Developing websites is a part of my strategic communications business. Heck, managing a brand online is a big piece of what communications in the digital era is all about.

While many organizations leave the issue of getting online to IT people, I’ve found that IT too often is a bit old-school and not current on the latest online technology. I run into situations where the IT people of large organizations forget to include corporate business description and keywords in site coding, a significant disadvantage for brand awareness.

Case in point – the intelligence company Stratfor suffered what has been called the worst website hacking of 2011 when “Anonymous” broke into their servers on Christmas Eve and took everything, including the website, the backup, the company’s email files and customer data. Stratfor’s IT people simply were careless.

Responsibility, therefore, increasingly falls to communications/PR people to stay current to stay competitive.

The clients I work with benefit from open, transparent and appealing websites. It’s part of image, brand and reputation differentiation in today’s online world. It’s an element of how business competes. Search engines (SEO) grade sites on how fast they perform.

With 13 years of working online, I have stumbled into some awful web hosting companies. I’m no techie, I just want web hosting to work reliably and quickly. That’s not always the case. I have found servers that are located in far-off places like Berzerkistan that break down … hosting companies that suddenly go out of business … little-to-no customer service … and so on.

My sites vanished from online several years ago because the hosting company I used at the time, Lunarpages, had a major server fail. Yet, they refused to admit it for days. Media Temple, another hosting company, was hacked and its customer data list stolen. All that data was on an unencrypted Word file at Media Temple’s offices. Yet, Media Temple blamed its customers for the problem until the truth was revealed by bloggers.

Frustrated with all the hype and lies in the web hosting world, I turned to my friend Mike Durkin – who owns the terrific WordPress theme development company Solostream.com. Mike suggested I use Hostgator.com. His recommendation was such a gift.

While some techies and IT people might look down their noses at Hostgator – perhaps because of its odd-sounding names for hosting plans, like “hatchling” and “baby” – Hostgator has gained my trust and respect. They consistently deliver customer service on a par with such terrific brands as Apple, B&H Photo and Zappos. In a world full of outfits that sell computers, camera gear and shoes, Apple, B&H and Zappos, respectively, have become legends by delivering great customer service and support experiences.

It’s no different in website hosting: Hostgator sells an outstanding customer service experience and helpful US-based technical assistance, 24/7, in a very crowded environment. That’s the great brand differentiator that gives Hostgator the advantage. Their competitors are selling nothing but hosting, with possibly an exception I have overlooked. But in such crowded space, customer satisfaction ranks high.

For anyone in PR, communications and business, here are what I hope will be some helpful tips on evaluating website hosting companies:

• Who owns the company or is it shrouded in mystery? This helps determine whether they are accountable for hosting your website or not.
• Where are their corporate offices? If no address is listed on their website, buyer beware!
• Where are their servers (datacenter) located? If you are in the U.S., get a company in the U.S. If you are in England, get a company located in the U.K. And, so on.
• Do not trust any of those websites that compare and grade website hosting companies. They earn affiliate fees and don’t care if you are led astray.
• Don’t get talked into an expensive dedicated server or virtual private server unless you are hosting an e-commerce site or something with special software.
• Do not believe the hype over “unlimited” by hosting companies. There are limits on the number of files or inodes you can host. Some popular hosting companies have a 50,000 limit which is not much. Hostgator’s limit is 250,000. But, there are limits in the truth of the word, “unlimited.”

My counsel is simply to echo Mike Durkin … go with Hostgator and save yourself headaches. By the way, this is an UNcompensated endorsement.
 

Volvo's 1993 "Survivors" TV commercial, best of the year.

Look around us. Listen. It seems we are becoming, in America, a culture of noise, coarseness, exploitation, avarice, and division. Real life mirrors television, television mirrors real life.

On roadways, motorists drive with the same reckless deference they see in TV car commercials. But, the commercials are often made with animation.

Pundits – those minds of the great mentioners, according to David Brooks – act as if discussions are won by shrillness, interruptons and spewing more words than the person across the table.

Eavesdrop on a conversation in a cafe, and you may hear people parroting – perhaps without even realizing it – the words and speech affectations they heard on popular TV shows.

