Back on Thursday, January 25th, 2007 at 09:08, I wrote an article an article about Julie Roehm after I spotted her when I spent a week in Wal-Mart’s Bentonville Home Office in “Action Alley”, Edelman and Wal-Mart’s Bentonville side of the tin can phone to the Washington “Wal Room.” I spent that week in Bentonville, Arkansas, living in Edelman’s corporate apartments as an employee of Edelman and a guest of Wal-Mart and was pretty darn wowed by the only person in Bentonville with any star-quality or showmanship, Julie Roehm:

To be honest, in a world of cheap putty-colored cubes and battleship gray halls, Julie Roehm was the only heat in the entire marketing, creative and communications office. She was blond, brassy, hot, and always on the phone. She smiled and gesticulated. She closed the door to her green office whenever she pleased. I wonder if she took out her own trash.

Everything else at the Wal-Mart home office in Bentonville, Arkansas, was cheap, frugal, putty-colored, and practical.

Julie Roehm turned heads when she painted her windows-free office chartreuse in an attempt to breathe any energy of excitement at all into a company that is so frugal that it demands its executive employee to collect and put out its own trash every night.

Did I mention that she is striking, slender, fit, and charismatic? Antithetical to Wal-Mart, antithetical to Bentonville.

Well, I recently stumbled upon Julie Roehm’s new website and I really want to share with you all that is Miss Julie A Roehm from a profile interview on her website:

She’s been called Fearless.  Resilient.  Dynamic.  Even… “Unruly”.

Julie Roehm is all that and more.

Bold and brilliant, Julie is a powerful, charismatic marketing visionary.  Her keen ability is the result of calculated daring, deep experience and wide range.  She is a catalyst for change— the best at what she does.  Her penchant for taking on the greatest challenges and come out ahead, on top and up high is legendary.

Julie, who finds inspiration in smart quotes by an eclectic group of thinkers, sprinkles her conversation with words that shape her own philosophy and experience.

You immediately know she is courageous, brave, in command.  When I tell her this, she smiles that trademark Roehm smile, mix of fine intuition, confidence, fierce focus and remarkable intelligence.  “Fearlessness is like a muscle.  The more you exercise it, the more natural it becomes to not let fears run you…that’s a favorite from Arianna Huffington.”

Clients seek her because she’s a warrior with a guru-like ability to feel and predict what makes consumers need, not want.  Believe, never doubt.  Buy, not browse.  Rev up, not idle.

Notoriously unafraid of controversy and a good, clean fight for the right, Julie is an intrepid, yet infinitely calculating innovator.

She is famous for her tactical savvy, known for looking an obstacle in the eye and pushing it aside, and highly respected for her ability to win the challenge that has yet to show itself.

Julie pours her soul and her passion for results into everything she does.  And like Edith Sitwell, she is patient with stupidity but not with those who are proud of it.

Today, Julie Roehm soars as one of the most successful, in demand global marketing, new media, advertising and innovative brand building consultants in the country for one simple reason: she’s right on target more often than most.  She is never afraid to call it as she sees it…popular or not.

Julie’s strength is rooted in her education, experience and personal devotion to excellence. She’s a Purdue University civil engineer with a University of Chicago MBA.

Julie wins for her clients because she leverages emotional intelligence and a gift to ideate, strategize and maximize— rare breed.

Nothing Julie does, from evaluating the subtleties of research insight and advertising, to scrutinizing measurable returns on investment, is gratuitous.

She is always ten moves ahead of the game, the competition, the obtuse.

Julie is a marketing and new media chess master, the equivalent of Bobbie Fischer in an international consumer arena.  Her client roster swells with high-tech players, international firms and European conglomerates.  Why?  Because avant garde thinking matters, and Julie’s compelling need to succeed produces tangible measures and results.  Bottom line, she delivers the goods— always.

Julie possesses an alchemist’s touch for identifying and strategically targeting the needs of the consumer.  She gathers, balances, analyzes, refines and divines.  When she bottles the final result, consumers buy it because it’s…just right.

Take for instance her footprint in the automotive industry, where she landed after successful stints at Bristol Myers and American Airlines.

First, Ford.

Julie did what very few have been able to do in modern automotive history: shoot to the top in a dizzying ascent propelled by slam dunk win after outta-the-park hit.  Always ahead of trend, predicting, feeling and shaping desire, she was responsible for the astounding success of the Ford Focus launch and virtually redefined viral, multimedia, multiplatform marketing, advertising and promotions.

Accountable to the last penny, Julie over delivered on sky high goals:  she sold 300,000 Focus units in its first model year with 50% of the sales contributed to consumers under 35 years old, and Launched two Special Edition Focus’ in partnership with Sony and Kona bikes, providing incremental sales of 12,500 vehicles, profit of more than $20 million as well as improving residual unit value.

Before leaving Ford, Julie was responsible for a half-billion dollar marketing budget for Ford Division cars and minivans, she brilliantly negotiated and executed a partnership between Nickelodeon’s Blues Clues and the Windstar as part of an integrated marketing program including Blues Clues TV, Blues Clues magazine, website, and Blues Clues Live tour, led communication strategies for Ford Thunderbird launch, as well as Ford Focus episodic launch.

Fast Forward to DaimlerChrysler.

She rocked the truck market with Aerosmith and Dodge Ram.  She sponsored the provocative, controversial and unforgettable Half-Time Lingerie Bowl, gave birth to the Mayor of Truckville campaign, and created one of the most valuable, equitable ad tags ever: Dodge. Grab Life by the Horns.

