Is Dallas the new Hot Spot on the US Advertising Map?
05 Dec 2010 Leave a Comment
in Around the World Tags: Advertising, allas, American Advertising Federation, Economy, Enterprise, J.R. Ewing, Jerry Jones, Jessica Simpson, Kinky Friedman, Laura Miller, Los Angeles, Manhattan, Mark Cuban, Melissa Rycroft, New York, Super Bowl, Texas, Willie Nelson
Dallas, Texas. Population: 1.3 million, the 9th largest city in the United States. Known as the home to Maverick icons like J.R. Ewing, Jessica Simpson, Mark Cuban, Willie Nelson, Kinky Friedman, Melissa Rycroft, Laura Miller and Jerry Jones. Not to mention that it hosts the Annual State Fair of Texas, ‘Texas vs. Okalahoma’ Red River Shoot Out and in 2011 will welcome the 45th Super Bowl to Cowboy Stadium.
Business is booming. The city’s American Advertising Federation chapter ranks as the 5th largest AAF club in the country, following shortly behind New York, and Los Angeles. Interest in relocating courting efforts targeted at Fortune 500 brands is at an all time high, with reportedly 20 to 30 relationships under way for the next 5 years. When they say folks tend to do things bigger in Texas – they mean business, and that’s exactly what’s headed this way when Q1 kicks off in January.
Are the top CEOs and Chairmans looking to move to Dallas in the coming months because they have a hankering for incredible Bar-B-Q, a fixation for cowboy boots, or just can’t get enough of the delightful, seasonal weather? Perhaps. But those things alone, wonderful as they may be, retain surface value. When looking at the bigger picture, Dallas is a safe bet to many CEOs because it’s sustaining a growing population, managing a resourceful infrastructure, and advocating environmental and urban development efforts. The Texas State motto is ‘Friendship’ and when you do business with people who smile and offer a handshake, things seem to go well better from the beginning. Dallas is in the mood to do business and they want to welcome you with a big Texan How’d Do Ya Do Sir/Ma’am? Welcome to our great and humble state.”
For marketing folks (and really across all industries), one undeniable hot button topic, which still leaves the industry shaken, and shuttering is the unemployment rate. Jobs are hard to come by even in these times when we supposedly see the harsh recession veil slowly lifting and recovery moving in. The BBC news reported just last week that the US unemployment rate had unexpectedly risen back to 9.8% – a dark statistic still hanging over many people out of work.
But many Texans that I know are choosing to make Margaritas out of the lemons we’ve all been given. An optimistic and entrepreneurial spirit is part of our inherited character. We’ve got an airport the size of Manhattan, we aren’t afraid to embrace change, and for the most part we know how to take care of ourselves because we had to once upon a time when we were our own country for 10 years between 1836 and 1846. Indeed, it’s fair to observe that Dallas is quickly becoming a rising ‘Lone Star’ player across the communications industry and in the United States, so it’s only natural to wonder – what other big plans are they making down there in the South West?
How Are You Using Social Media to Interact Across the World’s Stage?
17 Nov 2010 6 Comments
in Around the World Tags: Actors, As You Like It, Barcelona, Communication, Connections, Critics, Email, International Communication, Letters, Literature, London, Philosophy, Shakespeare, Stage, Tokyo, Travel, World
“All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players..They have their exits and their entrances; And one man in his time plays many parts.” William Shakespeare | As You Like It | Act 2 Scene 7
William Shakespeare crafted it. Literary critics throughout the ages have toted it as prophetic genius, and it rings perhaps even more true now in the 21st century than it ever did when he wrote As You Like It in 1600 A.D. In taking inspiration from the great Will.I.Am, this week’s emerging media question probes a bit further tainting the above idea with an emerging media context…
How Are You Using Social Media to Interact Across the World’s Stage?
Do you tweet to friends in France about how your dreams to one day live abroad exotically? Do you swap emails with a Financial Analyst in Tokyo so that you know more about Asia’s financial context than your colleagues the next day at work? Do you follow a design blog that always releases funky and cool fonts from that artist you ran into on Twitter during a #fontfantic chat and then traded contact info with? Perhaps you’re even playing international fantasy football (aka Soccer) with a bunch of amigos in Spain since they will know how to trade players better than mates from England or Germany. Thanks to social networks and evolving technology, you’re talking victory moves with World Cup winners. You’re living in real time and digitally interacting across the World’s stage at the click of a mouse and the touch of a key. Freedom reigns supreme, information is abound, and new relationships are forming while you travel through life’s journey.
