When I was employed by big-corporate PR, I used Google News Alerts religiously. Still do. It’s a fantastic service, constantly filtering the Google index for current news relevant to my search query and delivering it to my inbox every day. At Apollo, I was interested in news about our company, and news about our competitors, partners, and vendors. Every day I’d get slogs of data to pile through, press releases to scan, and punditry to parse.

And after the list of headlines came the list of mentions in the blogosphere; post after post of opinionated bloggers and students, some slamming the organization for one reason or another, largely for things we could do little to rectify (I lost my financial aid money, I can’t drive, the school hates me, my lemonade monkey peed in my hair, etc.). But most of the blog commentary came from conscientious, diligent writers, passionate about their cause, and eager to share that passion with the world.

Had a meeting at a new agency today — 2Plural/evive. I don’t know what their name is, actually. The letterhead says evive, and looks cool as a palindrome, but the website is 2plural, as is the moniker on their cards. A bit of identity crisis there, about which I’m sure there is a good story.

On the flip side, Joe Klegseth (pres), Courtney LeBoeuf (account manager), and Stasia Brownell (project manager), appear to be quality people in a budding quality agency. If I was looking for agency marketing and branding assistance, this is a company looking to build and extend an already impressive reputation; I’d certainly give them a holler on the short list.

Check ’em out. And thanks for the coffee and snacks!

Massive Friggin’ Annoyance Factor: All the niceties aside, why does every single marketing and branding agency have to lead with a completely bombastic Flash website? It’s heavy, ostentatious, pretentious, and it completely gets in the way of the message you’re trying to tell. 2Plural/evive is certainly not alone in this, they just come as the latest example of agentius adobus flashititus, an overwhelming need to prove to potential clients that you can deliver content in a medium that completely hides the fact that you have nothing of substance to say.

That, and if you try to visit the site in your iPhone, you’re plum out of luck.

Here is the first of four pieces I’m working on for Health Net of Oregon. The video was originally part of a four-part series on the communities that Health Net serves through their customers, intended for staggered launch in 2007. Unfortunately, it took far too long to get the four clients lined up to participate, so we were only able to complete this first one on time.

The intent of the project was spot on, however. The company was looking for a way to promote it’s own goodwill. I was — and still am — a staunch believer that the best way to frame goodwill is through the voices of your best customers: guilt by association.

Oregon Humane Society: Health Net Customer Story Part 1 from Pete Wright on Vimeo.

I don’t particularly want to comment on the quality of the production here — MS clearly put some money into this concept, which I believe speaks for itself. But if you have to make something like this to sell the act of selling your products, is that a sign that your product has jumped the shark?

Back in early February, I wrote about a wonderful presentation-cast response to a reader email that Lessig delivered on his blog, eloquently stating that he supported Obama, and why he chose to do so.

Here is another wonderful opportunity to see one of today’s great orators discussing the primary process, the disaster that the Clinton-Obama race has become — and the danger that race serves to deliver in the face of the real race, after the convention — and what Penn students and residents can do to support the cause.

“My name is Damon Wright, and I’m a business writer.”

That’s true. My name is Damon. It’s my middle name, used six years ago the hide my participation in the Apple campaign from my then-day-job. I had thought that I’d exhausted my 32 weeks of fame, but someone has just posted all the old “Switch” commercials to YouTube. Actually, not sure what took so long.

Permanent link, for those who haven’t seen it, is here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=umHGfSAQb-s

Thanks so much to Daniel Burka for this nod to his friend and photographer Steven Desroches. Desroches took the photo linked below at the Shedd Aquarium in Chicago. It captures so much brilliance of story-telling composition in one, single frame.

Fearless

This is, after all, an example of how to describe the wonder of a beginning-middle-end story arch from a single point in space and time. The viewer wonders excitedly at how this story was set up, and with greater anticipation about how it will resolve. It is timeless.

I had never heard of Desroches, but will certainly be paying attention to him from now on. Congratulations on a wonderful capture!

This is a good summary from Jason Calacanis summarizing his take on “Scoble’s Law” (wow, I can’t believe Scoble is coming up with a law behind his name): “The less you talk about yourself, the more folks will talk about you.”

