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Cell phone blues: Notes of a techno-unsophisticated gadget-loving refugee from Sprint

I'm all for the power of the internet as a networking tool, but it's still amazing what you can learn from the people you meet f2f in the real world.

For instance, one of the most interesting people I met at the New Communications Forum last month was Dan Taylor, accomplished business blogger and managing director for the Mobile Enterprise Alliance, Inc. (MEA), a "non-profit industry association that advocates enterprise adoption of mobile technologies." Dan and I turned out to have many interests in common, and he has even been kind enough to encourage his members to provide valuable input to my information overload study by taking the InfoYou survey.

(Have you taken it yet? I need your valuable input, as well, and you need the terrific free download I offer at the end, "Infomaven's Top Ten Tools for Taming Information Overload Online.")

In any case, given Dan's profession and the always-erratic behavior of my Sprint PCS Treo 300 smartphone, the talk inevitably turned to phones: how to choose a plan and a cell phone, how to decide on a carrier, how to deal with the confusion of comparing competing plans, whether the time was ripe switching from traditional landlines to internet telephony. I listened carefully, knowing Dan's expertise would come in handy very soon-- especially to the part where Dan offered to share his expertise with me when I got ready to switch.

Shortly after I returned from the conference, my Treo 300 started to go completely haywire, so I e-mailed Dan for some advice to the phonelorn:

Dear Dan,

I need to pick your brain some more about mobile phones. I have a Sprint PCS account with two phones on it, mine and my husband's. Mine is out of warranty, has gone haywire, and needs to be replaced. It has no contract on it, but is not eligible for a discount on a new phone. My husband’s is new and under contract until 10/05 (a mistake in our favor, for once).

Getting out of that contract and keeping our numbers will cost $150, probably the same discount as I would get from Verizon or T-Mobile on a replacement phone. In addition, when I moved to Sprint, I moved all my landlines there as well, because I was supposedly getting a bundled, better price. That has turned out to be a disaster, because Verizon owns the lines and anytime anything goes wrong (like today, when my business line has no dial tone), somehow the repair ticket goes to the bottom of the pile.

I am thinking of just bailing out of Sprint and moving to Verizon for mobile and landlines. (I know, you recommended Vonage instead of landlines, but I want to wait to see what my cable company has to offer.) One concern is that with the AT&T/Cingular merger, I wonder if Verizon is still the best choice. Also, I have cable modem service and could probably save if I moved to Verizon DSL, though how much is a question.

Any thoughts you have would be greatly appreciated, especially since my Treo 300 is doing the same things it was before it died at the age of six months and Sprint replaced it with a refurbished unit: continuously turning itself on for no reason and failing to hold a charge. (This is the replacement I got last May!). As for the next phone, I don’t know whether to take a chance on the newest very cool Treo or wait until the smartphones get smarter. One advantage of my little old clamshell type phone was its size and convenience, and it still could access the web in a pinch.

Thanks,
Lois

With Dan's permission, here is his response:

My thought on the telephone thing is the following

(1) Bundling: It's a joke. Don't worry about getting a better price on a bundle including wireless service and landline. The bundles work best when combining Internet access with local telephone service.

(2) Wireless Operator. If you've had it with Sprint, then I'd consider moving to either Verizon or T-Mobile. The plan should be to add your husband to your plan (usually an extra $10 per month) next year when he rolls over. Consumer reports rates Verizon at the top in terms of coverage, but T-Mobile is also up there. Cingular and AT&T are at the bottom of the list. In my books, T-Mobile is the underdog these days - they're #4 and a little smaller (17 million subscribers). I'd buy from them just because they sponsor uber-cyclist Jan Ullrich, my favorite cyclist of modern times.

Also, T-mobile has the best pricing on their WAP service (t-zones, it's called) and you should be able to do some basic Internet stuff on t-zones.

Anyway. Here's the advice I recently gave my mother, though she didn't take it.

(a) When you sign up for a new plan, you're apt to get the best price on a new phone. If you'd like to save a buck, take a peek at Wirefly to see what kind of deal you can get. If you're smart, you can get a phone for free ... or even less.

NOTE: Wirefly will take longer than going to the phone store, and their customer service isn't so great. My girlfriend tried to switch providers using Wirefly, and she had a problem (I think because she called the 800 number), they assigned her new numbers instead of transferring hers. It took her a month to get everything right, and then she still has problems with Cingular.

