This past weekend I went to the Institute of Contemporary Art in Boston to see the Shepard Fairey exhibit Supply & Demand. You know him for his Obama portrait, a pop cultural icon that now hangs in the National Portrait Gallery. For someone who came up in the art world by graffiti tagging and plastering stickers with the face of Andre the Giant and the word “Obey” just about everywhere, being featured at the ICA and National Portrait Gallery is a sign that what was once street is now truly mainstream.

And when you think about it, what’s really happening in the world today, from a communications standpoint, is that the Shepard Faireys are taking over. Before there was a Facebook wall for you to write on, Fairey was tagging walls with his graffiti art, and spreading his stickers virally. His “Obey” stickers preceded the Internet age and became so ubiquitous that they’re the precursors to those “Original Irish Gifts” and other Facebook flotsam and jetsam that is seriously clogging up my information arteries (not that I don’t love a virtual Guinness as much as the next guy).

In the way that Fairey is subversive by taking traditional images of propaganda (Mao, Stalin, Bobby Seale) and giving them an ironic (and often hilarious!) twist, marketers are using the power of social networks to have you, the consumer, mess with their brand and help to define it anew, remix it, make of it what you will. Consider Skittles, the bite-sized candy in a rainbow of fruit flavors. I love them because they’re delicious. And as someone in marketing, I also love them because the brand is going outside of its safe zone. With its “Interweb the Rainbow” campaign, they’ve created a widget that floats from Facebook page, to YouTube channel, to Twitter, to product page so you can seamlessly experience their brand as a participant. Like Shep Fairey, you can “tag” Skittles by tweeting about them, creating a video and uploading it to YouTube, write on the FB wall, etc. Skittles is opening themselves up wide for all that YOU have to say about them.

We’ve all heard the joke about the bad blind date who talks on and on about his many accomplishments to his companion, and then pauses to say, “Well, enough about me, what do you think of me?” In our increasingly digital age, where self-publishing and social networking technology is free to everyone with a smart phone or an Internet connection, who you are isn’t what you tell the world, it’s what the world tells you. Now go have a Skittle.

Last week our agency received a visit from Lisa Hickey, a self-described “Slightly insane creative thinker and writer. Designer and strategist. Global conversationalist.” She worked at almost every local Boston area advertising agency (with the exception of Mullen) and when she was laid off last year, she re-branded herself as a social media consultant.

Her compelling tale of personal growth via use of Twitter, Facebook, etc. was stirring for all attendees. Given the tragicomic state of the economy today with layoffs everywhere, we can expect other marketers to follow her lead from the unemployment line into social media, and a proliferation of “social media gurus.” By the way, social media guru is a term that I personally loathe because in this day and age we should all be digitally literate, rather than relying on some sort of digital elite (See: Chinese Ch’an master Lin-chi I-hsüan and “Killing the Buddha”). 

Anyway, one thing she said really stuck with me: “Today, people are becoming brands, and brands are becoming people.” It’s true for Lisa, and it’s true for a lot of companies today. Consider how Facebook pages for companies have proliferated, and the very same week of Lisa’s visit Facebook changed those pages to resemble individual profiles. Check out this fantastic whitepaper from The Advance Guard on how those changes can be optimized.

Now, what Facebook doesn’t tell you is that if you wanted to get a customized URL for your company’s fan page that will start at around $100K and involves a media buy. Not a lot of individuals will be in a position to brand their own personal profile at that high price tag.  So, I guess companies are becoming more like individuals, but still get corporate pricing courtesy of Facebook. (Nice. But it’s probably better than spending the money on redecorating a bank’s bathroom.)

So what’s my point? I guess I’m left feeling like Randall Stross, who in his Digital Domain column on Sunday really opened up the can of worms that individuals becoming like companies, and companies becoming like individuals entails. His belief is that it’s ruining our sense of privacy: “When the distinction blurs between one’s few close friends and the many who are not, it seems pointless to distinguish between private and public.” It will be interesting to watch companies open up in the social world and see just how much they’re willing to share. What do you think? Are we over-branding ourselves and destroying what little is left of our private identities in the process?     

