Yes, I’ve succumbed to the Tiger Woods scandal.  I think there are a few items of this story that make it different than the ordinary tabloid affair.

1) The effect this will have on golf:  Golfers didn’t become multi-millionaires for consistently finishing 13th until Tiger got to town.  A huge percentage of golf fans are simply Tiger fans.  Phil vs Tiger is completely different than Phil vs “That other guy.” Sponsors were paying big money for Tiger, which meant TV networks could charge more money to Golf advertisers, which more money was going into the Prize Pool of each tournament.  Companies are already having to trim marketing costs.  This is a great excuse for companies to pull money out of Golf.  If you were the 45th ranked player in the world, you may have found this funny when the story broke, but your check for finishing 13th just got smaller.

2) Why the Tabloid Web sites are crushing the Sports sites: I can’t think of a better example of the power of search driving news consumption.  For the reasons listed in Section 1, the sports sites like ESPN.com have been loathe to dig too deeply into the story.  There’s a lot of hand waving and things like, “Yeah, Tiger’s in some controversy over there, but let us tell you all about the upcoming Alabama vs Texas game.”  ESPN needs this to go away, so they can get back to the business of reporting on Golf and Tiger’s domination in the sport.  To the sports sites, Tiger taking time out of competing in Golf is comparable to the New York Yankees deciding to sit out one season.  Or having the the entire rosters of both 2009 NBA All-Star teams take a year off to travel the globe.   But, ESPN’s decision to pretend it’s not a “big deal” is not fooling anyone.  People are just going to their favorite search engine, typing in “Tiger Woods,” and getting the juicy stories from other sources, like TMZ.  It’s another example of why in the news aggregation business, we really need to ensure all web sites get a level playing field to broadcast across.  You can’t trust news sources if they are in the pockets of the people paying the bills. 

3) Seeing the Inside Mechanics of Tiger’s Spin Machine: I don’t know about you, but I’ve been shocked at what seems to be near PR incompetence from Team Tiger.  Now, it’s possible that his transgressions are so monumental that cutting them down to 2 porn stars, a pseudo-madame, a reality show wanna-be and a few other random floozies, is actually a big win because they’ve managed to keep the other 90 quiet.  If that’s the case, then all of Team Tiger should be ashamed for not reigning him in earlier.  It’s also possible that their whole strategy of keeping him away from cameras for the last 10 years was specifically designed because they knew he’s been an eventual PR nightmare ready to explode.  But it does seem like all of the companies with money invested in Tiger should have been able to assemble a PR “Dream Team” to handle this better.

4) The Unfortunate Duck and Cover Strategy:  With some regard to number 3 above, I think it’s incredibly sad that Team Tiger’s best exit plan is to throw Elin under the bus.   According to some web sites, there’s a claim that Elin is demanding, “Your family or your golf.”  This would be a convenient excuse for Tiger to disappear to Dubai for 12 months and avoid having to discuss this issue with anyone.  The public perception would be that he “loves his family so much,” that he’s giving up golf to make it right by them.  The reality would be that the wife would be placed in the position of “Bad Guy” to anyone who watches golf.  Plus, sponsors, other golfers, advertisers and golf fans would all be cheated by having a year without the best player in the world.  The great thing about team sports, is that no matter what mess you find yourself in, you have an obligation to the rest of your team.  Alex Rodriguez couldn’t take a year off.  He had to go out every day and get heckled by fans, because he was ONE of 25 New York Yankees.  Kobe Bryant was ONE of 12 LA Lakers.  Those guys had to stick their pride in their back pockets and still compete against the best athletes in the world.  It would be sad if Tiger used the excuse of “My wife doesn’t want me to play” as a way to duck the criticism he deserves. 

Those are the thoughts of the top of my head.

I’m not a big fan of entitlement. I was taught by an old boss long ago at the Tucson Toros that no one is entitled to anything, you have to earn everything you’re rewarded with.

So there is something funny about the coincidental juxtaposition of the article I’m forwarding here to the post I wrote over the weekend about the online education company. This CNN article (I’ve seen a version several places online) reports that:

“A recent college graduate is suing her alma mater for $72,000 — the full cost of her tuition and then some – because she cannot find a job. Trina Thompson, 27, of the Bronx, graduated from New York’s Monroe College in April with a bachelor of business administration degree in information technology.  On July 24, she filed suit against the college in Bronx Supreme Court, alleging that Monroe’s ‘Office of Career Advancement did not help me with a full-time job placement. I am also suing them because of the stress I have been going through.’” 

