tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-149684142024-03-06T01:03:56.899-06:00Escaped NoticeStephen Michael Rynkiewicz, informing Chicago since 1977. Stephen Rynkiewiczhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13574865850762545756noreply@blogger.comBlogger170125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14968414.post-9589646604759627172023-04-07T22:45:00.033-05:002023-07-19T22:18:23.722-05:00Conversational AI in Marketing: A Calculated Guess at PR’s FutureJoost Crop / Unsplash photoAI chatbots like ChatGPT won’t replace content strategists but will make marketers’ work more efficient and distinctive.
A few of us recall when calculators were not allowed in class and we had to learn how to use a slide rule. Keeping track of decimal points in our head wasn’t anything we hadn’t learned from a Radio Shack dot-matrix display, though, so chemistry class Stephen Rynkiewiczhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13574865850762545756noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14968414.post-54967646202049495892022-03-03T22:18:00.007-06:002022-08-02T12:49:54.601-05:00'Ink Master' Draws Life Lessons
Mentors and apprentices make their mark in the 'Ink Master' tattoo contest when they put their clients and each other first.
Which is more manipulative, reality TV or cable news? I've made my choice. I'm binge-watching a decade of "Ink Master." Don't judge.
"Ink Master" is a tattoo competition. A dozen or so tattoo artists are thrown into a Brooklyn loft (or more likely a New Jersey film studio Stephen Rynkiewiczhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13574865850762545756noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14968414.post-76252280858114898572022-02-01T21:15:00.007-06:002023-02-26T19:43:50.880-06:00Sugary sweet success
Nerds candy boosts Itasca plant's fortunes
Reporters once might have been drawn to newspaper work by the printing machinery rumbling a few floors beneath their desks. For sure, I couldn't resist touring a factory. As a Chicago Sun-Times business reporter in 1984, I wrote about not only healthcare innovations like MRI scanners and PPOs, but also candy breakthroughs like the Everlasting GobstopperStephen Rynkiewiczhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13574865850762545756noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14968414.post-6685183832872539382021-11-01T00:00:00.551-05:002022-01-13T20:29:02.332-06:00What does a Google E-A-T?
How editors can feed the beast
Who is your most important reader? Business editors imagine it's a company's chief executive, or the people desperately trying to understand what the CEO is doing. Investors, business partners and especially potential business partners hang on the CEO's every word. Crain's Chicago Business used to advertise itself as "Where the Who's Who read what's what," till Stephen Rynkiewiczhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13574865850762545756noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14968414.post-6933765699550251312021-10-01T00:00:00.127-05:002021-10-11T09:35:12.591-05:00Vacation in the time of COVIDIt’s a tough time to travel.Once upon a time, humans actually traveled to meet people and see things for themselves. Now tourists want to get back in circulation, but the covid virus had the idea first. We’re ready to bust of the house, but wherever we go the residents aren’t quite ready to bust out of the house to greet them. That leaves Michigan, with its scenic roadside attractions and high Stephen Rynkiewiczhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13574865850762545756noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14968414.post-88373809469281049202021-09-02T00:00:00.091-05:002021-09-02T08:55:48.116-05:00Just another crime non-statistic
Most crime goes unreported. The reasons remain unexamined.
No one wants to be another statistic, but that's how the police police. Chicago keeps a tally of where crimes are called in, and stations more cops there. Only 2 out of every 5 violent crimes are told to police. But any attempt to prevent crime has to start somewhere. Cops follow where the data leads.
We know most crime is hidden from Stephen Rynkiewiczhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13574865850762545756noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14968414.post-18567346892791880512021-08-01T00:01:00.004-05:002021-08-01T00:01:00.217-05:00A subscription there always isWe pay a bundle for entertainment, but not for news. And we get what we pay for.How many entertainment subscriptions do you have? My cable TV package is just big enough to get the White Sox, plus more than enough reminders of the channels I can't watch. But wait, there's more:
Netflix, even though I can't really chill
Amazon Prime, because shipping is free
MLB TV, filling the Stephen Rynkiewiczhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13574865850762545756noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14968414.post-5463546289637693032021-07-01T00:00:00.003-05:002021-07-20T21:08:21.164-05:00Tribune slow jams the newsTribune Tower is converting to condos, and the Tribune is converting to hedge fund control.The Big Buyout: Everything Must Go!
