In 2002 I made two trips to Russia to teach MBAs at Moscow University Touro. You can read about my early January trip, “Christmas trees in the Kremlin,”  in Rowan University’s magazine. I returned in November of the same year to teach an e-commerce class, where we got into a discussion of how Internet technology has facilitated the growth and speed of feedback loops.

To illustrated to the class the power of feedback loops, I described how the development of accurate feeding technology (see the sidebar below) depended on the microprocessor, which in turn depended on the ability of feedback loops to provide timely data on what’s happening outside the feeder.

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This is the last of today's conversations with Rudy Maxa. If you have questions or comments for Rudy, you can leave them here, and we'll try to hunt him down in India to get answers.   more »

First travel industry PR folks have to know who writes or broadcasts about subjects that relate to their clients. Sounds basic, I know, but you’d be amazed at the number of people who reach out to me with totally inappropriate press releases....   more »

This is Part 2 of our Q&A with Travel writer/host Rudy Maxa. Do you see travel blogs becoming a major influencer in how and where people travel? Are travel blogs impacting your work as a travel writer?   more »

Rudy Maxa is on a plane this morning from Orlando to St. Paul and from there heads off to India for a National Geographic Traveler assignment. So we're doing today's discussion with Rudy as a four-part Q&A. In part one, we talk to Rudy about how he got started as a travel writer and onair commentator and his early days as an online travel personality.   more »

Joseph Taylor is the founder of two industrial websites: www.PowderandBulk.com and www.WaterandWastewater.com. His is one of the early success stories of using the Internet as a tool to help engineers find industrial equipment suppliers.   more »

Paul Scrivens at BusinessLogs.com writes that blogs are the digital path to word of mouth marketing. In The Power of the Industry Blog, Scrivens declares, "Word of mouth spreads quickly. Get your product a blog and get it mentioned in your industry's blog (if there isn't one, why don't you start one?)."   more »

I first came across the primitive-brain-as-gatekeeper idea in You've Got to Be Believed to Be Heard by Bert Decker (1992), a good guide to effective speaking that also offers insight into communication theory.    more »

Does emotion play a role in online industrial communication? The question is more ofen addressed in the consumer market, as in Margie Weinstein’s report, “Getting Emotional about Branding” from the National Retail Federation’s 94th Annual Convention and Expo. Her post covers a presentation by psychiatrist and author Dr. Clotaire Rapaille.    more »

Industrial Blog Week is originating from South Jersey (Southern New Jersey for those beyond the reach of the Philly cheese steak). If you drove two hours north of here, you’d come to Paterson, New Jersey, where Alexander Hamilton founded the Society for Establishing Useful Manufacture.    more »

As we build a new model of communication for our new age, it’s useful to consider how we came by the old model.   more »

Our discussion of new (and old) communication models continues this week. Dan Forbush will lead the discussion tomorrow. If you would like to volunteer to take a day, send an email to our Blog Week coordinator, Gwendolynn Gawlick , at gg@prdiva.com.

Elizabeth's discussion of communication models sent me back to the PR textbook I used in graduate school. Grunig and Hunt identified four PR Communication Models in Managing Public Relations [James E. Grunig and Todd Hunt, Harcourt, Bace Jovanovich (1984), p. 21].

The two earliest forms of PR communication, according to the authors, were one-way publicity (such as a publicist promoting a movie), followed by the less overtly commercial communication of one-way public information (such as may be practiced by a government public affairs officer).

Grunig and Hunt held that public relations functions at a higher level when it practices two-way communication. They saw corporate PR largely functioning at the level of two-way asymmetric communication, and some regulated utilities achieving the ideal of two-way symmetric communication.

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IAOC is looking for blog leaders who would like to lead a week-long online forum about an online communications topic that is of special interest to you. Producer Gwendolynn Gawlick of PR Diva is ready to help you and your discussion group develop your special topic. 

At the New Communications Forum's Blog University in Napa, CA, Elizabeth Albrycht called for a Blog Week on blog ethics. You can volunteer to participate or lead this discussion, by leaving a comment on her blog.

This free program is made possible by IAOC members. To suggest a topic you would like to lead, please leave a comment here.

 

Join IAOC members for a free and free wheeling forum about the online communications issues that matter to you.

Here is the line-up so far:

Elizabeth Albrycht, Albrycht McClure & Partners
Topic: New Communication Models

Felix Laboy, E-site Marketing
Topic: Online Communications in the Travel Industry

Steve O'Keefe, Patron Saint Productions
Topic: Producing Blog Tours for Book Authors

Donald L. Dunnington, K-Tron International
Topic: Industrial Blogs: Do Blogs Make Sense for Companies that Don't Make Much News?

Suzanne Sparks FitzGerald, Rowan University
Topic: EduBlogs: Students and Professors who Blog

Watch for dates for these special blog weeks, along with new topics.