Jeff Cutler – columns, essays and opinions

Talk to a normal human and ask them how much of their day-to-day activity is controlled by Twitter, Facebook and other social media tools. They’ll likely back away from you slowly while offering you a nice tinfoil hat to wear.

This response isn’t because you’re crazy – or because anyone who leverages, relies on or works solely with social media is foolish or ill-informed. It’s because a lot of the world still doesn’t pay attention to or understand the ways in which social media tools can be used.

I usually tell a story during my SPJ trainings. It pertains to how everyone should approach Twitter…with no expectations. This is because you can never tell if anyone is listening before you foist a message upon them. The story goes like this…

One day in Boston, a couple friends and I decided to go get coffee after filming an episode of NomX3. We thought that Starbucks made good coffee and agreed to walk to the local ‘Bucks for a cuppa. While walking down the street, I Tweeted out “Going to Starbucks near Borders in Downtown Crossing – join us!” That message got one taker and the gentleman who saw it showed up and we all enjoyed marvelous conversation and beverages.

But the point of this man’s appearance was what he told us when he showed up.

“Guys,” he said. “I almost missed your message. I had Twitter open on my screen and had just gotten back to my desk after lunch when I saw your Tweet. A few seconds later and I would have never known you were here.”

To that point, a few seconds earlier and he wouldn’t have known either. And that proves my point. Which is….

Twitter and many other tools are haphazard in how they engage people. If you are not already having a direct conversation with them, Twitter often fails as an information-sharing tool. You can’t depend on it to share your message with all your followers because at no one time are all of your followers paying attention to your missives. Not everyone gets that.

Not even Leo Laporte. He of the mini media empire. He of the 24-hours-a-day podcast network simply didn’t understand that what he experienced this week was exactly how social media behaves all the time. And the fact that he didn’t know how social media works really scared me.

But then I turned the lens on myself. I have expectations that are also out of whack. I need new tires. I know a guy who runs the Twitter account for Sullivan Tire. I sent them a note either earlier today (August 23) or yesterday (August 22) announcing that I’d be going to their Nashua store on August 24 for new tires and other work. And I asked for their help. Take a look at this picture taken at 10:30PM on August 23.

If you can’t read the tiny type, their most recent tweet was on August 18 – FIVE DAYS AGO!

What that shows all of us is that even companies that believe in social media either fall down on the job or come to the realization that they can’t be online all the time. Sadly, all it takes is the one missed Tweet or the missed engagement to put a chink in the social media trust I had in that brand.

I’m still going to get my tires and my brakes and even my oil changed. But I’ll probably be more hesitant to share Sullivan Tire’s Twitter address now that I know they let days go by without any engagement.

Worse are the companies that get into social media and then back off. These are the firms that went whole hog into Facebook and Twitter and started offering specials and events and then decided that since it wasn’t working they were done conversing with customers. That’s idiocy.

Take Summer Shack for instance. I was excited to go there for dinner tonight (and we did go – and spent $70 by the way). But before we went I hopped over to their Facebook and Twitter pages to see if they could save us a seat at the bar and if they were offering specials.

Not since July 14 (Twitter) and May 21 (Facebook) had they conversed using these media.

So, what’s that mean for social media? What’s that mean for consumers? What’s that mean for businesses? A lot. With the proper education, there are companies and brands that are selling more products and making more money than ever because they are reaching out to consumers using these tools. There are also legions of consumers who have moved away from traditional information sources and now rely on the Web and social media to inform them of deals, events and happenings in their physical community. And these same folks are focused on only buying from companies that have a social media presence.

It’s a new kind of activism I suppose. Where you might have only bought milk from the guy who had the farm in your hometown, you know only buy groceries from the shopkeeper who shares coupons online. And you might only get your tires at the place that would give you 10% off when you Tweeted their name. And you might only eat at the sushi place that shares its specials on Facebook.

