A King among fans

It feels good to be a Los Angeles Kings fan.

That’s a sentence I haven’t said often. The last decade has been tough. After all, the Kings play 3,500 kilometres from my home and haven’t won a post-season game since I was in high school. Fans of this team have had a tougher decade than Enron stockholders.

So, why am I smiling?

Take a close look at the National Hockey League’s Western Conference standings. That is not a typo. The Los Angeles Kings are a first place team.

I’ve waited a long time for this. A first-place Kings team is more rare than a Vin Diesel Academy Award nomination.

The Los Angeles Kings have been my favourite team as long as I can remember. It hasn’t been easy. The low moments easily outnumber the high points.

In honour of the 2009-2010 team’s unexpected success, I’ve compiled a list of my three greatest moments as a Kings fan.

3. March 23, 1994. Kings vs. Vancouver Canucks

Wayne Gretzky scores a goal on Kirk McLean. The goal was the 802 of his career and made him the NHL’s all-time goals leader.

2. April 18, 2001. Kings vs. Detroit Red Wings

The Kings erased a three-goal deficit in the third period and Eric Belanger scored in overtime to win game four of the 2001 Western Conference quarter-finals. The team went on to win the series in six games.

May 27, 1993. Kings vs. Toronto Maple Leafs.

Wayne Gretzky scores on Felix Potvin, tying the Campbell Conference Final at three games apiece. The only two sounds in Ontario that night were my cheering and Leaf fans crying. It was fantastic.

Three moments in 20 years of cheering, that’s not much to get excited about. Hopefully this year adds another number to my list.

Either way, it could always be worse.

Kiel vs Pierre

Anyone who's watched any NHL on TSN game with me, or a World Junior Hockey Championships game, knows I hate Pierre McGuire. I can't stand the guy. He yells, he says things that don't make sense like "human eraser" and he develops a weird man love for one player a year. Ask Dion Phaneuf or Cody Hodgson.

That being said, he has a great job, and I've got nothing. It takes some guts to be on national television every night sharing your opinions, instead of just opining from the couch.

This is why I've decided to try something new - criticizing him from the internet.

Last month, McGuire the Monster released his version of Canada's Olympic Hockey Team. I'm going to try the same. I'll list his team, then discuss which picks are ridiculous and which ones I agree with.

Goalie

Pierre's Picks: Martin Brodeur, Roberto Luongo, Marc-Andre Fleury

My picks: Martin Brodeur, Roberto Luongo, Marc-Andre Fleury

I can't help but agree with Pierre. There are no other options. Personally, I'd love to see Cam Ward in the third spot, but his lacerated leg got him "cut" from consideration. Brodeur, by the way, will 100 per cent be the starter.

Let's just hope this doesn't happen to Fleury again....

Defence

Pierre's Picks: Scott Niedermayer, Shea Weber, Chris Pronger, Dan Boyle, Dion Phaneuf, Jay Bouwmeester, Brent Seabrook

My picks: Niedermayer, Weber, Pronger, Boyle, Bouwmeester, Seabrook and Robyn Regher

Sorry Dion. I can't put you on my team. Phaneuf's a tad overrated in my books. That a man with that chin can nailed down a girl like Elisha Cuthbert is an Olympic effort in itself, but I don't see him fitting in. Phaneuf always tries for the big hit at the expense of defence and his offensive skills aren't needed with guys like Weber and Boyle out there. Sorry Pierre, they'll be no "Double Dion" in Vancouver.

I chose Robyn Regehr to take his teammate's spot. Regehr is an ornery dude and the Canadians will need some sandpaper to take gold. Pair him with Pronger and watch out!

Forwards:

Pierre's Picks: Rick Nash, Sidney Crosby, Martin St. Louis, Jeff Carter, Ryan Getzlaf, Corey Perry, Brenden Morrow, Mike Richards, Shane Doan, Patrick Marleau, Jordan Staal, Jerome Iginla, Patrick Sharp.

