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Vegas is desert country. Hot, dry and merciless. Yet amidst the harsh terrain are fountain shows, golf courses and lush gardens, which all appear to be hugely irresponsible water wasters. 

But according to the local newspaper, the attractions aren't the problem.  The worst offenders are rich Las Vegas celebrities, who maintain green acres that should be barren.  

In this podcast, you'll find out which Las Vegas celebrities waste the most water annually and why, at least at this point, there's very little the state can do about it.  It's a show about water usage in Las Vegas, who uses the most water per square foot and what Nevada State and Municipal Government are doing to promote water conservation.  

Our guets is Bob Conrad (@bobconrad), communications officer for the Nevada Department of Conservation of Natural Resources, which conserves, protects, manages, and enhances the state’s natural resources in order to provide the highest quality of life for Nevada’s citizens and visitors.

Bob is also the author of “The Good, the Bad, the Spin” about the news media, public relations practices and crisis communications. He maintains a blog by the same name.  

SHOW NOTES  

01:02 -- Appropriating water rights in the state of Nevada and the factors on which determinations are made for water usage in Las Vegas.  

02:07 --  Water is not a finite resource. Groundwater in Nevada is recharged and replenished.  Jurisdiction over household water usage is governed at the municipal level, but they can and do issue citations for in appropriate water use.  

04:17 --  In Las Vegas, it’s not the fountain show at the Bellagio Hotel or the golf courses that use the most water. More than 50% of the water used in Las Vegas is used by households. Resorts use roughly 7% of the water and industrial entities use 13 to 14%. Also, most of the golf courses use treated effluence for irrigation, which is essentially decontaminated waste water.  

06:04 -- Fight promoter Don King used and 385,000 per square foot, or more than 2,000,000 gallons at his 5,358 square foot property in 2008, according to Las Vegas Review Journal records [PDF].  

07:27 -- Prince Jefri Bolkiah of Brunei used 17.3 million gallons, more than any other property owner in the Las Vegas, and Ebay founder Pierre Omidyar used 13.7 million gallons, making him the second biggest consumer of water, according to Nevada State records [PDF], presenting a significant challenge to Clark County and the Southern Nevada Water Authority.  

09:15 -- “Not  a Drop in the Bucket,” an article by Henry Brean about water usage in Las Vegas which appeared in the Las Vegas Review Journal on March 22, 2009.  

10:36 -- The third biggest consumer of water was Daniel Greenspun of the Greenspun Media Group, who used 8.7 million gallons of water at his 7-acre property in 2008.  

14:30 -- Danny Gans, Fred Segal, Floyd Mayweather, Jack Galardi, Sheldon Aldelson, Celine Dion, Jerry Lewis and Garry Maddox are among the thirstiest celebrities in Las Vegas.  

17:02 -- Dealing with the over usage of water by individuals with deep pockets is one the biggest challenges municipal authorities face because responsible use has not been defined.  The current economic environment, which is resulting is less tourism to Las Vegas and more residents leaving the state though, is having the biggest impact on water conservation.  

20:07 -- What has hurt gaming revenue in Nevada the most is that gambling has opened up in other states, particularly Indian Gaming in California.  Reno has seen a huge hit to its gaming revenue,

How does a company like Coca-Cola -- which for years plied its trade largely through 60-second spots with heart-warming narratives and catchy jingles -- transition into the age of social media, where the value of a brand is determined by what its customers say about it on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Flickr?

One of the things the beverage giant is trying is a novel program called Expedition 206. The Coca-Cola company is sponsoring three, hand-picked “happiness ambassadors” to travel to all the 206 countries and territories where Coke is sold to seek out what makes people happy around the world.

The happiness ambassadors Blogging, Facebooking, Tweeting, YouTubing and Flickring their every step, equipped with iPhones, Laptops, air cards, external hard drives and SLRs. I caught up with two of the three happiness ambassadors Tony Martin and Kelly Ferris upon their arrival in Djibouti, Africa and we discussed what they’ve learned so far about gathering different media formats in different countries with different cultures, how they’re pulling it off logistically from a gear and gizmos standpoint and the foundation of authentic happiness.

Photo Caption: Coca-Cola Company CEO Muhtar Kent with Kelly Ferris and Tony Martin in the company’s Atlanta headquarters prior to their departure. (courtesy of The Coca-Cola Company)

RELATED EPISODES

Le Web 2010 Survival Guide

Best Social Networking Dashboards

Drive Traffic with QR Codes

ABOUT THE PODCASTER

@EricSchwartzman provides social media training, strategy and social media governance to public relations, public affairs, corporate communications and marketing specialists. He has extensive experience integrating emerging information technologies into organizational communications programs through public speaking, hands-on training seminars, consulting and the development of corporate policies on social media usage.

