This isn't helping anything...

The New York Times revealed this week that excessive use of the Internet may be playing a role in changing people’s personalities and “can cause us to become more impatient, impulsive, forgetful and even more narcissistic.” It is also being tied to increased stress and a decrease in our ability to concentrate.

Given this, I will now blame my slight road rage, which is always tied to impatience in driving situations, on my exposure to the Internet in all of its forms during almost every waking hour of the day. And although I’ve never almost missed a million dollar sale thanks to my Internet overload, I’ve responded to emails on vacation and have had people in my life complain about my level of online activity outside of work.

But has my Internet use truly changed my personality and ability to function?

There are a couple of fun, interactive tests on NYTimes.com to test your ability to multitask and how easily you become distracted when trying to focus. As someone who is constantly multitasking, I took the tests and was surprised to find that my abilities were a bit lower than I’d expected.

Many are saying this is just yet another warning about the use of technology in society, which come up from time to time and go back as far as Socrates. As Slate points out:

Worries about information overload are as old as information itself, with each generation reimagining the dangerous impacts of technology on mind and brain. From a historical perspective, what strikes home is not the evolution of these social concerns, but their similarity from one century to the next, to the point where they arrive anew with little having changed except the label.

What do you think – has the Internet changed your personality? Or can you regulate your activity so that you remain unchanged?

Woody Allen said that tradition is the illusion of permanence. He may have been talking more about religion and kilts, but I think his comments apply well to our need to sometimes protect those things being improved upon (or cast aside) by technology innovations.

Case in point, I received one of those family-spams last week that listed the sad state of the world, as it related to technology taking things like our beloved TV and landline phones away.

I wanted to take a moment to break this family-spam down and turn, if you will, that frown upside down.

The Post Office

First, outside of getting passports and buying collector stamps immortalizing the Apollo Space Program, I don’t find myself visiting the post office too often these days. And with grandma texting; everyone (and their mother) on Facebook; and the proliferation of e-card companies, I don’t see society returning to snail mail greetings anytime soon. But on a serious note, how can we demonize the financial industry for its lack of fiscal responsibility while continuing to allow our tax dollars to be fed into a dead business model?

The Check (or Cheque)

So, the UK is planning to make physical “cheques” obsolete by 2018. Are we next! Honestly, I can’t remember the last time I wrote a check. These days I am all about the Debit Card. If I did write a check it would be because I didn’t have money in my account and was simply trying to buy a couple of days till payday. So, I guess what I am saying is, save the trees!

The Newspaper

One of the arguments here is that younger people just don’t read the newspaper these days. When I was young I read comic books and other things I hid under my bed. When I was in college, I read schoolbooks and journals. These days, I get various RSS feeds to stay in the loop on the things I care about. To that point, the word “News” comes from the word “New.” At 2pm there is very little that is new in a paper printed that morning. By the way, save the trees!

The Book

Just use some positive feedback and say to yourself over and over, “I lived through the transition from the LP Record to the CD. I lived through the transition from VHS to DVD. I survived the loss of the iOmega ZIP drive and have come to embrace the joys of USB dongles. I can survive this!”  If that doesn’t work, the good news is that bookstores aren’t going away tomorrow. You still have time to enjoy the sweet smell of paper and dead trees!

The Telephone

Seriously. Is anyone really waxing nostalgic about landline phones? Keep a corded trimline phone in your closet, and when society and our electricity fail, you can plug it in and get 911 for free. But if that happens, you better also have a more relevant trade skill ready such as metalworking or midwifery.

The Great Music Industry Corporation

If a lone guitar player struck a power cord in the forest would anyone hear? Producers have been pushing packaged music talent out to consumers since the dawn of the gramophone disc. The reason? The industry is filled with people “that just want to make art, man” so there is an inherit need for people that understand and expect to be paid for the business side of things. To make more money calls for more promotion (or exploitation). The digital world may make this more complicated for marketers, but it’s a hell of a lot less expensive and more immediate than pressing DVDs. Besides, if this really bothers you, you don’t need to buy it. And there is a lot of new music waiting to be discovered on any number of college, independent and Internet radio stations (support www.radioparadise.com!). Unfortunately, since everything is digital either way, none of this will save trees.

