Bad Online Habits

Being informed is important. The Internet is widely used and journalism is spread throughout the information superhighway. There are a dozen different ways to get your content and stay engaged with current events and important social issues. This is all very fine and good. A bad habit that I can still see though is the almost dogmatic adherence to specific news organizations/journals/political blogs, etc.

The same bad habits that apply to traditional news consumption (sticking to one particular news outlet let MSNBC or Fox News) apply to the proliferation of content options on the Web. No matter how many facts are really out there, people are going to remain uninformed, to a degree.

,p>Multitasking as we all know can be distracting. This is another habit so ubiquitous that it is taken for granted as part of the 'new age' of Internet culture. For example, listening to an entire musical artist's discography while writing a paper due the next day and chatting with friends about the upcoming weekend's events can be seen as a normal evening's workload. This is surprising, even to me as someone who practices against these habits but so frequently falls into them. This is indicative of a lot of things, about the Internet and it's users, but what I see most clearly in it is a proliferation of the instant access and incredible speed at which the Internet can provide whatever anyone on it--or in it, around it--is looking for. A problem that comes up with this though, is that there is there is so much that I want and no way to choose.

The crash of Asiana flight 214 and the Don Lemon Test

As many of you know, in addition to writing about SEO and social media, I've had a long career in aerospace, including time as a flight test engineer in the US Air Force, and a safety engineer at Boeing. Early in my professional career, I had the experience of having some of my research work in a study I coauthored featured in the New York Times newspaper on November 1, 1991.

The next day, I had the experience of seeing the findings of the research twisted for a cheap laugh on Saturday Night Live. That led to my first lesson in the power of the media when it comes to aviation safety. It also led me to the concept of the New York Times Test.

The New York Times Test
As I described in a 2009 post on this site, The New York Times is a major new media publication that has influence on other news outlets and on society at large. Based on this first experience with being featured in the newspaper, I came up with the "New York Times Test."

The test is a simple one, you can pass the test if you can answer the following question with a resounding yes. If your words or your deeds end up being featured in the New York Times, could you deal with it? Specifically, could you deal with the kind of scrutiny that happens when your family, friends, colleagues, coworkers, and millions of total strangers suddenly take a keen interest in your work?

Would you be prepared to handle criticism, whether it was deserved or not, whether it was honest and fair or mean-spirited and destructive? Did I mention emotional responses like ridicule and jealousy? Also, don't forget about maybe being lampooned on national television.

The New York Times Test doesn't have to involve the New York Times. Any major and influential media outlet will do if the result is a significant amount of follow-on attention. I can say for certain that I've taken the test twice, the first in 1991, and the second after the ditching of the US Airways A320 in 2009. On that occasion, USA Today provided me with a New York Times Test. A page on the AirSafe.com site discussed the history of intentional ditchings involving large jet airliners, and information from that site was prominently featured in a USA Today article, which it turn generated significant attention and online traffic for AirSafe.com.

The crash of Asiana flight 214
Earlier this month, a different airline accident led to a completely different kind of media experience, one that deserved to have its own name. On Saturday 6 July 2013, Asiana flight 214, a Boeing 777, crashed while attempting to land in San Francisco. This crash, which killed three passengers, was noteworthy and newsworthy for several reasons. Among those reasons were the fact that it was the first fatal crash of a Boeing 777, it was the first fatal US crash of a large jetliner in almost 12 years, and the crash occurred in a major US media market in broad daylight.

Normally this kind of plane crash results in nonstop coverage by all the major cable news outlets, and when this happens I typically receive multiple media requests for comments or interviews within minutes of a crash. I didn't find out about the crash until about 90 minutes after it happened, and checking my phone, I was quite surprised to see that no one in the media had made any calls or sent any emails or text messages since the crash. I suspected that it was due to the crash happening in the middle of a long weekend.

