Here in Ottawa, we have a private talk-radio station, CFRA. One of their longtime hosts is a man named Lowell Green, who has been a broadcaster since the late 1950s, with a break of a few years when he unsuccessfully ran for election and owned a business or two. He’s also written a number of books, some non-fiction (How the Granola-crunching, Tree-hugging Thug Huggers are Wrecking Our Country! is the title of one of his books).

Mr. Green piqued my interest enough today to do something that I rarely do — phone in to a talk show. What was the topic? Libraries and the Kindle.

I was writing and listening to the radio, as I often do, and heard Green suggest that we should close the Ottawa Public Library and give each resident of Ottawa a Kindle, from Amazon. He argued that there are several hundred thousand books online and available to read with a Kindle, and that we’d save “hundreds of millions of dollars.”

Green has little use for libraries, and complains regularly about them giving away free DVDs, plans for a new main branch that will be a significant building project, and offering people free Internet access.

My conversation with him was by no means a triumph. As is his wont, he ran roughshod over me and I didn’t nearly achieve the eloquence I would like to have (which is why I’m here at the bully pulpit).

Is Green right? Are libraries passe, here and elsewhere? I say no. Why? Here’s why:

• There are a lot of people who don’t have the money for either paid Internet access or the equipment to get it. The library is important for them, especially now when so many services are based online.
• Families use libraries a LOT. Kids read bazillions of books, and it’s pretty great for families to be able to borrow books for their kids rather than buy them.
• The Kindle is an interesting device, but I think it’s limited. First, even if every resident got a Kindle, there’s still a cost to every book that is purchased. Second, it’s black and white, limiting its visual appeal for magazines or children’s books.
• The book is a tactile medium. As much of a geek as I am, I still love opening a book up, writing notes in the margins, etc etc.
• Libraries are able to offer all sorts of media, and that’s a GOOD thing. Why shouldn’t there be movies available at the library? Or CDs? When the public lending library first existed, it carried books only because that was IT. It only makes sense for modern libraries to use modern media.
• Libraries offer public programs — in the case of Ottawa’s, hundreds of programs — for people of all ages. A Kindle won’t do that.

There was a time — a LOONG time — when I spent a SHITload of money on books and on magazines. But times and priorities changed in our household, and in the last few years, my partner and I have become big library users. Since January, I’ve borrowed about 60 items from the library. Mostly books, but some magazines and some audio CDs.

I’ve also used my library’s online suggestion form to add a bunch of books to the collection, and still marvel that I can just suggest a book and they BUY it. Whee!

When I pick up my books from my local branch, the Rosemount, I see mothers and fathers with young children, I see seniors, I see people who are, I guess, recent immigrants. They’re getting help from librarians, they’re applying for job on the library computers, they’re playing video games on the computers, they’re going to storytime, and all sorts of other stuff.

I think the undercurrent for Green is that libraries are a free public good, and they give his conservative political views a nasty rash. He would prefer a more libertarian system where if you want a book, you pay for it, and so does everyone else.

I’m as much of a technophile as anyone, I think. But I don’t think it’s an either-or here. It’s not Kindles for everyone and shut the library down. The two tools are complements, not adversaries. It’s technology AND it’s touch.

Green told me that I was out of touch, that I needed to get with it. But to me, The true promise of social media tools like the Kindle isn’t the replacement of other media; it’s the EXTENSION of other media.

I think it’s sad that Lowell Green, author, would want to shut down a prime means of getting his words in front of people’s eyeballs.

The remarkably efficient Juicypeanut has managed to get my blog added to Technorati’s directory. So my three-month-and-eleven-day stretch in Technolimbo has ended.

Juicypeanut has done a remarkable amount of work on the Technorati GetSatisfaction forums to try to get people’s issues resolved. It’s unfortunate that she’s got to dig the organization out of such a deep hole in terms of customer service, but …

The winner of coffee with me is the lovely and talented Fiona Bladon, who chose March 5 at 3 pm. That put her guess off by only 32 hours. Rest assured that Fiona, who is another driving force behind Show Tune Showdown, and I will have a coffee together once we get through next Saturday’s event.