 I also feel that an agency that delivers great press coverage without great strategy is performing some kind of miracle. For great press coverage is the result of great PR strategy — the two are not mutually exclusive. I’d love to hear your thoughts on how an agency can deliver results without strategy, or strategy without results. I seriously doubt that it’s possible.

If you participated in the tweeting about the Super Bowl advertising and joined Mullen at www.sb43ads.com, then you will certainly enjoy our latest adventure in sourcing the wisdom of the crowd. By going to www.redcarpet09.com you will be able to watch everyone commenting on the Oscars before, during and after. And you can participate in polling and tweet directly from the page. If you’ve harbored a desire to be like Joan Rivers or Ryan Seacrest, providing play-by-play commentary on the action, now is your chance to do just that in the Twitterverse.  

James Michael Surowiecki’s book “The Wisdom of Crowds: Why the Many Are Smarter Than the Few and How Collective Wisdom Shapes Business, Economies, Societies and Nations” was never more relevant than today, when micro-blogging services such as Twitter have enabled masses of people to share their thoughts about everything from Doritos TV spots to Kate Winslet’s gown.

I read a recent review of a film festival being held in New York for horror movies by director David Cronenberg (“The Fly”, “Videodrome”) in which they wrote that “One of the advantages of seeing one of these high-Cronenberg extravaganzas with a midnight-movie audience is that everybody gets to go “Ewww” at the same time, which kind of relieves the tension.”

The same can be said of these two experiments in Twitter mass participation. By viewing the Oscars and tweeting your impressions and sharing those impressions with others via the hashtag #redcarpet09 you are experiencing something with a group, even though you may be alone in front of your TV set with your laptop or iPhone and a bowl of popcorn.

Adweek and The Boston Globe have taken notice of Mullen’s adventures in tapping into the collective wisdom of crowds, and that can only help boost participation (#sb43ads was the fourth-most tweeted topic for a time during the Super Bowl, inching out Bruce Springsteen for a moment – can’t feel bad about beating the Boss).

Edward Boches, our chief creative officer, feels that these Twitter experiments are really only scratching the surface of what’s possible with Twitter (read his post here). The sky is the limit for where this service can go, and I’m excited to be a part of taking it there. As David Pogue wrote, “Don’t worry about the rules. Including mine. Use Twitter the way you want to. Don’t let anyone tell you you’re doing it wrong.”

We hope you take part to see what can be accomplished when we tap into our collective conscious. If you have any thoughts about how Twitter can be used for other purposes, feel free to comment here.       

For example, there’s been quite a bit of chatter about a recent misstep by a Ketchum PR guy. Upon deplaning in Memphis, for a FedEx client meeting, he tweeted a negative comment about the city to his Twitter account. A few hours and now weeks later, PR people all over the country are nervously laughing at that guy’s folly and secretly thinking, “Thank Heavens that wasn’t me.” (PS: We’re also all thinking, “I wonder if FedEx is shopping for a new agency?”)

We should be our authentic selves when posting a Tweet or making comments on Facebook, and we’re all certainly entitled to our opinions, but would you verbally say to someone what you would write about them? Would that PR guy have said to his client, I would die if I had to live here? From email to Twitter, non-verbal communication seems to makes it permissible to forego social norms and fire off messages that may be perceived as rude, inappropriate or just plain foolish.

I’m certainly not saying we should hide our personalities online or reject our right to free speech. I often exchange very silly and bizarre comments with friends and post obscure videos and links. I just believe everyone needs to be conscious of the fact that what you post can and will travel far, and if you can’t say something nice, then don’t say anything at all (or at least don’t say anything stupid that could come back to haunt you).

I just read a great book on blogging called “Naked Conversations” that gives some great insight into this topic. For a humorous take on what the Facebook experience would feel like in the real world, check out this video and reply to this post about your thoughts about where virtual reality and true reality split online and what our social networking P’s and Q’s should be.

To participate, get a Twitter account and type #sb43ads in your tweet plus your canny commentary.

