America's Waning Attention Span

I read a recent blurb in Advertising Age by Steve Rubel, Edelman's SVP/Director of Insights, that really opened my eyes to what we have become as a society, and it involves our waning media attention span.

Part of the reason I'm always appreciative of those who read this blog is that they have the patience to make it through articles longer than 140 characters (thank you twitter).
And that's what I'm getting at: as information is delivered faster, more concisely and more precisely, we have less patience for quality forms of content. We'd much rather read 3 or 4 short articles, or even just a few headlines, than one long one.

As Rubel himself expressed, part of the reason that websites like Twitter and Youtube have been so successful is because they are straight to point- it usually does not take too long before you are being entertained somehow. The draw of longer, more feature-style articles is their depth and attention to detail.

Just the other day I was putting together a multi-media press release, and was astounded at the sheer lack of centrality (if that wasn't a word it is now) involved. I had no idea where to start.
This was not your typical press release, with a title, sub-title and a body.
Instead, the entire release was formatted in small boxes over two pages.

There was a box for each contact, a box for the title, another one for the subtitle. Then there were 4 little boxes underneath: one for RSS feeds, twitter feeds, pictures, videos- that's what press releases have come to now, just a bunch of little boxes, each one taking you into a whole 'nother world of information streaming.

There are a lot of pros and cons to this new type of media. From a PR standpoint, the quicker we can get our news out, and the more of it we can get out, the better. If journalists won't spend the time reading through a whole release anymore, then it is our job to make sure they are still reading our content.

Personally, though, I wish we stayed true to our old-school roots. I feel that all these new digital tools, RSS feeds, twitter accounts, and the like, are wrestling away the control that public relations professionals used to have over the media. We are no longer informants, but facilitators, middle-men. We are now doing a great job if we provide people with enough links and online outlets to satisfy their Internet info craving. Our role is being decentralized.

Some may say this makes our job easier and more productive, but I feel it takes away some leverage from what we as PR employees do on a day-to-day basis.

A Challenge to All

Ok, so here's the deal: within the next minute or two, put together a list of ten completely random and unrelated words. If there's any relevance whatsoever between words, it doesn't count.

Here goes...

1) chocolate
2) gritty
3) halo
4) orange
5) whale
6) toenail
7) spade
8) tile
9) blip
10) touche'

take on the challenge lol, that definitely took me like 5 minutes instead of the 2 I gave myself.

Welcome Back! Globalization and Generation Y

Welcome back to Silva's Suite, my apologies for the extended summer vacation from posting.
You know, the great thing about having your own blog is that, well, you can do whatever you want. I just gave myself a 3 month vacation from this blog, and as I sit here writing, it's like I never left.
And that's what I want to get at, is this greater sense of autonomy we seem to have these days.

The evolution of technology has made us more independent individuals, and more is being asked from us on a daily basis.

Say I'm in the machine repair business, and I've got one prospective employee who spent four years reading books about how to fix machines, aced all his machine-fixing classes, and graduated with honors. Then I've got another kid, same age, who never went to college, but has been working machines since he was thirteen in his dad's garage. Who do you think I'm going to hire if I need my machine fixed right away, the kid who read books about fixing machines, or the kid who's been doing it for all these years? Definitely the latter.

That's why, for Generation Y, it's not just about the degree anymore, it's about internships, good ones. With how easy it is to communicate now and how quickly information can travel, networking has become one of the more essential skills for 18 to 24 year-olds today. Classes are great, and you should still learn a lot from them, but they are more of a formality now than ever before. For this proactive generation, it's more about experience and an ability to produce immediatelyrather than just being knowledgable and studious.

We're starting to see many more young, bright and successful innovators rise quickly through the corporate ranks. Think of how many young people already own successful companies and are famous for it. Take Google, arguably one of the more influential companies today, for instance.

