A tweet I read this morning, from @betsycurtin last night (July 23), just took me back…. she typed:

Looks like getting out of salt lake is going to be challenging today b/c of pioneer days. Get a cab early #orsm09

ORSM09 is the acronym for the trade show/event Outdoor Retailer Summer Market 2009, held in Salt Lake City. The show closes today, July 24.  Pioneer Day is an annual event that commemorates  the day Brigham Young and the first group of Mormon pioneers entered the Salt Lake Valley on July 24, 1847. Pioneer Day is a big day in Salt Lake – businesses close, parades take place,  fireworks are fired, etc.

The tweet wouldn’t have meant much to me (other than I wanted to be there at the show but couldn’t) except that bunch of years ago, I happened to be in Salt Lake City on July 23 – the day before Pioneer Day.

That year I was racing pro for the Fuji mountain bike team. I had flown into SLC with teammate and friend Thomas, then a top 10 ranked Junior, to compete at a National Championship Series race up in beautiful Park City (back before the super fun trail ‘Spin Cycle’ was covered in condos).

Unfortunately, our bicycles had not gotten on the same plane as us in Newark, NJ. Luckily, they were on a following flight that would be arriving in a few hours. So, with a couple of hours to kill and a rental car we started exploring Salt Lake City.

Driving through a residential neighborhood we spotted a stone tower atop a small mountain. What would two bored mountain bikers with no bikes do with a few hours and a stone tower looking down at them? Go for a hike! Why? Because it’s there!

A little driving around to find a trail head was unsuccessful so we parked on the street, quick-walked through somebody’s beautiful green backyard and started scrambling up the dusty mountain. At some point our scramble put us on a trail and we got up to the tower.

A plaque on the tower told us we had hiked Ensign Peak and told of it’s historical and religious importance…

As we sat and looked over Salt Lake valley a woman and her teenage daughter came up the trail. We chatted a bit and they told us that “tomorrow this place will be packed with people.” Unbeknown to us we were at the monument on July 23, the day before Pioneer Day. Hundreds of people would hike up Ensign Peak on July 24 to honor and remember the Mormon pioneers.

After a few more moments quietly enjoying the view we said our goodbyes, made our way back to the car and picked up our bikes from the airport. I don’t remember how Thomas or I finished in our respective races. I don’t remember exactly where we slept or ate on that particular trip. What I remember clearly are Ensign Peak, its story, the women who told it to us and the time Thomas and I had together on that peak on that particular sunny, warm day in July.

I’ve mentioned before that I often read things about a similar topic from different perspectives on or about the same day. Odd coincidence, brain damage or too much reading, I don’t know but today’s “similar things from different sources”  links U.S. international policy to hip hop and the Tour de France.

A tweet by @cassondra this morning alerted me to a National Public Radio piece comparing Jay-Z and the hierarchy of rappers to the United States’ super power role in international politics. It was an interesting read to start the day. Here’s an excerpt…

The conflict in question is between established rapper Jay-Z and and up-and-comer known as The Game. Jay-Z has been attacking other rappers for using Auto-Tune software,  which corrects pitch while singers record. Auto-Tune is widely used in the industry, but Jay-Z is making a call for authenticity.

“He’s saying ‘these are the rules of the international system. If you want to be a civilized member of our international society, you have to not pursue nuclear weapons,”’ (Marc) Lynch (author of a piece on this topic at Foreign Policy.com) says.

The Game is using the opportunity to tag Jay-Z as old and irrelevant.

There’s a history of this in the rap world: 50 Cent rose to power by destroying the career of Ja Rule. Jay-Z did that to a number of people while he was a rising power.

“If you go back to, like, 19th century bounce-power politics, this is how rising powers would make it,” Lynch says, citing conflicts between Japan and Russian as well as among rising powers in Europe. “If they wanted to get somewhere, they had to take someone out.”

Later in the afternoon after the 17th stage of the Tour de France, VeloNews  interviewed the Schleck brothers – the agressors  in today’s stage.

Today’s stage climbed four mountains in the Alps in what is considered the toughest stage thus far in the three week contest. Brothers Andy and Franck Schleck attacked current leader Alberto Contador and 7-time Tour de France winner Lance Armstrong, dropping the American and keeping Contador from adding to his lead. A race against the clock and another tough day in the Alps, climbing the infamous Mont Ventoux, will decide podium positions – or not – for Armstrong, Contador and both Schelcks.