As the Boston Globe just reported, Mullen, as well as “a group of ad agencies and Boston University students are looking to get a real-time Twitter debate going on the merits of Sunday’s Super Bowl ads.”

According to the Globe, “the ad agency group is looking to harness the social networking technology of Twitter.com as a way to get folks to post instant and pithy critiques of ads they loved or loathed – even as they are watching the game.”

Edward Boches, Mullen’s chief creative officer, said of the upcoming Twitter experiment on Super Bowl ads, “We’re looking to use a new medium to comment on an old medium. The idea is to get the whole community more familiar and comfortable with the concept of social networking as another option in the marketer’s tool bag. And if we’re lucky the comments will be funnier than the ads themselves.”

Love it or hate it, twitter is getting more attention and the days of the service being “for early adopters only” are (like the Bush administration) coming to a close. David Pogue’s recent post in New York Times Circuits, “Twittering Tips for Beginners” outlines what is both beneficial and frustrating for those who use twitter in its current form.

But Pogue has really only scratched the surface of what twitter can do for monitoring brands, customer service,  and media relations (the work of PR professionals like yours truly). Well, here are some things that his eminence of technology missed:

Companies like Comcast, Zappos, JetBlue, Starbucks, GM, Best Buy, Kodak, H&R Block, and other Fortune 500 bands are on twitter, and they’re using it as a customer service tool to help resolve issues (Hey, my DVR records every episode of the Daily Show, what gives?) and to answer questions (Ground or whole bean?).

Instead of simply engaging with consumers directly on their twitter pages, these companies can also monitor what’s being said about them by setting up RSS links to searches of every mention of their brand (visit search.twitter.com, type in the terms you care about, click on the RSS feed to receive real-time feeds to anyone posting anything about the brand).

Those twitterers out there trashing or praising your products and services can then be followed by your PR agency or others, and the adequate response can be taken (provide a coupon online for half off the Ethiopian roast, or a discount on shoes ordered online).

When all employees at a company are twittering, as is the case at Zappos, they have  direct channel into the thoughts and activities of their leaders, like Tony Hsieh. I’d bet that during the financial crisis, the employees at Lehman Brothers would have appreciated knowing what was going on with their leaders via twitter — if they would even share information. Is Bernie Madoff on twitter? Probably not. But, when an entire company is on twitter, the cross-pollination of ideas and esprit de corps is pretty amazing. It’s not for every corporate culture, though. Glasnost didn’t work out so well in the Soviet Union either.

This ability to track all brand mentions can lead to a “Big Brother is watching you” feeling. I tweeted about Zappos once and Wham! someone from their company was following my every tweet. I suppose I could have blocked him, but I was impressed by the company’s level of responsiveness to those who are thinking about Zappos.

I don’t really agree with Pogue when he writes about twitter that “No other communications channel can match its capacity for real-time, person-to-person broadcasting.” Actually, quick notes about what you’re doing is handled quite well by facebook, and facebook is great for posting video, links to other sites, detailed information about you, photos, etc.  None of those things are easily accomplished with twitter (Do you like having to shrink a URL to post it to twitter? I don’t. Do you want to create a hashtag for an event? I don’t.)

Other sites that help you find those who are most followed on twitter, are useful: twitterholic.com.

Pogue also neglected the ways in which PR professionals can engage with media contacts who tweet. By following journalists like Pogue (twitter.com/davidpogue) you can tap into what they’re thinking. Sometimes they’ll even give you insight on their upcoming articles and you can pitch them (But hey, have some class, send them an email and don’t tweet a pitch to them in twitter. It looks kind of desperate). If you follow MicroPR on twitter, you can see a ton of journalists looking for leads (think of ProfNet but for those who use twitter). Follow this link for a partial list of some journalists that use twitter.

But one thing that Pogue wrote is certainly true. Twitter is a big “time suck” along with facebook and MySpace. But when your job is communications, it’s not a time suck so much as it is your daily work. And companies that aren’t hearing from their agencies about twitter, and learning how to use the service to their own advantage, are missing a powerful tool. A new day is dawning on Capitol Hill, and we’re about to swear in a Twitterer-in-Chief. Time to get on the bandwagon!