Reading the Chicago Tribune is hard these days because all the columnists are writing the same thing. No, not that Trump really won the election. They're posting farewell columns. Dahleen Glanton, John Kass, Steve Johnson, Phil Rosenthal, Mary Schmich, Heidi Stevens, EricStephen Rynkiewiczhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13574865850762545756noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14968414.post-30794879191074041842020-12-30T09:00:00.013-06:002021-07-20T21:13:02.896-05:00A year for the books
The novel survived the coronavirus. Reading habits mutated. Have you caught the bug?
Mom called to ask for audiobook recommendations; her reading habit has not dimmed despite lost sight. What have I read lately? If I recall sunlight on the page from a bus window, it was not this year. Books were important in my commute, timed so I could take a seat and turn pages. The pandemic lockdown seemed Stephen Rynkiewiczhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13574865850762545756noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14968414.post-78207198850613214042020-04-17T06:53:00.010-05:002023-04-18T07:02:04.843-05:00A Blatz from the pastI'm from Milwaukee, and I ought to know.
<!--div class="separator" style="clear: both;">Webmasterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14077956805507049485noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14968414.post-37163338266487069502020-02-01T08:00:00.007-06:002021-07-20T21:12:40.591-05:00Another 'first 90 days' to be a hero
You knew the job was dangerous when you took it. But congratulations! You survived the first 90 days.
No battle plan survives first contact with the enemy, and no onboarding plan survives the first day on the job. Helmuth von Moltke's Franco-Prussian War insight was that strategy is based on success of the tactics. On my return to full-time marketing, my first campaign inevitably would be to Stephen Rynkiewiczhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13574865850762545756noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14968414.post-80276202693163725132020-01-01T08:29:00.005-06:002021-07-20T21:11:08.148-05:00Does purpose marketing cut it?
Today we start a new year in a more resolute age. People want to change the world, even when a shave is as close as they can get.
Gillette is grooming men, with or without razors. It brought the year's sharpest marketing idea with the 2019 Super Bowl ad blitz, and its most hotly debated.
Gillette's literal breakthrough, disrupting a morning shaving scene, was a parade of bullies, hecklers andStephen Rynkiewiczhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13574865850762545756noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14968414.post-12890405117707181262019-12-03T08:13:00.005-06:002021-07-20T21:10:49.066-05:00Sign of a good deal<!--a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjTD5xJW95TrIGpZpQeC_TvoLraZB7Suqfti1jUhIYdYeEo6guVFbs5lQWCZLjY8crbQ6iWWOF2NuKCkqUz3V-Gj-m9vh4upXHor2dNA35TAeWSJjAVf7XQZmu3LAxR7Rx_W75B/s1600/IMG_4073.png" imageanchor="1" >-->
Some thoughts on negotiation need writing down, because that's how agreements work.
Agreements end not with a handshake but a signature.
I learned Stephen Rynkiewiczhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13574865850762545756noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14968414.post-22070893341555215202019-11-02T07:41:00.004-05:002022-03-03T23:24:14.716-06:00The journal and the journalist
President Wilson looks on from my grandfather's 1915 journal.
Taking note of my note-taking helped improve my outlook. A lifetime of writing and I might yet get it right.
<!--a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgxGNJ6w_vvObKWZ1whSvK6ow277ObVvKMpGUcSH3hfoL9dtyK6heK7ZBxHVy5aNoM7M2LWQzozVVUPjgtRPDT_JA9FE3WYFuOrzHUOmGye8Mmkqw_BR5LW0X9rNcGExATFDR0sow/s1600/IMG_7378.JPGStephen Rynkiewiczhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13574865850762545756noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14968414.post-62496538685581363542019-10-01T08:00:00.002-05:002021-07-20T21:17:36.436-05:00How we invented the internet
In the mid-1990s a research-minded class of e-commerce websites was incubated in Chicago's Gothic Tribune Tower.
We all lead by design. My first Chicago Tribune web project taught me about leadership styles and the value of a team.
