In my last post, I argued there’s more value in social media as its own content channel than in its ability to drive ratings or sales. The prime mover of that post was a quote in the Financial Times from NBCUniversal’s head of research Alan Wurtzel who said social media “’is not a game changer yet’ in influencing television viewing.” He also said “the emperor wears no clothes” which tells you just how much marketing people love a good cliche.
After taking another look at the articles written in the wake of his comments, it’s unclear how Wurtzel came to these conclusion but more on that in a bit.
If you’re going to draw conclusions about cause and effect, it helps to base them on the results of an actual study.
Here’s the latest: On Thursday, Twitter’s head of research Anjali Midha released a second batch of results from a study of 12,000 Twitter users that examined the effects of tweets on consumer action. Her first post focused on the relationship between the kinds of tweets consumers saw from/about brands and the type of action they took afterwards. It’s definitely worth a read.
Specific to this discussion is Midha’s second post which deals with the effects of TV-related tweets. In my post, I argued Twitter can be a complementary content channel all its own, but if you’re going to look to it as a call to action, it’s important to consider whether it affects awareness, consideration and brand education and not just ratings or sales.
An article in the Financial Times seems to speak in no uncertain terms about social media’s inability to generate ratings for television shows, despite both Twitter and Facebook fighting for the right to claim each does it better:
The two social networks have spent the past year trumpeting a virtuous cycle between people watching television and using social media. But, in spite of the buzz, NBCUniversal’s head of research Alan Wurtzel says that social media “is not a game changer yet” in influencing television viewing.
He comes to that conclusion after looking at the effect of Twitter, as well as Facebook, on NBCU’s ratings during the Winter Olympics. Wurtzel saw lots of chatter about Sochi on social media, but none of that seemed to translate to increased viewership.
There are a number of reasons why using the Olympics as a yardstick isn’t the best idea. Again, from the Financial Times piece:
Ad executives cautioned that the results could be skewed by the fact that the Olympics draws mass audiences who are likely to tune in regardless of social media buzz.
More niche programming, such as dramas or reality television programmes, could show more correlations between social media activity and viewership, says Kate Sirkin, global research director at Publicis’ Starcom MediaVest Group, which last year committed to hundreds of millions of dollars of advertising spend on Twitter over several years.
Other questions I had that I’d research if I had more time:
What are the typical demographics of the Olympics and how do they compare to the average user of Twitter and Facebook?
Did NBC utilize its social media channels to encourage viewers to tune in for its broadcasts? Was there a specific call to action? Were they conversational? Or did the tweets read more like a print ad?
How many “luge” jokes were made on Twitter during the Olympics? (This is less about the topic at-hand and more because I have the sense of humor of a child.)
Wurtzel’s is a voice worth listening to as he’s had a long career in television with many years in research. And he’s not exactly been against new media as a way to drive eyeballs to traditional TV, specifically for the Olympics:
But Alan Wurtzel, president of research and media development for NBCU, said in separate remarks that new media seemed to have the opposite effect: The more live video people saw of the games taking place in real-time, the more interested they were in seeing curated primetime telecasts that included more information about the athletes, their background and the stories behind their journey to the event.
Still, as Re/Code and Financial Times both point out, there are plenty of studies that suggest a correlation between ratings and social media chatter. And yesterday Twitter CEO Dick Costolo had a specific response to Wurtzel’s position.
But mostly I’m stunned we’re still thinking of social media purely in terms of eyeballs and sales. Especially since not all marketing tactics/channels are expected to have a direct relationship to them. NBC/Wurtzel certainly seems to view social media as such without considering things like awareness, consideration, brand education, etc.
A couple quick bits of housekeeping:
* In case you missed it, I talked with WGN Radio host James VanOsdol about the Sun-Times comments decision and that US Airways tweet-disaster. You can listen to it here.
* My next reading is at The Paper Machete on Saturday, May 17th. It’s one of the best live performance events in the city so please come to the Green Mill at 3pm that day or any other Saturday.
