Welcome to the fan club Sondra Magness!!!
Monday, August 25, 2008
Wednesday, August 20, 2008
Flacking Fun
“can u come here? is serious,” the IM blinked at the bottom of my screen. This can’t be right. This would never happen. Hoah* would never say “serious” when a word with an uncomfortable prosody and disproportionate vowel-to-consonant ratio would intimidate so much more effectively. This was the first sign. I trammed across the office immediately. Hoah was anticipating my arrival. That was the second sign. The third clue was most obvious—the cranky old box where we stash swag was breathing. Now I understood. They weren’t going to prank me. I detoured to the kitchen. I filled a glass of ice cold, refreshing water. I was really thirsty. I went to Hoah’s desk. “What’s wrong? Is everything ok?” I feigned concern. Brad, SavvyFlack Fan Club Prexy, jumped out of the box screaming “boooooo!!” I feigned shock and awe. I lost grip on my water. It went all over Brad.
*Names have been changed to protect the polysyllabic.
Monday, August 18, 2008
Unicorns, Rainbows and Good Old Fashioned Media...
I’m a little sad these days. Sad about the state of journalism. I shed a tear when I see how anorexic the New York Times, my favorite paper of all times, has become. I’d prefer to live in a world of disbelief—you know the kind, where unicorns kiss the clouds, rainbows make daily appearances, women all wear slips and appear without cellulite, and all the good, cherubic citizens read the day’s news in traditional paper form whilst sipping coffee, ahem, made at home and from, ahem, ceramic mugs. So, I get a particular shocking dose of reality when I hear credentialed pundits crap all over traditional media. This was the case this past weekend when I heard a depressing piece on the state of media on NPR. I’m quite sure the piece was actual and not a hallucination of my usual Sunday-oh-sh*t-tomorrow-is-Monday stupor, but I can’t seem to find evidence of its existence online, so your guess is as good as mine, and hence, no fancy hyperlinking in this post. Anyhow, I promise I heard some wise-guy utter, rather arrogantly, that “media is dead.” I cursed Mr. Pundit from behind the wheel of my Prius, which I’m told is the new junior executive car (thanks Chris-y poo poo) and recollected the days of print media… when clients thought I was god because I could secure them 1-2 sentences in the Wall Street Journal. But, those days are long gone. So, I did what any great woman would do—I cried. Mascara stained my cheeks (next time, I buy it in Waterproof). But, I knew I had to move on. I had to jump on the Social Media Bandwagon. I relented. I rolled my eyes. I hissed. I may have even given the middle finger to the World Wide Web. Then, I picked up my Pad Thai to-go order and started to dream about TechCrunch… or was it Scobleizer… or maybe RocketBoom…
PS, is that the correct usage of "whilst"? I swear, that word is as trendy as celebrity babies and gluten allergies.
Friday, August 15, 2008
Thursday, August 14, 2008
SPECIAL GUEST POST FROM SAVVYFLACK PREZ!!
Dear Savvy Flack Readers,
My name is Brad Chase and I'm proud to be the founder and President of the Official Savvy Flack Fan Club. I've known Savvy Flack for about four years and she's one of the savviest flackiest people I've ever known. That's why I've been able to call her my boss at not one but two jobs. In fact, I think I’m the first person to voluntarily sign up for a second tour of duty under her command.
As President, my first order of business is to announce the results of the Savvy Flack vs. Savvy Panty throwdown poll. It should come as no surprise that Savvy Flack won in a landslide as the people demand more PR discussion of communications, new media and society…and less talk about granny panties, hosiery and other what-nots.
My second order of business is to get right down to talking about things related to PR and general flackery. So for today's post, we will discuss mass media, peak athletic performance and schadenfreude. For those not familiar with my fancy polysyllabic vocabulary, Schadenfeude (link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schadenfreude) is America's true pastime.
When thinking about news, information and the world in general today, one of the biggest topics is of course, the omnipresent Summer Olympics. Olympic fever is everywhere and you can't escape it anywhere you turn. You can't avoid finding out the results as our 24/7 media world makes big news absolutely inescapable. Heck, TVs, radios, newspapers, magazines and those Internet tubes are so oversaturated with Olympics news I almost pine for some tidbits about what Barack Obama ate for breakfast and at what approximate time did he expel said food in a bowel movement.
Well, almost. I'm sure we'll hear in no time what he thinks of Michael Phelps.
Now don't worry, I'm not going to go off on one of those self-indulgent rants about how the media has it's priorities in the gutter and prefers stories about Britney Spears' panties (you didn't think we were going to kill panty discussion completely, did you?) to anything with substance. No, I think what's more interesting is how both the traditional and social media channels have decided to flood themselves with anything and everything related to the Olympics and how this affects public perception of the games.
While the TV ratings seem to bear out intense interest in the Olympics -- NBC is garnering ratings considerably higher than those of the Sydney games – is this a good thing? When news and replays are available instantly, 24/7, everywhere - does it lose the special cache that the Summer Olympics have earned through their quadrennial buildup?
Yes, Tom Cruise, Britney Spears, Barry Bonds and Bill Clinton have made mistakes worthy of discontent from their most ardent admirers, but when they made a misstep, Americans seemed to be chomping at the bit to take them all down more than a few pegs. America loves an underdog, but not nearly as much as we enjoy taking down someone or something when they’ve reached a pinnacle. Is it so hard to imagine that our quixotic, mercurial society could suddenly decide that just like MySpace, Grey’s Anatomy and other things were so hot not so long ago, the Olympics is so “yesterday?”