Reading the Sunday New York Times each week is something that I hold sacred. Even though I am completely hooked into all digital media formats, nothing quite replaces the physical newsprint with its smudging ink and messy sections that lay around the house for days. I’m not likely to listen to a podcast while wearing slippers and munching on a bagel with cream cheese, but that is precisely what I want to do while reading my weekend morning paper.

So it’s something of a wakeup call, and a bit stronger than my cup of morning Joe, to read the Times these days. They are writing a lot about the changing landscape of media, as blogs, videos and other digital forms continue to body slam analog forms of communication. Chief among these writers is Virginia Heffernan, whose The Medium column (and blog) is really tapping into the general zeitgeist right now. Consider this from her most recent article:

People who work in traditional media and entertainment ought either to concentrate on the antiquarian quality of their work, cultivating the exclusive audience of TV viewers or magazine readers that might pay for craftsmanship. Or they should imagine that they are 19 again: spending a day on Twitter or following a recipe from a Mark Bittman video played on a refrigerator that automatically senses what ingredients are missing and texts an order to the grocery store (it will soon exist!). Then they should think about what content suits these new modes of distribution and could evolve in tandem with them. For old-media types, mental flexibility could be the No. 1 happiness secret we have been missing.

As someone who has worked with old media for years, I couldn’t put it any better myself. We do need to stretch our minds to wrap our heads around all the changes taking place. The week before she wrote this, the Times had an entire magazine devoted to the proliferation of screens everywhere and how this is upending our traditional textual modes of communication. Kevin Kelly wrote in the Idea Lab about Becoming Screen Literate.

As I’ve written before in this blog, the advent of digital video is forever altering how we communicate. Kelly’s article really lays out a vision for the visual future that’s actually becoming reality right now.

A couple months ago I opened the magazine and read “Facebook in a Crowd” by Hal Niedzviecki. That article really floored me because it articulated what turns off some marketers to social networking – the illusion that what happens online automatically translates into something real offline. His article demonstrates that those you’re calling “friends” in Facebook don’t really hold the same weight as your friends in the real world, and that this brave new world has a whole new set of rules. (It’s a hilarious article and well worth reading.)

If you’re already incredibly immersed in all things social, then this is old news to you. But with constantly evolving means of communication, the idea that any one person can know everything about our changing online world is simply laughable. But, I just hope that while I cling to my Sunday morning old media tradition, my mind remains flexible and open to the ever-expanding online media universe. That, and a good bagel and coffee, are my number 1 happiness secret.

<

I spent some time last month listening to a free audio book called Tribal Leadership: Leveraging Natural Groups to Build a Thriving Organization. I knew that the book was available as a free download because I follow the Twitter tweets of Tony Hsieh, the CEO of Zappos.com. If Tony, an innovator and business leader, recommended it to his followers, I knew that it would be well worth reading. He actually contributed to the audio book’s forward, and having listened to the book, I can see why the authors chose him.

The book revolves around the central concept of companies existing as bands of tribes (from as many as 20 people to 150 people per tribe). In effect, an organization is like a state with multiple small towns within it. These are not necessarily your department, but loose associations of thought leaders and colleagues. Tribal groups are formed by the replication of what the authors call “triads.” Triads are strong three-party relationships. This is important factor for organizations with a tribal culture, because the authors know that only a three-legged stool can stand, and that by sharing work among colleagues, there is a mutually-supportive structure, rather than a top-down, one-on-one, senior-to-junior dynamic at work.

If you look for it, you will see these triad relationships everywhere in successful companies. Think about LinkedIn, which relies on you working through your existing contacts to reach another contact in the system (a triad). The book also focuses on the fact that successful tribal company cultures are not about “me”, they are about “we.” While company cultures can focus on the superstars, they do so at their own peril. Real superstars are always forming triads and bringing out the best in their colleagues. They are using what helped the Celts win the championships – Ubuntu – and the knowledge that no one can make it alone.

