Who is Worth Following #5

  The continuing scan for signs of intelligence and fun in the PR blogosphere 

#5 Loren Feldman

Loren Feldman, the ganza macher of 1938 Media, is a pupeteer, satirist, performer in search of an audience, anti-Web 2.0 fixture in Web 2.0 circles, videographer and other things. He’s not in PR (although he is a PR master) and he’s not a blogger but he is definitely worth following, if nothing more than for entertainment… although you do get valuable information from Loren. As much as he will rail against it, he is addicted to this social media thing, otherwise he wouldn’t have an audience.

In the old days, a couple of years ago, I would hang with Loren at the Friar’s Club or a Deli somewhere on the east side as he was trying to find his place in the new social media world order. I don’t know if he’s found it but he did find Michelle Oshen - they got married, settled down like a nice nebbisha Long Island couple with shiny cars and a small dog and together became an anti-Web 2.0 power couple.

Although Loren has been thankfully domesticated he thankfully has not mellowed. He still could be the last Jew in the Warsaw ghetto lobbing a hand grenade - leading the symbolic if largely futile assault against repression. In his first event, The Audience Conference, New York City, November 5 -6, 2009, Loren is finally commanding the big stage where he is the lead player. I can’t figure out what The Audience Conference is, other than a day of fun and catharsis with some well-connected Web 2.0 types, but it is not, as Loren insists, about Twittering, Facebooking, YouTubing, blogging and all that - except that’s what all The Audience Conference speakers and performers do (even the music people are probably heavily involved in web promotion). 

Why follow Loren? Because he makes all this serious stuff fun and proves that we are involved in a visual medium that requires performers to reach out to an audience.

THE AUDIENCE CONFERENCE: The speakers range from large traditional media organisations with Dan Farber of CBS, though the recording industry with Warner Bros. Music CTO Ethan Kaplan, advertising with Crayon’s Joe Jaffe, HR and internal audiences with Frank Roche of iFractal and new media players like Mike Arrington of TechCrunch and Jason Calacanis of Mahalo, not to mention Musicians like Adam & Mia and Writers like the inimitable Andrew Keen of “Cult of the Amateur” fame with more being added. 

Who is Worth Following is a continuing PRBlogNews series based on random scans of intelligence, original thinking and personality in the PR blogosphere: #1 tomforemski - leadoff batter | #2 occamsrazr - the Leonard Cohen of PR bloggers | #3  [chrisbrogan.com] - the merry prankster of social media | #4 Richard Edelman - the Philip Roth of PR | #5 Loren Feldman - incendiary pupeteer

Richard Answers the Five Questions

Public relations is unfortunately absent its own scandal sheet or even a Trade that shouts and titillates the way Variety does for the film industry or even Advertising Age for the sons and daughters spawned by Mad Men.  Maybe we can start here with Richard Edelman’s confessional to PRBlogNews. I mean, he’s talking transvestite strippers and suicidal Civil War battle fantasies. What gives in the new downtown NYC Edelman nerve center? 

Richard Edelman on Wed, 28th Oct 2009 9:17 pm

gravatar of Richard Edelman, left, as appears in Intergalactic Space PR Guide

PRBlogNews (PRBN): What would be a 140 character or less ‘on message’ Twitter from Moses’ spokesperson?

Richard Edelman (RE): Our CEO is en route from mountain with official statement from the most credible source. Family focused material–short and sweet

PRBN: If Iago worked for Edelman in NY, what group would you put him in?

RE:  Iago would be in the entertainment group making deals with Hollywood moguls

PRBN:  I had go-go dancers at my Bar Mitzvah in Brooklyn. Can you top that?

RE:  I had a transvestite at my bachelor party as male stripper. I have never forgiven the party organizer

PRBN: If the name of the firm was not Edelman, what would it be?

RE: Danny Boy–my father’s nickname at ZBT House at Columbia. After all, he started the firm

PRBN: If you could click your heels twice and be anywhere, where would it be?

RE: I’d like to be on the Union line 3rd day at Gettyburg repelling Pickett’s charge

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Love Thy Neighbor

Mandy Wants You

Mandy Stadtmiller has an article in the NY Post today and she wants you to read her, follow her, friend her, fan her but I want to be different so I am blogging her (Mandy loves it). The article Mandy wrote is, of course, funny because Mandy is just … funny. You look at her and you want to laugh. And then she says something and you laugh more. Mandy is very social. Get to know her.

