Welcome to Germaine Theory

How Effective Is Crowdsourcing Really?                Crowdsourcing is an effective way to get a desired outcome from a collaborative effort. Its approach can look very different, but at its core, it all seeks to achieve the same general result; a better outcome than the individual or organization could have produced on its own. Merriam-Webster defines crowdsourcing as “the practice of obtaining needed services, ideas, or content by soliciting contributions from a large group of people and especially from the online community rather than from traditional employees or suppliers”. (Merriam-Webster, n.d.) There is irony in the concept of crowdsourcing as being positive. Before the internet and the onset of crowdsourcing the idea of an individual soliciting at an establishment was considered a nuisance. Some businesses went as far as placing ‘No Soliciting’ signage at their businesses; the word always carried a negative...

  Do Your Own Due Diligence                ‘Trust me bro’ , is a phrase used in the world of financial vloggers that describes an individual making a claim with no supporting evidence. Now, the fact that this individual does not provide any supporting evidence doesn’t necessarily mean that what he or she is saying is invalid, but it doesn’t help them in the credibility department. There are reasons for sources to not be directly cited. The information may have come from a whistleblower with firsthand knowledge, but this person does not want the organization to know that they are the potential leak; their identity would be considered protected information. There could be an issue of personal safety that calls for discretion but it’s imperative that the news gets out to the public, this could be a reason as well. If there is no official, legitimate reason, and no source is conveyed upon request, it’s highly like...

  The Understated Importance of the Social Media Sensei I am a self-taught social media user. I would rate myself as an intermediate skill level on Facebook and a beginner level in pretty much everything else. I am also a 44-year-old Army Recruiter in the twilight of his military career. I am obligated to use social media for prospecting efforts in recruiting and I do not have a highly successful rate of return from that form of prospecting. Recruiters receive blocks of instruction to show uses and best practices but many of us are stubborn and stuck in our ways. I am among the stubborn, but I am also aware enough to realize that this is the future of business. If I go into marketing, public relations, emergency management or any of many other career paths, they would all involve some form of social media management at the professional level. This is something that is only going to grow and become more of the norm as organizations come to realize the importance of social media ma...

    Mobile First, but Who’s Last? What’s better than best? Digital media has severely altered the course of the newsroom. It made the newspaper, along with other forms of media seem antiquated. It is faster and more efficient than the previous methods. However, digital media is not one giant communication organism; it is comprised of many different facets and actors, all trying to out-do one another. Facebook and Google have seized so much advertising revenue from utilizing content from local media that governments have been forced to step in and create legislation to effectively save the journalism industry in their respective countries. (ACCC, 2021) There are many different online firms and organizations all jockeying for position using consumer centric data. They are looking for anything that can set them apart from their competitors. Organizations that have adopted the mobile first ideology have come to the realization that more people, globally, use their smartphone...

  The Evolution of Media is a Good Thing, right?   The adage, ‘Everything must change’ does not exclude communications; media has come an extremely long way. Behold, the printing press. The newspaper allowed people to deliver different types of news stories regularly. At this point, messages were reliant upon the speed of man or animal. Industrial change brought about trains, the locomotive, cars and boats. This vastly increased the efficiency and effectiveness of communications. The telegram followed and changed the game. Messages were transmitted electronically and life altering change followed. Just when you thought you’ve reached the pinnacle of communications, the telephone came along and made the telegraph inadequate. You could actually speak your message and get a verbal received understanding of the message; it was a game changer. When you are living with a process, it is everything until the next better process comes along. Each improved method of communication ...

I was asked an interesting question this week; are we currently watching the death of newspapers or the re-invention of the print industry? What do you think? There are different metrics we can use to attempt to quantify the current level of success achieved by newsrooms across the country as a whole. We can look at newspaper sales, we can look at customer satisfaction surveys and we can even speak about our own personal accounts and opinions. The Pew Center is a think tank that compiles data regarding trends and attitudes towards many different facets of life. They are a non-partisan organization that has done some of the work for us. "More than eight-in-ten U.S. adults (86%) say they get news from a smartphone, computer or tablet “often” or “sometimes,” including 60% who say they do so often". (Shearer, 2021) Eighty-six percent is a staggering number. To put it into better context, television was 68%, radio was 50% and print was the low man on the totem pole coming in at 32...

Hello All, To those of you who don't know, my name is Samuel Germaine Powell. Welcome to Germaine Theory. In this blog we will deep dive into Strategic Communication and Emerging Media. We will discuss new and exciting methods of news delivery as well as some of the tenets of the older forms of media delivery. We will look at which forms of media are more effective and explore things that can be done to rejuvenate the current methods of news and media distribution. This blog will be published weekly by no later than Sunday, 11:59pm for the next 8 weeks. The blog can be found at the following address: https://germainetheory.blogspot.com/ I created this blog to discuss Emerging Media Methods. These will be contrasted and compared to the older, tried and true methods of communication. We will look at the effects of new media on its predecessors and see if anything can be done to transform these methods to make them more effective, efficient and desirable to the current news...