I was intrigued by the latest tirade from Leo Laporte, hoist of “This Week in Technology” (TWiT), a podcast I listen to every week. After discovering that Google Buzz had not been updating for a couple of weeks, he was more miffed by the fact that noone seemed to notice than the fact that Buzz wasn’t working. So, in his post, “Buzz Kill,” Leo essentially concluded that social media was useless and was quitting, much as he had earlier quit Facebook, and had much earlier left Twitter (and came back, though the reasons there had more to do with the “TWiT” trademark, I think).

By the time the weekly TWiT podcast had been recorded., it seemed that Leo had backed off his position a bit, which underscores my reaction: isn’t declaring social media useless due to the failure of Buzz something like declaring electricity useless because I am having problems with the charger port on my Motorola Droid? (Verizon is kindly sending me a new unit, by the way. Very nice of them).

So, here are my thoughts:

• Don’t blame an entire idea if one component fails. Even if the symptom- that noone noticed your missing points when Buzz went down- are telling, one incident does not indict an entire industry. Be scientific before you condemn something
• If something is not working for you, move on
• If something is not working for you, determine what is. People were apparently wither getting Leo’s show notes and notifications elsewhere- perhaps on the site or their podcast downloader- or, like me, rarely bother looking up the show notes at all. My podcatcher  works fine, and actually display show notes should I want them. Maybe the effort putting them on Buzz isn’t worth it.
• Be wary of posting- and reading- kneejerk reactions. Leo, by his own admission, posted at 1:00 AM, and probably not long after he discovered the problem. It was a rant, and as I mentioned, he pulled back on his contention that social media was useless.

When I posted a reaction to this whole thing on Facebook, a nice discussion sprang up among myself, Antje Wilsch and Aaron Strout. I know Aaron pretty well, and don;t take lightly his dismissal of Google Buzz– but I use Buzz effectively, if not as the “social network” that Google may have hoped for:

Writer's Block by thorinside on Flickr

1- Writer’s Block.

3- Whose Promotion is it, Anyway?

A recent promotion by the Virgin America airline caught my eye this week. They were promoting new routes to Toronto by giving free flights to influential Twitterers. It caught my eye in part because I flew Virgin this week (I am actually on one of their planes as I type this online- nice!), even though I have no plans to go to Toronto.What also caught my interest was that some folks (including frequent Google Buzz correspondent Judy Gombita) apparently thought that this was a promotion for Klout, the service that measures Twitter influence.

It didn’t occur to me they were driving it- in fact I failed to note they were involved as a partner (probably because I’m dense- sorry, Greg). witness this post (and, again, comments) by Jenna Stothers to see what I mean, along with the obligatory hard feelings by hardcore Twitterers who were not picked. It’s interesting how one’s point of view can affect even the perception of whose promotion it is.

By the way, my Klout score is… nah, I’m not playing that.

4,5 – That’s All For Now

I’m not completely over my writer’s block yet

The Pan-Mass Challenge is in less than two months (August 7-8)! Fundraising and training have both picked up. Here’s a short update below- and to join in as a PMC ride sponsor to help beat cancer, please go to http://bit.ly/PMC2010- and thank you!

I took off last Saturday (June 12) on what I thought would be a solo ride, only to be overtaken by the Crack of Dawn riders. It’s a lot nicer to ride with people (not to mention faster).

After finishing the CoD “pre-ride” with the group, we collected at Nahanton Park, the first time I joined the Saturday groups on their rides through Dover.

I was actually in tough shape that day and slowed at the end, but I had a nice ride and logged 42 miles in all.

Pan-Mass Challenge: (Not a) Solo Ride from Doug Haslam on Vimeo.

Postscript: I hopped back on the bike Tuesday, June 15 with a pair of my riding buddies, and our customary short weekday ride was our best yet. We rode in a paceline and had our fastest-ever training time. I think we will be ready!

The PMC is a charity ride in which we raise money to benefit the Dana Farber Cancer Institute in Boston. 100% of the funds we raise pass through directly to the charity. Last year riders raised $30 million, and over 30 years that figure has totaled $270 million!

Please help me fight cancer by sponsoring my ride at http://bit.ly/PMC2010, and help by spreading the word. As of this posting I still have $1400 to go!

This week saw the passing of Tony Cennamo, a legend in the Boston Jazz and Radio scenes.

