’ve known for while – as this year’s State of the News Media study revealed, advertising revenue is still going down, as are pre-tax earnings, profit margins and stock values. Even online newspaper advertising, while up 20 percent in 2007, is growing slower than online advertising as a whole, and is 10 percent lower than last year.

Newspaper owners answered with widespread staff layoffs, leading to less local reporting and therefore fewer readers which – you guessed it – resulted in less revenue. It’s also meant narrower reporting, with issues like Iraq and the presidential elections representing the majority of coverage. And it’s meant an unhealthy attraction to transient stories that are the equivalent of chewing gum, the media smacking its lips long after the gum has lost its taste.

All this came to a head in Pennsylvania. What should have been a debate about the future of the country became a Fox-style reality show about flag lapel pins. And the people responded, with boos in the audience and thousands of comments on ABC’s web site. The media itself became the story – a story prompted by ordinary people now with extraordinary access to the once powerful press.

Last year’s YouTube debates will be remembered for authentic questions about real-life issues from a mosaic of American culture. The ABC debate will be remembered as the day modern journalism died in a cacophony of tabloid-style interrogations, punctuated by the nervous laughter of a once proud newsman, gasping to stay afloat in a sea of discontent.

ABC should have known better. It should have known that news in the next 100 years will be more “service” that product, something that people will look to for intellectual guidance. News is a conversation, or as the BBC’s Richard Sambrook has said, a partnership – and in this sense, ABC failed its partners miserably.

Consider this: When asked about his debate performance, ABC News’ George Stephanopoulos said, “The questions we asked…are being debated around the political world every day.” A commenter on ABC’s web site said, “"Some of us actually live in the real world and care much more about real issues like food and gas prices.”

This is where we need to start the next 100 years of American journalism – in the real world. The crowd is turning, indeed.

                           

I got a call from the University of Missouri Journalism School, my alma mater, reminding me of the 100th anniversary celebration this year. Founded in 1908, Missouri was the world’s first journalism school and is still regarded as one of the best.

Yet while overall it was a great first hundred years for American journalism, it’s the next 100 I worry about. Or in the prescient phrase uttered by ABC News anchorman Charles Gibson at Pennsylvania’s recent Democratic presidential debate, “the crowd is turning” on how professionals report the news.

History is the art of hindsight, so writing about an event before the ink dries and the digital bits settle is at best unfair. Nevertheless, you don’t need Galileo’s vision to see that the Pennsylvania debate marked another in series of dark turning points for the news business.

The financial pain we’ve known for while – as this year’s State of the News Media study revealed, advertising revenue is still going down, as are pre-tax earnings, profit margins and stock values. Even online newspaper advertising, while up 20 percent in 2007, is growing slower than online advertising as a whole, and is 10 percent lower than last year.

Newspaper owners answered with widespread staff layoffs, leading to less local reporting and therefore fewer readers which – you guessed it – resulted in less revenue. It’s also meant narrower reporting, with issues like Iraq and the presidential elections representing the majority of coverage. And it’s meant an unhealthy attraction to transient stories that are the equivalent of chewing gum, the media smacking its lips long after the gum has lost its taste.

All this came to a head in Pennsylvania. What should have been a debate about the future of the country became a Fox-style reality show about flag lapel pins. And the people responded, with boos in the audience and thousands of comments on ABC’s web site. The media itself became the story – a story prompted by ordinary people now with extraordinary access to the once powerful press.

Last year’s YouTube debates will be remembered for authentic questions about real-life issues from a mosaic of American culture. The ABC debate will be remembered as the day modern journalism died in a cacophony of tabloid-style interrogations, punctuated by the nervous laughter of a once proud newsman, gasping to stay afloat in a sea of discontent.

ABC should have known better. It should have known that news in the next 100 years will be more “service” that product, something that people will look to for intellectual guidance. News is a conversation, or as the BBC’s Richard Sambrook has said, a partnership – and in this sense, ABC failed its partners miserably.