A couple of days ago, I wrote about a two-minute TV commercial for P&G airing in Britain that has captured widespread attention and influence by its simplicity and quietness. There is a reason the commercial is getting attention. Think about it.

In 1993, nearly 20 years ago, I was involved in producing a similar creative contrarian way to deliver a message. I facilitated the use of an original composition by English choral composer John Rutter for a 60-second Volvo commercial that won most advertising industry awards that year and is still talked about because of its simplicity to deliver a powerful message. Here it is:

I believe that few people comprehend noise. Most people, in my opinion, are fundamentally, perhaps instinctively, attracted to beauty and simplicity … and a human story they can relate to.

The contemporary chronicler of the human condition, writer William Boyd, once said, “The last thing we learn about ourselves is our effect.”
 

Washington Post columnist Gene Weingarten

Washington Post columnist Gene Weingarten has gotten fed-up with PR people and is taking his beef public. In a May 6, column, Weingarten wrote, “Their (PR people) entire existence teeters on a ludicrous lie they tell their clients: that they are tight with the media.”

“A PR pitch tends to be an enthusiastic description of a product or service that is so lame it actually needs the help of a PR professional. As pitches go, they’re particularly slimy — not like spitballs so much as snotballs. Loogieballs,” in Weingarten’s words.

Bravo! More professional journalists need to speak out, as well, about the pervasive fear that many if not most PR people have of actual contact with the media and PR’s widespread ineptness about how to present a legitimate and timely news story to the media.

I see it often … a PR firm lies to a client about tight connections with the media, and then, uses a press release distribution service to blanket the media’s email in-boxes with more meaningless and misdirected spam.

Will the PR industry hear and heed Weingarten’s warning? Probably not. PR people I know are too busy billing clients to read newspapers much less ever talk with a reporter.
 

Credit: Remarkablogger.com

Jobs, promotions and key advantage are increasingly going to those who make the most noise and create illusion of importance … even if it’s nothing more than self-importance hype behind it.

Heck, a former unemployed guy who had time on his hands in the early days of Twitter to build an enormous number of followers has bragged that CEOs have paid him $22,000 for a couple hours of his “wisdom” … although whatever wisdom he possesses is based on nothing but hype and B-S.

No wonder some people abroad think America has given over to insanity.

I don’t dismiss “Self-promote or perish” because it’s akin to what I counsel companies and organizations – Learn to tell your own news in an attractive news-style or be relegated to the dark competitive shadows of obscurity.

Don’t count on the media to write a story about you, let alone read some boring, self-aggrandizing press release.

The news media as we’ve known it is disappearing. If a company or organization wants its news told, it must embrace new disciplines of news-style storytelling, get smart about online news sites and learn how to target audiences with timely and real news stories that attract attention and a growing audience.

Just scan MediaBistro.com to witness the grim demise of mainstream media, and the rise of sensation and titillation.

“Freelancers: Get $2 word to ‘spin a really great yarn’ about business news for Bloomberg Businessweek.”

~ MediaBistro.com, March 27, 2012.

You thought Bloomberg Businessweek was a respectable business outfit? Ha! Welcome to 2012. It’s P. T. Barnum time all over again.

That’s among the take-aways from the 2012 State of the News Media report, released today by the Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism. The news industry, the report says, “finds itself more a follower than leader shaping its business.”

The Project for Excellence in Journalism (PEJ) report points out that even though targeted advertising is one of the forms of online advertising expected to grow most rapidly, only a few of the top news sites use it. Meanwhile, the report says, tech companies like Facebook and Google “are using personal data collected over the internet to direct ads to specific consumers to a far greater degree than ever before – and to a far greater degree than most news organizations are capable of.”

The annual survey by Pew points out that mainstream news organizations could catch up, if they try. Most have the ability but are not yet utilizing their resources at hand.

Only three – CNN, The New York Times and Yahoo! News – employed high levels of targeting based on a user’s recent online activity. While targeted display ads account for just 10% of local online ads, or $1.5 billion, right now, by 2016, they are expected to grow to $14.6 billion and make up more than half the market.

Mainstream media up for sale?

