Balcom Agency

Drupal is an amazing open source content management system (CMS)/framework. It's my preferred platform and has an amazing community. I may qualify as a fanboy, but it allows me to focus on making great Web sites rather than repeating the same tasks on every project.

I was lucky enough to be invited to speak at the first ever DrupalCamp Dallas. I decided to speak on one of Drupal's most valuable modules called Views. In short, Views allows the site administrator to choose what data gets pulled and how to present it.

Want to watch me drop some Views knowledge? Press play. Are you excited? Excellent.

Learn more:

• www.drupal.org
• www.drupal.org/views
• www.drupal.org/cck
• www.drupalcampdallas.org

As people, companies and brands dive into social media, one thing becomes increasingly clear: social media will force you to answer the tough questions.

• Does your product have a defect? Social media will making clear.
• Afraid of an employee tweeting, even personally? Maybe you should examine their employment.
• Don’t trust your employees to use social media responsibly? Examine the freedom you give your employees.
• Is your product too expensive? People will tell you.
• Is your product the wrong color? You’ll know.
• Are paid surveys giving you different results than a service like Yelp? Go with the social media review - it will usually be the most accurate.
• Is your competitor dominating the social media marketplace? Time to step it up.
• As we’ve worked with clients, all of these questions have come up. They aren’t easy, but they are critical to address.

 Ultimately, social media will create a better experience for everyone - employees, employers, producers and consumers - it just might be a bumpy ride.

I firmly believe that if somebody lets you over in traffic, you ought to wave to say, "Thanks!"

We've all learned by now that money, unfortunately, does not grow on trees. It has to be earned, saved and carefully used so that after you've taken care of all of your obligations, you can run and play.

However, sometimes, unforeseen events alter plans. Your air conditioner goes out. You replace your hot water heater. The list of possible things that might be labeled "catastrophic" in relation to your home where your budget is concerned is seemingly limitless. So sometimes, you just push projects off until "later," hoping that eventually "later" will, in fact, come around.

We've been busy B's, and I have neglected you, dear readers. Even in our busiest times, I have promised myself that I will always bring you Fact Friday. Let's get to it - shall we?

I'm ok with receiving forwarded business e-mails. However, the majority of personal forwarded e-mails have fluffy kittens or blinking stars on them. I think I have said, "I hate forwarded mail!" enough that people just don't send it to me anymore because they know it'll go straight to the trash.

Once in a blue moon, some good/funny messages come through - usually from poof. done. effortless.

Note to readers:
For those of you who are keeping up with the cabinet renovations, I'm happy to say that as of last night, all of the hardware is on, and the doors are ready to be hung which *fingers crossed* will happen this evening. The difference really is night and day.

I'm chair of the ethics committee for the Greater Fort Worth Chapter PRSA (Public Relations Society of America). My big responsibility, and really my only responsibility in this volunteer position, is to put together a program focused on ethics in the fall.

All along I have wanted this program to be highly interactive -- to really challenge us to carefully think through situations we face everyday in our profession that call into question our values and ethics. Now it's just around the corner and I'm very excited!

On Wednesday, Sept. 9, we will run a full morning and lunch program with guest speaker Alan Hilburg called "“Building a Recession-Proof Brand Communications Strategy Through Ethical Decision-Making.”

We're asking everyone who plans to attend to be prepared to think through -- and share  -- real situations and challenging questions.

We will work in small groups of four, following a conversational process that Hilburg helped develop called "World Cafe." Sounds cool, huh? Brings to mind a little cafe on the Rive Gauche, smoke wafting from your Gauloises as you rereading your Camus and gaze at the stylish passers-by .... Back to Fort Worth.  The program will be held at the Petroleum Club in our usual 39th floor setting overlooking the city. 

Here's Hilburg's description of World Café:

"a conversational process based on a set of integrated design principles that reveal a deeper living network pattern through which we co-evolve our collective future. As a conversational process, the World Café is an innovative yet simple methodology for hosting conversations about questions that matter. These conversations link and build on each other as people move between groups, cross-pollinate ideas, and discover new insights into the questions or issues that are most important in their life, work, or community. As a process, the World Café can evoke and make visible the collective intelligence of any group, thus increasing people’s capacity for effective action in pursuit of common aims.

