A Week of New Media Action

Posted by: Scott Johnson, Co-Founder and Principal Apr 07, 2009 0 Comments

Last week saw so much new media action that I don’t even know where to begin! But here it goes anyway:

SUNDAY: On Sunday, I noticed that the omnipresent SBA goodwill ambassador Jack Bienko had tweeted about the “really cool projects that Rock Creek Marketing is working on—Go SBA 8a firms!!!!” Thanks, Jack!

MONDAY: On Monday night, I wrote a blog post about the recent Gov 2.0 Unconference at which around 500 people had gathered to discuss ways to bring down the barriers to web 2.0 use in government. When I finished the post, I tweeted the link out to the #gov20camp community.

TUESDAY: By 8 a.m. on Tuesday, Bev Godwin, new media maven at the White House, had read the post and sent a tweet about it to her legion of followers! To understand the significance of this event, you must understand that I am still flattered when my partner (and wife) Margaret comments on something I’ve written. Needless to say, Bev’s tweet was a much welcomed and appreciated gesture.

WEDNESDAY: On Wednesday, one of our strategy teams came up with a mobile app that kids can use from their phones. This let us bypass the stringent hosting requirements that hamstrings many server-based government communications initiatives.

THURSDAY: On Thursday, I was twittering from the Washington Business Journal’s fabulous Minority Business Leader Awards. There, I was able to congratulate Emilio Pardo, AARP’s Chief Brand Officer and Wesley Stith, the diversity point person and VP at Clark Construction, before they were honored in front of 500 family and friends.

FRIDAY: Friday, I attended the Legal Marketing Association’s outstanding annual meeting at National Harbor. Because of the demand of my super high-maintenance BFF Kathryn Holmes Johnson of Nixon Peabody (who wanted me to save her a seat “right up front”), I wound up sitting and chatting with my new media hero and the mother of all bloggers, Arianna Huffington. Some of the tweets I sent from Arianna’s keynote speech were, “Every Citizen is a journalist now,” “all successful individuals embrace failure,” and “Arianna says take more naps.”

Answering a question from the audience about the future of newspapers, Arianna said that she believes most will survive because, “people still want something they can hold.” Coincidentally my Washington Post just got a whole lot easier to hold last week. They have now eliminated the Business Section, Book World, and a bunch of features—not to mention several of my kids’ favorite comics.

Finally, on Friday, a relationship that I started on LinkedIn, resulted in a newspaper article. The same relationship got me invited to sit on a roundtable of business leaders with the Acting Administrator of the SBA (my favorite agency of the U.S. Government) discussing the unwillingness of banks to lend TARP money to successful small business like Rock Creek. My suggestions that future relief for small business be channeled directly to us through the SBA was not well received by the bankers in the room that day. “Do you want cookie cutter loans?” one irritated woman asked. “YES!” was my immediate answer. This was done with great success after 9/11 when the SBA gave direct emergency loans to businesses that had been severely affected by the terrorist attacks.

My reputation as an anti-bank hoarding agitator was parlayed into a full page article in the Washington Business Journal’s Friday edition. The best quote in the story was the final paragraph, “If they are not willing to lend to someone like [Rock Creek] with many years of double-digit growth and millions of [dollars in] contracts in the bag, then who are they lending to?”

Suffice it to say that it was a big week, with lots of new and traditional media excitement! I’m looking forward to see what unforeseen opportunities this week has in store for the Rock Creek team.

Enjoy this post?

Subscribe to the feed

Scott Johnson

Co-Founder and Principal

• Most Recent
• Topics

View all previous posts