These days, with 4G speeds and a sachet of gadgets including chargers and BlueTooth keyboards, I’ve been able to set up shop in the car at a traffic light when necessary. So, why do so many firms persist on requiring their staff in chairs at desks onsite? Is it so important to the perception of C-level executives to see their Plebeian forces spread across a cubemunity at headquarters? Or don’t these higher-level folks have the capacity to understand the reality of better productivity that comes from giving your employees a little flexibility in their jobs?

First off, what spurred this little discussion (you say diatribe, I say discussion) was the adult and enlightened comment from one of my clients that they didn’t need me in the office EVER, as long as I met deadlines and got my work done. This commentary was further spurred when a friend in Boston told me that his company had informed all salaried employees that there were no ‘agreed-upon’ hours during the work day. And that anyone who was hired as a salaried employee would have to work nights and weekends as part of their contract with the company.

Forgive me if I’m mistaken, but aren’t there employment and slave-labor laws in place to prevent attitudes and actions like this? And is the economy so bad that managers now feel they can ask more of employees without adding any compensation or even comp time?

Don’t get me started on the very real situation of some Massachusetts state jobs where employees have been forced to take successive pay CUTS the past few years because the union employees they work beside would not forgo their agreed-upon raises.

Ultimately, I wonder when we decided that work is all life is about. While I might not get Donut Tuesday at the office or the four paid holidays a year, I also don’t have calluses where the shackles have worn away my skin and my will to the point that all I am is a ‘resource’ that the company depends on to make money.

A few questions before I leave you. And heaven forbid you’re reading this at work…

Are you a free agent? Or are you working for the man? Can you run an errand during the day without having to work extra hours to make up the ‘lost’ productivity? Wouldn’t you rather we were like Europe and took a full month off a couple times a year to spend with family and friends? How do you think your outlook on life would be affected if we had a more open system?

© Jeff Cutler for Jeff Cutler - columns, essays and opinions, 2011. | Permalink | 3 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: freelance, internet, legacy, off-site, remote, technology

Feed enhanced by Better Feed from Ozh

It might be of high enough quality to pass muster at any one of a number of broadcast networks. It might even make the front page of a daily newspaper. And it definitely can fly unabashed on the Web. But what do you get as a company, a content consumer, as a nation yearning to be informed, when you let the untrained tell you what’s happening around you?

That thought occurred to me anew this week as I found myself hip-deep in bloggers and citizen reporters who fancy themselves skilled enough to act as professional journalists at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.

While I jostled my way to get in front of representatives from a variety of international tech firms, these whipper snappers downed beverages from the open bar and gobbled food from the plentiful buffet tables. Then they plunked themselves down wherever they saw fit to create a blog post about their experience.

Isn’t that what I’m doing right now? Sure. So what’s wrong with that? I’ll let you know.

As a 21-year veteran of traditional journalism; and a pro within the electronic media field, I definitely have something to say on the issue of letting citizen reporters into your event. Here are my top two reasons for CEA and other professional trade show operators to tighten their credentialing process. Tell me if you feel differently.

1 – You drive down the quality of the media being shared

I’m not saying anything about resolution or writing quality – many amateur media makers are skilled in putting together sentences and operating high-end (and even low-end) equipment to capture images and audio. I’m saying you lose a professional aspect to the insight and analysis a professional journalist brings to the table.

I realize that Sharper Image is a licensed name on a bunch of products created in Asia and I can bring that knowledge to my report on the state of the industry in the United States. But the average joe blogger won’t have that information or have the skills/experience necessary to dig a little deeper so he can share this with the general public.

2 – You lessen the value of the show for exhibitors

In my mind, CES is starting to come back after a few horrendous years. The bottom line might say different, but last year and the year before, the show floor was slow and uninspiring for someone who has covered the industry for decades. But you still had hordes of media people buzzing around the booths with their hands out for samples, eager to put up a Qik video or take some shots for sharing on Flikr.

Were I an exhibitor, I could not say no to any exposure. Who’s to say right now that a random blog post with a photo of my product won’t drive sales? But the reality is that business is a game of plusses and minuses. If you give away all your samples to folks who are happy to score a free phone charger, a set of speakers, a waterproof video camera or some other $50-200 item, how many will you have left to share with folks who are going to really deliver your product to readers?

To a certain degree, you need to have the product in your hand for a few weeks to do a fair evaluation of it. As exhibitors become more savvy – and I hope they do – I think they’ll be saving their money by not handing out product to anyone who doesn’t have a following and a substantial, qualified audience. It just makes financial sense…and you’re doing them a disservice if you allow unqualified reporters into the event in the numbers we’ve seen over the past four years.

So, take a look at how you’re doing the onsite press registration. Talk to exhibitors and see if they’re really happy with the quality of the coverage they’ve received relative to the expense they’ve incurred. Then tell me that everyone is a journalist.

© Jeff Cutler for Jeff Cutler - columns, essays and opinions, 2011. | Permalink | 5 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: CES, Citizen Reporter, journalism, Las Vegas, technology, tradeshow

Feed enhanced by Better Feed from Ozh

But being prepared isn’t solely about making sure you have appointments and enough underwear for the week. It’s also about making sure your tech arsenal is complete. To that end, I am woefully short in the HD video department. And as my role as ‘All-Platform Journalist’ continues to evolve, that’s one area that’s in need of help.

In fact, one of the publications for whom I’m doing a lot of work at the show – Automotive Rhythms – needs a bunch of video content for their site. SO I reached out to the tech vendors on my list for an eval unit.