On a four-day weekend the media is on holiday
Because the July 4th holiday fell on a Thursday, the following weekend became a four-day weekend for many in the US, including apparently many in the media. After I found out about the crash, I spent the next half hour reaching out to many of the media contacts in my phone, and it took a while before I got any responses. As it would turn out, the four-day weekend and lack of available on-air experts gave me an opportunity to get on the air, something I had done numerous times in the past, and if the past were any guide, I'd might even have a few minutes of air time on a major cable or broadcast network. I was right about the opportunity, but was completely wrong about the magnitude of that opportunity.

Face to face with the anchor
My typical on-air appearance on a national network show is from a remote studio far from the network's headquarters. In my case, I had a call from CNN, and since I was in New York and CNN is headquartered in Atlanta, I expected this to be the case. I figured I'd be in and out in 30 minutes or less and get maybe two minutes of air time. When I showed up, I was first told the anchor was Don Lemon, and I wanted to know where I'd be doing the remote shot. Then I was told that Don wasn't in Atlanta, he was in New York, and I'd be at the desk with him.

Hearing this, I thought I'd get maybe five minutes of air time before I'd be asked to leave and have some other on-air expert would take over. Five minutes turned to fifteen, and fifteen turned to thirty, and it was clear to me that there were no other experts coming to the studio. Six hours later, I finally left the studio, having had a completely new experience, and a new test named for Don Lemon

The Don Lemon Test
The Don Lemon Test has three elements. The first part is that it is a New York Times Test, a situation where your words or deeds are on on display through a very high profile media outlet. When it comes to major plane crashes, few are higher than live hours-long coverage of a major disaster by CNN. The second part is being live for an extended period of time, which means one has to not only prepare a few relevant comments ahead of time for a few minutes on the air, but to come up with such comments on very short notice, and to do so many times not over a period of minutes but over a period of several hours.

Because of the amount of time I was in the studio, most of which was spent waiting patiently for the action to move in my direction, I was doing something I don't normally do, which is to check email and the web on the set. Normally I cut off my phone to keep from having what I thought was a silenced phone surprise me by ringing at just the wrong time. However, I didn't have that option. I needed to keep up with constantly evolving information about the crash to help me anticipate what issues I may have had to respond to on the air. I could only do so because the last element of this test was in place.

The third element of a Don Lemon Test is that you have to be in the presence of a truly professional communicator like Don Lemon, someone who can deftly present breaking and tragic news to a world audience, while at the same doing so in the presence of someone whom he had never met and who was also not a professional journalist.

My job for those several hours was to remain in a of state of high focus so I could perform the role of an on-air expert and actually say the appropriate things when called upon. That job wA at times stressful, but it was inconsequential compared to what Don Lemon and his crew were dealing with during my six hour stay, and I commend them for a job well done.

It's not about Don Lemon
The Don Lemon Test isn't about Don Lemon, but about the situation. You can pass the test if you can answer the following question: Are you both willing and able, with the help of a team of media professionals, to have your words and deeds scrutinized by a national or even global audience, and do so in a way that will be beneficial to the audience? If the answers is yes, then you pass the test. Having done so once, I would recommend that if you have the opportunity, do plenty of preparation before taking the test, and be ready to deal with the unexpected once the test begins.

How to Check for User Name Availabilty

Problem: You have a great idea for a user name to use on a bunch of social networking services, but you don't want to start signing up for services just to find out that the name was already taken.

Solution: Go to namechk.com to see if the user name or URL you want to use on is available on the more popular social media services. The home page lists dozens of services. You just plug in the name and in seconds you see what's available.

Are You a Manager Looking for Insights into the New Media? - Check Out 'Read This First'

If you are a manager who is trying to get an idea of how the new media (podcasts, Twitter, Facebook, etc.) can help you with marketing, sales, or customer service, then the latest episode my favorite social media podcast, Marketing Over Coffee, may provide an easy to digest introduction. The show featured Ron Ploof, a long time social media expert, and the author of the new book Read This First. You can check out the Marketing Over Coffee episode, or go to Ron's blog RonAmok.com and check out the free audio book chapters.