Tony was a lot of things to a lot of people: jazz expert, music lover, family man, veteran, Brooklynite, baseball fanatic, Jeopardy! addict, stroke survivor, teacher, combatant (or debater, if you prefer, but remember he was from Brooklyn), and more…

To me, he was a mentor, a source of definitive knowledge about jazz, my 5 am ride home. Tony was my teacher at Emerson, co-worker at WBUR, and a friend (though I will admit I could have been a lot better the last few years).

For a more formal obituary of Tony, see the Boston Globe, and there are two nice remembrances at WBUR-FM’s website  by former colleague Steve Elman and his wife, Carine Kolb.

Photos? Alas I have none I feel I can rightfully use, but there are a few good ones at the MySpace page maintained by Tony’s son, James.

Marvin Hamlisch, Go To Your Room

It never occurred to me to wonder what it was like to know Tony before he had his stroke in 1986. I first met him in 1988 when I was a student at Emerson College. Tony was teaching Jazz History, and I wanted in. I heard he was cantankerous which was intriguing and a little intimidating,, but I love jazz music and wanted to learn. I was already a jazz DJ at WERS-FM, Emerson’s student radio station, so I figure I had a good start.

Tony came as promised: uncompromising, demanding respect (for the music more than for himself) from the students, but also with a great facility for storytelling and a sharp sense of humor. He wove many stories of the history of jazz- including rebukes to musicians who got things wrong.

My favorite: when talking about Scott Joplin and ragtime music as a precursor to jazz, Tony, brought up the film the “Sting” and its use of Joplin’s music. The problem? The film was set in the 1930s, and Joplins music was written 30 years or more earlier, creating an unforgivable anachronism. Tony’s comment? “Marvin Hamlisch (who won an Oscar for his travesty), go to your room.”

I’m Wearing A Cardboard Belt

A couple years later, I found myself working at WBUR-FM, manning the overnight shift as the board operator for Tony’s “All Night Long” program. As an on-air person myself, I enjoyed filling in for Tony when he took nights off, but it was the nights we were there together that were the best. On air, he called me his “aide de campe” (and I assume those who followed me got similar sobriquets). If I liked the Emerson class, then my nights with Tony were a Masters Degree in jazz history. He taught me to appreciate big bands (which I had gotten snobby about), particularly emphasizing the genius of Duke Ellington as a composer and bandleader. He also further defined for me his uncompromising attitude towards quality. I will never forget, for example, his apoplectic response to a caller who asked him to play Earl Bostic. Let’s just say Earl Bostic was not on the top of his list.

I also got to learn more about the past so factually laid out in the above-linked stories: his days in the Air Force, including his integrated band and his work with Boys’ Town; his time at CBS in the 60s, and WCAS in Cambridge a little later; and of course multitudes of stories about jazz legends past and present that Tony came to know, such as Bill Evans and Charles Mingus, but more importantly many lesser-known great musicians.

A few I got to meet, which exposed me to some of the lifelong friendships Tony had formed: singer Mark Murphy, for example, as well as the vocal duo Jackie and Roy, to name two (well, three) off the top of my head. I also got to know one of the most generous spirits out there, Rebecca Parris, and legendary alto sax player and longtime friend of Tony’s, Phil Woods.

We also shared a love of baseball and movies- to my delight, I discovered Tony was fond of throwing out lines from the film “The Producers” (a favorite of mine from a young age) at randome moments: “I’m wearing a cardboard belt!” Is one I still use frequently.

Later, I was lucky enough to be among the people Tony would call (just don;lt call him when Jeopardy is on) and occasionally meet with, a highlight being his taking me to a concert by the Gil Evans band led by his son Miles.

So how starstruck was I? That’s not the point. It was Tony’s world, and for a time at least I was living in it.

While I was unforgivably terrible about keeping in touch the last few years, he is, and will be, missed.

As part of Marine Week Boston, I (along with a few other boston social media community members) were lucky enough to be invited for a ride on the V-22 Osprey vehicle on Tuesday, May 4. First, big thanks to our host, Eric Schwartzman, for the invitation. Here’s the bird we flew out of Hanscom AFB:

Of course, I brought out the Flip camera for some glimpses of the experience.

Marine Week Boston; MV-22 Osprey Flight from Hanscom AFB from Doug Haslam on Vimeo.

And here is the group; from left: Eric Schwartzman, David Meerman Scott, Todd Van Hoosear, Marine Sgt Sean McNevin (corrected– thank you, Todd)), Steve Garfield (stevegarfield.com), CC Chapman, and YT.

