by Daria Steigman on March 27, 2009
I’m a huge fan of newspapers, and I love the physical act of reading the newspaper. And yet I cancelled my subscription to The Washington Post today.
Newspapers are in a vicious cycle: they are losing readership (and subscribers), so they’re cutting back. In recent weeks The Washington Post has eliminated its book review section; scaled back delivery of the weekly TV Guide; effectively gutted the Sunday Outlook Section; announced plans to end its stand-alone business section; and announced plans to cut back its style section. Then, yesterday, they announced another round of buyouts.
The end result: I’ve been paying for less and less. The business section was really the last straw for me. It’s gone at week’s end, and so am I.
But where does the slow death of newspapers leave investigative journalism? From Watergate to conditions at Walter Reed, The Washington Post has played an important oversight role. Other major newspapers have similarly tracked down and exposed stories of national importance.
Please don’t tell me Fox News or MSNBC will do this. Television is primarily an aggregator of the news. And network news budgets are being cut too, so it is unlikely that the networks will step up and fill the investigative journalism void.
Will investigative journalism die with the newspapers? And what does that mean for our democracy? I’d love to have you weigh in on this topic.
Tagged as:
Business,
investigative journalism,
newspapers,
Washington Post
by Daria Steigman on March 26, 2009
Sometimes the simplest solutions are the most elegant. Not the Apple design kind of elegant, but rather the functionality of wheels on luggage or mini air canisters for the road cyclist.
I found the coolest gadget at Costco yesterday: a plastic case for two AA batteries with a BlackBerry adapter for charging your phone on the go.
No more cursing the fact that you forgot to charge your phone overnight, no more worrying about your battery life while checking your e-mail, no more searching for an open electrical outlet.
The cost: $20 for two (hey, it’s Costco, you can’t buy just one of anything), batteries included. Connectivity peace of mind: helpful. Bonus feature: an iPod adapter.
Tagged as:
Apple,
BlackBerry,
Costco,
Duracell
by Daria Steigman on March 18, 2009
What can you do today to get noticed?
My neighbor Steve Stern operates a small financial investment advisory firm. We usually meet up in the halls and chat for a few minutes. Yesterday was no different–except that he and an employee were headed to the Irish Pub down the street for a St. Patrick’s Day pint. Temping as the offer was to join them, I had to decline.
Fast forward a couple of hours, and Steve’s at my door with a bottle of Guinness.
Of course, you don’t have to buy someone a pint of beer–but you do need to be constantly thinking about how you can add value to a colleague, client, customer, or prospect’s day. So what have you done lately to position your business top of mind?
Tagged as:
Business,
Guinness,
Independent Thinking,
St. Patrick's Day,
Steve Stern
by Daria Steigman on March 16, 2009
Let me put my bias on the table: I’m an education snob. Not about what school(s) you went to, or even what you studied. I just think learning is important. I’m proud of the fact that I had two full years of science and a year of calculus in college. And I’m still amazed that my course in the physical sciences that I dreaded beforehand has proven really useful. I can still recite the building blocks of life, and I get excited when someone talks about chemical compositions found on distant worlds.
In other words, I believe that the more you know, the more interesting you are and the more interesting the world around you.
I was tweeting with a recent college graduate the other day, and was commenting about the fact that her campus was quite lovely. She concurred, and then added something that struck me: “Learned a ton (though not necessarily career oriented).”
Wow. I completely get this. I eventually went to graduate school to get a credential that would give me more credibility in the professional world. But she got me thinking about how my liberal arts education did, in fact, prepare me to be a solopreneur.
So here’s my short-form answer: My education prepared me to think critically and to problem solve. This is useful, since companies typically hire consultants because they have a challenge they are hoping you can help them resolve.
How did your education prepare you for the business world?
Tagged as:
Business,
Education,
Entrepreneurship
by Daria Steigman on March 10, 2009
Last night I had the pleasure of meeting Dave Evans, author of Social Media Marketing: An Hour a Day, at SocStardom. He hosted a wide-ranging discussion on the social Web, networking and product feedback cycles, social capital, transparency–and, yes, how to get corporate buy-in to even start talking about this stuff.
Here’s why I loved listening to Dave Evans: he gets that, for companies, social media is all about business. He said that the first step before considering any social media activity is to 1) be clear about your overall business objectives; and 2) recognize your audiences. The next step: listening, so you find out what people are already saying about you.
So here’s my point: if you want to convince a boss, a prospect, or anyone else with decision-making power in an organization to consider social media, you first have to convince them that there is a business case for doing so.
Now I’d love to hear from you. How do you convince clients (or your own leadership team) to overcome their qualms about using social media?
PS: I’d be remiss if I didn’t give shoutouts to event host Robin Ferrier of Johns Hopkins University, and to Marketing Misfit’s Mayra Ruiz, the driving force behind SocStardom.
Tagged as:
Business,
Dave Evans,
Mayra Ruiz,
Robin Ferrier,
Social Media,
SocStardom