His clients have included Boeing, BYU, City National Bank, Environmental Defense Fund, Government of Singapore, Johnson & Johnson, NORAD Northcomm, Southern California Edison, UCLA, US Dept. of State, United States Army, US Embassy of Athens, the United States Marine Corps and many small to medium-sized companies and agencies.

Eric is the instructor behind PRSA’s top-rated social media training seminars, the Social Media Boot Camp and the Social Media Master Class, which are offered monthly in the US.

His book "Social Marketing to the Business Customer" with Paul Gillin about B2B applications of social media communications is available at Amazon, Barnes & Noble or Borders.

Each December, roughly 2,500 technology executives and Internet enthusiasts convene in Paris for Le Web, a two-day conference where start-ups pitch venture capitalists and emerging technology companies demo their wares. Founded by Loic Le Meur (the entrepenuer behind the social software application Seesmic) and his wife Geraldine, Le Web has grown in popularity over the years, and has come to be know as one of the European technology conferences to be and be seen at.

I’m going as an official conference podcaster and continuing on to Frankfurt the following week to teach the first US-German Social Media Boot Camp which will be a two-day social media training on the 14th and 15th of December 2010. Complete details are at www.socialmediabootcamp.com I have been wanting to attend Le Web for a couple of years now, so I was excited when Andrea Vascellari (@vascellari), the CEO of itive.net, suggested to the conference organizers that I be invited as an official conference podcaster, and it dovetailed with my upcoming Frankfurt teaching dates.

In this Le Web 2010 Preview Pocast, Andrea and I are joined by two other Official Le Web conference bloggers. Participating in the discussion are Tara Hunt (@missrogue), CEO/Shwowp, Author/The Whuffie Factor and blogger at http://www.horsepigcow.com and Algerian blogger Ismail Chaib (@iChaib) who currently lives in France where he is studying for his Masters while serving as co-founder of VC-funded start-up ASQ.

Before we dive into a discussion of the agenda and survival tips for getting the most out of the conference, we talk about Facebook Messaging, the impact of globalization and technology on the economy and the world outside the tech bubble. I hope you enjoy it, and if you do, please consider sharing it with your network.

At the conference, I’ll be talking to other Le Web Conference bloggers including Henriette Weber, Nebojsa Radovic, Erno Hannink and others.

RELATED EPISODES

* Social Media Monitoring Insights

* Best Social Networking Dashboards

* Drive Traffic with QR Codes

ABOUT THE PODCASTER

@EricSchwartzman provides social media training, strategy and social media governance to public relations, public affairs, corporate communications and marketing specialists. He has extensive experience integrating emerging information technologies into organizational communications programs through public speaking, hands-on training seminars, consulting and the development of corporate policies on social media usage.

His clients have included Boeing, BYU, City National Bank, Environmental Defense Fund, Government of Singapore, Johnson & Johnson, NORAD Northcomm, Southern California Edison, UCLA, US Dept. of State, United States Army, US Embassy of Athens, the United States Marine Corps and many small to medium-sized companies and agencies.

Eric is the instructor behind PRSA’s top-rated social media training seminars, the Social Media Boot Camp and the Social Media Master Class, which are offered monthly in the US.

His book "Social Marketing to the Business Customer" with Paul Gillin about B2B applications of social media communications is available at Amazon, Barnes & Noble or Borders.

Each December, roughly 2,500 technology executives and Internet enthusiasts convene in Paris for Le Web, a two-day conference where start-ups pitch venture capitalists and emerging technology companies demo their wares.  

Founded by Loic Le Meur and his wife Geraldine, Le Web has grown in popularity over the years and has come to be know as one of the European technology conferences to be and be seen at.

I’m going as an official conference podcaster and continuing on to Frankfurt the following week to teach a US-German Social Media Boot Camp which will be a two-day social media training on the 14th and 15th of December 2010 with DDP Direct (acquired by MyNewsDesk).  

I have been wanting to attend Le Web for a couple of years now, so I was excited when Andrea Vascellari (@vascellari), the CEO of itive.net, suggested to the conference organizers that I be invited as an official conference podcaster, and the dates dovetailed nicely with my upcoming Frankfurt gig so I'm going.