VeloNews: Have you conceded the overall win to (current race leader) Contador?

ASchleck: It’s a bike race. We saw at Paris-Nice (stage race in France) that Contador can have a bad day, like his sugar flat. He is a big champion, but he made a mistake. It’s not going to be a secret to tell you he is very strong and it will be hard to beat him. But he is a human being and humans make mistakes. We will wait for his mistake, and if we don’t make mistakes ourselves, we will be there and take the opportunity. We have to believe or we might as well stop racing here. We are here for the competition. We will keep on attacking.

VeloNews also posted their report on what could be to come as the race heads into the final days. VeloNews interviewed Pedro Delgado, a former pro cyclist and 1988 Tour de France winner, whose comments on usurping the established leaders echoed the Schleck’s and those in the NPR rap piece.

Once someone shows a crack, that’s when the rivals will pour it on. And when the cracks become visible, it’s usually in the third week when someone just cannot hang on anymore.

That’s what Pedro Delgado – the 1988 Tour winner – said he saw in Sunday’s stage when Armstrong couldn’t respond to accelerations from Andy Schleck and Contador. When rivals smell blood, they tend to gang up and go for the kill.

“That respect that they had of (Armstrong) when he was on top is no longer there. When you saw the attacks coming (Sunday), everyone was attacking him, one after another. You never saw that before,” Delgado said.

“All the little dwarfs started to believe in themselves, enemies were coming out of the woodwork. If one goes, then another, and suddenly Armstrong looks beatable. It wakes everyone up.”

Bicycle racing, hip hop, International politics, marketing, business – it’s all the same. Look for a weakness and attack.

Oddly, as I finish this and prepare to hit the “publish” button, Blondie’s One Way or Another comes across Pandora….

One way or another I’m gonna lose ya
I’m gonna give you the slip, a slip of the lip or another
I’m gonna lose ya, I’m gonna trick ya, I’ll trick ya
One way or another I’m gonna lose ya
I’m gonna trick ya trick ya trick ya trick ya
One way or another I’m gonna lose ya
I’m gonna give you the slip

I realized the other day that I don’t doodle as much as I used to.  My notes used to have all kinds of drawings in the margins sometimes spilling in between the words on the page.  Now, there’s hardly a star or smiley face penned on my papers.

A pen and paper (be it a note pad, newspaper or magazine) was always on the table or by the phone and always put to use in scratching out some figures. Doodles could be found on, as well as in, the phone book for example. Now, their pages are all clean except for some number changes or addresses written in the margins.

I think technology, hand held devices and social media have killed doodling. Sometimes my notes and drafts now are simply typed on the computer and so pen doesn’t even meet paper.  Time I used to spend thinking and doodling is now spent lightly rapping on the keys and wiggling the mouse while I stare at the computer screen or out the window.

For some, I bet hand held devices have killed their doodling. Now instead of drawing little drawings on scraps of paper I find my self updating twitter, sending text messages or scrolling through the pictures saved on my cell phone. If I set it up, I’d be updating facebook and playing games on my hand held too.

I wonder if this “doodling deficiency” makes us less creative or less visual?  I wonder if we “think better” (you know left/right brain engaged at same time) when we doodle?

I’m famous! Yes!  I was featured in a Media Bistro arcticle!

But more importantly, I have a good job at a strong, growing company, headed by smart, agressive people.  In the words of the Talking Heads, “And you may ask yourself, well, how did I get here?” 

Well, I got here by using good old fashioned networking and social networking (LinkedIn, Facebook, twitter, etc.) to keep in touch and meet people to help my career. It paid off and I landed a great position at PFS Marketwyse. Then, via twitter (note the lower case “t’), I learned of an author/recruiter who was writing an article for Media Bistro about using twitter to land a job.

I responded to the tweet and in April, I was interviewed by Lindsay Olson of Paradigm Staffing for an article she was writing for Media Bistro. The article, titled “10 Tips for Using Twitter to Fuel Your Job Search”, appeared on the web June 8, 2009.

The full article is accessible by subscription on the MediaBistro site. I don’t have a subscription (you may not either) but here are some excerpts…

You’ve heard the hype surrounding twitter by now. If you are job searching or interested in building a fresh network while enhancing your professional visibility, Twitter is a resource to seriously consider. In today’s job market, you need to use every tool available, including social media.