Google creators Larry Page and Sergey Brin teamed up during their college years at Stanford in the mid-nineties, started putting together the beginnings of a search engine, dropped out of college once they felt they had something, and are now multi-billionaires...at ages 31 and 30, respectively (thanks to BBC news for the stats).
Business-savvy Theo Epstein, general manager of Major League Baseball's Boston Red Sox, became head of the organization in his late twenties, is still one of the youngest general managers in the league, and has since delivered a pair of World Series Championships to the franchise, the first in 86 years

Wow, being the Yankees fan that I am, writing that really hurt...I need to toot our own horn now to make up for it.

The New York Yankees' general manager, Brian Cashman, started out as an intern for the Yankees and is now in the organization's inner-most circle.

More is being asked than ever before from young adults new to the work force. Firms want employees who don't need to be eased into their jobs, but rather can contribute right away. The sheer amount of pressure on Generation Y to produce immediately is kind of overwhelming. Think about it- in today's world, it is not uncommon for parents to pay a firm to take their child on as an intern. And let's be honest, not everyone who does an internship gets something valuable out of it. You have your amazing internships that get you solid jobs after college, and then you have your coffee-fetching, facebook-riddled internships.

Thanks Globalization. The Internet has made this world so tiny, so well-connected, that companies can successfully operate at the highest of efficiency levels with facilities spread throughout different parts of the world. Firms no longer have just their regional industry rivals to worry about, they need to worry about firms just like them across every continent. And because of the increased competition globalization has created, firms are scrambling around trying to find as much staff support as they can get.

Can things really get any more intense? Might PhD's be the norm for a decent-paying job when Generation Z enters the work? Something to ponder...

Catchin' That LA Fever

It started out with the Lakers.
Of course it did, could it have happened any other way? Coming off a decade of Michael Jordan dominance, I was a pre-adolescent starving for another basketball superstar to worship. How could I not root for Kobe and Shaq's dynasty? They were absolutely unstoppable and I loved every second of it. Despite the fact that New York fans aren't supposed to like LA teams. Despite the fact that Manu Ginobili, who hails from the very same country I spent a large part of my life in, was taking the NBA by storm. Forget the fact that my mother and her eleven other siblings grew up in the heart of Queens, New York- I loved my Lakers.
Now don't get me wrong, if New York and LA ever face off in anything, it's New York all the way, but on any other day, it was all about LA.

7 years. For all the frustrations Kobe might have felt in his post-Shaq era, I was just as frustrated and somewhat bewildered that a guy many considered the new Michael Jordan couldn't carry a Smush Parker-Kwame Brown-Vlad Radmanovic team to the NBA finals. He was Kobe for Godsake, he is still the only player that New York Knicks fans constantly chant MVP for in the Garden while he tears us to shreds. And despite his long-time deal with Nike, as far as I was concerned, Impossible Was Nothing for this guy, or at least it was supposed to be.
So as I stood mid-shift inside Papa John's and took peeks at the clock winding down for game 5, knowing the Lakers would get their 15th title, I went nuts.

I tried to control myself, but it was hard. I needed to gleam to my boss about how long I'd been waiting for this moment. I needed anyone in my general vicinity to understand that this was a big deal. It needed to be acknowledged that Kobe Bryant just won his fourth championship and that this time there was no 7 foot behemoth next to him holding the Finals MVP trophy. Kobe was holding both. Just Kobe.

The LA Fever's Other Symptom:

Just as the Lakers restored order to the basketball world and that little basketball void inside of me was finally re-filled, I took a look at this year's MLB standings and noticed the LA Dodgers are on top of the world.
Yup, those same Dodgers that once hailed from Brooklyn, New York. Those same Dodgers that, before Yankee legend Joe Torre arrived to coach the team, really hadn't been relevant since the 1980s. And now I find myself hopping on that bandwagon too. I am sold. I'm still a die-heart Yankees fan and would take no other over them, but I no longer hate guys like former Red Sock Manny Ramirez. I think he looks great in Dodger blue and I love seeing him play well.

