Wow, what a lineup we have for the Fall 2007 season of "This Week on IAOCblog.com"! Take a look at these hosts and topics, and plan to tune in next week for the kickoff program with Sloan School of Management researcher, Peter A. Gloor.

We have two vacancies left in the schedule. If you would like to present, contact Morty or me. Who do you want to see on the blog? Maybe Morty and I could convince them to join us.

STEVE O'KEEFE & MORTY SCHILLER
Co-Hosts


This Week on IAOCblog.com
Fall 2007 Program Schedule

September 24-28, 2007
GUEST: Peter Gloor, Sloan Management School at MIT
TOPIC: The Virtual Mirror: Patterns in Collaboration

October  1-5, 2007
GUEST: Open
TOPIC: Open

October  8-12, 2007
GUEST: Open
TOPIC: Open

October  15-19, 2007
GUEST: Dave Taylor, Blogsmart, Ask Dave Taylor
TOPIC: Is It Okay to Get Paid to Blog?

October  22-26, 2007
GUEST: Ted Demopoulos, Blogging for Business
TOPIC: Should CEOs Blog?

October  29-November 2, 2007
GUEST: Dianna Huff, Marcom Writer Blog
TOPIC: Writing Search Engine Friendly Copy

November  5-9, 2007
GUEST: Lois Kelly, Foghound
TOPIC: Conversational Marketing: Mood over Matter?

November  13-16, 2007
(Monday, Nov. 12 is Veteran's Day)
GUEST: Shel Horowitz, Ethical Marketing Expert
TOPIC: Blogger's Code of Ethics: News or Ruse?

Welcome back teachers, professors, students, and professionals to another season of "This Week on IAOCblog.com." I'm Steve O'Keefe, co-producer of this program with the irascible Morty Schiller, who has been shooting down spam comments and trackbacks all summer.

For those who are new, "This Week at IAOCblog" is a weekly blog show where we try to bring in experts each week to lead discussions on topics related to online communications.

Here are some of the people who have asked about being on the show this season, or we solicited them and they've agreed to teach:

Nettie Hartsock - Blog Consultant and Book Publicist, who promised Lois Kelly, the Word-of-Mouth marketing expert with her for a show on how "point-of-view matters more than messaging in conversational marketing." Yum.

Shel Horowitz, ethical marketing expert and copywriter extraordinaire, we hope will lead us in a discussion of efforts to generate and enforce a "Blogger's Code of Ethics."

Dave Taylor -- yes, THE Dave Taylor, tech guru, innovator, iconoclast -- as in Ask Dave Taylor your questions right here, on IAOCblog, about (shhhh!) generating revenue from your blog.

Ron Sansone on the Independence Day Digg Mugging the IAOCblog received and what it shows about the future of tagging, digging, and Ron Paul's chances of riding social networking into the Oval Office.

And Much More! We'll continue bugging Bob Bly to visit us; we might get an update from Dianna Huff, and I'm hoping MIT's Peter Gloor will join us to talk about a new study analyzing workplace communications for signs of "Swarm Creativity."

All in all, a busy season ahead. Interested in leading the blog for a week? Send me your show idea and let's talk. We're going to take the rest of this week on IAOCblog to talk about what's coming this Fall -- and about our European Conference in Zurich next Spring.

STEVE O'KEEFE
Vice President, IAOC
Co-Host, "This Week on IAOCblog.com"

Call for Search Engine Optimization Resources

This week, we are looking for your recommendations on the top Search Engine Optimization articles or resources. Please place your suggestions in this thread and students from my Tulane University class in Internet Public Relations will post reviews here. Or post your own review.

Morty Schiller and I have been swapping SEO suggestions. Hopefully, he'll share some of his top picks. Also, my IT department -- Jesse Vohs a.k.a. The MacMaster -- has been doing SEO work for my company and found some good resources for analyzing your web site's SEO-friendliness. If he doesn't post, I'll extract his tips from previous e-mails and post them here.

Here are a couple of my top picks:

---

Search Engine Watch

http://www.searchenginewatch.com/

An amazing resource for information about web site registration strategies and search engine optimization. A good list of links to do-it-yourself registration pages. Students will find many articles here worthy of review.

---

Words In A Row

http://www.wordsinarow.com/wheretogo.html

An excellent site for do-it-yourself registration, with a comprehensive list of top directories and search engines, links to their submit pages, and tips on using each one.

---

STEVE O'KEEFE

Author, Complete Guide to Internet Publicity

Professor of Internet Public Relations, Tulane University

Vice President, IAOC

It has been some time since I've been able to post here on a regular basis, but that's about to change. We are re-starting This Week on IAOCblog.com. We have a pile of great guests waiting in the wings to take over the blog for a week and teach. So let's get started...