The Television

TV as we know it is dying. And that’s a good thing! Terrestrial TV is still free (for those that can get in a good DTV signal), but that isn’t helpful if trying to access all that great, original programming produced on HBO, Showtime, FX, etc. To get these channels today, you need to pay for dozens of channels you don’t want. Here is the good news. If you don’t want to pay for cable, satellite or FiOS, and have a little patience, then you can legally get access to great content via iTunes, Netflix and a number of online portals. This may not satisfy your need for MTV’s Jersey Shore or live sports, but you can always stop spending $4.05 per day at Starbucks to help pay the $50 for basic cable!

Innovation is an amoral and pragmatic force. It’s both sad and wonderful depending on where your standing. Yesterday, scribes lost their jobs to the printing press. Today, printing press operators worry about the impact of eBooks.

j'aime Le Jersey Shore

And tomorrow…we’ll see!

The one silver lining I just discovered while editing this blog, is that you can watch full episodes of Jersey Shore for free on MTV.com. But you can also use parental controls to block the site — if that’s how you roll!

If you haven’t had a chance to check it out – head over to Google and play a rousing game of Pac-Man!  Today, Google unveiled its latest page celebrating Pac-Man’s 30^th anniversary.  The best part about this Google logo/page – you can actually play Pac-Man!  Just click on “insert coin” on the home page and use your keyboard arrow keys to control Pac-Man.  Hurry though, it’s only live for 48 hours.

What’s interesting from a PR / marketing perspective is that Google’s Pac-Man game is generating media interest.  We’re talking BusinessWeek, NetworkWorld, Washington Post and PC Magazine, to name just a few.  In my opinion, marketing and PR professionals should try to do more initiatives that focus on something fun like this.   It creates additional interest from consumers, increases page views/time spent on a page, enhances relationships with the media and shows the company’s personality in a new/positive way.

I realize not every company has real estate like the Google homepage, but this example shows how a company can develop cool and fun offerings that in turn generate media coverage.

When Times Square was evacuated again last week for a potential bomb scare, an interesting thing happened (besides the fact that Times Square looked like a ghost town). The Wall Street Journal broke the news over Foursquare by checking in to the Times Square area and posting: “Portions of Times Square have been evacuated after a report of a suspicious package.”

The release of breaking news via a Foursquare post was a first of its kind for the media giant, and interesting to me that Foursquare may be a new go-to source for getting breaking news.

With Foursquare surpassing 40 million ‘check-ins,’ it is certainly something that PR professionals need to be paying attention to in the world of social media. Foursquare is something that we discuss now with our clients as appropriate, and are excited to see different ways in which it can be utilized to be part of a strategic campaign.

Companies are already seeing results from being active on Foursquare, and since Foursquare can be used in an immeasurable number of ways (Jimmy Choo shoe hunt in London, or the recent recreation of Ferris Bueller’s infamous ‘day off’), the possibilities are endless.

By now you’ve undoubtedly heard about BP’s expanding oil slick in the Gulf of Mexico.

With such a major disaster, PR is obviously a key issue for the company and there are plenty of PR industry experts weighing in on how BP is doing with respect to PR. Here’s a quick rundown:

• BP needed to take responsibility. In a statement, BP CEO Tony Hayward said, “It wasn’t our accident, but we are absolutely responsible for the oil, for cleaning it up.” While this may be true, the public doesn’t care – in a crisis, a company needs to accept responsibility immediately and work quickly to show how they are addressing the situation in a very proactive manner.

• BP’s social media communication efforts throughout the crisis are being applauded by some. BP created a new section of its site to share cleanup updates – on a daily basis, links to company statements, video responses and updates from company spokespeople. If there is one thing that everyone is looking for in the midst of a crisis it is updated information, all the time! BP’s site provides just that and offers one place for the public and the media to go to find the latest details on the spill.

• Get your messaging / facts straight before you talk. The Slate wrote:

“For example, the company initially told reporters that the rig was leaking 1,000 barrels of oil a day. The real figure turned out to be 5,000 barrels, after a new leak was discovered. Even then a BP spokesman downplayed the number as somewhere between 1,000 and 5,000. “That hurt their credibility early on,” says Timothy Coombs, who teaches public relations at Eastern Illinois University. “People wondered, How much can we trust you?” It also violated a rule that Larry Smith of the Institute for Crisis Management tells his clients: “Don’t speculate. If you know, say so. If you don’t know, say you don’t know.”

There’s plenty more out there regarding the BP story – 18K+ stories on Google News in fact – but that’s what bubbled to the top for me as a PR professional.