When I asked Julie why she was so passionate about potentially controversial tactics, she responded with a remarkable quote from Beaton,  “My personal ethos is to be daring.  To be different, to be impractical, to be anything that will reassure integrity of purpose and vision against the play-it-safers, the creatures of the commonplace and the slaves of the ordinary.”

She then added, “That depth of daring and innovation “sears” a brand in the soul of the consumer. If they truly believe we’re as authentic, bold and original as they feel, our brand will become a projection of their personality, a necessary and essential part of who they want to be.  And make no mistake, it’s always about who they wish to be, and become.”

Julie also directed the launch of the groundbreaking “That thing gotta Hemi” campaign, touted as the most successful automotive advertising campaign of  recent times, contributed $15 million to turnaround plan, achieved a 20% production improvement, reduced advertising development by 65%, and propelled the website development of dodge.com resulting in over 300% increase in unique hits, and multiple awards including Ad Ages Top Automotive Sites.

In her last position at DC as Director of Marketing Communications, Chrysler, Jeep and Dodge, Julie made magic with a $2.1 billion marketing budget, led domestic and global marketing communications strategic plans, directed worldwide development and integration for advertising, merchandising, licensing, events, auto shows, motorsports, CRM, Internet, games, promotions and media across the brands.

Showing her touch once again, Julie invested in hugely profitable latent markets before they became mantra for most Fortune 500 Companies.  She was a powerful advocate and supporter for the strategic development, communication and execution of Dodge, Chrysler and Jeep dealer advertising and marketing tactics targeting urban, African American, Hispanic, Asian and GLBT markets.

Julie also launched the Chrysler “Inspiration Comes Standard” campaign,  ideated and directed the launch of the all-new Chrysler 300, leading to over 100,000 handraisers in the pre-launch phase as well as a sold-out vehicle position.

And because she’s got the stamina of Secretariat and Man O’ War, she oversaw 11 product launches in a calendar year, led a gaming strategy touted as one of the most progressive in the industry, and achieved more in her tenure than most top-suite, corner-office execs do in a decade.
Above all, Julie is the indomitable innovator companies need to thrive today and tomorrow.  “It’s a simple choice,” she says.  “My work is a revolution, not just an evolution.  That’s what my clients deserve. That’s what they need to win in a flat world: SMART REVOLUTION.”
Julie’s smarts and bravura strategically lead the pack to war and victory no matter what the challenge brings.

Example? She single handedly spun the media selling industry into frenzy with her courageous and brilliant proposal for a new, market driven media buying process based upon the NASDAQ system.

The Rainmaker also predicted a future where media would mean broadband and two-way devices. Results? Unending buzz in Ad Age, Automotive News, NY Times, Jack Myers Report and other notable publications.  Julie also created a marketing and agency executives forum that in turn formed a partnership with eBay to build an online Media Exchange.  In August of 2007, the forum’s goals came to life and the Oxygen network became the first to sell its media via the exchange to Intel.

Here Comes Wal-Mart So, what did Julie Roehm do at Wal Mart? Rethink, reshape, challenge and innovate. The rest is fodder for the water cooler, or as Julie herself quotes from Brinkley, “I am successful because I’ve learned to lay the strongest foundation with the bricks that others have throw at me.”  In a year, Julie took massive steps to empower, transform and increase brand image and profitability with Wal Mart’s $800 million marketing budget.  She completely redirected and refined Wal- Mart’s marketing approach to project and reflect new corporate direction.

Almost single handedly Julie ideated, developed and implemented a world-class, global marketing communications strategy and the structure needed to successfully execute. In order to maximize results in record time, she also revolutionized marketing direction for Wal-Mart stores in the US, directed overall development and integration for advertising, merchandising, signage, events, interactive communications, promotions, media and TDMs, captained a comprehensive advertising agency review for advertising, media, interactive marketing, direct marketing, in-store marketing, new media, Hispanic, Asian and African American marketing communications, and led several, highly successful campaigns such as the HDTV campaign, Holiday campaign, Back to School online campaign, and the development of a toy youth project led by two animated characters named Wally and Marty.

Her Wal-Mart Toyland micro site with Internet based wish list for kids resulted in 175,000+ unique visitors a week spending 10 minutes +, and browsing 35+ toys.  Julie also expanded Wal-Mart’s Latin Grammy Sponsorship to better reach a younger demographic, led the “Everyday Green” partnership with MTV to engage 18-30 year olds, launching with a pop-up store in Times Square, managed the $40 million marketing production budget and realized savings of over $2 million through more efficient production.

The Rainmaker, Today.

Julie was most recently sought and cast as a judge on JINGLES, a show from executive producer Mark Burnett, currently in production and slated to premiere later this year on the CBS Television Network.  She was chosen for the show for three simple reasons: marketing acumen, courage and charisma.

As co-founder of Backslash Meta, LLC, Julie jets around the globe advising and building new models for clients like Credit Suisse, Sports Illustrated, BIAP, GLG, MCC, MediaLink, OTX, SpeakWithMe, Hispanic Market Weekly, Blue Diamond Ventures, Clear Story Systems and many more.

Along the way, Julie has earned numerous awards.  She has been named, quoted, touted, praised and inducted.  She has also been criticized, accused and attacked. But when I ask Julie about that she laughs and waves a graceful hand.  “I’d be worried if people didn’t talk about me, because it would mean I stopped doing the bold and visionary thing that needs to be done, that no one else has the courage to do.”