I’m not saying this revolution is full-fledged or that it will have a significant impact tomorrow or the next day. But we’re moving to a time when the business that ignores communication channels will get left behind because its competition will understand that online works, and works well.

Social media might be about timing, in fact it often is. But I believe the time for social media is now. I just hope the brands I liked before are listening.

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Yes, I’ll be leaving the house this Friday the 13th to appear on Hubspot TV in Cambridge, MA. You can tune in to watch live or even come to the studio and watch. Failing both of those – you can send your questions for the host and co-host (me) via Twitter to @karenrubin and @jeffcutler.

Hope to see you at the show!

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I just wrapped up a project for EDRnet as their reporter in the Gulf of Mexico. I was interviewing scientists, business owners, residents and tourists about the impact the BP oil spill has had on their lives. This encompasses work, lifestyle, recreation and future livelihood. And what I found out might astound some folks. Here are a few things…

1 – The beaches in the Gulf of Mexico – on the US coastline – are gorgeous. I have never seen sand as white or well-cared for. The communities in the Gulf derive a huge portion of their income from tourism, so keeping the beaches in good shape is of paramount importance. #ioilspill tidbit – The beaches were mostly deserted and the local economies were mostly decimated because of the perception of oil rolling up on the shores like a big black blob. Not true. I spent 14 days in the Gulf and didn’t see one tarball. I saw and learned a lot about the BP oil spill.

2 – New Orleans has a Holocaust memorial, plenty of cigars and booze, little things called begniets, a few donkeys and of course great jazz clubs. I was stationed in New Orleans for about half of my reporting mission (unlike iRoadTrip when we drove a Ford across the nation) and I saw a lot more than the photos above. I also saw poor people in the street. Houses still standing – barely – from the Katrina hurricane. Crime-prevention methods everywhere (locks on the anti-perspirant at CVS!!). And some fabulous food. If you’re planning to visit NOLA, come down in September or October. The weather will be better, the hurricanes will be gone, and you’ll still get to enjoy all the great stuff the city has to offer without sweating to death.

3 – Big disasters trump personal ones. While I was in the Gulf, six kids drowned in the Red River in Shreveport, LA. It didn’t make the news in as big a way as it might have because of the oil spill.

4 – Movies go on regardless of the real world. The world of make-believe continued forward as the filming of Green Lantern took place in downtown New Orleans for about a dozen days in late July and early August. I didn’t get a chance to see the filming as I was reporting on the oil spill and doing interviews. But the filming caused traffic tie-ups around the city and consternation to taxi drivers and others whose income comes from shuttling people around in the heat.

5 – The city is a little gritty. If you’ve never been down to New Orleans, here are a few photos of the real-world. In fact, during my stay, the city had an argument with a trash company and refused to pay them. So the trash company refused to pick up any trash. The streets didn’t stink TOO badly as the city made municipal employees clean up the really bad areas.

6 – The industries down here are oil and fish. That’s it. And that’s really why the oil spill has had such a psychological and financial impact on the region. What happens if the fish die? The region dies. What happens if they can’t drill for oil? The region dies. What happens if both occur? You tell me.

14 days reporting. A ton of new information and insight. Anew perspective on a historic city. And another iRoadTrip wrapped up.

Got any questions about the trip? Does your organization need a content specialist to attend an event or report on a region? Give me a shout or leave a comment here on the blog. As you can see from the success of this project, good content has its place in the mainstream.

Thanks for reading!

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The New Orleans oil spill trip is about 6/10 done as I write this, but that’s plenty of time to share with you some of the things I’ve learned about being in a hotel in a strange city for an extended period of time.

Yes, I’ve spent long stretches in other cities, but I either moved around a bit or rented an apartment. I’m thinking that when I do this ‘roadtrip’ type project again, I’ll rent a condo or a timeshare as my base of operations. It will give me more control and probably defray expenses.

