US says no to Olympics in 2020

The news broke about a week ago that the US Olympic Committee (USOC) was not going to pursue the 2020 Summer Olympics. That can be good news from a financial standpoint; but from a PR standpoint, it's not great.

First, the United States has not done well lately in bidding for the Summer Olympics. New York City tried for the 2012 games; and the city was considered the favorite to win the bid. London ended up winning the bid and the New York loss was considered an embarrassment to the USOC.

A worse blow was dealt in 2009 when Chicago was vying for the 2016 Games. Chicago didn't even last the first round of bidding. There are several rounds of bidding within the International Olympic Committee (IOC) to determine a host. Rio de Janeiro, Brazil won the 2016 Games. It will be the first time an Olympics will be held in South America.

On one hand, it could be a blessing in disguise. The Summer Olympics are such a large production that it takes the host city years to prepare (which is why the 2016 Olympics were selected in 2009). And, it costs a lot of money. Arenas, stadiums and other venues need to be built. Infrastructure needs to be repaired or built.

My parents told me once how they talked to a friend who visited Sydney, Australia a while back. Sydney hosted the 2000 Summer Games. This friend proceeded to tell them about the taxes in the city of Sydney. Restaurants had taxes of 18%. Hotels had similar taxes. Everything in the city was exorbitantly taxed. Outside the city, prices were much lower. What was the deal in Sydney? This friend found out that Sydney was trying to recoup financial losses from the 2000 Olympics.

But, this is the United States, right? We can handle it. The US hosted the Summer Olympics twice in a sixteen-year span. Los Angeles hosted in 1984; and Atlanta in 1996. The Winter Olympics last made an appearance in 2002 in Salt Lake City.

Is it a PR thing? Did Chicago or New York City not prove themselves as viable hosts of the Olympics? I mean, London has hosted the Summer Games twice: 1908 and 1948. 2012 will be their third time. New York City was said to have a tremendous bid for the Games; and really, lost in embarrassing fashion.

Public relations could be part of the reason. Atlanta certainly had its share of problems in 1996; mainly the bombing in the Olympic Park about a week into the Olympics.

Money seems to be the biggest reason. According to TIME magazine (article linked to post title), the USOC and the IOC are grappling over money; and how much the USOC should be able to collect from television revenue and corporate sponsors. The USOC has a certain percentage in mind and the IOC thinks it's a bit too much.

So, the USOC decided to withdraw any bids for the 2020 Games. New York and Dallas had thrown their hats into the ring for 2020, as well as Las Vegas. But, with the latest move by the USOC, the US will be waiting a long time to host the Summer Olympics on its soil. If the US wins the 2024 bid, it will have been a 28-year wait for the Summer Games to return.

That's not too bad. The US waited 52 years between the 1932 and the 1984 Los Angeles Summer Games. And, of course, nestled in there were the 1980 Winter Games in Lake Placid, NY.

Wells Fargo, debit cards and you

We've paid $3 for a gallon of gas. We pay almost the same amount for a gallon of milk. Now, you could be paying $3 to use your debit card.

A big story that has gotten some attention recently is Wells Fargo charging customers $3 a month to use their debit card. Yes, $3 to use your own money. Don't get too worried yet, Wells Fargo is trying it out in four states (click the title for the story); and it seems that it will only be for new customers.

Hold on, put yourself in the shoes of the PR professional assigned to that one. I can see it now: "Sign up with Wells Fargo, and pay only $3/mo to use your debit card." How many people do you think that PR campaign will draw in? I can't believe too many.

Banks are finding new ways to make money. With online banking becoming so popular, direct deposit and debit, online bill pay and so forth, they need to recoup some losses. TCF Bank here in the Twin Cities doesn't offer "free checking" anymore. There's a little caveat on that, though. It's free, if you maintain a minimum balance.

Not only online banking, but new regulations are also forcing the hand of Wells Fargo to do this. New financial regulations limit the amount of money banks can collect in fees when people use their debit cards.

So, what's happening here? We're already in an era where checks are shunned from so many retailers and restaurants. And, if people have to pay to use their debit cards which are attached to their own money, what's left? Go back to cash-only? Well, we could. But then the Fed Reserve would have to print more money, which would create more inflation.

Facebook and PR

Once again, thanks to the PRSA daily email, Issues and Trends, I stumbled across another article about Facebook (article linked to title of post). I'm not quite sure how I feel about the article's content: using Facebook for PR.

I read the article, from the PR Newswire blog, and part of me wondered if I was using Facebook "wrong." In my opinion, I never thought of Facebook as a "professional" site. I think most people see Facebook as a personal, catch-up, play games and other stuff kind of site. I thought to myself, "should I be thinking of Facebook differently?"

Truth be told, I don't spend a great deal of time on Facebook. All the games and other "applications" on my Facebook page have gone virtually unused. I post links to blog posts. The article suggests placing an ad on Facebook. I have to be honest, while they aren't as evasive as they are on other sites; I tend to get somewhat annoyed by them.

On the other hand, the article also suggests that Facebook may not always be the right medium to use when it comes to PR. The author of the article, Sarah Skerik gave some suggestions. Skerik suggests to first find out who your audience is. And, on Facebook, that's hard to do. Of course, you can post poll questions on Facebook; however, you may not get the responses you're looking for nor responses from the right people.

If you do use Facebook for PR, what do you desire to gain out of it? Are you looking for traffic to your site? Seeking to gain awareness (which has become somewhat of a big deal on Facebook recently), or just to forge relationships? For me, anyway, I do post links to my new blog posts on Facebook, in hopes of generating more traffic. However, I really have no way of figuring out how many people click on to my blog directly from Facebook.

The bottom line, Skerik writes, is that it is OK to use Facebook for promotion. If it's used for more than that, be mindful of two things: your audience and your message.

I've tried to do those things recently with this blog. I've changed the title of this blog-as well as the focus of the articles, to hopefully generate a bigger audience. I'll always be interested in writing about sports and its correlation with marketing and PR.

Realizing that was a pretty slim audience prompted the name change and article change. But, I still wonder, is it enough to generate traffic from Facebook? Is Facebook really the new "word of mouth"? Is social media proactive enough in relation to PR? I'm curious.

Facebook and job recruiters

If the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) is right, Facebook could become a major recruiting tool for employers. WSJ said in a recent article that Facebook could give "traditional job boards" a run for their money in 2012 (link to article embedded in title of this post).

The WSJ says that new hires directly from Facebook is a very small percentage of overall hires. But, given time, that could change.

I haven't done it often, but sometimes when I'm in chat with someone on Facebook, I'll ask if they've heard of any job openings in the PR field. In a couple occasions, I've used Facebook to get more information about a job opening I've seen. In a way, Facebook might bring a new twist to the "word of mouth" means of finding out about jobs.

The WSJ article mentioned a new app on Facebook from Monster called BeKnown. According to the article, BeKnown now has close to 800,000 users (including yours truly). Matt Mund, a top executive with Monster.com was quoted in the article as saying, "I wish every company used Monster [but] social is a solution many people are using."

I have found that the major job search engines, Career Builder, Monster, et.al. seem to point job seekers to jobs that are sort of close to what they are looking for. And, sometimes, jobs will pop up that really aren't remotely close to what job seekers are looking for.

If the WSJ is right, and Facebook does surpass the major job search engines in 2012, what will that look like? Will it stay legitimate; or will it become a gathering place for hackers and spammers? In either case, if Facebook does become a major recruitment tool, remember: you might want to double check your Facebook profile, just to make sure there isn't anything recruiters won't like.