"Altitudinal" PowerPoint Tips From IBM-- a humorous guide for tech sales folks

Thought you might enjoy some IBM humor on how to adjust your powerpoint for your audience. They LOVE to talk about things from "10.000 feet" or "30,000" feet. Evidently, they are confusing customers, so here are there new guidelines. ;-) Do note the date of the directive.

SWG Directive
April 1, 2009		http://stats.surfaid.ihost.com/crd/uc.GIF?1.50&saemail&saemail&http://stats.surfaid.ihost.com/crd/uc.GIF?1.50%26saemail%26saemail%26mailto:sdarling%2540us.ibm.com%26sa_campaign=swgfc/Elena_Tezzi/SWG_This_Week:_01_13_2009/Feedback/2009-01-13/dl=SWG%2520Comms.%2520Group/sz=104&sa_campaign=swgfc/Elena_Tezzi/SWG_This_Week:_03_31_2009/Feedback/2009-03-31/dl=AP%20SWG%20Non-Mgrs%20-%20004/sz=200

To: All SWG professionals who deliver customer-facing presentations

Date: 04/01/2009

In response to widespread confusion on the part of customers and IBMers, the following presentation standards are today being announced by IBM SWG.

Issue

Inconsistent and arbitrary use of altitudes when delivering product presentations.

Details

The use of notional altitudes (e.g., "30,000-foot view") is a potentially effective device for describing the level of content of a presentation. Such imagery can lend color to one's presentation and set the customer at ease in regard to the level of technical content that he may expect. However, unconstrained use of this metaphor can lead to inconsistent interpretations of the various altitudes and confused messages from IBM. For example, one customer complained that in a 5,000-foot view of Lotus Notes he was unable to see a Connection document, whereas in a 50,000-foot view of Tivoli Access Manager he could read the details of a failover cookie on an inbound browser request. Another customer complained of dizziness and blurred vision during a presentation that alternated randomly between 60,000 feet and 90,000 feet. Such inconsistency is injurious to our professional reputation and may adversely affect the health of our customers.

Resolution

Effective immediately, the following guidelines are to be followed when delivering altitude-based presentations.

Admissible altitudes

Only the following altitudes are to be used:

1,000 feet

5,000 feet

10,000 feet

50,000 feet

100,000 feet

Please note that the use of any other altitude will be considered a violation of these guidelines unless prior authority is obtained.

Altitude assignments

Audience	Content (example)	Suggested altitude
Programmer	Product API	1,000 feet
CTO	Product technology	5,000 feet
Analyst	Product architecture	10,000 feet
CIO	IT value	50,000 feet
CEO	Business value	100,000 feet

Note: The above are for guidance only. Presenters are expected to use their discretion when pitching their presentations, taking into account conditions such as audience acrophobia, supported climb rates, etc.

Altitude transitions

In order to minimize customer confusion, at most three altitude transitions are permitted within a single presentation. Further, such transitions must be monotonic, i.e., all must be decreasing or all must be increasing. Please bear this in mind when setting your initial and final altitudes, taking into account the set of admissible altitudes as above. Please also consider the resilience of your audience to sudden and unexpected changes of altitude.

Presentation formats

A new set of mandatory presentation templates customized for your business unit are being prepared. These templates contain a configurable altimeter icon on each slide. Presenters must ensure that this altimeter is set to the correct value for each slide and clearly visible to the audience.

FAQs

In order to expand on a certain point in my presentation, I need to change altitudes and temporarily move to the whiteboard. Do I get an extra transition in addition to what is allowed in the base presentation?

No, any temporary use of other media is considered to be a continuation of the same presentation. However, if multiple presentations are being given consecutively, then the altitude is reset at the start of each presentation, provided that the audience is given sufficient time to adjust to any applicable change from the previous presentation. Alternatively, a mid-presentation break can be scheduled according to the following table:

Break length	Equivalent altitude change
5 minutes	1-5,000 feet
10 minutes	10,000 feet
15 minutes	50,000 feet
20 minutes	100,000 feet

My customer has set 40,000 feet as the standard altitude for all vendor presentations. Do I need IBM approval to present at that altitude?

IBM approval will be provided on presentation of an appropriate letter from the customer.

I need to present to the CEO of a large corporation. May I present at 150,000 feet?

No. Our products have not been tested beyond 100,000 feet. You may wish to consider asking the CIO to attend your session.