Three Practical Twitter Tools You Can Use Right Now

One of the great things about Twitter are the many Twitter-related services provided for free by hundreds of providers. Three of them have been particularly useful for the work of AirSafe Media.

Search Twitter at search.twitter.com
This is the top Twitter tool used by AirSafe.com, and is especially useful for fast moving news items. Often Twitter users link to interesting online resources, and often these are excellent sources of information located in obscure areas of the web. Also, because new tweets are indexed almost instantly, you can often find out new information before it shows up on a regular search engine like Google or Bing.

Shortening URLs with bit.ly
This service shortens a URL of any length to one that is about 20 characters long. If you sign up for a free account, you have access to a range of performance information, including how many times your bit.ly link was clicked. If other bit.ly users converted the same URL, then you can see how many clicks happened for all users, and compare how many of them were yours. Drill down some more and you can see things like who retweeted your Twitter post. You can get real time feedback on which of your links are of interest to your audience.

Use Twitterfeed to Combine Your Social Media Efforts
One of the things that Twitter can do for you is to announce new items on things like your blog, podcast, or anything with RSS syndication. With a very small amount of work, your blog posts will automatically be passed along to your Twitter audience.

Previous AirSafe Media Twitter-related Posts
How Twitter is used on AirSafe.com
Associating Twitter with a blog and an automated mailing list
The evolution of social media use on AirSafe.com
Using Twitter during a blackout

12 Things You Can Do to Help Your Favorite Nonprofit

The podcast and blog Marketing Over Coffee has an excellent idea for helping nonprofits--Over 12 days introducing them to marketing related ideas that can help them move forward. Naturally, there is an emphasis on Internet-related activities.

You can visit the blog at MarketingOverCoffee.com and see for yourself. On the first day, they suggested the following:

Introduce them (your favorite nonprofit) to the concept of Twitter (don’t set up an account yet), and work with them to pack the sum of what they do into 140 characters. Typically, non-profits have noble goals but can’t explain them especially well, leaving you with a vague sense that they do something good.

Help your non-profit by developing the following:

1. A mission and/or vision in 140 characters or less.
2. A list of keywords by which other people would find them.
3. Why, in 140 characters or less, someone would donate time or money to them.

I suggest checking out MarketingOverCoffee.com for more ideas, and to put some of these ideas of your own for your favorite nonprofit organization or community group.

Blackouts, Twitter, and Social Media

If you are involved with search engine optimization, or you actively use social media for online marketing, then you are constantly getting exposed to new and different online resources, or trying to figure out different ways to use them to make money or to keep your business moving forward. Sometimes it takes a dramatic event to show us just how useful these tools can be in a totally different situation.

A few weeks ago, the dramatic event for me was a blackout. I was at home late on a weekend night, and the lights suddenly went out. I looked out the window and saw a nearby neighborhood was lit up, so I figured it was a localized blackout. I also figured it wasn't going to be a big local news story, so listening to the radio probably wouldn't give me much information.

The TV and computer were out, but my phone, which had Internet access, was up and running. I suddenly had a wild thought about how to get information on my neighborhood blackout. I'd used Twitter, specifically the search function in Twitter at search.twitter.com, and did a search on my neighborhood's name.

What I found surprised me. There were quite a few people who were using their Blackberrys and iPhones to send Twitter messages to their friends. It was surprising because the area affected by the blackout had about 10,000 residents, but most would not have even had access to the Internet, and only some of them would have had both Twitter accounts and a desire to send out messages.

The number of people using Twitter in my neighborhood was surprising, but the content of the messages were not so surprising. Most of the messages were not very useful, with things like jokes, rumor mongering, and wild speculation about the blackout. In spite of the useless noise, I did find several useful pieces of information, things like links to the power company's web site and Twitter account. Links to the Twitter accounts of local television news organizations, and updates on what blocks were getting back their lights.

