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	Phil's Blogservations Tuesday, May 31, 2005 Posted by philgomes 6:30 PM "Deep Throat" Unmasked "Deep Throat" Unmasked According to the AP, we know who "Deep Throat" is now: Breaking a silence of 30 years, former FBI official W. Mark Felt stepped forward Tuesday as Deep Throat, the secret Washington Post source that helped bring down President Nixon during the Watergate scandal. Within hours, the paper ratified his claim. Honestly, I'm not going to be able to take it if too many of my favorite conspiracy theories get demystified all at once. Kind of reminds me of that Chappelle's Show skit when Chappelle lampoons Morgan Freeman's turn as the president in Deep Impact. Freaked out yet? Have I blown your mind, or do you still think you can handle my job? Because if you're cocky and think you've got a hold of this, I've got some more information for you. Would you like to know who killed Kennedy? Ready for the truth, America? Here it comes: Oswald killed Kennedy. That's right. Lee Harvey Oswald killed John F. Kennedy alone and by himself... ...with a magic bullet. That's right. The bullet was actually magical. Magic does exist. We've known this for about 2,000 years. Next thing I know, the Roswell crash really was a weather balloon. All of my investments in tinfoil are going to go to waste, huh? Saturday, May 28, 2005 Posted by philgomes 1:54 AM Inside The Newsroom Inside The Newsroom (I meant to get to this earlier this week, but a series of Microsoft Moments conspired against me.) But... Now this is exciting. You'd be very hard pressed to find a daily paper that chronicles its semi-daily editorial meetings in a blog like The Spokesman-Review does. In many ways, most traditional or mainstream publications that blog provide a similar insight into how newsrooms work or, at the very least, an extra level of richness and depth. I'm not sure how someone can be a competent media relations professional in this day and age without visiting these blogs or subscribing to these feeds. A while back when I was writing the G2Blog, I noted this post by InfoWorld's Scott Tyler Shafer. It was during those days-long blackouts in New York. I apologize in advance if this post comes to be offensive... but this power outage is not a good thing for me. In the next 48 hours I'm going to be inundated with pitches about disaster recovery and remote mirroring. Please make it stop. Any representative acting on behalf of an enterprise storage firm who didn't see this post stood a good chance of humilation. Fortunately, Mr. Shafer was merciful. I doubt many had seen this post before it was linked to from several other places. Thanks to Steve Rubel for the link. Thursday, May 26, 2005 Posted by philgomes 9:50 AM Smut: Still The Internet's Test Bed Smut: Still The Internet's Test Bed If you want to test your Web server stack to see how much traffic it can handle, I say start hosting that digital video of Paris Hilton's Carl's Jr. commercial. Apparently, it overwhelmed the Carl's Junior site, reminding me of some lines from the song "Smut" by Tom Lehrer: I never quibbled If it was ribald I would've devoured Where others merely nibbled As the judge remarked the day he acquitted my Aunt Hortence To be smut, it must be utterly without redeeming social importance If their site actually withstood the crushing demand, it'd probably be robust enough to handle pretty much anything else, right? We'd have a world where a machine that served up writhing, scantily clad socialites one day would reliably perform e-commerce or online banking the next! A while back, I coined the term "pornformance" as the ultimate benchmark of a system's performance on the public network. If you... ahem... strip away all of the moral disagreements and rhetorical baggage surrounding pornography (most fundamentally, even arriving at a commonly understood definition would be a good start), you end up with the most punishing test environment possible. Still kinda tough to sell that idea to your CIO, I guess. Tuesday, May 24, 2005 Posted by philgomes 4:43 PM Proof-Positive I'm A Data Junkie Proof-Positive I'm A Data Junkie I just added my 300th RSS feed. Sunday, May 22, 2005 Posted by philgomes 11:09 AM Another Wrinkle In The Is-Blogging-Journalism Debate... And A Warning Another Wrinkle In The Is-Blogging-Journalism Debate... And A Warning First off, I'm not a lawyer. If you want to find qualified media law expertise in a blog, go to this excellent source. This post here is my admittedly amateurish analysis based on what relatively little I've read about the history of media law. So... A little while back, some people started