Are there any plans to approve additional altitudes?

IBM will monitor and assess the effectiveness of the supported altitudes. Consideration may be given to expanding this set over time according to business and technical requirements.

Questions?

Please contact IBM Altitude Enforcement/Somers/IBM if you have any questions regarding this directive.

<<<

Way New Collaboration! Howard Rheingold

This is a great 20 minute think piece by Howard Rheingold off of TED on the direction of society towards collaboration. It's both a new way of thinking and an old way. (The hunter couldn't kill the mastodon all by himself.) It seems that this is really relevant to the future of work and points out the need for our students to include collaboration in their skills portfolio.

Using LinkedIn to get a job

more than ever, experts say, a profile on an online networking site could actually turn into a job.

Charlotte Observer story

Lining Up Interviews Is Just the Beginning

Q. You have had several job interviews at different companies, but still no job offers. Are you doing something wrong?

Full New York Times article here

Careers in renewable energy

If you are advising students who are interested in careers in renewable energy, the emerging jobs in the near-term will be in the private sector with government contractors, as well as directly with the Energy Department. The paragraph below is from an article in the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, about the Energy Dept struggling to fulfill President Obama's mandate.

"Most of Energy's stimulus spending will be in the form of grants and contracts--the administration of which will be a major challenge for an understaffed and neglected federal workforce. Years of outsourcing and staff cuts have left Energy ill-prepared to handle the onslaught of work and responsibility these programs will require. Recognizing this, Congress has urged the department to hire more federal workers."

For the full article: http://thebulletin.org/web-edition/features/the-energy-department-ready-to-reboot-the-country

KAS a Star!

Our own fearless leader, Katherine Stahl, appeared on a number of Hearst TV stations last week to talk about - what else - job prospects! Here's one of her appearances.

5 tips for better networking at events

This advice goes against the grain...

from Jun Loayza in Personal Branding Blog

How great is our advising? It's AMAZING . . . and other words!

Here's a Wordle create from our advising comments at our AU Career Center exit kiosk this academic year. Out came our names and titles, and in came the compliments!

And you can create your own by visiting http://www.wordle.net/.

Employers turning to Co-ops/Internships?

Chris Pratt kindly sent this out on our CEIA listserve, referencing a NY Times piece, Recession Could Boost Co-Op Education which says

The recession could give new life to co-operative education," as
"cautious employers 'increasingly see that hiring a co-op graduate is a good strategy, since they know they are getting someone with experience,'" according to Paul Stonely, president of the National Commission for Cooperative Education (NCCE). . . According to NCCE data, "Nationally, 95 percent of co-op students that participate in co-operative education have a job when they graduate," and "more than 60 percent accept permanent jobs from the employers for whom they worked while in school." Companies, meanwhile, also benefit monetarily "because co-op employees do not receive health insurance or other benefits.

Structured internship programs may be similar. Stay tuned.

Photo by madebytess

Young and Old Are Facing Off for Jobs

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. — This city has become a front line in a generational battle for jobs, as older workers increasingly compete against applicants in their 20s for positions at supermarkets, McDonald’s and dozens of other places. And older workers seem to be winning.

Full New York Times article here

Demystifying the Federal Job Search

BRAVO to our very own Travis Sheffler and THANK YOU for your fabulous overview of the federal government search and application process! If you missed it, here's his presentation that he tailored for us, with a link here to his presentation for students.

Electronic Portfolios: a Path to the Future of Learning

If we truly want to advance from a focus on teaching to a focus on student learning, then a strategy involving something like electronic student portfolios, or ePortfolios, is essential.

From the Chronicle of Higher Education

Faculty Speed Dating

For all of their big ideas, sometimes faculty are a bit like wallflowers at a high school dance; they need a little push to make the first move. So it’s perhaps no surprise that the University of Southern California is using “speed dating” techniques to encourage professors to work together across disciplines.

From insidehighered.com

Stimulus bars hiring of some foreign workers

From the Philadelphia Inquirer

An extraordinarily difficult job market has darkened further for foreign business students looking to get into the American banking industry...

...Patricia Rose, director of career services at the University of Pennsylvania, said the school knew of two students who saw job offers rescinded as a result of the provision.

Full Story Here

Non-profit retail sales plummet

Non-Profit Times, March 16, 2009

Nonprofit-Related Sales Plummet

By Michele Donohue

Consumers might have just had enough of buying coffee, wristbands and anything else from
nonprofit organizations - in stores, on the Web or anywhere else.

