"The geeks are inheriting the earth...."

After scanning through more than 2500 articles in the Communication and Mass Media Complete database in the Texas State Library, I have pulled more than 25 articles for further review. And none of it is light reading. "The Mediated Moderation Model of Interactivity" is an example of the research that I will be reading over the next couple of weeks. There is a lit review in here somewhere. I feel bad about the tree carnage....I have printed all of these articles and have them stacked in a huge spiral notebook. I was a slacker over Spring Break on this front and now feel a little behind. Last night I began reading in earnest and will do so daily until I plow through this stuff. There is a lit review in here somewhere.

I need to stay focussed on my reading list for the semester as well...still have not finished "Social Media is a Cocktail Party." There was an interesting passage in the chapter I read last night worth passing along:

"Keeping up with social media trends can be a fulltime job. A chief marketing officer can't keep up. That's why more than ever the marketing types and IT types have to work together... To get done what you need done in social media, you will need to partner with people who have a strong knowledge of web technology... The further you go down the social media path, the more clear the need for IT understanding will be...."

The geeks are inheriting the earth (says the author, a self-professed geek, not me!)

Get to work.....

Ok, it looks like I have narrowed this thesis idea down. I will be tracking the first year of participants in the Texas Outdoor Family program, which should be close to 500 families. I will do an initial survey after August 1. I will get baseline data on their media and outdoor recreation habits and then will follow this group for the next three years or so. As we add social media tools to our website we will track their useage and determine what impact it has on their outdoor recreation habits.

I met with Chris Holmes and Walt Dabney this week, both were very enthusiastic about the idea. Chris told me they have good e-mail addresses on all participants (they send an e-mail after the event thanking them for participating...that's good). He also told me he's got an intern that is going to set up a facebook page for the program...that's good too.

Carter Smith was also very supportive. It's so nice to get such an encouraging word from the boss. It means a lot and reminds me how important it is to convey encouragement and support.

This semester I will work on the survey instrument and do a literature review. I need to figure out which communication theory will be the foundation of the paper. Both Royal and Rao suggested interactive theory. When I tried to pull that up on Texas State research database I got more than 7,000 abstracts! I tried several ways to narrow that down, to no avail. Will try again today and will seek further counsel if needed.

I also plan on reading lots of books on the topic. I am currently reading "Social Media is a Cocktail Party" and it's very good. Signed up to follow one of the author's blogs. (Yet more info to consume!)

So I now know what I will be spending a lot of free time on over the next couple of years. So now it's time to get to work.

Does anyone find it odd that for someone who makes their living in the outdoor recreation field, I have very little actual time to spend in the outdoors???

Life's Better Outside.....when you are not inside working or doing homework!!!!!

Maybe this is it.....

I have been struggling with an idea for a thesis that will be fairly simple to execute, will explore some aspect of social media and will be useful to TPWD.

Perhaps this is the research question to explore:

Participants in the Texas Outdoor Family program who utilize social media tools on the TPWD website will become more active in the outdoors than those who do not (as measured by future camping patterns in Texas State Parks.)


I can pull together a database of those who have gone through the workshops from July 2008 - March 2009 and then follow them over time. We know exactly who they are.

The initial survey can gauge media habits and outdoor recreation habits. Then as we add these social media applications to the website we can let them know those tools are there and encourage them to use them.

Then we track over time. We can find out which of the tools are most useful to them and which we should not bother with. We can check our state park database and fine out which of them are coming back to state parks to camp, etc.

Hmm...perhaps this is it. I will discuss with the marketing folks and with Dr. Rao at Texas State and then get on with it....

Twitter Tacos

I think I am starting to get this stuff. Immersion helps. This week the web and marketing folks took time away from the office to get together and play with the tools. One of the whiz kids in the web group helped me install twitterberry on the blackberry....I signed on to abc news and followed Terry Moran's tweets all through the president's speech. Way cool. I still need to spend more time on this...but it's getting more familiar each day.

