When sports dominate life, it’s time to get a job

If you love football, it’s a great time of year. Me? I can take it or leave it.

As I begin drafting this post, Cal is playing some team from Texas in the Whatever Bowl. I switched it on to stir the dead air of a quiet evening alone — just me and my laptop. That’s one great thing about spectator sports. They’re mindless, and they let you do other stuff. Maybe that’s why they go so well with beer. Hmmm. Hold on a sec.

Ah! There we go.

That’s not to say that spectator sports are just for dummies and beerhounds, but they’re hardly an intellectual pursuit. I’ve never come away from a football game with an expand worldview — not even when the Steelers won the Super Bowl. Have you?

The lowly press release tops PR headlines in 2006

If you’re not a regular reader of the PR blogs, there’s a good chance you missed the birth of the Social Media Release (SMR). I was too busy, and maybe too self-absorbed, to chime in when the news was breaking. But since we’ll all be talking about it next year, I figured we could use a primer. And yes, this will be on the test.

Talk of this new type of news release arose last February with Tom Foremski’s now infamous post, “Die, Press Release, Die Die, Die!” Tom (who used this artwork in his post) insisted that the old release format just doesn’t work in a wired world. He offered some suggestions for a new approach, and a few PR pioneers took it from there.

Confessions of a compulsive blogger

If you’ve followed this blogging experiment since its launch in September, you know about my compulsive behavior.

Early on, ideas for posts would awaken me in the early morning hours, and I would answer that call. Those urges passed as my semester became more intense, but they’ve returned now that final grades are posted. This won’t surprise anyone who knows me. I’m compulsive about so many things.

Trump proves again he’s the master of spin

It was classic Donald Trump. And it had all the elements that our mainstream media love: sex, drugs, alcohol and a stunning blonde. This is more than news, folks, it’s theater.

I just finished watching the press conference on CNN in which the Donald has given Miss USA Tara Conner a “second chance” to rebound from her “fast life” in New York City. Conner has admitted to underage drinking, but she’s taking the “no comment” route on allegations of drug use and “sexual escapades.” By six this evening, you’ll all know the details, so I won’t bother including them here.

Flogging rears its ugly head — again

Not sure I need to comment on this. The story says it all. It involves the latest “flog” (fake blog) scandal, this one brought to you by Sony.

I will make this comment. If you aren’t subscribing to Online Media Daily, you’re missing a lot of breaking news important in our business. It’s where I first heard about Edelman/WalMart, and that was before most anybody in the blogosphere had touched the story.

You can learn a lot from a throwback — really!

My students think I’m a throwback. In part it’s because of the offbeat contemporary references I bring to class. You see, I stay up on events thanks to a secret source my students seldom tap: the morning newspaper. It’s not a habit most 20somethings have acquired yet.

While the morning headlines fuel conversations, they also offer lessons in public relations. Just yesterday I read with highlighter in hand, marking passages I could use in class, and in this post. So here ya go.

Consumerism runs amok on YouTube! Nitwit customer battles math-impaired Verizon reps!

FILM AT ELEVEN!

OK, there’s no film, but there is an audio. More on that in a sec.

This post presents a lesson in public relations we all too often forget — or ignore. It’s a lesson about the customer interface. But first, the backstory:

Time to lighten up & check the Photo Gallery

Just completed 5 days of grading for my most intense class, so I took a few hours tonight to post some personal photos to a new page of ToughSledding. The Photo Gallery shows you a bit of the Sledzik family travels this year and a bit of our life at Sandy Lake.

Of course, I couldn’t let it go with just pictures. Had to surround them in my long-winded blather.

I posted this new page as a way to share experiences with friends and family we won’t see over the holidays, or maybe even in the new year. But I also hope it’ll help me connect better with readers who don’t know me at all.

Once again I find myself indebted to Shel Israel, the guy whose writings prompted me to start blogging. A few of Shel’s recent posts, this one in particular, but also this one, focus more on life than work — or on blogging. Got me to thinking how nice it is to know a bit about the folks we run across in the blogosphere. So now, if you choose to click the tab, you’ll know a little more about me — for better or worse!

When the going gets tough, the tough go surfing — at least in Cleveland!

Check out this piece from yesterday’s New York Times about the winter surfing culture on America’s North Coast. It offers the chuckle you need to jump-start your Monday, though it could make die-hard Clevelanders groan over their city’s beleaguered image. (Photo from the Times.)

Cleveland’s PR braintrust was doubtless excited to hear about the Times doing an upbeat story about their town. After all, it comes on the heels of so much bad news. If you aren’t from NE Ohio, you haven’t been pummelled by myriad stories about factory closings, labor-management showdowns, and dubious recognition as “America’s poorest city.”

Should I even mention the Browns?

P.T. Barnum would love the Heart Attack Grill

Phineas Taylor Barnum, wherever you are, raise a glass to Jon Basso, owner of the Heart Attack Grill in Tempe, Ariz. The restaurant may not be the Greatest Show on Earth, but you’d never know it from the headlines it’s generating this morning.

The Heart Attack Grill (Tagline: Taste worth dying for), is definitely a “guy” place. Witness its four featured cheeseburgers, the Single, Double, Triple and Quadruple Bypass, that last one with two full pounds of red meat, four slices of cheese and a pile of bacon (8,000 calories in all). Fries, by the way, are cooked in pure lard.

But it’s not the menu that has folks upset with Basso — it’s the scantily clad waitresses, decked out in “naughty nurse” attire, an obvious copy of the Hooters theme. Some will call it every man’s dream: cleavage, long legs and red meat by the pound.