Consider this: When asked about his debate performance, ABC News’ George Stephanopoulos said, “The questions we asked…are being debated around the political world every day.” A commenter on ABC’s web site said, “"Some of us actually live in the real world and care much more about real issues like food and gas prices.”

This is where we need to start the next 100 years of American journalism – in the real world. The crowd is turning, indeed.

                           

Living an "In-Between" Digital Life

(Cross-posted from the Authenticities blog.)

MY SUNDAY LOS ANGELES TIMES arrived with a sticker on the front page advertising home foreclosure auctions – a struggling industry trying to reach people via a dying medium. As ironies go, this was a keeper.

Later than morning, a man I guessed to be in his late ‘50s sat with a newspaper and a black coffee. Not 10 feet away at the same coffee house, two young women huddled around an iPhone, reading news and discussing various web sites as they sipped their lattes.

That the news business is changing is nothing new. Yet as I get older I find myself lost between two worlds – clinging to the physical while embracing the digital. And I wonder if I’m the last generation to feel this way.

Those older than me will never fully understand or accept the Digital Present. My sister is only seven years my senior and she still thinks the Internet is a place where friends and family send each other lame jokes and urban legends via e-mail. The generation just a few years younger than me barely reads newspapers and never watches network news – and those even younger, like my nine-year-old daughter, will never subscribe to a newspaper or understand news as anything other than a commodity. Or worse, as anything other than the “Star Tracks” section of People Magazine.

I’m not saying we need to turn back the clock (and for those of you shaking your heads right now, a “clock” was a device that displayed the time with “hands” that could be turned forward or backward. But I digress…). The news business may be downsizing, but in many ways news is bigger than ever, more accessible and, thanks to citizen journalists, more honest than ever before. The best journalists will adapt because good stories are medium and trend agnostic; new voices will surface because the barriers to entry are all but gone.

This is all great, all wonderful, and I wouldn’t change the future for the sake of the past. Nevertheless, there’s one thing I wish we could hand down to the next generations, could make them understand, could make them experience.

Ink matters.

Ink doesn’t just activate the senses – it permeates. Ink gives words weight beyond meaning. Ink has a place, even in a world of bits.

Ink is authentic. It has been around for centuries and has brought us the most amazing stories imaginable and unimaginable.

Ink makes us laugh – and in the case of my Sunday L.A. Times with the home foreclosure sticker ad, ink makes us cry.

Ink is in-between. And so am I.

                           

(Cross-posted from the Authenticities blog.)

MY SUNDAY LOS ANGELES TIMES arrived with a sticker on the front page advertising home foreclosure auctions – a struggling industry trying to reach people via a dying medium. As ironies go, this was a keeper.

Later than morning, a man I guessed to be in his late ‘50s sat with a newspaper and a black coffee. Not 10 feet away at the same coffee house, two young women huddled around an iPhone, reading news and discussing various web sites as they sipped their lattes.

That the news business is changing is nothing new. Yet as I get older I find myself lost between two worlds – clinging to the physical while embracing the digital. And I wonder if I’m the last generation to feel this way.

Those older than me will never fully understand or accept the Digital Present. My sister is only seven years my senior and she still thinks the Internet is a place where friends and family send each other lame jokes and urban legends via e-mail. The generation just a few years younger than me barely reads newspapers and never watches network news – and those even younger, like my nine-year-old daughter, will never subscribe to a newspaper or understand news as anything other than a commodity. Or worse, as anything other than the “Star Tracks” section of People Magazine.

I’m not saying we need to turn back the clock (and for those of you shaking your heads right now, a “clock” was a device that displayed the time with “hands” that could be turned forward or backward. But I digress…). The news business may be downsizing, but in many ways news is bigger than ever, more accessible and, thanks to citizen journalists, more honest than ever before. The best journalists will adapt because good stories are medium and trend agnostic; new voices will surface because the barriers to entry are all but gone.