And if there are Ottawa folks out there thinking about Show Tune Showdown, be advised that while the Ottawa Little Theatre is a MUCH nicer venue, it is also much smaller than the Bronson Centre’s 900 seats, and tickets have been going faster than we’ve ever seen them go. So don’t wait until Saturday night, ’cause you might get disappointed.

Image from the Sketch & Jones blog.

Remarkably, someone at Technorati seems to be beginning to address the hundreds of customer service complaints at their GetSatisfaction site, including MINE! Wow.

Juicypeanut (a pseudonym, I’m guessing, although GetSatisfaction suggests that company employees participate using their names in their Company-Customer Pact) first asked “what my blog was.” Of course, she coulda just Googled it, but still.

And then asked me to reclaim my blog. Yes, reclaim the blog that I began claiming on November 25. So here’s the short code Technorati supposedly looks for. This should not be confused with the keyboard pounding fury that Technorati has managed to inspire in new and veteran bloggers alike: EXHKB9GWEMR6.

Ah, EXHKB9GWEMR6. How I remember those nights in EXHKB9GWEMR6 when we EXHKB9GWEMR6 under the stars and sipped our EXHKB9GWEMR6.

Let’s see what happens next, shall we?

(“Claim Token has been verified,” sez Technorotten. Here’s the message: “Mar 06, 2010. We are evaluating your claim. It may take quite some time for evaluation.” No shit, Sherlock. It’s already been more than three months — is there a Technorati Scriptorium somewhere with monks writing down the RSS feeds of the selected blogs?!)

I spent the better part of a decade working at post-secondary institutions in communications. Which means that I did a lot of work around politicians visiting campuses. New buildings, new labs, funding announcements, safety blitzes, policy unveilings… I’ve done ‘em all.

And one evergreen part of the event is the walkabout. This is the part of the event where the politician, accompanied by his or her entourage as well as officials from the institution, leaves the podium and then wanders around an area looking at stuff that’s related in some way to the announcement.

Talking about water purification? Check out this demo: EcoVu water purification.  Announcing new money for education? Hit a classroom or computer lab. Health care announcement? Check out a nursing lab.

This gets done for a couple of reasons. The most important one from my perspective has always been that it’s hard for TV to cover an announcement with just pictures of the politician speaking. You need stuff on tape that the reporter can write over. And in some cases, the politicians are actually interested.

But this morning’s Daily Intel slide show is the epitome of the photo-op: A History of Obama Feigning Interest in Mundane Things. If you’re a communicator or a political aide, view and chuckle knowingly. Or weep. Or both.

Obama feigning interest in a screw

It’s a little embarrassing to be in the PR business on the day that the Wall Street Journal calls out Coke for the “most unintelligible news release ever.”

DealJournal’s Dennis Berman points to a news release announcing a large, but essentially inside-baseball deal between The Coca-Cola Company and Coca-Cola Enterprises. The deal is announced in a release remarkable for several reasons.

1. It’s 3,402 words long (just the release, not the fact sheet or FAQ)
2. Cut and pasted from the web, it took up seven pages.
3. The actual release is 1,290 words, followed by 2,112 words of “abouts” of the parties in the transaction, disclaimers, forward-looking statements, etc.
4. The factsheet adds 898 words on two pages
5. The seven-page FAQ adds another 2,497 words, for a total word count of 6,797.
6. The opening quote from Chairman and CEO Muhtar Kent goes 302 words. It reads:
   