Later that same day a few of us attended the Austin AMA session on social media. It was packed. I had to leave early to catch Rachel's soccer game (only a few more months to be a soccer mom!)...but the first speaker was great. Her name was Erica O'Grady (ericaogrady.com) and she was great....now following her on Twitter. She called herself Twitter coach and she had some great insight into all this stuff.

A couple of observations...accelerating serendipity...embrace the chaos....it's just technology.

She talked about how companies are using twitter to get things done...used the example of a company called freshbooks. They picked up on a tweet of one of their customers who had been stood up on a blind date and sent her a message that they would never stand her up. Then the next day, they sent her flowers. Wow. That gal will be a customer for life!

Other comments: social media marketing is word of mouth or community based marketing that is based on conversation...as we know the best marketing of all. Don't think about money. Relationships matter. People matter. Don't throw money at it. (This is good since we don't have any!)

The new influence model:
Change your mind....
Dialogue
Admire
Engage

Build relationships
One to many
Product or service that delights your followers.

(We can do this...... we have everything we need to do this.)

I need to check out tynt.com a tool to track blogs
Mr Tweet.net...tells you who to follow....

And then on the way to the game I listened to an NPR story about a korean taco truck in LA using twitter. The truck would tweet a location, and 200 people would show up to chow down on korean pork tacos and kimchee quesadillas. Wow.

(Kimchee quesadillas???? Ugh....)

Discipline.....

So here it's been over a week and I haven't posted a darn thing, I can't keep up with messages on Facebook and who the heck has time to tweet all day? This is going to be the biggest challenge of this all....being disciplined enough to create some new communication habits.

I attended a technology summit last week as part of the Texas Travel Industry Association conference and the speakers were great. One of the speakers is a friend from San Antonio, Steve Atkins. Main takeaway from him: The foundation of any successful communication effort is the website. EVERYTHING CONNECTS HERE. Invite. Excite. Capture. Communicate. Another speaker spoke about all the tools now available and how they must be layered to create an ecosystem that supports all communication efforts. I liked the use of the term ecosystem in this context...it resonated strongly. Another speaker advised to start with the back end - analytics, metrics and ROI. And still another spoke of the importance of acting green. He tossed out an idea of custom downloadable brochures that can include any element the customer might want. Of course we post pdfs on our website...but that seems quaintly archaic when I think about all the other applications we have not begun to explore.

We'll be posting the new TPWD web position next week....I think our timing is going to be perfect and I know we'll attract some real talent. It's going to be exciting to explore this new frontier. Also exciting - looks like we've got a nice pile of money to use for the remainder of this fiscal year to really upgrade state parks web pages. That's going to be a great project..and it's fabulous that we actually have some resources to work with.

I met Omar Gallaga from the Austin American Statesman the other day at Texas State. I was on a panel with him and Chris Ruiz from the KSAT web team. The panel was about our experiences as Hispanics in the media and PR world. It was an interesting discussion. Omar amazed me with the amount of writing he does online and all the technology he uses on a constant basis. It underscored for me how different the younger generation consumes and processes information. I need to connect with him on Twitter and follow his tweets and check out Chris' work on the KSAT pages. (In my spare time of course...)

I also need to get off the stick and begin exploring communication theory to support a master's thesis.

Better do that now......

Spring 2009 Semester Homework

Trying to narrow down a proposal for a semester project is challenging. The amount of information I need to take in and process is a bit overwhelming. Last week, I met with Dr. Cindy Royal from Texas State who is a whiz at this new media stuff. She spent more than an hour with me last Friday and I left her house with my head whirling. Since last week I am getting many requests a day for facebook and have tried to keep up with Twitter as well. Even before this new adventure, I have already felt a bit overwhelmed with the volume of email that comes my way..trying to process an entire additional layer seems impossible. I am being mentored by some of the youngest folks on my staff...the 20 somethings in the web services group. They are all extremely bright young folks and are being very patient with my inept questions and fumbling around. One of them told me to think of the info flow as a big river that you see flowing by - and when I see something that interests me, stick your toe in for a little bit. For someone who still reads the newspaper cover to cover and whose Sunday is not complete without going through the entire NYTimes, it's a novel concept. Up until two weeks ago, I had my assistant print the electronic newsclips that cross my desktop each day so I could carefully read them over lunch. Geez louise, the more I think about that, it's pretty ludicrous. For the last couple of weeks, I have simply scanned them quickly when they pop into the email box, stopping when I need to delve a little deeper. Haven't missed those clips yet, and will probably save a few trees just by changing that ridiculous habit

Here's my initial stab at a project proposal for the Spring semester. I feel like I am already behind..but that's a feeling I have every semester....





