In observance of Martin Luther King, Jr. Day

Letter from a Birmingham Jail

New to me local new media blog

Social Media Club

Added to the Tech on the Potomac RSS reader.

PR firm of Smoke, Mirror, and Hatched at work

It seems an anti-Oprah/anti-Obama anonymous comment left on a blog came to the notice of Drudge and Murdoch's Times Online.

Was the comment left by a PR sock puppet and then forwarded, by prior agreement, to Drudge and The Times? And if so, whose PR sock puppet? Obviously we have no way of knowing, but you would have to be a fool to dismiss the possibility. During the course the election we are certain to see a great deal of this. Sooner or later someone will be caught and it may very well cost them the election.

Politics will always be on the cutting edge of communications. From their experience we will see what works and what does not.

Edit -
Candidates Rethink Web Strategy

Other political strategists like Mike Connell, whose clients include John McCain for President and the Republican National Committee, thinks that analyzing the links to and from blogs is useful up to a point. But a presidential campaign may not always want to disclose where all of its messages originate.

"Sometimes people have a habit of thinking of a blog like a megaphone and that is how you contribute to the conversation," Connell says. "But that is not always how it is done. Having your message percolate up from the grassroots through the blogs has emerged as an effective strategy as well."

Campaigns are not always the best source of information, Connell says. "Many times a message will have more credibility coming from a third party, so a campaign doesn't always want to be the source of the information," he says. "There is a certain merit in independent sources. Sometimes you just want a positive message attributed to a third party because it has more credibility that way. We are talking about more than simply planting rumors and other dark arts here."

More than planting rumors and other dark arts, but clearly not excluding them.

I think traveling under false colors is a real good way to get yourself in trouble online.

The Blog Council

Idea Grove has been keeping tabs.

Privacy = Security

New Study Points to Consumer Privacy Fears: Identity Theft, Stolen Credit card Info Reaches Record Levels

The Identity Theft Resource Center, for instance, listed more than 125 million records reported compromised in the United States last year. That's a sixfold increase from the nearly 20 million records reported in 2006. Data breaches often result from lost or stolen computer equipment such as laptops, though the single largest breach was a case of online hacking. Early last year, TJX Cos. disclosed that a data theft had exposed tens of millions of credit and debit cards to potential fraud.

Poor business practices are a security vulnerability.

Lack of privacy is a security vulnerability.

The proper use of technology

100mbps

The news that Comcast will launch a 100 mbps service in 2008 makes one think. What can one do with that speed in PR ? For one, it would be easy to serve YouTube like videos directly to people by e-mail, for example. This might not work with reporters, but it could certainly appeal to consumers depending on the creativity of the video. It will be easy to transmit high-density photos and art, although computers may not load them quickly on the recipient's end.

The wrong use of such speed, it seems to me, is to dump ever-larger text files into other's machines. Greater speed does not mean more time to read. The temptation to send the whole press kit in a huge Adobe pdf will be more than some PR practitioners can bear. For that reason and to avoid viruses, many news media and other organizations will maintain file size limitations on their networks.

I think it is an huge error to send large, unsolicited, files to anyone under any circumstance. How do you know they have access to high speed Internet? Perhaps they are one the rode and using their phone to check email. Perhaps they are working from home with a slower connection. Simply because you have access to high speed, it does not follow that the recipient does. And that does not even get into the question of whether they are interested in looking at your huge pdf document.

Huh?

White House discloses details of e-mail backup system

Although the White House has backup media from October 2003 onward, officials said that, "consistent with industry best practices," they recycled the backup tapes used from March to October 2003, a period that included the U.S. invasion of Iraq.

Since when is recycling backup tapes consistent with best practices?

Edit -
Waxman: Chart showed White House missing e-mails

The details of the Bush administration’s e-recordkeeping system and e-mail backup contingency plans became clearer this week when Theresa Payton, chief information officer in the Executive Office of the President’s Office of Administration, submitted an affidavit Jan. 15 to a federal court with details about the information contained on the White House’s backup tapes. The revelation came in response to a court order in the now consolidated lawsuit against the Bush administration.

Her declaration states that although the White House has backup media from October 2003 onward, the White House recycled the backup tapes used from March to October 2003, a period that included the United States’ invasion of Iraq. According to Waxman’s letter, one of the days for which the White House has no e-mail archived for the Office of the Vice President – Sept. 12, 2003 -- came while backup tapes were being recycled.

Edit ii -
The very indiscreet Tony Fratto.

Edit iii -
Cheney emails missing from day leak probe started.

Edit iv -
I keep wondering: have they checked that man-sized safe in Cheney’s office? Maybe he kept some copies there

Why records management, e-discovery, and evidence recovery have a great future

Government Executive

With the end of President Bush's two terms drawing near, the White House has until two months after the election to provide his records to the National Archives. By Feb. 1, the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee wants an update on progress.

