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Telltale Signal that Social Networking has Become Mainstream

Online social networking was the subject of two articles in Wednesday's Chicago Tribune. That has to be a clear signal that the entire concept is going mainstream.

1. The business section sported a feature with inventive artwork about the use of social networking by charities to raise funds from young people. The feature by Wailin Wong was headlined, "How non-profits are using social networking to raise money and awareness: Charities see potential in tapping young Web users to promote their causes online."

2. In the lifestyle section, called "Tempo," columnist Steve Johnson's piece was headlined, "All praises to social networks." Johnson writes Tempo's "Hypertext" column on using the web.

Online PR Featured in New Issue of Canright Communicates

Introducing: Canright Communicates for November-December, 2007.

We feature Barbara Rozgonyi, founder of CoryWest Media and blogger at Wired PR Works, who I introduced earlier. And a how-to piece on putting more interactivity into PDFs. Our milestones include showing off an ad for Blackman Killick atop the new Crain's Chicago Business list of largest accounting firms.

There's also a "web-only" piece -- as the MSM say -- that expands the discussion with Barbara Rozgonyi into blogging itself, as opposed to the wider topic of Online PR.

And no issue would be complete without the ever-popular Canright team's reading/watching/listening/viewing suggestions.

Blog Council Forms, Adding More Web 2.0 Power to Chicago

It was cool to read about establishment of the Blog Council in Brad Spirrison's "Tech Matters" column in today's Chicago Sun-Times. The Blog Council (created by Chicago's Andy Sernovitz, who founded the Word of Mouth Marketing Association three years ago) is a roundtable, and an exclusive one at that, for large corporations with major blogging presence. It's a place to share ideas with people in similar positions.

I get that. But some of the biggest and most respected names in blogging are skeptical. Being present as vendors seems to be the problem. And the necessity for the new organization in the face of so many other blogging organizations and conferences is also an objection. European blogger Nicole Simon wrote a great wrapup of the debate.

I guess I get it because I've been there. As I wrote in my comment to Simon's article, the situation reminds me of the National Council of State Housing Agencies. During five years as marketing director for the Indiana Housing Finance Authority, I participated in several NCSHA conferences. We had little problem keeping some discussions to ourselves, and no problem having vendors in other discussions. And the hundreds of vendors help to pay for the organization, which is the voice of state housing agencies on affordable housing policy in Washington.

In the world of old-line public relations, at least in the U.S., it's also analogous to the different missions of PRSA and the Council of Public Relations Firms, an association of the big guns. Moreover, if more major companies blog, more of the middle-market and smaller companies will also blog. And that's a tide that lifts all boats.

It's Okay. U.S. Steel Didn't Expect an Invite to Al Gore's Nobel Prize Acceptance Speech

Today is the day former U.S. Vice President Al Gore accepts the Nobel Peace Prize in Oslo, Norway, for his work to alert the world to the dangers of global warming.

Yesterday, the Chicago Tribune carried a report about three heavy-duty polluters on Chicago's doorstep in Northwest Indiana -- and on the shores of Lake Michigan, too. The three facilities are U.S. Steel Gary Works, Mittal Steel USA Indiana Harbor West (East Chicago), and BP Products North America Whiting.

Two of the companies took the not-entirely-welcome-but-documented environmental reporting by the newspaper in stride. But the third company seems to have a wee victim complex, seeing the Tribune as a persecutor, to wit:

In response to questions, BP and Mittal said they have steadily reduced pollution from their facilities. U.S. Steel spokesman John Armstrong sent a one-sentence e-mail declining comment and accusing the Tribune of "malicious misreporting and journalistic terrorism."

You know, "denial" is a river in Egypt, and all that jazz.

(cross-posted to Those "I" States)

Who's on First? Some Copy Editor at the Trib, that's Who

Best headline of the week:

"It can snow in Chicago? Who knew?"

That was the main headline on the Chicago Tribune's coverage of the first of two less-than-blockbuster snowstorms this week.

There ya go.

Which Came First - The New Employee or the New Employee's Blog?

It's a joy to see the devotion of cutting-edge companies like Cisco to a cutting-edge panoply of blogs.

But I had to chuckle when I read the Chicago Sun-Times story about Padmasree Warrior, age 47, who on Monday departed Illinois' Motorola, where she was chief technology office, to take up the same post at California's Cisco.

Howard Wolinsky reported on Tuesday in the CS-T that Ms. Warrior made the move on Monday. He added this: "In her personal blog at Cisco, she said: 'It is an exciting time to join Cisco. Cisco is the company whose leadership legacy defines ‘The Network’ in many ways. Today, it is a company driving many new paradigms in communications and information technology. In the future, it will be a company poised to lead the industry to the next phase of Internet.'"

Now, that's speed! She leaves on Monday and has a blog post on Tuesday. Kudos! (Here's the link.)

Chicago's Sun-Times and Tribune Show Their Stripes This Sunday

You've got to hand it to competition. Chicago's two dailies today showed why in rollng out their Sunday best. The newly redesigned Sun-Times tabloid and the nationally under-appreciated Tribune reached to their strengths in their main news sections.

It helps that there's no compelling spot-news story that competed successfully for the front page of either paper, forcing both to show their hands in enterprise copy.

The Sun-Times gave us this front-page grabber: "The party's over, Jerry / You owe $29,627! / Chicago's top parking violators / Sun-Times special report." The package is about the 20 top parking offenders, who combined owe the city in excess of $700,000. Could there be a mlre local local local topic for the Sun-Times, whose neew motto, in speaking of Chicago, implores "Let's get into it."

Meanwhile, the Tribune covered this hemisphere literally from top to bottom. The front page feature package was on BP oil's big infrastructure challenges. The story and photos come from Trib staffers who traveled to Deadhorse, Alaska, to cover a visit to the Prudhoe Bay oil operations by Robert Malone, BP's top executive in North America. About the only place in Alaska further north than Deadhorse is Barrow. (And the newspaper's staff has visited there, too, recently.)

Meanwhile, to the opposite tip of the Americas, not far from Cape Horn, another Tribune reporter was in place to profile the city of Ushuaia, Argentina. Billing itself as the End of the World, Ushuaia's 55,000 residents are building a booming tourist trade as a center for adventure travel including embarkations for the relatively short trip to Antartica.

Lest you think the broadsheet forgets its origins, I should note that the front page also includes profiles of a South Side charter school and the excitement of a Mexican soccer star taking up residence here to play for the Chicago Fire pro soccer team. And the BP story notes that BP is big here because it purchased Chicago-based Amoco in 1999, and because problems at BP's huge refinery in Whiting, Ind., are lerading directly to Illinois having the nation's highest gasoline prices.

Home is never far away to any newspaper.