She sits back, tall and regal, smiles and quotes Alex Bogusky, “Life conspires to beat the rebel out of us all.” Then she leans forward, hands intertwined, elbows on knees, full court presence.

I’m expecting heavy words, Tolstoy or Joyce.  But no— always a delightful and surprising thinker, Julie gives her closing statement with gravitas, “Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don’t matter and those who matter don’t mind.”

When I ask her if that’s Whitman, she explodes with elegant laughter and shakes my hand. “Nope.  Doctor Seuss.  And don’t you forget it.”

Julie Roehm is indeed, unforgettable.

I got trained up in marketing and evolved into PR and there is a convergence going on. Not just between PR and marketing but also with advertising and … SEO (yes, I said it). David Hargreaves of Bitemarks agrees that there is a strong convergence — and so does the originator, Jeremiah Owyang:

Jeremiah Owyang produced an interesting piece earlier today asking what will happen to PR firms in a recession based on research among 200 PR agencies. I must confess I am not surprised to see that a small majority of firms are predicting that PR budgets were smaller than they were in fiscal 2008, but then if you if you look at any operating cost, I would be surprised if this wasn’t pretty much tracking the downward pressure on all operating costs.

Having said that I think cost reductions fall into two categories: reducing costs because in this climate ‘you can’ and ‘you need to be seen to’ and then there are those companies that are having to reduce costs because ‘they must’. I wonder what if the PR budget reductions are greater or smaller than comparable ad budgets?

I both agree and disagree with the second point Jeremiah makes when he says that “things don’t look too rosy for the PR industry.” If you are a traditional PR agency doing the same old stuff then I would be worried. However, if you accept that the world has changed and embracing social media is neither an option or an add on to your traditional offering then the world looks rosier.

By putting social media at the centre of what we do, we have a fantastic opportunity to extend our remit more broadly into the world of online marketing. Far from being gloomy, as someone who has been involved in the PR industry for 20 years and who has always embraced technology, the future for the industry has never been more exciting.

BL and I adore eachother so I was very excited to receive an email from her last night with a link to her latest article on Business Week, Using social media to market your business is a good idea. Just don’t plan on getting your whiz-kid nephew to do it for free — check it out and check BL out over on her blog, What’s Next Blog. Oh, and when BL asks “how many of them have actually created a successful campaign for clients using social media tools? I bet you’d be hard-pressed to find half a dozen with real track records,” I can proudly state that Abraham Harrison LLC has the expertise, the experience, and the track record to boot!  Anyway, here’s the article:

Debunking Six Social Media Myths

For companies, resistance to social media is futile. Millions of people are creating content for the social Web. Your competitors are already there. Your customers have been there for a long time. If your business isn’t putting itself out there, it ought to be.

But before you take the plunge, bear in mind the many myths that surround social media.

1. Social media is cheap, if not free. Yes, many of the tools that can be employed in social media marketing are free to use. These include Google’s (GOOG) video-sharing site YouTube, Yahoo’s (YHOO) photo-sharing site Flickr, the social-network building tool Ning, and content aggregators such as Digg and eBay’s (EBAY) StumbleUpon. Free blogging tools abound too; among them are WordPress, Twitter, and FriendFeed.

However, integrating these tools into a corporate marketing program requires skill, time, and money. The budget for an effective social media marketing campaign begins at $50,000 for two to three months. I’m sure companies have spent less, and I know they’ve spent more.

Building a site that incorporates interactivity, allows user-generated content, and perhaps also includes e-commerce doesn’t come cheap from anyone who knows what they are doing. Even taking free software like WordPress and making it function as an effective interactive site, incorporating e-commerce, creating style sheets that integrate with the company’s branding, takes more than time. That takes skill, experience, and money.

As a rule, a $50,000 to $100,000 budget can cover the creation of a simple multimedia microsite that becomes the center of an online community. Add in some widgets to help distribute the content and form a credible group on Flickr, Twitter, or Facebook and other networking groups to enhance the community aspect of the campaign. Complex functions add to programming and design costs.

A high-yield, highly targeted blog advertising campaign to kick off and support the program will cost an additional $25,000 to $100,000 a month. Advertising through Google’s AdWords, e-mail support, co-registration, and other tools that drive traffic would be additional costs.

2. Anyone can do it. A surfeit of whiz kids and more experienced marketers are claiming to be social media experts and even social media gurus. Search the bios of Robert Scoble’s 56,838 Twitter followers using Tweepsearch (www.tweepsearch.com), an index of the bios of Twitter users, and you’ll find:

• 4,273 Internet marketers
• 1,652 social media marketers
• 513 social media consultants
• 272 social media strategists
• 180 social media experts
• 98 social media gurus
• 58 Internet marketing gurus

How many of them have actually created a successful campaign for clients using social media tools? I bet you’d be hard-pressed to find half a dozen with real track records.

A successful social media campaign integrates social media into the many elements of marketing, including advertising, digital, and PR. Opinion and theory are no match for experience, and the best social media marketers now have more than 10 years of experience incorporating interactivity, blogs, forums, user-generated content, and contests into online marketing.

Video contests by companies hoping for viral buzz and Google juice are as plentiful as mosquitoes on a humid summer night. But, like their insect counterparts, most video contests suck.

It’s the rare video contest that gets as many as 2,000 entries. Many, like Denny’s (DENM) recent disastrous effort, get fewer than 10 entries. Apparently, 48 Denny’s breakfasts over four years wasn’t a big motivator.

3. You can make a big splash in a short time. Sure, sometimes a social media campaign can produce substantial and measurable results quickly.

