Author Archives: loiswhitmanhess

The Today Show Anchors Admit Internet Ignorance

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Andrea Smith

Andrea Smith, a writer for the very popular tech blog, Mashable, recently did an Op Ed piece about three Today Show personalities who admitted on air nationwide that they know little about social media. Smith was upset by this casual attitude because when she worked for ABC as a news writer and producer for 20 years, she was expected to be knowledgable about current news and pop culture.

I met Andrea Smith a number of times at industry events and I can honestly say she doesn’t easily rag on people. That’s why her piece in Mashable caught my eye. Smith was offended that Today’s Willie Geist, Savannah Guthrie, and Natalie Morales — three TV journalists at the top of their profession — laughed on network TV about their lack of knowledge about Facebook, Twitter, and privacy on social media.

The admission took place after a Today Show segment about Randi Zuckerberg’s private family photos being shared publicly. This story was publicized everywhere for days. The sister of the founder of Facebook got caught in the same privacy issue that many Facebook users are complaining about. Why is Facebook taking certain liberties with personal content belonging to its members?

Smith sent a warning to the Today Show.

“Here’s a wake-up call, morning crew; your audience is not that dumb. They watch TV news to keep up with what’s happening in the world. It is your job to inform them. Reading the news and then proclaiming you don’t understand any part of it is the epitome of failure.”

Become a Videographer

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dolly-descriptions

You know that I love gadgets. I am a sucker for them and want to own every single one that can make me look like a professional communicator. This is called the Dolly, a universal mobile device that helps you create cinematic videos and panning shots. All you have to do is roll the Dolly. It works with every type of smartphone.

The Dolly retails for $59.95

Dolly was created by iStabilizer based in Park City, Utah.

I Am Starting My Life Over on Twitter

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I have come to the conclusion that most of the time I spend on Facebook is a big waste. Other than a few close friends, I am following the lives of people who mean nothing to me. I can’t remember them saying anything of consequence. Twitter is totally different. Most influential people and companies use Twitter to impart information on a much more intellectual basis. They are feeding info as the news develops or are uncovering information that they think will be helpful to the people who follow them. There are still a lot of vanity posts but the 140 character limitation doesn’t allow for much boasting.

The challenging problem is to decide who to follow. From the very beginning I did it all wrong. I followed people who followed me and picked up others who my friends were following. Don’t do what I did. Carefully select folks who can share information that will have some impact on you.
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Sree Sreenivasan of the tech blog CNET (he us also Chief Digital Officer, professor of digital media, and Dean of Student Affairs at Columbia University) put together a good list of folks and companies who are thought provoking and post frequently.

Top 10 most followed journalists

Anderson Cooper: 3,455,256

Piers Morgan: 3,004,433

Rachel Maddow: 2,434,423

Larry King: 2,319,449

Bill Simmons: 1,931,155

George Stephanopoulos: 1,814,086

Chris Hardwick: 1,757,790

David Gregory: 1,584,068

Sanjay Gupta: 1,567,922

David Pogue: 1,454,191

Top 10 publications with the most journalists on Twitter

The Associated Press: 471

The New York Times: 463

The Wall Street Journal: 327

Bloomberg News: 310

The Guardian: 293

Reuters: 238

USA Today: 186

CNN: 175

Los Angeles Times: 174

Sky News: 141

Top 10 news organizations with the most total followers of all their Tweeting journalists:

CNN: 12,936,330

The New York Times: 10,361,924

ABC News: 8,080,255

NBC News: 4,886,734

The Guardian: 4,653,253

ESPN: 4,468,903

MSNBC: 3,927,080

Fox News: 3,248,385

CNBC: 2,699,308

BBC: 2,136,011

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Get Silly with Emoticons

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This post is dedicated to Mindi Lampert who taught me how to use emoticons on a smart phone the other night at a holiday party. Thank you, Mind!! 😘

Emoticons are the facial or pictorial expressions you see many people using in their texts and emails. In fact, they can even be used on my blog post.

💝🎎🎒☎🎥⏰

I have noticed emoticons for years but never knew how to use them. Now that I know, watch out. 🗿🇺🇸🚲🚠🚃🚅🚚

The word “emoticon” is a combination of emotions and icons. You don’t need to download an app to use emoticons. You can all use them right from your smartphone.

Go into Settings on your phone. Find the “general” bar. Tap it and then look for “keyboard.” Tap “keyboard.” Then you will see the word “Emoji.” Click “Emoji.”

Leave Settings and go into Messages or Email. You will notice a “globe” button between 123 and the mic on the lower left hand side of the keyboard.

Tap the “globe.” You will see pages of emoticons and several categories to choose from. Incorporate them into your messages when appropriate like now.