Here is the piece I read at Story Sessions back in February. Writing this was more of a grind than usual perhaps because I was writing to a specific theme (“Love Is…”) for a reading series I’d never performed at before. The other folks on the bill were incredibly talented storytelling vets so it was an honor to be in their number.
Story Sessions is a great series and I think I did fine, but there are two things about this show that I will always remember that had nothing to do with what happened onstage. But it’s best to talk about those after you read or listen to the piece so scroll down after you’re through.
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We’re up here tonight to talk about love. So I’m going to tell you about my daughter.
Now there are two reactions happening in the heads of those around you. Those without kids are thinking “Come on man, I just came here tonight to hear some stories and drink some wine, I don’t need some jag getting up there and telling me some crap about his kid. This isn’t Facebook.”
Those with kids are thinking “Come on man, I just came here tonight to hear some stories and drink some wine, I don’t need some jag getting up there and telling me some crap about his kid. I paid a 15 year old forty bucks to sit in my house just to be able to walk in the door of this place. Give me a break from myself for a couple hours.”
Let me reassure you this is not the sort of piece where some pompous gasbag tries to tell you that no matter what sort of romantic entanglements you may have found yourself in, you will never truly know love until you know the love a parent has for his or her child. Or even that love is the daily sacrifices of parenting that come from giving yourself fully to a small, vulnerable person who is responsible for 99% of the times you’ve been hit in the face or genitals.
There’s been plenty of commentary about the lack of commentary. Locally, Robert Feder framed the Sun-Times as taking “two steps back for every step forward” and Chicagoist printed opposing views from two HuffPo bloggers. Poynter used it as a peg to discuss previous efforts to change comments sections. Many, many people weighed in on Twitter and Facebook. Several claimed the Sun-Times was quashing discussion of the news without sensing the inherent irony in their ability to use a digital tool to discuss the news about a removal of a digital news discussion tool.
(Ironically, this announcement came on the same day as this Sun-Times column from Jenny McCarthy in which she sought to re-cast herself not as an anti-vaccine advocate but as someone who is pro….something. The color gray? Sadly, this temporary shutdown of comments did not include comments from Jenny McCarthy.)
My theory is people who bemoan a lack of comment sections are Web 1.0 folks who remember when comments were discussions, not digital cross-burnings. Those same folks now use Twitter/Facebook for that discussion and haven’t spent time in daily news site comment sections in a while. If you’re going to build a place for a community, you ought to have the right services, processes and tools in place to serve it. But news site comments sections are there more because of inertia than anything else.
Wow. That’s an astounding statistic about what you do in 2014! It really suggests something about your newsreading habits doesn’t it? Despite all the sites out there publishing great stories, you still seem to spend more time with print. A statistic shared with the Stanford Future of Media Conference and @StanfordBiz’s Twitter account’s 168K followers (receiving 41 retweets!) could be quite influential if it’s true. A flurry of trend pieces is sure to follow!
Except everything I’ve read in the past few years suggests people are reading more news online, particularly on tablet and mobile (phone) products. Even when compared with print products.
Abigail and I find ourselves at interesting turning points during this year’s shared birthday week. She finds herself turning from a toddler into a little kid. I find myself trying to become…well, an adult for lack of a better word.
At three, Abigail is full of agenda and opinions, just like her parents. (“I need to…” and “I have to…” are frequently deployed counter-arguments to explain why her actions run counter to our instructions.) Last year she evolved her speech to form sentences so this is now the year of the paragraph: mini-discussions on how she’s feeling, how you’re feeling and what’s happening in the lives of her favorite stuffed animals and TV shows. Speaking of, where last year was Abigail’s Daniel Tiger phase, this year it’s all about Doc McStuffins. Thanks to a gift of a doctor bag just like Doc’s there is not a day that goes by without me, Erin, her grandparents, her aunt or anyone else in her vicinity getting a check-up. (“Breathe in, please! Now breathe out. Sounds good!”)
At thirty-nine – dear God – check-ups have become more a part of my daily life. Not just the fictional variety but the medical, mental and chronological versions, too. I’m worried about things like high blood pressure and getting enough sleep. And I’m trying to make time for things that make me a more informed, well-rounded and thoughtful person so Abigail sees she has a dad who reads and listens to interesting things and doesn’t spend all his time checking his phone.
