Dino Baskovic Can’t Lose

ESPN blogs about the Tribe Social Deck, an experiment to drum up excitement (with apologies to John Adams) and boost attendance for Cleveland Indians home games.

The idea is to select Tribe fans that will gladly trade their score cards for press credentials in anticipation that they will cover games online and generate positive buzz. Even though the Indians could stand for more wins than bloggers, it's a worthwhile experiment that costed their PR team virtually nothing to produce.

Being a Cleveland boy myself, it will interest me to see how the Tribe Social Deck plays out. At least one local blogger and the Waiting For Next Year site have sounded off, and I wonder if other sports venues will follow suit.

For now, my Tribe is four games behind the Twins in the AL Central. Tweets are great, but so are stats.

Photo by Tim Samoff

My mind is swirling with ideas lately, moreso than normal.  I go to bed dreaming up all manner of hair-brained schema, theorems and mousetraps.  And, when my conscious least suspects, the ultimate escape-from-reality plan.  Should any of you find yourselves wanting to part with a prototype RAH-66 Comanche and a gorilla that can mix drinks, then Skype me.  No questions asked.

I am toying with writing my first book, submitting to The Rapidian -- a new hyperlocal in Grand Rapids, Michigan -- and testing a new online strategy for myself.  Yes, that whole personal branding thing that I'm trying to give its fair shake.  In short, sharpening the proverbial blade that will reach far beyond blogging.  Killing two birds with one stone, I want to get those lost manuscripts locked up in my noggin and put them onto paper.  Make that a Kindle.

Getting published has been a big deal for me ever since I was faculty at Lawrence Tech near Detroit.  Not like it was "publish or perish" for us lowly adjuncts but I nonetheless felt a wee bit of pressure.  I taught web design for eight years and felt it necessary on occasion to edit a textbook, do some interviews, score a byline or two.  Looks good on a CV and gets me on stage once in a blue moon. 

I figured a better fit would be to write for web design-related sites such as SitePoint and WebMonkey that I naturally plugged in my syllabus.  Proving grounds for technical articles, POV pieces on best practices and code examples.  I'll be damned if I ever got around to any of that.

So when this hit my inbox earlier today, I was thrilled that SitePoint remembered I still had an account:

So maybe SitePoint's no longer the best fit for me.  Nor is WebMonkey, though I still need that gorilla.  I bet I can find something to write about.  It might be business, but it may be bacon.  Or bologna.  Even baloney. 

Either way, drop me a line if you have some insights and Skype hasn't yet deactivated your unused credits.  I can't promise every piece I write will be riveting, but it's better than letting my works get rusty.

Earlier this month, I recast varying viewpoints pertaining to the disconnect between newspapers and their readers, the much-discussed "death" of mainstream media and an increased trend in journalists staking their claim in seed funding.

Mashable recently highlighted Editors Unleashed, a website devoted to wannabe indie publishers that feel the itch of entrepreneurism when their former desk assignment is eliminated or, in the case of Conde Nast's Portfolio, their entire news op goes the way of FuckedCompany.com.  These aspiring Arianna Huffingtons go for broke, learning the ins and outs of starting a business and staying afloat, all the while bracing for the roller coaster ride that is adapting to the social media news cycle (read: five minutes ago).

Former journos from Forbes (who I don't believe was ready for all the attention) on down are offering first-hand tips on taking their tickler files to the streets.  Perhaps this will help "real" stringers to restore order to the Wild West that can often times be citizen journalism.

Also worth noting: the site favors WordPress as the CMS of choice.  Django is worth a look as well, but for an old WordPress coot like me, that was welcome news.

No comment.  None needed:

Kudos to Wondergem PR and West Michigan PRSA for putting this together.  Moreso to Grand Rapids media for being candid on camera.

Opening drive.  First and 10 at the 35. 

Hewlett-Packard PR takes the snap and goes into motion:

The New York Times Bits Blog opens up the line:

Andreessen should add some entrepreneurial thinking to HP's board. http://bit.ly/N5Xhz ^VG

HP peddles right, then left, then right again:

RT @nytimesbits: Andreessen should add some entrepreneurial thinking to HP's board. http://bit.ly/N5Xhz ^VG

Bits Blog blitzes for the sack:

Odd to be retweeted by @hpnews on a news release from HP.