asking whether a "blogger backlash" has occurred or, at the very least, was in the making. In particular, this article by InfoWorld's Ephraim Schwartz got me thinking about the topic. I'm going to throw my own little rubber ducky into this rhetorical bathtub, and here it is: Splish, splash... The backlash hasn't even started. And, thus, our little thought-experiment begins. I'm honestly afraid that there is going to be a high-profile incident whereby some ill-informed members of the blogging community are going to try and have it both ways. By this, I mean that I can easily see a situation where a blogger forgets (or simply doesn't know) certain key rules of the journalistic art and tries to use "But I'm only a blogger!" as a defense. A-list bloggers have more sense than to try this, of course. In the popular imagination, though, that might not matter. To many, a blogger is a blogger and it'll only take one of them to make a big enough gaffe and blunt all of the efforts bloggers have made to collectively build legitimacy. Whether or not the offending blogger has previously charged into cyberspace with "I AM A JOURNALIST" on his/her flag or has even peripheral interest in such arguments, such a situation will unravel much of what many bloggers have worked towards. Here's what I mean. Let's say that Billy Blogger posts the following: OMG!1!!1! WTF!?! Talk about a waste of your taxpayer dollar$. There's a scientist at Lawrence Livermore Labs named Dr. Sarah Sliderule who is leading a $950,000 program to determine whether female sheep can be impregnated from several hundred yards away using a high-powered gun. The FDA, Dept. of Ag, and the Federal Center For Animal Husbandry are apparently throwing money at this chick. Where did this woman get her doctorate? 50caliberimpregnation.com!?! As an angry taxpayer, I'm creating the "Sarah Sliderule Award" to expose this kind of thing. Citizen journalism, afflicting the comfortable!! Tally-ho!!! Let's assume that this post had a number of follow-on posts, excoriating Dr. Sliderule in a similar fashion. Let's also assume that this post has a factual basis and gets some degree of attention, working its way up through the blogosphere and eventually "tipping" into the mainstream media. Soon, even Aunt Gertrude hears about it. Now, most anyone engaged in the practice of journalism has at least an intuitive knowledge of what it means to libel someone. The earliest and, apparently, most generally accepted test for libel comes from New York Times vs. Sullivan. Though there are some exceptions (such as the heat-of-battle clause described in AP v. Walker), the test in Sullivan looks for either 1) knowledge of falsity, or 2) reckless disregard for the truth. Again, assume that Dr. Sliderule is engaged in the study described above and the presumed amount and sources of funding are both accurate. Clearly no libel has taken place in Billy's post. One might argue that Dr. Sliderule is a public figure, since her work is paid for by tax money. Being a public figure opens one up to exposure and lessens somewhat one's claim to a right to privacy. But here's the thing... Before Billy Blogger's post, it's not likely that you would have cared about who Dr. Sliderule was, even though her project is funded by "your taxpayer dollar$." There really wasn't much public interest in Dr. Sliderule's work before the post went up and eventually tipped. Basically, someone who defames another cannot create their own defense by making the defamed party a public person. So, Dr. Sliderule sues. Billy screams "I'm just a blogger!" Billy loses the case and has to do community service... helping male donor sheep load the cartridges for Dr. Sliderule's rifle. Sound farfetched? The scenario I just described is very similar to the case Hutchinson v. Proxmire, that I mentioned in an earlier post. In this 1979 Supreme Court decision, Senator William Proxmire called out a public mental hospital employee named Ronald Hutchinson and the agencies that funded his research in animal aggression. Proxmire did this on the Senate floor, in staff meetings, and in a newsletter that reached thousands of constituents. He bestowed the "Golden Fleece" award to the agencies backing Hutchinson's research. Hutchinson sued. Senator Proxmire lost. Now, Billy Blogger is no Senator and he has no access to a venue like the Senate floor. Then again, the grass fire started by his blog would have reached a helluva lot more people than Proxmire's little newsletter. (And, face it, you probably don't watch C-SPAN anyway.) I need people who are smarter about these matters than I am to tell me whether I'm completely missing the mark. Email