To that end, I’m wearing an Up bracelet now and obsessively documenting what I eat (who knew there was so much sodium in everything?) and how much time I spend sleeping and exercising. I’m putting things on my Google Calendar like “reading” and “running” so I’m reminded to do more of that and less listicle consumption. Digital tools are once again making my life worth living, and hopefully longer.
Of course, Abigail does not have any of these concerns. Her life is filled with books and discovery and new words and dispensing freelance medical advice. While not the omnivore she used to be, she’s settled into some favorite foods – cheese sandwiches, blueberries, black beans and couscous. When she’s not read to by me or Erin, she’s trying to sound out words in her books or learning vowel sounds with her reading apps. She got a new ukulele for her birthday from her saint of a nanny. She still loves dancing and music and runs around at every opportunity (“Chase me!“) when we’re not making caves out of pillows.
Her favorite thing to do right now is have “sleepovers” on the stairs. Blankets are retrieved, stuffed animals are acquired and everyone gets “cozy.” Everyone except the adults she’s wrangled into this situation as no grown human being is able to contort his or herself into a sleeping position on a set of bungalow stairs.
This was also the year Abigail started to figure out the world’s subtle differences. When she was very young, Erin and I thought ourselves geniuses because we purchased several of the small Pooh Bear security blankets Abigail sleeps with and carries around with her. If anything happened to one of them, another would be quickly pressed into service. Somewhere along the line, Abigail developed a preference for one over the others – he has a tag that’s worn through in a particular way. This one became known as Real Pooh. There is also Special Pooh which is the very first one she owned and looks a little different than the others. And then there’s Bathtub Pooh who is any Pooh who is not Real Pooh or Special Pooh and is OK for her to play with during bathtime so it’s not soaking wet during bedtime. So now we have the stuffed animal equivalent of the Ben Folds Five: a main guy you can’t do without and a bunch of other guys who fill out the ensemble.
Last year Abigail and I went to the toy store to get her a birthday present. This year we went to the comic book store after a pizza lunch at Pizano’s with Erin. I’ve been slowly introducing Superman into Abigail’s life and she’s been conscious of superheroes for a while. My boss bought her a kids’ book version of Superman’s origin story and we’ve been reading it at bedtime. She can identify most of the members of the Justice League. But when we couldn’t find a comic book with Elmo in it like the first one I got her, she lost interest in the rest of the store. She had an agenda and this wasn’t on it.
I’m glad we’re raising a daughter who has her own sense of what works for her and what doesn’t. Her dad’s still trying to figure it out.
With the new year, I’ve made more of an effort to read daily. I started a book of Wendell Berry essays (What Matters? Economics for a Renewed Commonwealth) when Erin and I went to Vermont and returned to it this week.
Berry is a writer of poetry, short stories and essays. What Matters? is full of essays mainly discussing Berry’s theories on agrarian economics. He’s a polemicist in the best way – the theme of the book could be boiled down to “when everyone stopped being farmers, everything went to hell” – and I’ve enjoyed his perspective because it’s so different from my personal and work experiences.
Though it’s largely concerned with matters of the land, there’s also a lot in the book about the relation of human beings to work, communities and each other. These essays have a more universal appeal, particularly “Economy and Pleasure” in which he says the following:
“It may be argued that our whole society is more devoted to pleasure than any whole society ever was in the past, that we support in fact a great variety of pleasure industries and that these are thriving as never before. But that would seem only to prove my point. That there can be pleasure industries at all, exploiting our apparently limitless inability to be pleased, can only mean that our economy is divorced from pleasure and that pleasure is gone from our workplaces and our dwelling places. Our workplaces are more and more exclusively given over to production, and our dwelling places to consumption…More and more, we take for granted that work must be destitute of pleasure. More and more, we assume that if we want to be pleased we must wait until evening, or the weekend, or vacation, or retirement…We are defeated at work because our work gives us no pleasure.”
He wrote that in 1988 but it really explains why people spend so much time on Facebook, Netflix and domestic beer bucket specials.