   CEO Muhtar Kent, probably not reciting a 300-word quote

   “Our 2020 Vision calls for decisive and timely action to continuously improve and evolve our global franchise system to best serve our customers and consumers everywhere. Consistent with the 2020 Vision, our roadmap for winning together, we act today as an aligned system. We are not acquiring CCE, rather we are acquiring their North American operations, and they remain one of our key bottling partners with world-class management, financial and operational capabilities. We have a strong and unrelenting belief in our unique and thriving global bottling system. Our new North American structure will create an unparalleled combination of businesses, which will serve as our passport to winning in the world’s largest nonalcoholic ready-to-drink profit pool. This transaction offers compelling value to both The Coca-Cola Company and CCE shareowners and will create substantial and sustainable benefits for both companies’ stakeholders. Our North American business structure has remained essentially the same since CCE was founded in 1986, while the market and industry have changed dramatically. With this transaction, we are converting passive capital into active capital, giving us direct control over our investment in North America to accelerate growth and drive long-term profitability. We will work closely with our bottling partners to create an evolved franchise system for the unique needs of the North American market. Additionally, we will reconfigure our manufacturing, supply chain and logistics operations to achieve cost reductions over time. Importantly, the creation of a unified operating system will strategically position us to better market and distribute North America’s most preferred nonalcoholic beverage brands. At the same time, in Europe, we are further strengthening our franchise system to provide broader, contiguous geographic coverage and optimizing our marketing and distribution leadership.”

7. One of the highlights at the head of the release read:The Coca-Cola Company will generate immediate efficiencies with expected operational synergies of $350 million over four years, and the transactions, which are substantially cashless, are expected to be accretive to EPS on a fully diluted basis by 2012
   
8. It is chock-a-block with bankrupt phrases and words like “drive long-term profitability.”

It seems ironic that I am writing this almost exactly four years after Tom Foremski wrote his blog post headlined “Die! Press Release! Die! Die! Die!” on February 27, 2006.

I’ve written stuff sort of like this from time to time. Never so wordy, never so turgid, but I’ve written some releases that I KNEW would never fulfil their stated purpose. Sometimes you have to grit your teeth and do it because that’s why you’re there. And I’m far from the only one who has. I imagine EVERYONE has in this business.

And that’s why people like Todd Defren created and developed the social media news release. To try and kill these releases.

On one level, it would seem that Coke has ignored the move to social media releases, the thirst for change that Foremski epitomized. By any standard, this news release is awful. The quotes don’t sound like anything ever said by a human being; it makes absolutely no effort to demystify some of the arcane concepts it’s describing; and it is so incredibly long.

So here’s where I’m going to try to look at this in a new way.

I have been thinking for a long time that many “news releases” aren’t done with the goal of obtaining news coverage at all. My first thought on this was that they were to be found online by readers — part of the fabled “disintermediation”. But now I’m thinking there’s a whole purpose to the type of news release issued by Coke and mocked by the Journal.

I believe news releases like these are written for two reasons:

1. to satisfy regulatory requirements
2. to officially document the action on the company’s web site.

If that’s true, here’s my proposal:

This isn’t a news release. It’s a bread crumb on the trail of a corporation’s life. So take this type of news release away from PR and give it to Finance. Forget about quotes and the like. Just list the facts. Do what you have to do. Let communicators do more rewarding and valuable work. If this is indeed news, then let them write things that will actually sound like human-produced documents, that will have a chance of engaging readers, that may result in media coverage. Don’t make people like me grit their teeth and crunch Tums while they write crap like this. It doesn’t mean anything. It doesn’t do anything. Stop wasting our time and your money and let us do what we’re good at.

That’s my proposal. Are corporations and organizations ready to accept it? Or at least think about it? Let’s hope so.

Photo: Martin Cathrae (http://www.flickr.com/photos/suckamc/ / CC BY-NC 2.0)

Hi blogsters! Remember when Technorati used to be relevant? Me too.

Of course, they likely don’t know about this blog, because it still isn’t in their directory despite me having followed their procedures in MID-NOVEMBER. Now that’s the real-time web, eh kids?