This made me wonder what I could sue either of my alam maters for.  After all, I graduated with a degree in Finance, but I was unable to predict either stock market crash.  Surely the U of A owes me for my losses.  And, in the 20 years or so that I was in college or out of college, I’ve NEVER been able to attend a Rose Bowl.  In fact, now I have 2 Pac-10 schools I could enjoy in the Rose Bowl, and neither of them have made it.  Surely I could sue for that.  And what about the fact that I can’t speak Spansih fluently?  U of A is 60 miles from the Mexican border.  Why couldn’t I get out of there with a bi-lingual education?  Bastards.

On the more serious note, I would like to (though I need to check with our HR department and legal teams to see if we are allowed) blacklist Trina Thompson from our resume inbox, and have much tighter guidelines on any poor sap who lists Monroe College as their primary education.  

Poor Ms. Thompson, do you have any idea how much more difficult you have made it for you or any of your classmates to get employed?  

I’ll make a few updates to this post as I think more clearly about it.  But aninteresting debate has erupted over at Techcrunch, where Michael Arrington has declared he will no longer adhere to embargoes (except from a few people he likes.) Furthermore, he has called out a 43 year PR executive in a follow up article, calling her an excessive spammer.

This argument is funny on a few different levels.  First of all, it’s pretty amazing to think that a blog no one had heard of 4 years ago now has the guts to tell the entir PR community that they will no longer play by the rules that the New York Times, Time Magazine, WSJ, and People Magazine have played by for the last 60-70 years.  

Second, for all of Arrington’s vitriol toward PR firms, there’s irony that he will only review companies that are on his own PR “A” List.  Techcrunch started as a blog that promoted new start-ups.  Over the years, as they began getting more invites to more high class events, their focus shifted to Apple, MSFT, Google and companies that are one degree away from the top rung of Silicon Valley VC’s and power brokers.  A few years ago, I did some work for a start-up whose CEO worked tirelessly to get Arrington’s attention. Understanding how the Techcrunch ego worked, he actually underwent a 12 month PR campaign to build the right connnections to get one degree away from Arrington’s circle.  The plan worked, and now he has access to him.  Same guy, same intelligence, same social circle, but now that Arrington sees him as a connected influencer, now he’ll open his emails.

I’m not saying that’s a bad thing.  It’s the way the world works – you naturally stop dealing with small fish when big fish are jumping on your hook.  But when you are working with the big fish, you shouldn’t start screaming and yelling at both big and small fish about which way they should attach themselves to your hook.

But on to anoher point.  The reason we are in this mess now, is that at some point reporters stopped being “reporters” and started being “relayers.”  years ago, a few PR firms figured out that a reporter could spend more time in a bar if the PR firm did the research, wrote the aricle, provided the photos and listed contact information if the reporter wnated to add his or her own sentence to the piece.  These PR firms started getting companies placed.  Pretty soon, all the PR firms started doing this, and reporters stopped looking for stories, and hired assistants to sort through the pitches.  Now comes the internet, and while it used to take a bunch of $.32 stamps to send out a pitch, one email can blast out to 10,000 reporters.  The reporters have created this mess where you have to send your relase to everyone, because everyone is sending everyone the release.  And no reporter is actively doing any research themselves.

So my synopsis is that PR firms should keep spamming the heck out of reporters until reporters start chasing stories themselves.  if they are just going to sit back and regurgitate releases, they should expect to get 1000′s of pitches.

(I’ll think about htis more and see if I still agree with it later…)  

I apologize for the blatant self promotion here.  But Spring Creek Group CEO Clay McDaniel was recently profiled in Smart Money Magazine’s Small Business site.  I think it’s a nice achievement for our little team of 15 social mediaholics.   Here’s the link to the story. 

I love political season.  Nothing better than a good old fashion radio ad war being waged by people who don’t normally write radio ads.  Today on KJR, I heard what may have been the funniest 20 minutes of political radio the all-sports station has ever run. 

1) At about 8:20am, Steve Sandmeyer interviews Dino Rossi.  In the 10 minute interview, Rossi addresses the issue KJR listeners care about most, mainly the Legislature’s inability to make any kind of decision on the Sonics situation.  Rossi restated his previous positions, that all Gregoire and the Legislature had to do was AUTHORIZE King County to extend the current tax that tourists pay on rental cars, hotels, etc…past 2011 when it currently expires.  They didn’t have to vote to extend the tax, they had to vote to authorize King County to vote for the tax.  Rossi continued by saying that he knew it was a political hot potato, so to make sure Gregoire wouldn’t take a fall, he publicly endorsed it before her. That way she could endorse it without him being able to use it against her.  Then he got a nice jab in by calling Frank Chopp the “pseudo-governor” and that Gregoire is too afraid to do anything without his approval.  Score multiple points for Rossi.