Social media is great if you’re already a star, but that doesn’t happen overnight. Amid the recent launch of my T-shirt design business, Pawfun.com, I have relied heavily on my 4,000-plus Twitter followers and 120,000 readers of my What’s Next Blog, which I’ve updated as often as five times a day since 2003. Because that network already exists, with not one dollar spent on advertising, we were able to generate more traffic in our first three days than some major companies get after years online.

ZapposChief Executive Tony Hsieh, whose company has millions of customers who are evangelists for the great service that built the brand, quickly became a Twitter star, with more than 32,000 followers. When Dell (DELL), JetBlue Airways (JBLU), the Chicago Bulls, and other love-’em-or-hate-’em brands joined Twitter, they immediately developed huge followings.

Tweets can be used to drive traffic to articles, Web sites, contests, videos, and so on—if people already care about your brand, or if you have a truly original idea that people will want to share with their followers.

One recent example of a Twitter-generated success is Savvy Auntie, a community for aunts, godmothers, and “other women who love kids” that was launched six months ago by Melanie Notkin. She has counted on Twitter to drive traffic, help her find suppliers, products, and even investors. She developed a Twitter following before launching her business, then tapped into it for help when she launched.

4. You can do it all in-house. Wrong! You need strategy, contacts, tools, and experience—a combination not generally found in in-house teams, who often reinvent the wheel or use the wrong tools.

It is rare indeed to find an in-house team that can not only conceive and execute a social media campaign but also drive traffic to it with effective e-mail segmentation, search optimization, blogger outreach, blog advertising, Google ads, and more.

5. If you do something great, people will find it. Quite simply, that never was true. Until you can drive traffic to your social media effort, you’ve got a tree falling in the forest, heard only by those standing nearby. A great number of tools can drive traffic, including StumbleUpon, Digg, and Twitter, but nothing works better than word of mouse—one friend telling another, “Hey look at this!”

6. You can’t measure social media marketing results. You can use a variety of methods, including mentions on blogs and in media; comments on the content; real-time blog advertising results, and click-throughs to your company Web site. You can get very precise statistics from a variety of sites, including Google Trends, Twitter search, Google Analytics, BackType, and Compete.

The tools are there. The gurus who know how to use and interpret them—not so much.

Ochman, president of Whatsnextonline.com, has been creating new media marketing and online brand strategy since 1995 for companies including IBM, Ford, McGraw-Hill, Budget Car Rental, Stacksandstacks.com, and American Greetings. She tracks online marketing trends and campaigns in What’s Next Blog.

My friend Todd Tweedy popped me the following press release that I would love to repeat for him, back-scratching and all.  Don’t judge me!  For more information, check out the Audience Machine website!

Social Networking Pioneers Launch Audience Machine To Help Online Brands Leverage Shared Interests Across Social Networks

Audience Machine to provide unique social networking technologies and viral marketing services to Brands, Entertainment, Health & Wellness and Education Companies

Los Angeles, CA and Charlottesville, Virginia - February 17, 2009 – Social networking and viral marketing expert, VBMA (Viral & Buzz Marketing Association) board member, and Perceptions, Practices & Ethics in Word of Mouth Marketing author Todd Tweedy today introduced, Audience Machine Inc., a unique technology company helping online brands who want to identify, cultivate and mobilize communities of individuals with shared interest across social networking sites to build their businesses using Audience Machine’s online marketing tools.

Guided by Tweedy, and video technology pioneer and advertising veteran Dan Bates, Audience Machine helps brand and product managers, chief marketing officers as well as ecommerce executives to establish new networks of social networking connections and dialog in support of purchasing preferences and participation in word of mouth referrals.

“Social networking sites like Facebook and MySpace are relationship amplifiers for brands, products and services that can have a profound influence on preferences, referral behavior, information consumption and internet usage if advertisers are prepared to listen to, act on and match the right technology and community practices to support a desired purchase outcome or subscription,” noted Todd Tweedy, co-founder and CEO of Audience Machine. “There is a natural migration of dialogs from offline sources to online social sharing sites. Marketing executives want to embrace customer-facing ad strategies and incorporate social networking processes in their firm’s online marketing DNA that can boost product perceptions and potential sales but many enterprises lack the expertise and resources to realize those objectives. Audience Machine was founded to give online brands unique technology solutions, community development processes, marketing services, analytics, and expertise they need to engage and collaborate with audiences.”

Audience Machine also announced that is has signed a strategic business development consulting agreement that will be led by Provident Financial Management, a prominent established leader in entertainment and media business management.

“Audience Machine is at the heart of an evolving consumer-facing marketing phenomenon that is transforming connections on social networks into a powerful audience generation channel. Led by an experienced executive team and founded on concrete business fundamentals with a number of high-profile clients already on board, Audience Machine is a rising star among our media and communication clients,” stated Craig Sussman, Business Development Director at Provident. We’re excited to support Audience Machine as they grow their technology and services business practices with customers that want and need to expand and sustain business growth by creating networks of social commerce.”

Word of Mouth Communications Opportunity

The eighth annual Burson-Marsteller/PRWeek CEO Survey published in November 2008, which surveys CEO’s about the changing influence of different types of media as well as plans for digital communications including social networking, reported that 60% of CEO’s noted that word of mouth has the fastest growing influence on business in the past three years but that just one-fifth of firms have used social media to communicate with stakeholder groups.