❧ Seat four or five people at small Café-style tables or in conversation clusters.
❧ Set up progressive (usually two) rounds of conversation of approximately 20 minutes each.
❧ Questions or issues will focus on ethics, ethical judgment and ethical decisions in life, work or community
❧ Each table has a host.  Both table hosts and members to write, doodle and draw key ideas on their tablecloths or
to note key ideas on large index cards or placemats in the center of the group.
❧ Upon completing the initial round of conversation, one person remains at the table as the “host”
while the others serve as travelers or “ambassadors of meaning.” The travelers carry key ideas,
themes and questions into their new conversations.
❧ Ask the table host to welcome the new guests and briefly share the main ideas, themes and questions
of the initial conversation. Encourage guests to link and connect ideas coming from their previous
table conversations—listening carefully and building on each other's contributions.
❧ By providing opportunities for people to move in several rounds of conversation, ideas, questions,
and themes begin to link and connect. At the end of the second round, all of the tables or
conversation clusters in the room will be cross-pollinated with insights from prior conversations.
❧ In the third round of conversation, a new question is posed to deepen the exploration of the focus and again participants switch tables to synthesize their discoveries, .

Round One Questions:

1.  Write a definition of what constitutes unethical communications?
2.  What is poor ethical judgment?

Round Two Questions:
1.  What are examples of unethical language?
2.  What contributes to unethical behavior?

Round Three Questions:
1. Describe the most unethical business situation you are aware of?
2. What are your most significant barriers to maintaining your own values when confronting unethical business situations?

Round Four Questions:
1. If you were going to create a PRSA Code of Ethical Communications, what would be the three most important elements of that work?
2. What are the greatest challenges in getting this Code adopted?

Please join us for this important, engaging learning opportunity at the Petroleum Club! The program begins at 9 a.m.; breakfast and networking at 8:30 a.m. Find out more and register at www.fortworthprsa.org.

More about the speaker:

Alan Hilburg, president and CEO of Hilburg Associates, is an award winning author, filmmaker, teacher and senior advisor in organizational transition communications and marketing. Now based in Northern Virginia, Hilburg lived in the DFW for many years when he served as president of the former Bloom Co. Hilberg is perhaps best known for his leadership, for over 30 years, as one of the world's leading strategic institutional branding counselors assisting  senior executive teams and boards of directors survive organizational transitions (crisis, litigation and the introduction and socialization of principles of values-based decision-making) while maintaining the continuity of their institutional brand objectives.

When I left my last job, one of my favorite ladies gave me a business card holder as a going away gift. Inside, she taped a sweet note which I have left in the case. Every time it's empty, I read it and smile.

Two weeks ago, I took off cabinet doors and hinges. They were sanded, caulked, primed, prepped, laid out, painted, dabbed, touched up and finally set out to dry. My garage looks like a cabinet door depot, each door leaned perfectly against the wall, touching only at the corner, angled out just so to prevent touching. This is where my precious doors have been for exactly one week.

Shocking discovery: those doors are nowhere near dry.

I have determined that latex paint really struggles to dry in a hot garage. I mean – sure, eventually, I'm sure it'll dry, but not any time soon. I thought that the phrase was, "If you can't handle the heat, stay out of the kitchen!" Ironically, it seems that in order to avoid the head, my cabinet doors should be in the kitchen!

This means that my plan of action for the weekend is to finish lining all of my cabinets with shelf paper, take everything that was once in the cabinets but is now in the office and sort through it to determine what stays and what goes, then re-load the cabinets, leaving the office empty, so that I can line the office with doors.

I am convinced that this project is much like that song, "It's a Small World." It just gets more annoying as time goes on...

I remember being underwhelmed by talking greeting cards (sorry Mom!), but I think this is pretty cool: CBS has embedded a video into a magazine! They call it the "first-ever VIP (video-in-print) promotion."

I can't imagine this becoming too commonplace (for cost reasons and lack of volume control, where I read magazines, I would want the volume down...) but it's a surprising way to bring new life to an old medium, and a surprising new way to Rick Roll people!

Check out the article in WIRED.

You're dismissed.

What's the maddest you've ever been at a company? You ever felt cheated or insulted by a company and wished you could do something about it?

We've all felt that way, but most of us don't end up acting on that emotion. The problem is that in real-life David and Goliath stories, Goliath beats the tar out of David. Social media levels the playing field.

Dave Carroll, the lead singer of Sons of Maxwell, has done remarkable brand damage to United Airlines. Dave flew United to Nebraska when his $3500 Taylor guitar was destroyed by baggage handlers. Dave fought for nine months with customer service trying to get the situation resolved, but he was ultimately rejected. United offered him $1200 in flight vouchers to cover salvage cost, and Dave was furious.

So, he turned to YouTube. Dave vowed to create three music videos telling the story of how he was treated, and people have listened. On July 6, United Breaks Guitars hit the web. Today, it has more than five MILLION views. The second video release on Monday, you can watch it here.

Instances like these are becoming more common. Social media outlets like YouTube, Twitter and FaceBook empower us; they are filled with people expressing their displeasure with a company (just ask John about Ticketmaster).

These outlets allow every person and every company, no matter how small, to B seen and B heard. So what are people saying about your company?

You're dismissed.