Take the situation in Tampa Bay, Florida, in which the St. Petersburg Times has a long history of investigative stories about the locally-based Church of Scientology. From a traditional journalistic standpoint [...]]]> The age of new media means that anyone can publish. That much we know. But the full implications of this switch are just becoming clear.

Take the situation in Tampa Bay, Florida, in which the St. Petersburg Times has a long history of investigative stories about the locally-based Church of Scientology. From a traditional journalistic standpoint this is good work. The Times has an extensive record of ethical reporting and its standards are some of the best in the industry. No one questions the work they do.

Well, except for the Church of Scientology, which took exception to the whole idea. Twenty years ago the church probably would have fought any allegations in the Times through legal means or by undertaking a media-relations campaign aimed at other publications. Maybe they would have opened up their doors to a local TV news program or asked their members to bring friends as a grass roots effort.

But in today's world they did something very interesting: they turned the Times reporting tactics on the Times. First reported by Howard Kurtz at the Washington Post, the news has spread quickly, with most stories asking whether this is a good idea.  It's not like the church is a neophyte in the journalistic world. They've had a publication called Freedom for some time.

It seems that the Church of Scientology knew what it was doing when it picked its reporters. It didn't pick just anyone, but people with great credentials including a reporter who won a Pulitzer Prize, the former executive director of Investigative Reporters and Editors and a former producer for the venerable TV program "60 Minutes."

The St. Petersburg Times didn't answer questions and pretty much stonewalled the whole process. Their defense was pretty simple: this wasn't journalism it was a hatchet job from a biased party. Of course, the church has made similar allegations against the Times. But is this particular piece a hatchet job? The reporters themselves took the job pretty seriously. Steve Weinberg, the executive director mentioned above, told Kurtz that he put $5000 in his bank account to play the role of editor and "tried to make sure it's a good piece of journalism criticism, just like I've written a gazillion times. . . . For me it's kind of like editing a Columbia Journalism Review piece." But he continued that this wasn't your normal reporting job: "It certainly wouldn't be something just any reporter would do. My role was more limited, and I can certainly use the money these days."

Ah yes, the money, the journalists got theirs up front, by the way. When the jobs came open True/Slant pointed it out, and asked openly whether a journalist should take the gig, but ended with "work is work." Journalistic organizations are laying off quality reporters by the truckload. At the same time, companies need content to attract readers to their blogs, Websites, Facebook pages, Twitter feeds or anything else that takes a feed. Journalists are people with skills who need to eat. If their skills aren't appreciated in the traditional journalism industry, they'll just make a move. Wouldn't you?

Oddly, in a comment on the True/Slant post, Steve Weinberg himself weighed in (first), saying "Recently, an experienced investigative journalist who has found it difficult to conduct his work because of the economic downturn asked me if he should apply for the Scientologists’ opening. I told him no, even though I like to see superb investigative reporting no matter who is funding it. More than any other existing organization that comes to mind, the Scientologists have been so hostile to outside journalists that I cannot see crossing the line to accept employment there. But I told my acquaintance that I’m speaking only for myself. After all, for some folks, work is indeed work, as the T/S posting by Matt Stroud says."

I guess "work is work" trumps his fears about the Church of Scientology. Or maybe he told his buddy "no" because he needed the work himself.

But the question still remains: is this particular effort really journalism? The journalists who worked on the report certainly think so, though the critics have their knickers in a knot about the whole thing. They're asking weighty questions like "what does this mean for the industry?" Although, I'm curious how loudly they'd ask those questions when the pinkslip lands on their desk and they're forced to find new jobs.

My personal problem with the actions of the Church of Scientology aren't in what they did, but what they're not doing. They're not releasing the reporting. That's what journalism is all about, shining a light into the darkest corners of society. It's not just about finding those places, but about turning on the light and letting the world see it. The Church isn't releasing the reporting.

If you're going to create content, then let's see it.

This divide isn’t new and frankly, it’s not going to end any time soon. In the past I’ve been asked to design training programs only to find that some people [...]]]> LaunchCamp divided pretty easily into two camps, companies and executives who:

1. Understand social networking technologies inherently; and
2. Know they need to do something, but are not sure what.

This divide isn’t new and frankly, it’s not going to end any time soon. In the past I’ve been asked to design training programs only to find that some people within an organization understand social technologies and concepts very well and wanted to move on beyond the basics. Then there are those who are still figuring out how to sign up for a Twitter account or maybe have just dipped their toe into Facebook.

With this type of audience one size never fits all.

But for LaunchCamp it wasn’t just a division among individuals as Isis Maternity Community Manager Cindy Meltzer noted during our recent conversation. It could also be felt in corporate culture.

During the startup panel it became apparent that most tech-based companies being founded today are steeped in social networking tools. Not just because the founders are young, in fact their ages run the spectrum, but because the genesis for their ideas come from first understanding social networking. In other words: the aspect of marketing that takes conversation into account is built in. It’s part of their DNA.