A year ago, the Pew State of the News Media reported: “The news industry, late to adapt and culturally more tied to content creation than engineering, finds itself more a follower than leader shaping its business.” In 2012, that phenomenon has grown.

All this raises the question of whether the technology giants will find it in their interest to acquire major legacy news brands — as part of the “everything” they offer consumers. Does there come a point, to ensure the much smaller media company’s survival, for instance, where Facebook considers buying a legacy media partner such as The Washington Post?

There are already signs of closer financial ties between technology giants and news. As a part of YouTube’s plans to become a producer of original television content, a direction it took strongly last year, it is funding Reuters to produce original news shows. Yahoo recently signed a content partnership with ABC News for the network to be its near sole provider of news video. AOL, after seeing less than stellar success with its attempts to produce its own original content, purchased The Huffington Post. With the launch of its Social Reader, Facebook has created partnerships with The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, The Guardian and others. In March 2012 Facebook co-founder Chris Hughes purchased the 98-year-old New Republic magazine.

Read the complete report … click here.

In fact, the White House has fought free access to information more vigorously than any other administration in recent memory, was a consensus among experts.

The Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) is one of the most powerful tools to pry public information out of the federal government. But while FOIA requires agencies to respond to a request for information within 20 business days, a recent analysis of FOIA requests shows that many agencies are violating the law by failing to meet even this basic requirement. It’s as if they just ignore the requests or respond with a battery of government lawyers to fight it.

The current Freedom of Information environment gets murkier in the area of whistleblowers and information leaked to the media. Despite federal laws to protect whistleblowers, the Obama administration is taking hard, punitive action against anyone who reveals information about something wrong, dangerous or illegal in the government.

Panel on Whistleblowers & the Press.

Despite panelists with diverse credentials brought together to discuss “Whistleblowers and the Press,” there was consensus about the possibly of dire consequences against anyone who dared to speak out. Panelists included Tom Bowman of NPR; Mark Cohen, Office of Special Counsel; Lucy Dalglish of Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press; and, Matthew Miller, formerly with the Department of Justice. The session was moderated by famed trial attorney Abbe Lowell.

Other sessions featured Vinton Cerf, considered the “father of the Internet,” and how with Google on the issue of freedom of information worldwide.

To me, what is most striking and revealing about today’s state of the news media was the absence of media coverage at the conference. Despite attempts by organizers to get media coverage, none showed up. I believe that tells us something about today’s news media … which is completely and desperately lost to itself in the scramble for ratings, celebrity, sensational headlines and shrill pundits. Freedom of information doesn’t seem to be in the cards for them.

Photographers - professional and amateur - face censorship, despite the U.S. Constitution.

At first, I thought what I was experiencing while taking photos was my own paranoia. But, then, friends in the news media have been sharing countless stories of being stopped, blocked, questioned, detained and arrested by police across the country … police who clearly are overreaching First Amendment rights, all in the name of fighting terrorism.

TV and newspaper photographers are now stopped all the time by overzealous police or security people, some demanding to see and delete the photos.

The paranoia is not us, I suggest, but them.

AMENDMENT I

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.

I never thought I would be on the same side of the fence – sort of – with veteran newspaper columnist George Will but his piece in The Washington Post – A snapshot of our times - squarely nails the growing threat to First Amendment rights. It’s a good piece.

George Will, conservative columnist.

Will writes of two fellows in Los Angeles, both avid photographers, who have not only been prevented from taking photos while in public places but have had their names and information entered into a “Suspicious Activity Report program. The federal government encouraged local law enforcement agencies to adopt its guidelines for gathering information ‘that could indicate activity or intentions related to’ terrorism,” Will writes.

From the chance that potential bad guys might take photos of targets, the feds surmise that photography of anything related to the country’s infrastructure could be an indicator of terrorism. Hence, photographers are suspect when taking pictures “with no apparent aesthetic value” (words from the suspicious-activity guidelines).

A close friend reminded me that looking back over history, governments have often created bogeymen to keep people fearful, hateful, on edge and/or obedient. Today, it’s “in the name of fighting terrorism” which translated means justifying big budgets and control of power by playing the fear card. Not unlike, really, how Hitler blamed Jews for everything wrong and vile.

