This week, news sites were abuzz with record label EMI's announcement that the company will remove digital rights management (DRM) protections from all of its music sold on the iTunes Music Store. These are the goodies that prevent you from playing your (paid-for) iTunes songs on your Microsoft Zune or burning your downloaded movies bought online to DVD to watch on your television instead of your PC.

And while EMI may be the first major label to heed Steve Jobs' call for less restrictive media, it certainly won't be the last. Expect other major labels to follow suit soon. Music is just the beginning.

Smart companies like EMI see what's happening in the world around them. Today's consumers have, in many cases, literally grown up with the Internet and the open exchange of ideas. Web 2.0, social networking sites like MySpace and "open source" software projects like Linux are all byproducts of society embracing idea exchange. By removing pesky DRM software from its digital music, EMI allows its customers to choose how, when and where they enjoy the music they've legally purchased, as well as what they do with it. Wonderfully "Company 2.0".

There's terrific upside for organizations that understand this new, open communication environment and embrace it. Instead of bringing suit against YouTube for copyright infringement in consumer submitted videos, smart media groups and their marketing teams see the benefits of consumers interacting with their properties and putting their collective marks on them. By removing restrictions and letting consumers do what they want with media, they expose far bigger audiences to their properties and can actually DRIVE interest, not cannibalize sales.

Remember this kid and the Nu Ma Nu Ma Dance?

Without his homemade video featuring that now infamous song, the band would've never made it to perform live on the Today Show. Or have their tune be hummed by the millions of people who saw that clip. And it's quite safe to assume they'd have sold far fewer albums.

Three cheers for EMI and Apple continuing to trust and embrace consumers.

This is the year blogs turn the ripe old age of 10. That’s right, a whole decade of online opinion, rumor, scandal and scorn. And a growth rate of about 1.6 million new blogs daily.

From those first words typed out on Jorn Barger’s inaugural Robot Wisdom “Weblog” in 1997, the blogosphere has come a long way -- arguably spawning everything from social networking to consumer generated media to wikis to citizen journalism.

And in the process blogs have flipped the art and craft of communication on its head, permanently placing power in the hands of consumers and creating today’s buzz culture.

For brands the world over, what a long, strange decade it’s been. Blogs have moved from a techie fringe medium for geeks and freaks that could be dismissed by PR to an activist forum that should be feared, capable of bringing down a brand, to a core element of consumer communication that can be embraced and leveraged by PR.

Notice I said *leveraged* rather than *exploited.* That means truth, transparency and the same kind respect afforded mainstream media in the old days.

So as the blogosphere turns 10 and finds itself all grown up, consider the following questions for yourself, your company or your client.

Let’s call it the Blog Self-Help Test:

1) Do you read a blog more than three times a week?
2) Have you ever written a blog?
3) Is Blogger Relations as important as Media or Analyst Relations in your PR mix?
4) Do you consistently measure blog-based opinion on your brand and industry?
5) Is your company/client’s web site RSS enabled?
6) Do your executives blog?
7) Does your website offer blogging opps for employees to chat directly with customers?
8) Are your employees trained on the rights and wrongs of blogging?
9) Does your corporate code of conduct call out truth and transparency in blog- and buzz-based comms?
10) Would you fire someone for creating a fake blog, or flog?

OK, if you answered YES to eight or more of these questions, then you’ve clearly been paying attention the last 10 years. Move to the head of the class and start dabbling on behalf of your brand in next gen developments like social bookmarking.

If you didn’t get to eight, don’t fret. Consider these questions a list of must-haves for any blog-fearing Corp Comm Dept and get cracking on implementing some of the basics. The beauty of the blogosphere is that it’s constantly changing and open to all comers – private and public, consumer and commercial – if you respect and live by its laws.

Look at how much has been achieved in the first decade of blogging. Armed with the knowledge and lessons learned in the first 10 years, comms professionals should have an incredible impact on defining and directing the next 10 years of the blogosphere. In the process we can shape popular communication in ways we’ve never been able to before.

Hopefully that’s a challenge and a responsibility that our profession is equal to.

Speaking of the turning points in the blogosphere, I wanted to highlight the ongoing discussion about blogger codes. Today’s New York Times article, “A Call for Manners” describes how bloggers are battling disturbing (and sometimes unlawful) comments posted on their sites. The article quotes several sources such as the Blogher network and the O’Reilly Radar as guides for civil conversations in the blogosphere. While some may feel that codes are restricting, others are quick to point out how these rules protect privacy, individual liberties and copyrights.