THE FORMAT
For each program, we recruit a guest blogger who provides a topic. We then ask that guest blogger to recruit two or more other guests who agree to post or comment during that week. Friday is usually used for summary comments and to preview the coming week.

THE QUEUE
Right now in the queue is me -- Steve O'Keefe -- who has yet to post handouts from the IAOC Conference in Valley Forge. I'll try to get that done in the next few days. We then have potentially three blog shows led by IBM's online communications team -- on intranets, podcasting, and a mysterious web site they are developing. Sounds intriguing! Then we have the authors of some 14 papers presented at IAOC Valley Forge that we'll be asking to lead week-long sessions. And then there's YOU. If you have a topic you would like to lead, please send mailto:steve.okeefe@patronsaintpr.com and we will contact you to set up a date.

USER NAMES & PASSWORDS
You will all need a username and password to post to the blog. If you need one, e-mail Don Dunnington mailto:DDunnington@ktron.com and he will set you up. You might also be hearing from my associate in producing This Week on IAOCblog.com, Morty Schiller, who is traveling in Israel and won't be available to assist for a couple weeks.

Finally, I hope if you are not yet a member of the IAOC, you will join. We have not yet closed this program to members-only, but eventually we will. We need your membership dues and sponsorships to keep this program running. Anyone at the Valley Forge Conference could see that we need the IAOC because no other professional trade group is covering this cutting edge material.

See You Tomorrow,
STEVE O'KEEFE
Vice President, IAOC
Producer, "This Week on IAOCblog.com"

I'm going to continue our discussion of producing online video until someone else takes the helm of "This Week on IAOCblog.com." Today, I'd like to talk a little about file sizes, since that is such a huge issue.   more »

We shoot our videos using miniDV tape, then "capture" them using Final Cut Studio. Capturing imports the video onto the hard drive. File sizes for uncompressed video are huge! Our 20-minute interviews are too large to fit onto a DVD. That makes it very difficult to transfer files between camera crews and editing crews.

We edit in Final Cut Studio, then "render" (compress) the video using Cleaner software. When I first saw the pulldown menu in Cleaner for video compression settings, I knew I could never edit film. There are dozens of format choices! We render in one: QuickTime MPEG-4, AAC.

Because we render in only one format, we get complaints from people, especially on older computers, that they can't access the video. Now my tech guru says, "Tough. If they want to watch video online, they need to update their gear. No matter what format we render in, those people will not be happy. No one on a 56K modem is going to like online video."

And he's right. Since we switched from offering video in 7 formats to offering it in 1 format, our connection complaints have stayed roughly the same. Either way, we have the same number of dissatisfied users. To maintain 7 choices, we'd have to stay up on the latest software in five different programs. Our customer service problems have remain unchanged, but our production costs have dropped significantly.

On the other hand, my Production Manager thinks we should offer at least one alternative format specifically optimized for Windows computer users on older systems. That would probably cure at least half of the format complaints we get.

And he's right, too. We really should be producing in two formats: one that works on most PCs and iPods as well, and one that works on older Windows PCs. It's a tough call.

Even tougher calls are ahead. We also produce DVDs from our videos, and there's a whole 'nother kettle of fish. There are two formats fighting it out for the future of DVD. I hope someone chimes into this dicussion who knows more about this than me; I'm trying to keep my head low until victory is declared.

Videos on cell phones, as I've learned, is the least organized of all these markets. There are several different format choices (none very good, I'm told), and numerous different delivery systems, the file sizes are huge, what do you when the connection drops??? Even though our videos easily go into iTunes, it will be a long time before we make a version for phones.

Anyone care to add to this discussion?

Tomorrow I'll talk a little more about the file size problem.

STEVE O'KEEFE
V.P. IAOC
President, AuthorViews, Inc.

An epic battle is being waged, in cyberspace and, more to the point, in my space -- my office -- over what formats to use for online video.

Until last fall, we made our videos available in the following formats:

QuickTime
MPEG-4
MPEG-1
RealMedia (hi res & lo res)
Windows Media (hi res & lo res)

Your consumer looks at that list and goes, "Huh?" How do you know which one to click? So we installed a nifty little applet that would ping a browser's config and -- presto! -- serve up the perfect video for that user. However, many people behind firewalls will not let the applet ping their systems, and so they can't access the video, even though they have the right gear.

