Town Hall for Hope

by Don Harkey

“Hope doesn’t come from Washington; real hope comes from the nail-scarred hands.”

—Dave Ramsey

Last night, I helped to facilitate a webcast of the "Town Hall for Hope" by Dave Ramsey. Over 6000 locations around the country participated in the webcast last night and the count is still coming in on the number of participants.

Dave's message was simple and a few key points have stuck with me. The main point I think was that WE are responsible for our future. That means I am responsible for my future and YOU are responsible for your future. A couple of Dave's better quotes included (paraphrasing now) "if a bird falls out of its nest, it better start flapping its wings" and "fear pushes us to excellence because it chases us".

Looking at the economy like a car accident is an interesting analogy that Dave used last night. Some of us have walked away unscathed, some of us are a little sore, some of us broke a bone and others of us are in a coma. Regardless of where you stand, the only thing you can control is the actions that YOU take. If you have lost your job, my prayers are with you. Now is the time to get yourself back on your feet and go out there and find something else. It's not easy. It's not supposed to be because the final results of our actions are not what life is about. Life is about our actions.

Dave suggests 3 Courses of action (outlined at www.townhallforhope.com):

1) Get Up and Take Action - Don't huddle up and wait til the storm passes. Innovate, educate, and inspire yourself and others to action. Many of the greatest opportunities have grown out of difficult times.

2) Stop Listen to Loser Talk - Turn off the news. Stop hanging around with doomsday people. Hang around and listen to people who are innovating and working hard for their future. There are many, many, many of them out there!

3) Start Giving - Give your time, treasure, and talents. If you don't have money right now, donate your time. Help others around you. We will have more impact on each other than the government is capable of doing.

Regardless of your political views, the point here should be universal. God placed us on this planet with a unique set of gifts. We have all been given the gift to choose how to act and therefore determine our outlook on life. There will be challenges along the way, but we have the power to live our lives or have our lives happen to us.

I choose to not participate in the recession! If you agree - please comment below.

Blogging is Just Beginning

by Don Harkey

We are at a crossroads in history. Three factors are converging together in a once in a lifetime collision of innovation and imagination.

1) Increasing availability of "fast" internet (especially "on the go")
2) Increase in the usage and variety of social media (ex: YouTube, Facebook, Twitter)
3) Increase in the popularity of blogs

Much like when electricity was first harnessed or when TV began to broadcast, we are entering a new world that no one has yet defined. Business is changing. Society is changing. People interact differently. What is the impact of having access to that exchange student from France who stayed with your family 25 years ago? What is the impact of being able to see what your employment applicant did last Saturday night? What is the impact of being able to "show" the world what value you can bring to societies table?

For businesses and organizations, there are really only 2 choices: blog now or blog later. If it makes you feel a little more professional, you don't have to call it a blog. Call it an information page, or an online resource or a product forum.

Let me put it this way... we are only beginning to define the implications of social media on businesses. There is a "Social Media Think Tank" meeting in Springfield, MO to discuss this very topic (email me if you want more info). We are only starting to figure it out. Where do you want your organization to be? You can wait until everyone else has tested it out and everyone jumps onboard or you can be one of the pioneers.

Writing about blogs within a blog trying to convince businesses that they need to thinking about blogging is kinda like showing an engineer or an accountant the value of a calculator. What is interesting as a current blog reader will be to see the evolution occur. Spread the word!

Blog Transparency

by Don Harkey

There was an interesting article in the Life of Jason blog a few days ago on media ethics. I'll let you go to his site (after your done here) and read about the tea party event sponsored by KSGF. The article made me think about blogs and the purpose behind the blogs.

With the transformation that is occurring in the media, there are some concerns that sources of news will have less accountability to their readers/viewers. Many people claim to get their news from sources such as "the Daily Show" on Comedy Central or from a variety of blogs. The question that arises is whether or not these sources of information are impartial or even accurate.

Impartiality and even accuracy aren't as important as they used to be. Let me explain.

First of all, impartiality is NOT a requirement of the media (whether professional or independent). I once heard a media ethicist on the radio say that the media does not need to be impartial, they just need to be transparent. In other words, it is OK if Dan Rather REALLY wants Al Gore to win an election, it is just important that he is straightforward about it. KSGF's slogan is "Doing What is Right". Gee... I think they are aiming at delivering a conservative right-wing agenda.

The second part is accuracy. When media outlets begin reporting more on opinion, they tend to focus less on confirming facts. This is a natural transition, but it is easily countered by a simple fact. Information is readily available and people should simply not believe everything they read. When the major source of news was limited to a newspaper and 3 TV broadcasts, accuracy is tricky because the average media consumer can't check on the information easily. Today, it doesn't take much to at least put a question in your mind about a given fact. Snopes.com alone has gone a long way in convincing me that I will not be shot in Springfield if I flash my lights at a gang member and that tiny poisonous spiders do not live under my toilet seat. (Yes... I do feel relieved thank you very much!)

My message for people who follow blogs is to keep a heads up. Who is writing the blog? Why are they writing the blog? Is their information accurate? Take all of this into account and filter out the true value in the writing, whether it is opinion or entertainment or true expertise on a given topic. Its OK if the blogger has an agenda as long as the blogger is up front about it.