Here’s more on the First Amendment to the United States Constitution from Cornell University Law School – http://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/First_amendment

“I’ve been surrounded by phenomenally talented people for years … people I admire, people who have mentored me,” he says.

He knows the competition. So, he works harder, pushing his natural talent farther and farther. Long, exhausting hours of rehearsal.

He has labored in the fields of operatic song for decades, but has only in the past year risen to the starring role for which he long prepared himself.

After years of determination and practice, usually as a backup opera tenor, Jay is taking to the stage of The Metropolitan Opera in the starring role of Siegfried in Richard Wagner‘s formidable opera, Götterdämmerung or Twilight of the Gods.

Tenor Jay Hunter Morris ... the genuine "Ziggy."

He is starring with soprano legend Deborah Voigt who plays Brünnhilde. The operatic performance is a staggering five hours long and is the conclusion of Wagner’s fabled, four-epic Ring Cycle about treachery, death, deception, mythical gods, magic swords, love, hate, dense forests with strange creatures and dragons.

Jay got his big career break late in 2011. He was called in to replace the original tenor for “Siegfried,” who had become ill. Jay knew the part, and his performance at The Met in New York was spellbinding. Audiences – whether at The Met or watching HD telecasts around the world – were thrilled. Critics called his singing and acting, “A genuine triumph.”

Words like “genuine” and “authentic” are easily used to describe Jay Hunter Morris, whether watching him sing, perform or just visiting over dinner.

The Met's newest star tenor gets prominent billing.

It has been a long road for Jay since growing up in Paris, Texas, where his father – who died when Jay was age 12 – was a Southern Baptist music minister, and his mother a church organist. But, the humble and real roots and dreams of his upbringing firmly ground him, even today.

We recently sat in a New York restaurant, bragging about our respective wives, children and personal things that matter most in our lives.

“My voice hurts, my brain hurts, my body hurts … I hurt all over,” he said, slumping for a moment in our booth at Lincoln. Why?! He has just finished another eight-hour day of rehearsing on stage with The Met’s orchestra and the other singers. But, all of his energy and sparkle returned when he talked about his actress-wife Meg and son, Cooper Jack. Grounding on what’s important to life and a shared knowing that pretension gets us nowhere.

I think that one of the many things that thrilled audiences about Jay’s performance of Siegfried – whether they watched in person at The Met in New York or in theaters globally on live HD television – was his believability, he accessibility. He brought the character to life. Most audiences had never seen or heard him before but his Siegfried was dramatic, exciting and the stuff of which makes for overnight legend.

Watch Jay Hunter Morris: A New Siegfried for the Ring on PBS. See more from SundayArts.

Heck, I don’t care whether you enjoy opera or not, Jay’s “Ziggy” (as he calls his character) reminds me a little of Johnny Depp’s Jack Sparrow in “Pirates of the Caribbean,” with his own style of sparkle, energy and thrilling voice. I also believe it’s only a matter of time before Jay Hunter Morris develops a crossover second career as motion picture star.

How does he muster the stamina for such a demanding operatic role?

“It’s storytelling,” Jay says. “I know this story so well … I’ve sung it so many times that when the stage lights come on and the orchestra begins, I just find myself in Ziggy and sing the story.” With a lot of passion, I might add.

Not since the late Luciano Pavarotti have I found a tenor’s voice so captivating, so rich, so passionate. On stage, he is all charisma. Similar to Pavarotti’s magic but all his own.

Tickets to be there at The Met to witness Götterdämmerung are sold out. But The Met’s live HD global telecast of Götterdämmerung is Saturday, February 11, and probably showing in a nearby movie theatre. It is something not to be missed.

Connect with Jay Hunter Morris on Twitter.com – @JayHunterMorris

If you are ever visiting Hawaii’s Big Island when one of its volcanos is erupting, there’s a chance you may see Mick Kalber in action with his incredible Sony HDW-F900R HDCAM CineAlta High Definition Camera.

That's Mick in the white t-shirt, perched precariously on the side of a volcano as molten lava flows by.

In a conscious life-change, Mick moved to Hawaii 30 years ago and reinvented his career from that of TV news photographer to the world’s leading “volcanographer,” a term he coined.

