Of course we’re fascinating!

What do the two prime Emmy winning shows have in common? Mad Men and 30 Rock are both shows about the media, with managers as their main characters. Not the news media, but the media environment in advertising and sketch comedy, where off-balance creative people pour their genius into satisfying the demands of the marketplace.

Everyone who has worked in media has known colleagues as troubled and brilliant as agency creative director Don Draper (played by Jon Hamm, above left) and as daffy and endearing as show runner Liz Lemon (played by Tina Fey). In both cases, their personal lives are a mess, but they’re completely devoted to professional excellence.

A newspaper editor I used to work for, Stewart Spencer,  told me we’d chosen our careers because neither of us was normal enough to function in a “regular” office. A “regular” office wouldn’t be nearly as interesting, of course.

Citizen journalism for the corporate set

I’m intrigued by the possibilities presented by the just announced deal between CNBC and LinkedIn. LinkedIn has the potential to be Facebook for people with a paycheck. As CEO Dan Nye describes the facets:

1. On LinkedIn: LinkedIn’s rapidly growing user base of over 27 million professionals now have an opportunity to both consume as well as share with their professional network, breaking business news & content from CNBC that ranges from articles and blogs to financial data and video content.

2. On CNBC.com: As a regular CNBC.com user, you’ll start seeing LinkedIn’s community and networking functionality integrated on CNBC.com (for e.g. sharing CNBC articles with your professional network on LinkedIn or finding out who in your network connects you to the companies you read about).

3. On CNBC: Community-generated content from LinkedIn will also be broadcast on CNBC programs. These include survey results and on-air Q&A with CNBC anchors, reporters and guests.

It’s the third item, user-generated content, I think has the most potential for CNBC journalism. 

 If CNBC handles its end well, it can be like having news sources deeply embedded at every white collar level in virtually every company in America. The same people who would be scared speechless if they got a call from a Wall Street Journal reporter will be far more comfortable sharing what they know through LinkedIn.

The social media hurricane

Here’s how old I am: When I wanted to make a strong impression in accepting my first full time job, in 1972, I sent a telegram. To me, the means of communication symbolized urgency and importance. Today urgency and importance are increasingly signaled through social media, as the convergence of social and news media speed along.

My teenaged children have never sent nor received a telegram. They rarely talk on the phone or send emails, preferring to text friends’ cell phones or, in my son’s case, through game communications in World of Warcraft. He knows many of his friends will be there, just as my daughter knows a lot of dialogue among her classmates is going on through Facebook.

I now check Twitter a couple of times a day, LinkedIn every day or two and Facebook when it alerts me, for signs of what my friends and colleagues are up to.

The widespread adoption of social media in personal and business communication is now working its way into the news ecosystem, with Hurricane Gustav being the latest example.

I picked three news organizations (formerly known as newspapers) with good track records I knew were well-positioned to follow developments, the New Orleans Times-Picayune, Biloxi Sun Herald and Austin American-Statesman. In addition to print and online coverage, each fielded a Twitter presence. New Orleans used its ongoing Twitter account, NOLAnews; Biloxi established FollowGustav and Austin created TrackingGustav.

The advantage of Twitter over the Web is that virtually everyone with a cellphone purchased in the past few years has the technology to receive instant Twitter updates, 140-character bursts  of information sometimes, but not always, linked to a longer Web entry. 

Even the Red Cross provided hurricane information through Twitter. The advantages lay in the instant and portable nature of Twitter and its near universal availability.

Check out the the great interview on Poynter about NPR’s efforts to use social media in Gustav coverage  http://poynter.org/column.asp?id=2&aid=149732