On the other hand, I switched from Sprint to AT&T using Wirefly. It took a week, but everything transferred over OK. My phone showed up on day 5, the number was properly ported, and my Sprint account was cancelled without my having to deal with it.

(b) Calling patterns. I'd spend a few minutes looking through my cell phone bill. How many minutes do you use? Whom do you call the most? In my case, my girlfriend and I talk the most on our mobile telephones, so mobile-to-mobile is the most important part of the puzzle for me. There are some really wonderful calculators out there for figuring this stuff out. Try this one: http://www.lowermybills.com/twi/index.jsp

(3) International. If you make international calls, or calls to Canada, you should look at Gorilla Mobile -- you dial into an access number which then gives you a dial tone to make international calls. This is a nice feature and incredibly decent rates, even if you only call to Canada. Rates to Western Europe are very good.

(4) Handset. Get whichever telephone makes you happy. I prefer simplicity and ease-of-use. I also tend not to go in the smartphone direction, because telephony is the most important application for me. Second is SMS. I find e-mail on a cell phone to be a joke.

I hope this helps. It'll take some work to figure out a solution. When you have an idea, please feel free to run it by me, as I might be able to catch a potential hitch or two.

Take care, talk to you soon,

Dan

Well, I visited some of the sites Dan suggested, talked to some other folks about their customer service experiences, and hoped the problem would go away. Of course, it didn't. This week, my Treo 300 became almost entirely unusable.

So first, I checked again with Sprint about my contract obligations. It seems that I would be eligible for a great deal on a new Sprint phone if I waited until April 1, eighteen months after I bought the Treo 300. But what am I supposed to do between now and then -- revert to smoke signals?

Sprint Customer Service says that only the Rebate Department can make an exception, and the Rebate Department says it's up to Customer Service. What's more, they now say that my husband's phone is in thrall to Sprint until May, 2006, and can only be ransomed for an early termination fee of $150.

Typical Sprint: The left hand doesn't know what the right hand is doing, and you have to wait on hold on two separate numbers to ascertain that their customer service is as bad as ever. So I knew for sure it was time to switch cell phone carriers.

Others had told me good things about Verizon customer service -- at least, in comparison to other providers they had used -- and I remembered from my earlier visits to Wirefly that the $150 early termination fee would be offset almost immediately by the good deals on new phones and the lower cost of the Verizon plan most appropriate for my needs.

So I went to Wirefly to choose two new phones and set up Verizon service using our existing numbers. I hoped that would be a relatively simple process, but the jargon-filled phone specs made it hard for me to be sure that my new phone had a couple of key features I wanted, in particular the smartphone-like ability to sync to my desktop computer using a USB cable. Hours later, after reading dozens of product reviews, I chose a Motorola V260 for myself (net cost: $49.99 after rebates) and an LG VX3200 for my husband (net profit: $30.01 after rebates) on a shared Verizon plan.

That's when I discovered why Dan's girlfriend had resorted to the 800 number. Every time I tried to begin the purchase process, I could only choose two identifical phones. Trying to use Wirefly's online help was an experience in frustration: every time I found what seemed to be the correct topic, I was asked for an order number. No order number, no answers.

I couldn't find a phone contact number anywhere on the site, so I clicked "Order by Phone," which generated a code number and a toll-free number intended just for orders. I reached a human who was very eager to have me place an order, but not so eager to answer questions. However, I learned from him that the best, if not the only, way to order two different phones would be to order two individual plans, each with one of the phones I wanted, and later contact Verizon to combine them. 

That prospect was a nightmare to me -- I immediately envisioned hours on hold with heavy metal in the background --, so I said I would order two identical phones. I deceitfully obliged the rep by taking his direct contact info to call back "so I can get my commission." Remembering Dan's advice, though, I knew I would be placing the order online.

Here's where I hope I didn't blow it: I forgot Dan's invitation to run my plan by him so he could flag any potential pitfalls. I placed a Wirefly order for two Motorola V260s (net cost: $99.99) on an appropriate Verizon plan. The Wirefly site and ordering system include clear directions on how to make sure the number porting process goes smoothly, so I'm optimistic.