My picks: Nash, Crosby, Iginla, Carter, Getzlaf, Richards, Doan, St. Louis, Perry, Morrow, Joe Thornton, Dany Heatley, Jonathan Toews,

Here's the thing. Jordan Staal is not making this team. Canada has too many centres as is. He's a good penalty killer and terrific defensively, but, so are Mike Richards and Shane Doan and both are better players.

Pierre doesn't have Joe Thornton on the team. Why? Big Joe is the league's best passer and he's got the size up the middle that Canada needs. Thornton should be a lock for this team, c'mon Pierre WHAMMMO, wake up.

Dany Heatley. Yep. I don't like him either. However, the guy scores goals. He is playing tremendous hockey right now in San Jose and he's among the best scorers in the league. Aside from that, he's always up for a trip to the World Championships after the season and he always plays his heart out. In a short tournament, you want Heatley on the ice.

I said Jonathan Toews will be the team's 13th forward. Patrick Sharp is probably the better choice, but Toews is young and I think Canada will take him for the experience looking ahead to 2014.

So, there you go. Pierre and I going head-to-head. We'll find out who's closer in about a month. Either way, I can always change my mind.

Molson: Cheers to bandwidth

Beer and bandwidth.


The two words don’t have much in common at first glance - kind of like chicken and dynamite – but Molson’s Canada has found a connection and it’s made the company a leader amongst its peers.

Several years ago the company decided to develop an online marketing campaign. Using social media tools, Molson’s has become the best example of what the effective use of social media can do to improve a company’s online brand.



The company uses a community blog on its website, executive Twitter accounts, Facebook fan pages and anything it can find to enhance its online brand. This social media strategy is effective, efficient and groundbreaking. Here’s some reasons why:

• The Internet lets Molson connect with beer drinkers across the country. Canada is a big place, now drinkers can receive tweets from Toronto or Vancouver and the messages are the same.
  
  
• Molson’s use of social media is great because it gives the customer a say. Through tweets, blog comments and Facebook posts, anyone can talk to the company. It knows what people are thinking. That’s a huge advantage in a very competitive field.
  



• This campaign allows Molson to make a huge audience (beer drinkers) smaller. The older generations of drinkers don’t use social media. This campaign targets younger drinkers and tries to make sure Molson will be selling beer for years to come.

• Molson’s social media campaign adds credibility to the company. The contributors involved in the campaign are different levels of employees. The same messages are coming from the top and the bottom, that’s a great way to build trust.
  
  

Let’s take a look at the key components of the campaign: The
community blog, two Twitter accounts and the Facebook pages. Early in social media’s rise to popularity, Molson realizes the opportunities it presents.

• Social media is a cheap way to enhance brand awareness. Molson’s can attract new customers basically for free simply by publicizing itself through the proper channels.
  


• The blog and Twitter aspects of the campaign are an opportunity for Molson’s to be transparent and build trust amongst Canada’s younger generation of drinkers.
  

Molson’s is cool. If a company uses Twitter and Facebook, its got to be pretty hip. People think this, and decide to listen to its messages.


Obviously, Molson’s has been pretty effective in embracing social media, but what is the company trying to do?

• Social media allowed Molson’s to identify its target audience and tailor its key messages to reflect the values of that audience.
  
• This campaign was designed to grow Molson’s brand and distance the company from its competitors. Not only that, but, with tools like the community blog, Molson has been able to position itself as a champion of Canadian causes and the company has been able to closely associate itself to major Canadian events.
  

OK, Molson’s is doing a good job, but no campaign is without its flaws. What can Molson’s do better:

• Molson’s is handcuffed by its product. The company can’t market to anyone under 19. That’s a big audience of social media consumers that is not interested in the messages.
  


• Molson’s message is broad. The campaign could benefit from more specific goals and campaigns tailored around specific brands.
  

Molson’s online presence isn’t easy to find. On Twitter, the two main accounts the company uses are personal employee accounts. If you don’t know where to look, you might be missing the message.

One of the brightest points of Molson’s social media strategy is its use of everything at its disposal. The company embraced the tools mentioned above, but its also active on sites like YouTube and LinkedIn. Finally, the social media campaign works because it complements the messages already circulating through traditional media and advertising.

So, is Molson’s perfect? No. But, the company is doing the best job it can and much better than its competitors.