His story underscores and brings to life the ever-increasing demand for unique video, even from an island in the Pacific with no television stations.

As a volcanographer, he has captured film and video images of volcanic eruptions on Hilo that we have seen on TV news, documentaries and motion pictures. It’s a far cry from his former life.

“I wanted an adventure. I had visited a friend on the big island and fell in love with the place and wanted to find another line of work,” he says.

[[Show as slideshow]]

While Hilo has no TV stations, it has volcanoes – active, incredible, picturesque and dangerous volcanos. Mick bought a video camera and started capturing spectacular images of eruption like no one had ever before seen … up close.

His luck began with the high-fountaining eruption of Kilauea – red-hot molten lava shooting 1,200 feet high. He was there to capture the action, and TV news stations were ready to pay for his video.

“I’d never seen anything remotely like that! The landscape looked like the moon … and here was incandescent liquid rock doing what rock is not supposed to do … jetting into the air nearly as high was any building in the world … the sight boggled the mind!

“That activity lasted less than a day … not long enough for other photographers to get to Hilo. But it occurred every three to four weeks, like clockwork. Thus began the last 30 years of my documenting the world’s most active volcano.

“The massive 2,000 degree eruption gave way to a fissure, the formation of a lava lake, which fed flows to the communities of Kapa`ahu and Kalapana, destroying several dozen houses in late 1986 and entering the ocean for the first time in ten years. I knew then I had a story to tell.”

That historic eruption of Kilauea led to Mick’s first documentary, “VolcanoScapes … Pele’s March to the Pacific.”

Since then, his stock footage has appeared in the Hollywood movie, “Volcano,” TV commercials, and countless programs not only on TV news but The History Channel, Discovery and National Geographic. He found that the volcanos have given him a new and prosperous career. But, there have been dangers, too.

“I’ve had methane (gas formed by organic material that decomposes w/o oxygen) explosions go off under my feet. There are two types … one with a flame and one without. Fortunately the one that went up my pant leg had no flame. Scared the bejesus outta me though.

“I’ve melted countless pairs of shoes, tripod legs, video recorders … and have singed my eyebrows and hair any number of times. Burns on my arms and face have been minor … kind of like a mild sunburn.

“I do not wear protective clothing when shooting the lava flows. The main reason is that if it’s too hot for me to be there, it’s definitely too hot for my gear.

“Stood at the Pu`u `O`o Vent (active bent of the current eruption) and shot straight down into the throat … some 400 feet. I had to be right at the edge with crumbling cinders continually breaking off. To get there, I stepped over cracks a foot or more wide to stand somewhere I know will no longer exist at some point … but hopefully not while I’m standing there.

“Had I not been shooting, I probably wouldn’t have had the nerve to do it, but the camera functions kept me distracted from the dangers. And, I got shots of a 60 foot high undulating dome of lava unlike anything I’ve seen before or since. But for the longest time afterward I was thinking, What the hell was I doing up there!”

Mick says his greatest pleasure in documenting Kilauea is not making money from selling stock footage or DVDs but rather witnessing “one of nature’s most amazing spectacles, and to be able to share those sights and sounds with people around the world.”

A career reinvented … passion and pleasure in his work … success in a specialized business … and, volcanos that keep erupting and keep him in business. That’s Mick Kalber’s recipe for happiness.

Check out Mick’s websites – VolcanoScapes.com and www.tropicalvisions.com.

Special thanks to Ann Kalber for the photos.

Washington Post photographer John McDonnell and I were visiting recently during a holiday get together, and the pieces of a puzzle all seemed to fall into place. John said that one individual came on the scene in the late 1970s who gained immense image-shaping influence, and his style singularly has changed how we perceive the world, events, happenings and major leaders ever since. He presented a brilliant thesis about the late Michael Deaver, and I agreed with every word.

Michael Deaver

“Mike Deaver was the single person who changed the way we see the world,” John said. “Deaver’s style of image-making extended far beyond his skills to position the image of Ronald Reagan for the presidency, and then, as Deputy White House Chief of Staff in the Reagan Administration, shaped the Reagan perception into legend.”

John should know. As a distinguished photojournalist, he has covered nearly ever major story in America over the last 40 years.

