Saturday, August 23, 2008

NewMediaJim Seesmic of Our Visit to "Camp Biden"

We visited NewMediaJim (Jim Long of NBC News) who was on the Obama VP watch at Sen. Joe Biden's home in Delaware. It looks like they sent Jim to the right location, but the excitement was punctuated by long stretches of sheer boredom, interrupted by lunch runs from social media types. The other journalists on site were amazed at the extent of Jim's social media network.

Whitney Hoffman, leader of the Podcamp Philly organizing committee (September 6-7 at Temple University), lives nearby and has visited Jim several times during the media vigil. I connected with Whit (@ldpodcast on Twitter) and we brought sandwiches and drinks.

 

Here's Jim's Seesmic report on our visit:

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Friday, August 22, 2008

A Brief Visit to Camp Biden, Delaware

News media speculation about Barack Obama's choice for his running mate includes the possible naming of Delaware Sen. Joseph Biden. The local and network news media are camped out at the foot of Biden's driveway. Professional Podcasts paid a brief visit to the press corps, and spent a few minutes with Jim "NewMediaJim" Long of NBC News, one of the videographers on the Biden VP Watch.

Public Service Electric & Gas installs a new transformer in Cherry Hill, NJ

At about 9:15pm on August 20, 2008, a power transformer serving about six homes on Crestbrook Avenue in Cherry Hill, NJ, burned out, cutting power to the homes for more than 14 hours. About 12 hours into the power failure, PSE&G crews arrived with a replacement transformer. The failed unit was one of the original transformers installed when the neighborhood first received underground wiring almost 40 years ago. In this documentary report, Steve Lubetkin of Professional Podcasts shows the repair and installation process. The report was recorded on the VuPoint Solutions DA1 camera and a Sony VX1000 MiniDV camera. Post-production in the studios of Professional Podcasts on Sony Vegas Movie Studio Platinum 9.0. Comments and suggestions welcome, at steve@professionalpodcasts.com

Friday, August 08, 2008

ShankmanPRSA20080717

When in doubt, take the safe course...

That's one of the primary safety rules they teach you on the railroad, and it seems that it still applies throughout our corporate economy, where doing what's safe and expected and riskless takes precedence over doing something new, untested, experimental, edgy, or -- gasp! -- uncontrolled by IT and the company.

I just attended a networking event for a technology group, and one of the panelists in the short dialogue that preceded the drinks made a point of saying her organization blocks access to iTunes and other social media.

When I questioned that approach, the answer was pretty much the same you always hear...we're afraid our employees can't be trusted to be responsible in their downloading, they might clog the server with music, or something worse.

Of course, the guy who runs IBM's employee blogging program has answered that question quite well.

When asked how they can trust the employees to blog, he says, we trusted them enough to hire them, now that they are employees why would I trust them less? But most of corporate America does distrust its employees. And the employees know it.

It's pervasive in corporate America. Assume the worst of all employees, block all ability to try something new or different. Don't manage by exception, just block everyone. The right approach would be to let people try new things, see if there's a great application that could enhance the business, attract new customers or donors or supporters, whatever.

Only block the ones who actually abuse the system.

But they never seem to do that. Much easier to tell everyone you don't trust them, and then act shocked when they try to circumvent the restrictions.