Mack the Flack

My TRS 80 had a whopping 16K of memory.

Back when I was a cub reporter, I managed to convince my editor to send me on a road trip to Jackson, Tenn. to cover SFU women’s basketball team competing at the NAIA national championships. It was a big deal for my paper (the Tri-City News), which rarely sent a reporter outside of the GVRD on assignment.

They made sure I was well equipped with the latest technology, a TRS 80 laptop by Radio Shack and a 300 baud dial-up modem that required a small suitcase to carry all the parts. I felt like a big shot because sending stories through the phone lines was something no other reporter in our company had ever done.

But being on the cutting edge of technology proved to be a headache. For starters, with the TRS 80 (also known as the Trash 80) you could only read eight lines at a time. It weighed four pounds and had a power unit that was just as heavy.

It took about 10 attempts to send each story, since the modem used acoustic couplers that you attached to the phone. As a result, I ended up with a $100 phone bill from the hotel I was staying at.

So why am I dredging up the past? I came across this video the other day that reminded me of just how far we’ve come. View this video of  online journalism in 1981.

Learn how journalism is adapting by enrolling in the New Media Journalism Certificate program at Simon Fraser University Continuing Studies.

Guest Post by Ian Cottell

I was surfing the Internet today and I stumbled upon this new, old-fashioned cell phone.

No screen, no texting, no email, one ringtone…the unique selling point, it seems, is a new phone with the inconvenience of old communications technology. It’s a clear appeal to customers’ nostalgia and their desire for simpler times; but at what cost?

While I admit to getting warm and fuzzy while looking at the phone, I quickly recall that public relations success relies, in part, on staying techno-savvy and never shying away from new communications technology.

A few PR fundamentals that never change:

*clear, concise messaging

*knowing your audience

*being compelling

A few PR concerns that constantly evolve:

*media used to disseminate information

*methods used to consume information

*public perception of issues

I doubt I’ll ever trash my old Polaroid albums, but I’ll also never downgrade my smartphone or take any other steps-backwards when it comes to communications technology. Clinging to the comforts of the obsolete and the irrelevant is a surefire way to fossilize your PR career.

-Ian

Learn cutting edge methods of communication. Register for SFU Continuing Studies’ Public Relations Program

“What does it take to succeed in PR?” Certainly a tough skin, communication skills, social media savvy and the ability to network are important. But really good PR folks have something in addition – curiosity.

Being curious about your world and the world around you will serve you well. That’s why the SFU PR program encourages its grads to:

· Keep learning; about current events, business and social trends, your customers and your industry.

· Learn about business; learn the difference between profit and loss, budgeting and forecasting, revenue and the bottom line.

· Learn the details; work the floor of your client’s business, use their products, go on sales calls. Mack learned to drive an 18-wheeler (badly and never on the road, but still…) when he did PR for a big rig client.

· Lend a hand; help your swamped work mates, volunteer your time to a worthy cause, and remember that PR is about relationships.

Learn stuff the other PR programs probably don’t teach. We’ll give you the straight story in our Public Relations Certificate Program.

In almost any newsroom you’ll find a reporter who will rant about how social media has watered down journalism and weakened newspapers ability to be a mirror for society. But in the same newsroom you’ll find journalists who say social media and today’s digital journalism has made reporters more accountable to readers and viewers.

The reason for that is Ivory Tower journalism, where the media sets the news agenda, is not compatible with newspapers that connect with audiences through social media, which essentially invites readers and viewers into newsrooms.

Gigaom interviewed John Paton, CEO of MediaNews Group, on this idea. Paton says the historical newspaper model was broken by the Internet and is beyond repair. So reporters and newspaper executives must jettison the old beliefs, where they saw themselves as the gatekeepers of information. Paton promotes using social media to create open newsrooms, with readers playing a role in setting the news agenda.

Paton also believes user-pay news, known as paywalls, are not the proper direction for newspapers like the New York Times. They are simply a wall of sandbags trying to hold back the tide, he says. You can read more about his views here.

Learn how journalism is adapting by enrolling in the New Media Journalism Certificate program at Simon Fraser University Continuing Studies.

Our own (SFU) experts at Beedie School of Business say the number of jobs in BC has rebounded since the 2008 global recession but university grads still face a tight labour market and lower starting salaries.

It’s getting tougher for grads to find good jobs, incomes are not rising and both the quantity and quality of jobs is falling, says a CIBC study.

Not so, writes someone named “Academic” on a news media site reacting to the gloomy news. The soon-to-be Vancouver university grad is certain his future is bright: “…I am fresh out of uni (sic) this summer, and I am looking to start at $50,000 at (sic) year not a cent less…”

Mack, worried about Academic’s poor grasp of English, as well as his/her out of touch salary expectations, has some basic, admittedly biased, advice for shiny new grads:

· Get real – the days of big starting salaries are gone, perhaps forever

· Keep learning – lifelong learning keeps you current, engaged and attractive to employers

· Specialize! The degree is today’s high school diploma; you’ll probably need additional specialized training

Learn about specialized PR training. Apply to our Public Relations Program

If you’re a journalist, it’s your fault the public has an unrealistic perception of the profession. When people ask you what you do as a journalist you probably recount the most exciting part of your day, your week or your career. Like the time you broke the news about the mayor having an affair with a transvestite prostitute at a five-star hotel, all on the taxpayers’ dime.