And I'm thrilled for Joe Torre. While many people will grill me for this, there is no doubt in my mind that the Yankees needed a coaching change. It was not Torre's fault, but they absolutely needed a fresh start. They never really recovered from the series-that-will-not-be-named in 2004, and they needed a big shake-up to get things rolling again.
And Torre's move to LA (with yankee great Don Mattingly by his side as an assistant coach) was the best thing that could have happened to him. He makes the NL Championship round in his first season, and his team is best in the league this year without Manny Ramirez. It would only be fitting that the Yankees and Dodgers meet in this year's World Series.

But before I pack up my things and move to LA, before I indulge myself in beaches, surfing, Hollywood and outdoor roller hockey, I just need to say, as a die-heart fan of all New York Sports, LA isn't all that bad. And now that their clubs are back on top of the world, I'm happy I've been on board for this long.

Pilot Dies In Mid-Air: What We Take from it.

First of all, best wishes and regards go out to Continental Flight 61's captain, who died while flying the Newark-bound plane. He was 60 years old. Thankfully, the plane landed safely in Newark and everyone else was ok.

There are a lot of different ways to look at this situation. First of all, was the flight crew right in not notifying the passengers that their captain had died? I think so. Spreading the news while still in flight would have caused an absurd amount of panic that would not have made the plane land any safer than otherwise.

I feel one element that gets lost in this story, however, is the sheer amount of talent present on any given flight. Think about it- after realizing that their pilot/captain was severely ill, the flight crew (according to the NY Times) asked for anyone with medical experience to make their way to the front of the plane. Five traveling doctors immediately made their way to the front, one of whom pronounced the pilot dead and promptly returned to her seat.
Think about all the different professions and careers that could have been represented on that flight. It is amazing to think of how a small group of people on any given aircraft- an airplane holds what, 230 people tops- can represent such large contributions to society.

For those 5 doctors who were passengers on that flight, there were probably just as many lawyers, businessmen, politicians, school teachers, psychologists, construction workers, and whatever else you can think of, a microcosm of society.
You can venture even further and consider how talented the flight crew was to not only keep passengers calm while trying to save their co-worker's life, but to then assume control of the plane and safely reach their destination after learning their co-worker was dead.

How do you prepare for a situation like that? You don't. Plain and simple.

Those who travel frequently know that the flying community really is a small one, and that anyone who flies back and forth between cities frequently is very likely to run into the same flight crews time and again and even develop relationships with them. I have been flying since before I could walk, and some of my most cherished memories are of that nice stewardess from the Miami-New York City trips, or the pilot who would always let me sit in the cockpit after our flight landed. They're real people too, and seeing one of them go at the young age of 60, whether or not you knew him, is a terrible thing to have happen. We can only be thankful that the plane landed safely, and commend everyone-flight crew and passengers- for tending to the situation in the most efficient manner given the circumstances.

Let's hope stories like these remain an aberration.

For Hispanics Everywhere, Something to Gleam About

It finally happened.
After decades of stories, jokes, and legends about the stereotypical, iron-fist ruling disciplinarian most Hispanic children like to refer to as their mothers, America now has one too. President Obama this week appointed Sonia Sotomayor, a Puerto Rican from the Bronx and a former New York federal appeals judge, to the Supreme Court, making her the first Hispanic to receive this honor.
Despite criticism from the Republican Party for her liberal tendencies, this will mean the world to so many people, as America continues to shatter the ethnic barriers that have ruled the land for so long.
More so than ever, US immigrants of the late 1950s/early 1960s are finally starting to see their sacrifices from having moved to this country pay off. This is also huge for Puerto Ricans specifically, as Judge Sotomayor's promotion is perhaps the most high-profile position in the government to have been held by a Puerto Rican.
I truly believe these next four years in the government will continue to exhibit new ethnic barriers being shattered. President Obama may have been the catalyst, but it obviously does not end with him.
Being half Puerto Rican myself, I can attest (and joke) that there is nothing more intimidating and ratifying than an angry Puerto Rican mother- now, America will have their own, a great opportunity for a prestigious and proud Latina.
Let's hope these trends continue.

