Thursday, October 15, 2009
Redwoods
As many of you know Sondra and Ben's son Orion died last week at the age of 4. That kind of thing really makes you think about the importance of family and making every day count. Sometimes we take family for granted. Like my dad, who lives near me now. He's in his 70s and hopefully we have many good years ahead of us. But he's never seen the Redwood trees. Since I've had a family of my own we don't spend a lot of time just the two of us. So I just bought a pair of plane tickets for 13 days from now. We'll fly out, rent a car, drive down the beautiful pacific coast highway and he'll see the redwoods for the first time in his long life. And I'll be there with him when he does. Father and son on an adventure together.
I encourage everybody to find the time for family. Take your sister to a concert of a band you both enjoy, take your son fishing, to to a flea market with your mom. Do something, because life is short and if you don't do something now you'll look back someday and wish you had, but it will be too late.
I encourage everybody to find the time for family. Take your sister to a concert of a band you both enjoy, take your son fishing, to to a flea market with your mom. Do something, because life is short and if you don't do something now you'll look back someday and wish you had, but it will be too late.
Tuesday, October 06, 2009
Twitter and the Texas Govenors Race
Texas overall is a pretty Republican leaning state; the winner of the Republican primary generally goes on to win the general election. This primary is no exception, with current Texas Senator Kay Bailey Hutchinson running against incumbent governor Rick Perry. It's looking to be a tight race with plenty of political muscle on both sides.
Which brings me to twitter. I'm going to judge who is winning the twitter race right now.
First up. One of the reasons people like me love twitter is that it allows us to catch real-time snippets from interesting people unfiltered by pr staffs or journalists or anything. Just the raw stuff. Well, this is an easy win for Perry. He posts pictures live from his blackberry himself on his personal account. Some of it is campaign rallies and other self serving posts, but there are also pictures of his dog Rory and links to an inspirational short film from Canes. His profile picture is actually of him holding his puppy. Kay Bailey doesn't have a personal twitter account and doesn't post to twitter herself.
Perry 1, Kay 0
Now, for those hard core political handicappers pictures of puppies may not seem like something that can deliver votes. Those politicos see twitter followers as a way to get free advertising and attract campaign contributions in order to run TV ads for the crosssection of individuals who don't own dvrs but do vote. Or to do direct mailers and phone spam. Well, it turns out that unfiltered personal touches like puppies delivers. @GovernorPerry has 17,394 followers on his personal account. @TeamKay has 1,957 followers.
Perry 2, Kay 0
Next up let's remember that these are already both elected officials. How well are they using twitter to communicate with constituents? Perry again. @TexGov is the official site of the Texas Governor. Kay just has the campaign account.
Perry 3, Kay 0
Campaign staffs. My view is that campaign staffs use twitter to reach the mainstream media more efficiently and faster. It's a medium to deliver press releases. And deliver they do. Today for instance Kay's staff announced some Ag group endorsement, Perry's staff shot back with a press release stating Kay was bad for land owners, Kay's staff shot back with a press release, Perry's staff shot back with a youtube video full of endorsements from cattle people and other orgs. So on ability to quickly deliver press release links on twitter they are tied. But somebody has to get the point. And Perry's campain staff has more followers and more posts, plus Perry has @Interns4Perry with over 1000 followers. Point Perry.
Perry 4, Kay 0
Communication is a two way street. I can write @TeamKay or @GovernorPerry or @GovPerry2010 and they could theoretically write back. Anybody could write them. And sometimes people do. But neither campaign is ready to actually engage in a two way conversation of even 140 characters. This is a shame because they control who to reply or not reply to, which topics to engage or not engage, etc. Twitter can be like a town hall except you don't have to answer any hard questions, just hit the lob pitches out of the park. Not engaging with individuals is a bad move. No points for either campaign.
Final Score Perry 4, Kay 0
Which brings me to twitter. I'm going to judge who is winning the twitter race right now.
First up. One of the reasons people like me love twitter is that it allows us to catch real-time snippets from interesting people unfiltered by pr staffs or journalists or anything. Just the raw stuff. Well, this is an easy win for Perry. He posts pictures live from his blackberry himself on his personal account. Some of it is campaign rallies and other self serving posts, but there are also pictures of his dog Rory and links to an inspirational short film from Canes. His profile picture is actually of him holding his puppy. Kay Bailey doesn't have a personal twitter account and doesn't post to twitter herself.
Perry 1, Kay 0
Now, for those hard core political handicappers pictures of puppies may not seem like something that can deliver votes. Those politicos see twitter followers as a way to get free advertising and attract campaign contributions in order to run TV ads for the crosssection of individuals who don't own dvrs but do vote. Or to do direct mailers and phone spam. Well, it turns out that unfiltered personal touches like puppies delivers. @GovernorPerry has 17,394 followers on his personal account. @TeamKay has 1,957 followers.
Perry 2, Kay 0
Next up let's remember that these are already both elected officials. How well are they using twitter to communicate with constituents? Perry again. @TexGov is the official site of the Texas Governor. Kay just has the campaign account.
Perry 3, Kay 0
Campaign staffs. My view is that campaign staffs use twitter to reach the mainstream media more efficiently and faster. It's a medium to deliver press releases. And deliver they do. Today for instance Kay's staff announced some Ag group endorsement, Perry's staff shot back with a press release stating Kay was bad for land owners, Kay's staff shot back with a press release, Perry's staff shot back with a youtube video full of endorsements from cattle people and other orgs. So on ability to quickly deliver press release links on twitter they are tied. But somebody has to get the point. And Perry's campain staff has more followers and more posts, plus Perry has @Interns4Perry with over 1000 followers. Point Perry.
Perry 4, Kay 0
Communication is a two way street. I can write @TeamKay or @GovernorPerry or @GovPerry2010 and they could theoretically write back. Anybody could write them. And sometimes people do. But neither campaign is ready to actually engage in a two way conversation of even 140 characters. This is a shame because they control who to reply or not reply to, which topics to engage or not engage, etc. Twitter can be like a town hall except you don't have to answer any hard questions, just hit the lob pitches out of the park. Not engaging with individuals is a bad move. No points for either campaign.
Final Score Perry 4, Kay 0