In a national survey by The NonProfit Times conducted during January, only 23 percent of
survey respondents made a purchase from a charitable organization, a 43 percent nosedive
from when the same question was asked during the same time period three years ago.

The surveying was conducted for The NonProfit Times both times by Opinion Research Corporation. The question was identical and polling was performed during the same time frame.

And for those who blame the economy for the decline in nonprofit sales -- retail sales
overall decreased only 6.4 percent from January 2006 to December 2008.

All retail sales for January 2006 were nearly $326.2 billion, compared to December 2008 at
nearly $305.4 billion, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. Retail sales for January 2009 were not available before publication. When they are buying it tends to be at a consumer
location, rather than directly from the charity. In the survey completed this past January, 13
percent said they bought something at a consumer retail location compared to 8 percent at the
charity's retail location.

Women were slightly more inclined in 2009 to make the purchases, at 26 percent, compared to men, at 20 percent, across all buying locations. Women also made double the purchases men did online at the consumer retail Web site (6 percent to 3 percent) and the charity's Web site (2 percent to 1 percent) in 2009.

Those in the middle of the age categories seemed more likely to make a charitable purchase in the new study. Ages 35 to 44 had the highest response (29 percent), followed by ages 55 to 64 (22 percent) and ages 45 to 55 (25 percent). The 18 to 34-year-old demographic reached 21 percent, beating out the 65 and older demographic at 17 percent.

The conventional wisdom that those with greater household incomes would be more prone to make charitable purchases did not hold up in the 2009 survey. Household income from $75,000 to $100,000 had the best number at 33 percent, followed closely by those with household incomes of $35,000 to $50,000 at 29 percent, which beat the $50,000 to $75,000 (21 percent) and $100,000 or more (24 percent). Household incomes from $35,000
and less came in at 18 percent.

Between 2006 and 2009, the largest decrease for charity purchases in age demographic came from the 65 plus group with 46 percent, followed by ages 18 to 34 at nearly 45 percent and ages 45 to 54 by nearly 44 percent.

The West saw the largest decrease from 2006 to 2009 in purchases, nearly 50 percent, followed by North Central area with 44 percent and the Metro area with nearly 44 percent.

Purchases at special events decreased more than 63 percent from 2006, followed by consumer retail, down nearly 57 percent. Retail overall decreased 44 percent.

Online faired better than in-person purchases, with only a 21 percent overall decrease, but only 6 percent of the respondents bought something online.

Regarding household income, those with less than $35,000 showed a 55 percent decrease in
charitable purchases, followed by those making $50,000 to $75,000 with a 50 percent drop. Those making more than $75,000 decreased only 18 percent.

While the sluggish economy in 2008 and the start of 2009 certainly plays a role in all purchasing, not just cause marketing, another reason for some of the cause marketing slowdown could be part of the "ribbon-ization of America," according to Carol Cone, chairman and founder of Boston-based Cone.

Awareness pieces, like magnetic car ribbons, are not effective enough to stand on their own
according to Cone, who described the trend as"passé. It's over. It's DOA."

She said, "Anybody can add a ribbon onto anything. The question is whether it will be
effective. And why are you doing it? If you are doing it just to join the bandwagon, that wagon
is long gone."

Several charitable trends have also peaked and now fallen since the 2006 survey, which could contribute to the declines, according to Paul Schervish, director of the Center on Wealth and Philanthropy at Boston College. The Lance Armstrong Foundation launched the LIVESTRONG bracelets in 2004 and by 2005 sold more than 55 million, and on the wrists of everyone from Oprah to the neighborhood deli owner.

Other charities tried to capitalize on the LIVESTRONG success without producing the same
results -- people only have so much room on their wrists. "So, some of us don't wear them and one thing is just the phenomenon of saturating, or satisfying, the market," said Schervish.
"Some retailers are moving away from selling custom items that benefit charities and are doing more in terms of soliciting contributions at checkout," said David Hessekiel, founder and
president of Cause Marketing Forum. He explained that programs where donations come directly from the consumer cuts down on specialty goods that might not sell.

Hessekiel said the economy might also affect what nonprofits potential partner companies will most likely seek out. "Because of the economic crisis, I believe many companies will shift their cause focus toward groups helping people with basic needs such as hunger, clothing, housing and medical care," he said. "I think you'll see more nonprofits positioning their work to emphasize how they are helping people get through these difficult times."

