Strategically Communicating

As most of you know, the last week has been a Charlie Sheen media storm. He has taken on the media with his warlock skills. While he thinks he’s winning, the results of his media ambush are obviously negative. His long time PR guy quit and he’s been fired from Two and A Half Men. If you’ve missed out on seeing his erratic interviews, here’s a little taste:

If you’re not one to shy away from a challenge, Charlie Sheen is looking for a social media intern. After taking this class, I’m sure we are all prepared and could flourish as Charlie’s intern. The internship is 8 weeks during the summer, and it’s paid! Charlie is looking for an intern with some specific qualities. You must have a fair amount of tiger blood and be pro-winning.  You can apply here.

The application is short and sweet. Create a sticky message in 75 characters or less (about half of a twitter post) telling Charlie and his team why YOU should be his intern.

Good luck!

With all the buzz around the University of Oregon’s football program lately, I thought it would be appropriate to share this article.  New products and rising social media technological applications are complicating college football recruiting and how to monitor it.  Phone calls, text messages and emails are tough enough to track, but when Facebook, Twitter, Four Square, and many more are factored in it can get real messy.  The problem is that the NCAA is forced to make rules for online tools that are constantly evolving and some that do not even yet exist.  Therefore, it is critical for the NCAA to continually revisit regulations and make sure they stay fair and relevant.  The article in the following link touches on some of the current regulations:

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/sports/college/7404594.html

This website below – Singularity Hub – has some interesting, compelling statistics about online bullying and how prevalent it has become.  Since the digital space has grown at a tremendous pace, government and society has not been able to keep up with what could go wrong.  We did not have enough time to implement safeguards against issues such as online bullying.  However, it really has become a major problem and it is critical that we deal with this and similar issues efficiently and effectively on an ad hoc basis.  Check out the link below for further infomation.  Also included is a YouTube video that provides some information about what online bullying is really all about.

http://singularityhub.com/2010/10/23/bullying-is-moving-online-is-there-no-escape-for-their-victims/

I’m a loyal Googler, and I’ve never been a big fan of Bing. I gave Bing a fair shot when it first came out, but never got the search results I was looking for. I wrote Bing off, and figured it would eventually have a fate similar to AskJeeves. But now I may be changing my tune. Bing is launching a  daily deal platform that will aggregate deals on sites like Groupon and LivingSocial.

Users will be able to access the Bing platform on iPhones or Andrioids, but according to the Mashable.com article, there are still some kinks with laptop and desktop use. While it may sound a little confusing at first, I think this new platform is going to give Bing a new edge. Daily deal sites are becoming HUGE hits, and having a place that will aggregate them all is fantastic. We’ll see if Google comes out with something similar or if Bing will have the edge for awhile.

Wanting a new angle for this week, I stumbled across this interesting study conducted by AARP: http://www.aarp.org/technology/social-media/info-06-2010/socmedia.html

The survey was conducted on a national scale using the telephone. Only adults age 50+ were allowed to be participants. Some interesting highlights: Over half of the participants access the internet via desktop computers and 27 percent of them said that they use social media. The most surprising finding in my opinion was that only 4 percent of the subjects acknowledged using a blackberrie/smartphone. Then again, there are people out there like my grandparents, age 70+, who are scared to use the internet at all. Sometimes you really can’t teach an old dog new tricks.

Today, the UO’s football recruiting practices were brought into question and it appears the NCAA is on their way to Eugene to investigate. The story, which broke this morning and has been all over ESPN, has been handled brilliantly the Athletic Department’s PR division (my client!). Please view my blog on the whole story at the link below, and find out the top five reasons why the Ducks are innocent.

Retrnofthequack.wordpress.com

After the iPad was released last year, and instantly became one of the hottest new technological devices on the market, it seems Apple has been in works to release the second generation of the iPad for some time now. On Wednesday the new iPad will be showcased by Apple with all of its original tweaks fixed, and new options for users.

Among the rumored new features it will offer will be, its thinner exterior (also reducing the weight of the iPad), and built in cameras on the front (to use for video chatting) and in the back (to be used for taking high quality digital photographs).

It seems that while these are improvements to the original, Apple might be jumping the gun too soon by releasing the iPad 2 without make more significant changes to it, in true Apple fashion, I personally would expect them to draw up media attention like there is no tomorrow. It will be interesting to see how this addition to the Apple line of products plays out.