And what will happen if there is a major scandal and the Olympics becomes a target? Cheating, doping, fraud, racism, security, and a million other things could drag the Olympics into the muck where baseball, basketball, football, and other sports/entertainment entities have found themselves in recent years. The Olympics are supposed to be pure - the world uniting every few years to celebrate physical excellence and patriotic (but NOT nationalistic) pride with mutual respect between all participants. I wonder how the kind of excess and overexposure we're seeing today could impact people's view of the Olympics and affect one of the most valuable brands there is. Could this circus intended to make the Olympics bigger than life only lead to its own demise?
And so one wonders, is a veritable flood of media attention always a good thing? For those tech startups, celebrities, politicians and sports stars that have gotten to bask in the glow of media love and then flamed out, was it worth it? When Michael Phelps comes back four years from now to win his 847th gold medal, will we really care? Will anyone notice?
My name is Brad Chase and I'm proud to be the founder and President of the Official Savvy Flack Fan Club. I've known Savvy Flack for about four years and she's one of the savviest flackiest people I've ever known. That's why I've been able to call her my boss at not one but two jobs. In fact, I think I’m the first person to voluntarily sign up for a second tour of duty under her command.
As President, my first order of business is to announce the results of the Savvy Flack vs. Savvy Panty throwdown poll. It should come as no surprise that Savvy Flack won in a landslide as the people demand more PR discussion of communications, new media and society…and less talk about granny panties, hosiery and other what-nots.
My second order of business is to get right down to talking about things related to PR and general flackery. So for today's post, we will discuss mass media, peak athletic performance and schadenfreude. For those not familiar with my fancy polysyllabic vocabulary, Schadenfeude (link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schadenfreude) is America's true pastime.
When thinking about news, information and the world in general today, one of the biggest topics is of course, the omnipresent Summer Olympics. Olympic fever is everywhere and you can't escape it anywhere you turn. You can't avoid finding out the results as our 24/7 media world makes big news absolutely inescapable. Heck, TVs, radios, newspapers, magazines and those Internet tubes are so oversaturated with Olympics news I almost pine for some tidbits about what Barack Obama ate for breakfast and at what approximate time did he expel said food in a bowel movement.
Well, almost. I'm sure we'll hear in no time what he thinks of Michael Phelps.
Now don't worry, I'm not going to go off on one of those self-indulgent rants about how the media has it's priorities in the gutter and prefers stories about Britney Spears' panties (you didn't think we were going to kill panty discussion completely, did you?) to anything with substance. No, I think what's more interesting is how both the traditional and social media channels have decided to flood themselves with anything and everything related to the Olympics and how this affects public perception of the games.
While the TV ratings seem to bear out intense interest in the Olympics -- NBC is garnering ratings considerably higher than those of the Sydney games – is this a good thing? When news and replays are available instantly, 24/7, everywhere - does it lose the special cache that the Summer Olympics have earned through their quadrennial buildup?
Yes, Tom Cruise, Britney Spears, Barry Bonds and Bill Clinton have made mistakes worthy of discontent from their most ardent admirers, but when they made a misstep, Americans seemed to be chomping at the bit to take them all down more than a few pegs. America loves an underdog, but not nearly as much as we enjoy taking down someone or something when they’ve reached a pinnacle. Is it so hard to imagine that our quixotic, mercurial society could suddenly decide that just like MySpace, Grey’s Anatomy and other things were so hot not so long ago, the Olympics is so “yesterday?”
And what will happen if there is a major scandal and the Olympics becomes a target? Cheating, doping, fraud, racism, security, and a million other things could drag the Olympics into the muck where baseball, basketball, football, and other sports/entertainment entities have found themselves in recent years. The Olympics are supposed to be pure - the world uniting every few years to celebrate physical excellence and patriotic (but NOT nationalistic) pride with mutual respect between all participants. I wonder how the kind of excess and overexposure we're seeing today could impact people's view of the Olympics and affect one of the most valuable brands there is. Could this circus intended to make the Olympics bigger than life only lead to its own demise?
And so one wonders, is a veritable flood of media attention always a good thing? For those tech startups, celebrities, politicians and sports stars that have gotten to bask in the glow of media love and then flamed out, was it worth it? When Michael Phelps comes back four years from now to win his 847th gold medal, will we really care? Will anyone notice?
Saturday, August 2, 2008
SavvyFlack vs SavvyPanty
“When are you going to stop blogging about your under-things and start blogging about PR?” my fab boss, JP, not-so-subtly suggested. Let’s be honest (wasn’t that my mantra from the get-go?), who wants to read about PR when they could read about ladies’ skivvies? Right now, I’m fighting a huge temptation to (1) change the name of this blog to SavvyPanty.com and (2) blog about the $90 (that was the SALE price!) pair of made-in-France bloomers I nearly just purchased before remembering the sobering reality I shared in my first post—that I don’t have a boyfriend, which means nobody’s looking at my underwear, which means I can wear a pair of $5 Fruit-of-the-Looms that, unlike the French frilly things, have enough fabric to cover my backside and are machine washable. With $85 saved, I just extended my Match.com membership. So, dear JP, sorry to have disappointed again, but I promise I’m preparing a really relevant post on flacking that will debut next week.
Full disclosure: I am not on Match.com, but I do wear Fruit-of-the-Looms. Oh, and this is 100% all me posing in La Perla...honestly!
Full disclosure: I am not on Match.com, but I do wear Fruit-of-the-Looms. Oh, and this is 100% all me posing in La Perla...honestly!
Friday, August 1, 2008
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