me and I'll post the most thoughtful replies. My spam-resistant address is at the grey bar on the right. (I'd offer comments on this blog, but I don't really have the time to police against comment-spammers and trolls. Nevertheless, I'm usually pretty good about posting thoughtful email responses.) In any case, I write this as a warning. The blogging community — both with conscious intent and through fortunate happenstance — has made incredible strides to become a highly (and increasingly!) important part of the media ecosphere. Don't screw it up. Friday, May 20, 2005 Posted by philgomes 7:50 PM PR, BusinessWeek, Alarm:Clock, And Salma Hayek PR, BusinessWeek, Alarm:Clock, And Salma Hayek I decided to give myself time to think about this one. Sarah Lacy of BusinessWeek recently took a refreshingly measured approach to the question of whether a startup is better off hiring an agency or pulling its PR operation totally in-house. Her post was written in response to an attack piece (and, yes, that's a very fair description) over at Alarm:Clock, which lit this particular fuse earlier that week. Alarm:Clock's post effectively vents the (unattributed) writer's angst, but doesn't really accomplish much else. (Not that I'm necessarily curing diseases here with this blog.) This part here was most interesting to yours truly. BusinessWeek's Lacy writes: Here’s the most important thing I’d look for in anyone I was hiring, were I a startup CEO: Someone who can stand up to a bossy client. The worst PR firms, from a journalist’s point of view, are ones who keep pitching you a story they know is lame, that you’ve already told them you aren’t interested. Ever wonder why so many journalists are cranky? Fielding the same phone call over and over again. Imagine if I called you several times a week about a story you’d already said you didn’t want to be interviewed for. Often times, the caller knows the journalist won’t bite, but they’re checking off a list of things to do the client has ordered them to do. Only problem? It’s at the expense of their relationship with the journalist. The calls I pay attention to are from PR folks who have proven they get what I do and what I’m interested in and don’t waste my time with something lame. Doesn’t always result in a story, but they will always get a call back. Isn't doing the same thing over and over again, hoping for a different result, one of the sure-fire signs of insanity? I guess that's why there's money to be made in slot machines. So, many thanks to Ms. Lacy for bringing this up. Based on my conversations with members of the business media, Ms. Lacy's comment rings very familiar. Far too often, startup companies want "business press" long before they are really ready to take that step. Tom Murphy and I discussed this particular element of the PR-to-corner-office relationship in early 2004, which inspired this post. I've since started calling this phenomenon the "Date With Salma Hayek Syndrome." Here's how it works. You see... I think maybe I would like to have a date with Salma Hayek. Stop laughing... Finished? Okay... Realistically... For a rather funny-looking thirty-something who lives a pretty modest lifestyle, has no celebrity status, and does not at all mix with the Hollywood scene, this date is not very likely to happen. But... Were I someone who was serious about this goal and addressed his dating life in a far more calculated manner than I do now, there would certainly be a number of steps that I would have to take. All of this would involve significant strategy and planning. These steps would include, but not be limited to: A change in career, specifically one that brought me into the entertainment industry such that the six-degrees-of-separation effect can perhaps take place. The Friendster connection would look like: Phil > farmer's market tangerine salesman > market-frequenting housekeeper for entertainment lawyer > said entertainment lawyer > lawyer's golfing buddy > golfing buddy's dentist > ...who is also the dentist for Ed Norton > ...who used to be involved with Salma Hayek A move to the hub of the entertainment industry, presumably Southern California With the first and second tasks accomplished, I would have to ensure that I learn about key entertainment industry events, such that I could be invited to them and that there would be the possibility of being introduced to Ms. Hayek by Mr. Norton's dentist's golfing-buddy's lawyer-friend. Determining our shared interests, such that we can actually talk during a date and maintain some kind of decent conversation An updated wardrobe (Not that I'm accusing Ms. Hayek of being shallow, but my current stash of clothing could use a makeover. While it may meet the standards of Silicon Valley, it's probably not up to Hollywood snuff.) 