The above passage is part of Berry’s larger philosophy: we should not shy away from hard, physical work and the joy that comes from both the work and a connection to the land. But even if your job is largely desk-driven and that’s not about to change anytime soon, the above sentiment probably seems familiar.
This was taken on a recent work trip, one of those times I was combining business with pleasure.
This got me thinking about how to find pleasure at work, outside of the actual tasks that make up the day-to-day. How do we spice the stew of our jobs with new information, unexpected surprises or new perspectives? The more I thought about it, the more it seemed there were similarities between this effort and dating.
When you’re dating, everything seems unexpected. You’re getting to know someone better, trying new things and flush with the excitement of discovery. As you date someone (or someones), you discover aspects of other people you like and don’t like, what you want in a partner and – ideally – more about yourself, too. Your everyday is interrupted and you’re forced to get outside of your own head. It’s part of why they say people who are married should date each other; you’re engaging in the activities that made you fall in love with your partner in the first place, remembering what made him or her attractive to you and bringing new experiences to your life together.
So how can you date your job? I know of a few ways, but I’d love to hear yours.
None of this is going to be new information. If anything, writing this post is just a reminder for me of the things that give me pleasure in a job, outside of the work itself. I’ve often failed to do these things in previous jobs and it’s always been to my detriment. As in a marriage, you don’t want to wait until there are problems to start working on these things.
I also acknowledge the below doesn’t apply to all jobs and is more reflective of an office environment. But those are the jobs most often divorced from the outside world and the external stimuli that humans need in their lives. I hope this list somewhat reflects Berry’s love of communities and the people within them, even if it’s far afield from his point-of-view.
Here are three ways I try to date my job:
1. Make time for research/reading
Find some magazines, websites, columnists and e-newsletters publishing information about my industry. Make sure I have at least one or two that have a viewpoint different than my own. It tends to strengthen your views if you’re often presented with a good counterargument. I also create Review folders – physical and virtual – to store anything I fidn until I have time to read it. I schedule regular time in my calendar for this – usually Mondays at 4pm and Fridays at 10am when I’m in need of a productive winding-down or a kickstart, respectively. (I talked about why putting to-do items in your calendar is important here.)
2. Find opportunities to learn and teach outside of the office
Two to four times a year, I try to attend conferences, seminars or lectures about my work. If nothing else, it offers a better opportunity for networking than the usual name tags and cash bar events. Within that, I try to see something that’s completely unrelated to my job for some “right brain” stimulation. (The best talk I saw at SXSW last year was on artificial intelligence.) Asking myself “So how would I apply this to my work?” usually results in better insight than another presentation on something I already know.
And I also have a rule: if anyone in or just out of school asks me to have coffee and talk about what I do and how I got there, I say yes. Being a professional means you have a responsibility to help others who are trying to find their way. I also say yes to speaking in front of college classes and try to present something once a year in a professional context.
3. Get to know your co-workers outside of work
I’m not advocating having intensely personal relationships with co-workers but you should have a sense of the lives of your immediate team outside of the office. If you’re a manager, it makes you better at understanding your employees’ needs. If you’re not, it still provides more context for those moments when things get tense.
The best way to do this is to go hang out with them in a completely non-work context. Go to a bar, have a few drinks. Have some lunch. And do this as a team, when possible. Two to three times a year isn’t much. You don’t even have to avoid work talk completely – although I’d limit it. The informal setting often helps you see an active problem from a different angle but if you spend the entire time talking about work it defeats the purpose.
It’s only January 2nd and I’m already exhausted by 2014 marketing trend pieces. Said exhaustion occurred two sentences into this guest column posted on Ad Age:
“#YOLO (you only live once) is the mantra for the post-millennial generation.”
Post-millennials (or,groan, Generation Z) are, at best, 8-10 years old. How anyone is able to determine true, discernible insights about them when laws on the books don’t allow marketers to acquire data on them is beyond me. But even if the above is true, I’m not sure you’d want to base a marketing strategy on an eight year old’s “mantra.”
