Social Media Beast

Interesting article in today's Los Angeles Times about Jack in the Box's recent social media campaign. The Times' reporter read through the nearly 81,000 Get Well messages on www.hangintherejack.com that were posted after Jack, the fictional CEO/mascot of the chain, was hit by a bus in a Super Bowl commercial.The article acknowledges the risk of social media campaigns - especially on the grand scale that Jack in the Box implemented. As we've heard before, the importance of authenticity is stressed.

Actors on Twitter

On Tuesday, the Los Angeles Times ran an interesting story about the numbers of actors using Twitter to communicate with their fans. There’s even a photo of an actor Tweeting while getting his makeup touched up.

Actors are enjoying the direct contact and not having their messages filtered by PR people and journalists. You can’t be misquoted if it’s coming directly from you. However, reports of hackers who have gotten into Britney Spear’s Twitter account and sent lewd messages, well, that’s another story!

Are You Connected?

Earlier this week, I attended an interesting San Diego Press Club event entitled Are You Connected? around the topic of social media. Approximately 60 journalists and communications people were in attendance. The panel included two communications professionals and two journalists. 

A few things that I found most interesting:

• A debate over whether social media provided an echo chamber for inaccurate information or whether you could count on the online community to "out" anyone spreading misinformation.
• A suggestion to go mobile with your social media and just commit.
• Several recommendations for social media sites to check out: Blip.fm (become a DJ), Friendfeed.com (consolidate your social media networks), Brightkite.com (track your friends whereabouts and activities in real time) and twellow.com (Twitter yellow pages).

"Everything is amazing, no one is happy"

Did anyone else get forwarded the four-minute video of comedian Louis CK on Conan O'Brien? Louis CK reminds us to be patient with technology, to give our cell phones a few seconds to register as they "go to space." He makes a good point about how we've been spoiled by technology.

It came at a perfect time for me, as I was frustrated with my iPhone aps that were crashing on me. This video helped bring me back to earth!
Louis CK "Everything's amazing, nobody's happy"

Peter Shankman Coming to San Diego

I am really excited to be helping coordinate an event featuring Peter Shankman of Help a Reporter Out (HARO) fame. As a member of the board of the Public Relations Society of America's San Diego chapter, one of my duties is helping coordinate professional development events. A fellow member connected me with Peter and the rest is history!

For those unfamiliar with HARO, it's a neat service where reporters can be connected with sources for news stories and PR people can stay tuned into journalists' needs for upcoming stories. I've been receiving the HARO emails for about five months and it's fascinating to see the queries coming through from across the country.

Also, Peter usually features one business per email but they never seem like advertisements because of his ethusiasm for the product, whatever it may be. I bought a really cool crisis communications book and the company that I purchased from emailed me back "We love HARO" so I am guessing they sold lots that day! The HARO list is 50,000 strong so an impressive amount of people are reading these emails.

Here's a little more about the event: "It's not Web 2.0. It's not Web 3.0. It's simply life." I'll let everyone know when we're accepting registration for the event.

Meet Mary E. Pearson

One of the pleasures of my job is coordinating visits by authors who discuss and sign their work. Local author Mary E. Pearson visited us yesterday to discuss her newest book, The Adoration of Jenna Fox. It's classified as a young adult book but we had a group of 30 adults, without a teenager in sight, and all of us hung onto Mary's every word. She tells a terrific story, in person and in her books, and Jenna Fox is a fascinating book about a young woman trying to figure out her identity.

Mary has a really cool "book trailer" on her Jenna Fox site. Check it out here. What a great marketing idea!
http://www.whoisjennafox.com/

The Meaning of Our Name...

The term FormElement has two definitions.

The first is known only to a limited group of specialized computer programmers. As quoted from sourceforge.net:

>public interface FormElement

>A FormElement represents a single form field. Each FormElement can have a FormValidator as well as zero or more user-readable messages and zero or more user-readable error messages. The FormElement interface provides a common interface which all FormElements must implement.

The second is ours alone.

The Form Element is a result of knowing the need and purpose of each client, and distilling that purpose into a well-formed and well-communicated public image. We believe that business and individual Style is so much more than being up-to-date with passing current fashions. Truly Great Style transcends fashion and becomes a personality and image of its own. Form follows Function. The various Elements of truly Great Form communicate Image.