HP drops back and throws long:

@nytimesbits we liked your commentary, hence the retweet...thx!

Pass is incomplete.

I'd solicit Megan Taylor for her resume, if that wasn't such an embarrasing thing to ask for these days.  That's what LinkedIn is for.

Ms. Taylor (I don't know her personally, so I'll default to formal) is the the type of candidate that would play well with the other kiddies in my own corporate sandbox.  That being, a PR department that mixes business with social media.  It's hard to find folks that know web, journalism and communications, those that are solid writers, designers and developers and can actually think, well you know, strategically.

Her resume lists the following skillsets:

AP Style and news editing, HTML, XHTML, XML, CSS, Flash and ActionScript, beginning PHP, JavaScript, AJAX, content management and online community management, audio/video editing, Adobe applications, Windows, Mac OS, Microsoft Office, Final Cut Pro, fluent in Spanish

I used to laugh heartily at resumes that laundry-listed talents like this, moreso when I would read job postings for triple-majors that "must know three dozen programming languages, usability, information architecture, art and architecture, landscape architecture, gardening, needle-point and can bowl a perfect 300 game."  Then again, a four-year college degree these days is the new high school diploma...

More on Ms. Taylor and why she caught my eye.  She's interned for Quinn and The Miami Herald, as well as blogs for Poynter and PBS.  Not too shabby.  Her latest blog post entitled "In Search of the Perfect Skillset for a Programmer/Journalist" really hits home.  I, too, am one of those oddball, cross-bred communicators that can both code and copywrite while standing on my head.  What a rush.  It's what got me started in PR, doing freelance web and at one time, teaching both.  I owe my (near) success to my chosen career path, and when I'm not knee-deep in budget or crying over my lost Facebook account, I have a moment to myself to blog.

"In Search of" highlights practitioners of what Ms. Taylor refers to as "computer-assisted reporting" or CAR.  In short, CAR is a relatively new concept, seemingly driven by investigative online reporting and the proliferation of citizen journalists who can tweet train wrecks faster than your average multinational media conglomerate.  The post further explains that CAR types (I'll call 'em that) should have a fair amount of front-end design, LAMP stacking and geomapping under their belt, and throw on some Flash and Final Cut Pro to boot.  Oh, and lest we forget: content management, publishing, editing, writing and the basic tenets of credible and ethical journalism.  (I'll assume she implied that last part.)

The upside to CAR, from my point of view, is that you would most likely be the smartest and most capable member of the newsroom/startup/coffee shop.  You know that much.  The downside?  You probably won't get paid that much.  It discourages me to think that an entry-level CAR type, even with glowing references and a stellar portfolio, may only fetch $40K-60K/year.  Maybe less.  Just five year ago, that number would be double.  And we didn't have fancy web frameworks or a plethora of Web 2.0 widgets at our disposal (read: to learn and try not to break).

I'd be curious to learn more about CAR and whether PR types (like me) should be mindful.  Even more intriguing, what your run-of-the-mill CAR type makes in a year, or per blog post, etc.

And Ms. Taylor, if you're reading: love the resume.  How do you feel about Grand Rapids?

It's frightening to think that editors and publishers actually think that readers would switch to dead trees if yourfavoritenewspaper.com suddenly vanished, or at least started charging for content.  API's numbers unremarkably show otherwise:

With so much alt media in the wild, I can only chalk this up to the death throes of the old guard facing the new.

Print journalism isn't a complete goner--yet.  Nor are micropayments a messiah.  Still, it's hard to fathom why the gray beards can't get with the times.  They've had well over a decade to refigure revenue.  The Journal never once complained.  Politico thrived.  I'll go so far as to credit Arianna Huffington, and I can't stand Arianna Huffington.

Look, I don't care how I get my news.  Just give it to me good and plenty.  I'd even pay for microfiche.

Short deck on PR social media basics from Jason Kintzler, CEO and founder of PitchEngine:

Somewhat self-serving, but nonetheless a pretty lil' primer.  If you still don't get why the traditional model is dead after this deck, then quit PR.