The book provides case studies of the companies that are getting Tribal Leadership right, like Amgen. Companies, as well as individuals, can be found on a continuum from stage 1 (totally failing) to stage 5 (incredibly successful). About half of all companies in America are in stage 3 where self-accomplishment is the core value celebrated (it’s about my success). Companies at stage 5 are in a league of their own (they don’t see themselves as having competitors, just major problems to solve – cancer, bad customer service). Companies at stage 5 are also incredibly open and share information fluidly among the tribal members (and social networking is increasingly helping them create this openness and transparency).

There’s something extremely attractive about a stage 5 tribal culture, and a lot to admire in Tribal Leaders. While these leaders can exist at companies that have yet to make it to tribal excellence, the book suggests that through practicing the creation of triads, being group-oriented and checking their egos at the door, leaders can help to elevate their companies. Next time you’re in a meeting, count the number of times someone says “me” when they could be saying “we.” Now listen to yourself. And, definitely listen to this important book, for free.      

Perhaps this has happened to you. A client has had perhaps a hundred journalists (in the US and abroad) sign a non-disclosure agreement to prevent the media from reporting a story in advance of the official launch date. In exchange for signing the NDA, the reporters got more access to privileged information in advance about the upcoming news (images, interviews with key company parties, press releases, PowerPoint, etc.).

Then, your worst nightmare becomes reality. One of those reporters, misreading the embargo date, publishes the story online in advance of the embargo date. Your client calls you as soon as the Google Alert hits his BlackBerry and being a PR professional you follow up with the unfortunate reporter and ask her to take the news off the site. The reporter explains that she feels horrible about the mistake – it was the web team who mistakenly posted the news – and she takes immediate action to take it down. “Phew!” you say to yourself. “I was able to save the day. Now hopefully no one saw the leaked news.”

Yeah, right. In our online world, the spread of news moves faster than a California wildfire. In that brief hosting of leaked news online, other news sites that monitor for your client were also alerted, and then moved swiftly to grab that content and post it on their own sites. After all, they weren’t briefed under NDA, so for all they know they’re just circulating news they didn’t get via your press release. By this point, all of the reporters that signed NDAs are asking themselves if they should post the news or wait until the date and time on the legal form they signed comes to pass.

Then your client calls requesting that you approach all of the sites that have posted the news in advance. If you have relationships with the sites, they’ll understand and probably take the news down. But what happens if they’re a blog? If they’re a blog they may reply: “As we were not briefed on the topic and didn’t sign an NDA we can’t in good faith remove a story that’s now or was public. I think it’s best for all parties involved to learn from this mistake and to move on.”

Universally, I have found bloggers to hold NDAs and embargos in disdain. These official marketing tools don’t jibe with their generally snarky attitude. One part of me understands this. After all, we read blogs precisely because they are snarky, opinionated and anti-authority. And they want to get a scoop just like any journalist. On the other hand, PR practitioners provide special access to their clients for a reason: to ensure that the story is told correctly. Without that access, the bloggers can only speculate on what others have reported, rather than report facts.

What’s a PR flak to do? It’s impossible to brief everyone in advance so they’re ready to go live with news at the right time. Some sites won’t even sign an NDA if you want them to. And rarely does a company take any sort of legal action against a reporter who breaks an embargo – they don’t want to sour the relationship and they understand that mistakes can (and will) happen.

I’m not writing that we should abandon the process of getting reporters to sign NDA forms just because they’re not usually enforced and we can’t get the world to sign an NDA. If only one or two sites leak news, then they’re not really diminishing the big bang on launch day. And once a reporter has signed an NDA, they traditionally respect them. But never expect a blogger to hold to an embargo date (unless you have a great relationship and they’ve signed an NDA) or to remove leaked news. What you can expect is that the second something is on the Internet, it’s there to stay. As long as bloggers treat the marketing process with disdain, they will continue to miss out on full pre-announcement briefings. And, the likely outcome of being shunned by the very companies they should be courting.