Moreover, generalizations of generations – made before that generation comes into its own much less reaches puberty – are bound to look ridiculous a few years from now. Especially when they involve a line from a 2011 Drake song released when that generation was about six years old. **
Leaving aside my nitpicking of one line, the basis for the author’s larger point – that brands need to take advantage of a supposedly new trend of living in the moment – is obviously flawed due to its reliance on marketing-speak and mentions of cool new apps…and an absence of actual data.
Here’s a quick rule of thumb about marketing trend pieces: If the ratio of apps (or catchphrases) to data points is greater than 2:1 then it’s probably low on insight. The Ad Age column doesn’t contain a single piece of data but mentions nine different apps and more than a few turns of phrase like “moment marketing” in a mere 560 words.)
The desire of young people to live in the moment is hardly new despite what the author wants you to believe:
“A side effect of all this cultural acceleration is that our brains are becoming hard-wired to crave instant gratification.”
Here’s an article I found after about five seconds of Googling that discusses the challenges of managing Generation X – the generation born 20 years before post-millennials whose brains are supposedly getting hard-wired all of a sudden.
In the executive summary, it states:
“If you want to retain these workers, be prepared to change your management style. This is the generation used to instant gratification.”
That was written in the year 2000. But how is this possible if our brains are still being hard-wired to crave instant gratification right now? Did a bunch of millennials travel back in time to enjoy grunge music as it happened and just stay there?
I could probably spend another ten seconds finding other (better) examples of how earlier generations were also into instant gratification (like the 1986 Time article about baby boomers quoted here that says “From the first, the baby boomers were accustomed to instant gratification”) but it should be clear to anyone who’s studied cultural patterns that “kids these days” will always be into “the now” or instant gratification. Anyone who is trying to tell you that youth are more into living in the moment now than they have been before is selling something.
In this case, what’s being sold here is the idea that clients should be using apps like Snapchat (oops) or Soundhalo and paying agencies or high-priced consultancies to guide them through this digital minefield so they can give those clients an Oreo cookie moment. Again, from the Ad Age piece:
The success of the Oreo Superbowl blackout tweet showed how effective this approach can be. More recent examples include British Airways’ #lookup London billboard that uses GPS to track the origins and destinations of real planes flying overhead.
The Oreo tweet certainly had an impact and brought the company a lot of earned media. But whether it’s sustainable as a means to break through the clutter is debatable. As it is, we’re now inundated with marketers trying to prove how relevant they are in social conversations with tactics that range from the mildly embarrassing to outright damaging. Whether this newsjacking really helps a company’s sales is still to be determined.
The trouble with new apps or newsjacking is they’re both experimental. They don’t have a proven track record for delivering the kind of results a business wants or the audience it needs. But they’re new so they get a lot of press and attention from both clients and agencies.
Should brands be experimental? Sure. But more importantly, any tactics they use should relate to a client’s business needs. They should stem from an overall strategy or story about the business that’s ownable by that business (if someone else can say it, say something different), be organized around a creative idea and be executed in a specific, sustainable way.
Like investing, marketing should involve a balanced portfolio. Any of-the-moment marketing that doesn’t support a long-term strategy is doomed to fail. And that’s a maxim that’s been true for several generations.
** EDITED TO ADD:This Ad Age piece from 2011 discusses the above cohort in greater detail – calling them iGen – and actually includes data on “the 2011 top brands among 6- to-12-year-olds.” So, measurable they are. I’ll stand by my assertion as to whether you can proclaim a mantra for them. The article also contains a hodge-podge of data on 6-12 year olds and 13-17 year old but uses all of it to draw conclusions, which seems suspect particularly for a cohort whose lives are in constant change. Still, it’s much better insight than the piece I quote above. Notably, it demonstrates that this group favors trusted platforms and friends for insight into brands.
Many of Chicago’s big events in 2013 were the “part two” of something that happened in 2012: IL’s marriage equality bill, Whittier’s teardown, the parking meter changes and Tribune’s bankruptcy emergence to name a few. Others were unique to 2013: the Sun-Times laying off most of its photography staff, Roger Ebert’s death and Everyblock’s shutdown.
