Left Brain Candy: article roundup

February 20, 2009 | Written by

Left Brain introduces Left Brain Candy, a roundup of "what’s read on the left side of the head." We’ll look to periodically share articles having to do with digital business trends, smart Web thinking, and showcasing Ruder Finn’s thought leadership.

With that, here are this week’s links. Bon appetite!

- PR Week: Muted Davos raises questions for PR (op-ed from Ruder Finn co-CEO, Kathy Bloomgarden, subscription required). Here are the 5 tensions she explores:

1. Panic vs. confidence
2. Complexity vs. transparency
3. Regulation vs. free market
4. Business vs. government
5. Global vs. domestic

- BusinessWeek: Debunking Six Social Media Myths (via @beckymcmichael‘s del.icio.us). The 6 myths debunked? Here they are:

1. Social media is cheap, if not free.
2. Anyone can do it.
3. You can make a big splash in a short time.
4. You can do it all in-house.
5. If you do something great, people will find it.
6. You can’t measure social media marketing results.

- New York Times: YouTube Videos Pull In Real Money, this got me to thinking — maybe Left Brain should be on YouTube. A penny (or more) for your thoughts? (via @ericturkington)

- McKinsey Quarterly: Six ways to make Web 2.0 work, Lots of 6-itemed lists lately:

1. The transformation to a bottom-up culture needs help from the top.
2. The best uses come from users — but they require help to scale.
3. What’s in the workflow is what gets used.
4. Appeal to the participants’ egos and needs — not just their wallets.
5. The right solution comes from the right participants.
6. Balance the top-down and self-management of risk.

- ZDNET: Research report: Is ‘social PR’ for real? Which agencies get it?, Nice, Ruder Finn does. (via @HowardSol, bio)

- New York Magazine: How Tweet It Is – "Sure, the Twitter guys still have no idea how to make money off their fabulous invention. But for now they are living in a dreamworld of infinite possibilities, maybe the last one on Earth." (via @lcbell)

- Knowledge@Wharton: A World Transformed: What Are the Top 30 Innovations of the Last 30 Years? Preview of the top 5:

1. Internet, broadband, WWW (browser and html)
2. PC/laptop computers
3. Mobile phones
4. E-mail
5. DNA testing and sequencing/Human genome mapping