Last week, UMassOnline launched this blog. This week, from China, after an arduous journey, UMassOnline CEO David Gray posted this report, entitled 'China Via the Great Circle Route,' upon his arrival on the other side of the world. I hope I'm not the only person on the planet who finds this amazing!

Sure, the technology that shrinks distance and time is amazing. But what's incredible to me — and should be of interest to every person in higher education (and elsewhere) is that in the pre-blog era, UMassOnline might have issued a press release about David Gray's journey and its purpose. It would have taken days to write, edit and disseminate, few people would have read it, and it's likely it would have been largely ignored by the mainstream media. That would mean that no ordinary people with an interest in this would have been informed.

Now in the blog era, the UMassOnline blog community gets to hear the news immediately and straight from the first, best source. Gray landed, he posted, and seconds later people can read it, comment about it, and share it. That's amazing! 

Schools often receive media coverage when bad things happen, of course. Meanwhile, lots of the good things going on get little attention. Universities relying on the mainstream media to report their good news stories are routinely disappointed. Now organizations can go direct with their news, too. From anywhere. Anytime. I love that!

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This item by Louise Marsland entitled 'What is your brand's narrative'  appearing in BIZCOMMUNITY is my nominee for social media story of the year. It's nothing fancy. It's just everything you want to know and ought to know about World 2.0 and what you have to do to keep your brand alive and safe and moving forward.

Here's just a short excerpt to entice you to link to the article and read it top to bottom:

The power has shifted from brands to their consumers. And if you're still not convinced, have a look at these stats – these are your new consumers – local research undertaken by Thinking Viral has shown that the life of a 12 – 24 year old looks something like this:

They will never read a newspaper.

They will never own a landline phone.

They are tired of watching TV on someone else's schedule: they are getting used to PVR / Tivo or downloading their favourite TV show episodes from the Internet.

Community is the centre of their Internet experience: 87% surveyed already have a social networking page; 50% of those surveyed are on MySpace; 82% are on Facebook, with 60 – 70 contacts and over 50% have over 100 ‘friends' listed on Facebook.

They trust unknown peers more than the experts.

They have little interest in the information source. So much info is being pushed – they are using online aggregator tools to receive and filter their content. They are using RSS to read the news.

They can consume 5.4 different media channels at the same time.

Most importantly: they want to be heard.

I know, I know… you want to know how. You want assurances there is no risk. You're worried someone may say something unkind about you. You're not sure you have anything to say. You don't know if you can invoke the services of your agency…etc. etc. etc. You'll find answers and advice on all of that and more in Ms. Marsland's feature.

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FEMA is the Federal Emergency Management Agency. It might also stand for FEeble Media Attempt after last week's pretend briefing during which FEMA people sat around lofting softballs at one another while the press listened only. Here's a news item about it.

Ordinarily I'd give them the benefit of the doubt. You know, just a stupid mistake, right? It was a hastily called briefing, no real media types showed up. Some called in. But note the reporters who called in were limited to a 'listen-only' line. Heck, why would you want to have a press briefing at which reporters could ask questions, right? It's so much more fun to ask your own questions, give your own answers, don't ask the media to chime in and don't tell anyone what's going on. FEMA did the asking and the answering. It's like debating yourself– you always win!

By the way, if I'm a reporter and I can't ask questions and I'm given a listen-only option, I'm going to dial tone.

Washington these days slays me. Just when you think they've reached the height of stupidity or arrogance or willful manipulation, they find ever more new and creative ways of making themselves look silly.

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