But it seems the customer is now responsible for cancelling the old service once the new service is in place. That means, if I'm lucky, one more round with Spring. I then ordered the synching software and cable from the Motorola online store, the only place I could find it, after making sure the purchase would be returnable if this whole adventure turns out to be a bust.

The Wirefly site enables real-time order tracking. As of this morning, my credit has been authorized, Verizon has approved my order, and the phones should be "activated and shipped within the next 24-48 hours" -- hopefully with our current numbers properly ported to them.

Stay tuned.

Renee Blodgett's take on distractions

Here's another reaction to Katie Hafner's article on information age distractions, from corporate communications consultant and marketing consultant Renee Blodgett. I had the pleasure of meeting Renee last month in Napa, at the New Communications Forum.

In contrast to our more reactive solution -- creating ways to manage the information glut that besets us -- Renee has a proactive suggestion for vendors:

[A]gree on more standards, give us less devices, better connections, less chargers, less things to operate and assemble, less things to fix, return, renew, figure out how to use.

Nevertheless, she admits,

I was distracted six times while reading the article and four times while posting my thoughts on it. And already my attention is somewhere else..........

Information-age distractions and information overload

Today's "Circuits" section of the New York Times features a Katie Hafner article on information-age distractions.  Hafner focuses on current research by computer scientists and psychologists on ways to cope with "the universe of diversions to buy, hear, watch, and forward, which makes focusing on a task all the more challenging."

"Humans specialize in distractions, especially when the taks at hand requires intellectual heavy lifting," says Hafner. Dr. John Ratey, a Harvard Medical School researcher, calls this phenomenon "pseudo-A.D.D." Researchers are at work on distraction-reducing strategies including improved scrolling technology, intelligent e-mail systems that can identify interruption-worthy messages, and the relationships between distractions and the state of "deep cognitive immersion" known as flow.

Until the more sophisticated research efforts pan out, some of Hafner's interviewees are using simple solutions like self-imposed e-mail-checking schedules. Not a bad strategy for starters -- but Metaforix is working on some much more comprehensive ideas. Our InfoYou project is designed to yield personalized "information tool kits" for dealing with information overload that reflect individual information needs, styles, and preferences.

We are currently testing and refining InfoYou to reflect the information handling preferences and experiences of as many people as possible. Please add your own experiences to the mix by completing our InfoYou survey, available online at www.surveymonkey.com/infoyou. 

Most people complete the questions within fifteen minutes or less and find the survey interesting and fun. As our thank-you gift for your participation, Metaforix offers people who complete the questionnaire a valuable free download, "Infomaven's Top 10 Tools for Taming Information Overload Online." In addition, we invite you to enter a drawing for a $100 gift certificate from Amazon.com.

So, while waiting for the distraction-busters of the future, I hope you'll participate in our study. We plan to create a book and a workshops series based on the results, Your input will help make our InfoYou tool kits even more useful. Please take the survey and let me know what you think by psoting a comment below or e-mail me at infoyou at metaforix.com.

Blogging and journalism

Dan Forbush of ProfNet moderated a panel on "Blogging and Journalism" on Day 2 of the New Communications Forum. Panelists included SiliconValleyWatcher Tom Foremski, late of the Financial Times, "the first journalist to resign from his job at one of the world's leading newspapers to become a full-time professional blogger;" Heath Row, editorial and community director of FastCompany.com; and Jeremy Wright, "blogpreneur" and consultant famed for auctioning himself on eBay.

(Elizabeth and Jen, this was a great panel, but I'm compelled to ask: Was there no female blogger/journalist, or a reasonable facsimile thereof, available to join these distinguished gents?)

Notes from the discussion:

- Tom Foremski started SiliconValleyWatcher last September never having blogged before and is now just "figuring out what can be done." He "loves all the different writing styles and forms blogging enables" and doesn't miss the constraints of the old print model -- such as specified article lengths and styles -- it leaves by the wayside.

Tom made an instant fan of me by citing with gentle but unmistakeable disdain a USA Today article downplaying the significance of the blogging phenomenon. ("Chill, blogophiles," indeed!). His intial commandment for bloggers: "Keep relevant, concentrate on content, and the rest will take care of itself.