After a decade of blogging, trust remains the central issue of the blogosphere. The amount of trust readers have in a blogger affects his or her influence level, as readers take their cues from honest and accurate sources. On the flip side, when prospect bloggers weigh the plusses and minuses of publishing their thoughts, they think about the comments and reactions they will get from the community. If social media is to confirm its legitimacy as a communication channel, peer-to-peer conversations need to transpire within a trusted environment, where writers and readers can freely exchange views without infringing upon each others’ rights in any deliberate way.

A simple code of conduct would be more than verbiage added to privacy terms and conditions. It would be a badge for trusted communications. If well-known blog ad networks or industry organizations collaborate and set up guiding principles, then bloggers can show an icon on their areas and take a stand for legitimate, civilized communications. Similar to the way online shopping areas sign up with the Better Business Bureau or VeriSign to instill confidence in their visitors and to do business the right way, bloggers can display the stamp of ethical, trusted communications on their sites.

Politicians are already geared-up for the upcoming Presidential elections. Campaigning has begun and communications platforms are in place, and all are vying for the “American Vote.” Today’s voters are drastically changing and a major consideration for all politicians should be vying for the “Immigrant Vote.”

Consider these stats from the Pew Hispanic Center:
-- In 2005, 8.5 million immigrants were eligible for naturalization
-- Naturalization rate increased 59% in 2005, over the past decade
-- 4.4 million naturalized citizens came from Latin America and 4 million came from Asia
-- Naturalized citizens from the Middle East grew 156% from 1995 to 2005
-- Naturalized citizens from Mexico rose 144% between 1995 and 2005

Are our candidates prepared to effectively communicate to these new citizens and go after the “Immigrant Vote?” What will candidates have to say to the emerging naturalized cictizens from Asia, Latin America and the Middle East? How will they encourage voter registration, and furthermore how will they encourage getting their vote? Considering these new numbers what will happen to the immigration debate?

Candidates will have to broaden their messages and realize that there's a new target audience.

Are you twittering yet?

If not, this Sunday's premiere of "Drive" on FOX might be a reason to give it a look.

What's Twitter, you may ask? It's a way to share quick thoughts with a global audience through your cell phone, mobile device or instant messaging application. Think of it as blogging, only with much smaller entries. Users typically Twitter where they're at at any given time, what they're doing, or commentary on something they're thinking about at that particular moment.

While Twitter may not be for everyone (who needs to know that I'm standing in the grocery aisle at this moment looking at baby food?), it's definitely capturing attention. The technology just won the SxSW WebAward at the popular South by Southwest convention in Austin. It's another example of how open consumers are to sharing their thoughts and ideas with the masses, and their desire to self-publish anywhere, any time.

Want to see a sample Twitter page and entries? Click here to check out Robert Scoble's Twitter page (Scoble is a technology evangelist, and was one of Microsoft's first bloggers.)

Marketers are already figuring out how to apply it in their craft. When "Drive" premieres on FOX this Sunday, viewers will be able to follow along with Director Greg Yaitanes' commentary posted via Twitter during the show's first airing. Think of it as your companion guide to the show delivered to your mobile phone. Pretty handy for TV buffs. If you want to join in the fun this weekend, just text "FOLLOW FOXDRIVE" to 40404 from your wireless device.

As technology companies continue to figure out ways for devices to work together, look for more simple self-publishing tools to materialize. While Twitter is only text, one can assume an easy-to-use successor with video can't be far behind. Our own personal "Truman Show".

Worth a look.

Those of us in the baby boomer generation, and perhaps those who followed, remember the cautionary rule for traffic safety we learned in school: “Stop, look and listen, before you cross the street.” The same basic concept can apply to managing crises or volatile issues. When companies find themselves under attack, they often scramble to do damage control without really addressing the underlying problem. Instead, they need to do the things that fall naturally under the simple mantra of “Stop, Look and Listen” in order to truly resolve the issue and preserve the company’s reputation.

Stop…doing what you’re doing. Whether it’s bad business practices that have now come back to bite you, or personal missteps that reflect poorly on the company, the only way you truly fix the problem is to stop doing it. Obviously the rule does not apply to crises that are beyond your control, but in those instances, the public is much more forgiving.

Remember, the true measure of a company’s reputation is how it behaves when others aren’t looking; so if you do things that are ethically or morally inappropriate, providing “key messages” will get you nowhere if fundamental change is not made.

Look…at the issue from all angles and see how you can right things.
Critical self-examination can be a painful process, particularly when a company has been accused of wrong-doing or is the subject of negative publicity. The natural inclination is to go into a defensive posture and make justifications for why the situation occurred. However, the smart company will step back, look at the issue, figure out how it got to this point, determine what changes can be made to rectify it and come up with honest explanations for what cannot be changed.