This is more of a cardinal law of organic self-promotion, and less of a journalistic technique. But it flies in the face of Lacy’s interview strategy: put herself in the middle of every story, the sun around which all her subjects orbit. On this last note, it’s certainly time to stop talking about her, even as an object lesson.

In this personal interview with a YouTuber Omar Gallaga, I think she says it all — and highlights through what she doesn’t say just how backward it is to call her a “journalist.”

It is hard to describe the disaster that befell Sarah Lacy at the SxSW conference in Austin this week. In an interview with the often-tight-lipped Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, Lacy managed to single-handedly turn her audience into an angry mob, wielding Twitter posts like pitchforks and torches, all aimed at her head. Zuckerberg rarely steps into the limelight; thanks to all the company’s recent privacy missteps, he tends to be more of a marked man than an interesting field exemplar. In this case, Lacy’s lack of polish gave him the ultimate dodge. Facebook PR: this was a dream. If you have the time, take a break and watch the whole thing here. At about the three-quarter mark, it gets very interesting.

http://www.viddler.com/explore/allfacebook/videos/13/

For more Sarah Lacy goodness, head here: Facebook is All Grown Up. In it, she takes her low-brow sorority chiq to turn an ‘interview’ between her and a grown-up into a name-drop-a-thon in which she completely destroys the thread of the discussion by turning herself into a pundit.

This is not a discussion of Sarah Lacy as an accomplished media personality. It’s a sad reality check on the level of acceptable behavior that comes with finding yourself both a reporter of news and a celebrity yourself.

With Zuckerberg, the audience was not amused. Enough so that many began to yell out questions themselves, rather than listen to Lacy’s self-aggrandizing inner-circle-speak. Her public response in the interview? “You guys try doing what I do for a living. It’s not as easy as it looks, OK?”

Where Sarah went sideways.

1. She shunned any healthy respect for her audience. From the interview questions, and the direction she took the discussion early on, it was clear she had her own agenda for the Facebook founder and showed little interest in the caliber of both social and technical expertise in the room. To be fair, Zuckerberg likely had put some constraints on the kinds of questions Lacy could ask — it’s a reasonable PR expectation. But her dismissal of the audience heckling showed a rampant disrespect for her listeners and her role in addressing their needs.
2. She is not a humble person. I had never followed Sarah Lacy. I’d heard of her and read her blog from time to time when linked. In catching up on her work, it is clear that she is a media personality first, and a journalist a very distant… let’s say… fifth. She’ll be a great addition to “Inside Edition” one day. Once the audience revolts, concede and rebuild the relationship. Simply spitting in the fire will not put it out.
3. She pretended it never happened. On her Twitter feed: “seriously screw all you guys. I did my best to ask a range of things.” That, for Lacy, appears to be where the story ends. In the post-keynote interview between Zuckerberg and Lacy, the interview falls soundly back into PR speak, her nodding acceptance of his every word punctuated with a resounding “Uh-huh” precisely ever three seconds. Her questions completely ignorant of the events preceding this interview, which had occurred minutes prior on the keynote stage.

Becoming a savvy interviewer takes a great deal of media training and experience in front of a camera. If her ego can handle it, this experience is a ripe learning opportunity on how to handle yourself professionally, maturely, clearly, and confidently online, in the media, on camera, and in life.

Announcing the Air Poo. Available Summer, 2008

http://www.airpoo.com

Just got this episode of a new “Quarterlife” parody from good friend Daniel over at the Independent Comedy Network.

If you don’t think the writer’s strike has been good for new media producers, check again. As far as pilots go, I would watch this over … I dunno … “Class of 99” any day.

If you head over to ICN, check out “Inappropriate Workplace” too. There’s some good humor in that there broadcast.

If you have feedback, leave it on Daniel’s wall over on Facebook.

Here’s something that’s NSFW: a viral video picking up steam on YouTube that reveals what the animals are really saying on the BBC hit documentary series, “Planet Earth.”

Put on those headphones and proceed at your own risk!

I’ve been AWOL for the last four or five days now, trekking to Tulsa for the funeral of my grandmother, Wanda Peters. I have some more thoughts to share on her passing and will get caught up there soon. In the mean time, thank you for your patience as I dig out from under the pile that has accumulated around me. It’s starting to ferment!