Tag: what we can learn from

More than Dirk Nowitzki or the hole in the roof of their stadium or even the words “Who shot J.R.?,” I think the thing the majority of Americans connect with the city of Dallas is their cheerleaders. And it’s a strange thing, really, because cheerleaders are so ubiquitous now that one exclusive group of females in north Texas shouldn’t make such an impression on Americans. Every sports team in this country has a squad of short short-wearing ladies, but somehow, the Dallas Cowboys cheerleaders have become the preeminent name in cheerleading (even moreso, perhaps, than L.A.’s famed Laker Girls).

And if not for the Radio City Rockettes, the Cowboys cheerleaders would be the most famous high-kicking organization in the entire country.

But there’s something odd about group so visible despite the fact that they perform only eight times a year (not counting preseason or playoff games). Somehow, they’ve managed to take cowboys boots and the simplest color scheme this side of Syracuse University and turn it into a cheerleading empire.

That’s why the Dallas Cowboys cheerleaders are the focus of this installment of “What Journalists Can Learn From….”

1.) The Brand Comes First. Quick, off the top of your head, name one member of this year’s Dallas Cowboys cheerleading squad? How about any cheerleader on the squad dating back to the squad’s inception in 1972? You can’t, because the squad isn’t about individual achievement. The Cowboys cheerleaders are a brand, one of the most powerful ones in sports. They’re carefully managed to make sure that the brand — not the individual members — is the star.

Now look at a news organization like Politico. They’ve managed to connect their brand with politics, and with great results. When one of their writers breaks a story, it’s hailed as a victory for the entire organization, because at Politico, the brand comes first.

2.) Sell It — Across Platforms. Throughout the team’s history, the Cowboys have done a remarkable job of marketing their cheerleaders. Their cheerleaders have appeared in swimsuit calendars (in print and on TV), toured internationally and even had their own feature film (starring, quite naturally, Jane Seymour.) The Cowboys cheerleaders were platform agnostic long before the concept even really existed. They’re a model for journalists willing to brave the multi-platform world.

3.) Be Visible in the Community. I don’t think journalists are doing a good enough job actually making their way into the community and interacting with the public. Some are doing a good job of it digitally — N.B. The Washington Post’s ‘The Fix’ — but actually getting out of the newsroom and being visible is another matter. It’s one thing that the Cowboys cheerleaders excel at, especially when it comes to showing up at public events or youth camps. For journalists, maybe it means attending more forums or speaking at schools. But whatever it is, journalists have to do a better job of reminding people that we’re out there, working for the public good.

Of course, there’s one more thing that any journalist can learn from the Cowboys cheerleaders: whatever it is you’re putting out in the public sphere, make sure it really kicks.

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H/T to KENS 5’s Jeff Anastasio for the photos.

There are few advantages to being 6’6” and unable to dunk. Three come to mind: 1.) It makes it easy for people to find me at crowded social events; 2.) It makes it easy to dust hard-to-reach places; and 3.) It gives me a decided advantage when catching t-shirts at sporting events.

In my lifetime, I’ve caught far more free t-shirts than I deserve, and it’s mostly been because I have the wingspan of someone who’s 6’9”. But when I catch a free t-shirt, I don’t just toss it in a dresser somewhere. No, I wear that Verizon-sponsored Washington Capitals shirt for about three to six months longer than public decency will allow.

And I know I’m not the only one obsessed with the concept of ‘free.’ I’ve seen it at sporting events throughout my life: people will do anything for a free shirt, no matter how obnoxious it looks or how oversized the advertisement on the back is.

That’s why the free t-shirt giveaway is the focus of this installment of “What Journalists Can Learn From….”

1. You’ve Got to Make People Want It. Last year, at a Mizzou basketball game, a fellow student dove face first into the row in front of me to catch a foam finger that had been dropped from the rafters. It was just a yellow “We’re #1” finger with a massive logo for a local business on both sides, but the student nearly came up concussed in his bid for the thing. Now, maybe we’re not looking for the public to risk bodily harm to get their hands on news, but certainly, we need to entice them with strong content that consumers are willing to seek out.

2. Engage Consumers Wherever They Are. Just a decade ago, you had to be within the range of a strong-armed cheerleader to catch a shirt. Then the slingshot came around and expanded the number of fans that could catch a shirt. And then the t-shirt cannon was invented, making it so that fans seated in the upper deck of a pro stadium could catch a shirt. The idea here is simple: engage the widest audience possible while still keeping a focused message. We’ve got our t-shirt cannon: the Internet. Journalists just need to harness that power to better distribute the news.

3. Free Can Be Desirable. Sure, the shirts are ugly, and no, I don’t really want a foot-wide Papa John’s logo on the front of the garment I’m wearing to every game. But if the option is a free shirt or a $25 one available at the team’s store (geez, talk about a pay wall), you can understand why fans are so willing to stand up or even dive for a free one. But think of it this way: on free t-shirt days at the ballpark, teams won’t bring out the t-shirt cannon. Why? It’s because fans won’t care; they’ve already gotten what they wanted. The shirts are only desirable if it’s the only free option.