Your constituents and the public as a whole can be understanding, and even forgiving, in a crisis if you are candid in your admission of your failings or shortcomings, and you make an honest effort to right the wrong. They will accept your limitations if your explanations are credible and they see that you are committed to doing the right thing.

Listen…to your constituents – internal and external. With issues management, it is important to consider all audiences impacted by the situation and its resolution. Too often, companies only consider their investors or the media. However, employees are usually shaken by crisis and their morale becomes a factor; vendors or partners will have questions and their confidence in you can flag; and certainly, customers can turn their loyalty on a dime over a problem.

In crisis or issues management, the first step should be to list every possible audience involved or affected. Then consider what each one’s concerns will be with regard to the situation and what their individual communication needs will be. Are they worried about their job? Do they need to hear from you as the CEO? Should they hear from you in person or will a reassuring email or company-wide voice mail be sufficient. It’s not enough, though, to reach out to your audiences; there must be a mechanism in place for a two-way dialogue because your audiences want to be heard.

Then, it’s important to listen. What is the feedback to your communications? Are there valid suggestions for making changes? By carefully listening, you can determine whether your efforts for reform or remediation are making a difference and ultimately restore trust among your constituents.

There are certainly no hard and fast rules when it comes to crisis and issues management because every situation is different. But there are some elementary guidelines to follow that can help you navigate a bumpy road.

First and foremost is to do the right thing. Even with investor demands to turn higher profits, or management pressures to gain great efficiencies, a company must ultimately operate ethically and have faith that the rest will fall into place. And operating ethically means doing the right thing, fixing things when you don’t, and listening to the people who matter. Taking the time to stop, look and listen before you cross the street can save your life. Doing the same with your business can save your reputation.

Posted by Jean Gonsoulin

If anyone doubted whether social media is relevant to public discourse, they should be convinced otherwise after seeing the way Media Matters, the online research center, propelled conversations around the Imus incident. On the morning of the controversial broadcast, Media Matters got the word out about Imus’s comments through their blog and e-mail updates. Mainstream media picked up on it as events unfolded —when activists raised their voices and broadcast and radio executives stepped in.

Today, a quick Google search on “Imus” churns up 25 million hits. While the first few hits are from traditional outlets such as Forbes, ABC and MSNBC, an up-to-date Wikipedia entry about Imus and a (former) fan blog dedicated to his show closely follow. Media Matters holds its own on the second page of searches with a blog entry that boasts over 140 comments.

These results highlight key factors critical to our understanding of the new media order:

1-Information disseminates from online to offline channels and vice versa, in light speed.
2-Controversial, sensational comments fuel conversations more so on social media sites -- where people seek unique views and interaction
3-Consumer-generated media competes for readers’ attention alongside traditional media sources.
4-Number 3 matters to communication professionals and marketers, not to readers. Audiences consume a mix of media, depending on their beliefs, interests and available time.
5-Search engines affect online visibility.
6-Online visibility impacts opinions, conversations and reputation – online and offline.

We’ve all read the obituaries about traditional news organizations, dropping like flies thanks to the rise of consumer-generated media and the digital revolution.

With the advent of real-time online news created by citizen journalists and propagated across user-generated wikis, the dinosaurs of mainstream media (MSM) seem to be rapidly nearing extinction.

But this just in… The MSM old guard is making a strong showing in the world of online, digital news.

In fact, Media Metrix reported earlier this month that venerable print media like the NYT and broadcast pioneers like CBS News are among the top *online* sites for news. Right up there with Yahoo and AOL News.

Media Metrix says that seven of the top 10 online news sites are the kind of traditional media that many had relegated to the analog bone yard, unable to make the crossover to a digital media model. The top broadcast sites alone accounted for 47 million unique visitors in Feb, a collective yr/yr gain of 63%.

An obvious takeaway for PR and comms professionals is to not throw the MSM baby out with the analog bath water. But in doing so we can’t simply apply the rules of old-line media relations to these outlets regardless of their mainstream roots.

So for those new media- and blogosphere-focused PR types out there, realize that Tribune Newspapers should be on your top influencers list. For folks who have yet to take the digital plunge and see national newspapers and TV networks as their priority, realize that the Tribune chain, despite its old-school status, is a decidedly digital play and needs to be treated as such.

The opportunities with online MSM targets seem to expand daily as news sites expand their horizons to capture more consumer eyeballs.

Many news sites are looking for angles beyond breaking news, stories with broader impact, drilling deeper into a subject, covering everything from self-help to entertainment to consumer generated opinions and reviews.

Check out MSNBC.com’s new campaign promoting its “Fuller Spectrum of News” as a sign not only of the expansion of online news content but as an open door for more PR people pitching more brands to sites with readers in the tens of millions.