The proliferation of social networking and community sites has transformed viral and word of mouth marketing practices into a practical and necessary communication solution due in part to research findings that note that nearly 80% of consumers trust recommendations from people they know over all forms of advertising and marketing. These authentic and trusted voices serve an important role by distributing compete information for others to act upon across search engines and into indexes of shared knowledge that people can access along with advertiser-generated experiences and evidence whenever 1,463,632,361 internet users from around the world – based on Internet Usage and Population in North American data provided by Internet World Stats – need to research a brand, product or service.

Audience Machine Team

Led by Tweedy, who’s career started in the political grassroots mobilization arena working on Presidential, Senatorial, Congressional, Inaugural and issue-based public relations campaigns, the Audience Machine team has 35 years of combined leadership experience in online marketing, real-time communications, ASP development, video ad technology, viral marketing, search engine optimization, and community development practices.

Dan Bates, co-founder, president and COO brings a vast wealth of knowledge in community technology development, online video, online advertising and a decade’s experience in filmed entertainment and music. Bates previous served as CEO of Avant Interactive, an object-based video ad serving technology provider.

About Audience Machine

With offices in Los Angeles, California and Charlottesville, Virginia, Audience Machine is a provider of unique community technology solutions and online marketing services. Audience Machine works with online brands to identify, cultivate and mobilize communities of shared interest to establish social commerce that CMO’s, brand and product managers, and ecommerce executives can enlist to grow their business. The company is privately held. For more information, please visit Audience Machine’s website – http://www.audiencemachine.com, email info@audiencemachine.com, or call 1.800.573.1536. Audience Machine is presently engaged with several beta customers and will release its first product in Q2 of this year.

About Provident Financial Management

Established over twenty-five years ago with offices in Los Angeles, Woodland Hills, San Francisco and New York, Provident has become a leader in various entertainment and media business management practices. Provident recently established a strategic and business planning department to assist mid sized and emerging entertainment and media companies with their growth and business development needs. Provident Financial Management is part of RSM McGladrey one of the largest and most prominent accounting firms in the world. For more information on RSM McGladrey, please visit http://www.rsmi.com.

Keyword Tags:
social networking, online marketing, viral marketing, audience machine, provident financial management

PR Contact: Todd Tweedy
434.996.6370
todd@audiencemachine.com

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I spoke to two classes of communications majors today about digital PR and social media marketing. It was a wonderful experience. The University of Maryland undergraduate course was called Comm350:  Public Relations Theory and their communications professor, Sahar Mohamed Khamis, was amazing generous and welcoming, basically handing me the reins to her class, sight unseen.  The class is described as:

The historical development and contemporary status of public relations in business, government, associations and other organizations. Application of communication theory and social science methods to the research, planning, communication and evaluation aspects of the public relations process.

Everybody was super bright and super nice to me. One thing I was concerned about is that in both classes I taught today, both Comm350, only a couple people had Twitter accounts and I think there were just a couple folks who have a blog or who had every blogged.  And these are our future PR professionals.  Of course, when I asked, 100%  of the students in both classes were on Facebook.  Natch.

Well, I presented my A Guide to Blogger Relations slide show and then took questions.  I told them that blogging, Twittering, and participating in the wider conversation would almost guarantee them a good job at a local or national agency after college.  I told them that they should all, separately or in concert, start writing a blog about their take on communication, on advertising, on popular culture, on television, on PR, on social media — that the thing they learn in class every day would be interesting to the blogosphere, seen through their young eyes.  That there is no doubt in my mind that you can really and truly write yourself into the job of your dreams and if they didn’t blog, all of them, they were darned fools (well, maybe I didn’t say it — it was implied).

I receive quite a thank you note from one of student from the first class, Miss Chelsea Clark, who not only asked a question but also said the following nice things — a mixture of review, testimonial, and, I dare say, her first blog post once removed:

I walked into my Comm350 class on Tuesday expecting to sit there taking notes for an hour and a half like usual. Instead, our professor announced we were  having a guest speaker. I was thinking to myself that this could go one of two  ways: really interesting and way better than cramping my hand taking notes, or  really boring and put me to sleep.

Our guest speaker took the floor and introduced himself and described what his company does. I’ve learned about blogs in PR before, but I was never really able  to link the two together. Yeah, so blogs are a new media outlet, but how does  that help clients? How do businesses personally benefit from random people  around the country writing about their hobbies and interests? I never really  understood the connection until Chris’ presentation.

He described how he would have his team search for blogs that were written about topics that relate to his clients and then send out mass emails to the  bloggers to ask them to write about his clients. He was worried that we would  think he was a spammer, but, having made many annoying calls and emails to  reporters myself, I knew how he felt. He then showed us results of actual  bloggers that wrote about his clients. He got so excited! We all recognized this  feeling, for being PR people ourselves, we know how satisfying it is to have free  publicity.

I thought that Chris did a really good job with his presentation. I followed what he was saying the whole time and enjoyed some of his nerdy antics. I think  some of the people in the class were less interested or maybe didn’t follow what   Chris’ company is responsible for, either because they were pretending to take  notes while really checking their facebooks or because they are still a bit  unfamiliar with PR and got a little bit confused.

For me, the presentation was enlightening, exciting, and interesting and showed me new ways of getting publicity without necessarily resorting to TV and  newspapers. I would definitely recommend him to other PR college classes that  are looking for guest speakers!

That, Chelsea, really made my month.  I appreciate the kind words and thank you, again, to professor Sahar Khamis

who will soon be coming out with a really compelling new book you should all pre-order on Amazon,  Islam Dot Com: Contemporary Islamic Discourses in Cyberspace.  I look forward to it.

