38enso Inc

Rupert Murdoch’s media empire has come under tremendous attack the past few weeks.

I am not a fan on Murdoch and have believed his actions have always been one step ahead of the law. So this latest scandal doesn’t surprise me.

Evil Media Conglomerates are common in history.

Rupert Murdoch is just the latest in a string a mega-maniacal media barrons who manipulate the news, intentionally mis-lead and create a story they want to tell. Murdoch’s cronies went too far and broke the law. They should be arrested and jailed.

But again, this is not the first time, nor will it be the last time someone gains monopolistic control over the media.

William Randolph Hearst and Joseph Pulitzer were known for their battles and the tension to get a story created ‘yellow journalism’ and the active mis-leading of the truth. Hearst is even credited (blamed) with stirring national sentiment and created the Spanish-American War. That is power?

Murdoch is evil. What he has done in the UK is completely wrong and he deserves to be brought down.

Will anyone see that his FOX NEWS in America has done more to harm our Democracy than any single entity of the past 50 years?

Murdoch is old and maybe this scandal will kill him. But there will be others. As long as the media has such control over how and what people think, there will be criminals like Murdoch to exploit it.

Twenty-seven major league players have at least 3,000 hits in their career. Over 100 years of Major League Baseball, only 27 players have reached this plateau. It is a major milestone.

Derek Jeter is two hits away from joining this group. So, for this post, I am going to assume he also has 3,000.

• 12 have batted left-handed.
• 14 have batted right-handed.
• 2 have been switch hitters.

To achieve 3,000 hits, a player must average 200 hits a season for 15 years. That is an amazing level of consistency over a long period of time.

Nine players have achieved all their hits with one team:

• Stan Musial – Cardinals.
• Carl Yastrzemski – Red Sox.
• Cal Ripken – Orioles.
• George Brett – Royals.
• Robin Yount – Brewers.
• Tony Gwynn – Padres.
• Craig Biggio – Astros.
• Roberto Clemente – Pirates.
• Derek Jeter – Yankees.

Two players have over 4,000 hits. Ty Cobb, who played in the early decades of the 20th century and Pete Rose.

Roberto Clemente ended his career with exactly 3,000 hits.  He died in a plane crash during the off-season. He was part of an effort to bring supplies to earthquake victims in Nicaragua. What a class act.

Here’s the the 28 men who have achieved 3,000 hits in a career. Quite an accomplishment.

Build your “platform.”

Build your “brand.”

How does one go about doing this? How much time do you have to devote to it? I know some people who have done a great job building their on-line footprint. But they work at it — spend 40 hours a week building. It is hard work. It doesn’t come easy.

I try. I don’t have the time to do it all the time. But I have found success in a focused group. I do get leads and consulting gigs from my network all the time. I enjoy it. I like to post my opinions. Do I think anyone reads? Maybe not — but that’s ok. I am building.

Some of the tools I use:

Twitter – a must for anyone on-line. I have heard many people claim it is a waste of time. I guess anything can be a waste if you don’t know how to use it. Twitter is very effective. But it takes nurturing and building.  You must be on Twitter.

Facebook – everyone is on Facebook. I use it more for staying in touch with friends. I do not have a business fan page. But many do. Businesses are finding Facebook more effective than their home page. There are 400-million Facebook accounts. You must be there.

WordPress Blog – if you are reading this, then you are on my website. I don’t think everyone needs a website, but a blog is important. It can be substituted by a Facebook Fan page or Tumblr.

Tumblr – They just passed WordPress as hosting the most blogs. It is easy, clean and gaining popularity. I have three Tumblr accounts – one is personal, the other for my art and a third that I am still debating what to do.

LinkedIn – The place to put your resume and so much more. Everyone should have a page. I find it to be the best business network tool period. I drive my Tweets and Blog posts to LinkedIn. I do research. I use it as my calling card. It is very important.

Pandora – The best ‘radio’ on the web. I don’t use it a lot for posting comments, but I find it great to hear various types of music.

Flixster – I prefer this movie site over the others. It is connected with Rotten Tomatoes and one can get both critics reviews and consumer. I use the % to determine which movie I want to see. I post my reviews.

Amazon – I shop on all the various eBook sites (B&N, Kobo, Apple) but Amazon is the one with the reviews and major feedback. I try to hold back on most reviews but Amazon will give me a sense of movement re: books.

bit.ly – A tool I use to shorten URLs. Besides it being a necessity for the 140 character limit on Twitter, it is a great tool for tracking. You need to register with bit.ly and then they will track usage on your posts.

Zite – for iPad only. This is a great tool to sort and curate all the various news on subjects that are of interest to you. I use it and find info to Tweet quite a bit. It is a different way to look at the subjects that interest me.

Klout – a measure of on-line influence. Sure it has it’s bugs, but it is the best way to find out influence.  Check it out.

Others that I have but don’t use often (should):

YouTube; Digg; MySpace…  and many others, I am sure.

These are just a few tools that I use. There is only so much time to do everything!

The key — you must get on-line and discover this for yourself.

I have been on Twitter for about 18 months. I like it. I just passed the 400 followers mark. Not a huge number but I am happy with it. It is a good way to keep score. But what is more important is when I run into people in the industry and they mention my tweets.

I know many of them follow me through my LinkedIn page. I drive all my tweets there.

I also am happy when someone deems a tweet of mine worth of a re-tweet (RT) and sends my comments to their followers.

There are some people I connect with through Twitter instead of email or the phone. We talk via Twitter. It gets to the point where we have dozens of ways to reach one another — some prefer DMing on Twitter.

I use Twitter for my first shot on breaking news. If something big happens, it hits Twitter immediately. It doesn’t replace news, but it directs it for me. I will then click through to CNN, MSNBC or FOX etc. But I do like the way Twitter is in real time.

Twitter is fun. It connects many of us.

I find that celebrities are boring on Twitter. A started out following dozens of them. Now I only follow a handful. Most have nothing to say.

I use Twitter a lot for my profession — Book Publishing. I find individuals tweeting about publishing vastly more interesting than the publishers themselves. It always feels like publishers want to sell me a book (which is true) but publishing professionals just want to talk about the industry. They give me book recommendations that I take 100% more serious than any book publishing tweet.

I like Twitter. I have kept those that I follow to 500 or less. It makes for some tough choices but I want to maintain some level of control.

If you are on Twitter — check me out at @38enso.

If you are not on Twitter — get on it. You need to know how it all works.

Twitter is one of the most important tools of today — you are missing out if not involved.