My friend Tom just sent me this. Toms an engineer, so he's obviously a deep thinker ;)

He's also quite right with the following.....

An average person on our modern economy spends ever more time on basic
tasks of managing information, and ever less time producing creative
ideas and truly useful knowledge.

Its something to consider when sending more information to the masses.

There is an article making the rounds right now saying the use and impact of Twitter is not as significant as we may have thought. In fact, the study referred to in the article shows that more than 50% of people who have Twitter accounts have never tweeted and follow no one.

So is Twitter worth investing time and effort in? I read two comments about that on a chat site this morning....

#1
I'm working in tv and our whole newsroom uses it. I delayed getting on Twitter but now that I have, I love it! So much actual information goes up, news, sports, weather. I can't even go on facebook for more than 5 minutes at a time because of the annoying statues, but with twitter you get something out of it. I highly recommend it.

#2
almost no one uses it. BUT the people that do, use it a lot.

Here is a thought. If we follow the right people and groups on Twitter we will get information and insights we might otherwise miss. If we tweet the right information to our Twitter followers we super serve our uber-fans, the ones looking for a deeper relationship with us.

What do you think?

In the world of communications there is constant talk of content. We create it, we manage it, we present it, we recycle it - and on it goes - and even if we do all of those things exceptionally well, we will still fail if we are presenting the wrong content.

Here's my spin. The right content is information the audience cares about, presented to them on their schedule. It's relevant and it fits their agenda.

Consider this. Today's audience lives in a world of enormous choice, and out of this vast jungle of information, they will grab on to only the things they care about. The sheer volume and diversity of media streams allows them to be very critical of what they experience so they only consume content that engages them in some way.

If it doesn't matter to them, it doesn't matter. Period.

So our job is not to decide what to talk about. It's to figure out what they want to hear. What do they want, that we can provide, and they can't get anywhere else? What makes us special to them?

Any ideas?

Could this be Iggys "Howard Dean Moment"? The whole thing is a little creepy. And desperate. Click here to see the show. FYI, watch the older folks in the audience. I'm pretty sure some of them aren't sure why they are applauding or why someone is asking them to stand up.

Reminders

Last weekend I was lucky enough to spend some time at the RTNDA Professional Development weekend up in Saskatoon. It's always a great chance to chat with people who are real pros in the news game and to come away with good ideas.

Richard Brown was one of the featured presenters. Richard has worked in some of the largest broadcast newsrooms in North America, and has anchored major market television newscasts in New York, Toronto, San Fransisco and several other metros. He was also an overseas correspondent for a time, and among his away winning stories was coverage of the 1994 genocide in Rwanda that saw some 800,000 killed.

Richards career has come full circle. He's back in radio in his home province of Saskatchewan and enjoying every minute of it. He shared some wonderful reminders of what makes news work on the radio, online, and in the lives of our listeners and viewers.

Some of them, in no particular order....

• Respect yourself. Dress well, take care of your health, educate yourself constantly and be a professional 24/7.
• Practice. Delivering news online and the on air is a craft. Strive to be a better writer and presenter every day.
  
• Tell stories, don't read them.
• The best stories connect to people on an emotional level. A flood is not just about rising water levels and road closures. . It's about people fighting back against the water....it's about the spirit of volunteerism...it's about the expectant mother who takes a 45 minutes detour to get to the hospital to deliver her baby....you get the idea.
• Raw sound is powerful in radio news. Rushing water, planes roaring overhead or the laughter of children all add to their particular stories.
• It's about the audience.
• Click here for an inside look at a reporter who works hard at the craft of telling stories.

Separated at Birth...again.

A little too similar for my liking.

Jake got the new 3DS when it came out last weekend. Today I printed AR cards from online on a regular home printer to see if they would work. They do. I'm always blown away by this kind of stuff.

Here is an online video to give you a look at how it works.