Off-Record, now On-Record through Social Media & the Internet

September 16, 2009 by Steve Schultz @GeniusbyOsmosis · Leave a Comment
Filed under: News, Social Media

I’m sure everyone active on Twitter noticed this post ignite comments all across the Twitter-sphere.

To catch you up to speed, there was an interview with President Obama on CNBC where this so-called “off-record” remark was made by POTUS calling Kanye West a “Jack-ass.” As you can see, Terry Moran of ABC News immediately tweeted about it. Within a fairly short period of time ABC caught wind that it was an “off-record” comment and quickly deleted Moran’s tweet. Unfortunately for ABC, CNBC, and POTUS, they were too late and this was merely the beginning. TMZ, no surprise, managed to get some audio of this “off-record” jack-ass calling. Check it out in the video below.

I don’t bring this up to merely spread the story because in all candor, I couldn’t care less about the actual story. That said, this experience is of great importance for all politicians, whether or not you have an active online presence. In less than one day a seemingly unnoticed comment that was apparently off-record, flooded every facet of the Internet. Just think, that could have been you.

With the massive increase in communication/information accessibility there is no such thing as “off the record.” In this day and age anything you say in a public and even private forum is not protected. As Presidential as it may be to call celebrities, or anyone for that matter, a Jack-ass, I don’t think Obama or any of you want your “off-record” comments flooding the bandwidth of every news and blog outlet.

Just to show you proof of how broad the coverage was on one small comment. Look below, it took me a small search in a Word Press plug-in to get those articles. On Google if you limit your search as much as possible like, “Obama” & “Jackass” you’ll get over 3 million results.

As for this moronic journalists attempt to coin the phrase, “The Joe Wilson Treatment,” I pity him. This is in no way similar, unless of course, you ignore the conservative side of the aisle and only look to the left drooling in awe of their majesty, POTUS. Even then, I don’t recall POTUS getting any sort of award….hmmmm.

President Obama Calls Kanye A Jackass (ithinkheblogs.com)
President Obama Calls Kanye West a “Jackass” (yesbutnobutyes.com)
Even Obama Doesn’t Like Kanye! (perezhilton.com)
Obama: Kanye West a ‘jackass’ for outburst (msnbc.msn.com)
Obama: Kanye West a ‘Jackass’ (outsidethebeltway.com)
ABC ‘sorry’ for tweeting Barack Obama’s ‘jackass’ comment (telegraph.co.uk)
President Obama Calls Kanye West a “Jackass” (mashable.com)
Tweeting What Obama Said Off-the-Record About Kanye: Now THAT’s Terry (seminal.firedoglake.com)
ABC Apologizes to White House, CNBC Over Off-the-Record Tweets (mediabistro.com)
Obama Is Just Like Us! (dlisted.com)
Kanye’s Apology, Obama’s “Jackass” (chicagoist.com)
Whoops of the Day (mediabistro.com)
Obama Calls Kenya A ‘Jackass’ (themoderatevoice.com)

Tags: abc news, barack obama, CNBC, Jackass, Kanye West, Obama & Jackass, POTUS, Terry Moran, TMZ, twitter

Listening to the Cloud

April 24, 2009 by Steve Schultz @GeniusbyOsmosis · Leave a Comment
Filed under: Campaign Technology, Social Media

I’m sure you’ve all heard of the cloud at some point during your online explorations. Well what is the cloud? What does it mean to listen to the cloud? How can the cloud help you? The cloud is aggregated content from websites, blogs, rss feeds, and anything online. Cloud computing software enables individuals to scan the content from the world wide web and use it to their advantage.

PR companies have been investing heavily in service clouds. These are programs and tools used to scan the internet to listen to what people are saying. I’m sure you all heard about the disastorously disgusting Dominos Pizza YouTube video that came out last week with two employees doing “weird” things to the pizza. ABC news did a piece on it two nights ago showing how Dominos reacted. During this video they met with PR Consultant John Bell (I think that’s his name) and showed exactly what listening to the cloud can do for you. Check out the video here and skip ahead to -1:06 in the video and see the analysis at work.

Listening to the cloud, or just listening online, is vital for your success as a politician. You need to know what people are saying, who’s saying it, where they are saying it, and how people are responding to it. If there not saying anything at all don’t think you’re safe, it just means you’ve failed because noone is talking about you. There are a number tools out there you can use to listen to your online brand, some are done manaully through searches, others are done automatically through alerts, and others are comprehensive aggregators.

If you’re still pretty new to this stuff just start out subscribing to Google alerts and blogs in your Google Reader or any other RSS reader you use. You can even do it through your Microsoft Outlook. This will take a little time to set up, but it does automate the process for you. You can even look at doing it manually with searches at places like search.twitter.com or socialmention.com.

There will be more on this inside the ORS zone. Subscribe now!

Here is a podcast from ORS’s Doug Mitchell @ ManageingTheEdge.com from 4/24 about listening on the web.

Managing the Edge – Listening on the Web