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Cash for Clunkers: Bad for the Soul
I saw a parking lot full of decent looking used cars today, all of them marked for destruction through the Cash for Clunkers program, and I had to get this off my chest, even if the program is over.
There are so many people in this country whose lives and prospects are limited because they don’t have a car.
Having a car is life transforming. It’s a ticket to a job. Or a better job. Or school. Or medical care. But this program encouraged us to landfill these perfectly serviceable, aging vehicles in exchange for new, marginally more “fuel efficient” cars (not to mention five years of new debt).
I don’t begrudge anyonewho took advantage of the program. We all need to buy cars now and again. But I take great exception to a policy that told us it was perfectly OK to just throw something out that someone else needs so desperately.
There. I feel better now. Sort of.
Social Media Tip: Use Your Social Skills
Effective use of social media often requires marketing and PR people to restrain our innate selling/pitching impulse and join the more freewheeling, conversational culture of the blogosphere.
Doyle Albee, president and new media practice director at Metzger Associates in Boulder, CO, compares it to a crowded bar. If you see someone you want to talk to engaged in conversation on the other side of the room, you need to walk over to them – not call them to come to you.
“That’s why they call it social media,” said Albee. “We all have the skills to do it, but it’s a paradigm shift from traditional marketing. We need to use our conversational skills to join in as appropriate.”
So when making use of social media, remember – as with all relationships – good manners and some social sense can take you a long way.
Stop the Presses! Sports story written by computer!
When I went to the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University in the late 80s, they still used manual typewriters for the intro to journalism class. Today, my alma mater appears to be at the forefront of exploring the intersection of journalism and technology.
Three Medill graduate journalism students and a computer science student have created a program called StatsMonkey that automatically generates sports stories based on box scores and other raw game data.
It was originally developed as a way to help cover college baseball, for which there are plenty of fans, but a limited number of scribes to report on the games. Here’s the start of one story: “Northwestern held off a late comeback bid by Georgetown to defeat the Hoyas 5-3 Friday. Trevor Stevens led the Wildcats with two hits and one run scored…” Not bad, for a computer.
Is StatsMonkey good enough to take a reporter’s job? Not likely. Its talents are limited. It can’t ask the coach a question, interview players, or explore the story lines behind the box scores. But it can produce a tidy summary of a game that probably wouldn’t have been covered at all.
StatsMonkey was developed by Nicholas Allen, Tian Huang, John Templon and computer science student Thu Cung. Read more at http://www.medill.northwestern.edu/innovation/page.aspx?id=134675
PR News Online
- For Crisis Response Web Leader, BP Spill a Marathon, Not a Sprint September 2, 2010
- Reality TV vs. Real PR Professionals September 1, 2010
- Ask the Speaker: Jason Winocour on the Next Generation of Social Media Tools August 31, 2010
- Media Beat: Journos Paint Rosier Business Picture August 30, 2010
- Apple’s iPad Gains Corporate and Consumer Fans August 30, 2010
