Entrepreneurs - Share your Story

If you're an entrepreneur and you have 20 secs or so to share your story, then keep reading.

The Entrepreneur StoryBooth lets people share instant 20 second video stories about their entrepreneurial experience -- answering these types of questions:
- What is an entrepreneur?
- What habits do you try to cultivate as an entrepreneur?
- What was the "a-ha!" moment that inspired your venture idea?

Entrepreneur Storybooth is being launched in a partnership by Wellesley, Mass-based Babson College and the Business Innovation Factory (BIF). The groups want to create an Entrepreneur Experience Laboratory to speed up design and development of new entrepreneur support solutions. Sounds similar to what the AZ-based Gangplank organization has been working on as well.

They write:
"In its first phase, the Lab team is working with entrepreneurs from all walks of life, at all stages of development and from every region in the United States to create a first person characterization of the national entrepreneurial experience. Building on this new map of the entrepreneur experience, the team is creating a prioritized list of opportunities where the experience can be enhanced to accelerate new venture creation."

Ugh. Who wrote that? In other words, shoot a quick video about your entrepreneurial experience, upload it to their site, and help build the entrepreneur experience database. Read more at this link.

National PRSA Seeks Presenters for 2011 Digital Impact Conference

Attention digital PR pros!

The PRSA (Public Relations Society of America) is looking for smart digital communications pros to share case studies and digital successes with its members.

The Digital Impact Conference (NYC, May 5-6 2011) will feature three tracks: Strategies and Innovations; T3: Theory, Tactics & Technology for High-Tech Public Relations; and New Communications Research. Details are below on what types of studies and presentations the group is seeking. No doubt, it's gotta be an ace case study to qualify.

Deadline is December 13, 2010 to submit a presentation proposal. No word on if airfare and hotel in NYC is included if your proposal is chosen. :-)

"The Public Relations Society of America (PRSA) is seeking digital influencers to present strategies, theories, ideas, research and results at the 2011 Digital Impact Conference. Co-presented by PRSA, the PRSA Technology Professional Interest Section, New York University and The Society for New Communications Research, the Digital Impact Conference expands in 2011 to offer a wider selection of programs by combining resources, networks and digital communities.

Specifically, PRSA is searching for:
* Digital Experts in the public relations, marketing communications, research, educational or technology sectors.
* Leaders in the Digital Sphere — CMO, CEO, CFO, social scientist, management consultant, journalist, blogger, technologist or editor.
* High-Tech Experts with insight into successful public relations for High-Tech companies and their agencies.

Presentations should incorporate:
* Mobile social media and marketing — how are companies embracing (and pushing beyond) the opportunities and challenges of mobile communications?
* Branding — what is and isn’t working?
* Fast forward — what emerging technologies should we be using?
* Social media integration — is it being used to its maximum potential?
* Measurement & ROI — how are people demonstrating value and success?
* Digital media strategy — where are we with development, implementation and expansion?
* Usability and design — are we using tools to create excellent content that benefit users?
* Globalization — social media in the developing and emerging world.
* B2B — social marketing the business customer."

The Newness of News

So much happening, so little time to encapsulate it in a blog post! Why blog when a simple tweet or FB post does the trick. And that's what's happening, isn't it? Who even read 'news' on The Beatles catalog entering iTunes when it was tweeted about by thousands before the 'news' actually happened?

Is it 'news' if we already know about it? What's new about it anymore?

There. Go. You define news.

Definitions of news on the Web:
* information about recent and important events; "they awaited news of the outcome"
* information reported in a newspaper or news magazine; "the news of my death was greatly exaggerated"
* news program: a program devoted to current events, often using interviews and commentary; "we watch the 7 o'clock news every night"
* informal information of any kind that is not previously known to someone; "it was news to me"
* newsworthiness: the quality of being sufficiently interesting to be reported in news bulletins; "the judge conceded the newsworthiness of the trial"; "he is no longer news in the fashion world" wordnetweb.princeton.edu/perl/webwn
* News is the communication of information on current events which is presented by print, broadcast, Internet, or word of mouth to a third party or mass audience.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/News


Ah, it used to be so simple.... :-)

Our Media Discourse - Right, Left, Nowhere?

"He's right about this, as far as it goes. The cable news industry's tendency to package everything in neat Left vs. Right oppositional dynamic does erode our nation's political dialogue. And alarmist TV news reporting on everything from local crime to product recalls does make old people unnecessarily afraid of the world.

But cheap media hype is nothing new. The real media dynamic that undermines American democracy is not ginned-up ideological confrontation; it's agreement. The mushy middle. The inherent tendency of the political media to choose its position by splitting the difference between the (perceived) positions of the Left and the Right. Mistaking conventional wisdom for actual wisdom."

That's Gawker's Hamilton Nolan writing about the hows, whys and wherefores of Stewart's "Restore the Sanity" rally over the weekend. Will it make a difference? Will it have some sort of impact on the media discourse, and maybe change the way pundits pontificate on politics, love, marriage and more?

CitizenVox writes that the rally WAS big, but does size really matter?
"Was the gathering nothing more than the world’s largest flash mob? Or will some of the people who traveled from far and near look back upon it as a seminal event in their lives?"

Gawker's Nolan suggests that we need more civil and intelligent discourse rather than the TV head ranting that goes on now:
"Jon Stewart is right to call for civility, but he should recognize that the real enemy is agreement, rather than disagreement. Social niceties blunt honesty, which renders our public dialogue coded and often worthless. Democracy thrives on the thesis-antithesis-synthesis process of open and uninhibited discussion and, yes, argument. We do not need gratuitous argument, for the sake of attention-seeking; but we do need an atmosphere in which those with voices and a platform feel compelled to speak and think and analyze honestly, without giving a second thought to the favor economy. And we don't have that."

One commentor wrote succinctly: "The more money you make, the more you're embedded in the culture, the less you're inclined to upset the apple cart." True dat.

I'd bet most of America is fed up with cable newsheads jabbering. But like sheep, we sit and watch and then rant about it online. How can the populace change the media non-electorate?