Recently, Facebook launched new features on the site that have since caused somewhat of an uproar regarding user privacy. Four U.S. senators have called for a change to the updates, expressing concern over the amount of personal data that third-party partners of Facebook will now have access to without your permission, as Facebook adheres to an opt-out policy rather than opt-in.

For marketers, however, the new features can be seen as a window into consumer behavior – and sites such as Yelp and Pandora are already partnering with Facebook to get inside your head, and tell you what your Facebook friends like as well. As Dan Tynan says, both cool and creepy. 

As a PR professional who has clients on Facebook, I’m interested to see how this will change the way that people interact with what is formerly known as the Facebook fan page, now just a page that you can ‘Like’ on your profile along with the rest of your profile information. Also, as word of mouth and peer recommendations are often seen as more credible, the new ‘Like’ feature is going to change the definition of a recommendation of a certain brand or product on Facebook, and likely increase user engagement with a brand or third-party site.

Facebook users have been willing in the past to sacrifice a little bit of their privacy for the use of certain features…

…but with the news that CEO Mark Zuckerberg ‘doesn’t believe in privacy,’ and the potential for the increase of personalization on the Web based on Facebook data and actions to seem overwhelming, it makes me wonder if many Facebook users may be drawing the line soon.

Prost to a great idea!

As we discussed earlier this week, the recent iPhone mystery has been the subject of much speculation – and a TON of media coverage. Since then, one genius airline has found a way to insert their latest service into a seemingly unrelated conversation.

Lufthansa has invited Gray Powell, the now infamous iPhone ‘loser,’ to come to Munich and experience their new Bavarian Beer Garden Business Lounge on a free business class flight. The letter, posted on Twitter and sent to Gawker’s ValleyWag, pokes fun at the recent news stating ‘we thought you could use a break soon,’ noting his ‘passion for German beer,’ and acknowledging that it can be frustrating to lose unique personal belongings (the understatement of the year, according to PC World).

This invitation to Powell cost absolutely nothing for the company to send, and in the unlikely case that he takes them up on this offer, will end up costing only a few thousand dollars. The value of the top tier media coverage that this invitation has received from outlets such as CBS News and NPR, however, and the additional coverage if Powell does end up partying in the Bavarian Beer Garden Business Lounge, could be considered priceless.

As the airline industry continues to face challenges daily, and evolve their online marketing, it is refreshing to see Lufthansa make this creative move. In the words of one ValleyWag commenter, well played, Lufthansa.

The news about the accidental release of the latest iPhone has been a viral firestorm this week.  From a PR perspective, Bridget and Katie Mc see reasons to believe that this may AND may not be a publicity stunt engineered by Apple.  Here’s their thoughts….

KATIE Mc — Of course, no one knows the real answer…yet, but I think there are some key indicators that provide a shadow of a doubt that this iPhone “leak” isn’t a stunt.  Here’s why:

1. Apple doesn’t need to be “stunty. “ A company like Apple can create excitement and widespread interest by just making an announcement.  The company is innovative and people like seeing what its developers, engineers, innovators come up with.  Some have already begun to say that this “stunt” has failed.
2. Publicity Stunts are Risky.  Apple has a solid group of evangelists and brand ambassadors that is growing by the minute.  I’m not sure they’re willing to annoy them by sinking to the lows of a publicity stunt to get a viral discussion going about the latest iPhone.  Renay San Miguel of MacNewsWorld writes on this in his column.
3. Apple doesn’t do publicity stunts.  Like many smart and innovative companies, I’m sure Apple has loads of safeguards in place to ensure that information isn’t leaked to the public.  Why change that now?  And, even more so, how would they get this type of stunt by their lawyers?
4. Why do a “stunt” on a device that isn’t that outrageously different/new?  We’ve seen the newest capabilities of this “new” iPhone and most people don’t even think this iPhone is fully baked yet so why would Apple release a model, particularly in a stunt, that isn’t close to completion?  Andy Ihnatko explains more on this in his post.