💈🏮🚦🇺🇸🎭

To return to keyboard just tap the “globe”again. It is a lot of fun.

Shark Tank’s Cheesy Indulgence

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Mark Cuban

When someone with deep pockets makes a mistake, it is called “an experiment.” When someone starting out or just an average Joe makes a mistake, it is considered a major blunder. Hence, the reason for my post.

Mark Cuban, one of the six rotating investors on ABC TV’s Shark Tank, admitted in an interview on Reddit that allowing a T-Mobile product placement followed by a T-Mobile commercial, right in the middle of the show last season, was in poor taste. He actually used the word “cheesy.”

We are loyal fans of the show so we will give it another shot this season, but if we start to see blatant product endorsements on the show, we are going to immediately tune out. Watching real estate mogul Barbara Corcoran talk about her ability to use her T-Mobile phone to access information about one of the on-air startups was insulting to the viewers. We all knew Shark Tank was getting paid to have Barbara say that.

Cuban’s actual excuse on Reddit was, “It was beyond cheesy. None of the sharks liked it, but we learned from it and it will be different in the future.” So what does that mean? They won’t endorse products on the air as a form of advertising, or they will do a better job camouflaging it?

Reddit is a collection of entries on a website submitted by registered users. It looks like a bulletin board system. The entries are organized into areas of interest called “reddits.” The word Reddit comes from “I read it.” Users vote on stories, thumbs up or down. The result determines the positioning of the content on the site.

Cuban was featured on Reddit’s AMA (Ask Me Anything) thread. Users posed questions and he answered them quickly and candidly.

Reddit also asked Cuban how many of the deals on Shark Tank get modified or cancelled after the cameras stop rolling? Also, had any of the Sharks ever decided to make a deal with someone after the cameras stopped?

I think you are going to find Cuban’s answer very interesting. “We get the chance to do due diligence after the show. As a result, you uncover things that were not brought up in the show, so it’s not unusual for a deal to fall through in the DD phase. I have had things like people who never paid their taxes, people who lied on the show, people who thought that spending money on their personal credit cards should be considered a business expense, you name it.”

Cuban continued, “There is so much pressure on the entrepreneur during the show that sometimes they say what they think we want to hear rather than the truth. The DD helps us separate the two.”

“How many of the deals have you had to break off in the DD phase?”

“Probably about 25 per cent of them!”

Happy Holidays from DigiDame

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I am giving a $25 donation to St. Jude’s Children’s Research Hospital in your name if you can identify the picture above. Email me at lois@digidame.com

Happy Holidays

Financial Whiz Todd Gerber Responds to Jerry Della Femina’s Anti Obama NY Post Story

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Jerry Della Femina

DigiDame first to challenge Jerry Della Femina PR Spin

Click here for the original blog post on Della Femina’s claims.

Remarks From Todd Gerber

“You make a good point about the high overhead probably being the reason for the sale, Lois. I can’t figure out why someone in Mr. Della Femina’s position would feel forced to sell because of the higher taxes in 2013, which would amount to an additional 8.8% (5% higher capital gain +3.8% surtax on income over $250,000 for the Affordable Care Act a.k.a. Obamacare) had he sold in 2013 vs 2012.

“Assuming a $20 million gain on the property held for decades, that would amount to $1.76 million in savings by selling in 2012. With a Manhattan townhouse and Palm Beach properties, plus the value of the Hamptons house, it’s reasonable to assume Mr. Della Femina’s has net worth in excess of $50 million. With that amount of net worth, I can’t understand why a 3.5% reduction in net worth due to the tax implications would make someone feel like they absolutely had to sell NOW. If that was the case, it sounds like borderline irrational behavior to me. Your assumptions about wanting to reduce overhead sound more plausible.

“And, of course, Rupert Murdoch’s New York Post has its own axe to grind trying to make it look like Obama forced Mr. Della Femina’s hand. The Post article implies a 40% rise in taxes in the same sentence it mentions a 5% rise in taxes,and the reality of an 8.8% rise in taxes in the case of Mr. Della Femina. That represents just 1 pretty decent year in overall investment return. Spin, spin, spin.”

Jerry Della Femina’s Fiscal Cliff PR Spin

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Jerry Della Femina

Jerry Della Femina

I almost fell off my chair at breakfast this morning when I read a story The New York Post published about Jerry Della Femina, one of the most creative guys in the advertising business, being forced to sell his $25 million house in East Hampton because of President Obama’s fiscal policies. Della Femina blamed Obama for his financial woes. He was quoted as saying “I want the proceeds of this sale to go to my kids and my grandkids. I don’t want my money going to Obama, and that’s what’s going to happen in the New Year. That’s why I sold right now, that’s why I wanted to get this done.”