This is all great, all wonderful, and I wouldn’t change the future for the sake of the past. Nevertheless, there’s one thing I wish we could hand down to the next generations, could make them understand, could make them experience.

Ink matters.

Ink doesn’t just activate the senses – it permeates. Ink gives words weight beyond meaning. Ink has a place, even in a world of bits.

Ink is authentic. It has been around for centuries and has brought us the most amazing stories imaginable and unimaginable.

Ink makes us laugh – and in the case of my Sunday L.A. Times with the home foreclosure sticker ad, ink makes us cry.

Ink is in-between. And so am I.

                           

Stop Measuring Social Media

Think about your most important relationships. They might be your spouse, your kids, your parents and your friends. Maybe it’s that teacher from high school who inspired you, or the co-worker who took you under his or her wing.

Now try to put a numerical value on those relationships. Seriously, see if you can. Then take that value and calculate the relationship ROI.

I know, it sounds ridiculous. Yet that’s exactly what companies expect from their social media engagement efforts.

Social media needs to be quantified, so the argument goes, or else it has little value. Everything needs a number.

This is, after all, how it was always done online. A company built a web site, people went to the web site. A brand put up banner ads, and people clicked on the banner ads. Action and reaction in near perfect symbiosis, with results easily exported into an Excel spreadsheet. Moreover, each action began with the company’s goal in mind, and with the expectation (even determination) that the customer would change his or her behavior to fit the company’s needs.

Today, these same companies are trying to do the same thing in a social web context – but an ROI rooted in conversations rather than clicks does not export well into Excel. Actions and reactions are chaotic, not symbiotic. And today, each action begins with the consumers’ goals, their desires and behaviors. Companies need to change their behaviors to befit the modern consumer or be damned.

Of course (contrary to popular belief) companies still have a large amount of control – it’s just that their influence is tempered by the rise of consumer involvement and greater share of voice. Marketing 2.0 is a team sport.

Overall, the web is a now a far more qualitative environment – yes, there are still plenty of numbers to compile, from page views to time spent interacting with content, widget downloads, video views and blog posts, and on and on. But this is only a small part of the value equation. The real value lies in the depth of these interactions and conversations, in the connections that are made between customer and brand. A customer isn’t just someone who clicks on a web site and orders a product, but someone who can tell others about the product and start a fan page, or come to a brand’s defense.

Social media is only “social” if people participate – otherwise it’s just technology with no soul. People are the real “killer app” of Web 2.0, and people don’t have numbers, they have names and voices. And now they can be heard.

So do yourself a favor – don’t measure social media, at least in the traditional sense of measurement. Put away the spreadsheets, the projections, the metrics and the cost-benefit analyses. Don’t count how many friends you have, but rather take a hard look at the value and extent of those friendships.

Just listen. Just participate. And just for once, don’t measure anything except how the experience makes you feel. That’s the first step – and the most important metric of all.

Making Newspapers Matter: The Tragic Value of Content

“Hey Gary: After a year of unanswered emails to the editor of the Portland, Maine, Press Herald pleading for better local reporting and editing...I started a blog a month ago…” T.C. Munjoy, Pressing the Herald (http://pressingtheherald.blogspot.com/)

ONE MORE BLOG IN THE WORLD is not the end of traditional journalism. Even the target of Mr. Munjoy’s citizen reporting, the Press Herald of Portland, Maine, will unlikely feel any pain, at least in the short term. But what Mr. Munjoy and countless others have done by starting blogs for the purpose of either enhancing or supplanting local news is nothing less than apocalyptic.

Consider this one simple fact: Mr. Munjoy distributes his product on a platform he uses for free. If he ever decides to charge a fee, it will be for his blog’s content, not its distribution.

And herein lays the Achilles Heel of newspapers: their costs are all in the distribution, not the content. In fact, contrary to what newspaper executives may want you to believe, newspapers have never charged for their content – which is why the newspaper industry is, and for the foreseeable future will be, in serious trouble.