'Nuff said. That's not even half of what needs to happen, but you get the idea. There's also a significant amount of what some call "luck." Since I do not believe in "luck," really, we'll instead call it "preparedness meeting opportunity." To the degree that I would have to plan in order to achieve the goal of a date with Ms. Hayek, so too does successfully engaging the business press require significant preparation on the part of any startup or enterprise seeking coverage in those high-profile and highly coveted outlets. For one thing (and there are many gating factors), some folks in the business press won't even touch a private company unless there has been significant coverage in the scientific, trade, and enthusiast media first. And, yes, engaging those outlets, in turn, requires a very significant amount of planning and preparation as well. (And, yes, I know that any media relations planning is far more likely to achieve its goal than any amount of scheming that aims to result in a date with Ms. Hayek. Difference is that, yes, the former is something I have actually achieved.) Of course, all of this is to say nothing of the phenomenal amount of work that the startup's founders and employees must undertake to get the business to the point where it even makes sense to begin communicating in the first place. However, that's a topic for another over-long post with a very bad analogy. To paraphrase Thoreau, if you build your castles in the air — where they should be — you have to be sure to build the foundations under them. Posted by philgomes 2:54 AM "Strategy" Or "Status?" "Strategy" Or "Status?" About six years ago, I worked with a company whose CEO would ask the question "Is this a strategy or a status?" when he was curious about the current progress of his company's software development, marketing, PR, and so on. I found myself asking that question when PalmOne took the somewhat counterintuitive approach of launching the LifeDrive PDA Mobile Manager during E3. Now, PalmOne didn't participate in the show, nor did it necessarily position the LiveDrive as a gaming device of some sort. So, I'm most curious as to why PalmOne decided to launch the LifeDrive while E3 was going on. Based on the amount of coverage I've seen, the timing certainly didn't hurt the launch. However, standard PR practice is to try to avoid launching during events that hold a strong likelihood of pulling interest away from the product introduction. That said, I'm sure significant under-embargo pre-briefing went on. Nevertheless, I found the timing to be an interesting choice. Wednesday, May 18, 2005 Posted by philgomes 8:00 PM E3 In... Atlanta? E3 In... Atlanta? More entertaining than the notion of a power outage at E3 — only the biggest videogame show in the universe — is what happened during one of the talks. The stress of the outage may have been responsible for a little gaffe made by Entertainment Software Association President Doug Lowenstein after he took the podium to give an official media greeting. "I want to welcome you here to the 11th annual E3 trade show, our ninth year here in Atlanta..." he said. A chorus of laughter and a quick correction later, the ice was broken and Lowenstein took the potential crisis in stride, according to GameSpot. For those Blogservations readers who aren't tech-heads, E3 takes place in Los Angeles. Actually, stress-induced geographical amnesia is certainly nothing new. This incident reminds me of a story I heard on the Greg Kihn show on KFOX-FM a long time ago. As I remember it, the Greg Kihn band was touring with Journey during the supergroup's power-balladeering heyday. The touring was so intense that Journey crooner Steve Perry allegedly taped the name of the town in which they were playing onto the monitor speakers that faced the band. All he had to do was look down and say "Hello... Cleveland!" Apparently, Kihn decided to switch the sign at one point. Hilarity ensued. Well, Mr. Lowenstein... It happens to the best of us. Having 1) built E3 into the powerhouse that it is, and 2) sold out booth space and sponsorships for this show in record time, this is the one week you could've called LA "Weeping Coldsore, Kansas" as far as I'm concerned. Posted by philgomes 3:11 PM Why Corporate Blogging Works Why Corporate Blogging Works A pleasingly elegant diagram. Posted by philgomes 12:58 PM Morgan Stanley's Ad-pulling Clause? Morgan Stanley's Ad-pulling Clause? Morgan Stanley is trying to tell the outlets in which it advertises that it will pull its ads if said outlet runs unfavorable