My colleague, Connie Reece, preaches to me about social media being all about transparency and authenticity. She’s right. Ron Paul, a libertarian who is serving in Congress and running for President as a Republican, has struck a nerve in the American online community by being absolutely who he really is and by letting everyone know, who will listen, just exactly how he sees the national and international situation today. In an age of consultant driven politics, he is defying conventional wisdom. Because of social media, he is becoming relevant. Wired magazine has an excellent article on the online phenomenon surrounding the insurgent effort by Paul. Most interesting to me is that the Ron Paul phenomenon is a spontaneous grassroots and ‘netroots movement, not one engineered from a campaign “war room.”

The one point the article does miss is that the Ron Paul “movement”, while made possible by the new technologies associated with social media, is really inspired by the message. Paul is speaking out directly in contradiction to the party he hopes to get the nomination from. He’s openly critical of his party and the President on matters ranging from the Iraq War, which he opposes, to the federal budget crisis, which he sees as very not-Republican. His willingness to be completely honest, within a process that is known for spin and nuance, is apparently winning him supporters. Will it make a difference in the end? We will see whether his adoring fans, who are proficient at participating in online polls and commenting on blogs, are willing to mix it up with the folks who are already out there “in the trenches”, organizing political efforts and voting on election day. If they do show up in person, Ron Paul’s followers might just be one of the big stories of 2008.

The executive director of the Paramount and State Theatres here in Austin has started a new blog, and I think it’s destined to be a smashing success (disclosure: the Austin Theatre Alliance is one of my clients).

Ken Stein is a popular, well-known guy. His curtain speeches are a hit with crowds ranging from the tweens and 20-somethings seeing Altar Boyz to the older crowds for classic musicals like Carousel (I’ll be there this weekend).

As a blogger, Ken is conversational and funny, just like he is in person. His stories about what the Kodo Drummers wrote on the wall backstage at the Paramount, Kathy Griffin’s response to Dan Rather’s famous “Courage” sign-off, and Patrick Cassidy’s insistence that he’s NOT gay (like anyone cares) are fun to read. Ken’s having fun, and posting often, and I predict that he’ll draw readers from around the world to “Offstage with Ken Stein.” Check it out.

[cue soap opera theme]

Stay tuned for As the Worm Turns . . .

Being a certified brown thumb, I seldom pay attention to happenings in the lawn and garden market. But a friend brought my attention to the fact that industry giant Miracle-Gro, which has close to 60 percent market share, has sued eco-friendly startup TerraCycle, whose business consists of harvesting worm poop and packaging it in plastic bottles recycled by schools and charities. That’s right: worm poop. Says so right on the label. Vermicomposting, the New York Times says, is the more formal term.

The lawsuit claims that TerraCycle’s product labels are deceptively similar to Scotts Miracle-Gro because they feature green and yellow colors with circles and photos of plants and vegetables. Hmm. Even without my reading glasses I don’t have any trouble telling the two products apart.

Another part of the lawsuit involves TerraCycle’s claim that plants prefer organic rather than synthetic food–a claim TerraCycle says is supported by a scientific study, but which they have refused to release.

I’m sure the respective corporate lawyers will don their pin-striped suits and duke it out in the legal arena.

What’s particularly interesting to me is that TerraCycle has chosen to take the battle to the court of public opinion: their in-house PR/marketing team has created a blog that presents the lawsuit as an epic David-and-Goliath battle. They have posted copies of all the legal pleadings, documented over 100 other plant food products with green and yellow labels, started a legal defense fund with a “donate now” button, and even created a comparison chart of the two companies and their CEOs.

My guess is that the driving force behind the lawsuit is the fact that TerraCycle, dubbed “The Coolest Little Start-Up in America” by Inc. magazine in 2006, can now be found on store shelves alongside Scotts’ perennial money maker at Home Depot, Wal-Mart and Target. Why else would a $2.7 billion company take such aggressive action against a comparatively tiny company with a paltry $1.5 million in sales?

Now, I have yet to drink the Al Gore-flavored, globally warmed Kool-Aid, but I do recycle and I support green initiatives. And even though I can’t grow a plant to save my life, I have a hunch that these worm poop proponents are on to something big. I’m also genetically wired to root for the underdog, so I admire the chutzpah of the young company’s marketing team in taking on the industry leader in the blogosphere.

How do you think it’s going to play out? Will the strategy of publicizing the lawsuit and branding itself “Sued by Scotts,” as the new site is named, work in TerraCycle’s favor? Can the David of the plant food world bump off Goliath with a mere blog?

Jump in with your two cents’ worth.

At Austin’s sold-out Social Media Club meeting last Thursday night, I admit feeling a bit of relief upon learning that I’m not as behind the curve as I feared. Panelist Omar Gallaga, who writes about technology culture for the Austin American-Statesman, told us that he didn’t know what a social media press release was until he was asked to speak at the meeting, and furthermore, most of his colleagues at the newspaper don’t know about or use RSS, Technorati or del.icio.us, can’t download or view videos on the Statesman’s computer systems and don’t have time to explore the blogosphere.

While conceding that some features of the SMPR are useful and welcome, Omar says successful pitching is about the PR professional’s relationship with the reporter. The content of the pitch, several audience members noted, is still the most important factor in getting a reporter’s interest. Many reporters get hundreds of emails a day, most irrelevant to their work, and detest getting unsolicited photos and .pdf files. Nothing new or surprising there.