Greg Padley, Sr. Account Manager at PFS Marketwyse.com, and Sydney Owen, PR intern at WeberShandwick, both found their most recent positions through Twitter.

Greg’s story began about ten years ago when he met the President of PFS Marketwyse, Deirdre Breakenridge, for the first time in their professional circles. Greg explained that over the years “I kept in touch with Deirdre in standard ways through email, phone, and networking events. When LinkedIn came onto my radar a few years ago, we connected there. Then Facebook. Then Twitter.

Finally, Deirdre put out a tweet that she was looking for an Account Manager.” Greg responded to the Twitter update expressing his interest and he was invited for an interview. He landed the job as Sr. Account Manager with the agency. 

“Deirdre knew what types of things I was working on and had a feel for my experience before I even walked in the door because of the years of contact over social media. Although a previous relationship existed, he attributes his connection on Twitter to him finding the position. “If I had missed that one Tweet I wouldn’t have my current job,” explained Greg.

Here’s one of the ten tips from the from Olson’s MediaBistro article (just happens to be one of my tips): 

Try to update everyday. You want your name to be out there, not just as someone who pops i nevery now and then. If you use an application like Tweetdeck or Twhirl, it’s easy to integrate Twitter into your busy day. Be careful not to inundate your followers with meaningless updates, though. Padley warns, “you want to inform prospective employers and/or influencers who can advise you of job openings – not hammer them with every thought.”

So there you have it, how I got my job by using social media and good old fashioned networking techniques. There are so many tools available to job seekers and career changers that can be put to work to help you. Use them and use them wisely.

And, by the way, if you are in marketing and on twitter you should follow Lindsay. Not only does she post lots of good links to career advice – she’s also funny. You can also follow me.

In a June 4 iMedia blog post, writer Rich Cherecwich comments on the recent Time article titled, How Twitter Will Change the Way We Live.

I hadn’t read the Time piece until after reading the iMedia blog – kind of backwards process but Cherecwich wrote one line in particular that intrigued me before I clicked thru to Time.

He typed, “Twitter will undoubedly fizzle at some point, just like AOL, Yahoo, Friendster, and MySpace all have.”

I don’t see this as a “fizzle.” I see each one of these as one piece in an online evolution of sorts. Would we have had Yahoo groups without AOL coming before it? Would we have had MySpace without Friendster? Would we have Facebook without MySpace? Would we have twitter without blogging?

These are all interconnected, several things leading to “the next big thing.” Twitter may evolve into something else or become extinct as other ideas built on those before it emerge.

Interestingly, the Time article author, Steve Johnson, points out that, “ I had met Evan Williams, Twitter’s (his capital T – not mine) co-creator, a couple of times in the dotcom ’90s when he was launching Blogger.com.”

Johnson writes, “But the key development with Twitter (his capital T – not mine) is how we’ve jury-rigged the system to do things that its creators never dreamed of. ” Of course he is talking about all of the APIs, search options, hash tags, twitter short hand and other add ons and plugins created by programmers and users.

Natural selection or inteligent design?

I get a lot of e-newsletters, follow some interesting folks on twitter and subscribe to several RSS feeds. Every so often I get a few articles around the same time that touch on a similar topic in a slightly different but related way. Today for example…

Victoria’s Secret, I learned from mobilemarketer.com, “launched a marketing initiative that uses the mobile Web and SMS text messages to promote its products and shopping on-the-go. ”

Lingere shopping “on the go” from your cell phone didn’t make sense to me. So I posed the question, “Would you buy lingere from your cell phone?” to my Facebook friends.  A whopping two women replied. Both just said “no.”

Yesterday, I wrote about “who uses texting.”  Teenagers and twenty somethings were the main users – by far. “Older folks” over 35 years old are slowly adopting SMS yet 41% of respondants didn’t use text messaging at all….

This afternoon, the @imediatweet turned me on to an article on WSJ regarding online clothes shopping and women.

The author, Christina Binkley, said, “Online sales to women aged 25-34 fell 8% in the year ended in March, but sales to 55-to-64-year-olds rose 11% — recession be damned.”

So 55-to-64 year old women are shopping yet they aren’t using SMS text messaging but Victoria’s Secret is launching a text and mobile Web shopping platform.

