Holtz Communications + Technology

Paul Argenti’s excellent keynote talk at the IABC Research Foundation luncheon today included a few references to social media, but mainly these addressed the impact of social media on public perceptions of organizations. When he spoke about corporate communication, he spoke specifically about an organization’s effort’s to communicate to constituencies, never about communicating with them. I don’t have a huge problem with this; after all,…

I was supposed to be a guest speaker at a meeting on the East Coast last Friday. I was invited by PodCamp founder John Havens, who set up a BlogTalk Radio connection. The group waited for me, but I suffered a computer crash (the first—and still the only—since installing Vista). The dial-in number was on my computer, and by the time I got back…

I’ve been pondering the “ghost-blogging” debate for some time, listening (via podcasts) and reading (via blogs) the growing chorus of voices that proclaims ghost-blogging an acceptable and legitimate practice. People I respect are among those who argue…

• A good ghost writer can convey the intent and the personality of his or her subject.
• The best analogy for good ghost blogging is signing for the deaf, which…

A recurring theme here at the New Communications Forum (in Las Vegas) is the value of corporate websites. Speakers from David Weinberger to John Bell (from Ogilvy PR) have reiterated the point: People will search Google and engage in the blogosphere to find out what’s what with a company before they visit the company’s website. Even if they do visit the company…

In another display reinforcing the idea that JetBlue understands how to communicate in a crisis, CEO David Neeleman has produced a video and had it uploaded to YouTube. Neeleman doesn’t read—in fact, he comes across as very human with a lot of “umms” as he speaks off-the-cuff, probably from a simple outline of things he wanted to cover.

In the video, Neeleman addresses steps…

I had removed this post initially because Dominic Jones—whom I still think is one of the more knowledgeable IR people I’ve ever read—told me I was making a fool of myself by posting it. I didn’t want this blog to be the source of inaccurate information.

From the standpoint of the current regulation, though, Dominic (in a comment to this post) wrote, “For what…