Message & Medium

Friday is a great time for “Top 10/20/25 List” posts.  So, here’s an excellent and thought-provoking item from Dean Takahashi at Venture Beat.  There are a few titles and authors on here that I’d forgotten over the years (Cringley!) and I love Takahashi’s “curve ball” with the final two listings from an aesthetic and literary standpoint.  I’ve read a few of these in the past but will be putting several more on my ever-growing “To Read” list.

What do you think?  Any great tech-oriented books you’d definitely add to the list?  Any of these you’d kick off?

The Anatomy of a Perfect Landing Page – Formstack.

A brilliant, concise and immediately useable guide to building the perfect landing page. Thank you, Formstack.

I was privileged to get to know a few companies that participated in the 2011 Mass Challenge.  I had a variety of conversations with them over the spring and summer of that year about the unique challenges of micro-to-zero budget start-up marketing. I offered my advice and watched them closely as they swept through the Mass Challenge process. Despite knowing the long odds to success for these start ups, I found every one of these interactions inspiring as hell. I was reminded of the very same feeling I got when I first met @markschmulen and @davidlyman, and the rest of the NutShell mail team, in Silicon Valley as I was working (quietly) to prepare to announce Constant Contact’s acquisition of their company.

I watched the 2012 Mass Challenge launch online this afternoon and I have to say that — despite the NYC-esque skyline in one video and cringing as Diane Hesson made fun of Mayor Menino’s accent — the event seems to be moving from strength to strength.  I’m having talks with possible participants again this year and, with luck, I’ll be able to offer my advice, if not participate fully myself as part of a team.  Again, I think back to wandering around Palo Alto with the Nutshell guys during my fairly brief visit in 2010 and thinking I could feel the start-up vibe in the air. I’d love for that atmosphere to take full root here in Boston and, I think, with organizations like Mass Challenge, TechStars, DogPatch Labs and others we are more than on our way. I’m telling you, that start-up bug is hard to shake once it settles on you, but at least we have a great and growing community in Boston that can help any entrepreneur work out his or her dream.

As I look for ways to put my current experience at Dorchester Academy together with my decades worth of public relations work, I tend to slide back and forth between the academic and business worlds.  I was recently made aware - via the blog of my former colleague Paul Roberts – of an effort by the PRSA to create “a modern definition of PR.” Paul’s blog, in turn, led me to the blog of veteran (in all senses of the word) PR man Frank Storm, who does an excellent job of dissecting the problems involved in such an effort. I dropped a comment onto Frank’s post and he replied with more cogent thoughts on the need to craft a clear definition of public relations as it looks today.  Originally, I’d thought that since — in my experience — hardly anyone could define PR, why bother with the histrionics now just because social media has, oh, fundamentally changed the communications landscape.  Easy for me to say, as I pursue my teaching jones in a technologically barren high school in Boston, but I really can’t toss 25 years in the high tech public relations world aside so casually. My father is a public relations pro, too, and has a track record in our industry that truly puts him in the “high tech PR pioneer” category.  My Dad and I ran Nahil Communications Group together for many years…and, still, my mother wold have a hard time telling you what either of us really did for a living.

In that regard, my Mom shared much with the legion of CEOs, CMOs and other corporate types who have hired public relations agencies, built internal PR teams and spent millions on the public relations function without much of a clue as to why, and often with skewed perceptions of what great PR could do for their organizations.

So, as I relax a little here during February school vacation, I’m going to assume the burden of responsibility for the entire public relations industry (you’re welcome) and try a few iterative definitions of public relations as I know it.  Feel free to pass this post around, to comment with your own take, and to tell me I’m as full of BS as the people who wrote the three “choices” that PRSA has on offer.  Good public relations people create clear and compelling messages all the time…it’s the corner stone of what we do, first and foremost. So, let’s see what we can come up with.  Maybe it will be the mission statement of Paul Roberts’ effort to create the Public Relations Alternative Society.

So, here’s Nahil’s first take on public relations defined:

Public relations is the function within any organization that drives the creation and execution of communications programs that project the organization’s key messaging and positioning to specific audiences. These programs are most often delivered through earned media or owned media channels and, when taken together, serve to build a credible and compelling public image for the organization.

And your thoughts?