Also, if you’re curious as to the content of the slide show and the presentation I did, here it is inline for your enjoyment… however, I need to record one with my insight, wit, and wisdom one of these days soon:

Othersource in Poland partnered with McKinney ad agency to build a Flash 3D engine with artificial intelligence for the McKinney website that’s launching this week.

Compared to other sites in the Semantics category, this one has an unusual level of interactivity. Users can ask the site questions, via the keyboard, using everyday language and expressions, and the proprietary “conversation engine” will decipher them and then fetch relevant results.

This means the user becomes liberated from the navigation. You no longer need background information to search the site – you just ask it a question.

Also, the site is completely index-able, bookmark-able, etc… from every page – even the video thumbnails have a unique URL. And every single page is a printable PDF, laid out for A4 or newsletter.I also found a nice blog post about it over at AdLab, Agency Site With a Chat Bot:

McKinney has built a Pandorabot-based chat bot (aka “conversation engine”) into its brand new site with a somewhat trippy interface. See if you can catch answers that were pre-scripted to make the machine sound particularly intelligent as opposed to the generic chat bot cop-outs like “Say what?” or “Come again”. – thank you, Michelle

Here’s the proper press release from McKinney.com:

McKinney.com – A Website You Can Talk To

Warsaw, Poland (February 10th, 2009) — Warsaw-based interactive agency Othersource announced today the launch of McKinney.com, a groundbreaking website created in partnership with the awardwinning advertising agency, in Durham, N.C.

Conversations with a website
Using cutting edge technologies, the new McKinney.com is reinventing the conversation had between the ad agency and its audience. Compared to other sites in the Semantics category, the site possesses an unusual level of interactivity. Visitors are able to ask the site questions, via the keyboard, using everyday language and expressions, and the proprietary “conversation engine” will decipher them and then fetch relevant results.

The functionality is groundbreaking. The back-end employs a 3D Flash engine with artificial intelligence, and the interface design is cutting-edge, making it one of the most experiential and unconstrained agency sites on the Web.

Unique tech mix
Othersource worked with linguists who understood, on a high-level, the structure of language. They also enlisted programmers familiar with semantics to help develop the sophisticated algorithm. “Creating the conversation engine’s ‘brain’ was quite labor intensive,” said Othersource Managing Partner Thomas Krotkiewski. “We enlisted two linguists (one a PhD from the University of Oxford), to analyze questions provided by McKinney, and to supply us with all possible ways the questions could be posed. If this search method fails, a backup proprietary tag search function will launch and search matching content. And finally, if the answer is still thought to be inadequate, the question is forwarded to McKinney for human processing. To be sure the conversation engine learns from its mistakes, there is a conversation history log on the proprietary Content Management System. This level of integration between conversation engine and website is completely unique,”

“We were looking for a production partner who would not only bring our vision to life, but enhance it,” added Keith Ciampa, who served as McKinney’s interactive creative director on the project. “Most true innovation happens on the fringes of the industry, by people who are passionate about what they do and willing to take risks. When we explained our vision for a conversational site, based on a completely open architecture, which could grow and become smarter the more it was used, Othersource knew we were asking for something that had never been done, and they couldn’t have been more excited to help us figure it out.”

Conversation-driven search
A proprietary tag search was built into the back end of the new site so search results can be presented dynamically, and not just direct visitors to a static page. For example, a visitor can ask a question like, “show me TV campaigns for client X from November last year” and an animated 3D tunnel will appear, with search results as moving thumbnail images, that the visitor can fly through. “As far as we can tell, this functionality is unique,” said Krotkiewski.

Like gas molecules
The site has an advanced 3D graphical interface. “The key to the 3D interface is the ‘cloud view,’ which shows a cloud of graphical thumbnails, moving like molecules in a gas, bouncing randomly off each other while also reacting to mouse input. The cloud can be filtered by the visitor to only show thumbnails representing certain types of content,” said Martin Ignaczak, Account Director at Othersource.

Flash without drawbacks
The site has overcome the limitations of Flash: “The site is fully searchable by Google, each page can bookmarked and linked to, and each view can be downloaded as a printable PDF,” continued Ignaczak. Working in the virtual

New technologies were key to organizing the project. Othersource used video-conferencing, VoIP, instant messaging, e-mails, and other electronic means of communication to coordinate the work with McKinney. “We only met face-to-face after the launch, which proves we are able to run even very complex projects completely in the virtual,” added Krotkiewski.

“We are honored by McKinney’s decision to partner with Othersource for the production — we were competing with some quite well-known US interactive agencies in the pitch. Being chosen in spite of being based overseas is quite a feat. We hope this project is the beginning of a long relationship with McKinney. We also expect it will generate more opportunities for us in the US overall,” said Krotkiewski.

“Partnering with Othersource on this project was both a rewarding and challenging experience,” said McKinney Interactive Technology Director Trevor O’Brien. “The biggest hurdle was taking existing technologies and customizing them to work together in ways they were not initially intended to. Othersource helped deliver a site that is an experiential and innovative place to interact online. It’s exciting to see what two like-minded teams can create together.”

About Othersource
Othersource provides interactive services from strategy to production to companies around the world. In 2008, the agency participated in projects for companies such as MetLife, The National Constitution Center in Boston, Accenture Poland, Puma, Imation Europe and others, in Poland, Sweden, Holland, the UK and the USA. The majority of its clients are Advertising and Interactive agencies that need support in creating campaign strategies, creative concepts and interactive production for their clients. About McKinney McKinney is an independent advertising agency that’s focused on reinventing the conversation between people and brands. Our goal is to lead the convergence of offline and online (today, 35% of our revenue is interactive and 88% of our frontline staff is actively engaged in the digital space), to identify relevant applications for new technologies and to deliver game-changing ideas that deliver extraordinary results for our clients, their customers and our people.