According to Karen White, director of corporate relations for Susan G. Komen For The Cure, "As the economy goes, so does our business in cause marketing in terms of the industries that are really experiencing declines right now. That translates directly in the cause marketing realm."

Instead of cutting cause marketing, nonprofits want to amp up the cause marketing game by
strengthening the quality and quantity of company partnerships. Cause marketing programs are mirroring the economy. Fashion, auto and luxury cause marketing programs seem to be down, according to White, while other programs are thriving.

Susan G. Komen hit the 10-year mark with partner Yoplait - and hit it hard. For the Save Lids to
Save Lives program, Yoplait promised to give 10 cents to the Dallas-headquartered nonprofit for every specially-branded yogurt lid sent in, up to $1.5 million. The 2008 campaign received more than 16.3 million lids, more than the anticipated goal.

"I think the key to fundraising is multiplying yourself through others. Our partnerships give us
multiple points of contact with consumers, from checking out at registers to reading banner ads donated by our online partners. This enables us to get in front of a large audience with our
message," said David McKee, interim CEO and acting COO of St. Jude's Children's Hospital
fundraising arm American Lebanese Syrian Associated Charities, Inc. (ALSAC).

St. Jude's held its fifth Thanks and Giving campaign from Thanksgiving to New Years through
corporate partners such as Target and CVS/pharmacy. The campaign included cashiers
asking customers to donate $1 when they checked out. The campaign saw roughly double-digit growth from some partners, according to McKee. St. Jude's partnership with restaurant chain Chili's had a similar formula for the Create-A-Pepper campaign, which asked customers to purchase a chili picture to color for $1.

"Because retail was facing such a bad year, I think St. Jude became a positive part of the
holiday for the more than 50 partners that participate in our annual Thanks and Giving
campaign," said McKee. "I think they worked very, very hard for us to raise money that helps St.
Jude continue to find cures and save children with cancer and other catastrophic diseases."

The Thanks and Giving campaign raised more than $120 million during the past five years for St. Jude's. Chili's has a $50 million commitment to St. Jude's across 10 years and had raised $18.7 million for the organization by 2008, including the pepper coloring and designating a day to donate 100 percent of participating restaurant sales.

Corporate partner Hickory Farms asked consumers to add $1 to purchases for Share Our Strength during the holidays and received more than $100,000 for the hunger organization. The campaign was integrated through Hickory Farms' Web site, mall kiosks and catalogues, which made the branding "seamless," according to Chuck Scofield, chief development
officer at Washington, D.C.-based Share Our Strength.

"I think asking the consumer to donate is a great way to get people involved in a difficult
economy. You give a dollar and those dollars add up pretty quickly," said Scofield.

He explained that the organization was posed to increase some cause marketing campaigns and launch several more throughout the year. Scofield said that the organization has historically worked with the culinary industry but wanted to grow "at every different angle," especially since childhood hunger is a growing issue with the economy.

***

This article is from NPT Weekly, a publication of The NonProfit Times

Despite poor economy, employers willing to pay more for media-savvy hires

From Employee Benefit News

By Kathleen Koster

March 9, 2009

The vast majority of employers are willing to pay higher salaries to new hires skilled in new media, according to a Ball State University study.

The Indiana university found that of the 229 firms interviewed, 67% were inclined to add 1% to 4% to these new hires' pay, and an additional 23% were willing to ante up 5% to 8% more

The Gen Y Guide to Effective Job Search Networking

Listen to this free web interview on Wednesday, March 11:

During this lively and fun teleseminar, participants will discover how to:

• Get on a recruiter's radar screen
• Build relationships after the first contact
• Follow up without being a pest
• Avoid some of the pet peeves that recruiters and employers have about Gen Y networking technique

If you miss it live, you can access the mp3 recording up to 30 days afterward.

From Center for Media Research
Monday, March 9, 2009

Web Users Shaping Consumer Opinion

According to a new study from Netpop Research:

• 105 million Americans contribute to social media
• Social networking has grown 93% since 2006
• 7 million Americans are "heavy" social media contributors (6+ activities) who connect with 248 people on a ‘one to many' basis in a typical week
• 54% of micro-bloggers post or "tweet" daily
• 72% of micro-bloggers under age 18 post or "tweet" daily

Global Recession Is Not All Bad News for International Educators

Worldwide, economies are grinding to a halt. Property values are plummeting. And stock markets are in the tank. Bad news, you might think, for American colleges searching abroad for students.