So what should you take away from this little story? First, if someone in your family is using Twitter, don't get in their way. If you are thinking about using Twitter, go ahead and check it out. You may actually like it. The service may come in handy one day in ways you can't imagine. Whether you use it or not, check out search.twitter.com. Search it like you would a search engine and look for things that interest you. I've found it very useful for breaking news items. For details, check out a post of mine from another blog that describes how I use Twitter to support my web site AirSafe.com.

Because of this experience, I found out several things I didn't know, such as the fact that local news organizations use Twitter, as does the local electric utility. Next time there's a problem with my electricity, I'll know where to go.

For even more insights into the kinds of social media resources are out there for you to use, check out my list of 10 free social media tools you should try.

Ten Free Social Media Resources You Can Use That Can Benefit You, Your Family, or Your Business

Two of the biggest excuses organizations and individuals have when it comes to using social media applications is that it takes too much time to figure out how to use them and takes too many resources once your start using them. True, some social media applications may take a bit of time to learn, but if you have figured out how to use email and do basic things on the web like find things with a search engine. If you can do that,figuring out most social media applications should be easy.

Cost is not an issue because once you can get online much of the really good stuff is free. At most you need only a personal computer and access to the Internet, and often all you need is online access.

The following ten social media resources are not only free, but should be useful to you in some way, especially if you are trying to make yourself or your organization more visible online. Also listed are the services used to support the AirSafe Media associated site, AirSafe.com.

1. Blogging
Think of a blog as a web site where just about all the work is done for you. You sign in, write something, hit a button, and it is online. If you've thought about starting a web site but have no idea what it takes to do it, a blog is the easiest way to get that experience. Also, if you already have a web site, a blog is an easy way to try quickly try new ideas that may later put on the site. Two of the biggest blog services are Blogger and WordPress. Both of them can get you from login to published blog in less time than a lunch break.
AirSafe.com's Choice: Blogger

2. Micoblogging
This is a stripped down version of a blog, basically little more than a couple of sentences and maybe a link to something online. Examples include Yammer and the much more widely known Twitter. This blogging method that may work best for sending short messages to portable devices like an iPhone or Blackberry, or in conjunction with other resources such as a web site, mailing list, or full sized blog.
AirSafe.com's Choice: Twitter

3. Online File Storage
If you need to share files with one or more colleagues, or you need to access key files from several different computers, and don't want the hassle carrying around a laptop or thumb drive, or emailing files, you can use one of these services to manage your files in a password protected environment.
AirSafe.com's Choice: Airset

4. Photo Sharing and Storage
If you are interested in sharing photos, services like Flickr and Picasa allow you to store photos online, and even giving you the option of allowing others to access them or download them.
AirSafe.com's Choice: Flickr

5. Intelligence Gathering
If you need to find or track some information online, for example monitoring a developing news story or keeping current on a competitor or industry, Google has a service called Google Alerts that will keep track of them for you and send regular email updates when it finds something.
AirSafe.com's Choice: Google Alerts

6. Video Sharing
Some of the millions of user generated videos are published every day may actually be of interest to you. While you may be able to find them using general search engines like Google or Bing, you may have better luck by searching within video sharing sites like YouTube, Metacafe, and LiveLeak. YouTube is by far the biggest, with the greatest variety of content. Also, if have videos that you want to share, you can follow the AirSafe.com example and create a home page withing the site to showcase your videos.
AirSafe.com's Choice: YouTube

7. Social Networking
Facebook and Myspace may be the most well known social networking sites, but a site like LinkedIn is more relevant to working professionals, providing a kind of online resume and biography, and allowing others to see you out and contact you.
AirSafe.com's Choice: LinkedIn