“It was all about the perfect image and soundbite for the media,” John said. “When I would want photos of Reagan, I would find him in a room with perfect lighting to favor Reagan. Deaver had ordered that. I would be ushered in by Deaver – ahead of patrons who had paid $10,000 to meet Reagan – for immediate access to get outstanding photos. Deaver and the patrons knew the influential power of the media’s images.”

John and I are in solid agreement – The art of three simple and clear messages that leave lasting and favorable memories, the perfect images, and the devices for staging events that change how the world sees things all came from Deaver’s genius and has been copied by very savvy business people and politicians ever since. Few people and companies back then and even now ever consider the image-enhancing payoff of lighting an event for TV and still photographers. And, that’s only a small part of the Deaver magic.

Ever wonder why there has consistently been so much great media coverage of events staged by the late Steve Jobs and Apple? Everything was provided for the media to get stories – Hollywood-style spectacle, passionate and authentic messages, timing, purpose, lighting, access. Nothing left to chance but rather all control over the media. Jobs knew and used Deaver-style.

In my most recent book, Making News in the Digital Era, I wrote my admiration for Mike Deaver, with whom I had worked. Here’s an excerpt:

Perhaps no person has left a greater and more positive imprint on the practice of strategic communications worldwide over the last couple of decades than the late Michael Deaver.

Mike Deaver was sometimes accused of being an expert at media manipulation. It is my guess that whoever alleged that harbored a good deal of envy for his talent. There is no question that Deaver made the contemporary concept of “photo op” into an art form to achieve the rewards of great media coverage, whether “spontaneously” manipulated or otherwise.

Deaver became famous as the image-maker for President Ronald Reagan. He was a master at staging visually memorable symbolic events—from the fall of the Berlin Wall to the fortieth anniversary commemoration of the invasion at Omaha beach. Deaver’s artistry created lasting impressions on millions of us around the world.

Former first lady and friend Nancy Reagan said Deaver’s greatest skill “was in arranging what were known as good visuals—televised events or scenes that would leave a powerful symbolic image in people’s minds.”

Deaver was nearly always behind-the-scenes, advising not only President Reagan but countless other leaders—heads of state to titans of industry—on the value of speaking with a clear voice and wise perspective. He was a leading example of people who have changed the world by knowing how to communicate a message, inspire greatness, and create a lasting great impression.

His secret for great communications was to help a leader develop an ability to translate the most complex issue into just a couple of clear sentences using simple words that would lead to positive change. In other words, leaders should take a moment to step back from all the chaos, look at the big picture of what needs to be done, and say it—in a few easy to understand words.

After leaving the White House, Deaver took his quiet manner and enormous talent to independent PR agency Edelman Worldwide, where he reshaped the practice of public relations and helped successful organizations around the world become even more successful. There, I learned from him and treasured his friendship.

Just before his passing in August 2007, Deaver was asked by his colleagues at Edelman to describe the few great communicators he had known, including President Reagan and Dan Edelman, founder of Edelman Worldwide.

This is what Deaver said:

“They, and a few of us, got into the world of communications when it was a world of print … then radio and TV and now the Internet, e-mails and blogs … and yet their values remain the same today—

• Know who you are
• Be open and transparent
• Be ready for change

“But the world IS CHANGING,” Deaver told his colleagues and friends. He quoted an excerpt from a column by Thomas Friedman in the New York Times. Friedman had written:

“When everyone has a blog, a MySpace page, or Facebook entry, everyone is a publisher. When everyone has a cell phone with a camera in it, everyone is a paparazzo. When everyone can upload a video on YouTube, everyone is a filmmaker. We’re all public figures now. The blogosphere has made the global discussion so much richer—and each of us so much more transparent. In this transparent world, ‘how’ you live your life and ‘how’ you conduct your business matters more than ever, because so many people can now see into what you do and tell so many other people about it on their own without any editor.”

What was important to Deaver was “how” we differentiate ourselves in a world that has become so exposed and so easily copied. He talked of getting your “hows” right—how you build trust, how you collaborate, how you lead, and how you say you’re sorry.

“More people than ever will know about it when you do—or don’t,” he said.