- Heath's Fast Company (FC) blog was the first blog launched by a business magazine. [Note correction from original post]. (He also keeps a blog at Cardhouse.com: Heath Row's Media Diet.) Although blogging is "very uncontrolled" and therefore problematic to editors, FC has "run with it" for a number of reasons:

• Blogging is a great way for a monthly publication to meet the challenge of providing "fresh, sustainable daily content."
• Blogs provide additional service to readers by offering a venue where "not-quite-a-story ideas" can be shared.
• Bloggging fulfills an FC mission by offering readers ways to connect with people in the magazine's pages and involving readers in the creation of the magazine. It's also a source of story ideas.
• Blogging lets FC "explore new forms of business journalism."
• The FC blog has "given us tremendous Google juice." Though the blog gets only one percent of the FC site's page view per day, it's always highly ranked on Google. "My name," says Heath, "appears above the airport in London." (I just checked. He's almost right.)

Heath cited several "outcomes and projects" that have emanated from the blog:

• "It used to be that print spilled over to the web. Now we're beginning to see the web spill over to print." A recent blog post on Sanctuary Records ended up as a full-page feature in the print magazine.
• Health invites authors of business books featured in FC print to be guest bloggers.
• When the blog turned one year old, members of the FC community -- including readers -- were invited to be guest contributors for two days. Forty-five people participated in the festivities.

Listening to Heath's remarks, I was tempted to reinstate my long-lapsed subscription to the magazine and to rejoin Company of Friends, FC's "global readers' network." And, in fact, I may.

- Jeremy Wright identified himself as "as far from a journalist as you can get." He bills himself as a "professional blogger and blog consultant" and his company, InsideBlogging, as "the world's foremost blog consulting company. Modest, he is not -- in fact, Jeremy struck me as the most self-promotional presenter at the conference, bar none, and, based on this panel, the one with the least to say. Though, I suppose, there is something to be said for auctioning yourself on eBay, selling your blog for $15,000, getting fired for blogging, and bragging about it all. 

- Dan Taylor asked the panel whether their move into blogging had changed their relationships with PR professionals. "Nothing has changed," said Tom. "It's still about trusted relationships. For Heath, "the threshold has changed slightly. As for Jeremy, "A year ago, I was nobody, but now I interact with PR professionals on a day-to-day basis."

- Another questioner wondered, "What's the most valuable way for a PR person to contact you?" Jeremy suggested trying to "start a conversation by saying why the information in the press release has value." For him, "personal relationship building has the greatest value."  Heath offered three "good-care practices" for working with him as a journalist: (1) "The power of the idea is key." (2) Understand what FC does. (3) Contact me by e-mail and don't call to see if I received your message. Tom said, "Sometimes it takes me a couple of days to get through my inbox," so "phone me on time-sensitive content. Give me the option to take the call and get the story."

- In answer to the question,"Why don't blogs make it into print more often?" Health replied that it's not always made explicit that a print story originated with a blog entry. "Web complement to print publications are often viewed as ghettos" -- for example, Health is the only editor for the entire FC website. Tom said much the same, albeit with a blunter sort of charm: "Journalists steal from each other all the time and don't like to admit it, so blogs don't get cited."

Health added that journalists are not honest about their biases, while "blogging honors the real subjectivity, 'intersubjectivity.'" He cited David Weinberger on the subject. Here's a Weinberger piece that, at a quick glance, looks like a good place to begin to understand the concept as it plays out in the blogosphere. Intersubjectivity involves not only "find[ing] lots of points of view," but "get[ting] to know them over time," and "see[ing]" them interrelated over 'space'" as a means of assessing trustworthiness.

Jeremy envisions three possible models for the future: (1) You read only the points of view you agree with. (2) Blogs just "become part of the fabric of the net." (3) Blogs change completely. (He didn't say how.)

-  Tom is fascinated by the technology that enables blogging and believes it will completely change the media industry. "For the [San Francisco] Chronicle to produce a column-inch of copy is very expensive, while producing good blog content is cheap. . . .If I pulled out all the "people brands' [columnists], and with reporters not allowed to express opinions, what would be left of the Chronicle?"

- Heath is a big supporter of grass-roots media but doesn't think that MSM will die. "Blogging is just a form of transmission." We still have "trusted tribal voices in the mainstream media," -- for example, The Economist has no bylines, but we are drawn by its great writing. Similarly, in higher education, people now sometimes choose universities for their "rock-star" professors, rather than the university brand.