Raise a glass to this social media campaign, it’s certainly refreshing.



Work by: Kiel Edge, Shaun Dias, Nic Canning, Chris Cottick and Brent Thornhill.

My personal brand plan

Hold on to your hats everyone!

I'm trying to figure out what my personal brand is and how to get it out there. So, I've taken a stab at it.

Here's my personal brand plan. Let me know what you think.

Branded with an Edge

View more presentations from kieledge.

Bonus question answer

BONUS: Who is the most successful Canadian public relations professional? What makes you say this?

For this question, I'm choosing Dan Tisch.

He's the president of Argyle Communications, a well-respected Canadian firm that's been in business since 1979.

I'm choosing Tisch because he started small and he's done a lot of notable things in his career.

He began working for the Federal government and cabinet ministers before working with Environics Communication, then moving to Argyle in a merger.

I chose Tisch mainly because of his current thoughts on the industry. He's re-shaped thinking during a recession. With companies cutting budgets, he's out to prove that PR makes more money for the company than other departments. He's been able to measure economic success for initiatives in his industry. This is important in keeping PR firms open and keeping jobs open.

He also offers sound advice to people trying to break into the industry, telling them to get an education in PR first. That's information I want to hear.

Tisch started small and moved on to big things, to me that's a success. The fact that he's been recognized by his peers in the industry means I'm not the only one who likes what he's doing.

Midterm Question 5

5. What kinds of conversational patterns can you expect to encounter using social media as a PR professional? What will consumers of your content expect? How can you level those expectations?

Social media has done a few interesting things to conversation patterns. For one, Twitter and Facebook statuses have made sentences shorter and statements more direct.

Social media also relies on the master of the interview type of conversation pattern. Media users engage different platforms to test the messages spread by companies, politicians and traditional media. Social media allows them to test the messages by posing questions designed to break down anything that is untrue.

Social media is also designed to get people talking. There are less two-way, engaging conversations because users rarely know each other outside of the Internet. Social media encourages conversations based on short, impersonal comments.

Consumers of our content expect one thing. As Mitch Joel said consumers expect consistency. Be consistent in the message. Now that there are so many messages floating around from so many sources, consistency leads to trust, this leads to you developing an audience.

The only way to “level” the expectations consumers have of us is to use a conversation pattern that involves compromise. Read what is being written about your product or brand and adapt to the needs of the consumers. Social media is based on the exchange of ideas and, for PR practitioners, understanding what the public is asking is the key to a successful career.

Midterm answers. Question 4

4. Who is Jamie Zawinski? How is the role he played & are design principals he helped spread important to you?

Jamie Zawinski is the creator of Mozilla Firefox and other free software projects. He also worked on programming for the earliest versions of Netscape.

He also came up with the idea of software bloat. Basically, he says that internet sites start off as great, small applications that do something really well. Attitudes and the founders try to expand the sites and they become bigger, but not better.

Zawinksi is also important because of what he tried to do with Mozilla. He opened the program’s code up to the public. Users could then make improvements on the program they are using.

Zawinski's opinion of software bloat, in a way, explains social media. The design principle that applications are at their best when they are on a smaller scale. I believe in this, a site like buzzword, which has one major application, is more useful to me than Myspace, which does a lot of things, but none of them particularly well.

Social media can also be judged on this type of principle. Hugely popular sites like Facebook begin as something small and grow into behemouths. This can have a negative effect on user satisfaction and it often convinces its consumers to look use different applications.

Zawinksi also gave the consumers access to the product, and they brought forward the ideas that shaped it. In public relations, practitioners will soon have to work directly with consumers because the consumer is gaining more control over the market every day. Zawinski is a pioneer of the idea that things can be improved if they are put in the hands of the people that use them.

It’s also interesting that his drive to make everyone able to modify source code led to his eventual disillusionment with the computer industry.He gave it all up to open a night club. Zawinski also serves as an example of the problems that can occur when too many people have too much of an opportunity to contribute.

Aside from that, without this guy, I wouldn't be able to post my answers on Squidoo.