"Serious questions have been raised about whether the White House has sufficient systems to preserve presidential records and to prepare for the transition to the next president," said Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., the committee's chairman, in letters to U.S. Archivist Allen Weinstein and Counsel to the President Fred Fielding on Dec. 20, 2007. "According to information received by the committee, the White House has failed to implement a robust system for archiving e-mails and other electronic records, despite several efforts to do so."

CREW

Bush Admin. admits to destroying e-mails from start of Iraq War, Leak of Valerie Wilson's name and DOJ investigation of leak

Entire companies will be built upon investigating the actions of the last eight years.

Balisage: The Markup Conference

Call for Participation

Balisage is a peer reviewed conference designed to meet the needs of markup theoreticians and practitioners who are pushing the boundaries of the field. It's all about the markup: how to create it; what it means; hierarchies and overlap; modeling; taxonomies; transformation; query, searching, and retrieval; presentation and accessibility; making systems that make markup dance (or dance faster to a different tune in a smaller space) — in short, changing the world and the web through the power of marked-up information.

Submit full papers in XML to info@balisage.net
Guidelines, DTDs, schemas, and details at http://www.balisage.net/submissions.html

Apply to the Peer Review panel
Schedule:

15 March 2008 — Peer Review Applications Due
18 April 2008 — Paper Submissions Due
20 May 2008 — Speakers Notified
18 July 2008 — Revised Papers Due
11 August 2008 — Versioning Symposium
12—15 August 2008 — Balisage: The Markup Conference

SEC seeks input on taxonomies

Government Computer News

The Securities and Exchange Commission’s Office of Interactive Disclosure has asked for public comment on computer labels that will help companies make their financial disclosures more useful for investors and analysts.

If you build software for the financial service industry, even if your product does not interact with the SEC, you need to follow this process. Standards selection is vendor selection.

Secure E-mail standard released

Government Computer News

An international government-industry group has published specifications for a Secure E-mail standard that is intended to let governments communicate securely with each other and with their private-sector suppliers.

The specs developed by the Transglobal Secure Collaboration Program are built on a trusted public-key infrastructure model, similar to the U.S. government’s Federal PKI Bridge, but also include a policies and procedures for vetting and managing identity and access controls within an organization. This would assure users not only that an e-mail message is securely encrypted, but that the senders and receivers are who they say they are and are entitled to access the contents.

If you have an opinion about how this should be done, now is the time to speak out.

Great moments in media relations

The Department of Justice has taken Talking Points Memo off its press list after TPM ran a series of muckraking articles documenting DOJ misconduct. Be sure to read the priceless letter from the Justice Dept.

Continuity of software systems

Casey Software

All of that said, there are a number of times where it might make sense to rip apart and refactor pieces. In a relatively good piece of software you can do it. Even in a mediocre piece of software, you can start cleaning things up and get to that point. But it makes no sense to rip something apart that works as expected and replace it with something completely new. That's not working smarter. That's just working harder to maintain the status quo.

When I sold software my biggest competitor was the status quo. Customers needed a compelling reason to change their system. It wasn't just a question of the expense of the system, it was the costs associated with installation and training. Customers want the greatest gain in function with the least change of their present method of operation. Completely rewriting your software to achieve some technical ideal has no benefit for customers.

The busiess model for podcasting

Dave Winer

My phone doesn't have a business model. Neither does my porch. I still like having a phone and a porch because they help me meet new people and communicate with people I know. Same with my blog and podcast.

Winer has a new podcatcher application.

Menswear

I hope this isn't a trend.

The Auto Industry

Matthew Gross

for the same amount of cash as a new Corvette, you can buy this all electric roadster, which, glad to say, is made in America.

Spyware versus myware

Don’t Let Self-Improvement Tools Be Used Against You

Great photos

“Winner of this year’s ‘Not My Job Contest’“

PRWeek awards finalists 2008

Congratulations to all the winners.

Citizen generated content and the end of silence

Buzz Bin

This use of fake advocacy groups is a common practice here in Washington, and is usually done in deep secrecy. Companies, issues-oriented advocacy groups, trade associations and politicians fly under the radar, while they try throw mud from a distance. While giving compelling cases, you should always dig a little deeper to see who comprises these advocacy groups.

The Orwellian names taken on by fake front groups is a joke among the locals here in the nation's capitol. Although everyone knew what was going on, for whatever combination of reasons, everyone went along with these Potemkin groups.

Political bloggers have no such patience. Exposing sock puppet comments are a sport among amateur bloggers. Nor are fall guys going to be sufficient to appease political blogs. The charm of a political blog is going after the biggest target you can, just ask Walmart.

The way to work social media is to take an agricultural view. Think in terms of cultivation rather than manipulation. Use blog search tools such as Technorati, Blogdigger, etc., to identify your friends and them reward them. Encourage your employees and subcontractors to blog. Above all, consult with a credible expert on social media.