Great discussion! Too short! This would have been a fascinating topic to share with fellow participants around our tables, right there and then. 

Blogging and branding

This Day 2 panel at the New Communications Forum was moderated by Elizabeth Albrycht and featured trendspotter Anita Campbell, blogostar Andy Lark, generalist-synthesist- technical-visceral blogger Evelyn Rodriguez, and Mobile Enterprise Alliance director Dan Taylor. Some highlights I noted from a very well-chosen and engaging group of panelists:

- Anita, a "refugee from the corporate world," has hired service providers solely on the basis of their blogs. She gets many messages from PR folks and corporate representatives trying to get her attention because she writes about what they sell. Take-home message: Blogging has shifted the balance of power in branding.

- Evelyn, who has a tech industry background but is now a marketing consultant, uses her blog to build her own personal brand. Her blog "blurs the personal and the professional because it's not about a specific topic. It's for a specific community.

- As a trade association executive, Dan's "job is to sell an agenda." A trade group is a community of interest, but it's nevertheless hard to get community members involved. His blog is "a cost-effective way to put a face on the organization and to become known in his part of the industry."

- Brands exist in people's heads, says Andy. Blogs open conversations about what's going on in people's heads with respect to the brands.

- Anita presented a fascinating case study, a network map of the Northeast Ohio blogosphere. To develop the map, Anita and her colleagues employed special software, an Excel spreadsheet, and Malcolm Gladwell's Tipping Point concepts of connectors (linkers, in this context) and mavens (subject matter experts). The map demonstrates the relationships of various blogs to the "core," or most popular, blog in the community. (The techniques used to create the map apply to other types of communities, not simply geographical ones.)

Anita pointed to four surprising results. First, seemingly unconnected blogs can actually be connected. In this case, the connector blogs all covered different subjects. Second, the most influential people and organizations in the physical world do not necessarily wield the greatest influence in the blogosphere. Third, a blogger who has great influence in the blogosphere at large may not be influential within a specific segment -- in this case, the Northeast Ohio community. Fourth, "if you're trying to promote your brand, you may be looking for love in all the wrong places." For example, Virginia Postrel's blog is very popular in Cleveland, though she has nothing to do with Cleveland.

- Studies show, according to Andy, that bloggers tend to keep linking to the people they are linking to already. This suggests that the relationships documented in Anita's map would not tend to change quickly and dramatically.

- In Dan's mobile enterprise space, very few people are blogging apart from syndicated mainstream media content. He is always looking for the people who are connected.

- Evelyn suggested that automated tracking tools are not always necessary. You can phone your customers and ask them where they look for information on specific subjects. What do they read? Further, she asked, "Can you tell by reading my blog who influences me? If you can, let me know!"

- Elizabeth asked the panel, "How can we protect the brand when everyone is an author?" We can't, replied Andy, because we don't own the brand. It exists in the customer's head. Companies need to protect the product, not the brand, because the customer owns the brand and gets to decide what to do with it -- as in, "I own the brand and I'll give it back to you if I don't like it."  (What the company does own and can protect is its trademark.)

- What about start-ups using the blogosphere as a way to create a brand? asked Elizabeth. Dan replied that companies design products with the expectation of certain results. But products get released and are used in many unexpected ways. The blogosphere helps to expand the meaning of a brand.

- A comment from prominent audience member Stowe Boyd, Corante principal and "avid student of the world of collaborative technologies and their impacts on business and society:"  "Be afraid when nouns become verbs . . . .In an era of social media, a brand is not a promise, but an invitation to get involved in a dialog about how to improve your product.

Andy Lark's take on "the really wicked blog revolt that killed the media and changed everything"

Andy Lark's keynote on Day 2 of the New Communications Forum was subtitled, "a wander through the blogosphere and a look at its implications for communicators."

Wander? Judging from his talk, I'd be surprised if this bluff New Zealander with the 90-mile-an-hour mind and the mouth to go with it has ever "wandered" in his life. Andy led his audience a chase more like a motorcycle ride without a helmet, the better to experience the dramatic pace and piercing effects of media transformation.