2) Interview ends at 8:30 or so, and in the next commercial break, you get a response ad from Team Gregoire.  Basic text of the ad – “Rossi is like George Bush because he cut back on child protection services, is anti-abortion, votes against gay marriage and cut transportation funding.  See, he’s just like George Bush.  And did we mention he is like George Bush?  So, you obviously don’t want George Bush.  Paid for by friends of Gregoire.”  Gay marriage and abortion rights?  The Sonics have just been ripped from the city, fans blame you for this, and 8 days later you run an ad telling sports fans that Rossi is against abortion rights?  Really?  That’s the most compelling argument you have to make to sports fans feeling pain?

3) 10 minutes later, you hear a Rossi ad that has been playing a while. The ad quotes the Seattle Times, “Gregoire showed the leadership skills of a rookie Point Guard.” The ads also says that when Gregoire had a chance to do something extraordinary, she chose to sit on the bench.  Ouch.  Ouch again.  Score more points for Rossi.

4) As if this wasn’t enough, the Gregoire campaign found it necessary to run the same ineffective ad a second time 10 minutes later.  I guess they really wanted Sonics fans to know that Dino Rossi is anti-abortion.  It’s like walking into Capitol Hill and talking about policy on shipping tariffs.  Or going to the Apple farmers to discuss H1B visas.

The KJR vote is going to Rossi.  So I’m not sure Gregoire’s play here.  She either has to be loud and vocal about pushing through the new stadium legislation this session, or just ignore those voters and spend money somewhere else.  But if I won ana election by 2,000 votes, and an entire segment of people who never vote just learned how to register, I’d be nervous.  

This Monday at 4:30pm, the Save Our Sonics Organization is hosting a rally on the courthouse steps  (700 Stewart St., Seattle). Sonics legends Gary Payton and Xavier McDaniel are confirmed to attend and speak at 4:30 pm. Other Sonics Legends have been invited and are expected to appear.

Now whether you are a die-hard fan, casual observer or don’t even care and just live and work in Seattle, here are 5 (or 7) reasons you should show support.

1. For the first time ever, a city and state did not bow down to a league that demanded a new tax-payer funded stadium.  You should show that a league should not punish a city for this appropriate action.
2. Over 41 years, more than 20,000,000 people have watched Sonics games in person.  That’s a piece of history that should stay – and I bet it’s more than have watched the symphony, opera and ballet combined.
3. You cannot idly sit by and watch an Oklahoma Oil Baron (who is also a Republican) come rob the eco-friendly Pacific Northwest of one of its assets.
4. At least some of your friends care about this, so you should support them.  They contribute to your Sierra Club, Humane Society and kid’s school’s auctions.  This doesn’t even cost you anything.
5. It’s happy hour in Seattle – what an excuse to kill an hour off your work day on a Monday?  
6. David Stern is proving to be an arrogant, very bad man.  Don’t let him get away with this without Seattle making some noise.
7. There’s about a 1% chance the team survives.  If that miracle occurs, 34 years from now on the Sonics 75th anniversary, don’t you want to tell your grand-kids, "I was at the rally that proved to be the turning point."

 Get there – do your part.  Make it a huge rally that gets on the national news. 

Well alrighty.  My first trip to Ad:tech San Francisco is in the books.  They claimed to have about 300 companies exhibiting, and I think I talked to more than my fair share.  So as promised, here are a few companies I thought were pretty interesting.

1) Without a doubt, the guys at AdReady.com were the hit of the show.   A well funded company with a simple solution for a common problem.  That’s a pretty good formula for success.  Plus, I got to chat with a Senior VP.  When a Senior VP is schlepping time on a show floor, it shows something about the caliber of people they hire.  Check them out if you have a few minutes.

2) Before I go into all the companies that I walked away from thinking, “Wow, that’s cool,” let me throw out a caveat.  There were a lot of future unemployed people at this show.  My bubble alert would go off every time a company claimed they were a “revolutionary way to optimize your ad budgets” and you talked to some 25 year old who had just cut his teeth as a junior media buyer at a 3rd tier ad agency.  I saw a lot of companies, none of which I’ll name, that seemed to have the strategy of, “Well we have a Series A, and we’ll get some Series B funding in 2010.”  Except, there may not be any VC funding in 2010.  Plus, everyone seems to have a strategy of selling to Google, Yahoo or Microsoft in 2 years.  I think the best job you could get right now is a M+A guy at one of those 3 places…  

3) Ok, some things I liked:

• SeeSawNetworks – Rep firm for all types of weird ways to advertise
• SproutBuilder – I didn’t quite get the full concept, but looked like a cool way to make widgets 
• LSNMobile – Serving Mobile Ads, but in a cool way and they are profitable.
• IdeaLaunch – There were tons of companies offering Landing Page Optimization services.  I can’t remember why, but I liked these guys.

4) Affiliate Programs and Networks – It was fascinating to me how many new affiliate networks are out there these days.  Equally fascinating was the fact that all the big guys didn’t bother to attend the show. 