So I’ve decided to make a contest. Leave a comment with your best guess as to what date they’ll approve my blog (Never is not a valid option; “when hell freezes over” isn’t either) and finish the review process they began 90 days ago, and the person who gets closest to the actual date will get a coffee and a pastry date with me (or without me, if you prefer)  if they’re in the Ottawa area, or I’ll paypal you enough to buy yourself a coffee and a donut.

Multiple correct answers will result in a random draw for the prize.

Good luck!

For some reason, I’ve recently found myself catching the new reality series “Undercover Boss”, a CBS version of a British show of the same name. If you haven’t seen the show, the concept is this (from the show site):

Each week a different executive will leave the comfort of their corner office for an undercover mission to examine the inner workings of their company. While working alongside their employees, they will see the effects their decisions have on others, where the problems lie within their organization and get an up-close look at both the good and the bad while discovering the unsung heroes who make their company run.

So far, they’ve run episodes featuring  the CEOs of Waste Management, Hooters, and 7-eleven infiltrating their organizations.I’ve caught the Waste Management and Seven-11 episodes.

The disturbing part of the series for me has been its utter shallowness. The formula is a simple one to describe:

1. CEO is painted as a great guy, family man, and all-round good Joe
2. Company is profiled as a great success
3. CEO begins the undercover job
4. CEO discovers his utter lack of competence at most or all of the jobs that his company carries out
5. CEO discovers some minor problems with the company
6. CEO discovers his employees are the salt of the earth, and may face challenges that their job doesn’t address (sick relatives, financial problems)
7. The CEO meets with his senior leadership to explain the ways in which this is going to “totally change the way we do business”, and then meets with the  employees as the CEO.

The Waste Management episode, for example, profiled Jacqueline, an employee who was carrying out the work of several people and juggling multiple financial commitments; another employee continued to work despite being on dialysis for 20 years; a third who literally ran to punch in on time because every minute of lateness was penalized by the loss of two minutes’ pay.

Waste Management CEO Larry O’Donnell rewarded Jacqueline with a move from hourly pay to a salary and a promotion. He asked the plant manager to change the lateness policy.

All of this Ebenezer Scrooge-ish conversion is inspiring. But perhaps I’m too cynical to believe in it, as I would if Dickens wrote it.

Is all it takes a one-week immersion in the “real world” for a CEO to turn his back on company policies? And while it’s wonderful that a handful of employees get “face time” with the CEO and may get rewarded for being superior performers, what about the others — those who don’t get to see the CEO haul trash or wash beer mugs.

In The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, reporter Vera Miles is told by her editor: “When the legend becomes fact, print the legend.” In this case, I’d rather see the facts than a Thomas Kinkade portrait of the world of business.

I’m a little bit flummoxed by what I learned via BoingBoing today about the Lower Merion School District in Pennsylvania.

The school district is being sued by a student as part of a class-action. The allegations are contained in this statement of claim, and if true are more than a bit disturbing.

Essentially, the high-school students each received a notebook computer for use in their studies. It’s not a huge surprise that the computers had integrated webcams.

But student Blake Robbins was told by a vice-principal that he had “engaged in improper behavior at home.” The principal cited a webcam snapshot as evidence of this behaviour. Blake’s father then discovered that each of the computers had remote access software that allowed the school to activate the webcam at any time.

The district has since sent out a letter from Superintendent Christopher McGinley to the district community and a letter to parents, which are available on their web site. The community letter says (in part):

The tracking-security feature was limited to taking a still image of the operator and the operator’s screen. This feature has only been used for the limited purpose of locating a lost, stolen or missing laptop. The District has not used the tracking feature or web cam for any other purpose or in any other manner whatsoever.

The letter to parents says:

The District never activated the security feature for any other purpose or in any other manner whatsoever.

I hope that the allegations made in the suit are wrong and that the district superintendent is right. Because it’s more than a little creepy to imagine that school officials have the ability to peek on their students wherever they happen to be using their computers, and even creepier to imagine a vice-principal saying “you were a naughty boy last night, Blake… I saw you.”