This fall, Apple made life easier on us in many ways by introducing the video iPod and making it compatible with only two different file formats. The codec we use is called "QuickTime MPEG-4, AAC". A codec is an algorithm that contains instructions for compressing and decompressing video. The main ratio we look at when choosing a codec is the clarity compared with the file size. The codec we use results in incredibly small file sizes (2 megabytes/minute) with outstanding clarity on an iPod. Every new generation of codec results in a geometrical improvement in quality and reduction in file size. That's what's really powering the online video revolution: Moore's Law.

So last fall, we started rendering our videos in one format instead of seven. The only problem is, you can't see the videos unless you are running QuickTime 6 or higher. Lots of people cannot see our videos now. So should we render videos in Windows Media or RealMedia or some alternative to make it easier on people?

No.

That's what my tech guru says.

Yes.

That's what my video production manager says.

Me? I'm stuck in the middle. Tomorrow, I'll present some arguments pro and con in this debate.

But I'd like to hear what YOU have to say about it. Have you had experience producing online video? What formats do you prefer? Have you been frustrated trying to use video online? Any pet peeves?

Your's for Smaller Files & Greater Clarity,
STEVE O'KEEFE
V.P. IAOC
President, AuthorViews, Inc.

I'm going to try kickstarting our awesome program, "This Week on IAOCblog.com," with a program about online video. Every day, I release a new 2-minute video at the AuthorViews web site. It's a daunting pace and requires that my head be firmly fastened to developing issues in online video. The business press breaks major online video stories almost every day. Google, Amazon, Apple, Sony, Microsoft -- they are all making major video-related deals every week. It's an exciting, difficult time for this nascent industry. I'll try to talk about some of the most pressing issues this week.

I'd also like to introduce everyone to one my associates, Morty Schiller, whom I've asked to assist with "This Week on IAOCblog.com." Morty is a copyrwriter extraordinaire, a blogger (his blog is called Wordrider), and has a wonderful sense of playfulness in his postings. Morty recently conducted a blog PR campaign for the book, The Case for Peace, by Alan Dershowitz, with me kibbitzing. Morty has a write-up about that campaign on his blog.

I'm hoping that Morty will assume the duties that PR Diva Gwendolynn Gawlick performed so admirably last fall: scheduling guest presenters for "This Week on IAOCblog.com," getting them passwords and usernames, and introducing the weekly topics and bloggers.

So, if you would like to take a week on the blog, please send topic ideas and dates to morty@mortyschiller.com, and we'll try to get this party started and keep it rolling to Valley Forge!

I have a pet peeve about fascinating discussions taking place in e-mail that belong on this blog. So let's kick it out, ladies and gentlemen, and see if we can get This Week on IAOCblog.com up and running again with a discussion of Online Communications in Investor Relations.

Don Dunnington broached the subject because he is giving a presentation at the National Investor Relations Institute (NIRI) meeting in Philadelphia on Thursday. The focus of the program is IR and blogging, v-blogging, and podcasting -- something like that.

Online IR was given a big boost by the Security & Exchange Commission's Regulation FD, requiring full disclosure of material financial information to all investors simultaneously. Webcasting earnings reports is one of the few ways to stay on the right side of Regulation FD.

My take on this was that IR folks are going to need to learn online video if they want their earnings reports to spread far and wide (of course, sometimes you don't want earnings reports spreading at all). I've been working with online video for four years now and I can tell you it is tough sledding. In some ways, Apple has made it easier for us because there are only two formats of digital video that play on iPods and cell phones. When you realize that there are hundreds of compression settings you can use with online video, narrowing the number down to 2 is a great relief. I'm thinking if you're broadcasting earnings reports, you'll want them to go onto handhelds.

Don found some interesting stats about subscribers to IR casts and then Dee Rambeau dished some info about how it's relatively easy to syndicate earnings reports through RSS. I hope those gentlement will post on this topic in the coming days and that you, dear reader, will chime in, too, and then This Week on IAOCblog.com will be back in business!

Wal-Mart's response to Hurricane Katrina is the best PR campaign I have ever seen -- because it's not a PR campaign. It's people taking action -- in their own self interest and out of genuine concern for human suffering -- deeds, not words.   more »

Two weeks ago, after a pre-Rita reconaissance of New Orleans, I put together a list of items returnees would need and started contacting Red Cross shelters and administrators asking to have these items available for people coming back to the Crescent City (see post dated September 17)...   more »

When New Orleanians see a Mardi Gras float coming, they holler, "Throw me somethin', mister!" A parade of refugees is about to return to what is left of their homes in New Orleans. Is there something you can throw to these passing krewes...   more »

I relocated to Richmond, Virginia, yesterday to visit with family and assess the possiblity of relocating here. These are issues all Katrina survivors are dealing with now. I'm hoping for a new phone number and mailing address soon, which I'll post.