articles about the company. From Crain's New York Business: "In the event that objectionable editorial coverage is planned, agency must be notified as a last-minute change may be necessary. If an issue arises after-hours or a call cannot be made, immediately cancel all Morgan Stanley ads for a minimum of 48 hours," reads a key section of its planned addition to ad contracts, according to executives who’ve seen it. The article brings up the good point that, under the church/state arrangements at most publications, such a clause would be impossible to enforce. I honestly thought that this practice got enough bad coverage such that people wouldn't continue to try it. Monday, May 16, 2005 Posted by philgomes 7:32 PM IBM's Blogging Rules IBM's Blogging Rules InfoWorld has a post about IBM's blogging rules. Glad to see it. One of the points that I harped on during my Oct. 2004 PRSA talk was the need for clearly drawn policies with regard to employee-run blogs, whether they be corporate-sponsored or otherwise. Generally speaking, it's a company's right to describe a code-of-conduct for its employees. One thing you'll quickly notice about IBM's blogger guidelines, though, is that they aren't very blog-specific. Indeed, many of these admonitions are media-neutral and would apply to static web pages, leaflets, Morse code transmissions, and so on. The perceived motivation to recast these policies as blogging guidelines underscores the dramatic effect that personal publishing has created. The term "blogging," rightly or wrongly, evokes both a convenient online publishing method as well as a kind of cause celebre. Also consider that the technology-industry halo effect is also at work here. While there are many facts surrounding the case that make it fodder for a rich debate, consider that no one would have cared much about the Friendster "Troutgirl" situation last year if Joyce "Troutgirl" Park worked for Ford Motor Company, her publishing platform was a Kinko's photocopier, and she wrote about the performance shortcomings of an earlier fuel injector design. (That said, based on my own reading of those events, she didn't do anything termination-worthy by a long shot and I tend to agree with Jon Udell on this one.) Sunday, May 15, 2005 Posted by philgomes 4:11 PM Highbrow Mag Revisited Highbrow Mag Revisited Friday afternoon, highly renowned Silicon Valley writer and observer Michael Malone weighed in with an answer to Thursday's question about high-level opinion mags with a West Coast sensibility. Mr. Malone reminded me of one such magazine that I very much enjoyed: Forbes ASAP and, in particular, its annual "Big Issue" editions. Mr. Malone, who was editor-at-large for said magazine, writes: There was such a West Coast magazine, which, at its best, actually was superior to Atlantic (though, under the late Mike Kelly it was one great magazine). It was the annual Big Issue of Forbes ASAP. The Big Issues, of which there were five, are still taught in colleges around the country, and was even compiled in a book (The Big Issues). We published, for example, the only essays by Tom Wolfe in the 1990s. Ironically, given your previous item, Rich Karlgaard was the editor of ASAP when the Big Issue was first devised (by me). I was the editor of the first four (as well as editor of ASAP), then turned it over to Pat Dillon (former Merc columnist, 2x Pulitzer winner). ASAP, unfortunately, died with the dot.com bust, but you can still find cherished Big Issue copies on eBay. For most of us, the Big Issues was the high point of our journalism careers, and perhaps someday the time will be right to bring it back. I would most certainly welcome the return of such a magazine, for the reasons described in the earlier post that inspired Mr. Malone's response. As Mr. Malone mentions, the compilation of these "Big Issue" articles are available in this book. Saturday, May 14, 2005 Posted by philgomes 1:47 AM Dan Gillmor Debuts Bayosphere Dan Gillmor Debuts Bayosphere A hearty, nocturnal congratulations to Dan Gillmor, who this evening has debuted the first pre-launch project from Grassroots Media, dubbed Bayosphere. The promise of the Internet was simple, but incredibly powerful: to be a medium through which we could connect and collaborate, for mutual benefit. It's happening. As the Net matures, we are learning to write as easily and fluently as we read. At Bayosphere, we're going to create a community fueled by that notion. We will reflect -- and reflect on -- the news, needs and ideas of the Bay Area and especially the technology sphere that is the prime economic driver of the area. He's moved his blog as well. Very happy to see these