Mandy (left / Halloween early?) wants you to get a neck tattoo of the tinyurl to her story: 

Cheat sheet …  How not to have a ‘Fatal Attraction’ 

http://tinyurl.com/ygwhsyp

 

All Mandy, all the time:

…read Mandy: http://www.mandystadtmiller.com
…follow Mandy: http://twitter.com/mandystadt
…friend Mandy: http://facebook.com/mstadtmiller
…fan Mandy: http://tinyurl.com/cto7lq

Who is Worth Following #4

  The continuing scan for signs of intelligence and fun in the PR blogosphere 

#4 Richard Edelman

Breakfast with Richard Edelman means sharing a banana, half a glass of skim milk and a small bowl of cereal.  Soon, he’s got the scribblings of a blog post in his pocket and he’s running to catch the subway to chaperone a client, the CEO of a big company, on a media meeting. By far the biggest independent PR agency, Edelman Worldwide ($450 mil in billings), seems to grow perenially through boom times and recessions. All their clients are big but Richard is still the in-the-trenches PR guy, shlubbing off to another media meeting. 

At lunch Richard might let loose and drink a full glass of skim milk, before working out at the Harvard Club. Despite the academic pedigree he’s a perennial student, currently studying Hebrew and hopefully developing the patience necessary to tolerate Steve Rubel. He’s also become a student of Shakespeare, hosting a reading of the Bard (with the likes of Alec Baldwin) to benefit the Public Theatre at his summer home.

Edelman NY headquarters recently moved from its long-time Times Square location to a hot new ‘downtown’ PR/news room. Richard read a Hebrew blessing to bestow even greater prosperity on the firm. What hasn’t changed with a new location: he writes standing up at a podium and he cogitates - the rare, lone thinker in the middle of the global PR swirl.

Richard has been consistent in his blog 6AM, since launching it over four years ago. He has breakfast, lunch or drinks (what cocktail do they make with skim milk?) with some hotshot editor or producer or media exec that results in a blog post with the sort of valuable insight you can’t get in the industry Trades. Or else he gets personal and shares his vacation, if you call a famly trip to a concentration camp a vacation. He was a social media maniac in the old days, 3 - 4 years ago, but he’s mellowed into a quasi seeker-philosopher recently, the Philip Roth of PR (in fact, they live near each other) although he says he sometimes feels like Zelig, the Woody Allen character who shows up in unexpected places. Why follow Richard? Because he’s the leader. 

Richard has answered questions for PRBlogNews in the past - this time let’s see what happens when we ask publicly:

Questions for Richard:

• What would be a 140 character or less ‘on message’ Twitter from Moses’ spokesperson?
• If Iago worked for Edelman in NY, what group would you put him in?
• I had go-go dancers at my Bar Mitzvah in Brooklyn. Can you top that?
• If the name of the firm was not Edelman, what would it be?
• If you could click your heels twice and be anywhere, where would it be?

Blog: 6 A.M.
Twitter: http://twitter.com/richardwedelman
Facebook: Richard Edelman

Who is Worth Following is a continuing PRBlogNews series based on random scans of intelligence, original thinking and personality in the PR blogosphere: #1 tomforemski - leadoff batter | #2 occamsrazr - the Leonard Cohen of PR bloggers | #3  [chrisbrogan.com] - the merry prankster of social media | #4 Richard Edelman - the Philip Roth of PR

I Am #1 Sidewiki Comment on Twitter Home Page!

It could change at any moment. I could drop to the bottom or be eliminated by a vindictive Google algorithm or maybe I’m hallucinating … but as of this moment, I have the #1 Sidewiki comment on “the entire site” of Twitter, ahead of the venerable Danny Sullivan, Editor-in-Chief of Search Engine Land, and the mega-blog, Tech Crunch.  How did this happen? Nobody knows. What does it mean? Probably nothing.

We are crazed by Sidewiki since it launched Sept. 30 because Google has essentially “wrapped” the web with virgin space to add content. We’re pioneering new content turf here - we can have impact, influence, see our name immediately without the bothersome obstructions of search mechanisms. Google mysteriously ‘ranks’ these comments and stores them in your Google profile.

I say ‘mysteriously’ because several Sidewiki comments I posted to The New York Times and other sites have disappeared althogether. BusinessWire has taken pre-emptive action by inserting its own Sidewiki comment that is identified as “Page Owner.”

It’s not quite Afghanistan-Pakistan or Yankees-Angels but Google Sidewiki represents such a disruptive force to the web that PR people, SEO mavens, developers,  and advertisers are at odds as to what it means.  So far, generally across the web, comments have been sparse and respectful although we don’t know how many Sidewiki comments Google is deleting or archiving.

That’s the point here - Google is calling the shots, we’re scratching our heads and playing catch-up. #1 today, sayonara tomorrow.