Sold for $25 million

Sold for $25 million

The Rupert Murdoch owned newspaper explained, “A fall off the fiscal cliff could trigger a 40 percent rise in taxes on short-term investments and a 5 percent spike in taxes on long-term capital gains.” The legendary ad man was the genius behind Meow Mix and Absolut Vodka campaigns. The 8,500 square-foot house sold for $25 million even though those in the know claim it was on the block for years for $40 million.

I met Jerry 25 years ago when he and I worked for BellSouth as independent agencies. He had the advertising portion and I had the PR. We were working on the precursor for Blackberry. Jerry and I introduced the first wireless email device into the world. The unit was the size of a brick and everyone at the time said no one wanted wireless email. He worked very hard to prove everyone wrong. We didn’t know the answers ourselves but we had a great client, Janet Boudris, who could clearly see the future.

Because of that working relationship, I was in Jerry’s company a lot. There wasn’t a minute that he wasn’t absolutely sensational. Clever as clever could be. Eliot and I went to his East Hampton home a few times so we know the house he is talking about. Honestly, the New York Post is calling the house a mansion or estate, but from my recollection it was a nice, sizeable home. The location was outstanding. I have been to many homes on the ocean but Jerry’s house was in an exceptional spot. It was situated on a cliff with a full view of the ocean from every window in the house and certainly every spot around his pool.

Jerry’s comment about being forced to sell the house because of the fiscal cliff is totally unfair. Jerry is probably selling the house because as we all get older, we don’t want to carry the overhead we did in the heyday of our careers. How do I know this? Because it is happening to me and many people I know, who lived a fast lane life with fast lane expenses. Jerry owns a fabulous NYC townhouse plus several homes in Palm Beach. He probably looked at the monthly money coming in and what was going out. As we get older something has to give. East Hampton was the most sensible to go.

To blame Obama is absolutely ridiculous, but that is Jerry’s spin. I just couldn’t sit back and read that BS in the Post. Blame old age. We still may be relevant and creative but we may not be able to generate money like we did in our 40s and 50s, certainly not in the advertising and PR business. The new kid on the block is raking in the dough.

The World Didn’t End, What’s Next?

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We made it! We are still here! I wasn’t really worried, but it did cross my mind. What a day I had. We took an early flight from New York to Miami during a heavy downpour and strong winds. The take off was like being in a spaceship shooting for the stars. Once we got here it was rush, rush to get things done for the holidays.

Every year at this time I make New Year’s resolutions I never keep. I promised myself that if the world didn’t end I would walk at least 10,000 steps a day, (you start losing weight at 12,500 steps according to my friend, Dr. Howard Stark), I would eat more protein and less junk, and try to sleep longer each night. I average four or five hours because my mind is on overtime.

For the last year, I have been using FitBit, a Bluetooth pedometer which has really made me conscious of how much I walk each day. I average 7,000 steps, which is not the desired amount, but much better than what I used to do.

The gadgets for monitoring wellness have been increasing significantly since the advent of Bluetooth. It is really wonderful to have a gizmo that tallies up many of your daily activities and then keeps records of them on a dedicated application.

Ed Baig, a USA Today tech reporter, really got serious about his wellbeing a few years ago. He lost a lot of weight and has a frequent exercise routine. I know him for 20 years and I have to say he looks younger and more energized than ever before. That is why I am reporting on a device he highlighted today that he says can help us change many of our bad habits. It’s called the Jawbone’s Up band, It costs $100 and can help you live a more healthful life.

The device is a bracelet that works in combination with an app on your iPhone, iPad or iPod Touch. It motivates you to break those unhealthy habits.

The company is known for producing popular wireless Bluetooth headsets and Jambox portable electronic speakers.

Up has a sturdy steel frame encased in a flexible hard rubber wristband. Built-in motion sensors can track the steps you’ve taken, distance traveled, pace, calories burned, and the hours you were in a deep or light state of slumber. The band comes in small, medium and large and multiple colors. It works in tandem with the free companion iOS app, which you must download from Apple’s iTunes Store. Jawbone says an Android version is coming.

To sync the device to the Jawbone app, lift off the cap at one end of the band which reveals a mini-jack that plugs into the headset jack of your mobile device. Then open the app, tap a sync icon and wait a few seconds for the process to be completed.

I am not saying this is the ultimate wellness device, but I have heard other’s rave about it. It is worth a try and may help us keep the promise we made to ourselves for the New Year.

