"Occupy" Movement proof 1st Amendment is alive and well.

"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."

"There's battle lines being drawn, nobody's right if everbody's wrong. Young people speakin' their minds, gettin' so much resistance from behind ..." -For What It's Worth-Buffalo Springfield

Nothing so far in the "Occupy" movement has reached the level of what so many of us witnessed in the 60's and thank goodness. It was too often bloody and deadly. But what started out as a gathering on Wall Street has spread to Main Street. Many pundits criticize the protesters for not having a "message." It's not about a message, it's about them being pissed off. Either political party that seeks to align themselves with these folks does so at their own peril. Our political parties are why they're pissed off in the first place. They're also mad at Wall Street, Banks and Corporations. Are they right? Depends on one's point of view.

The point here is not whether we agree or disagree with the protest, but that we can do either.

It's not only young people speakin' their mind, it's people of all ages and backgrounds. Here in Denver they've gathered around the Capitol area. A tent city was set up as people exercised their freedom of speech. But both the Governor and the Mayor realized that free speech only goes so far. The park was just that, a park. Not a campground. So they were kicked out. A handful were arrested.

At no time was their right to free speech stopped. Just keep it on the sidewalk and off the street. Free speech only goes to the point where it doesn't infringe on the rights of others, like people trying to use that street to get to work.

There's no small irony seeing how many people in the crowd were using digital cameras and cell phones, products of the very system they're protesting. And of course, when the media shows up, things get loud and "visual." Social Media is keeping the protesters who claim not to be organized, very organized. Again, all protected by free speech. They couldn't do that in China. No Facebook or Twitter there. China frowns on protest.

There's also the cost to consider.  Police over-time, the impact of pulling officers from other duties to keep things under control just to name a few. Costs payed for by "We the people." But should we put a price tag on something that is supposed to be priceless?

Regardless of whether you agree or disagree with the "Occupy" movement, let's embrace the fact that they have a right to express themselves. People are paying attention to their "non-message." These folks are young and old, professional and unemployed, poor and affluent.

The same kind of mix that makes up the fabric of this nation. They carry signs saying they're the 99%. That also depends one's point of view. It will be interesting to see how it all plays out.

Regardless if you're part of 1% or 99%, everyone has the right to speak their mind.

Brian Olson
Owner/Consultant
Conversation Starters Public Relations

Facebook Changes: It pays, to pay attention.

Wow, if anyone is left on this planet who doubted the power and impact of Facebook, all they needed to see was the mix of curiosity to plain outrage over recent changes made to the social media engine, with more changes to come.

Topping the list is privacy fears. Fair enough. But keep in mind, Facebook is an opt-in thing. It's free and it's important to realize that with any kind of social media, what you post can and will be held against you. There's an old saying in PR; "If you don't want to be quoted, don't say it." You can replace "post" for "say" in this age. But again, privacy groups continue to be concerned.

One new feature coming soon to your Facebook page, if it hasn't already is something called Timeline. 


Yep, everything you've ever posted on Facebook from the day you first signed up. The good news is you can go in an clean up ill-advised posts done when under the influence of emotion, alcohol or both. At least Facebook claims you can.

When it comes to all these changes I'm just as confused as you are. But then I do my homework. For the impact on my business I look no further than Heather Lutze and her great company, the Findability Group. What you don't know about social media can hurt you. So know as much as you can.

Facebook used to be just a simple and fun way to keep up with family and friends. It's morphed into a sophisticated source of information about you, and for others to find out about you. The current issue of Bloomberg Business week has this article about how political campaigns will be seeking you out, then targeting you based on your interests, friends and posts. You can log off, but you can't hide.

With all these changes come all sorts of scammers and mischief makers. A rash of posts, cut and pasted over and over again claimed Facebook was going to start charging if you didn't opt-out. All false of course, but most folks are trusting in nature and want to share both good and bad news, regardless of it's true or not. The great thing about social media is, everyone has access to it. The bad thing about social media is everyone has access to it.