Two more responses to aid requests have come in. From Joseph E. Farren, Director of Public Affairs for CTIA - The Wireless Association, comes this reply:

"Please be assured that the wireless industry is doing everything humanly possible to not only restore service in impacted areas but also provide displaced and stranded residents with access to critical telecommunications services.   We are working around-the-clock with federal, state and local officials in New Orleans to make this happen as soon as possible.   Our thoughts and prayers are with you and every person affected by this horrific storm."

I have asked Mr. Farren to please *quantify* the nature of CTIA's efforts: how many phones are being sent, where are they, who is distributing them. Pre-paid cell phones are still desperately needed in the area.

I received a call from Mike Militana, in PepsiCo Inc.'s cutomer affairs department to inform me that Pepsi has already shipped 9000 cases of 1-quart Aquafina water into the area and another 12,000 cases of water are being prepared for shipment. Pepsi lost a major bottling plant in Harrahan, Louisiana. PepsiCo food and water aid is being distirbuted by Second Harvest, among other relief groups. PepsiCo is matching employee donations to relief agencies and has upped their initial $100,000 donation to the Red Cross to $1 million for the Red Cross and $1 million for the Salvation Army.

The water crisis has eased in New Orleans, but obviously water will be needed for some time to come. I thank PepsiCo for providing numerical details about the level of their assistance.

STEVE O'KEEFE
IAOC Vice President
New Orleans Refugee

Today, I sent the e-mail, below, to Hank McKinnell, CEO of Pfizer, Inc., and Loretta Ucelli, Vice President of Corporate Communications for Pfizer, Inc.:

I am a Tulane University professor, Vice President of the International Association of Online Communicators (IAOC), and a refugee from New Orleans. I am writing due to an MSNBC news report on Monday, September 5, interviewing a nurse who just spent the last week ministering to the sick and dying in New Orleans. In his interview HE SPECIFICALLY ASKED FOR NEOSPORIN to be dropped onto the streets of the Marigny/Bywater district on the riverfront in New Orleans.

Pfizer is the manufacturer of NEOSPORIN. I am hoping that you will do everything in your power to see that NEOSPORIN reaches the people of New Orleans TODAY. I know from your track record with Tsunami aid that you will help the people of the Gulf Coast, but I hope that you will make an extra effort TODAY to see that the relief workers getting into this area are carrying extra NEOSPORIN for distribution as best as possible. This is a time for heroics. Please do something and then tell us what you've done so we can post it on our blog.

Thanks For Your Efforts,
STEVE O'KEEFE
New Orleans Refugee
Executive Director, Patron Saint Productions, Inc.
Bywater Tech Center, 538 Louisa St, New Orleans, LA 70117 USA
Voice: (504) 947-4994   Fax: (504) 947-4984   Cell: (504) 715-3051
Web Site: http://www.IAOCblog.com
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Is your company or organization doing something to help the victims of Hurricane Katrina? If so, could you post here about the measures you have taken? I can help get information about your offers or efforts to people in need in the area.

Thank You!
STEVE O'KEEFE
Vice President, IAOC
New Orleans Refugee

The AuthorViews Tour has finished its first leg. On July 7, I rolled into Bellingham, Washington, home of cameraman and tech guru, Jesse Vohs. I'll be working and playing in Bellingham for the next three weeks before the AuthorViews Tour resumes with a West Coast swing. As online communicators, you might want to learn a little about Jesse Vohs; he may be your worst nightmare. You see, Jesse Vohs is a hacker.   more »

The AuthorViews Tour rolls into Fort Collins, Colorado, where Steve O'Keefe interviews authors Pat Hartman and Tim Van Schmidt about writing, eBay, and independence.   more »

As the AuthorViews Summer Tour continues in Austin, Texas, IAOC vice president Steve O'Keefe interviews Electronic Frontier Foundation pioneer, iconoclast, and author Jon Lebowsky about his new book, Extreme Democracy. The book is a fascinating collection of essays on how technology is changing politics.   more »

The first stop on the AuthorViews Summer Tour 2005 is Austin, Texas, and the home of Hank Jones, an intellectual property attorney specializing in Open Source...   more »

IAOC vice president Steve O'Keefe treks across the American West with a camera crew shooting free videos. Day 0: Getting Ready to Miss New Orleans.   more »

I come into this week pondering these five issues. I’d love to hear anyone’s take on one or more of them this week: 1. Are Blog Tours Worthwhile? 2. Pros and Cons of Author Blogs 3. How to Buy Advertising on Blogs? 4. Will RSS replace eZines? 5. Will Blog Spam Kill Blogs and/or RSS?   more »

An introduction to IAOC BlogFest 2004 and moderator Steve O'Keefe.   more »