I’ve spoken with folks who have great insight into how and why the spill happened and what’s going on now with the clean-up. I’ve taken a TON of photos of both BP and spill-related items as well as historic New Orleans and Gulf Coast sights.

And I’m looking forward to the week ahead. If you’ve got questions about the coverage. If you’ve got comments you want to share. If you think your organization wants to create its own Informational Road Trip*. Leave all those thoughts in the comments here and I’ll get back to you.

*An iRoadTrip is NOT a PR blitz. It is a content-creation journey to an event, through an area, during a calendar period – and the content created by Jeff Cutler and team is unbiased and journalistic. It includes the entire gamut of media and requires a real commitment. If your company or organization is unsure that it wants to engage its audience in this way, or if you’re afraid of what the world might say about your products and services, then stay away. iRoadTrip projects show the good, the bad and the ugly behind brands and events. In most cases, the news is good and the response is positive, but this isn’t an easy way to get Google juice. It’s a strategic and professional way to share your company’s workings with the planet. Still with me? Send an email to jeff@jeffcutler.com and we can chat about specifics.

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Post tags: #iroadtrip, bp oil spill, commonground, content creation, ioilspill, Jeff Cutler, new orleans

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The description of that assignment and my regular updates can be found at commonground environmental consultants’ community site.

In the 24 hours I’ve been down here in New Orleans, I’ve had an epiphany about the environment and how governments protect it. Essentially, they (and a great deal of other people) are short-sighted to the detriment of our planet. I’m not a tree-hugger or a hiker or someone who obeys the water-on-the-odd-days rules. But I do like to have a planet to float around the galaxy on. And I’m fairly fond of air to breathe. So this realization that governments and bureaucracy are screwing up the globe was a little shocker.

Here’s my train of thought….try to keep up. And by all means, correct me if I’m off-base.

Pedicabs are being done wrong. If you can take a regular taxi across town for $6 and a pedicab driver expects to get paid $20 for the same ride, there’s an issue. I think the city should subsidize the environmentally friendly modes of transport so pedicab rides are free, but drivers still make a living.

Scooters are not the problem, parking shortsightedness is. Increasingly in my town there are people who are angry at scooters for taking up a full parking spot. Well, the government mandates that scooters must occupy a full space. That’s the law. So if you want – as most scooter owners do – to allow scooter owners to park out of the way, on the sidewalk or in designated safe areas, don’t honk at the scooters, yell at your legislators.

Electric cars should be free…or at least cheaper. But right now if you want to buy an electric car, you have to pay a premium. Until the powers that be decide they really want to embrace environmentalism, there won’t be real incentives for regular folks to purchase clean vehicles because they cost as much as sports cars. I’m gonna just buy a cool car with my money if it costs me more to get a dorky-looking electric vehicle. Don’t tax me for wanting to be green.

And finally, close off the center of cities like they do in European countries. Seriously. If it costs money to go into the city in your car, people will find a way to get there via other means. These other means will likely be more green and then will turn the commuting model on its head in this country. Maybe some day we’ll all be on high-speed, clean and FREE trains.

Do you have thoughts on the environment? Please share. I’m still learning, so I’d like to learn from you.

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Post tags: commonground, edr, Hampton Inn, ioilspill, Jeff Cutler, new orleans

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If you read it the way I intend you to, you’ll enjoy the sarcasm and irony in that statement/headline. You see, the written word – whether it shows up on parchment or laptop or phone – is subject to forces beyond the writer’s control.

These include, but aren’t limited to, perception, preconcieved ideas, personal bias and current state of mind. That’s why so many business professionals try to use the phone or face-to-face meetings when clarity is critical.

Unfortunately, writing is far more expedient in some cases for sharing thoughts with a global audience or for just clearing your metaphorical throat. It’s in these cases that writers should use the novelist’s trick of setting aside a tome for at least one night before submitting it.

In this, I failed recently. I spent some time typing out my thoughts – in diary or journal style – and then published them instead of editing or sitting on them.

I won’t give details, but the stuff I wrote could have been clearer and my tone could have been softer. For a communications pro who prides himself on knowing how an audience will respond to a message, this was a #fail.

It was also a fail in terms of personal relationships. So, my words of warning to anyone who might want to share their personal feelings in public…think about the public you’re sharing with and how they might respond to your words.

As another genius once said, “Not everything that can be counted, counts. And not everything that counts can be counted.”

Have you ever sent an email or wrote a blog post you wanted back?

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Post tags: genius, miscommunication, sarcasm, social media

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but it’s appropriate today because of the following…

1 – Turner Fisheries – one of my favorite places – is having difficulty responding to their messages on Twitter. I’ve been trying to DM them, but as you know a direct message can only be sent to the people who are following you. I’m judiciously waiting for this snafu, technical or operator-error related, to be resolved. What’s the urgency? Well, I was at Turner’s last week and the service in the bar area left me wanting to share some comments with management. Sharing is hard when people aren’t listening. It’s taken me two days just to get Turners to respond to messages sent to them via social media.

2 – Zoom Products specifically the Zoom H2 I currently use have failed me. Not completely. Not in a malicious way. But in a way that made me want to finally share the story here. It’s in two parts. Hold on, I’ll give the short versions of each part.

a – I tried to contact the company last fall for review products and was roundly ignored. Never mind that I’m a professional journalist who covers the consumer tech industry and that other devices are making inroads on Zoom’s turf. They obviously didn’t hear me. (To the company’s credit, their agency of record was responsive…to a degree, but I still don’t have an eval unit in front of me.)

b - While doing an interview yesterday, my formerly trusty Zoom H2 (not a review unit, bought because it seriously is the best recorder for the money on the market) didn’t do as good a job recording my interview subject as I had hoped. I still sound glorious, but the guy I’m interviewing sounds like he’s doing a Houdini trick in a closet, with a gag on, in a neighboring town. I may have had my levels too low. Or I may have not held the mic close enough to his mouth. Or maybe he’s one of those low-talkers. Whatever the case, it’s just some more ‘hear-me-now’ pain.

So what can I do about these two things? Especially given that I’m swimming in a fishbowl of social media and technical detritus that often compels me to be stubborn about how I contact people? Do I break down and dig for the Turner Fisheries phone number and give them a call? Do I do the same with Zoom’s people?

Or do I hope they’re better at listening for their own name out in the ether than they are at addressing specific consumer issues? If I link to their sites one would presume that Google Alerts would alert them to this article. To me it’s a puzzle.

So many companies are hot to get into social media. They fret about having a Facebook page or reaching out to people on Twitter. But if your customers are elsewhere, then there’s no need for you to pretend to be here. And if you do forge a path into a social media space – you’d better be there when people reach out to you with social-media tools.

Just my opinion, but 21 years of communicating with readers, colleagues and clients—with tools as varied as construction paper, hand signals and Tweets—has given me a little understanding into what consumers/customers are looking for.

It also doesn’t hurt that I’m a customer too and putting on that hat suits me just fine too.

What do you think about how people communicate these days? And what would you advise based on my simple descriptions above? Do I call Turners? Do I write a complete blog post on the details of that day?

What about Zoom? Do I give them another chance or vow never to write about any product they have until the end of time? For Zoom it might not matter. While I might only be writing for NPR, Technology Review, the New York Post and MobileMag.com, it might make sense for them to sit up and pay attention.

Makes me wonder.

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Post tags: Boston, CEA, CES, customer service, Jeff Cutler, technology review, zoom

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