So, take some time to do a little house cleaning on your Facebook page. You can organize friends and family into lists and adjust security settings to protect yourself. Facebook is becoming more complicated. You owe it to yourself and your personal well-being to keep up with those changes.

All this said, Facebook remains a remarkable, powerful and innovative way to keep in touch, or to market yourself.

And all THAT said, Google+ traffic is surging. It's now wide open for use by everyone and offers some very cool options. I've been checking it out and will write about it more in another blog. Do we need ANOTHER social media site? Well, that's up to consumers. As always, competition is a good thing.

Again, just remember and always be aware that once you post something online, it's out there. Forever. Back in a very analog time, President Ronald Reagan famously said, "Trust but verify." It applies to our ever growing digital world today.

Brian Olson
Owner/Consultant

Conversation Starters Public Relations

9/11. Remember? Yes. Holiday? No.

This Sunday we mark the 10 year anniversary of the attack on America. Planes became missiles as thousands died at the hands of terrorists. We'll never be the same again. Ever.

There are more than a few people who think that 9/11 should become a national holiday, like Martin Luther King Day.

I disagree.

MLK deserves to be honored and remembered. But the national holiday in his name is only celebrated by some, not all. Federal and State employees get the day off, most schools are closed. Malls are busy, movie theaters are full. But most folks head off to work. Martin Luther King was all about all people having equal opportunity to do just that. Not just some.

MLK day has always seemed to me a wasted opportunity. Schools are closed. Why? Wouldn't this be a great day for this generation of students to look back and study what Dr. King and countless thousands risked their lives for? A day to watch his famous speech at the Lincoln Monument, arguably one of the best delivered and impactful speeches in our nation's history. To talk about it, analyze it and learn more about all that led up to that speech.

I fear that if one was to walk into a classroom and ask students who Rosa Parks was, most wouldn't know about a lady who by refusing to give up her seat, allowed everyone eventually to have a seat.

Instead we simply waste a valuable educational opportunity.

IF, there were to become a 9/11 holiday, some but not all would have the day off. Malls would be busy, theaters full. The rest would head off to work.

We must and always remember 9/11 and remember the lives lost, the heroics of those who rushed towards the carnage instead of away from it, the impact of that day on our nation today.

It seems to me that both days should be seen as opportunities to unite this divided nation. Another holiday will accomplish just the opposite.

Brian Olson
Owner/Consultant
Conversation Starters Public Relations

Raising the bar on Dumb in Washington DC and Austin, TX.

Good morning, two stories have me scratching my head and wondering why people who should know better, just act stupid.

1. The President's latest jobs plan and the announcement thereof. Anticipation has been building for weeks. The President wanted to announce it before a joint session of Congress next Wednesday, September 7th. Fair enough but it's the same night as the GOP presidential debate at the Reagan Library.  The White House of course, knew this all along.

Speaker John Boehner officially gets to decide who speaks in the House of Representatives, although as a rule, you don't turn down the President of the United States. But the President put Speaker Boehner in a bad spot, who in turn asked the President to address Congress, and oh yeah, "We the people" on the 8th instead. It's my House and I'll cry if I want to.

Late night night it was announced the President will now deliver his speech on the 8th. All this creates another issue, the 8th is the opening night of the NFL season. Green Bay vs New Orleans. Cheese, Gumbo and rotten politics. Pass the Tums please. The White House says the speech will end before the scheduled kick-off, my guess without enough time for a response from the GOP.

Frankly, the GOP should have agreed to Wednesday, then just backed up the debate until after the speech. What an opportunity! Run clips from the speech, then have the GOP have at it. Don't like the President's plan? Then tell us how you'd do better.  I think we'd be well served by this sort of thing.

But no, cheap political partisanship by both sides is once again put ahead of the best interests of us folks who live on Main Street, USA and who of course, pay the bills. Wasn't August wonderful? September and beyond, not so much.

Shameful.