The slides from Andy's presentation, "The Participatory Communications Revolution," are posted here, so I'll just note a few highlights:

- You absolutely have to watch the video Andy began with, "The Road to 2014," produced by the Museum of Media History. Call it science fiction if you choose. I call it a plausible cautionary tale of media evolution. Could the New York Times actually go offline by 2014, becoming a small-circulation print newsletter for the elite and the elderly? Watch the video!

- "Companies don't decide that blogging is going to happen. It's gonna happen" -- and the legal folks won't be able to do a thing about it.

- "Conversation in the blogosphere entirely disintermediates conversations between a company, the parts of the company, and customers."

- "Bloggers now produce as many stories every day as the Associated Press." Think about it. That's with just 8 million bloggers out of 6.4 billion humans on earth.

- See the diagram on page 16 of Andy's slides: You are at the center of a "new social dialog."  Society, Ethics and Law, Technology, and Network Effects are all impinging on you. The notion of audiences is changing and the focus is shifting to the customer.

- The customer relationship will be democratized, so that that "the guy who writes a letter to the comics section will be treated as important as your largest customer." Andy said this in answer to my question about measuring the value of customer relationships. I hope he's right, but from my perspective, this certainly hasn't happened yet. I doubt whether rock stars like Andy spend as much time on hold waiting for "customer care" as do small entrepreneurs and individual consumers like me.

- Two trends: A drift away from mass media to more specialized media ("niche media" like blogs), and media consolidation to a few dominant players. "It behooves us to go out of our way to support media that is further down the food chain today to help diversity win out.

- We're moving from "appointment-driven" news consumption to "on-demand" news consumption. Thus, Andy says, "RSS = TiVo for the web." Not everyone agrees, but I think this makes great sense as a way to explain why to use newsreaders and how they can increase productivity. To think that only a year or so ago, I was grasping for ways to explain TiVo, and now TiVo's the metaphor for RSS!

- If you're a business executive, you can't control the blogosphere. So set up regular, informal opportunities to teach employees (and their families) how to blog. Show people how to post comments and become members of communities.

-  "Bloggers are the the canaries in the coal mine" with respect to what's happening in your markets with your customers.

- See Andy's "Authenticity Axis" on page 54 of his slides. It's a 2 by 2 matrix, whose vertical axis represents "Behavior (voice & authenticity)" and whose horizontal axis represents "Transparency." A "Best-in- Class" organzation, ranking high on both axes, is what Andy refers to as Naked. So, to promote media diversity and transparency, what you want to do is get naked.

- Andy selected a few dozen memorable quotes to pepper throughout his presentation. A few of my favorites:

"Sunlight is the best disinfectant" -- Justice Louis Brandeis

"A blog, you see, is a little First Amendment machine." -- Jay Rosen

"Companies will thrive on the basis of their stories and myths. Companies will need to understand that their products are less important than their stories." -- Rolf Jensen

"You must be the change you wish to see in the world." -- Mahatma Gandhi

- One of Andy's slides asks,"What's your PN competency?" He blew through the last part of his talk so fast that I have no idea what PN competency actually is, though it has something to do with engaging with new collaborative media. Hey Andy, what is PN competency, anyway?

This session may have been too fast too keep up with, Andy may have been too deep into rock star mode, he may have tried to cover more than was humanly possible in too short a time (and then ran overtime, anyway)  -- but it was invigorating, challenging, and a ton of fun.

What's a wiki? Forming communities online

Now, this is what I call a meaty, thought-provoking session.  Elizabeth Albrycht, Dan Forbush, and Constantin Basturea collaborated to present an introduction to the benefits and the mechanics of forming trusted communities online through blogs and wikis.

Wikis? Yes, I've often used Wikipedia, the collaborative online encyclopedia. But before this New Communications Forum session, if you had asked me, "What's a wiki?" I would have been at a loss for words -- a rare situation for me. Even at the end of the session, my feeling was one I attribute to many of those 38 percent of internet users in the recent Pew blog study who claimed to know what a blog is: I sort of get it, sort of not, I can't define it, and I'm not enitrely sure I always recognize a wiki when I see one.

Having said that, I know a lot more about wikis now that I did before and I'm motivated to make wikis part of my communication tool kit. I've even put my toe in the water by accepting Constantin's invitation to post to the New PR Wiki.