But what you don’t do is bore them with the details, like: how you had to file an FOI (Freedom of Information request) and wait a month for an answer; spent days sifting through thousands of city council receipts; had your editor chew you out for wasting time; work unpaid overtime writing tedious, bureaucratic stories about rezonings so your editor didn’t give you such a hard time about wasting time; finally get your big scoop only to have your editor, publisher and newspaper’s lawyer dissect each word in your story, almost driving you to tears when the editor threatened to spike the story.

Anyway, public perceptions of what journalists do are rarely close to the mark. Here’s some examples from Stuff Journalists Like.

Learn more about what  journalists do by enrolling in the New Media Journalism Certificate program at Simon Fraser University Continuing Studies.

Most readers would not consider Susan Orlean’s writing to lack description or detail. Currently a writer for the New Yorker, she has authored some amazing books. My favourites are The Orchid Thief and The Bullfighter Checks Her Makeup. Her books are often adapted into films (Adaption and Blue Crush), and are done so easily because of the image-creating detail she provides.

Strangely, Orlean says she loves using Twitter and finds it indispensable, which makes sense. When she hunkers down for months on end to write a book, or as she says, “fall(s) off the face of the Earth,” Twitter is her method of staying in touch with the outside world.

As of this writing, she has 211,330 followers (I was number 211,321) and she regularly engages them with back and forth banter. In fact, Orlean says they become her cheerleading squad, uplifting her spirit when she’s challenged and has a hard time envisioning the completion of her latest manuscript.

You can read about her experiences at http://to.pbs.org/h9NkZn and follow her on Twitter at @susanorlean.

Discover more about how writers and journalists use social media by enrolling in the New Media Journalism Certificate program at Simon Fraser University Continuing Studies.

Mack is losing weight, halving his risk of a heart attack and reducing his stress. All he does is get more sleep – something he already loves to do.

A recent study shows most of us don’t get enough sleep. Researchers say the ideal is 8 – 9 hours a night, but the North American average is 6 hours. Staying up to watch TV, tweet and do status updates is not good for us.

Sleep just one more hour a night and you’ll lose more than 14 pounds per year and reduce your risk of heart attack.

Getting more sleep also cuts job stress. Public Relations is ranked 7^th in the list of stressful professions, a drop from number 2 last year.

But it isn’t all good news. Women – who dominate PR – get 22% less sleep than men, a difference some might lose sleep over.

Learn about healthy PR success.

Apply to our Public Relations Program

Perhaps Super Bowl 49 should have been dubbed Social Media Bowl.

Football fans were likely impressed with the action on the field involving the New York Giants and New England Patriots. But that action paled compared to the social media hurricane swirling around the game.

It was the most tweeted sports event ever with a total of 12.2 million comments. Super Bowl peaked at 12,233 tweets per second (tps) and averaged 10,000 tps in the final three minutes of the game.

Madonna’s halftime performance also set Twitter on fire, averaging 8,000 tps and reaching a peak of 10,245.

Had there been a wardrobe malfunction, Twitter likely would have gone nuclear.

YouTube and other video-hosting platforms were also busy with the Super Bowl million-dollar-a-second ads being some of the most viewed content.

Now all this is well and good for social media, but does it undermine the importance of social media – since every nuance of the event is being posted and tweeted millions of times?

The cryptic answer to that is, “The medium is the message,” to quote Marshall McLuhan. In other words, Twitter and other social media provide us with water cooler conversation, journalists through their media must deliver quality and context.

Click here to read an article about the role of journalism in today’s social media firestorm.

Learn more about how journalism and social media are intertwined, register for the September 2012 New Media Journalism Program

February 2 is Groundhog Day.

That’s when ceremonies in Canada and the US feature groundhogs emerging from their shelters to predict the length of the remaining winter.

It’s also the name of Mack’s favourite Bill Murray comedy. Murray plays a shallow TV weatherman doomed to repeat his days until he becomes a better person.

The same fate may await Toronto Hydro which wants to hike electricity rates for its customers by about $5 a month. The utility argues the cash is needed to renew the city’s electrical transmission grid. Regulators said no.

The National Post reported  that TO Hydro’s response was swift and nasty. It fired 700 non-union contractors, notified another 350 unionized workers they could be next and warned that a “funding crisis” means the city may go dark.

Freezing-in-the-dark threats means the utility’s poor public image is even (excuse the pun) darker now. Like Bill Murray, TO Hydro seems doomed to repeat its PR blunders.

Learn good stuff about bad stuff in Crisis Communications.

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