Spring 2009
Semester Proposal
Texas State University
Lydia Saldaña

DELIVERABLES:
• Development of Master’s Thesis Topic
o Comprehensive literature review
o Refine research question(s)
• “White paper” on the application of social media tools on the TPWD website
o Survey the current social media landscape
o Review how other government agencies are implementing social media on websites
o Review how other conservation organizations such at The Nature Conservancy and the National Wildlife Federation are implementing social media
o Identify barriers at TPWD and suggest possible solutions
o Suggest applications which should be applied to the TPWD website, both short term and long-term


Spring 2009 Reading List



Convergence Culture: Where Old and New Media Collide (2006)
Henry Jenkins

Social Media Marketing: An Hour a Day (2008)
Dave Evans and Susan Bratton

The New Rules of Marketing and PR: How to Use News Releases, Blogs, Podcasting, Viral Marketing and Online Media to Reach Buyers Directly (2007 & 2009)
David Meerman Scott


Twitter Revolution: How Social Media and Mobile Marketing is Changing the Way we do Business & Market Online (2008)
Warren Whitlock & Deborah Micek

Social Media is a Cocktail Party: Why you already know the rules of Social media marketing
Jim Tobin and Lisa Braziel

Wikinomics- How Mass Collaberation Changes Everything (2008)
Don Tapscott and Anthony D. Williams


OTHER RELATED READINGS/SEMINARS
• WIRED magazine
• BUSINESS WEEK
• Participate in relevant webinars
• Attend SXSW sessions
• Local AMA sessions
• Other opportunities as they arise

Diving In (feet first) with no PFD

What the hell is social media and am I really qualified to be a communications director in 2009????

These are the questions that have been rolling around my head the last couple of weeks. Well, okay, I do know what social media is ----sort of. But the truth is, I haven't spent any time exploring the available tools, because "I just don't have the time..."

And it is a rather rude awakening to start a new year with the dawning realization that if I don't get in gear and start learning this stuff, I will soon be obsolete and of little value to the organization I work for.

So I better get with it.

Coincidentally, I am working on my grad degree at Texas State University and have been pondering what I should do for my thesis. A couple of weeks ago I learned that the class I was supposed to take this semester got dropped. What to do? An early morning epiphany resulted in both a thesis topic and a plan for this semester: For Spring 2009 I will be working on a independent studies project with my grad adviser. The project will include an extensive lit review for the thesis on social media I will be writing and will also include a paper that will lay out the rationale and lay the groundwork to apply social media tools to the Texas Parks and Wildlife website:
http://www.tpwd.state.tx.us/

I am the communications director at TPWD and feel woefully inadequate in this arena. We do a lot of good things with traditional media like magazines, TV shows, etc...and we have a fairly good website....but we are falling way behind in social media applications. There are a lot of political and technical barriers, but we need to get with the program.

So I plan on diving in to all of this stuff that I have been avoiding because I "just don't get it" and "don't have the time" and will be sharing what I learn through this blog.

I set up a facebook page a few weeks ago and have been surprised at the result...I have connected with lots of interesting folks. It's added to my already overflowing in-box but I'm learning to move through this stuff very quickly and have also learned that you don't HAVE to respond to everything that comes your way.

Right now I am reading a book called Social Media Marketing by Dave Evans. He used to be at GSD&M and the book lays out in very simple terms what the different tools are and how to use them. One of the takeaways for me is that for an agency like TPWD that has a virtually nonexistent advertising budget, these tools are going to be crucial to us getting our message out. It makes me wonder whether spending any of our precious dollars on "traditional" advertising makes any sense....

I am interested in hearing what you have to say about all of this.....please share your thoughts and observations with me as often as you like....