Maybe I’ve been spoiled by the unseasonably mild New England winter, but I’m starting to think about summer jobs already.  I’m in the homestretch of my Master’s program and I’ve begun to ponder ways to (profitably) fill the time I’ll get back after my degree is in hand. To that end, I’m throwing the “Message & Medium” shingle back out for a bit and I’m looking for companies (especially start ups), nonprofits and other organizations that need help getting their story told the right way, through the right channels to the right audience. If you know of an organization that can benefit from a targeted, measurable and strategic communications campaign – or simply a short-term, tactical  solution — I’d love to offer my perspective. Let’s talk and, as always, the cup of coffee is on me.

I’m rarely accused of understatement, but the above headline radically undersells what 2011 was all about for me. The transition to becoming an urban educator has been the single most difficult professional undertaking of my life. The teaching residency experience has been all-encompassing  in ways I never imagined and the journey to becoming a teacher has had more potholes, washouts, sidetrips and collisions than I could have anticipated a year ago when I first began entertaining the notion.  I’m often asked if I’m enjoying the teaching experience. I can’t say that “enjoying” is really a word I’d use given the enormous challenges my students face every day and the hurdles I have to cross that have little to do with delivering and receiving the daily lesson plan. I’ve been exposed to so many things that I never would have anticipated. I’ve learned so much — some things I’d rather not know — that it’s staggering. As I work to recreate my professional self at the age of 48, I can safely say that the year 2011 has been mindblowing at an all-time level. So, as I shove off from the pier into 2012, I can see the Master’s degree and the end of the school year as they begin to round into focus. Given the vagaries of job hunting in the urban school environment, I’m only slightly more settled than I was in 2011 but I am hopeful that there will be a few different opportunities to put my education and experience (all of it!) to work in the coming year.  I wish you all a Happy New Year.

An op-ed piece from a fellow Rochester alum, Joseph Ganem who is a physics professor at Loyola University in Baltimore.  Interesting take, given the swirling interest in using student test scores as teacher measurement tools, as well as the burning mania for analytics in all aspects of business.  As a word guy, I’ve always been more interested in the story behind the numbers but, like anything, appropriately applied and totally understood, numerics can deliver relevant data to qualitative issues.

Test scores vs. accountability.

A follow up to the article on the use of social media tools “live” in class that I Tweeted/FBed recently. I’ll post original article below, too. Would love to hear comments.

Three Teachers’ Answers to Questions on Classroom Microblogging – NYTimes.com

via Three Teachers’ Answers to Questions on Classroom Microblogging – NYTimes.com.

The use of social media in the classroom — especially in a “live” setting, as below — is something I’ve been noodlling for awhile now. I’ve had a number of discussion on this with various people (adults and students), and the responses have been varied. I think there is are ways to use this technology creatively but thoughtfully. I’ve also heard specific responses to this article that basically view these tools as a crutch and a way for a teacher to abdicate his reponsibility to spark and nurture verbal class participation by all.�

Your thoughts?

Students Speak Up in Class, Silently, via Social Media – NYTimes.com

via Students Speak Up in Class, Silently, via Social Media – NYTimes.com.

In one form or another, I’ve been a teacher my entire professional life. While others may have seen this as a tangential skill, I’ve always had a fundamental passion for teaching people (from junior staff to CEOs) how to absorb and process information, how to make themselves understood effectively, and how to keep focused on achieving set goals in all sorts of business environments.

In late 2010, I began to explore the possibility of  making a career pivot that would allow me to follow that passion exclusively as a full-time teacher. Today, I am proud to say that I will begin that transition this summer when I enter the Teach Next Year program at UMass/Boston. My focus is on teaching high school English in urban schools and my internship with the program will be at Dorchester Academy for the 2011-2012 academic year, while also pursuing an MEd. in the classroom.

This move will necessitate a change in focus for this blog. However, I do envision that “communication” will remain a core topic and interest, though the application will change.  That said, the focus of my writing will expand dramatically — not that I ever felt rigidly bound to any single topic, in the first place.  I expect a bit of drift and rambling over the next few weeks as I get used to a new routine and sort out what exactly I want this platform to deliver.  I’m open to suggestions and look forward to your continued input in participation as this blog evolves.