Panasonic agreed to send me a Lumix FZ100 for the week so I’d have something to shoot HD video with. It arrived yesterday and I’ve been doing an evaluation of it to make sure it’s going to work for me over four days of shooting and interviews.

“You’re getting a free camera?” YOU MIGHT PROCLAIM – ignoring the fact I just said “I’ve been doing an evaluation of it…”

No. It’s not mine.

It’s not free.

And it’s only as part of a product evaluation do I get to use equipment from a manufacturer.

You see, the line between shilling bloggers and credentialed journalists is pretty wide. In that chasm are little things like ethics and proper procedures and the rules that go along with eval units. Here’s a primer…

You don’t get to keep any products sent to you for evaluation (the Lumix will be sent back to Panasonic in two weeks)
Your evaluation of a product cannot be part of a larger agreement with the manufacturer (Panasonic is not paying me or providing any other consideration as part of my evaluation)
Your evaluation of a product must not be tainted by your hopes to get future product from that manufacturer (I am annoyed at some of the video functionality of this camera already, but that shouldn’t keep Panasonic from sending me another unit in the future…it should put them on the path to correcting the issue)

Bearing all that in mind, here’s a quick glimpse into what I think of the FZ100 – a longer review will follow over on The Gadget Reporter or in one of the mobile technology outlets I write for.

Lumix FZ100 – Mini Review

Fit, form, function – Works superbly. The design makes operation intuitive for anyone who’s picked up a camera in the last decade and the style fits nicely in my tiny hands.

Power – Not sure yet. Battery charged up completely overnight (it only arrived yesterday) and the shots I took with it were fast and the flash was perfectly bright.

Imaging – The photos I took under the P mode needed a little more light, but when I turned on the flash, everything was good. The video I shot today of the birdfeeder using the AVCHD mode was fantastic.* Here’s that video for you to enjoy. DO NOT TURN UP THE SOUND. The hissing you’ll hear is the steam heat inside the house. I didn’t narrate this at all, just wanted to see how the stereo microphones picked up ambient noise. They did a great job. Also, the watermark on the video is explained below.

*Which brings me to this…the AVCHD is a pain in my butt. Why in the world is there a different video codec for everything? I had to search the Internet to find a video converter for the file type that the FZ100 shot. And this ‘free’ video converter placed a watermark on the video – really a nice touch that I’m sure my publications will enjoy on the finished video I provide them from CES.

To be fair, the FZ100 only retails for $375, so it’s not a $1400 Canon 60D with 1080 video, but it has bells and whistles. I just wish Panasonic would have paid attention – even at this level camera – to users who just want to be able to drag and drop video files onto their laptops.

In this case, I had to find a converter (with a painful watermark) to even get the video to show up on my desktop. Yes, I have iMovie on my Mac and the camera comes with software for a PC. But can’t we all just get along.

At first blush – I would not buy this camera for my needs. I want something that allows me to shoot full video and great photos and then process it all in seconds. Jumping through the hoops of converting video just to make it useable isn’t in my list of desires.

To be fair, I’m AMAZED at the burst mode for stills (60 shots in one burst!!!) and the quality video that it shot. And this is only a ‘first-blush’ look at the camera. It’s been with me for less than a day. So I might find much more to love about this camera over the holidays and it might still make it into my bag for CES.

Otherwise I could be using video from my iPhone (HD) for some of the shots at the technology show. The benefit there being I can upload them instantly and then put the camera in my pocket and be on my way.

What’s your favorite current camera for video and stills? Have you ever been to CES? And what do you think about the line between bloggers who write without regard for ethics and journalists who remain bound by their training and values?

© Jeff Cutler for Jeff Cutler - columns, essays and opinions, 2010. | Permalink | 2 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: CES, converter, ethics, evaluation, Las Vegas, lumix, pain point, panasonic, review, technology, travel, video

Feed enhanced by Better Feed from Ozh

Google Sets

Searchword Research

Next up in the session – 40 minutes about what you should think about when working with communities and social media. Analytics that apply to the social media and Website landscape.

The session is called Enterprise Communilytics. Here is the description…

Last year, at Enterprise 2.0, we took a look at the tools used to monitor social media platforms. The market has matured greatly since – and many new tools and techniques exist to help you understand more about your brand presence online.

This year, we’re going to cover how measurement practices and tools are applied to every day social media campaigns. You will leave with a practical understanding of measurement concepts as they’re applied to digital strategies. We’ll spend time looking at real campaigns that we’ve launched, and how we measured them to determine their successes and failures. We will cover some material from our book, Complete Web Monitoring, but most of the content in this session comes from recent campaigns that we’ve launched and new concepts that we didn’t have a chance to write in the first edition.

Instructors:
Alistair Croll, Founder, Bitcurrent
Sean Power, Consultant and Analyst, Co-Founder, Watching Websites

It’s good stuff with a lot of practical information. Glad I made the trip to Boston today. Conference goes for another three days. More info here.

© Jeff Cutler for Jeff Cutler - columns, essays and opinions, 2010. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: analytics, communilytics, enterprise 2.0, numbers, social media, society, technology

Feed enhanced by Better Feed from Ozh

What questions would you ask a data provider? What questions would you – as a consumer – want to ask Google or Facebook or Twitter?

© Jeff Cutler for Jeff Cutler - columns, essays and opinions, 2010. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: #e2conf, Boston, cloud computing, data center, Jeff Cutler, safety, technology

Feed enhanced by Better Feed from Ozh