Founded in 1969, the Durham, NC-based agency’s clients include Coldwell Banker, Gold’s Gym, Major League Gaming, The NASDAQ Stock Market, Partnership for a Drug-Free America, ProShares, Qwest Communications, Sherwin-Williams, Travelocity, Virgin Mobile USA, Virgin Atlantic Airways, and Brown- Forman Corporation brands Bonterra, Chambord, Sonoma-Cutrer, Southern Comfort and Tuaca.

Most recently, Virgin Atlantic Airways and McKinney took top honors at the Interactive Advertising Bureau’s MIXX Awards that celebrate the “mixx” of creativity and effectiveness in digital marketing. Virgin Atlantic’s experiential launch, “Love from Above,” won a Gold MIXX in the Mobile Platforms category for the company’s first-ever WAP site.

For more information, visit our website at www.mckinney.com or the McKinney Newsroom by contacting Janet Northen at janet.northen@mckinney.com.

Additional information:
Thomas Krotkiewski
Managing Partner
Othersource
+48-601-145398
thomas@othersource.com
Timezone: GMT+1
Janet Northen
Partner & EVP, Director of Agency Communications

Janet Northen
Partner & EVP, Director of Agency Communications
McKinney
+1 919.313.4062
janet.northen@mckinney.com

My friend Mike Signer is running for Lieutenant Governor of Virginia and has started his campaign. Please be sure to support this fine gentleman in his campaign — please check out Mike Signer’s web site and read the information I just received from him via email, announcing his campaign:

This weekend in Richmond, I’ll join Democrats from across Virginia at our annual Jefferson-Jackson dinner.  From the decade-plus I’ve been working in the trenches of Democratic politics around the Commonwealth, I know the JJ is one of Virginia Democrats’ favorite events.  But this year in particular – on the heels of the victories of President Obama, Senator Warner and Representatives Perriello, Nye and Connolly – the JJ will be a particularly exciting opportunity to share my vision for the future of the Commonwealth with activists from across Virginia.

As you may know, I recently decided to run for Lieutenant Governor of Virginia.  I’m running because I strongly believe that our problems today are so urgent they demand something more from the office of Lieutenant Governor.  If we turn this office into a public advocate for all Virginians rather than just a placeholder it’s been under the Republican incumbent, Bill Bolling, we can take on great challenges together, including:

• Strengthening our economy while cracking down on predatory practices,
• Getting our priorities on energy and the environment right and creating thousands of new green jobs,
• Meeting the sacred contract we have with veterans and their families and
• Strengthening our democracy here in Virginia.

Although the Lieutenant Governor candidates will not be speaking, I wanted to make sure you know about the event and – most importantly – that you’re invited to our reception afterward.  Immediately following the dinner, we’ll be hosting a hospitality suite with a great band and refreshments in the Greater Richmond Convention Center, room E22-A.

If you’re attending the dinner, I hope you’ll join us – and encourage others you meet at the dinner to do the same – to stop by, meet me, and make the acquaintance of other Virginia Democrats who will be joining our fresh, exciting new campaign.

After JJ Reception with Mike Signer
Greater Richmond Convention Center – Room E22-A
February 7, 2009 – Immediately following the conclusion of the dinner
RSVP today for the reception so that we know you’re coming

I hope you’ll join this cause.  I’d also be grateful for early investors in this exciting venture.  Even your $5 donation today will help with critical early steps such as purchasing lapel stickers and our banner for the convention hall.

                   

Thanks and hope to see you soon.  I’ll be in touch with more news about the campaign in the coming days.

I am in Washington, DC, for the inauguration, but aside from the excitement of seeing all of my global friends as they converge on DC for the inauguration, I am not participating to any great extent.  Why?  There are two reasons . . .

First, I have attended inaugurations, inaugural parades, and inauguration balls for the last 20-years, starting with the election of George H. W. Bush, Bush senior, into the White House all the way through to the second inauguration of George W. Bush back in 2005, which was held on a very cold January 20th, if I remember correctly. While I had my plans set for Berlin, I didn’t have my plans set up in Washington, so I am just going to enjoy the pleasures on the fringe.

Second, while I am blissed out that Senator Barack Obama will be inaugurated as the 44th president of the United States, I am allergic to two-million historical well-wishers crowding the National Mall.

I have to be honest, I am still dazzled that the United States elected an African American from Hawaii by the name of Barack Hussein Obama, especially in such jingoistic times. And I am proud and impressed and looking forward to not just the first one-hundred days but also to the second term.

The Obama White House really needs to be an eight-year presidency — two terms — because there is a lot of work to both do and undo.

What I do plan to do, however, is open up Naval Lodge 4 on Capitol Hill at 8 AM. I will be serving hot coffee and donuts from the 4th floor of 330 Pennsylvania Avenue, SE. So, if you’re in the neighborhood and want some warm coffee, some company, and maybe a donut or two, please drop by for a cuppa.