This week I discussed the year in review on WGN Radio 720 (with host Amy Guth) and WBEZ’s Afternoon Shift (with guest host Justin Kaufmann). Since neither show is available online – holiday weeks operate on a skeleton crew – here are some of the stories I found notable in 2013.
The following isn’t meant to be a definitive list. It’s merely a compendium of stories I found compelling this year. (Crain’s has a good month-by-month list here if you want something more comprehensive.)
POLITICS/CIVIC ISSUES
Gun violence
We started the year with the murder of Hadiya Pendleton and ended it with an 18 percent drop in the murder rate compared to last year. Whether the overtime needed to make it happen is sustainable is one question as Chicago is still tops among major cities.
Marriage equality bill passes the Illinois legislature
Cardinal George rang in the new year with a letter describing gay marriage as a violation of “natural law” because it is not open to procreation between a man and a woman (nevermind that heterosexual adoption and marriage among the elderly are too, according to that definition). After a few stops and starts, Illinois passed a bill in November extending marriage to all. History is speaking.
Parking meters get worse
Most news stories on the June parking meter changes led with the “Free Sundays!” part, which obscured the bad news of extended hours until 10pm or midnight.
Whittier fieldhouse teardown
Taking a page from Mayor Daley’s playbook, Mayor Emanuel sent in a surprise demolition crew under cover of darkness to tear down the Whittier School fieldhouse (without a permit). The mayor claimed safety issues required him to act quickly but it wasn’t clear why. Even if it was true, tearing down the disputed fieldhouse didn’t strengthen his position.
Bill Daley runs for governor, sort of
It turns out running for – and being! – governor takes some work. Despite a lifetime in politics, this was news to Bill Daley. Maybe, unlike his brother, he’s not used to being “scrootened.”
Transit: Good news for Red Line riders, cyclists; bad news for Metra
The CTA proved it can undertake a project as big as the Red Line rehab and bring it in on-time and on-budget with alternate service functioning as promised. An increase in bike lanes and the launch of Divvy increased Chicago’s bike-friendly city cred. And somehow the mass resignations at Metra over “hush money” didn’t dent Mike Madigan one little bit.
CULTURE
The death of Roger Ebert
I said about all I have to say on the topic here but this was easily the biggest real story in Chicago outside of the continued gun violence problem.
People finally realize R. Kelly is a bad dude
Years after his trial on child pornography charges, (white) people finally started to realize R. Kelly’s shtick isn’t all that funny in the larger context of his life thanks to a Q&A with Chicago music critics Jessica Hopper and Jim DeRogatis. It’s tough to keep the art and the artist separate when his art involves sex and his idea of sex involves rape. A comprehensive discussion of the topic plus the recent backlash of coverage of his new album by the mostly-white press made people take notice in a way they hadn’t before.
Live lit really explodes in Chicago
Yes, it’s a lot of the same people everywhere. But as the scene gets more diverse and each event finds its personality, more new folks will find their way in.
The whole Rachel Shteir thing
I spent multiple nights arguing with people over this whole thing but I’m tapped out on discussing it any further. Take the wheel, Atlantic Cities.
Taste of Chicago made money this year A really underreported story. It went from losing 1.3 million dollars in 2012 to making a $272K profit.
Persepolis was banned from CPS reading lists This was weird. Also weirder was that The Hunger Games stayed on the list.
Cameron Esposito on Late Late Show I loved this. The former Chicagoan now ensconced in Los Angeles has every comic’s dream appearance.
TECH/MEDIA
There was good news in Chicago print media: Crain’sexpands, DNA Info Chicago launches a print product for Lincoln Park, The Dissolve launched and RogerEbert.com expanded. But most of the big stories focused on continued upheaval in the media industry.