The Big Mistake
Five cents, 10 cents, 25 cents, 50 cents…whatever the cost of your daily paper, that cost goes to pay for the means of distribution. Paper, ink, presses, gasoline, tires, vending machines and so on – all means of distribution. The same goes for advertising – the more ads you can sell, the more pages you can print, the more there is to distribute.

Obviously some of this revenue goes to pay for reporters and editors, but in a purely business sense, the content they produce merely allows the company to distribute a product. And as I said, that’s how newspapers make money, by distributing their product.

This worked fine until the Internet Age. Newspapers made the mistake of looking at the Internet as simply another means of distribution, assuming that people would come to their web sites and read the news, and more importantly read the ads that helped pay for the web servers and Net access fees.

But search trumped any vision of people reading the news only at a newspaper’s web site. Now they could read the news on Google, Yahoo, MSN or via RSS feeds straight to their computer desktops. The new media companies like Google saw value in the content, not the distribution, and traditional newspapers have been trying to catch up ever since.

Some newspapers tried to charge for content, but having not placed any value there before it was difficult to make that case now (there is, however, a legitimate argument over whether news aggregators can publish copyrighted material without permission.) Niche publications did better than mass market ones, but with the free content genie out of the bottle and more and more information available from more and more sources, content itself became commoditized.

As the public turned more selective, news turned more subjective. After all, if you want people to value content, you have to make it stand out. But in trying to save their business model, newspapers have injured journalism.

Where we are Today
Television had its role in this tragedy as well. In the Golden Age of TV news, daily broadcasts were not expected to make money. News was seen as a loss leader, its existence seen as nothing less than fulfilling a sacred public trust.

But television was also a business, and as profits rose from the entertainment side of the house, pressure mounted on the news divisions to earn some of that valuable ad revenue. So television news, because it came into people’s homes for free, looked to its content to attract viewers – to entertain them if not inform.

And this is where we are now, in print, on the airwaves and online – a journalism where placing value on news content means a world of infotainment and hyperbole, of diversion and distraction.

There is plenty of good work to be sure, but how long will it last? How long will newspapers focus efforts on the “paper” part of their monikers instead of the “news” – on supporting an obsolete distribution infrastructure rather than new business models that place value on content that is truly valuable?

We don’t have the answers yet – but like any good journalist, getting to the answers starts with asking the right questions. Let’s hope there are some good journalists left to ask them.

Good luck, Mr. Munjoy. The future of quality journalism may someday turn its lonely eyes to you.

In CNN’s Hands, YouTube Loses its Voice

As a former newspaper reporter, I never had much respect for television news. More style than substance, more sound bite than serious, TV journalism was media junk food. I preferred a good steak and still do.

There were exceptions – Walter Cronkite, Jim Lehrer and, going way back, Ed Murrow (though he served up his share of sugary snacks as well.) And in the early ‘90s, there was a decade-old network called CNN that, with its blog-like first person coverage of the Gulf War, showed that television and journalism could indeed coexist and add reason to public discourse.

But that was, as they say, then – and this, unfortunately for our country and its conscience, is now.

I accepted CNN’s financial need to compete with Fox and MSNBC by taking a side – not conservative like Fox or liberal like MSNBC, but a kind of neo populism characterized by anchor-driven “mad as hell” histrionics. I looked away when the “maddest” of the bunch, Lou Dobbs, made illegal immigration his clarion call.

Then last week, CNN went too far. The network, which hosted the Republican “YouTube Debate,” went from ranting about the election to attempting to rig it.

CNN is no longer a news organization; it is a political action committee. It has gone off the deep end not in search of ratings, but rather in an obsequious bow to Dobbs, his quest for book sales and a possible third-party Presidential bid.