So what's a wiki? Wikipedia defines it as "a website (or other hypertext document collection) that allows users to add content, as on an Internet forum, but also allows anyone to edit the content." In other words, a wiki (pronounced wicky) is a kind of online collaborative workspace that's great for project planning, conferences, developing white papers, and other tasks that benefit from the contributions of many, geographically dispersed authors.

(Note for word lovers: In the Hawaiian language, wiki wiki means quick or super-fast. The etymology in itself is a motivating factor for learning more!)

Dan gave a short demo of how wikis work using EditMe, a hosted web service he describes as "a wiki on training wheels." At $4.95 a month with no longterm commitment, Dan recommends EditMe as a good way to experiment with the power of wikis.

Constantin spoke about wikis both in terms of their basic technology and -- more in sync with my own interests -- their integration with organizational cultures. I loved his use of the term wiki gardeners -- people who nurture the growth of the wiki and undertake to  keep it free of weeds. (See Joi Ito's and Bruno Essmann's posts for more on wiki gardening.) Constantin also demonstrated several wiki engines, or software packages that implement wiki technology.

I loved this session because it introduced so many ideas that carried both practical and social implications. I only wish it had been possible for all willing conference participants to actually participate in creating a wiki during the New Communications Forum.

Blog tracking and blog content

The Day 1 schedule at the New Communications Forum allowed attendees to attend only four of the six breakout sessionsS. So I cheated a bit and split one session between Jeremy Pepper's review of blog metrics and Trudi Schuett's pointers on writing for blogs.

Jeremy presented a useful review of various free and paid blog-tracking services, explaining how they are used and, in some cases, how their business models work. Some of the services were new to me and I'll no doubt appreciate having the session slides to refer to -- but the scope of the discussion was too limited to keep me from slipping off to check out the "Writing for Blogs" session.

(One valuable analogy I took from Jeremy: "Using RSS readers is like tracking the trade press." And a set of pointers: "Blog often. Don't be a shrinking violet. Trade links. Comment, comment, comment and ping, ping, ping.")

Trudi's session was vey small and seemed to have consisted primarily of exchanges between participants. I didn't see any slides or handouts, so I couldn't gauge any overall motif that may have unified the session. Anita Campbell offered a number of useful suggestions on tracking feed hits (she uses SyndicateIQ.com), repurposing blog content for newsletters, and how to generate links to your own posts.   

Technoflak: Alice Marshall on "How to Pitch Bloggers"

Alice Marshall's session at the New Communications Forum was of PR folks, by PR folks -- more accurately, by a self-described PR "flak" -- and I must confess, I ended up there by accident. Happy accident, as it turns out.

Alice's notes for the session are posted on her blog, Technoflak. What I notice in reviewing my own session notes are many bon mots and memorable turns of phrase. Here are a few for your delectation:

- Bloggers have no editors, so they will run with your stuff if they like it, unlike reporters, who get thousands of press releases. Bloggers may blog about the press release from hell.
- The all-time low water mark of pitching to blogs, according to Alice, was received by Dan Gillmor, who then posted it verbatim. It concerned steps companies can take "to protect their corporate reputations from bloggers/digital influencers."

- Bloggers can give you a second voice if your company or client is taking a beating in the press, if you provide the appropriate documents.

- Blogrolls are very important because they reveal the foodchain of the blogosphere. Links are even more important in this respect. When you're seeking attention in the blogosphere -- what I call digital ink -- "don't just be conscious of the blog; be conscious of the food chain."

- Alice took exception to influential blogger Jay Rosen's view of what all the PR folks at the conference call "the Ketcham/Williams affair" -- a reference, I eventually learned, to "the Armstrong Williams corruption case, in which one of the leading PR agencies, Ketchum . . . funneled $240,000 from the Department of Education (DoE) to Williams, the conservative syndicated columnist and television host, who was paid to promote the No Child Left Behind Act."

Alice expressed her views in an e-mail to Rosen, whose text she also posted to Technoflak, engendering a link from Rosen's PressThink.  The bottom line for Alice: "I don't want his love. I want the link."

- Last but not least, Alice's mantra. If you represent a company or product, "Don't just disclose it; brag about it."

Listening to Alice is enough to change one's entire view of the PR profession.