2. Let move on to college football. Earlier this year, the University of Texas announced an exclusive broadcast partnership with ESPN to create the Longhorn Network. All orange all the time. Great expectations Texas-style. This disclaimer: I'm a proud Longhorn Dad and we've lived in Texas twice. Everything is bigger in Texas, especially football. We heart the 'Horns.

All good right? Nope, quite the opposite. The season opener has Texas hosting Rice at Austin. Broadcast rights are exclusively on the Longhorn Network. One problem. As of now, other than a few tiny cable outlets, no major satellite or cable provider has reached an agreement to carry the network. Not even in Austin.

So we have a television network that makes it impossible to watch the team it was designed to cover.

LHN and ESPN are demanding lower tier coverage on all carriers and want (according to one report) 40 cents per subscriber whether or not they actually want to watch LHN. When you have companies like DISH Network or Time-Warner, you have customer bases of tens of millions of people and, well, you do the math. Those costs have to be passed on to those customers. But who cares about them?

So here we sit on Thursday morning, game day is two days away and it's quite possible most Texas fans around the country won't be able to watch their team on TV, since TV was invented.

LHN is urging fans to put pressure on the program providers. Flood the phone lines and their social media pages demanding they carry LHN! It hasn't worked.

Come on Texas. Put your money where your swagger is and while you're at it, put your fans first. If LHN is so good, offer it up to carriers at no charge and go out and sell advertising to pay for your $300 million investment. As an aside, most start up networks actually pay carriers to be included on their channel line-ups.

So here we sit, stuck in the middle again. In Washington, the people's needs are put last. In Austin, the fans needs are put last.

It's wrong, but sadly these days, business as usual.

Brian Olson
Owner/Consultant
Conversation Starters Public Relations

Making the case for a la carte television programming

Pay Television customers are cutting the cable and ditching the dish by the hundreds of thousands.

There are a few reasons for this, not the least of which is the economy. Folks simply can't afford to pay over a hundred bucks a month for TV. The real reason is the alternative programming choices like Apple TV or the increasing amount of programming available on the Internet. You can receive local stations free off-air, many other channels are free via the 'Net and there's a huge amount of programming that yes, you have to pay for, but it's on demand and you only pay for what you really want to watch.

I love Entourage but don't subscribe to HBO. So I just wait for it to come out on iTunes and buy the season for under 20 bucks.

Here's the challenge satellite and cable companies face. It's the program providers themselves because of a process called bundling. When you purchase a programming package from a satellite or cable company, you do so in tiers. You can't just pick the channels you want to watch.

Here's how it works, and why satellite and cable companies are held hostage, then have to hold you hostage as a consumer. Let's say a hugely popular channel decides to add another one to its programming line-up. Maybe they come up with the "Best of George Hamilton" channel. With apologies to George, it likely would attract few, if any viewers. But darn it, they believe in it and want eyeballs.

So the company will tell the satellite and cable companies that if they want to carry the hugely popular channel, they also have to "bundle" the boring channels as well. Which costs more, and that cost is passed on to you. You pay for what you don't watch.

Think about it. Of all the channels you have available to you, how many do you actually watch at your house. 5, 10, 15? This out of a several hundred you're having to pay for. So Apple TV, or services like Netflix provide an alternative. You pay only for what you actually watch. Plus more and more channels are available free on the 'Net. Click, play, enjoy.

Out of the tens of millions of people who use satellite or cable, the loss of a few hundred thousand may not seem like much. But I remember back in the day when satellite companies came along and the cable companies laughed at the few hundred thousand original customers companies like DISH Network or DIRECTV offered. The cable companies long since stopped laughing. Actually a few tears were shed.

To be fair, no one has fought harder to keep programming costs down than DISH Network's Charlie Ergen. His battles with program providers are legendary. He's already adapting his company for the new way people watch TV, when and where.

In the toughest of economic times, the last thing people will give up besides food and shelter, is television. But they are no longer interested in, and can no longer afford to pay for programming they don't watch in the first place.