BRIDGET — Although these points are all valid, the moment I heard about this misplaced iPhone, I felt that it was a publicity stunt to drum up excitement for the features of the next iPhone. Here’s why:

1. This has all the elements of a classic publicity stunt. The cease and desist letter from Apple’s lawyer, the rampant press coverage, the odd scenario starting at a German bar in California and including Gray Powell, a “really drunk person” who handed the phone to a “mysterious man,” who then sold the phone to Gizmodo… fishy.
2. Smoke and Mirrors Diversion: While Apple doesn’t do publicity stunts, perhaps they are trying to fight press with press, covering up the dismal reviews of the iPad.
3. With Apple’s reputation for secrecy and security, how likely is it that they’d let a junior to mid-level engineer  carry around an unsecured (no password evn!) phone with unreleased hardware and top-secret new features? Sorry Gray Powell, I know it was your birthday, but I just can’t see Apple taking that much risk just for the sake of “field testing.” For example, Business Week describes how iPad developers had to store it “in a room with blacked-out windows” and keep it “tethered to a fixed object.”
4. Yet another option for all you consipracy theorists…  Is Steve Rubel on to something when he suggests it’s a fake, meant to act as a decoy for an even better next gen iPhone?

If it is a publicity stunt, I’d say it’s a good one! This is right up there with some of the most memorable marketing stunts of all time.  

I like what Rafe Needleman tweeted earlier:  @Rafe: if Apple was smart (and had a sense of humor), they’d have Gray Powell introduce the new iPhone at the press event in June.

What do you think?

Ever ridden in a car that drives itself?  I have!

I just returned from a trip to Palo Alto to support the Volkswagen North America team as they held a dedication and ribbon cutting ceremony for the brand new VAIL facility on the Stanford University campus. VAIL – theVolkswagen Group Automotive Innovation Laboratory— is a joint research and development facility that is a collaboration between Volkswagen and the Stanford School of Engineering.

The 8,000 suqare foot facility features seven bays, a full machine shop, driving simulator, two conference rooms and a presentation room. Oh, and did I mention the six vehicles on display, including the robotic Pike’s Peak Audi TTS Coupe (Shelley), the Solar Car “Apogee,” the hydrogen fuel cell-powered Touran HyMotin and the Clean Air Audi A8.

Opening remarks were made by Dean Jim Plummer of Stanford School of Engineering, followed by remarks by David Geanacopoulos, EVP for Public Affairs and General Counsel of Volkswagen Group of America, and Dr.Karl-Thomas Neumann, Chief Officer for Electric Traction at Volkswagen Group.

The ribbon cutting and formal dedication was done by honored guest, German Chancellor Angela Merkel. In Chancellor Merkel’s speech, she commended the VW Engineers and Stanford students at VAIL for their collaboration in developing automobiles of the future. She took a tour of the VAIL facility and got a chance to interact with some of the Engineering students and learn about the projects they are working on.

Also in attendance to catch all the action were press and analysts from outlets like Associated Press, Reuters,  Autoblog, Bloomberg News, CNet, Fast Company, MarketWatch, Gartner, San Francisco Chronicle and Technologizer.

After touring the VAIL facility, Chancellor Merkel helped out with a demo of the Autonomous Vehicle, a car developed by VW/Stanford that drives itself with a tap on an iPhone (yes—apparently there’s even an app for that!). The demo was with Junior 2, a robotic Volkswagen Passat, which we watched pull out of a driveway then back into a parking spot with nobody behind the wheel.

One of the highlights of my day was getting to sit in the backseat of Junior 2 and taking a test drive. It was bazaar to see the wheel move on its own and see the minor adjustments that were made according to the trunk full of lasers and sensors. I think my car insurance rates would go down if I could drive with the help of Junior 2 more often…

Here are some photos I took:

The Solar Car, “Apogee” which raced across Australia (north to south) last fall going up to 180km/hr powered completely by solar energy.

Junior 1, a robotic Volkswagen Passat with the on-board sensors, computing hardware and artificial intelligence software to drive in urban traffic without any human assistance. Check out all those wires, bells and whistles!

Shelley, the Pike’s Peak Audi TTS coupe that drives itself at the limits of handling and friction to help researchers develop and refine control algorithms that can improve driver safety. This fall, the team hopes to test it’s ability to hold the road at high speeds on the famous Pike’s Peak mountain race course.

We live-Tweeted during the event and the Tweets can be found @Volkswagen. In addition, here are some stories with great photos and video that have run so far:

Technologizer

Fast Company

Bot Junkie

San Francisco Business Times

Market Watch

Stanford University News

Here is a video of my new friend, David Hoffert,  Ph.D. Student, Mechanical Engineering Researcher and Dynamic Design Laboratory Kunzel Fellow at Stanford Universtiy,  who spent time speaking with me about his work on Shelley.