This is the true power of reading blogs. You can get a wider view of what is going on. You can collect more opinions on current events. You can begin to question the "conventional wisdom" that is out there and use the amount of information to form your own opinions. You can pull multiple accounts of an event and then gather your own view of what probably really happened.

I think that while newspapers and TV media pride themselves in accuracy, gathering news and information from multiple sources (including blogs) only improves the overall information accuracy and gives you a wider perspective!

Blogs - Not Just for Coffee Shops Anymore

by Don Harkey

The term "blog" carries a certain connotation. When I ask people if they follow any blogs, they typically chuckle. Blogging has a kind of "coffee shop" internet cafe image that keeps a lot of people away. Its a similar phenomena to people who stay away from Facebook because of foo-foo features like "poke" and the more earnest "super-poke". Some people just start with a misconception about what a blog is.

Part of the problem is that a "blog" is not very defined. When you purchase a newspaper, you pretty much know what you are going to get. You expect professional writers who follow some standard. You expect a somewhat familiar format (you can open the "InsertCityHere Times" and expect to be able to flip to the Sports section). Blogs aren't like this.

In Springfield Missouri alone, there are likely over a hundred blogs (for a list of Springfield Blogs, go to http://www.sgfblogs.com). Many of them are kinda like personal diaries with people simply reporting on their life. Others are more like independent media sites with coverage of local events and opinion pages. Still others are targeted toward a specific demographic or interest group. Most are written by a single author while others use multiple writers or guest writers.

The mistake that people make is that they form an idea of what a blog is simply by what they have heard or from an experience on a specific blog. Some of the most popular blogs aren't even called blogs. I follow www.huskerpedia.com to get links to stories about my beloved Huskers. I have never seen the site call itself a blog, but it essentially is.

My point today is simple. If you follow blogs (you're reading one now, so I think we've already broken the ice!), tell your friends about the good ones. Share stories that you've seen and like. As the media transforms itself, blogs will become more and more of a great source of information.

And go ahead and try a cappuccino if you haven't already!

The End of Broadcasting

by Don Harkey

Broadcast television and radio will be obsolete within the next 20 years. This is my prediction. While this may seem unthinkable to many people, I believe it is inevitable. Here is my case...

I'm listening to the radio right now, but its not one of local stations. I am listening to Pandora (www.Pandora.com) on which I have customized a couple of different stations to play the types of music that I enjoy. All I had to do was plug in sample artists that I like and the station "learns" what type of music I like. Do I get less variety? Actually, I get a lot more. The site finds similar music by other artists and plays songs that are similar to those played by my favorite artists. Within any one station, it handles very well the fact that I like Billy Joel and the Red Hot Chili Peppers and covers both tastes well. I can tell the site when it plays a song I really like (or don't like) and it will continue to customize my station. I can even skip songs I don't like (up to 5 skips per hour).

It was only a few years ago when many people I knew partially scheduled their week around their favorite TV shows. I had friends who really wanted to get home on Thursday nights to watch "Friends" or Sunday night to watch "the Simpsons". Today, I never hear of people rushing home to watch their favorite program. Part of the change has come with the advent of the DVR, which can record your favorite programs without much input from you. For example, I like the old Twilight Zone shows. My DVR on my PC has picked up almost 100 different episodes on various channels over the last couple of months. I can watch them any time I want and it only takes me 20 minutes per half-hour episode because I can easily skip commercials.

What if I don't record that program that I like? No problem. When "the Office" was washed out by severe weather coverage a few weeks ago, I simply went to Hulu (www.hulu.com) and watched the episode from the internet.

There are 2 technology advances that will help push us over the threshold from broadcast to broadband. The first will be the advancement of technology to bring the internet to your TV's and radios throughout your house. This technology already exists (for example I can surf the internet on my TV using my Wii). In the near future, your home will be completely networked and connected. You'll have access to your songs and movies from programs such as iTunes and you can listen to customized stations and watch just about any TV show you want at any time.

The second big advancement will be when the speed of your internet connection approaches the processing speed of your computer. As processing speeds continue to increase, internet connection speeds are increasing faster. The internet connection on my iPhone is now faster than my home internet connection was only a few years ago.

While I'm not ready to predict the total demise of print newspapers, I do believe the industry has already been impacted by the internet and will continue to be impacted. Other than the Springfield Business Journal (www.sbj.net), I get all of my news information from the internet. Critics say that the information on the internet is often inaccurate. However, most of today's news surfers are smart enough to know that network and newspaper news sources are also slanted and often inaccurate. I have quick access to a variety of news sources and can judge for myself the value and accuracy of the information presented.

Blogs will continue to increase in popularity as people crave new sources of information. The most popular blogs will likely be those that provide specific and useful information to the readers. Those people who currently don't read blogs will likely be reading them within the next 5 years, simply because they will start to see the value.

This was a long introduction to get the spin for this week's theme. Where will companies advertise? If TV, radio, and newspapers are on the decline, how will companies get the word out to their customers? It is easy to say that they will go to the internet, but will it look the same?

As a marketing friend of mind told me recently, social media fans are fickle. If they sense someone trying to sell to them, they shut down immediately. If an internet TV site has too many commercials, another TV site will take over in popularity. If a popular blog utilizes too many pop-up adds, its popularity will suffer.

This week we will talk about blogging specifically and how companies and organizations can use the blogs to sell without using them to sell.