The death and rebirth of Everyblock
It was gone earlier this year and seems poised for a return. Why no one from NBC was able to walk down the hall and have a conversation with the folks about Comcast about buying it – before now – is confusing to me. Unless this was the plan all along but they wanted to cut all the staff first and this is how they chose to do it. Speaking of…
The Chicago Sun-Times cuts its photography staff A local story that went national immediately in part because of the poorly-timed “iPhone training memo” that followed. On one hand was the argument that legacy contracts were making it difficult for the Sun-Times to become the nimble, digital organization it wanted to be. On the other is a quick and dirty way to cut costs. Maybe a little of both. But the S-T lost a lot of goodwill in its efforts (as was said above, it matters how you do things) and the move still haunts their efforts months later. Its chairman Michael Ferro isn’t helping.
Tribune layoffs, emergence from bankruptcy and a double down on TV
A year after the emergence, a clearer picture of the future of the Tribune has emerged. But it’s a rough start, according to Crain’s.
1871 hires Howard Tullman
This is one of those stories that starts one year and has a big impact the next. Expect Tullman to shake things up and take 1871 from a pretty co-working space to a place that’s known for making new things and creating new sustainable businesses. Or else.
And finally…
The Check, Please host search and the media pile-on trend
The overcoverage of the Check, Please host search was crazy. I wrote about this specific issue earlier this year. When it was finally announced, every news outlet had to have their own exclusive host interview; DNA Info, Tribune, S-T. It was indicative of a larger trend of all publications trying to get a bite at every story.
2013 was the year of the great news pile-on: Everyone tries to cover everything that trends in social or search or has its own micro-audience. We saw this in other local stories, too. Everyone is covering fine dining, for example. Eataly is only the most recent story that got the pile-on. Sure, that’s a reflection of more folks going to fine dining restaurants. But the takes on it are all remarkably similar. A publication ought to tailor its approach to its audience. I found Redeye Chicago’s gallery of crazy-expensive food products spot-on for them and a good way to approach the topic in a unique way.
But in some cases, there’s no way for a pub to own a story. In a year when Chicago rap conversation dominated, I’m still trying to figure out why Crain’s did a history of Chicago hip hop.
This isn’t just a Chicago thing either and it gets worse when the topic is breaking news or something that’s big in the social space and a news organization thinks it will look hip by covering it. The worst approach is when nobody adds anything new and they’re just parroting what someone else has reported. This happens often with breaking news when there’s nothing to move the story forward. We saw this especially in the end of the year with Elan Gale, Justine Sacco and Duck Dynasty. Or it’s just mindless opinion like Duck Dynasty or Miley. As Esquire put it, this was the year we broke the Internet.
There’s also something in here about Twitter, the nature of privacy in public and whether tweets by private citizens ought to be used for publication.
It’s been a rough couple of weeks for Chicago points of pride, both real and imagined. How upset you got over these slights depends on whether you see Chicago as a real place or some kind of carnival ride. Based on our collective reaction, it’s sometimes tough to tell the difference.
First, there was the Sears/Willis Tower losing its status as the world’s tallest building because of an antenna. This one’s in the carnival ride category. New York has a bigger antenna, we have a higher occupied floor. At this point, it’s almost a literal dick-measuring contest and it does not behoove us to separate fly shit from pepper, as my mom used to say. You could maybe argue there’s a real economic loss here due to the possible tourism dollars that flow into a city with the tallest building in the U.S. but since we long ago lost the title of tallest building in the world it always struck me as a bit of a booby prize.
Besides, everyone knows the view at the Hancock is better anyway.
Then there was the whole “Jon Stewart insulted our deep dish pizza” thing, which is really just an outgrowth of the tallest building thing so come on now. It was a master class in trolling as Stewart drew Chicago in a gloriously caricatured sketch. Mayor Emanuel added his own flourish with a faux tough guy response, mailing a dead fish to Stewart – the fish, in this case, being anchovies on top of a pizza. Again, a carnival ride.
Besides, everyone knows the best Chicago pizza is served on a thin crust and cut into squares.
Civic pride should be a knowing grin, not a battle cry. It’s the world stage on which Chicago wants to play, not some Montessori schoolyard. You are how you beef.
Speaking of the world stage, let’s discuss the French travel advisory which states its tourists may want to avoid the South and West Sides. You’d think this one could be easily dismissed with a Jerry Lewis joke, but no.