In this Le Web Preview Pocast, Andrea and I are joined by two other Official Le Web conference bloggers: Tara Hunt (@missrogue) and and Algerian blogger Ismail Chaib.  

Before we dive into a discussion of the agenda and survival tips for getting the most out of the conference, we talk about Facebook Messaging, the impact of globalization and technology on the economy and the world outside the tech bubble.

At the conference, I’ll be talking to other Le Web Conference bloggers including Henriette Weber, Nebojsa Radovic, Erno Hannink and others. 

Photo by Chris Heuer.

With the social media policy prohibiting command from blocking access to social media indefinitely on their nonclassified network, the US Department of Defense made a public decision to embrace social media, the origins of which I profiled on my blog earlier this year. This podcast is about the shift from a command and control to a network hierarchy inside the US Military.

“We’re in the churning point, [and we’re moving] from hierarchical to networked structured, says Jack Holt, director of emerging media at the US Dept. of Defense, who I sat down with at the PRSA International Conference in DC last month for this podcast. According to Jack, when it comes to social media, DoD is moving from command and control to a more distributed, network hierarchy, a move that depends heavily on teaching service members not so much about social media tools, but rather the path to peace in a networked world.

Beyond public relations and public affairs applications of social media, the larger opportunity social media networked information technology presents is the ability to better manage knowledge inside to organization, and better preserve organizational intelligence in an organization where service members frequently transition in and out of different operations and commands.

Other topics discussed include: The Blogger Roundtable at DoD Live, social media training, Al Qaeda’s online effectiveness, use of video at the Gaza Flotilla Raid and speed versus accuracy. Follow Jack Holt on Twitter at http://twitter.com/jack_holt.

OTHER RECOMMENDED PODCASTS

• US Navy Rear Admiral TL McCreary on Crisis Communications

• Assistant Secretary of Defense for Public Affairs Robert Hastings

• Social Media Training the US Armed Forces at DINFOS

ABOUT THE PODCASTER

@EricSchwartzman provides online communication training, strategy and social media governance to public relations, public affairs, corporate communications and marketing specialists. He has extensive experience integrating emerging information technologies into organizational communications programs through public speaking, hands-on training seminars, consulting and the development of corporate policies on social media usage.

His clients have included Boeing, BYU, City National Bank, Environmental Defense Fund, Government of Singapore, Johnson & Johnson, NORAD Northcomm, Southern California Edison, UCLA, US Dept. of State, United States Army, US Embassy of Athens, the United States Marine Corps and many small to medium-sized companies and agencies.

Eric is the instructor behind PRSA’s top-rated social media training seminars, the Social Media Boot Camp and the Social Media Master Class, which are offered monthly in the US.

His book "Social Marketing to the Business Customer" with Paul Gillin about B2B applications of social media communications is available at Amazon, Barnes & Noble or Borders.

With the social media policy prohibiting command from blocking access to social media indefinitely on their nonclassified network, the US Department of Defense made a public decision to embrace social media, the origins of which I profiled on my blog earlier this year. 

This podcast is about the shift from command and control to a network hierarchy inside the US Military.  

“We’re in the churning point, [and we’re moving] from a hierarchical to a networked structure," says Jack Holt, director of emerging media at the US Dept. of Defense, who I sat down with at the PRSA International Conference in DC for this podcast. 

According to Jack, when it comes to social media, DoD is moving from command and control to a more distributed, network hierarchy, a move that depends heavily on teaching service members not so much about social media tools, but rather the path to peace in a networked world.  

Beyond public relations and public affairs applications of social media, the larger opportunity social media  networked information technology presents is the ability to better manage knowledge inside to organization, and better preserve organizational intelligence in an organization where service members frequently transition in and out of different operations and commands.  

Other topics discussed include:  The Blogger Roundtable at DoD Live, social media training, Al Qaeda’s online effectiveness, use of video at the Gaza Flotilla Raid and speed versus accuracy.

Follow Jack Holt on Twitter at https://twitter.com/jack_holt.

Social media monitoring has emerged as the first step in any effective social media marketing or social media ROI initiative.

Even traditional market research firms like Nielsen are offering integrated solutions for listening to online conversations.

If you’re looking to update your understanding of sentiment analysis, social media monitoring ethics or natural vs. computational language processing, this podcast is for you.  

It is a recording of a panel that was titled “Separating the Wheat from the Chaff: The Nitty Gritty of Social Media Monitoring” which I arranged and moderated for the Market Research Association at their First Outlook Conference in Orlando. 