first steps. Congrats again! Thursday, May 12, 2005 Posted by philgomes 8:01 PM Wherefore The Highbrow Mag? Wherefore The Highbrow Mag? Chris Nolan has noticed that the first six months' issues of The Atlantic Monthly have not published a female writer in any major feature. The Atlantic is a dying institution. And as much as I love and cherish the idea of an intellectually driven, well-written periodical, I'm happy to say "good riddance" to what this once-fine magazine has become. Funny that she happened to bring up this class of publication — the highbrow literary/opinion periodical — at this time. My beef has a lot less to do with feminism or editorial fairness than it does with, well, mere geography. A while back, I bought a 150-year retrospective of Harper's from Grey Wolf Books in San Leandro. Beautifully bound. Goes from Walt Whitman to an insider's perspective on LA's gangland. Picked it up for something like $10. Total bargain. I've picked it up again in the past few weeks. Lately, I've been resurrecting some questions that I've posed to number of folks over the years: Why are all of these magazines on the East Coast? And, what is the West Coast analogue? And, if that analogue doesn't exist, who should start one? I'm thinking there should be at least one such print magazine with a distinctly Silicon Valley sensibility. Notice that I said print — currently the best high-contrast, portable, cost-effective display technology available. (I guess this eliminates one freelancer's suggested candidate, Salon.Com, which we ended up debating for a bit.) Certainly, such a magazine would go some way towards pulling the Valley away from the specious notion that it's culturally bereft. Am I missing something? Is there already one such periodical of Harper's or The Atlantic's ilk? Posted by philgomes 3:25 PM They're Baaaack... They're Baaaack... It had been a good several years since I got one of those AOL promo CDs in the mail. But this one is way out of control! Most of the packaging is empty space. It contains one CD, but the package is the size of a two-CD DVD case. I say to AOL "Keep 'em coming!" I throw out the CD and literature and give the cases to my Dad, who uses them to store Gomes family digital photo albums. Tuesday, May 10, 2005 Posted by philgomes 4:31 PM So It Begins... My "Bill Clinton Moment" So It Begins... My "Bill Clinton Moment" Last week, I wrote about how some blogging PR people like myself were called "top journalists" by Bacon's and asked to fill out a survey. I'm starting to get pitches now. Press releases and all, if you can believe that. Along with a host of other things, Bill Clinton was famous for saying "I feel your pain." Reporters, I can't even presume to know the nature or volume of stuff that streams into your inbox. However, this early sample is a good sneak preview. There are a number of ways that this blog has been key in forging my thoughts on media and analyst relations. I just wasn't expecting lessons like this. Friday, May 06, 2005 Posted by philgomes 11:12 AM "Huh, huh... Huh-huh-huh... He said..." "Huh, huh... Huh-huh-huh... He said..." Oh, my... Thursday, May 05, 2005 Posted by philgomes 11:12 AM Karlgaard's List O' Laws Karlgaard's List O' Laws This will be my last post for a while that mentions Moore's Law. I've already hit you gentle readers with two such postings in relatively quick succession. Forbes Publisher Rich Karlgaard offers his list of "Ten Laws of the Modern World". This one, credited to David Oglivy, is my favorite from the list: Ogilvy wrote that whenever someone was appointed to head an office of O&M, he would give the manager a Russian nesting doll. These dolls open in the middle to reveal a smaller doll, which opens in the middle to reveal a yet smaller doll … and so on. Inside the smallest doll would be a note from Ogilvy. It read: "If each of us hires people who are smaller than we are, we shall become a company of dwarfs. But if each of us hires people who are bigger than we are, we shall become a company of giants." Ogilvy knew in the 1950s that people make or break businesses. It was true then; it's truer today. Wednesday, May 04, 2005 Posted by philgomes 7:57 PM Bacon's Helps Top Journalists Like Who? Bacon's Helps Top Journalists Like Who? No sooner than I read this post from Steve Rubel, I received the same email he did. Apparently, Bacon's is building a blogger database and, well, us PR bloggers are being asked for our profiles and contact information. Calling us "top journalists," however, is a little much. I'll say this about Bacon's: They did their homework and looked at my FAQ. My profile reads, in part: He describes how the next level