So maybe media should be creating targeted, premium content — that, just maybe, consumers will be willing to pay for — while still engaging the rest of the crowd with free, non-niche news. (And I can’t imagine that Rupert Murdoch would be pleased to hear that his business model is being replicated by interns in mascot costumes around the country this summer.)

I went searching last night for a video of Bill Nye. I do not know what cued the idea in my head; I wasn’t reading about science or bowties or Seattle, or even about Nye’s arch nemesis, Ed Begley Jr. I have no idea what could have placed the thought in my head, but suddenly, I found myself standing up, walking to the fridge to grab a glass of milk and thinking: You know, I should really write a thousand words about Bill Nye.

And so I went looking for the video, or, more specifically, the theme song. Because that’s what you’ll remember about Bill Nye the Science Guy, the lanky engineer whose self-titled science show on PBS was a favorite on days when my sixth grade science teacher didn’t have any idea what to do with the class.

Mr. Avila would push a tape into a VCR, and after PBS’s opening message – we never did figure out who was behind the Carnegie Foundation that seemed to underwrite every show that aired on that network – the Bill Nye theme song would come on.

Timing in at just under thirty seconds, it’s a surprisingly catchy tune. The hook sounds mildly like a mid-90s Beastie Boys B-side, except that the base is replaced by a man repeatedly yelling out the name Bill, and the guitar solo is ripped from a mediocre Van Halen cover band. The only words spoken in the song are “Inertia is a property of matter”; unsurprisingly, a full decade later, it’s one of the few scientific facts I still know with any degree of certainty. Meanwhile, images of old TV sets and upside-down astronauts and Bill Nye’s face float across the screen.

What’s most remarkable is that – despite having not seen the video this millennium — I still remember the song almost beat for beat.

To create a song – and a show – that catchy, Nye was doing a staggering number of things right. It’s why he’s the subject of this week’s “What Journalists Can Learn From….”

1. Experiment, Above All Else: Yes, Nye’s show was about scientific experiments, but I’d like to go beyond the obvious. Nye actually holds two patents: one for ballet shoes, and another for a “collapsible, water-filled magnifying glass.” He wasn’t just a TV host; he’s an innovator, even in his role today as a one-man experiment in environmental living.

2. Know Your Audience: On the show, half of his sketches were “Benny Hill” rip-offs. He repeated concepts entirely too often. He’s always wore a baby blue lab coat and a bowtie, and he played both the smartest guy in the room and a jester simultaneously. And somehow, it worked. Because Nye knew who his audience was: teenagers with absolutely no attention span for science. If you’re going to draw them in, you’re going to have to be goofy. Sure, he took it too far on the show, especially for the audience that had already reached Bar Mitzvah age. But for a good chunk of young Americans – myself included – he remains one of the most influential scientists of our generation. He’s the only one who bothered to talk to us on our level.

3. Routine Can Be Habit-Forming: Nye’s shows were unthinkably formulaic. Each show had the same introduction, the same sequence of experiments and sketches. Basically, it was a plug-and-play script that was slightly altered from show to show based on the theme of the particular episode. But familiarity meant that viewers always knew what was coming next.

If you’ve read Malcolm Gladwell’s guide to “Blues Clues” from The Tipping Point, then this should sound familiar: there comes a moment when children are able to comprehend – and actually learn – concepts. Up until this moment, children do not retain a significant amount of what they’re being taught.

Nye just happened to figure out both the tipping point for the pre-teen set and the elements that lead to that point.

Here’s the application for news: readers aren’t necessarily familiar with the journalism process. So part of working with new mediums is teaching the public how to interact with them.

An example: web video hasn’t broken through yet, partially because readers aren’t sure what to expect from it. Unlike a news article – where the most important information is found in the opening paragraphs – non-TV news video tends to bury the lead, if it has one at all.

Viewers watched Nye because they knew what they were getting out of it (an interesting look at basic scientific concepts), and they knew when they could fast forward through an episode (the “Benny Hill” parts), since each episode was structured the same way.

The news organizations that build the best web video will also create identifiable structure within their web video, so readers know why they’re tuning in and when they can tune out. Better yet, they’ll create this structure while still allowing space to be as creative, goofy, or informative as Nye was.

And one more thing: readers need familiarity and routine in their news. They need to understand when we’re blogging or Tweeting, and they need transparency to know to how we do it. They need to understand our niches – Nye owned science to the point where’s he’s been quoted about the science behind both baseball and Pluto – and they need to know why we cover the topics that we do.

Routine breeds familiarity, which, ideally, breeds trust. With that in hand, news organizations can build just about anything.