After our ride, the Marines introduced us to several native New Englander marines. I had a nice chat with Lt Col (I believe, trying to remember the insignia)  Desgroselliers from Auburn Maine, who finally set me straight on the pronunciation, despite my having a childhood friend with the same name (we called him “Gus”).  I also chatted briefly with Lt Francona, who moved to Brookline, Mass. back in 2004. It was only later I realized (thanks to Todd V) that he was the son of Red Sox manager Terry Francona. Talk about unassuming.

Finally– I couldn’t resist getting this glimpse of CC, by the way– to be fair, we all looked this ridiculous in the gear (helmet = “cranial” – great lingo). Even though I took this photo with the Droid phone, I got lucky with the lighting.

For a slicker video of the ride, please see Eric Schwartzman’s blog here.

And for the record- I enjoyed making friends, neighbors, and members of my sons Little League team extremely jealous yesterday.

Last week, I attended the New Communications Forum in San Mateo, California; belatedly, it was my first time.

Over at the Voce Nation blog, I have delineated some of the learnings, thoughts, comments and questions that came up over the week. Please have a look and add your two cents if you like.

Beyond that, it was great to see some of my friends in the profession, some of whom are local to Boston and I see regularly, others whom I see too rarely, and many whom I met for the first time. It is important to make and sustain these connections, and to make new ones continually. Rather than try to list folks and leave people out (I already omitted enough in my session roundup), I will leave one last thought: the Bad Kids’ table lives on. The members change, and our behavior may not live up to its original outrageous billing, but the spirit of the Bad Kids from the December 2007 SNCR symposium was alive and well (sadly, the Seesmic videos from my original post are not):

Pictured here along with me are original Bad Kid Chip Griffin, Bad Kid Emeritus Shel Israel (he did not sit with us at the 2007 symposium but gave us an ideal to strive for), and new recruit Priya Ramesh.

What is the Bad Kids’ table? Originally, it was a little overenthusiastic experimentation with social media during the SNCR symposium program. We were much less disruptive at New Comm Forum this year, but the spirit of playfulness, teasing and healthy snark was present- at least enough to amuse ourselves.

Facebook Changes Brand “Fans” to Brand “Likes”

I get the idea that asking people to “like” a brand is likely to get more people than asking them to be “fans.” I also understand that that lower barrier, equaling more fans likers, also equals more potential ad revenue for Facebook. Well played.

Like is so well-used for posts in Facebook, I was wondering if there are some other terms that Facebook could use to replace fans on corporate Facebook pages. Here are my suggestions:

• Non-Aggressors
• Sympathizers
• Fellow Travelers
• Comrades in Arms
• BCFs (Best Customers Forever)

Any faves? No? Can you do better?

Conversations with Community Managers: Back into Podcasting

This past week, my new employer, Voce Communications, launched a podcast in partnership with The Community Roundtable. “Conversations With Community Managers” kicks off with an interview of Blue Sky Factory‘s DJ Waldow. Mosey over to this post to get the podcast.

Also, subscribe to it here:

Photo by Jim Storer

I hav been having a blast producing the podcast with The CR’s Jim Storer. I love podcasting, as it gets me back to my radio/audio production roots. And I am working with great equipment this time around, which I hope is reflected in the finished product.

My Favorite Pun of the Week (iPad Edition)

I couldn’t help recounting this Twitter exchange with my Voce colleague Chris Thilk. I’m so proud of myself (warning- flammable mixture of tech geekery and comic-book nerdism):

*rimshot*

Will iPad mean the death of Flash?

I Give Up: “Douche, Douche, Douche”

Not long ago, I called for people to stop using the term “douchebag” so readily in social media circles. When I noticed even female friends of mine using the term over and over, I knew I would lose. Now, I officially give up; PostRank is getting attention for its influencer ranking service by introducing- wait for it- “DoucheRank.”

*sigh*

When “Douche” becomes part of corporate branding (outside of the hygiene products industry), then the term has been fully embraced.

I guess that’s better than (redacted).

Death of the “Interactive Agency of Record?”

I hate predicting the death of anything, so I won’t jump on board this totally, but… according to this post by Andy Beal in Marketing Pilgrim, Forrester Research is predicting the death of the interactive agency– well, eventually.