Midterm answers Question 3

3. McLuhan used a model with four elements surrounding the term MEDIUM. Touching on the four elements, describe how this model can help us in interpreting social media.

Does the medium enhance a personal trait
Social media absolutely enhances a personal trait. People's sense of community is enhanced through the use of social media. Look at our class, we came in as strangers, and now we're a community of students. This was enhanced through our use of ning, wiggio and other social media as a form of early communication. What interpreting whether or not a social media application is useful or effective, the first thing I look at is whether it helps create a community.

What medium does the new medium make obsolete?
Unfortunately for me, a former journalist, social media is making broadcast news and newspapers obsolete. As I said earlier, anyone can create news. (Even this guy)

The other disappointing part of social media is that it has eliminated the need for face-to-face contact. I can keep a close relationship with people I've never met without leaving my house. This is great for networking, but having to create a personal brand online, rather than having people associate your brand with what you do on a daily basis seems like humans are taking a step backwards.

What does the medium retrieve?
Keeping in line with what I said above, social media has helped people retrieve their own voice. Without the internet, average people had a tough time having their ideas heard. Now, with the social media explosion, there is almost an overflow of opinion. You can find opinions of all sorts, with the click of a mouse. To me, that's what social media should do.

What does the new medium reverse?
Social media has changed the way people communicate with each other. All communication used to be top down and linear. Not anymore.
Now, since everyone has a voice, communication comes from all sides, all levels of people and through all mediums.
This is a great way to analyze if a social media site is working. If people are communicating in various ways, on various topics and there is no heirarchy, then that site is probably worth checking out.

Midterm question 2

2. In Wikipedia: The Truth in Numbers the message seems to be: no longer do the victors write the history books, we do: you, me, and everyone else. How is social media (twitter, blogs) forwarding this idea? What gives someone authority to "write history" and why should we listen to them? Is there a hierarchy of authorities? ie. is what someone like Seth Godin says more important? What should be taken as canon?



Social media champions the idea that anyone can write history simply by giving anyone and everyone that very opportunity. Now, if a major event happens, anybody can write how they feel and post that into cyberspace. It used to be that history came from newspapers, broadcast accounts or literary records. Not anymore. Social media users are recording history without really knowing it.







I agree that everyone should be able to voice their opinions, but I don’t think anyone should have the license to write human history. The authority to write history should come only after meticulous research and reporting to ensure all angles are covered. I’d rather read an encyclopedia than hear Buddy from next door tell me about recent historic events.


The beauty of Wikipedia is that there is no heirarchy of authority. The opinions are anonymous and that's why it works. No one is better than anyone else. As I said, I don't think Wikipedia should be considered exact history, but I like that people have the chance to give their own two cents.

As far as if there is a canon. I think it depends on the issue. There are recognized experts in every field, and they have the experience and have earned their legitimacy. The work of these people, like a Noam Chomsky, will also be more authoritative than any average person's take on things.


Some additional reading I found interesting when forming my opinions. Click here and here.

Midterm question 1

1. In Deirdre Breakenridge's article PR 2.0, Brian Cross discusses how changes in technology will change the function of PR practitioners. In what ways do you think public relations will change and what role will PR professional's play in these changes?

"Today's online audiences will target your brand. PR professionals can go directly to the public. Or better yet, they'll come to you" - Brian Cross

The rise of social media will create a major change in public relations. Essentially, the consumer is gaining more power. Twitter, blogs and other social media are making newspapers and broadcast media less important. Public relations practitioners need to change their approach. No longer will there efforts be squarely designed to work with journalists. Public relations efforts will now be aimed directly at the consumer. Selling a brand now means selling it to single audiences, not disseminating messages to a mass audience through large media.

Public relations officials will be important in helping company’s adjust to this change. Not only are PR professionals the people who will spread the message, but they will also determine who needs to be reach. Scouring industry blogs, relevant internet personalities and social media sites will be required work for those in PR. They need to know what the public is saying in order to figure out who they should target.

Basically, the audience for public relations is changing. Public relations practitioners need to enter this on the ground floor become engaged with social media and target the audience that will be most interested in the message being spread.

This is what Brian Solis says about the idea.