Jules Pieri, CEO of the Daily Grommet

Take the example of the Daily Grommet. When moderator David Beisel asked about how much each company spent on launch marketing, the answer came back as nothing. Though, as Jules will tell you, it was nothing EXTRA. Frankly, marketing is baked into the idea of “Citizen Commerce,” which is the idea that the customers drive the direction of the products featured each day. This isn’t a one-way system of “we produce, you buy” but community conversation of “we find what you want.”

Since the community members are, by nature, excited by the products they’re more likely to take action and talk about them.

The same goes for Runkeeper, which factored sharing right into the product. From the start the idea wasn’t only to use a mobile device to track your routes and save information about you, but to share that information with your friends. By doing that you are, in fact, sharing the product you’re using. If friends want to share back they need to get that product too. The viral nature is built in, not tacked on later.

By contrast I hear from companies that have traditional business models and are looking for a way to build social networking into their marketing programs. This isn’t a bad thing (in fact, it’s great) but it’s also just the start.

To truly engage in this world each company must look beyond their marketing departments and find their communities, then use the tools to engage them. After all, that’s how new companies are finding their way.

Since the Twitter spam seems to be getting out of control, here are a few basic rules:

If you're currently doing business with us, you'll get a note shortly with the details. [...]]]> Fresh Ground Communications is now officially Fresh Ground, Inc. Yes, we're incorporated (but we'll keep the same logo for the time being)! Same great team, same great services (with more coming soon), but now we have room to grow even more!

If you're currently doing business with us, you'll get a note shortly with the details. If you're not, well, why aren't you?

Snow shows don't exist much anymore, but back then when a big storm came to town we'd do "wall-to-wall coverage" of this snow event. We'd put reporters [...]]]> My previous life found me in the news rooms and control rooms of various Boston TV stations producing the days' news. And yes, I produced the occasional snow show.

Snow shows don't exist much anymore, but back then when a big storm came to town we'd do "wall-to-wall coverage" of this snow event. We'd put reporters on highways and in emergency bunkers. They'd stand out on street corners and on beaches. We'd jump from live-shot to live-shot warning viewers to stay in side, make some hot chocolate and continue watching our coverage.

On one level this was born out of public service. Following the Blizzard of '78, everyone in Boston knows that snow can be dangerous and being in it can cause problems. So TV found itself in a great situation of having a positive message that actually brought in viewers (and advertisers).

Also, people just love talking about the weather. So when you put snow coverage at the top of the newscasts and warn people of a pending storm, it brings in viewers. Will they cancel school? Will I make my flight? Can I skip work and justify a day in my jammies watching wall-to-wall snow coverage of fools in the snow while sipping hot chocolate?

The danger here is pretty simple. You become the boy who cried wolf.

Predicting the weather isn't easy. In fact, it's downright hard. The problem is that the TV stations promote their weather forecasts as accurate, so when they turn around and say "oops, we got it wrong" it erodes the trust they've built with the audience.

Right now I'm sitting in my kitchen and watching the snow NOT come down. Sure, more may come later, but my school district closed schools early today. Men and women who normally would be working had to take time off to get their kids. Kids who would be in school weren't and really, for what? A 1/4 inch of slush? This is Boston, we can handle that.

I don't mind being prepared, but TV stations please don't throw us into a panic. Because when you really do have a warning and it's something we should worry about, we won't.

After some introductory remarks, John Wall of Marketing Over Coffee fame kicked things off by sharing his insight on the Three Factors of Startup Success:

After John's presentation, we shared some popular YouTube videos with [...]]]> Please find below the video from last Thursday's LaunchCamp Boston 2010. We'll collect all the slides from speakers and post them shortly.

After some introductory remarks, John Wall of Marketing Over Coffee fame kicked things off by sharing his insight on the Three Factors of Startup Success:

After John's presentation, we shared some popular YouTube videos with the audience that helped folks understand the history and state of social media. First up was a history lesson by Brett Borders:

Next we watched the Social Media Revolution video from Socialnomics:

Finally, to help folks understand that companies both large and small can become social, we watched an interview of Scott Monty by David Meerman Scott:

Next up among our presenters was Jeff Cutler on the first of the Three Cs of Social (Content):

Following Jeff were Jim Storer and Rachel Happe of The Community Roundtable on the second of the three Cs of social: Community (naturally):

Last up for the morning Social Media Breakfast Briefing was Doug Haslam, who spoke on the last of the Three Cs of social: Conversation:

After a break for lunch and networking, Mike Troiano kicked off the afternoon LaunchCamp sessions with an excellent session on scalable intimacy:

Our entrepreneurial panel discussion was moderated by David Beisel of Venrock, and featured success stories from Jules Pieri (Daily Grommet), Ja-nae Duane, Jason Jacobs of Fitness Keeper and Raj Aggarwal of Localytics:

After the first panel, Dharmesh Shah shared with us his advice on sales 2.0:

Our last panel discussion was moderated by Paul Gillin, and featured a discussion on PR and marketing with Julie Hall, Carol McGarry, Bobbie Carlton:

Unfortunately, we didn't have the disk space or battery power to capture the afternoon breakout sessions on video -- you just had to be there, or watching the livestream. As mentioned, we'll be sharing the slides with folks separately.