Google is Your Permanent Record

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This post will go on (W)right On's permanent record.

And so will just about anything you, your employees, friends, enemies, and family post to MySpace, YouTube, Twitter, LinkedIn, FriendFeed, Del.i.cious, etc.

Critical, unfavorable or downright bad search engine results that appear in your top 10 Google returns can easily become a stain on your record.

There are ways to manipulate search engine results so that favorable items recieve higher rankings, eventually relegating undesirable results, which are often inaccurate or really old news, to the second page of results.

While your online marketing team and SEO experts work hard to move your site up to #1 in the rankings for your category, be sure you have an online PR team working just as hard to keep the other nine results aligned with your desired image and pushing that cheapshot blog post to #11 or higher. (If after reading this, you're unconvinced of the power of 11, please be sure to watch the video primer that follows below.)

Google is essentially your company's home page and first impression. But there's also now a web project called the Internet Archive and, if Google is your permanent record, Internet Archive is your high school yearbook.

Thought you took down that embarassing webpost or terrible first attempt at a website? Think again and surf over to the Internet Archive: you'll find it there in all its former glory. While this can be painful, it can also be an excellent tool for research if you are looking for an old news release or other data that is no longer cached in the Google results. But it could just as easily be a liability to an organization that thought it had rid itself of a bio from a bad hire, content that it was sued over, or similar material. The bottomline is your overall online reputation is more important than a fleeting TV news story or traditional print coverage, except where that material is indexed by the search engines and becomes a part of your online image.

In the event that you've found this post a bit heavy, we will leave you with this excellent primer on the benefits and advantages of eleven, which is not simply restricted to unwanted search engine results but is also a great asset to amplification technology.

Best Thing School can Teach you These Days is to Adapt

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I co-chaired a breakfast session this morning for the Leadership North County Alumni that tackled the topic of education. Gary Moss of the San Diego Workforce Partnership kicked off the panel and his presentation (borrowed from www.thefischbowl.blogspot.com) contained these three slides and an 'aha' moment for me...

In the business of communications today, we are doing things and using tools that were never part of my generation's academic curriculum or early job experiences. But, as with the emergence of the Internet and email as new communications tools just over 10 years ago, social media is something I'm excited to be embracing and incorporating into our agency's toolkit.

Our ability to pick up these new tools and practices and put them to work is aided by our adaptability. We don't fear change and are excited by 'what's new.' That's essential to our business. In fact, the same skills that allow us to meet with a new client and understand their story, their business and their industry so quickly allow us to recognize shifts and adapt to the changing landscape in our own industry.

Getting back to our schools, the best thing we can do for today's students is to teach them the critical thinking, problem-solving, teamwork, communication, and organizational skills they'll need to adapt to whatever the world of work--five, 10 or 15 years from now--throws at them.

The fundamentals--good writing, solid math and science skills--are necessary to equip students for communicating, calculating and comprehending their worlds. (May b im oldskool but what passes for English in text and instant messages shouldn't carry over into other written communications.)

But if a student has the fundamentals down while having learned to be adaptive and resourceful in their outlook, their future will always be bright.

P.S. If you're a bright young thing and this last statement sounds like you, please email your resume to info@wrightoncomm.com.

Prepare to be Flashed by Esquire Magazine Cover

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The Christian Science Monitor website reports that in October, Esquire magazine will feature a battery-powered digital cover that flashes the tag line "The 21st Century Begins Now."

The cover is embedded with an E Ink display, the same setup used by the Amazon Kindle book reader. However, Esquire commissioned tiny custom batteries to fit into its paper-thin front page.

It required a six-figure investment by Esquire executives who hired an engineer in China to develop a battery small enough to be inserted in the magazine cover. Ford Motor has helped underwrite the cost with an ad on the issue’s E Ink inside cover.

You'll only be flashed for 90 days; after that the batteries die. And only if you buy at the magazine stand because the cover is limited to 100,000 copies to be sold to new potential subscribers at magazine racks.

Clearly there is significant PR value in this promotion that is the bigger outcome than just the 100,000 winking covers. Millions of potential Esquire readers will read about, hear or see this story through other media than will see the covers on newsstands.

So it's not a six-figure investment in 100,000 covers; it's a six-figure investment in the brand. It's bold and different, and in magazine publishing, it's a Purple Cow move!

I don't know about you, but I'm an Esquire subscriber and will be tempted to buy the magazine stand version anyhow if I can get my hands on it!