Two weeks ago, Slam Magazine named Shaquille O’Neal the fourth greatest basketball player in NBA history. Now, argue all you want about whether or not Shaq is better than some other names on that list — like Oscar Robertson (no. 5 on the list), Magic Johnson (no. 6) or Juwan Howard (weirdly, not ranked). I’m not here to argue his place in history.

But here’s what I find remarkable: unlike most of the players on that list, when I think of Shaq, I don’t think of basketball first.

Sure, Jordan’s synonymous with all sorts of YouTubeable highlights. Dr. J cues up an image of a man finishing a reverse layup from behind the basket. Say John Havlicek’s name, and immediately, four words come to mind: “Stole the ball.“

Then there’s Shaq. I’ll remember him not for his four NBA titles but for what he did — and said — off the court.

That’s why he’s the subject of this week’s “What Journalists Can Learn From…”

1. Control your brand name. Shaq’s a perfect example of how to — and how to not — build your brand. He’s cultivated this larger-than-life image by being wildly quotable and media friendly. ESPN’s run a Top 10 of Shaq’s most famous quotes — my favorite: “We’re not worried about the Sacramento Queens” — on more than a handful of occasions. His “MTV Cribs” episode is awesome. His arrival in Miami a few years back was brilliant. But then there’s the flip side: his movie career was a flop, and his notorious Kobe Bryant-themed rap landed on the web. Building a brand means giving people unique content, and Shaq’s certainly as quotable as any in pro sports. But he’s also been prone to poor decision making in public.

2. If you tweet, tweet well. Shaq’s closing in on 1.5 million followers, and it’s because his Twitter feed is among the most innovative anywhere. He engages users in ridiculous contests — today, he asked followers to send in their best “Yo Momma” joke — and retweets regularly.

3. Evolve. Shaq — the basketball player — in 2009 is not the same as the Shaq of even a few seasons ago. But after his recent trade to Cleveland, many pegged the Cavs as a title contender. Shaq’s slower, and certainly not the dominant force that he was earlier this decade. But he’s evolved into something else. He’s a role player who’s said publicly that he doesn’t mind coming off the bench, and there aren’t many stars who are willing to sacrifice their own stats for the team. He’s finding his niche as he ages and staying relevant. I’ve said it before: if you have essential skills to offer, you can always find an audience that needs your services.

I’m finishing up a road trip, so this Friday’s installment of “What Journalists Can Learn From…” is all about business travel. When I’m on the road, I’m just looking to be treated humanely. But sometimes, it seems that companies forget to do even that.

The photo at right — me, standing next to an entirely-too-low shower head — will be addressed in a moment.

That being said, I’m thinking about three things that journalists can learn when traveling:

1. Serve the Public Good. On my Southwest flight from Baltimore to San Antonio, we’d only been waiting on the tarmac for 10 minutes when the pilot came over the loudspeakers. “So, we could be waiting here a while,” he said. “You can turn on your phones if you’d like.” Then, an hour later, he announced that we would be heading back to the gate, because the airport was probably going to shut down due to severe weather. So they allowed passengers to disembark.

Meanwhile, out the window, we could see that other airlines were leaving their passengers trapped on the plane during a thunderstorm.

An hour later, we reboarded the plane, and the pilot continued to keep us up-to-date about what was happening and why we weren’t taking off. The flight left some six-and-a-half hours late, but passengers didn’t complain. The Southwest crew kept the passengers informed, and they weren’t afraid to say that they were frustrated by what was happening, too. I’ve never been on a flight that was delayed that long, but I’ve also never been on a flight where we were so well informed about why the delay was happening. (The pilot even threw in a nice plug, asking passengers to write in to their Congressman about our nation’s outdated air traffic control system.) Southwest’s crew acted with the passengers’ best interests at heart, so the passengers were willing to cooperate despite the delays.

2. Be Easy to Reach. During the delay, I was trying to reach Enterprise Rent-a-Car to change my reservation. I called both numbers from my confirmation email; neither line got me through to a real human being. So I used Google’s 411 service to find Enterprise’s customer service line, and eventually, an actual person was able to direct me to the San Antonio Enterprise location. Still, if I didn’t have more than a few dollars at stake, I’d have given up. Any organization should be imminently reachable, especially by phone or email (but also via Facebook, Twitter, comments on blogs, etc). Meet your community, wherever they are.

3. Know Your Clientele. So that photo at the top of this post is of me in my shower at the La Quinta. Now, this is a hotel that gives you what you want: a clean bed, good air conditioning, and a nice bathroom. But the shower head is unbelievably low. I know that at my size — I’m 6’5” — I have to crouch to shower sometimes. But the La Quinta shower head would be too low for someone a foot shorter than me. La Quinta’s simply forgotten to do a basic thing really well, and the next time I’m considering a La Quinta, I won’t remember that the hotel had a free breakfast and a pool outside. But I’ll absolutely remember that I had to go to my knees to wash my hair.