The social media analytics experts I brought down were Christopher Ahlberg, Ph.D., CEO, Recorded Future; Barry de Ville, Analytical Consultant, SAS Institute; Rob Key, CEO, Converseon; and Valery Miftakhov, Associate Principal, McKinsey & Company NM Incite, which is providing consulting services in partnership with Nielsen.

Discussion topics include:

Appropriate use cases for sentiment analysis where 60% accuracy is a best case scenarioNatural language processing algorithmsComputational language processing algorithmsAnalyzing non-text based online informationApplying the prism of social science to social media measurementThe change management aspect of social media metrics and integrating it into the enterpriseInfluence mapping and computing power nodes within networksAnnie Pettit asks about the Nielsen BuzzMetrics “Patients Like Me” password protected data scrapping incident reported in the Wall Street JournalImposing temporal logic over social media tracking; normalizing data; validity of online panels

I led a social media training for market researchers the day before.  

Photo by The Climate Reality Project on Unsplash

PRSA CEO & Chair-Elect Rosanna Fiske joins guest host Sandra Burrowes to discuss the future of the public relations industry and to look at how the Public Relations Society of America (PRSA) will support PR professionals in 2011.

Throughout 2010, PRSA’s strategic planning team canvassed senior-level professionals in New York, Atlanta, Miami, Chicago and Los Angeles for their views on the future of the public relations industry and to identify the core needs of PR professionals. The new (draft) PRSA strategic plan emphasizes and expands on the organization’s five pillars--advocacy, the business case for public relations, community, diversity and education--and will put new focus ethics, excellence and society management.

Social media continues to be a growing edge for the industry and while significant training and development opportunities are being offered by PRSA, Fiske cautions that social media is only one of many tools, and is neither a communications strategy nor a required foundation for a successful communications initiative. She also discusses the value of PRSA’s Accredited in Public Relations (APR) designation and the benefits of involvement in the industry generally.

A 20-year public relations veteran and CEO and Chair-Elect of PRSA, Rosanna Fiske is also graduate coordinator and associate professor of advertising and public relations at South Florida’s largest public research university, Florida International University, in Miami, Florida.

OTHER RECOMMENDED EPISODES

Communications Strategy and Confirmation Bias

Selling Social Media Strategy to Leadership with Charlene Li

PR Measurement Standards Declared by Global PR Industry Delegation

ABOUT THE PODCASTER

@EricSchwartzman provides online communication training, strategy and social media governance to public relations, public affairs, corporate communications and marketing specialists. He has extensive experience integrating emerging information technologies into organizational communications programs through public speaking, hands-on training seminars, consulting and the development of corporate policies on social media usage.

His clients have included Boeing, BYU, City National Bank, Environmental Defense Fund, Government of Singapore, Johnson & Johnson, NORAD Northcomm, Southern California Edison, UCLA, US Dept. of State, United States Army, US Embassy of Athens, the United States Marine Corps and many small to medium-sized companies and agencies.

Eric is the instructor behind PRSA’s top-rated social media and emerging treads training seminars, the Social Media Boot Camp and the Social Media Master Class, which are offered monthly in the US.

His book "Social Marketing to the Business Customer" with Paul Gillin about B2B applications of social media communications is available at Amazon, Barnes & Noble or Borders.

These podcast show notes were written and optimized by @SandraBurrowes.

QR Codes, or quick response codes, are huge in Japan, but even though they’ve been around for a while in the US, they’re only just beginning to gain adoption among marketers and public relations professionals.

QR Codes let you download content with your cell phone camera. Instead of thumb typing on your mobile device, you snap a photo (or technically speaking “scan” a two-dimensional bar code) and you’re either directed to website, sent a file, text, calendar item or contact information.

With the growth of location based social networking and smart phones, the possibilities for communicators to drive online traffic through QR codes are endless.  QR codes are appearing on billboards, comic books, tombstones...even cup cakes!

In this episode, Wayne Sutton (@socialwayne) business development and marketing specialist at TriOut and Master Sergeant Donald Preston of US Forces, Japan talk about their experiences using QR Codes for organizational communications.

SHOW NOTES:

01:26 Mark Sprague of Lexington eBusiness consulting’s recent Search Engine Land blog post “QR Codes: Are You Ready for Paper-Based QR Codes?”

02:53 Wayne Sutton’s experience with QR Codes involves their use posters to promote a city arts festival to driving traffic to the schedule of events online and the development of a mobile application QR code reader.  