Banks raise $56 billion...lightbulb anyone?

According to a recent New York Times article, the United States' largest banks, the same banks that a month ago had no money, have raised an estimated $56 billion over the past two weeks, as instructed by the government.
This all resulted from the government's recent "Stress Test", an evaluation that rates a bank's financial condition and whether or not they need to take action to stay afloat. Basically, it measures the amount of bad debt and unpaid loans that banks have and cannot collect from, followed by whether they have the current cash/capital to deal with those losses, and if they don't (and thus fail the Stress Test), the government calculates a certain amount these banks have to raise in order to be able to cope with their losses.

My question is, how could it possibly have been this easy for the 10 banks who failed the Stress Test to raise as much money as they did and suddenly be prepared for another financial
crisis? **

All these banks did was, in simple terms, sell a ton of stocks to the public, forking over certain percentages of their company ownership to investors.
We're all taught in basic business courses that any business, banks or otherwise, need a certain amount of cash/capital within the system at all times in case of emergencies (the rest can be invested in stocks, equipment, or other productive assets).

How on earth could it not have dawned on these banks, while the sub-prime mortgage crisis took flight two years ago, that they should probably buckle down, swallow their pride and prepare for the worst by selling so all this stock back then?

Obviously, trust is an issue here and probably the reason we've arrived to the state we are in right now. If I am desperately trying to sell my house and am struggling to do so, I'm not about to fork over my savings back into stocks.
My only sticking point is, with all the bailouts we've had, with all the major companies that in the past two years have invested hundreds of millions in the stock market to encourage the public to do the same, why does this only work now? Because the government said so? I'm not buying it.

I feel a lot more could have been done way earlier, but credit to the Obama administration and the Treasury Department (not being politically biased here, just realistic) for finally getting something done, hopefully the Better Times (because they are by no means good) keep rolling.


** It's worth noting that of the $56 billion raised, only $48 billion was raised by banks who failed the Stress Test. The other $8 billion was raised by nine other banks voluntarily as a strategic move.

Let a Stranger Take You Home?

Some of you may not have seen the new (and surprisingly catchy) Heineken commercial that's been airing for the past few weeks: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2jqZTJk30qg.

The ad has been raising lots of questions marks as to the message it is conveying: "Let a stranger take you home". In my view, the original intended message here is the same politically correct message that every liquor company feels obliged to promote: don't drink and drive [by letting a stranger drive you home]. But aren't we missing the bigger picture here? Weren't we always trained to not even take candy from strangers as little kids, let alone hop in their car and let them drive us home?

Obviously, I'm exaggerating the severity of this message, but if you're Heineken, how on earth do you let that air? The commercial itself is so well produced, but it desperately needs an applicable punch-line that doesn't carry any unintentional criminalistic insinuations. I'm not saying their current slogan is offensive, it just makes them seem a bit ridiculous and difficult to take seriously.
If one were to give Heineken the [unlikely] benefit of the doubt, however, you could argue that they knew their message would be controversial but that it would get enough people discussing the ad that they'd receive lots of free publicity. Probably not the case, however, as I haven't seen a single news station discussing the commercial. Heineken is such a well-respected brand, however, that I'm sure they won't suffer any serious consequences for their "mis-messaging".

The point here is, I love this commercial. I love the song, I love the way its filmed, and the old jolly cab driver seals the deal for everyone, especially if you've been in that situation before. And because I love it so much, I need to see it receive its proper justice: a good punch-line that actually pertains to what the commercial is trying to say without creating any obvious unintentional double meanings.

Any suggestions?

Pfizer Makes a Bold Move

In today's tough economic times we've seen many companies try to exploit America's weaknesses to enhance their declining business. Fast food companies in particular have tried to arise sympathy from the public by packaging special low-priced deals to make American residents feel like these companies are on their side.
We've seen KFC, Taco Bell and Mcdonalds put out their dollar-meal menus, all to spread the same message: "we know you're poor, and food is probably hard to come by, so you have no reason not to sacrifice your health and open up your checkbook to buy our low-priced junk food".