8. Subscribing to Podcasts
There are millions of audio and video podcasts out there that cover a huge range of topics, including a few that would be of interest to you. Both Apple (iTunes) and Microsoft (Zune) distribute free software that allows you to easily manage subscriptons to audio of and video podcasts of every description. The iTunes software also has extensive links to online audio stream of radio stations from around the world.
AirSafe.com's Choice: iTunes

9. Free Phone Calls
Wouldn't it be great if you could use the Internet to call someone long distance, even internationally, without spending any extra money? You can download a program like Skype or Googletalk and talk for free with anyone else who has both a connection to the Internet and who has downloaded the same software.
AirSafe.com's Choice: Skype

10. Social Bookmarking
All web browsers allow you to bookmark favorite pages, but if you use several computers, or even several browsers on the same computer, keeping track of your bookmarkes can be next to impossible. Bookmark sharing resources like Delicious, Digg, and StumbleUpon allow you to create an online account where you can store and manage your bookmarks, and then either make them private and password protected, or make them public and available to anyone.
AirSafe.com's Choice: Delicious

Selected Social Media Applications Used by AirSafe.com
YouTube
Facebook
Twitter
Flickr
Delicious
Podcast (main page)
Podcast (subscription)
Mailing List
Prlog.org (online press releases)
Bird Strike Blog
Crash Video Blog

Next Steps
If you are using none of these services, go ahead and try one of them to see if it can help you out in some way. If you are using one or more of them, leave a comment on this blog post and share your experiences, positive or negative, with using these services.

Using URLs in Your YouTube Description

Social media, which includes a wide range of publishing and communication applications and resources, is a continuously evolving set of practices and technologies. While some aspects are quite technical and beyond the understanding of most who use social media, others aspects are quite simple and obvious once they are pointed out. This post is about something that fits the latter description.

http://www.marketingovercoffee.com/ is an excellent podcast run by a pair of online marketing veterans who regularly hand out simple and effective advice for enhancing anyone's online marketing strategy. One recent tip for YouTube videos where they suggested placing an appropriate URl at the beginning of the description section of a video. YouTube automatically turns a plain URL into an active link, which can then point back to a blog, web site, or other online resource related to the video.

AirSafe.com has had a combination audio and video podcast for several years, with the videos uploaded to YouTube and other video sharing sites. Most of the videos are associated with a particular page on the main web site, and I usually put a URL at the end of the video and the very end of the description. It was a simple matter to log into the account and add that same URL at the beginning of the description.

Before I made this very minor change, only those viewers who went out of their way to open the entire description, or who had the desire to watch the entire video would find the link. Now, even a casual visitor to one of AirSafe.com's YouTube videos will know where to go for more information. Time will tell if this leads to as significantly greater traffic on the web site.

Using Google Alerts to Find Comment Opportunities

There are many ways to use social media to market or promote an online resource like a web site or blog. One of the easiest ways is to leave a comment on another blog or web site. Sometimes major media events that happen to be related to your blog or web site present an easy opportunity to enhance public awareness.

For example, in March 2009, the FAA proposed a rule change that would make it almost impossible for the public to see or analyze the FAA's biggest bird and wildlife strike database. There was heavy media coverage of the event online, in newspapers, and on television. I run several web sites and blogs that deal with bird strikes, so I had a simple three part plan to take advantage of the sudden public attention:

1. Use Google Alerts to find out what news stories were coming out online (I used the search terms [+faa +"bird strike"]).

2. Find the articles with the largest potential audience and either post comments to the article (always mentioning at least one of my bird strike blogs or sites),

3. If an article from a medium to large media organization had contact information for the writer of the story, I'd make a point to contact that person by phone or email and offer to provide information or answer questions.

By letting Google do my research for me, I was able to easily find dozens of opportunities to post comments to articles and use those posts to direct readers to some of my resources. In addition, I also found relevant media contacts that I could help or that could help me later.