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The Names Were Changed To Protect The Guilty

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area 51I have so many funny and remarkable stories about attending CES over the years that it will take a little time to remember all of the shenanigans. The one that sticks out the most is when my PR agency, HWH PR, represented a company called Intelegen , a small cap public company (a penny stock). Intelegen was going to introduce a new type of TV that was supposed to be better than high definition. Two women out of Silicon Valley headed up the company and wanted to put a special PR spin on the introduction, so they claimed they found the technology in Area 51, a secret military base. They spent a million dollars building a look-a-like military base structure in the parking lot just outside the Las Vegas Convention Center for a press conference to show off the new technology.

I asked Jenny, the CEO, to see the new technology hours before the conference. She gave me some tap dance answer that it was still being unwrapped in the shipping area of CES. Not to worry. We lined the entrance to the structure with folding chairs for the press. About 100 members of the media showed up. Jenny kept them waiting a half hour until some of the press folks started yelling out for the press conference to start. Still no Jenny. It got so bad over the next 15 minutes that a few of the older members of the press started to yell out obscenities. “What the f**k is going on?” was one of the familiar ones. It continued to get much worse. Finally, an hour late Jenny appeared. She got booed immediately. She just smiled. She babbled for 15 minutes about how she got in to Area 51 (all fictitious) and why the technology was so advanced. She was boring everyone. Then the bedlam started. “We want to see the TV! Shut up already! We have been here for two hours! Stop the BS! Show us the goods!”

Then the unthinkable happened. Jenny told the audience that the product never arrived. The grumbling was more than my ears could handle. All of a sudden, I felt that I was transported from Earth to another planet. While I felt bad for myself repping this fraud, I felt worse for my young staff who I imagined were quite demoralized given the looks of shock and dismay on their faces. If I were one of them, I would have felt like I needed to look for a new job because HWH just got a bad rap. To this day, there are one or two press people around who remind me of that event.

infidelity

If that was not bad enough, we also had another client who was not exactly faithful to his wife. He was having a long term relationship with one of the young gals who worked for CES management. When I first met him, he was a rather large guy. Then he lost 75 pounds and discovered that he had some sex appeal. Most of the time when I visited his company, he would ask for alone time with me to share photos of his escapades. I would give him all the right reactions to make him feel special (his monthly retainer was huge for the time), and then I would actually meet with his staff to make sure HWH was actually involved in important work so we couldn’t get accused of any CEO personal favors. My relationship with the number one guy forced us to do double the work load just to secure our relationship.

The CEO, Joseph, used to sleep in the same hotel room with his girlfriend during CES. One year his wife showed up on day two of the show. Luggage in hand, she called him from the lobby of the hotel announcing her surprise arrival. He went into full panic. He immediately called me. I had to go downstairs to the lobby, explain that he was in a meeting, and take her to lunch. The girlfriend moved her stuff into my room and I was stuck with her for the remainder of the convention. The things I’d do for our clients.

The owner of the publication I worked for many years ago almost strangled me one morning at the show because I had stopped the presses the night before when I noticed the pagination of our daily magazine was out of order. Most of it was written in advance. We kept page one and a wrap-around for daily news. I was at the local Vegas printer proof reading the draft when I noticed the mistake. I was editor-in-chief, so I could make the call. My boss didn’t agree and was furious that the publication was late to the show floor. I would have called him when I saw the mistake, but he was busy entertaining some broad in his room. How would I have known that? He told me he didn’t want to be disturbed when I had last spoken to him. So be it.

fist fight

Then there’s the time I got an urgent call at 10 pm to go to the CES hotel suite of the CEO for a major Asian company. Many of you own this company’s TV sets. Lucky for me, I was located at the same hotel. When I arrived at the suite, the head American executive was sitting on the coach with a swollen red face. I found out that they had had a fist fight after some screaming had gotten out of control. I have no idea who threw the first punch. I was called to the suite to settle the argument about why the American guy was getting more editorial coverage than the Asian chief. The truth was the Asian exec was really shy and the American guy had a huge ego. The American did offer his boss several opportunities, but he had declined. They really were both jealous of each other and probably wanted to use their fists to settle the score. I told the truth and eventually got fired after a 17 year relationship. The American executive got bounced, too. Ironically, the Asian official was called back to Korea (oops, I gave away another clue) six months later. I haven’t represented this company for seven years. Since I left, they have hired and fired eight agencies.

Okay, I am filled with hundreds of stories, but I have to end this somewhere. The one last story is about two reporters who were dating. They were very well known in the consumer electronics industry. They denied the relationship until she got pregnant. Only a few of us knew the situation. They decided to get married during CES in one of the Vegas wedding chapels. They left the press room at noon and were back by 2 pm, hitched. I was giving a press conference at 3 pm. They both attended. We announced the marriage over the microphone, and the press conference turned into their wedding reception. Everyone still remembers that day. They lasted about 12 years.