To answer your unasked but lingering questions…

There is still oil in the Gulf of Mexico

People down here don’t seem to have the same bias against the local BP gas stations that we harbor up north

Po’Boys are really just submarine sandwiches with random stuff on them

I have not seen a tarball yet

OK, let’s now get into the meat of this post. The list of things I’ve learned about being a man on the go and living in a hotel room – Hampton Inn by the way – for two weeks.

1 – A travel tube of toothpaste is inadequate for more than eight days. You will need two or will need to purchase a human-size tube when you arrive at your destination. Further, Wal-Mart and the other -Mart stores are perfect for buying razors, shaving cream, shampoo and tooth essentials. Don’t spend millions of dollars on stuff at the corner pharmacy in your adopted town.

2 – Having laundry at the hotel – or within walking distance – is really important unless you plan to bring a monster suitcase. My hotel didn’t have laundry but there is a place called Suds and Duds (they don’t serve beer or food sadly) on Bourbon Street. For $1 a pound they will wash, dry and fold your stuff. That way you only need a week’s worth of clothing. Less if you wear the same shorts or pants multiple times. I don’t know anyone like that, but you might.

3 – Evaluate whether it’s better to have a car or use public transportation. If you are at a conference in a city or working a job there where you only have to go to one location on repeated days, you can get by without a car. The trip from the airport to the hotel is usually between $5 and $50, but you won’t need to spend money parking a car or renting it.

Conversely, if you have day trips planned and have to be at destinations not easily accessible via public transport or prohibitively expensive by taxi, get a car. But be sure to find out what parking is like in the the city where you’re staying. In New Orleans, it’s typical for overnight parking to cost $25-$35. I got lucky and got a rate at the hotel that included parking and breakfast.

4 – Breakfast! I love this meal and typically spend anywhere between $9-$20 a day for breakfast at home. Staying in a hotel that offers free breakfast with the room means I can save that money or spend it on larger other meals. But you should be aware that breakfast in hotels can get boring and other elements come into play. Sometimes the waffle maker catches fire or the other guests should be tossed in an elevator shaft because they’re so annoying. I try to vary my meals by having yogurt one day, eggs the next, waffle the next and so on. And I don’t sit next to the bickersons or the annoyingsons.

5 – When booking for an extended stay, you might have to do some work to get a good rate for the entire stay. I had to break my reservation into two pieces to get the same rate for all 14 nights. Then, when I arrived I had the front desk just combine the reservations. The hiccup would have been over one of the weekends in the middle when the listed rate was $40 more per night than the rate (with parking and breakfast) that I had booked for the start and finish of my stay. Often, squatters (people already in a room) have some leverage at the hotel and most good hotels will take your comfort into consideration – especially if you’re spending two weeks and thousands of dollars with them.

6 – Know your room and how the hotel treats rooms. I usually get really rolling on my writing around mid-day when I’m on the road. This is at odds with housekeeping because around lunch and beyond you can hear doors in the hallway opening and shutting constantly. The room shakes as doors clang off the safety bar that housekeepers flip out to hold doors open. And there’s lots of yelling for different size sheets and other supplies. If you can’t work with noise, go do other stuff during the room-cleaning periods.

Also, know the hotel policy on towels and sheets. Many hotels now are saving water by not washing your stuff all the time. They just make your bed up and refold your towels. If I want new linens or towels, I put them clearly in a pile near the door.

Next, use the room safe. It takes two minutes to toss your stuff inside and these days many safes are free to use and they can fit all your gadgets. Mine fit a laptop, video and digital camera, audio recorder, various chargers and my other valuables.

And to the point of chargers, realize that some light switches shut off outlets in the room. And some rooms shut off all power if there’s no movement in the room for a while. This means if you wanted to charge your camera or cell phone while you walked around the city, you’d better find the outlets that remain live or be prepared to run out of juice.

7 – Lastly, gifts. I have a simple rule. If I’m away on business, the only gifts I bring back are for significant others, cats and people who gave me the lead on that project or job. If I’m away on pleasure, I try to remember everyone and usually fail miserably. When in doubt, listen for the door down the hall to clang and run to the housekeeper’s cart and collect some fancy soaps.