Social media for the sports fan

Did you happen to catch the score of last night's ball game?

Unless you stayed up until all hours of the night, not likely.

Major League Baseball is well into its playoffs and sports fans are treated to at least a game a day right through October. While this sounds good, it's got a downside.

TV schedules and timezone changes mean most playoff games aren't starting until 8 p.m. Throw in games that continuously go well over three hours and few games wrap up before every day fans are in bed.

What does this have to do with social media, you ask. The answer: A lot.

The rise of Twitter, blogs and streaming video means sports fan can know exactly what's happening without watching the games. If you're tired by the seventh, you can get an inning-by-inning breakdown of the action without getting out of bed the next day. Quick hashtag searches mean you don't even need to visit Google.

Social media has changed sports fandom in another big way. All of a sudden, regular fans have new access to the players. Athlete's blogs, twitter accounts and ning posts (just kidding, they don't use ning) let us know exactly how our heroes are feeling. (and apparently who they like to win the Daytona 500).

On a side note. NBA players seem to love Twitter. So much so, it got some of them in some trouble.

It used to be that newspapers and television were the only gateways into a team's games and especially the players. Not anymore. With social media, anyone can be a sports columnists and anyone can post news.

But, what does this all mean. It means you don't have to be glued to your television for your sports highlights. Like never before, the answers are all around us.

I suggest using the time you save to go have a milkshake.

Social App review: Plan your trip...with Gusto!

Most things I do, I do with energy. So why wouldn't I travel with Gusto!

The premise is simple: travelers write reviews of places and things they experienced on their own trips. Would-be travelers log on, read these reviews and decide which destination is best for them.

The Internet is littered with these sites, but Gusto might be the best I've seen. In addition to standard photos and reviews, here are five things I loved about the site:

• Trip planner: Would-be travelers can plan their dream vacation down to the second using Gusto's in-depth resources. The planner offers 18 different themes for users - from action adventure to shop-til-you-drop, as well as the option to search for specific destinations.
  


• Hotel reservations: Gusto users can do more than read hotel reviews. The site allows users to reserve hotels and plan where they'll stay without navigating off the page. Gusto even gives you the option to book car rentals and dinner reservations, saving users stress and money.
  


• Attraction reviews: Gusto goes beyond simple destination overviews. Users can post rated reviews on every attraction under the sun. Organized by city, restaurants, tourist traps and hidden gems are put to the test.
  


• Gusto Grabber: A relatively-new tool. The Grabber lets Gusto users save their most-visited sites in an easy-to-access bar at the top of the browser. It's a handy tool for those planning trips over several days.




• What's making news?: The left side of Gusto's main page is a list of travel-related stories in American newspapers. The stories give users an idea of current trends and areas to avoid.

Using Gusto is easier than it looks at first glance. I was a bit worried for my sanity when I first glanced at its crowded homepage. While its busy, the page is easy to navigate. Users can sign-in or create an account at the top right of the page.

From there, you can search a large bank of American cities at the bottom of the screen, or read media reports on the site's best features. The top left of the page allows users to choose locations based on geographic location or hotel prices.

Click on a city, and you're given the option to read any number of reviews from fellow Gusto fans. There are also tabs for car rents, hotels, attractions and food, as discussed above. Under the profiles is a brief summary of some of what the city has to offer. The site's detailed profiles let users connect with travelers with similar interests. Personally, I had a trip to Pigeon Ford, Tennessee all lined up and ready to go - beautiful this time of year.

I'm also sold on the sites management team. Site founder Jeff Wasson is a) an internet-travel pioneer with a successful track record and b) Really, really rich. That combination has me sold on the site's ability to survive.

Wasson, 36, and his management team in Missouri are reasonably young. Travel sites tend to cater to younger people and the theme-searching option leads me to believe the site is looking to reel in young, adventurous travelers.

All social media can be useful to PR professionals and Gusto is no exception. Those working with hotels are restaurants can drum up business by recruiting good reviews and the site is an excellent way to monitor travel trends and plan for the future. After all, any publicity is good publicity.

So, go ahead, try the site out. You never know where you could go.