Now, however, Pfizer (a leading pharmaceutical company with a history of solid public relations for those not familiar) has one-upped all these offers. They have promised to provide over 70 different primary care prescription drugs to citizens at no cost as long as they have lost their job in 2009 and as a result have lost their health benefits (this according to a recent article in Advertising Age). Eligible members must have been taking the selected drug for at least three months prior to losing their job.

This is huge and brilliant at the same time. While the Obama administration spends their late nights trying to figure out what product to tax to be able to nationalize health care (soda was the latest idea), Pfizer has stepped up to the plate and given the government a hand during these tough times. Most importantly, the amount of attention and publicity Pfizer will receive for this move will most definitely drive their profit levels through the roof despite the fact that they are giving away free products.

This is a great example of leadership coming from a non-governmental source, so much so that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has sat in as a contributor on many of Pfizer's town-hall style meetings regarding the health care situation.

This is what the United States truly needs in times like these. The government cannot do everything, and by stepping up to the plate and lending a helping hand, Pfizer is only improving its own image and standing as a health care leader in the US, a huge area of concern for a country that now finds itself with many different issues to worry about.

So props to Pfizer for both aiding the country while simultaneously building themselves up. Hopefully companies in other industries will follow suit (in fact some car companies have taken similar measures, picking up car payments temporarily for car owners who lose their jobs and can no longer afford the payments...more on that later).

What industry do you, if you are reading this, think can be the next to step up and execute a similar plan beneficial to a current problem the US is facing?

A Powerful Cardhouse Comes Tumbling Down

Both GM and Chrysler recently, with their operational troubles well-documented, have begun a series of mass downsizing efforts that have left hundreds of thousands of Americans unemployed. It will be very interesting to see what we can make of the car industry from here on out. Will the void left by these large auto companies simply be replaced by another up-and-coming company? Or might there be a David vs. Goliath movement of new, smaller auto companies trying to steal market share from these stumbling giants by selling fuel-efficient cars for low prices? We have already seen a similar situation in the airline business, where the Jet Blue's and Southwest Airlines of the world have seized a considerable amount of revenue from airline giants American Airlines and United Way during their times of struggle.

The Indian car manufacturor Tata has already unveiled their new Nano Car priced at a mere $2500 (http://www.smartcarofamerica.com/hybrids/tata%27s_new_nano_car/).
A similar version of the Nano, the Smart Car, has made its way here to the United States.
I'm not sure, however, that the American cultural ideology of "bigger is [usually] better", recession or no recession, will ever permit for such a small car to take over the industry.

Yet it will be interesting to see where these ailing companies go from here. I'd also keep an eye on the big "electric car" push being bred by the Michigan government, which recently awarded its local car companies hundreds of millions of dollars to begin constructing factories that produce lithium-ion batteries. The goal here is to eventually create cars that run on minimal fuel (below 3% of car's total energy) and instead use a battery to run on electricity.

Chrysler, one of our "powerful cardhouses" coming crashing down, has made a huge push towards electric cars, and plans to launch an entire new line of electric cars by 2010. That is, if they make it that far- according to CNN Money, Chrysler dealerships sold an average of 303 cars last year per dealership compared to Toyota's 1,292 per dealership.

Odds are, based on all the help these ailing car companies have been receiving from the government, that this will be a re-building phase and not a change in direction for the American Automobile Industry. Chrysler will already be backed by Fiat when they emerge from Chapter 11 bankruptcy (an initial 20% investment is expected). And GM, whether or not they choose file for bankruptcy, is already in talks with several companies about having a potential backer to help their re-structuring efforts as well... hopefully that might raise their stock prices a little, as they are currently sitting at $1.14 per share.

It seems the only group that really suffers here are these companies' hard-working employees, who are currently twiddling their thumbs (rather anxiously, I'd imagine) as they await a letter from HQ as to whether their dealership will have their contract extended past its 2010 expiration date.

Is there any silver lining in this entire ordeal?