of PR pro must be able to strike an interesting balance between maintaining corporate-class credibility while conveying the general air of someone who is approachable, personable, and even fun. Of course, this is lifted clean from the FAQ itself. At least they picked the most relevant part. I deleted my email address from their database and listed my preferred contact method as "reed-etched clay tablet." We'll see if the folks over there have a sense of humor. Litmus test: If you're a media database user and you're building a list of bloggers in order to blast out traditional press materials in spray-and-pray fashion, you're just not doing it right. You're going to irritate a lot of folks with itchy trigger fingers on their "Submit" buttons. But... If you're just using that database as a fantastically expensive Rolodex and strongly believe that you have content and ideas that will result in mutually enjoyable correspondence — whether or not you have a billable interest at stake — then I'm all for it. The blogosphere belongs to the folks who are having the best conversations within their communities of interest. Let's start one. Tuesday, May 03, 2005 Posted by philgomes 6:06 PM Prolific PR To-Do Items Prolific PR To-Do Items Friend: Hey you.. god my day is a mess.. I hate it when I started the day with 2 things... just 2 things I needed to do and have I gotten to those? No, I haven't.. had my list grown exponentially.. yes it has Phil: Eeeeeek! Friend: what happens to my to do list? do all the items breed when I'm not looking? is there to-do list fornication happening behind my back? Phil: They're like rabbits in your Outlook. Friend: it's worse than that... I write it on paper.. so it isn't even as if little bits and bytes run around. it's ink and squashed tree bits. Phil: If one to-do item has relations with another to-do item, is that the same as the second to-do item having relations with every to-do item that the first to-do item had relations with? I think the surgeon general wrote something about that. Friend: I wonder if there are diseases that are passed from one to another. that would explain why I am more prone to check some off my list and not others. Posted by philgomes 10:29 AM Schwartz On Bloggers And Law Schwartz On Bloggers And Law Thank God Ephraim Schwartz is tackling the thorny issue of a company's legal exposure when its employees blog. What if an employee says his company doesn’t expect to do that well in the next quarter, despite public statements to the contrary? Under Sarbanes-Oxley, the company could have a big problem. Or, in high tech especially, what if a blogger complains that the company’s CEO has been up in Redmond an awful lot lately? Did somebody say acquisition? DeBre says that a company that takes it upon itself to monitor employee blogs is responsible for assuring that everything is vetted properly. Whenever there’s a slipup, the company may be liable. I've been entertaining myself lately by reviewing Supreme Court media case law with regard to libel and what is and is not considered a "public figure." At some point, I'll probably have to consult a media lawyer and write something up about what I've found. I'm particularly fascinated by this case (Hutchinson v. Proxmire). Any legal eagles out there have a blog-related opinion on this ruling? Monday, May 02, 2005 Posted by philgomes 8:07 PM Wisdom From Ozzy Wisdom From Ozzy I know that's like saying "human rights advice from Idi Amin," but... I always knew what I wanted to be I knew for sure, I knew for sure Always knew it was them or me I wanted more, more and more It’s all right, it’s o.k. None of them people gonna take it away They don’t know like I know And I can’t stop ’cause it drives them crazy HOME | OBSESSIONS | FAQ | HEROES | CAREER | BLOG | CONTACT Note that the views expressed on this site do not necessarily reflect those of Phil's employer, its business partners, its clients, or anyone or anything that doesn't come from Phil.	ABOUT THIS BLOG This blog not only discusses PR and media matters, but Phil's everyday observations about a variety of topics. EMAIL phil[at] philgomes[[dot}]com SYNDICATE Feedburner ARCHIVE YAHOO! IM SKYPE WISH LIST PITCH POLICY MY PHOTOS www.flickr.com Photostream RSS Enter your Email Powered by FeedBlitz COMMENT AND TRACKBACK POLICY Comments and trackbacks are unmoderated, though I will delete the patently offensive ones. Any comments and trackbacks are the opinions of the individual writer of those comments and trackbacks, and not those of Phil Gomes, his employer, its clients, or its business partners. If you have a bone to pick, bug the people who wrote the comment or trackback.