In an age when employees perform 3 jobs as 1 person, 9am to 7pm is status quo and mobile devices operate as smaller laptops – tracking history, memories, and older data also employs using social media to a certain extent. LinkedIn users can archive messages sitting in their Inbox, Facebook holds vaults of pictures from Spring Break, former birthday parties, and family, Yelp files Digital records and catalogues comments we left about the Asian restaurants we favored and hated for future reference. Again, every day life continues to interact at an increasing rate digitally through each of these mediums. Conversations are stemming from what we have in common and we’re finding out what we have in common with one another when we connect online in some way.
For now I want to leave these questions open for reader comments and observations. Share your stories, speculate on how society is using social media to interact across the world’s stage amongst various groups of players. What parts have you held journeying across the digital landscape? What role and where will you take on next? We’ll mull over some other examples about interacting through social media across the world stage. Think connectivity. Embrace it digitally.
Is New Media Violating Small, Town USA? Do They Enjoy It?
08 Sep 2010 4 Comments
in Around the World Tags: Business, Change, Culture, Dallas, Development, Economics, Emerging Media, Facebook, Fredericksburg, Geography, Hondo's, Politics, Small Town
This year I decided to spend the Labor Day holiday outside of Dallas, about 4 hours away, nestled in the Texas Hill Country, while resting at my family country home in Fredericksburg, Texas. Over the weekend I came across a quote that perfectly captured my intentions for the weekend, “Spending One Day in the Country, Makes a Month in the City Worth It…”
For those not familiar with this quaint, German settlement just outside of Austin, Fredericksburg is full of delightful entertainments to make a weekend go right along. Whether you find yourself drinking wine amongst the local vineyards, or popping your head into antique shops down Main Street, when city folks arrive to enjoy their weekend stay—those ugly, mundane to-dos that occupy the majority of one’s day back in the city simply melt away. I took a breath and paused.
My intention over the weekend was above all things to forget about work. As I mentioned before I work in Social Media outside of pursuing my Master’s degree in Emerging Media and Communications, so for one weekend only I wanted to perhaps, not live La Vida New Media for a brief 72 hours. Where better to do this than in the quiet country home with no landline and no cell phone charger.
Here’s the thing…as much as I wanted to leave my La Vida New Media in Dallas for the weekend in exchange for a quite country get away… it turns out that even in Small Town, USA folks can still live some type of New Media Vida, and I think they’re kind of enjoying it.
When my parents bought our family house in 1993, Fredericksburg was half the size it is now. It had half the stores; half the restaurants but some of the same stores I walked to on Main Street when I was 10 are still in the same spot 17 years later. However 17 years later, they promote a Facebook Fan page. Take Hondo’s for the example – the local cantina watering hole has a lively 405 fans, 4 or so photo albums, 7 outside link connections, and an Events Tab…
I have to wonder— Would Fredericksburg have experienced the tremendous amount of growth over the years had it not been for the development of new media? The underlying question to all of this, narrative anecdote aside, is the following: Is the power of New Media Violating Small Town, USA? And more to the point, are they enjoying it?
It’s quite a quandary… by exposing a small town to a vast and infinite audience online, they run the risk of garnering up such media attention and tourism that eventually the powerhouse brands will attempt to move in and secure a piece of the market share that the local brands have enjoyed a monopoly on for so long. However, without continued growth, new development, and change the small town will not generate an evolving presence that will allow it to keep up with the times.
It’s a tough question to answer and I am still scratching my head over the question even though I had a glorious 4-hour car ride home to mull it over. If you do get a chance to head down to Fredericksburg any time soon, be sure to stop by the local burger shop, and drink a beer at Hondo’s, buy an antique map of Texas, then fan the places you liked upon your return home. I hope that Fredericksburg will remain the rare exception that can continue to enjoy growth but still keep it’s country charm while livin’ la vida new media—
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