What do you do or think or know when traveling? Share in the comments!

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The first week of #ioilspill has wrapped up and it’s been a ton of fun, eye-opening in ways I never considered and a challenge of all my journalistic and social media skills.

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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One of my clients asked me recently to craft a blog post. This post is supposed to introduce a brand to their membership and allow them to feel at once comfortable, informed and energized by the brand’s innate qualities.

This would seemingly be well within my abilities. I’ve been a content producer in print and online since 1988. I’ve got bylines in The New York Post, Technology Review and Gatehouse Media. I’ve been a Technology Correspondent for NPR (WBUR Radio in Boston) and have also been tabbed as the Social Media Trainer for the Society of Professional Journalists nationwide.

In addition to my journalistic content creation – print, audio, online, video and social-media shortform – I’m also a skilled interviewer who gets excited by a challenge and enjoys sharing interesting stories.

What’s the issue? Well, the brand this client wants me to introduce is ME. They want Jeff Cutler to report on Jeff Cutler. Seriously.

What more can I say about myself? Hardly anything that will create value for these readers…but I can tell them what lies ahead. So, instead of stepping into the cocktail-party foyer, let’s jump into the mission control room and examine what I’ll be doing for this client during the next few weeks.

First – this client is commonground. They’re an environmental professional social network. A community of environmental professionals who discuss issues of the day – and now I’m going to be doing some reporting for them in the Gulf of Mexico.

Here’s what their Website says about the organization…

Commonground’s mission is to be the premier business-to-business social network for environmental consultants and information resource where users and providers of environmental, engineering, property assessment, and due diligence services for real estate and asset transactions congregate to discuss relevant topics, gain critical insights, and generate business opportunities. By working together to advance our knowledge, professionalism, and services, we will elevate the visibility and credibility of our industry, which will have significant benefit to all.

Here’s my role with the organization…

I’ll be in the Gulf of Mexico – between Houston and Tallahassee – reporting on the environmental impact the oil spill has had on the region.

I’ll be conducting interviews with business owners, environmental organizations, financial institutions and others to see how this disaster has affected their operations.

These pieces of content may be as small as an update on Twitter to a full, photo-rich and multi-page post suitable for framing and uploaded to the Website dedicated to this content road trip.

From video interviews of people to photos of environmentally sensitive areas, I’ll be using all my skills to get the entire story of the oil spill in the Gulf and then I’ll be sharing it with commonground.

The journey is going to be fun. It’s going to be hectic. It’s probably going to have a number of surprises, challenges and eye-opening situations. I’ll be doing my best to collect information for readers/viewers/listeners that informs, entertains and captivates. I’m looking forward to this challenge as much as I have any project in recent memory.

It’s going to be a journey of discovery for me and for you. So come along for the ride. My dispatches will be open for all to see and I’ll be tweeting my progress along the way so you can keep up. For those of you who follow me because of my connection to food, I’ll also be posting my meals while in the Gulf to my Tumblr site.

Further, I’ll be doing regular posts on the behind-the-scenes experiences. From the equipment I’m using to capture content to the struggles I’m sure to run into finding a good dish of flan. That’s going to be fun, too!

Please put your comments here and interact with me on Twitter. I would love to learn where you want me to explore, what you want me to ask, what you want me to try and learn.

It’s gonna be a great few weeks.

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Unless you’ve been under a rock – or ignoring my recent collection of social media status updates – you realize I’m in the midst of one of the most exciting and game-changing projects of my career. I’ve been hired to take photos, do interviews and write blog posts, shoot video and record comments from folks who have interest in and have been affected by the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.

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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If you read the title of this blog post one way, it might seem as if I’m tooting my own horn.

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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That title has probably been used two gazillion times since people started blogging (and probably even before Verizon used it in an ad campaign),

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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