His North Carolina-based start-up TriOut is developing what he calls “Quick Check In Codes” which are QR Codes that can be used to check into location based social networking services more effortlessly by simply scanning a code.

04:47 QR Codes can be measured either through the use of custom URL redirects or QR Code generators with built in measurement analytics including the date and time, geolocation data and the type of mobile device that scanned the code.  

Combining QR code measurement with standard website metrics and a conversion activity like a newsletter sign registrations, a Facebook “Like” or a Twitter Follow would offers the best of all worlds.

06:43 Popular QR Code generators include Qreatebuzz.com, 2DCode.com and Kaywa.com.

07:25 Tippinn in New York which helps agencies and brands market with QR Codes warns against customizing the aesthetics too much, because it can cause them to fail when scanned.  A positive user experience with a QR Code is more important than clever visual styling. It needs to load quickly, transit the user to the designated website, transmit the right calendar item or contact info.

10:51 To celebrate the 50 year anniversary of the Treaty of Mutual Cooperation between Japan and the United States, US Forces Japan produced a Manga comic book about what the US Military is doing in Japan, and to drive traffic to a corresponding public affairs campaign website. QR Codes are already hugely popular in Japan.

12:30 The Magna generated 16,000 unique visits from mobile devices (of which 7,000 were from iPhones) to the public affairs campaign website and was not at all difficult to sell to command because of the widespread adoption of QR Codes in Japan, which appear are on billboards, bus shelters and subway advertisements throughout Tokyo.

16:10 The use of QR Codes in the offline world versus on websites.  A new WordPress Plug-In that auto generates a new QR Codes for each post to give readers the opportunity to scan posts and read them later on a mobile device or email them to a friend.

18:28 Sean McGarry (@writeMcSean) asks what is the benefit of QR Codes versus bar codes? Is this the mobile version of VHS versus Beta?

Demetrios Skalkotos, SVP for Global Corporation Solutions of NASDAQ OMX [NASDAQ:NDAQ], the world’s largest exchange company, sits down with guest host Mark Story (@mstory123), Director of New Media at the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission to discuss their new Do-It-Yourself (DIY) Platform, designed to make press release and regulation FD compliance self service for investor relations and public relations professionals.

NASDAQ’s new DIY platform offers video, social media management and press release distributionon a single platform. According to Skalkotos, self-service content distribution tools have been more prevalent in Europe. NASDAQ introduces the tool in the U.S. market with a one-button option to wrap press materials with information that satisfies SEC disclosure regulations.

The system puts NASDAQ’s GlobeNewswire distribution network more directly into the hands of public relations professionals. With enhanced search engine optimization capabilities and audience targeting options, DIY further distinguishes itself as a lower cost solution for traditional press release distribution.

Skalkotos also discusses NASDAQ’s Social Stream, a video release service that aggregates a company’s social media content into single site to simplify the task of reviewing a company’s public profile.

NASDAQ OMX is the world’s largest exchange company with trading, technology and public company service capability spanning six continents. NASDAQ OMX Global Corporate Solutions provides technology that powers global business communications. NASDAQ is on Twitter @NASDAQOMX and on Facebook.

OTHER RECOMMENDED EPISODES

* Social Media Investor Relations Special with former SEC Attorneys

*

Truth through Numbers with former White House Economic Policy Advisor Todd Buchholz

*

B2B Social Networks: Driving Commerce with Imperfection and Surrender

ABOUT THE PODCASTER

This episode was recorded at PRSA International Conference 2010 in DC and was guest hosted by Mark Story, who you can find on Twitter, Facebook and Posterous.

Regular episodes are hosted by @EricSchwartzman, who provides online communication training, strategy and social media governance to public relations, public affairs, corporate communications and marketing specialists. He has extensive experience integrating emerging information technologies into organizational communications programs through public speaking, hands-on training seminars, consulting and the development of corporate policies on social media usage.

His clients have included Boeing, BYU, City National Bank, Environmental Defense Fund, Government of Singapore, Johnson & Johnson, NORAD Northcomm, Southern California Edison, UCLA, US Dept. of State, United States Army, US Embassy of Athens, the United States Marine Corps and many small to medium-sized companies and agencies.

Eric is the instructor behind PRSA’s top-rated social media and emerging treads training seminars, the Social Media Boot Camp and the Social Media Master Class, which are offered monthly in the US.

His book "Social Marketing to the Business Customer" with Paul Gillin about B2B applications of social media communications is available at Amazon, Barnes & Noble or Borders.

These podcast show notes were written and optimized by @SandraBurrowes.