Not necessarily. At a meeting Tuesday of senior international-education administrators, several participants said that the declining world economy, combined with ever-increasing demand for higher education, may actually lead to international-enrollment increases at American colleges. And anecdotally, at least, several universities reported that applications are up for the fall.

Full Story Here

(This is the conference for which I helped find volunteers last year when it took place in Washington.--John)

Recycle Responsibly with Gazelle.com

Get Cash For Your Gadgets at gazelle.com!

Not only does this seem to be a way for us to be green, at home and inthe AUCC, but maybe we could even raise money by partnering with them. Here's what they say they do . . .

Gazelle wants to change the world – one cell phone, one laptop, one iPod at a time.

It is our purpose – and our promise – to provide a practical, rewarding way for people to finally rid themselves of all those old cell phones, digital cameras, and gaming systems that they no longer use, but can’t seem to find a way to let go of.

Too often when people think of recycling, they rush straight to smashing things into bits for parts. We believe that reuse should always come first. If your GPS unit still works, why not keep it in circulation AND get paid for it? If reusing isn’t in the cards, then let us recycle that vintage camcorder. We think of it as ReCommerce.

Yeah, we’re green.Green for you with dollars in your pocket. Green for the environment with fewer electronics being trashed.

It’s good to Gazelle. That’s our promise.

Volunteer your way into a new job

The current recession has turned almost all of us into career counselors for our family, friends, and even the person sitting next to us on the train as we go to work.

...volunteering some of your time to a favorite non-profit or even a small business is a great way to find a new job.

Full Story Here

Naomi Baron: Her Media Mentions

We are so fortunate to have Dr. Baron join our advisor meeting on 4/16. We're already emailing back and forth some of the coverage she's received in the media. Here's a selection . . .

1. The Washington Post: 6,473 Texts a Month, But at What Cost?
2. Joint Winner of the 2008 Duke of Edinburgh ESU English Language Book Award
3. Science Daily: Being 'Always On' Impacts Personal Relationships More Than It Impacts The Written Language
4. Los Angeles Times: Killing the written word by snippets
5. The Seattle Times: OMG! Teens' lives being taken over by texting
6. WUSA9: STD E-Cards Provide Anonymity
   
   

Short Study-Abroad Trips Can Have Lasting Effect, Research Suggests

The length of time students study overseas has no significant impact on whether they become globally engaged later in life, according to researchers at the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities, a conclusion that is sure to add fuel to the already fiery debate over the efficacy of increasingly popular short-term study-abroad programs.

The findings of the Study Abroad for Global Engagement project, presented here on Thursday at the annual conference of the Forum on Education Abroad, suggest that students who go overseas for a short period of time, four weeks or less, are just as likely as those who study abroad for several months or even a year to be globally engaged.

Full Story Here

It's 2009: Do You Know Where Your Web Site Is?

Campus PR officers have been slow to exploit the potential of the Internet

The struggles of print media to adapt to the Internet age have been well documented. The implications of the Web for campus public-relations officers, in contrast, have received scant attention. But our day of reckoning has come.

We have two main issues to consider: Our Web sites represent a potent delivery system for disseminating stories about our institutions. Conversely, the gradual demise of daily newspapers means that we have fewer traditional opportunities to publicize our work.

Full Story Here

Agencies kick off recruiting surge

By STEPHEN LOSEY

February 08, 2009

Across the nation, the job picture is gloomier by the day. Not so at the State Department. Or the FBI. Or the Border Patrol. Or many other federal agencies.

The government is hiring thousands of employees — to replace retiring feds, to supplement undersized staffs, and to take up new government priorities. Among the hot sectors: veterans’ health, border security, acquisition, diplomacy, law enforcement and intelligence. And the stimulus package before Congress, once passed, will certainly fuel more hiring.

Full Story Here

Job hunting for introverts

If networking drives you nuts and you tend to think a while before you respond to interviewers' questions, you may find a job search especially difficult. Here's what to do.

Number of Internships Expected to Rise

Boston — Feb. 12
Intern Bridge, a college recruiting consulting firm, recently began releasing data from its national internship survey completed by more than 42,000 students from 400 universities. The research gauges student expectations and experiences relating to internship supervisors, program structure, orientation, recruiting and compensation.

