Fishing for a career, blog style

It looks like someone has decided to take my secret and spread it to everyone. How inconsiderate! Haha.

While I have been subscribing to a whole mess of blogs and PR podcasts for a while now, I am still pretty fresh on the blog writer side of things. It has definitely given me some idea of what it is like and what types of things to consider when creating different posts. While at this stage, this is more of an experiment than anything else, but I think it is going pretty well.

Disagree? Comment.

Calling all Boston Bloggers...

Susan Getgood wants the Boston PR community to get together on April 29th on Saturday evening. If you are interested Susan asks that you send her an email or post a comment on her Boston announcement post.


If I am in there area, I will definitely be in attendance. Maybe I'll see you there.

My trip to Boston

Three days in Boston, and it went amazingly.

Weather? Amazing. People? Amazing. Boston Marathon? Three days too late. I wish it was on Friday instead of Monday so I could have seen it, but I guess it was for the best, since it would have put a big wrench in my schedule and made walking around pretty hard.

Every PR agency I visited was amazing and I made me SO excited about moving to Boston next month. So if we met last week and you are reading this, thanks for everything and hopefully we will be meeting again before too long.

Peter Reid? Unfortunately that was the only one out of my dozen appointments around the city that had to get cut because I was just so exhausted by the time Friday night came around. Sure I was disapointed, but for my job-related road trip, if I'm able to get all my job stuff done, I'm happy.

ALSO! I think I fixed my RSS feed so all you beautiful people out there can get a fresh batch of jamesonbull.blogspot.com delivered to your desktop whenever it comes out. I must admit, it is the first time I have initiated an RSS feed, so if it breaks or doesnt work, let me know by email or post a comment.

Mixing Business and Triathlon

As mentioned in the previous post, this is going to be a crazy week. Thankfully, I was tipped off by a member of the Wheelworks Multisport team that the three-time Ironman champion, Peter Reid, is going to be at Belmont Wheelworks to speak on Friday. Best of all, it is my favorite price, free.

I figure too much business isn't good for the body. It should be a good time and it will be interesting to hear what a guy with this much experience has got to say.

Check back for my reactions next weekend.

Crazy Schedules

My schedule has been pretty crazy lately, and most of it has been scheduling and rescheduling my visit to Boston, Mass. next Thursday and Friday. It has been quite an experience trying to juggle a whole mess of different appointments scattered around the Boston area, but so far it looks like everything is under control.
I have been increasing my triathlon training and am on my way out the door to the pool as we speak, but I should have time for a more satisfying post later on today. Be patient kids. I heard it is a virtue.

-Jameson Bull

Newsvine Response

In the Newsvine story's comments, I asked:

Is there some reason that Newsvine is not naming the company? Not that I'm about to start a boycott, I'm just more interested than anything else.

Here is Newsvine's response, also found in the story comments:

Mike D. :I'm not mentioning company names because my goal is not to out anybody here. It's apparently pretty common and it's not illegal, so I just wanted to point it out for people who weren't aware of it, and point out the fact that we are against it.

While it may not have been what I was looking for, I do understand Newsvine's interest in not starting a finger pointing game.

BTW: I love a news organization that not only allows comments on its stories, but actually responds to them in a timely manner. Did someone say "two-way symmetrical"? J. E. Grunig what?

Newsvine how I love thee

So apparently Newsvine got approached by a big media company, offering them payment for placement of their articles on the site. It has turned into quite a little scandal in the Newsvine world.

But the one thing that surprised me, Newsvine skirted around naming the company that was playing this journalistic payola game. While I may still be partially covered in my bubble 'o academia, to me, paying journalists to sprinkle quotes from employees and executives throughout your article is likely the second easiest way to get fired short of plagiarism.

Let’s get back to the problem at hand. Wouldn't it be ethical for Newsvine to shine some light on this ethical disturbance and publish the organization that offered the payment as well as give them a chance to explain themselves and offer their side of the story to this discussion? If what Newsvine says is true, there is little doubt about the ethical problems that this company is dealing with, but perpetuating the raping of the news media isn't exactly the most ethical either.

I am by no means asking Newsvine to hang anyone from the gallows; I am merely inviting the accused to join in the discussion.