Consider this: the first one-third of the debate centered on immigration, Dobbs one-trick pony, despite national polls showing that only six percent of Americans believe immigration is an important issue in the 2008 election. What are the top issues? Iraq, the economy, healthcare and energy costs. What other topics did CNN producers cull from the 5,000 YouTube submissions? They chose gun control, the Confederate flag and whether the Bible is the true word of God.

I don’t mind the YouTube format – in fact I love its raw sense of immediacy. But don’t for one minute think that the format makes the debate any more real; CNN took care of that, manipulating the event to serve its own puerile purposes.

CNN not only crossed the line, it went into uncharted waters. It used the electoral process, hardly free of abuse itself, to serve its hunger for relevance and ratings. CNN has gone from being an inspiration to journalism to being its enemy – a voice beyond mere bias now bent on Machiavellian power.

Hyperbole? Perhaps. CNN is, after all, just a network – just a business. As I said before, I never had much respect for television news, so maybe I should go eat my steak and shut up. Just sit back, relax and listen -- the news is on.

Warning: No Social Media or New Journalism Content Included

Los Angeles is a city of fragments, pieces loosely joined yet bound as if against nature. Most people only see L.A. through a windshield – the observer protected behind glass, the observed seen in glimpses if at all. Los Angeles is a place apart and in parts, where everyone lives but no one is from.

It is into this concrete dichotomy I drive several days a week. I’ve done this for nearly a year with no regret, save for the occasional Sigalert that slows traffic even more than the usual crawl. Once this happened by the Staples Center, forcing me to watch the video ad for “American Idols on Tour” more times than should be considered humane.

Almost every day, before joining my fellow commuters on Interstate 10 and 5 for the long slog to  Orange County, I see a homeless man by the freeway entrance. Always smiling, always pleasant, and always with a hand out, as if he’s the operator of an imaginary toll booth. I give when I can, when the stoplight cooperates. This means lowering the window, a risky proposition in a place where people lock their car doors while they are still driving.

For months I saw this man – and then, a few weeks ago, he was gone. Maybe it was the weather, both turning slightly cooler and for a long while heavy with smoke and its unhealthy remnants.

He could be anywhere, doing just fine, but nevertheless I worry and wonder – whether he is safe, whether he found a better onramp, or whether he melted back into the jigsaw world of Greater L.A., another face in another windshield. This is the time of Thanksgiving after all, a time for holidays and families and desires for human connections. So I wonder, I worry, and wait.

The Day after Christmas
This man – and next time I see him, I promise to ask his name – reminds me of another man I met in Atlanta, exactly 17 years ago Friday. He, too, was (at least to me) homeless and nameless, a regular character at the CNN Cente. I wrote about him in my book, and the following passage tells the story of our brief encounter:

“Where are you from?” The question came out of nowhere, as did the man. He looked 40ish, wearing a purple long-sleeved shirt, a green jacket-vest, a black hat, and a beard grown from neglect rather than purpose. As we talked, he would continuously sip from an empty Styrofoam cup. I wanted to tell him there was nothing in there, though I’m sure he knew. I just stared at the cup rising and falling from the man’s lips with mechanical precision.

I don’t know what was in the cup before, but based on our conversation, I got the feeling it was more likely vodka than coffee. We talked about life on the streets, and how being homeless is a lot like being in prison – except that in prison you get three meals a day and a warm place to sleep. But that wasn’t the worst part.

“It’s the loneliness,’ he said, taking another imaginary sip. “All the time, loneliness. All of my friends are either dead or gone.”

I was going to tell him how lonely I felt that Thanksgiving, but decided against it. Here was a guy who has endured the same ugly feeling for six years, and I was depressed about one day spent in a warm hotel room with the people I love a phone call away. His cup was empty; mine runneth over.

“The day after Christmas,” he said. “A business is made or broken by how well it is the day after Christmas. Everything is defined by where you are the day after Christmas.”

We had been talking about Thanksgiving, but I wasn’t going to argue. This was his conversation. I was just along for the ride.