While I am super excited (as geeky as that sounds) about incorporating social media tools into my work, I’m being a bit cautious, learning all that I can, and reminding myself that the story is still the most important part of a pitch, whether it’s to traditional media or to bloggers. As Todd Defren, creator of the SMPR says: it “merely amplifies prospective source materials; it does not replace a well-crafted, customized pitch nor replace the need to provide basic, factual news to the media.”

Every Dot Connects team member Cynthia Baker will serve as moderator of the next Social Media Club meeting in Austin. Here are the details. Please join us for an entertaining and educational evening.

Topic: The Social Media Press Release

Who should attend: PR professionals, business and association communicators, interactive marketing and tech professionals, bloggers, vloggers and podcasters.

Thursday, May 17
6:00 to 8:00 p.m.
ZACH | Zachary Scott Theatre
1510 Toomey Rd.
Austin, TX 78704

PLEASE NOTE: Pre-registration is not necessary but is strongly recommended. We expect this event to sell out, so make your reservations early. The $5 registration fee helps us cover the cost of renting the venue. Register here.

Moderator
* Cynthia Baker, public relations professional and co-founding member of Social Media Club

Panelists
* Kevin Dill is president of Press Release News Network and CEO of Applied Internet Research. Austin-based PRNN is a press release and archival network capable of dynamic social and multimedia press release creation and distribution. A.I.R. is a third-party provider of R&D and implementation of Internet technologies; the company developed proprietary kiosk software for a gaming company this past year. Kevin has an extensive background as a systems engineer, facilities engineer and Internet marketing.

* Omar Gallaga is a reporter for the Austin American-Statesman covering the culture of technology. While at the Statesman he has been editor of ¡ahora sí!, the Cox Newspapers’ Spanish-language newspaper, and an editor of entertainment and technology. He’s a staff writer for TelevisionWithoutPity.com and other Web sites including his own Terribly-Happy.com, the online comic “Space Monkeys!” and his Statesman staff blog, “Digital Savant.” He’s a founding member of Austin’s sketch comedy troupe The Latino Comedy Project and also writes for “The Almost Late Show with Bobby Bones.”

* Clint Howell is the account executive for Business Wire Austin/San Antonio, assisting local clients from Dell Computer and Introgen Therapeutics to Tootie Pie Company and KittyTrainer.com. As a product specialist for EON-Enhanced Online News, he shares what he has learned as a frequent host of Business Wire’s weekly EON webinar. Previously, Clint was a founding member of Market Wire Inc. While he is fairly diligent about updating his “Clinternet” profile on MySpace, LinkedIn and FaceBook, he’s also been known to take an occasional flight in Second Life as “Sword Sabre.” Clint prefers his first life as father to two loving boys and three rowdy dogs.

*Michael Pranikoff, director of Emerging Media at PR Newswire, is responsible for educating PR Newswire staff and customers about the role emerging media, such as RSS, blogs, social networks, search engines, and other Web 2.0 technologies, play in public relations. He has been with PR Newswire since 1998 and is an active participant in the Northern Virginia Technology Council, the DC Technology Council, the Software Information Industry Association. Michael has been a featured speaker and moderator at events for PRSA. Prior to joining PR Newswire, Michael worked for MacNeil / Lehrer Productions, which produces the NewsHour with Jim Lehrer.

I have a number of friends in the public relations business, and there is no doubt that the practice of PR is shifting dramatically. The PR pros on the Every Dot Connects team understand this shift and have become very involved in learning about social media and integrating it into their businesses where appropriate.

This article from the Daily ‘Dog, an online PR publication, starkly describes the plight of the old-school PR types who are not comfortable navigating the blogosphere:

Google has upset the PR paradigm. It’s much harder to control information. It’s much harder to get out ahead of bad news. And every piece of public information about your company—the good, the bad, the ugly—lives on the Web more or less forever. …

The result is an enormous impact on a company’s “publics”—customers, vendors, employees, analysts, shareholders, regulators and everyone else capable of typing the name of a company, its management or product on their keyboards.

In the coming weeks, we’ll be blogging in this space about how PR practitioners can — and MUST — adapt their strategies and tactics in the Google Age.

Hat tip to Todd Defren, who posed the question, and Kami Huyse, who answered it — on Twitter. As you can tell from their “tweets” below, Twitter is becoming not just a “what I had for breakfast” medium but a valuable tool for conversation and research sharing. Give it a try!

One of my friends has a son at Virginia Tech. We’ve exchanged e-mails, and his son is fine. But I cannot imagine how stressful yesterday must have been for the family. As of early this morning, they were still waiting on word about the son of a family friend.

Here’s something my friend said in one of his e-mails. I’m sure it reflects the anguished, and perhaps angry, viewpoint of many of the parents who are now questioning why the campus lockdown did not occur earlier.

No one can predict such horror, to be sure. But someone had better start opening their eyes to the reality of dealing with it quickly, because Baghdad was safer yesterday than Virginia Tech.

Beyond the obvious human tragedy, the story has a public relations angle: the importance of an up-to-date crisis communications plan. I call your attention to these blog posts:

Virginia Tech Web Site Goes to Crisis Mode by Josh Hallett

Second-Guessing Virginia Tech’s Crisis Communications by Eric Eggertson