Related: Big Pharma and Google Sidewiki: A Sink or Swim Situation? - 10/15/2009 AdvertisingAge

Who is Worth Following #3

 The continuing scan for signs of intelligence and fun in the PR blogosphere 

#3  [chrisbrogan.com]

What happened to Chris Brogan? The last time I saw Chris, April, 2007 (a millenia in social media time), at Podcamp in New York (see comment below) he was the merry prankster of social media. He floated around in a top hat spreading good cheer and encouragement. He seemed to emphasize the ’social’ aspect of all this; you could dismiss him as a post 9/11 wayward Deadhead about to crash on the next wave. It’s like he woke up one day and decided to become a Serious Man, as the Coen Brothers might put it.

Now Chris has a New York Times / Wall Street Journal best-selling book, more ’traffic’ than fills Yankee Stadium during the playoffs (including #1 on the AdWeek Power 150), seminars, engagements with top-tier brands, and most impressive to me, Chris has found a way to monetize this social media mumbo jumbo up the yin yang. His recently launched New Marketing Labs is a confederacy of social media geniuses probably charging fees that would make Richard Edelman jealous.

Chris is still goofy … but you can never doubt his passion and fresh optimism, and you can’t doubt his value as a seeker of social media truth. He doesn’t just report on trends, he obviously creates a few of his own.

Chris Brogan… on Mon, 9th Apr 2007 10:46 amHi Mark. First, thanks for participating in PodCampNYC. (Have you noticed we use “participant” instead of “attendee?”) Second, this was really great to read. Thanks for pointing it out to me. I really appreciate it.

Favorite quotes from your article: “This crowd vehemently rejects artifice and anonymity.”

“The public relations agency world lacks the innovative spirit, creative backbone, or long-term vision to capitalize on the incredible talent pool that attended PodCamp NYC.”

I think I’m in love. You’ve hit it right perfectly between the eyes.

You rock. Please keep spreading the word.

Blog: http://chrisbrogan.com
Twitter: http://twitter.com/chrisbrogan
Business: http://newmarketinglabs.com/

Who is Worth Following is a continuing PRBlogNews series based on random scans of intelligence, original thinking and personality in the PR blogosphere: #1 tomforemski - batting cleanup | #2 occamsrazr - the Leonard Cohen of PR bloggers | #3  [chrisbrogan.com] - the merry prankster of social media | #4 coming

PR/Media Week in Review 10-11-2009

Letterman started the week on a guilt-trip with his wife about all the creepy things he has been doing, including ‘the women’ - not just ‘woman’ -  he has been sleeping with. His on air confession/campfire funny story was widely seen as a PR masterpiece but it was his subsequent stumbling and bumbling and fear - will I lose my job? Lose my marriage? - that played like a real life serial drama, fueled by media speculation, that boosted ratings and kept advertisers in place. Remember Johnny Carson also had brief - very brief - moments of on air intimacy, a breaching of the late night show game face, that played well.  It doesn’t help Letterman that the protagonist in this story, the would-be extortionist, has a pit-bull media hungry attorney who is avery aggressive about spinning ‘the rest of the story.’ Meanwhile,  Letterman is virtually muzzled by his position and, presumably, his wife. How many times can you say you’re sorry?  It’s been reported that Rubenstein is representing Letterman, of course. It’s now in the stage of PR for a highly-public legal case. Maureen Dowd nailed it in her op-ed column Men Behaving Madly.

So much of baseball is PR. On field quick interviews. Long, post-game press conferences. Crisis communication - the latest steroid story, moving a team to another city. New York is the media capital of the world and the Yankees are the #1 sports franchise in history and they have been supplying drama, making news, all season long and now big-time in the post season. Manager Joe Girardi calls Yankee Stadium, and by extension any ballpark the Yankees play in, ”the big stage.” We’ve been waiting for A-Rod take take his star turn on the big stage and this could be the year.

This year A-Rod has learned that despite the $25 million a year he gets to work, his pimary obligation is to HAVE FUN. He learned that from Mark Texeira, who is an aw-shucks, hard running, uncomplicated, un-pretty home run banger who is also a dazzling fielder - a guy who full-throttle loves playing baseball. And Texeira does all this for a measly $180 million over eight years, $2.5 million a year less than A-Rod. As long as the Yankees play like this, nobody will quibble over those salaries.

The real story is that you can now Twitter the Yankee game right from the MLB site. Always be Twittering, pitch to pitch, that great swell of Yankee tweets if you can’t pay $1,000 a ticket to be there in person.

This week we launched Who is Worth Following, a continuing PRBlogNews series based on random scans of intelligence, original thinking and personality in the PR blogosphere: #1 tomforemski - batting cleanup | #2 occamsrazr - the Leonard Cohen of PR bloggers | #3 #4 and #5 coming next week.

P.S. - There in no truth to the rumor that Barack Obama is up for the Cy Young Award, based on the pitch he threw out opening day.

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