One one hand, there’s obvious ignorance at work here and ignorance should be mocked, whenever possible. Leave it to the inventors of the Maginot Line to determine that everything north of 59th Street is A-OK just because the Museum of Science and Industry and Hyde Park are down that way. But even arguing that point reinforces the idea that some neighborhoods should be avoided, that they are unsafe, that they should be left to rot. Just this week, Gapers Block published a post that deftly sums up this ignorance that makes it all too easy for some to decide kids in Englewood are animals.
Yet French idiocy is somewhat useful here. If anything, it demonstrates there are real problems on much of the South and West sides of the city and we aren’t dealing with them well at all. Those problems start at home though so let’s worry less about what the French think and more about why most of us are fine with taking the Dan Ryan to head south through the city but would avoid Wentworth Avenue at all costs. If we’re going to silently endorse the mindset of the French, we don’t get to be upset about it. Especially the mayor. *
It’s the place from the Saturday Night Live sketch! Royko drank there! And they put the curse on the Cubs! That’s Chicago history!
All of those things are true and they’re worth preserving, in some way. Perhaps in a museum. But it’s not why it’s important for the Billy Goat to remain a vibrant part of Chicago’s downtown.
For some, the Goat’s as much a caricature of Chicago culture as deep-dish pizza: a tourist trap with lousy, overpriced burgers or a calcified tribute to the greatness of Old White Guy Journalism. And for those reasons, we should be glad to see it go. But these are folks who haven’t been to the Goat in a while – if ever – or have been there during lunch when it’s all too easy to bump elbows with, well, French tourists.
The key to understanding why the Goat remains worth fighting for is knowing The Goat at, say, 7pm or 10am is far different from the Goat at noon or 5pm. In the off-hours, you’ll see cops, construction workers and, yes, a couple of journalists. As someone who’s eaten there recently, I can tell you the burgers are a helluva lot better – and cheaper – than most of what you’ll find nearby (though too much bun for my taste). It’s still a place where you can find – in the words of my friend, Chicago Tribune reporter James Janega – “a bit of the realest Chicago I know…A credit to our future and this city’s value. [A reminder] of who you were comfortable being.”
A bar that serves a blue-collar customer in the basement of the National Association of Realtors building is literally underground subversion and that’s what Chicago – especially downtown Chicago which is too often given to showering developers with TIF funds intended for the city’s neighborhoods – still needs. The original Billy Goat Inn opened in 1934 on West Madison, near the old Chicago Stadium (itself replaced by the United Center which went on to create more Chicago history). In 1964 – post-curse but pre-SNL – the Goat moved to a tony Michigan Avenue address but lost nothing of what made it essential to Chicago.
I would prefer the Goat remain intact in its current location. But if the will of real estate developers means that can’t happen and we need to create the Billy Goat Mark III, let’s remember the great Chicago architect’s words “form follows function.” It’s more important to have a place off Michigan Avenue where people can still feel “comfortable being” instead of wringing our hands because you won’t ever hear cheezbooga, cheezbooga again (though I acknowledge the revenue from the latter probably allows for the former). Picture frames, old tables and chairs and tap handles can be moved with all their worn corners intact – if it can happen with Miller’s Pub**, it can happen with the Goat. But their use needs to continue. Move it, yes, but not behind glass lest the Goat turn into an amusement park like its namesake on Navy Pier.
Chicago needs to maintain its active third places to preserve its history and its future. It might keep us from having to pitch fits over pizza casserole and antennas and help us maintain the communities we have instead of abandoning them and letting the French pretend they don’t exist.
* After I wrote the above (but before I published it) Chicago Tribune‘s Mary Schmich pointed out Chicago’s tourism board doesn’t exactly endorse the South and West sides as tourist destinations.
** Thanks to NBC Ward Room’s political columnist Mark Anderson for the above link.
In my last post, I argued there’s more value in social media as its own content channel than in its ability to drive ratings or sales. The prime mover of that post was a quote in the Financial Times from NBCUniversal’s head of research Alan Wurtzel who said social media “’is not a game changer yet’ in influencing television viewing.” He also said “the emperor wears no clothes” which tells you just how much marketing people love a good cliche.