It's time for consumers to have the freedom to pay for only what they watch, a la carte. People that produce programming, and the companies that distribute it better wake up to that fact and find a way to make it work.

There's a counter-argument that a la carte programming would cost consumers more. It's akin to another argument (from Washington) that the states would never pass a balanced budget amendment. In both instances why not let us make that decision? "We the people" pay the bills. We're not "Monetary" units." We're customers.

(I've offered a friend in the industry equal time)

Brian Olson
Conversation Starters Public Relations

Loose lips sink ships. Why it's important to always be on message.

Teachers, salaries, pensions and benefits remain very much in the news. The recent ruckus in Wisconsin is a high profile example. To be fair, here are two recent stories about where the situation stands from the Weekly Standard and Huffington Post.

A lot of contention, opinion and emotion remains on both sides.


My point here is not what side you may take in this issue or any other, but why it's important for everyone involved to be on message. Just like the old saying "Loose Lips Sink Ships," loose lips can also sink a cause or movement.

Case in point: I was watching the news yesterday and there was a story about people lining up two days in advance of the opening of the new IKEA Store in Centennial. (Why this is "news" in the first place is another story)

A reporter asked one lady who is spending a full two days in line how she could afford to do it. "I'm a teacher, we get the whole summer off," was the reply. Oops. One could almost here the groan of the National Education Association all the way across the country.

When you, your organization or cause is in the middle of a high profile campaign, everyone and I mean EVERYONE has to be on message all the time. Even when standing in line to buy furniture.

Brian Olson
Conversation Starters Public Relations
"We start the conversation about you" (And teach your team to help manage that conversation)

Blood in the Media Waters and the Sharks are circling.

A pundit said the other day there are two types of journalists: Those who work for News Corp and those who compete against News Corp. The latter are having a field day. There's blood in the media waters and it's attracting crowds. Even a shaving creme pie.

Led by Uber Media Baron Rupert Murdoch, News Corp became arguably one of the most powerful media companies in the world. A powerhouse in print and broadcast with online affiliates, often making headlines for the headlines and stories they broke.

Now it appears they might have broken the law while breaking headlines, hacking into the cell phones of political leaders to crime victims in England. A rogue operation within an organization led by a powerful rogue. Executives have been sacked or arrested, a whole newspaper was shut down.

The media business is highly competitive. Make that incredibly competitive. The outlets with the most eyeballs make the most money. And News Corp outlets like the Wall Street Journal and FOX News have the eyeballs. Just ask CNN or MSNBC.

So when a competitor is down, all's fair in love, war and journalism. Let the kicking begin!

Right now the lawbreaking appears to be contained only to England. But unsubstantiated reports have News Corp hacking into the cell phones of 9-11 victims here in the USA. Again, unsubstantiated reports. But there's enough smoke that the FBI is checking for the smallest sign of fire.

There's plenty at stake. News Corp owns several local television stations as part of it's US holding  and they're licensed by the FCC, which if laws were broken, could yank those licenses. The White House, no doubt, is also watching with no small amount of glee that FOX News, which it considers to be "unfriendly" could be impacted by all the fall-out. Guess who likely called in the FBI?

Commentators on FOX News often take potshots at their lower-rated competition. Now the competition is returning fire. All are devoting significant air time and resources to covering the Murdoch saga with great enthusiasm.

I'm not taking sides in this other than if laws were broken or journalistic ethics compromised, those guilty need to be punished. I have my favorite news outlets and so do you. There are plenty to choose from. That said, everyone has to play by the rules. But the story is a juicy one and as long as it has legs, you can bet those who've been bested by News Corp will spare no expense or resources in covering this story. You can also bet there will be a movie about it.

To be fair, the coverage here on this side of the Atlantic has been fair, but also tough. FOX News isn't shying away from covering the story either, helping hold as it were, the spotlight that is on all News Corp properties.

What's next? Stay tuned. There will be no shortage of coverage--and it's great fun to watch.

Brian Olson
Conversation Starters Public Relations