Ken Stadden\'s MacroBlog

Last year I was forced to learn to fend for myself again after the evaporation of a really good job, one of the most enjoyable of my life, working with good people.

It had been introduced as a temporary layoff, but it didn’t stay temporary… the sort of situation that gave rise to the expression “temporary by permanent” by the late, great Dick Rankin, a man with more aphorisms than an aphid, a man I was proud to call my father-in-law.

This picture has nothing to do with WordPress, Drupal or Joomla

So I went down to the shop to dust off my Web-site making tools, sharpen and adjust and oil them up and all that… but then thought better of it.  ”Best get on the Interweb thingy and see what the youngsters are up to before I get too far along,” I mumbled to myself, which I do often because it’s good to have someone to talk to.

To my mild peptic disturbance,  nobody was in the market for a hand-crafted, wooden, static site any more. While I was looking the other way, all the whippersnappers learned to use  Joomla and WordPress and Drupal because they are content management platforms and, did I mention, they’re open source and therefore FREE.

The content management feature of these platforms is big because who in his or her right mind wants to email changes to some developer every time there’s a new product or someone named Melvin from sales gets promoted to regional assistant manager of pre-owned paper clips? Back in the day, a content management system was a big deal and having Web pages pop out of a database like genies out of a bottle meant this was a site built for big bucks for some big company. But not anymore.

Long story short, old Rip Van Winkle here starts tinkering with WordPress, builds a site on top of it, staddendesign.com, in a kind of rickety way, learning as he goes, and now has done three paid jobs on WordPress. I now know enough PHP to be annoying at least, if not dangerous, and recently started using a  blank theme called Starkers that lets me easily end up with anything a client needs.

Joomla and Drupal each have their advantages, but I think it’s best to specialize, and I already picked my platform.  So it’s WordPress for now, until I conclude that it can’t do what needs to be done. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going back down to the shop to put the hand tools away. Where’s that Pepto-Bismol?

In CUPRAP One, I promised some specifics from the speakers at their recent workshop . Millions are struggling with how to implement social media in business, and I found that– for the most part–  these expert communicators for academic institutions have a good handle on the transition. Here are some key points from remarks by Ray Betzner, assistant vice president for university relations, Temple University and vice president of CUPRAP:

• We’ve taken budget and staff cuts while having to do more.
• We used to be in charge of our own brands, our message. Now everyone has a worldwide platform to talk about our brand.
• A blog over which we have no control, www.cherryandwhat.blogspot.com, has about as much influence as the official online newsroom we run. More students get their news here, and we have no control over this, folks!
• How often do you look at your Wikipedia entry? We do every single day. (People change it.)
• Is Wikipedia important? Studies show that students go to Wikipedia first, not books.
• Increasingly, your bosses are looking over your shoulder, focusing on return on investment; therefore you need to align your results with the bottom line of the institution.
• Go back to basics. Evaluate why you’re doing what you’re doing. What does it cost? Is it working? How do you know?
• Reallocate dollars and resources to allow for new ventures.
• Get accustomed to the new normal. I don’t see us getting flush, as in 18 months ago before the bottom dropped out of the economy.
• Talk to your colleagues; attend workshops such as this; get ideas.
• Watch your competition.

Mr. Betzner’s remarks are a wake-up call that, unfortunately, not everyone will heed. At lunch I spoke with several college communicators whose bosses turn a deaf ear to their pleas for more social media openness, like starting academic blogs. It’s tough to do, but I think it’s imperative that anyone in a public relations department maintain pressure on the higher-ups to move into the twenty-first century.  In social media circles, it’s getting to be an old saw that people are already talking about you and you have to join the conversation.  But I doubt that it’s been said often enough or in the right ways to the right people.

Next time: remarks by Bill Keller, a sharp young guy recently hired as new media specialist at Muhlenberg College, Allentown, Pa. What does a new media specialist do with his day? Stay tuned for the scintillating report.

[I also promised poll results last time, but I'm still waiting for a statistically significant number of votes. If you're reading this, please see the poll at right.]

“PEOPLE LOVE LISTS,” the gruff, cigar-chewing editor-in-chief was shouting into the spittle-flecked mouthpiece. “GIVE ‘EM LISTS.”  Ever since that ear-opener from my stinky old boss many years ago, I’ve done my best to write coherent, compelling prose without gratuitously embedding bullet points just because folks love to read ‘em.

It’s been a losing battle. After WWW started meaning something more important than Wichita Water Works, reader attention spans dwindled to near absolute zero and those with acute attention deficit disorder became the common denominator every writer was aiming down at. (”At” is such a good preposition to end a sentence with. Don’t you think?)

So today I’ll cave and provide to you a list, albeit a short one. Short but powerful. These tweeting rules have allowed me to build up an immense following on Twitter, now numbering in the double digits and not too darn far away from triple digits.

Dumb Suburban Tweeting Guy Rule number one:

Remember, they’re not that into you.

Suppress the banal stuff that causes the world to ridicule Twitter users. While reporting trivia such as the contents of your latest meal to create an “ambient awareness” among a circle of friends may work for some folks, the damage done reaches well beyond their peer group. You know how “Green Acres” episodes are already 44 light-years away from earth and there’s nothing earthlings can do to get them back? Like that.

Further, the ambient awareness thing just flat doesn’t work for dumb suburban guys who don’t have many friends. (Never mind how I know this.)

No, best put something interesting out there instead, or at least a link to something interesting. Tip: Think like a writer. Ask yourself: does this tweet pass the crusty editor’s “so what” test? Hint: Don’t tweet about the sunrise from your hotel room unless you are going to include a link to a Twitpic. AND NOT A GRAINY, DARK, FUZZY ONE FROM THAT PATHETIC 1-MEGAPIXEL CAMERA PHONE, EITHER.

DSTGR number two:

Please, oh please oh please, put up a better picture.

Here’s a negative example: Jonathan Vaughters, former pro cyclist and current directeur sportif of the Garmin-Slipstream pro cycling team, was forced to retire from the 2001 Tour de France due to a bee sting that caused his eye to swell shut. I guess he thought his swollen face would make a cute Twitter picture. Maybe as a JOKE, Jonathan, at first. But not forever.

And don’t get me started on dark, fuzzy, out-of-focus pictures, which are legion. Or pictures of cute animals, pictures of you upside down, or pictures of your car (I tried that and rejected it after about two tweets). Why, people? If you are tweeting as a human and not a faceless corporate representative, have a good picture of you.

Tip: Let us see your face clearly, or your face plus some interesting special effects, like a pair of Homestar Runner legs grafted onto your head. Hint: If you make my Tweetdeck a nicer place to visit in the morning, I’ll follow you forever.

DSTGR number three:

Capitalize. Spell. Use punctuation. Write complete sentences.

The rules are there for a reason. When you follow the rules of grammar, educated grownups will have one less reason to unfollow you in a moment of irritation over a lousy tweet.

Tip: I don’t care if you hated your sixth-grade English teacher. We all did. Write well anyway. Hint: You’re not doing this for her.