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The Early Bird…Social Media Style (2011)

by Mike Nicholson
Blog
January 27, 2011

Paper.li is a social media site that creates a daily, online newspaper by aggregating the posts of your Twitter or Facebook friends. I learned about it several months ago after seeing a number of Twitter posts that looked like "The MY NAME HERE Daily is out! Top Stories by LINK LINK and LINK." I didn't really want to create a 'Mike Nicholson Daily', or '46alpha Daily' utilizing all 14,000+ Twitter friends, but did come up with the idea of utilizing a Twitter...

The 2.4 second news cycle (2011)

by Mike Nicholson
Blog
January 9, 2011

I turned the news on last night to see the ongoing coverage of the Arizona shootings yesterday. In case you've been under a rock, a 22-year old opened fire outside a supermarket where Rep. Gabrielle Giffords was hosting an event. From the reports I watched and read, there were about three dozen people in attendance when Jared Lee Loughner opened fire and killed 6 people before he was tackled by two individuals (Link to a CNN article here.) An incredibly tragic event conducted...

Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays and Happy New Years (2010)

by Mike Nicholson
Blog
December 24, 2010

It's been a while since I've posted anything. Part of it is because I've been extremely busy at work finishing up ILE and for the past 2 months, the Red Team Leader Course (which was excellent by the way). The other part of it is just social media burn-out, and it looks like I'm not the only one. A recent 2010 Pew Internet Report showed that young people (don't know if I'm still classified as 'young') are blogging less. It looks...

Public Affairs and Soft Power (2010)

by Mike Nicholson
Blog
September 28, 2010

I have a great deal of interest in “soft power” because I think it will become increasingly more important in the years to come out of sheer economic necessity. It is no secret that many of the western nations, to include England, Germany, and the U.S., are having financial “issues” on the domestic home front and are looking at ways to decrease military spending. For example, England is looking at a reduction in military spending by approximately 10%-15% with a reduction in...

The First Television President (2010)

by Mike Nicholson
Blog
September 24, 2010

I spent the afternoon at the Eisenhower Presidential Library in Abilene, Kansas, and there was some good information on our first "Television President." There were a number of quotes and information signs along the tour, so I'll just post them below: [edgtf_separator class_name="" type="full-width" position="center" color="909090" border_style="" width="" thickness="3" top_margin="" bottom_margin=""] The First Televised Campaign (Information Board) Television shaped the 1952 Eisenhower campaign in revolutionary ways that confirmed the power of the new medium. The GOP's elaborate TV strategy included using the Nielson company...

Who would you go off-the-record with? (2010)

by Mike Nicholson
Blog
August 5, 2010

  Under what circumstances and with whom would you go "off-the-record" or "on background" with?   On the record, on background, not for attribution and off the record: These are prearranged agreements between a reporter and a source, which govern how specific information can be used. These deals must be agreed to beforehand, never after. A source can't say something then claim it was "off the record." That's too late. When dealing with individuals who are not experienced in talking with reporters, journalists...

The military needs better Infographics (2010)

by Mike Nicholson
Blog
May 13, 2010

  A number of things have caught my attention recently that tells me that we need better infographics capabilities within the military. An Infographic is a visual representation of data, information, knowledge, or processes, and we use it all time. The above PowerPoint slide was in a brief to Army General Stanley McChrystal and recently made the New York Times with the article titled, "We have met the enemy, and he is PowerPoint." This is a causal loop diagram meant to depict relationships and...

‘Checking In’ with location-based social media (2010)

by Mike Nicholson
Blog
May 5, 2010

  The following was a piece written for Army.mil and can be seen here. 'Geo' is this year's Twitter If 2009 was the year of Twitter, then 2010 is ramping up to be the year of location-based social media services. Geo-location services like Foursquare, Brightkite and Gowalla have rapidly been adopted by users, and many of the sites you've likely already heard about like Facebook, Flickr and Twitter have either already integrated this capability or plan to do so in the near future. These services typically let users 'check-in'...

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Business StartUp in a Weekend (2010)

by Mike Nicholson
Blog
April 20, 2010

  I spent some time this past weekend at the Kansas City StartUp Weekend. Startup Weekend is a non-profit organization that provides "networking, resources and incentives for individuals and teams to [take a business] from idea to launch." They go around to major cities all over the world setting up these weekend events. I had never been to one before and didn't really know what to expect, so here's what happened in a nutshell. I arrived on a Friday evening and there was...

Principles of War applied to Communication (2010)

by Mike Nicholson
Blog
April 6, 2010

  We are discussing Jomini, Clausewitz, Sun Tzu, and a number of other military theorists right now, and the Principles of War are a frequent topic of discussion. I try and take other frameworks and apply them to communication as a means of articulating better what we do. So can we apply the Principles of War to modern communications? Here is my stab at it: Objective: So what are you trying to achieve? We often work with ambiguous guidance, so it is important to...