Something here seems disconnected to me….is this mobile underwear effort missing the mark?

I’ve been pondering an iMedia article titled The Dark Side of Twitter by editor Jim Meskauskas  (VP & Director of Online Media for ICON International Inc., an Omnicom company) all morning. 

In it, Meskauskas asks, “Will Twitter hurt how we think and, thus, act, and in turn change how we market to one another?” He answers himself, “Maybe.”  I agree to “maybe” and I agree that it changes how we market to one another but I disagree to “hurt.”

Twitter doesn’t hurt lives. It’s arguable that twitter will alter our thinking. Considering that world population is about 6.7 billion, twitter’s seven million users are unlikely to have any effect on changing how human beings “think and, thus, act.” Selecting one slice of the social media pie is not the right approach – the effect of social media as a whole or the 4 billion mobile phones in use worldwide might be a more effective argument.

Did Gutenberg’s printing press, the telegraph, the telephone or the Internet change how we think? Yes. Did it hurt how we think. No. It only added to the fodder from which we could learn, grow and interact. Twitter is no different. 

It is interesting to see that Meskauskas is another writer who likes to capitalize the “T” in twitter. Twitter is not God. Twitter is not a proper noun. Twitter is twitter. Like SMS or email, twitter is a communications tool. Can twitter hurt us? Only in the way that a tool such as a hammer can hurt you – by misuse – for twitter, that means following uninteresting people. (I touched on this in my post titled I Hate Twitter.)   

“Most of the time, the posts I read are not relevant to my life,” Meskauskas says. “They rarely offer a depth of insight on a given subject.” That’s unfortunate for him and a disservice to the readers of his article. If I’m test driving a Ferrari for Car and Driver and don’t know how to drive a stick shift how am I serving the reader?   

If you are reading a book you don’t like, you put it down and you get another one. Why read tweets that aren’t relevant to you or your interests? Meskauskas’ argument in this case goes something like this, “I don’t like reading Shakespeare so I don’t like books.” Not a very effective argument or proof that twitter will negatively impact human intellect. 

Maybe he needs to choose some different people to follow. If you follow the right people, twitter is a constant feed of headlines from sources that you have selected. You scan newspapers for headlines of interest and flip through magazine pages until something catches your eye. How about that TV remote? Do you surf the 57 channels searching for something to watch? Has that hurt how we think or act? 

Does it effect how we market products or services? For sure! Print ads, TV commercials and Internet ads have to capture your attention in a few seconds. How is that different than a tweet? You have a 15 second spot, the flip of a magazine page or you have 140 characters.

Participating in media (blogging, tweeting, uploading videos of their cats), according to Meskauskas, “provides the illusion of participation” and “is physically no different than buying something on eBay or surfing porn.”  

What’s the point of noting the PHYSICAL DIFFERENCE between things you do on a computer? Watching TV or reading a book is physically no different than participating in online media. The difference lies in the varying levels intellectual involvement. Watching TV isn’t as creative as writing a blog, shooting and uploading a video of your cat or a shortening a tweet to 140 characters.

Twitter “is not an experience, and it is not a conversation.” To say twitter is not an experience or a conversation shines a light on the way the author uses twitter and links with his statement noted previously, “the posts I read are not relevant to my life.”

He’s right though; twitter is not a conversation – unless YOU make it one. You learn things about those you follow and they learn things about you. From that you can CHOOSE to engage in a conversation with them.

You can have that conversation through twitter or turn to other methods – email, telephone, face-to-face. I’ve done that in many cases. Twitter is the ‘introduction’ in these instances, encouraging and facilitating the conversation. Or you can CHOOSE simply to follow tweets and not engage in conversations.

Reading a book or watching a movie I feel emotions and physical changes in my body – tense muscles and elevated heart rate in suspenseful scenarios for example. Is that not an experience? Maybe Meskauskas needs to define “experience.” Regardless, I feel emotions and physical changes in my body when reading and writing tweets. I laugh out loud at some tweets. Is that less of an experience? I think not.

The author seems to see the world devolving into some scene from the cult film Idiocracy or Kornbluth’s 1951 short story The Marching Morons. The root of all evil, in this case, is twitter which has the power to turn the world into a uniformly mindless mass of humanity. I bet twitter CEO Jack Dorsey and co-founder Biz Stone never imagined they’d be the progenitors of world-without-brain.