5) Final shout of annoyance: I’m going to express a little displeasure toward the Rubicon Project.  Only because, I RSVP’d for their party and they didn’t have me in the database, so I couldn’t get in.  Probably my fault for not noticing the lack of a confirmation email.  You see, since they weren’t sure if anyone was going to come to their party, they invited EVERYONE in the world.  Then when more people showed up than they expected, they had to adhere to the RSVP list, which caused an issue of portraying themselves as an internet company who had a internet sign-up form that didn’t work.   Now, I’m a nobody, so leaving me stranded outside is no big deal.  And there was plenty of stuff to do so I didn’t really care.  But here’s where I thought they looked kind of unpolished – the door people even refused to admit an extremely well connected CEO of a pretty strong VC backed company, while their own Marketing Coordinators and their friends drank free Grey Goose.  Bubble alert – when your junior level guys are getting drunk at a party you are hosting, and you don’t have anyone senior enough at the door to let in a CEO of a company you should work with, you need to re-evaluate why you are throwing a party.  Let your guys get drunk at home.  Use Ad:Tech to talk to the CEO that wanted to talk to you. Or, I guess you can be that cocky and see if it works for you.  I guess I just wouldn’t be that cocky in a recession.

6) Final note: I can only hope the Seattle light rail will be as efficient as the BART.  I was off my plane, on the BART and in my hotel in like 45-50 minutes, for a $5.00 fare.  Compare that to the $50 cab ride I would need to take to get home from Sea-Tac today.  Love that BART.

Here’s a neat little web site that you can get lost in for a few hours if you aren’t careful.

KillerStartups.com says they review 30+ sites a day, so that database gets pretty big pretty quickly.  The site prolies a wide range of companies, from the goofy to the geeky, and they mostly accentuate the positive.  After all, no start-up isperfect, but you have to root for someone willing to throw it all out on the line like that.  Plus, it doesn’t look like you need a +$10k a month PR firm, work at a VC firm or be a close friend of Michael Arrington to be profiled on KillerStartups.com, so it’s almost like the "anti-TechCrunch."

One of my favorite things to watch is when businesses choose to ignore a technology or shift in human behavior, and honestly believe that if they ignore it well enough, it will simply go away.

We saw this in the music industry, where executives refused to believe that anyone would rather listen to thousands of songs on a device the size of a credit card rather than using a clunky cd player and devoting an entire wall for storing that same music. 

The newspapers were no better, refusing to consider that carrying a dirty glob of paper with old news was less appealing than simply logging on to a computer and getting the freshest info. 

This makes a story Garrett found even more humorous.  The Chicago Sun Times has some sports columnists who occasionally draw the ire of their readers.  Jay Mariotti is one such columnist.  Apparently, people were responding to his articles in a negative way, so the Sun Times made the decision to stop allowing readers to comment on his columns.  You can almost hear the conversation, "Well if we turn off the technology that allows readers to write negative things about Jay, then no one can write anything negative, and we won’t have to worry about it anymore. Problem solved!"

Except of course, that it’s 2008 and the world doesn’t work like that anymore.  Maybe in 1970 that was a good idea.  But nature abhors a vacuum, so if people want to write negative things about Jay Mariotti, and the Sun Times won’t let it happen on their site, the people will find a new home for their vents.

And they have, thanks to crosstown rival, the Chicago Tribune, who have geniusly embraced Social Media by developing a forum where readers can post comments about Jay Mariotti. And for that matter, other Sun Times writers. 

And guess what, two giant ads on the page.

So, you have one paper pretending that taking away the voice of the people would be helpful.   And you have a other that is profiting on the idea of letting people have their say.  By foolishly thinking you can control the voice of the people, you lose all control of the situation, because now you can’t even moderate out the particularly distasteful ones.  And your competitor gets the ad money. 

Lesson to be learned here: No one has 100% approval rating.  The only way to have any control of the situation is to let the people speak on your turf.  

I want to thank Larry Asher and everyone who attended the seminar on Social Media that Spring Creek Group principal Clay McDaniel and I hosted yesterday at the School of Visual Concepts.

It was really interesting to see a roomful of people who wanted to figure out how to promote their blog and social media presence, from perspectives as varied as ad agencies, design firms, newspapers, aspiring authors, philanthropic endeavors, small businesses, freelancers and giant medical centers.  I don’t think Clay and I expected such a wide range of interest.

(In a shameless plug, I want to extol the virtues of GotVoice’s Voice-to-Text service.  We were in the seminar about 7 hours and I never checked my voicemail.  It would have been a total pain if I had to listen to each one instead of being able to just read each voicemail as a text message.  Full disclosure: I do some work for GotVoice.  But it was very useful yesterday regardless.) 

It sounds like we may put another one of these together in April or May.  If you missed this one, hope to see you then.