I have been pinned by the coverage of #leweb down in Paris on Twitter, especially during all of the excitement as Dr. Helen Fisher talked about sex, attraction, and falling in love. So, since everyone else has been taking the Chemistry love personality test, I thought I would do the same. So, with no further ado, here’s my results. Is any of is surprising? You, too, can take the test for free (and sign up, as a result) over at Chemistry.com

Hello Chris,

Welcome to your Chemistry Profile. The following analysis is based on your responses to our questionnaire. Your results identify your major and minor personality types, as well as the types with whom you’re likely to be compatible.

Your Major and Minor Personality Types Characteristics of all four personality types can be found within each of us, but there is almost always one personality type that is dominant. We call this the major personality type. The Chemistry Profile also identifies your minor or secondary personality type. You exhibit some aspects of this personality type, though not to the same degree as with your major type.

• Your major personality type = Director
• Your minor personality type = Negotiator

You are a DIRECTOR/negotiator You are an innovator. You are an inventive, thorough, independent thinker with a deep interest in how the world works. You quickly grasp patterns and relationships. And when you focus on a particular work-related or social puzzle, you often come up with novel theories and ideas about it. You have a strong need to achieve. You want to make an impact on the world. And with your aptitude for theoretical thinking, your investigative rigor, your logic and your determination, you are likely to win the honors your hard work deserves. You are a complex person, outwardly assertive, logical and intellectual, yet likely to see the many sides of an issue, feel deep sympathy for others and enjoy the spiritual as well as the concrete. You can be friendly, insightful and eager to please. These attributes, combined with your love of challenges and knowledge, make you an exciting, and at times, very sensitive companion.

How your personality breaks out

Explorer – 23% of your personality - Known for high energy, high creativity and spontaneity. Seeks novelty, risk and pleasure. Intellectually curious and not easily swayed by opinion.

Builder – 19% of your personality - Usually very popular. Deep attachment to home and family. Calm demeanor and low anxiety. Often consistent, loyal and protective.

Negotiator – 27% of your personality – Excels at seeing the big picture, long-term planning and consensus building. An intuitive thinker who is flexible, verbal and socially skilled. Imaginative, empathetic and nurturing.

Director – 29% of your personality – Daring, original, direct and inventive. A non-conformist. Skilled at abstract thinking and short-term planning. Often assertive and quite competitive. Tough-minded and efficient.

Dating Tips for Directors

• Not everyone is as direct, focused and “to the point” as you are. So make sure you give potential partners the time they need to express themselves. You will probably be surprised at their logic and intellect.

• Your competitive spirit is useful in the office but it doesn’t work in dating–unless you find someone who likes to challenge and debate. When that happens, go for it. Otherwise, try to listen actively.

• Aim at investigating some of the “grey areas” during an invigorating conversation. Much of the world does not see in black and white.

• Separate work from play. Try to get your assignments out of your mind while on a date—so you can truly enjoy your “down time” with a partner.

• Make sure to schedule enough time to get to know someone.

• Try looking directly into the eyes of your partner during a conversation; many people find this “anchoring gaze” a powerful form of intimacy.

I just received this email from Frank Luntz:

To: Friends & Family
From: Frank Luntz
Re: A New Beginning
Date: November 5, 2008

---

The end of the most interesting election in modern times will also be the end of my career with Luntz, Maslansky Strategic Research. Having sold my company to the good people of Omnicom, it’s time to move on.

When I hired my first employee and opened up an office in the basement of my townhouse in 1992, I never dreamed that I would someday have the honor of working for presidents, prime ministers, and CEOs of the world’s most successful companies and most influential foundations. Our roster of corporate and public affairs clients is unprecedented for a firm of our size, and I’m so deeply proud of them and the positive impact they have had on their customers, their communities, and the world at large.

I am also grateful for the privilege of analyzing the great events and social trends of our time in so many diverse public settings. While I may have a face for radio and a voice for newspapers, the willingness of so many network presidents and executive producers to give me the opportunity to apply the skills of public opinion to explain the who, what and why of the world are some of the most fulfilling and enjoyable moments of my career. I can never adequately thank them for making life so interesting and invigorating.

But a time comes in everyone’s career where it becomes important to tackle new challenges and scale new mountains. Now is as good a time as any to get out of DC and start examining more closely what is really happening in American life and culture. I also want to take my research of words to an entirely different level, applying it where it has never been applied before. There’s a lot I still want to learn and do – and staring at the Pacific Ocean from Santa Monica, California is as good a place as any to do it from.

So while I will be leaving my home and my company, I am certainly not retiring or disappearing. I’m much too young and much too excited about what’s ahead. But I don’t plan to work as hard – at least that’s the plan. Those of you who know me well know that I work 18 hour days, seven days a week. This year alone I will have flown more than 300 days and logged 300,000 miles … and frankly … I’m tired. I need this change of scenery and change of pace to recharge my batteries and extend my shelf life.

Not everything will change, however. I have been offered and accepted the privilege of serving as “Chairman Emeritus,” of LMSR, a title normally reserved for people who live past their sell-by date. And while I may be gone, the company name will remain the same, as will the team I have painstakingly assembled over the past decade. These are uniquely capable people with solid research experience and the most creative brains I have ever worked with. I recommend them highly for all your research needs.

And if you are looking for advice and guidance, I’m definitely still around and still in business.

To end on a personal note, I did not learn until the death of my father how much he enjoyed my frantic calls asking him for help or guidance – and that he missed them when I grew old enough to handle these tasks on my own. You don’t realize how much I appreciated the chance to serve you – even when the calls were late and the tasks were tough. While I have made my share of mistakes, I do not regret a single minute. You have given me a very fulfilling life, and I thank you for making it worth living.

Frank

Here’s a version of this email online.