The survey found that seven out of 10 students would accept less pay in exchange for greater work experience. The data reveals that the average national wage for an undergraduate internship is $12.81, with a for-profit average of $13.50 and a not-for-profit average of $10.45. In addition, 11 percent of students do not receive compensation or college credit, a controversial practice that all but violates the Fair Labor Standards Act.

Full article here

Scoop 44

Scoop44 launched today as "an online national outlet covering the Obama Administration, national politics, and a new generation of Americans produced, edited, and written by young people across the nation and abroad." It was covered by CNN in an interview with Alexander Heffner, president and editor in chief, but I can't seem to get the embed to work. The management are all current students, and if students are interested in getting published, they can apply here.

So since I can't embed today's story, here's one from Scoop44's predecessor, Scoop08.

European Union Puts $1.2-Billion Into International-Study Program

Students from outside the European Union will be able to tap into more than $1.2-billion in new scholarship money over the next five years through Erasmus Mundus, an academic-mobility program. The European Commission, the executive arm of the union, announced the new funds on Monday.

Full article here

Link to the full Pew Research Center study

As the charts in my previous post don't all display properly, here's a link to the full article by the Pew Research Center: http://journalism.org/analysis_report/new_washington_press_corps

Journalism jobs going and coming

Pew Research Center
Project for Excellence in Journalism

The New Face of Washington's Press Corps

As Mainstream Media Decline, Niche and Foreign Outlets Grow

February 11, 2009

From: To:

Read the headlines and it would be easy to conclude that as the new Obama administration takes power, facing an array of domestic and international crises, it will be monitored by a substantially depleted Washington press corps.

It isn't exactly so.

The corps of journalists covering Washington D.C. at the dawn of the Obama administration is not so much smaller as it is dramatically transformed. And that transformation will markedly alter what Americans know and not know about the new government, as well as who will know it and who will not.

A careful accounting of the numbers, plus detailed interviews with journalists, lawmakers, press association executives and government officials, reveals that what we once thought of as the mainstream news media serving a general public have indeed shrunk -- perhaps far more than many would imagine. A roll call of the numbers may shock.

But as the mainstream media have shrunk, a new sector of niche media has grown in its place, offering more specialized and detailed information than the general media to smaller, elite audiences, often built around narrowly targeted financial, lobbying and political interests. Some of these niche outlets are financed by an economic model of high-priced subscriptions, others by image advertising from big companies like defense contractors, oil companies and mobile phone alliances trying to influence policy makers.

In addition, the contingent of foreign reporters in Washington has grown to nearly 10 times the size it was a generation ago. And the picture they are sending abroad of the country is a far different one than the world received when the information came mainly via American based wire services and cable news.

Consider a few examples:

ClimateWire, an on-line newsletter launched less than a year ago to cover the climate policy debate for a small, high-end audience, deploys more than twice the reporting power around Capitol Hill as does the Hearst News Service, which provides Washington news for the chain's 16 daily newspapers.

The Washington bureau of Mother Jones, a San Francisco-based, left-leaning non-profit magazine, which had no reporters permanently assigned to the nation's capital a decade ago, today has seven, about the same size as the now-reduced Time magazine bureau.

The Washington bureau of the Arab satellite channel Al Jazeera, which opened a modest bureau when George W. Bush took office eight years ago, now has 105 staff members in its various services accredited to cover Congress, a staff similar in size to that of CBS News -- both radio and television -- at 129.

Or consider that the organization with the largest number of journalists accredited to the press galleries Congress is CQ, a news operation that produces an array of on-line and print publications with names like CQ Budget Tracker and CQ Senate Watch. Its 149 reporters eclipse the number of Hill-accredited journalists at the Associated Press (134), and congressional staffers dealing with accreditation say CQ has since surpassed even the hometown Washington Post in numbers. A decade ago, CQ had 40.

Collectively, the implications of these changes are considerable. For those who participate in the American democracy, the "balance of information" has been tilted away from voters along Main Streets thousands of miles away to issue-based groups that jostle for influence daily in the corridors of power.

In 2008, newspapers from only 23 states had reporters based in Washington covering the federal government, according to the listings of Hudson's Washington News Media Contacts Directory. That is down by a third from 35 states listed in the directory's 1985 edition -- and that was before a host of further cutbacks late in 2008.