Ultimately all this comes together as a hybrid of both new and old media sources, the former forcing the latter to evolve and giving those old media outlets that survive a chance to actually lead the model of tomorrow. The two aren’t mutually exclusive.

If you haven’t already, take a closer look at a hybrid media model, you’ll likely see the benefits of leveraging the best of both worlds.

The April issue of Wired Magazine contains an interesting story called “The See-Through CEO,” which is very relevant to the concept of authenticity that our agency believes is at the heart of future communications.

The sub-title of the article states, “Fire the publicist. Go off message. Let our employees blab and blog.” While, as the head of a PR firm, I am forced to take issue with those specific actions, the message behind them has a lot of merit.

The reporter, Clive Thompson, cites a number of examples of “radical transparency,” where companies literally share everything about their business, including complaints about competitors, profit margins on particular products, and specific corporate strategies. Obviously, this is not a tactic that works for every corporation. Secrecy is still a critical tool in the intensely competitive marketplace and the element of surprise can be highly effective in building excitement for a new product.

But there are many business situations where it makes a lot of sense to reach out to employees, customers and critics to explain how a company feels about a specific issue or why it has chosen a specific course of action. And the internet provides the perfect tool to the communicative CEO who wants to tell his story in the most direct, immediate and transparent way.

The concept of “radical transparency” probably sounds a bit “too radical” for most businesses but in reality it is just an euphemism for authenticity –- telling the truth using real words that people can understand. There is nothing radical about that.

A recent Rance Crane piece in Ad Age criticizes advertisers for failing to recognize the buying power of the 78 million-strong Baby Boomer set. He puts that spending power at $1.7 trillion and wonders what it will take for marketers to recognize that this audience has and spends money.

I've wondered the same thing. So I asked myself: Is it possible that marketers and media planners know something we don't know? Are there data that show that Baby Boomers, while richer and more numerous than their parents' generation, emulate those parents in terms of buying habits? Do they stay true to brands they've loved in the past? Are they less willing than younger people to try new ones?

If there is such research, I haven't seen it.

Wouldn't it make sense to find out the answers to these questions? Shouldn't marketers strive to understand if the 18-49 "sweet spot" they've been targeting for 40 years isn't quite as sweet as it used to be?

Baby Boomers are understandably perplexed and annoyed at being ignored by media planners and network execs, who seem slow to catch on to what seems obvious to many of us: Those over 50 may not be searching for a new brand of dishwashing soap, but is anyone, really? What they are buying are $1.7 trillion worth of new cars, appliances, shoes, vacation spots, sunglasses, TVs, phones, deck furniture, purses, jewelry and this year's fashions. The same stuff that everyone else is buying, only more of it.

That doesn't mean that the same rules of marketing should apply to Boomers and non-Boomers alike. But it probably does mean that someone is missing an opportunity to make $1.7 million.

Smart marketers won't guess or presume about marketing's impact or lack thereof on Baby Boomers. They'll find out.

Ellen Ryan Mardiks
Chief Client Officer
Worldwide Director, Marketing & Brand Strategy Practice GolinHarris
111 E. Wacker Dr.
Chicago, IL 60601
t 312.729.4333
f 312.729.4031

emardiks@golinharris.com

The political process is inherently social. From the legendary smoke-filled rooms of Washington to local town hall meetings where issues are discussed and candidates sized up, politicians have always relied on spurring word of mouth in social networks to get out the vote.

The Internet has played an increasing role in the political process in recent years, with significant fund raising taking place on the Web, and candidates taking their message directly to constituents through blogs and video (both official and accidental) on sharing sites like YouTube.

Now, reality TV heavyweight Mark Burnett ("Survivor" and Trump's "The Apprentice") is teaming up with one of the world's biggest online social networks -- MySpace -- for a new reality endeavor focused on the political process.

The new effort -- "Independent" -- is designed to help engage younger audiences typically less involved in the political process by allowing anyone to declare their candidacy for a political post. Individuals can throw their hat into the ring by submitting a short stump speech on MySpace Video, receiving nearly instant feedback from other MySpace users.

The online component will be linked up with a television program (network still TBD, but a fair chance FOX will pick it up) and viewers will determine the issues candidates should address via weekly voting. The winner of the competition scores $1 million for their campaign war chest.

While it's hard to imagine a MySpace-spawned candidate could break into the closed circles of politics in the US today, "Independent" is an interesting way to engage voters of the future and empower them to get involved in the political process.

One has to believe that Republican and Democratic strategists will keep a close eye on the process to learn what's working and what falls short in social campaigning online.