Meskauskas points out that, “Twitter’s atomization of human expression means that marketers are faced with the prospect of trying to wedge in on even smaller pieces of communicative action, which ostensibly offers waste-free interlocution. To achieve this, syntax has to be simplified, while at the same time maximizing its semantics; that is, the letters or symbols we use have to represent even greater sets of meaning.” Try to say that in 140 characters or a good old-fashioned elevator pitch….

All that said, Meskauskas still has me thinking about his article and the points he makes. He mentioned a book by Lee Siegel titled “Against the Machine: Being Human in the Age of the Electronic Mob.” that I now want to read. And THAT is the whole point of reading, writing and tweeting about it.

Oh, and, by the way, I found Meskauskas’ article via iMedia’s tweet…. @iMediaTweet    

This is an excerpt from a piece I wrote for new zine called Luupe due out next month. With all the hub bub around media personalities joining twitter right now, I thought it would make sense to post today.

I read an iMedia blog post the other day that said Howard Stern (and now Oprah and Ashton Kutcher) is now on twitter.

Big deal. After several on-air lessons with a BlackBerry, Mr. Stern racked up over 8,500 followers in just eight hours with only a few updates. The author wrote, “If that’s not a perfect example of the power of Twitter, I’m not sure what is.” (notice the capitalized “T” in twitter)

How is that a perfect example of the power of twitter? Mr. Stern has made himself a bloody fortune selling his type of humor. Now, he can give it away for free on twitter? That’s success? I don’t think so. Sure, he can update his fans and communicate with them (I mean to talk about his sponsors and tell fans where to buy Howard t-shirts) via twitter but he does that already via subscription-based satellite radio.

The real winners here are Stern and BlackBerry. BlackBerry got their name in the listeners’ ears a bunch of times and certainly will have numerous other mentions (also on twitter no doubt). They’ve associated themselves with a celebrity who has a very large and very dedicated fan base. Maybe I just need to understand the iMedia blogger’s rationale behind the statement “the power of twitter.”

I think what it really shows is that twitter has gained “mass market” status. Mr. Stern’s “people” have organized the whole twitter account, contractual agreements, promotional announcements, free product, etc. in order to push “more Stern” and more brand mentions (i.e. advertising) out to the people AND solicit more “material” from the fans who communicate with the comedian via twitter.

This is not a two-way street to “open up communication” and “be transparent” like all the people who spell twitter with a capital “T” would say. It is pure marketing and promotion. It’s no different than what happens now on listener phone calls to the studio. Fundamentally, nothing has changed – how is that proof of “the power of twitter.”

So now we’ll have even more folks on twitter. Great. Along with all of twitter’s popularity comes more junk. There’s more junk on twitter now than ever before. Seems some folks just don’t “get it” that twitter isn’t only a place to “push out your message.”

It’s up to us, twitter users, to make sure twitter remains worthwhile. Twitter is a Democracy and we “vote” with our follows AND our tweets. We can decide not to follow those who do not offer value. We can be cynical and question the motives of our fellow twits. We can ensure that we are open and honest. We can “out” those who provide only junk. So, I challenge you and all twitters to do just that…

We had a pow wow at the office recently discussing the question, “Should Bloggers accept gifts?”

It was interesting to hear the different perspecitves. The agency President, Deirdre Breakenridge, wrote a post for her blog on the conversation.

Personally,  I think it is an acceptable practice – even a recommended practice. Unlike traditional media, blogs – by their very nature – include opinions and personal thoughts. Influencing the opinions of blog authors is the whole point in this case. Accepting gifts has already spilled over into traditional media.

Travel journalists, for example, have been accepting free trips for years to cover various destinations for their readers. I think blog readers understand that the reporting practices of major media are different than those of an independent blogger and so they have different expectations of a blogger writing underneath The New York Times or Wall Street Journal masthead than of a blogger writing on his/her own platform.

So, anyone out there want to send me a gift….??

According to Identica, “In a bold but savvy business move, Montreal, QC-based Control Yourself, Inc., creators of Open Source microblogging site Identi.ca, have acquired San Francisco’s Twitter.com for an undisclosed sum. Control Yourself will begin stripping Twitter.com of its two main assets — a cartoonish look-and-feel and a plethora of Weblebrity user accounts — immediately, with other valuable assets to be transferred in the coming days.”