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Web 2.0:
New Tools of Communications
In the political and corporate
worlds there is a lot of discussion about Web 2.0 and the new
tools for interactive channels of communications. Successful
politicians and businesses must learn about and take advantage
of this new set of communications capabilities that exists in
the on-line world. Many of these tools allow a campaign or
business to communicate directly with desired audiences
without having messages filtered through the traditional news
media.
These technologies provide tools that can be used much more
broadly, however, than just PR and communications. They can be
used with customers, business partners, employees,
constituents and interest groups to drive collaboration
(internally and externally), innovation, teaming, networking
and even business processes.
Among the technologies and tools now in use (collectively
called Web 2.0 tools) are the following (source for parts of
this is a 2007 McKinsey survey on Internet technologies):
- Blogging
(On-line journals or diaries hosted on a web site and often
distributed to other sites using RSS.)
- Collective intelligence (Any on-line system
that attempts to tap the expertise of a group rather than an
individual to make decisions. Technologies that contribute
to collective intelligence include collaborative publishing
and common databases for sharing knowledge.)
- Wikis (A collective intelligence tool that
allows easy collaborative development and display of
knowledge and information, often on a particular topic. The
technology allows many authors to contribute to an on-line
document or discussion.)
- On-line forums, discussions, webinars
(Collaborative on-line interaction often used for training,
sales, etc.)
- Podcasting (Audio or video recordings available
for viewing/listening or downloading from a web site. They
are often distributed through an aggregator, such as iTunes)
- Mash-ups (Aggregations of content from
different on-line sources to create a new service. An
example is a program that pulls
apartment listings from one side and displays them on a
Google map to show where the apartments are located.)
- Social networking (Systems that allow members
of a specific site to learn about other members’ skills,
talents, knowledge or preferences. Commercial examples
include MySpace, Facebook and LinkedIn. Some firms use these
systems internally to help identify experts and
capabilities.)
- Defensive and offensive web communications
(Search engine optimization, overcome bad publicity and
leverage good publicity.)
- Peer-to-peer networking (A technique for
efficiently sharing files, including music, videos or text,
either over the Internet or within a closed set of users.)
- RSS (Really Simply Syndication. Allows people
to subscribe to on-line distribution of news, blogs,
podcasts, or other information.)
- Web services (Software systems that make it
easier for different systems to communicate with each other
to automatically pass information or conduct transactions. A
retailer and supplier might use web services to
automatically update each other’s inventory systems.)
While not everyone is ready to take advantage of any or all
of these technologies, it is important to learn about them and
how they might be applied. Leading-edge companies and
political groups and candidates are using these technologies
to their advantage.
Fundraising
Event
Senate majority leadership is
sponsoring a debt retirement lunch for Sens. Jon
Greiner and Wayne Neiderhauser on
Wednesday, May 2, at Fiddler’s Elbow, 1061 East 2100 South.
RSVP to Sen. Sheldon Killpack, 540.7559.
Today in
Political History
May 1,
1886: The American Federation of Labor
declares a national strike to demand an eight-hour work day
and 350,000 workers across the country respond. Within a few
days rioting broke out with deaths and injuries at Haymarket
Square in Chicago. "May Day" subsequently was celebrated
throughout the world by labor and socialist movements. (Source: perspicuity)
May 1, 1960: Soviet missiles shoot down
Gary Powers in his American U-2 spy plane
that was flying over Soviet territory.
Wise
Words
“Enlighten the
people, generally, and tyranny and oppressions of body and
mind will vanish like spirits at the dawn of day.”
--Thomas
Jefferson
Communications
Tip
Hone
Your Presentation Skills
By
Randall P. Whatley
The first step in preparing a
presentation is to define the purpose of your presentation.
There are several common types of presentations, some of which
are often used in political campaigns. Each presentation type
requires a specific organization technique to assure they are
understood and remembered by the audience. See this Complete
Campaigns page for a discussion of different kinds of
presentations and how to prepare for them.
National
Politics
Best
Stories From . . .
-- Human
Events: Lt. Jason Nichols says:
"Recently a reporter for the San Francisco Chronicle
called me here in Baghdad and asked why the active duty
military wasn't opposing the war in Iraq in numbers similar to
those that opposed the war in Vietnam. Not surprisingly, he
didn't print my answer. ... The primary reason we support the
war is because we believe it is just and right, and we were
given a mission to win it. ... Iraqi democracy is a mission we
know we can accomplish, given time. The honest reality is that
we are winning the war in Iraq. Both militarily and
politically we are progressing at the pace expected, though
not as well as the most idealistic hopes of a cakewalk nor as
badly as the most dire predictions of quagmire" (see also
related Washington
Post story).
-- Roll
Call: Columnist Stuart Rothenberg
says he's "had a hard time warming to the idea that
former Sen. Fred Thompson (R-Tenn.) ... would
run for president. ... But try as I might to dismiss the
idea of a Thompson candidacy, I no longer can do so. It isn't
that the former Senator from Tennessee is such a good fit for
the role of presidential candidate. It's simply that none of
the other cast members is a perfect fit either."
-- RealClearPolitics:
Columnist Peter Brown says that "[i]f the
Tennessee twosome of Al Gore and Fred
Thompson keep the political world guessing much
longer about their presidential ambitions, they might find
themselves crowned as front-runners. That is an exaggeration
of course, but as the former Democratic vice president and
one-time Republican U.S. senator turned actor keep considering
their White House options, their poll numbers keep
rising."
-- Wall
Street Journal: The Democrats' control of Congress
"has quickly translated into money, as many big companies have
shifted more of their campaign contributions to the new
congressional majority, and away from longtime Republican
allies."
Hinckley Mayoral
Forum
The University of Utah's Hinckley Institute of
Politics is hosting a "meet the candidates" forum with
SLC mayoral hopefuls Robert Comstock,
J.P. Hughes, and John
Renteria this Wednesday at 11 a.m. in the Hinckley
Caucus Room (Orson Spencer Hall, Rm. 255).
Sutherland Awards
Banquet
The Sutherland
Institute is hosting its 2007 Legacy Awards Banquet
Thursday at 7 p.m. on the fourth floor of the U. of U.’s
Rice-Eccles Stadium and Towers. The event will honor Utah
community leaders for their efforts to promote charity,
family, faith and freedom. For more info, click
here.
Blog
Watch
-- At Utah
Senate Democrats, Sen. Scott McCoy
discusses how Utah got into the "voucher mess"
and how we can get out of it (see also related Senate
Site and Education
in Utah posts).
-- GetReligion's Mollie
Ziegler is unimpressed with the way "the
mainstream media trumpeted [last week's anti-Dick
Cheney protests at BYU] in a way that reinforced
stereotypes about Mormons."
-- Paul
Rolly is unhappy with some feedback he
received from the Senate
Site, which he says is "actually nothing more
than a Republican propaganda site using taxpayer funded
resources."
-- COL
Takashi responds to this
Frank
Pastore column in which Pastore
insists that Mitt Romney's Mormon faith is a
"cult of Christianity" rather than a Christian
denomination (see also related
posts at
The Claremont Institute's The
Remedy). |