I hate being ahead of the curve, espousing things that just aren’t ready yet, but in retrospect that’s exactly what I was doing when I clung to the idea of the intermingled “traditional AND social (or interactive, digital, whatever) agency. There is still a need to have separate buckets for traditional and social PR and marketing, so long as social media are new and agencies, let alone their clients, are still figuring out what it all means. My recent job search underscored the trend that agencies are still seeing the need, and when resources dictate, keeping people and divisions that are digital/social/whatever “specialists.” Those were the roles I was looking at, and that was the role I landed with the Voce Connect group within Voce Communications.

So, death of interactive agency? Maybe someday- and to be fair, the Forrester report does not say this is imminent, but more of an eventual trend.

It is amazing how people come out to help each other for good causes.

First of all, thanks to all of you who have helped sponsor my Pan-Mass Challenge ride (you can still sponsor here: http://pmc,org/DH0159). We are just under 40% of the total goal of $4,200, and at $1,640 raised so far we have blown away the target I set for the end of March. Remember, 100% of the money wer raise goes to cancer research and treatment at the Dana Farber Cancer Institute in Boston, one of the premier facilities in the world for cancer treatment.

Another friend has come forward as well. Jonathan Moreland, a former colleague who now does social media work for the Boston-based Sokolove Law office, asked me to help raise awareness of their Ban Asbestos Now campaign.

Why? Well, I am pretty well aware of asbestos’ link to cancer, and anyone’s attempt to raise awareness is alright by me. I was provided information on asbestos and lung cancer, which is copied below.

So, to coincide with National Asbestos Awareness Week (the first week in April), for every signed letter on http://www.banasbestosnow.com received between 4/1 – 4/7, B.A.N. will donate $1 to my Pan-Mass Challenge ride (up to $1,000).

If you are so inclined, please give the site a visit and look over the petition. And thanks to Jonathan and his colleagues for their generosity. It is the least I can do to give their effort a little plug in return for their donations.

P.S. Spring is here– as soon as the Boston-area flood waters recede, it’s time to hit the road for some real training!

Information about asbestos and lung cancer, courtesy of Sokolove and Ban Asbestos Now:

What is asbestos?

Asbestos is the name for a naturally occurring group of fiber-like minerals.  It is an extremely poor conductor of heat and electricity, so since the 1800’s it has been mined and used in various insulation and building products such as roofing, flooring and fire-proofing materials.

Why is asbestos so hazardous?

Asbestos fibers tend to break easily and form dust. These airborne fibers are easily inhaled and swallowed, which can result in a number of serious diseases, including asbestosis, malignant lung cancer and mesothelioma, a rare form of lung cancer directly associated with asbestos exposure.  The chances of developing asbestos-induced cancers increase in relation to how much asbestos a person is exposed to and how long the exposure lasts. However, researchers have found asbestos-related diseases in individuals with only brief exposures.  Additionally, asbestos fibers can stick to clothing, increasing the risks of second-hand exposure and putting others at risk.  Many victims are exposed through their occupations, with construction, mining, manufacturing and shipbuilding traditionally being high-risk.

Other factors in the asbestos problem:

• Asbestos is a known human carcinogen
• More than 50 countries have banned asbestos, including the European Union.  Canada and the United States are the only two developed countries not to have banned the material
• Asbestos remains a consumer threat today, still present in various building materials, tiles, textiles, insulation, piping, automotive parts and adhesives
• While some asbestos-containing products have been banned in the U.S., many products that still contain asbestos must only be “labeled as such.”  Additionally, people oftentimes are exposed when asbestos in existing products is disturbed, such as aging equipment or during demolition/renovation projects
• The asbestos problem was fueled for decades by corporations knowingly hiding the hazards of the products from employees and customers alike.  As a result, the material was still mined, manufactured and used on a national, industrial scale as recently as 2002, when the last major asbestos mine in the U.S. shut down.  Despite these controversies, lawsuits and proven health hazards, asbestos is still legal to use in certain products
• As much as advocating for the altogether ban of asbestos in the U.S., there is an urgent need for increased awareness of the asbestos problem, as well as education on how to properly handle the material

About mesothelioma

• Mesothelioma’s latency period runs 10-40 years, making it difficult to diagnose and identify
• To date, there is no known cure for mesothelioma
• There are approximately 3,000 new cases of mesothelioma in the U.S. every year.  However, this number continues to rise, as does the number of mesothelioma cases worldwide
• In all, more than 10,000 Americans die each year from asbestos-related diseases