I gave him some money as I got up to take my tour, which he accepted but don’t think expected. When I came back downstairs an hour later, I spotted my friend talking to a couple of other street people, and he waved to me as I passed.

He still had his cup and it was still empty. And I felt bad, really bad, because I knew that on the day after Christmas, he would still be there.

I never looked at people or a place the same after that. Everywhere is home for someone – every place has its own ecosystem that functions often despite itself. No matter where we live, we can connect.

Yes, Los Angeles is a city of fragments, the people fragmented. But while the pieces don’t always fit, they do, eventually, come together.

Facebook is the New Corporate Intranet (and Other Things I Want to Mention but Would Rather Not Discuss)

Glenn Beck is an Insensitive Prick – Beck told his national radio audience that “a handful of people who hate America are losing their homes in a forest fire today,” referring to the wildfires that started in Malibu. First of all, one of those people, Steve Dark, is a conservative who loves America and goes to church every week – or at least he did until his church burned to the ground.

So what does that mean, Glenn? Does God hate America, too? Steve and his Malibu neighbors are looking forward to your answer.

Facebook is the New Corporate Intranet – Why not? Create a Facebook Group, set it up as “Secret” – so it’s not visible to search, only invited members can participate and the group is invisible on members’ profiles – and voila, instant Intranet. Members can post, discuss and share information, even upload photos or host audio or video podcasts (and don’t forget the ability to create custom applications.) Simple to be sure, but for some companies simple is good enough. Goodbye HTML, hello FBML.

Social Media is Not Just About a Set of Tools – Will someone please tell this to Ragan and PRSA? Please, before they hurt somebody? It’s often those who profess to know the future that turn out to be the most shortsighted.

Twit This: Twitter is Good for Something – I know, hard to believe, but San Diego PBS station KPBS used the popular micro-blogging tool to keep residents in touch with the latest wildfire news via their mobile phones. If you do crisis communications, Twitter is a great way to spread the word.

I Gave it an Honest Try, and "Cavemen" is Just Not Funny – I wanted to believe, ABC, I really did. But…damn.

The Audience is Still Smarter Than Us (and Generous) – I don’t know if professional photographer Alex Miroschnichenko’s decision to brave the Santiago Fire in Orange County and distribute his images for free was simply a random act of citizen journalism, but it was a significant act of citizenship.

New Glasses Don’t Make You Any Less Bald – Hey, it was worth a shot. At least I still have time to grow a beard and dress up as Phil Gomes for Halloween (sorry, I know I shouldn’t make fun of a guy about to get married, that’s supposed to happen after the wedding.)

 

 

 

After the Fire...

Driving home to Orange County under a blood orange sun, surrounded by the ashen smell of a million people’s pain, I thought about the randomness of it all.

Ray Siposs, a video producer based in the San Diego County town of Vista, was okay but unsure when he would receive the almost inevitable evacuation order. Steve Dark already lost his neighborhood church in Malibu, and had yet to assess the damage to his house. My sister was enduring another day of no power, phone or Internet service, though the fire threat had subsided. My former business partner’s uncle had yet to be accounted for, though with the full evacuation of Lake Arrowhead, we’re sure he at least made it off the mountain.

And me? Just another day of paradise by the wild fire’s light, shaken but not stirred by an Orange County fire that got within a few miles of home, leaving only raining ash and frayed nerves in my humble corner of the OC.

Nothing breaks the spirit of a Californian like a fire. Earthquakes are a piece of cake – no warning and over before you know it, assess the damage and move on. But fire starts quietly and then grows, moves and acts as if with conscience. It can change instantly and speed up or slow down, teasing you with a schoolyard bully’s joy.

For most of the country the fires are over now. The President felt our pain, the governor defended his response, and Qualcomm Stadium will host football again.

But for too many of us – those who lost homes, those who had to evacuate, those who didn’t know what would happen and those who took in the tragedy with every smoke-filled breath – the fire, as the song says, still burns.