As New York Times Washington Bureau Chief Dean Baquet put it, "It concentrates knowledge in the hands of those who want to influence votes. It means [for example] the lobbyist knows more about Senator [Richard] Shelby than the people of Alabama. That's not good for democracy."

These are the conclusions of a three-month study conducted by the Pew Research Center's Project for Excellence in Journalism and journalist Tyler Marshall on the scale, scope and nature of the Washington press corps at the beginning of the new administration. Marshall conducted the research and reporting. The report was written by the Project and Marshall jointly.

Among the findings:

• A significant decline in the reporting power of mainstream media. The poster child of this trend is the daily newspaper, historically the backbone of American journalism, whose robust Washington presence and aggressive reporting has uncovered scandals that toppled a president, sent members of Congress to jail and does the daily job of covering congressional delegations and federal agencies. Since the 1980s, the number of newspapers accredited to cover Congress has fallen by two-thirds. The number claiming a presence in Washington generally, according to capitol directories, has fallen by more than half.



• The decline in mainstream press has been nearly matched by a sharp growth among more narrowly focused special interest or niche media. The number of specialty newspapers, magazines and newsletters has risen by half since the mid-1980s. Newsletters alone are up nearly two-thirds.
• A marked jump in foreign media now represented in Washington. When the U.S. State Department first opened a Foreign Press Center for representatives of non-U.S. media in 1968, there were about 160 foreign correspondents reporting from Washington. In October, 2008, there were nearly 10 times as many. With some notable exceptions, this growth has been more a broadening than a deepening of coverage to international audiences. Foreign journalists tend to fare poorly in the fight for access to key federal government decision-makers and consequently, they break few important stories. Still, their presence in such large numbers has changed the way the world gets its news from Washington, and the implications of their presence for America's image in the world are considerable.

The shift from media aimed at a general public toward one serving more specialized and elite interests also comes as important parts of the federal government -- most notably arms of the executive branch -- have become more circumspect, more secretive, and more combative in their dealings with the media. As a result, the traditional -- and natural -- adversarial relationship between the media and the federal government has hardened perceptibly at a time when the mainstream Washington-based media have weakened. Symbolic of the state of this relationship, George W. Bush is the first president since Theodore Roosevelt not to address the National Press Club during his years in office.

Read the full report at journalism.org

---

1. As of January 2009, Time had eight in its Washington bureau, down from more than 30 in the mid-1980s.

2. This means accredited to cover the 110^th Congress, whose term concluded at the end of 2008.

MIT Tops Rankings of University Web Sites

The Cybermetrics Lab, a research group based in Spain, has released the latest edition of its biannual Webometrics Ranking of World Universities, which seeks to measure “the performance and impact of universities through their Web presence.”

According to the group’s Web site, the rankings—which Cybermetrics began publishing in 2004—were originally conceived as a way of promoting open access to academic materials online. It comes as no surprise, then, that the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, whose OpenCourseWare project boasts the world’s largest collection of free teaching materials, tops the list.

Wordle of Senate Stimulus

Thought you'd enjoy this. Click here for a larger version. It's from the summary of the Senate version of the stimulus bill out of the Senate Appropriations Committee. I went to http://www.wordle.net/ to create it. You can find the full version of the Senate bill here and a wordle of that here.

World of Warcraft and Your Resume

Well, maybe not yours, but there's a piece in The Washington Post today by Darren Gladstone from PC World that discusses the transferable skills from World of Warcraft (WoW) and other multiplayer online video games. At last year's NACE, I heard a story about a guy applying for a job at Yahoo who had a terrible resume, but included his rank in WoW. A sympathetic hiring manager brought him in for an interview and he got the job.

Organized and led my 50-member guild through three successful back-to-back Nexus runs." You don't see that written on anyone's résumé, but apparently some folks do list the level and class of their World of Warcraft characters. This might seem a little far-fetched, but associate professor--and director of MIT's Education Arcade Program--Eric Klopfer says that a number of recent studies have examined what practical skills a person can pick up by playing electronic games. Can you legitimately learn something from WoW besides efficient techniques for slinging fireballs at foes? Klopfer points to Constance Steinkeuhler's work at UW Wisconsin. She is "showing that people are developing and applying all kinds of useful skills in World of Warcraft--data collection and analysis, collaboration, planning, resource management and even team management." Remove the "WoW" identification from the place of employment, and all of these accomplishments look fantastic on a résumé.

Transferable skills are transferable skills!

Photo by Christian Labarca.