Your PR Architect

Had enough of the content tidal wave yet? The web offers more than "stream of consciousness." It's scream of consciousness -- a term I attribute to the  artist Carolyn Kassnoff around 2001 -- but it's more accurate than ever. Every thought, idea, wry observation, or snarky Kardashian slap finds its way into the torrent of social media. And no place is it more evident than Twitter. PR pro David Ericson recently blogged about many ways to use Twitter for public relations . It's a good read, describing how Twitter's alliance with Google helps the social media site reach casual web consumers who aren't (yet) Twitter members. So, if you're a PR pro who's working to get recognition for a client's services and products, there's value to including a well-planned Twitter strategy. Yogi Berra, C. 1956, via Wikimedia Commons But there's another way for PR people to leverage Twitter, although you need a registered Twitter account. I...

I have a bunch of orphans to look after. Not long ago, I worked on a series of video podcasts. Created them, actually, with the help of some very talented video professionals. Our videos profiled professional photographers (see the screen shot below), many of whom championed the virtues of film and digital photography. No one called our work "content creation" at the time. But we produced online material to help build the reputation and brand of a company struggling to re-imagine itself for the digital era. Digital eventually supplanted film, and the company filed for bankruptcy reorganization. Our videos, however, reflect the company's view at the time: that film gave photographers creative latitude that digital cameras did not. (View the series at this link. ) This view, in 2014, has changed. The podcasts -- including this one, profiling British photographer  Jocelyn Bain Hogg  -- live on as created in 2011. Frozen in time. I would have forgotten the...

Hats off to Google for opening their wallet where it's needed: in diversifying its workforce. Geneva Hats. Photo (c) DKassnoff, 2014. Google is paying to help women and minorities learn to write computer code, according to Business Insider.  A month ago, the company admitted it didn't have enough women or people of color in those IT jobs, and cited a lack of women and minorities studying IT to assume those jobs. This, tied with its $50 million " Made with Code " initiative, are fine steps toward ensuring a more diverse workforce. But, as I wrote here a month ago, Google's diversity effort is only 2/3 complete. Transforming the Internet colossus into a more-diverse business will really succeed if it also diversifies its leadership ranks. That's where the biggest gaps existed, according to Google's own numbers. Women and multicultural executives are essential to creating a business culture that's consistently mindful of the need for continued...

By Oregon Department of Transportation (Diversity Uploaded by AlbertHerring) [CC-BY-2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons Wow. Say what you will about Google's massive  Internet presence,  but when they mess up, they're not shy about it. A few days ago, Google admitted its workforce was overwhelmingly white. And male. They shared some metrics here . This is unusually forthright, because there's no major litigation facing Google regarding workforce inequities. Instead, they got out in front of their problem, defusing potential negative publicity before criticism or litigation arose. But dig deeper and you find their statistics are somewhat worse when it comes to the diversity of the company's leadership. Google's overall workforce is: 30 percent female, 70 percent male.  61 percent white,  30 percent Asian,  2 percent African American, and  3 percent Hispanic. Google's leadership demographics are less fo...

I don't have an Instagram account. But I have friends in the public relations industry who do, and use them often. They're smart professionals. So I assume they realize that Instagram doesn't make money by hosting their gee-whiz edited photos of their trip to Savannah. It makes money by harvesting data from photos, including the metadata it contains. Your smartphone's camera adds metadata to your photos. It knows where and when you captured the photo. The exposure, the brand of camera, etc. And I'm certain Facebook -- owners of Instagram, you'll recall -- understands how to sift out important information from your photos. And re-sell that information to its advertisers. The PR business is about influencing people's attitudes. What do you and I care about? How can PR people and marketers use that knowledge to influence users' attitudes and behaviors? I'm not a fool. Google does this sort of data-mining with all my searches. When I was looking ...