AirSafe.com, the New York Times Test, and Flight 1549

Since I launched AirSafe.com in 1996, one of the ways that I generated traffic was to get the attention of mainstream media. Most of the time, success is measured by a link to the site within an online story from a local newspaper or television station. If you visit AirSafe.com's media page at http://www.airsafe.com/pr/articles.htm and the Conversation at AirSafe.com podcast at podcast.airsafe.org, you'll find several of these kinds of articles and interviews.

You may think that an interview on the worldwide radio network of the BBC or a couple of minutes of conversation with Wolf Blitzer on CNN would lead to an avalanche of site visitors. I used to think that way too, until I reviewed the traffic statistics in the days after those events. There are however a few media entities that have consistently a huge effect on AirSafe.com's traffic, and the two that have consistently produced a combination of both high traffic and attention from other media entities are the New York Times and the USA Today.

Based on the role these two publications play, its not much of a surprise. The New York Times is very influential because it often influences what news stories or policy issues are covered by major print, broadcast, and online media organizations both inside and outside the United States. When it comes to commercial aviation, the USA Today is at least as influential as the New York Times. The paper is the one you would most likely see in the hands of an airline passenger (at least in the US), it has an extensive online presence, and the organization has consistently produced comprehensive coverage of major aviation events, especially those that happen in the US.

That influence extends beyond the news world. In 1991, the New York Times published a news article about the result of a research I coauthored with my adviser while a graduate student at MIT. Some time after that, I was watching Saturday Night Live (this was before it got rebranded as SNL) and had the eerie experience of watching my work lampooned on live national television. I don't know if the writing staff decided to try to generate a few laughs after reading the article, but I have to believe that if the story didn't run in the Times, the research would not have been joked about on the show.

Based on that experience, I came up with something I call the "New York Times Test." The test is a simple one, you only have to answer one question--if something that you do ends up being featured in a front page story on the New York Times, could you deal with it? Could you deal with the kind of scrutiny that happens when your family, friends, colleagues, coworkers, and millions of total strangers suddenly take a keen interest in your work? Would you be able to stand the criticism, whether it was deserved or not, whether it was honest and fair or mean spirited and destructive? For me, it happened twice, and I'm happy to say that I passed the test both times.

Last week, I took a variation on the New York Times Test when the USA Today featured part of my site in a page two story the day after the ditching related accident involving US Airways Flight 1549 (the night before, I'd had a hurried cell phone conversation with the reporter who interviewed me while I was negotiating rush hour traffic). The story, which mentioned that the crash was only the fourth time that a jet airliner had ditched, came out on Friday, but I didn't realize it was printed until Sunday. I may have seen the story earlier, since I bought the paper that day, but I was way too busy dealing with the aftermath of the accident.

What tipped me off was multiple emails with the following kind of message--"Hey Todd, you missed one, what about the time airline XYZ had a plane crash in the water." To make a long story short, I didn't miss any and I didn't have to change any of the accident data on the site. AirSafe.com had always had a specific set of criteria for calling an event a ditching. However, prior to all the attention generated in part by USA Today, I had never felt the need to explicitly state on the site what definition I was using. After last week, I saw the need, and you can see my definition at http://airsafe.com/events/define.htm.

It wasn't a classic "New York Times Test" because it was neither a New York Times story or even a front page story. However, it certainly generated the kind of attention for the site that a front page story in the Times would generate. If you want to see what was written, check out the article, which was reprinted as a sidebar story on one of the USA Today's online pages about the accident.

After last week's experience, I've decided that the "New York Times Test" is still a valid test, but it doesn't have to involve a front page story on the New York Times. On today's Internet, you don't even need a media organization to make the test happen. It could be a YouTube video, a blog post, or some combination of online information services that may take your work from obscurity to prime time in a matter of hours. This test has many of the elements of a common nightmare of college freshmen--you can't study for the test, you can't predict if or when it will happen, and you may not even know that you're taking the test until after it has started. My only advice is that if you find yourself in the middle of the test, be prepared for an experience.