Of course, if the student allegations are correct, the superintendent has just lied to the community and parents.

I’m not sure what universe you’d have to live in to consider the covert observation of students off school property using webcams and undisclosed remote access software an acceptable act. But if you check out this video from PBS’s Frontline, you’ll see a vice-principal at another school chuckling  about how he can snap remote pictures of his students and catch them goofing off.

My advice to students reading this blog? Duct tape. Or a little blob of this stuff, right over the camera.

My advice to the district? Find out if the allegations are true, and settle like a madman. You totally fouled this up.

UPDATE: According to this NBC story, the student who was disciplined was caught eating Mike & Ike’s on camera, which apparently look like pills. He was accused of using drugs. Story below:

I’m not much of a fan of the Olympics. I think they’re an obscene waste of money that exploit athletes for the enrichment of a small cadre of IOC members and giant corporations. To add on to that, I’m not much of a sports fan except for cycling, so there’s not much to attract me to them.

That being said, you won’t be surprised that I don’t have much to say about the opening ceremonies (watched Season 4 of The Wire instead), our national team’s performance (good, I suppose — and good for the athletes who won), or the tragic death of a luger from Georgia (I’m amazed there aren’t more deaths in a sport in which people hurtle down ice chutes at 140 km/h on their back).

But it’s been interesting to watch the hullabaloo about the fenced-off location of the Olympic flame.

As I understand it, after the official opening ceremony, the flame was carried down to a location near the international media centre by Wayne Gretzky. There were big crowds there cheering him on. But the cauldron is in a security zone. So there was a high fence surrounding it. First, the fence had cloth in it to block views. Then, VANOC, the organizers of the games, removed the cloth. Now they’re moving the fence closer, but still preventing people from getting more than 25 metres away from the cauldron.

So you have an imposing piece of sculpture (not to my taste, but still imposing), which gives you pictures like this:

“The Olympic cauldron is a powerful symbol and the desire to get as close to it as possible has been remarkable ― more than we expected. We are pleased to provide enhanced opportunities for all to see the cauldron in its spectacular waterfront setting ― at its best,” explained John Furlong, chief executive officer for the Vancouver Organizing Committee for the 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games (VANOC). “We invite everyone to come and enjoy it from this vantage point.”

After watching his resignation news conference (video below from CITY TV), I have to say that my overwhelming reaction to the now-ended Adam Giambrone mayoral campaign in Toronto is one of sadness for his partner and for him.

Yes, it’s politics. Yes, it’s communications. But you know what? I watch this video and I see someone who looks pretty shattered; someone who’s been punched repeatedly in the head and is at the point where he can’t quite  understand how he’s put himself into this horrible situation. And I feel for him.

We all make mistakes. Most of the time, thank God, they aren’t as severe, as public, or as damaging to others as this one was. And while I think Giambrone did the right thing by leaving the mayoral race — a race which I suspect he wasn’t ready for anyway — I just look at the video and think that this is a guy who’s going to need some serious rebuilding.

I don’t really care about his political career and whether he can ever put it back together. But I do hope that he takes this experience, finds what is possible to learn from it, and uses it as a spur to change his patterns of behaviour. It would appear he needs to do that. And sometimes you can’t rebuild while you’re still limping along; sometimes you need to totally crash in order to put ourselves back together.

To that end, while I know the urge to make jokes and to dissect this series of events in terms of politics and communications is almost irresistible, let’s not forget that this is also a human story, affecting human lives. If for no other reason than to show Giambrone’s partner a bit more empathy than she received from him, let’s be classy.

UPDATE: According to multiple sources, including former mayoral candidate and current talk-radio host John Tory and the Toronto Star, Giambrone found himself in front of the media with one page of a two-page speech, which explains his odd departure from the stage yesterday. A sad ending to a short run for mayor.

Here’s what Tory said: CFRB’s John Tory on Giambrone