In 1997 I started working in a cramped suite on an upper floor of Tribune Tower. Desks were pushed together to hold boxy computer monitors, and the worn linoleum Stephen Rynkiewiczhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13574865850762545756noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14968414.post-79697001237890985132019-09-02T00:14:00.005-05:002021-07-20T21:20:22.876-05:00A mentor your boss is not
“Always two there are, no more, no less. A master and an apprentice.”
What's a quest without a Yoda to challenge the hero?
"Star Wars" lifted a story line as old as Homer, right down to the sage older adviser for Odysseus, a character named Mentor. For ages since, the stories we tell ourselves about our professional and personal lives leave a role for mentors. Mastery requires finding a Stephen Rynkiewiczhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13574865850762545756noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14968414.post-88558112823658661262019-08-06T17:26:00.003-05:002021-07-20T21:26:31.564-05:00The pitch for exceptional communicators
Like a baseball pitcher, the exceptional communicator chooses a delivery for a specific effect.
Why do so many job listings call for an "exceptional communicator"?
This phrase appears so often in postings that I searched one of the recruitment sites for Exceptional Communicator Jobs in Chicago. I came up with 9,000 listings. Is there even enough oxygen in the Windy City for thousands of Stephen Rynkiewiczhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13574865850762545756noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14968414.post-3247663841005032422019-05-13T14:06:00.002-05:002021-07-20T21:32:27.503-05:00Google rules: 3 search engine mysteries
Johnny Seo: Why is this man in my Google?
For at least 20 years, webmasters have been engaged in search engine optimization, or SEO. There's a system for everything — Google's engineers call theirs an algorithm — and to get our work recognized we must learn how search engines find and rank pages.
This process seems like the punishment of Sisyphus: Not to be gamed, Google keeps Stephen Rynkiewiczhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13574865850762545756noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14968414.post-3795745831180618572019-02-05T23:04:00.000-06:002019-06-11T20:06:43.761-05:00Polish Triangle: Don't let the pigeon drive the bus
Picture your route to work. Some of it could move more quickly, but in other places you intentionally stop to talk to friends, or pick up something to eat. Or it's not a destination but a point where you reflect on what's ahead.
For me that's the subway stop near my home. Not so much the subway itself—we share the tunnel with quite a few creatures but it's not like visiting the zoo. And Stephen Rynkiewiczhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13574865850762545756noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14968414.post-74797565438300181902019-01-28T22:49:00.001-06:002021-07-20T22:18:10.570-05:00The line on SoxFest
SoxFest people, there's no need to dress for the occasion. We all know why we’re here.
Spring is coming. I've seen it on the horizon at SoxFest.
SoxFest is the annual gathering for fans of the summer game played on the South Side. North Siders have a similar event, Cubs Convention, that's just as silly as the Chicago White Sox event—three days in a hotel mostly standing in line. Think Stephen Rynkiewiczhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13574865850762545756noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14968414.post-78561321422622260282019-01-28T06:50:00.000-06:002022-03-18T00:10:45.947-05:00Planned renovation of Blue Line ‘L’ stops raises hope that a nearby park will be revitalizedWebmasterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14077956805507049485noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14968414.post-37326773387431555002018-07-29T18:14:00.003-05:002021-07-20T22:22:29.758-05:00Media creatures: MCA's 'I Was Raised on the Internet'
Eva and Franco Mattes, from "My Generation," in the Museum of Contemporary Art exhibition "I Was Raised on the Internet."
Do you talk in an art museum? It's not a library. When art speaks to you, maybe you should speak back.
At work, we needed a summer outing. So we took off for the Museum of Contemporary Art, which plays jazz on Tuesdays near the Water Tower. What could be more Chicago? And Stephen Rynkiewiczhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13574865850762545756noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14968414.post-43776304616511677862017-04-25T07:00:00.002-05:002021-07-20T22:26:52.382-05:00For defenseless Americans, Trump budget is blueprint for disaster
Members of Congress get 20,000 testimonials to legal aid this week. Here's mine.
Congress hasn't delivered a budget on time since 2003. As it goes back in session, more than half the 2017 fiscal year is gone and government could run out of money this week. Next year's spending plan isn't shaping up well either.
President Trump's "America First" budget blueprint would raise spending authorityWebmasterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14077956805507049485noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14968414.post-1719522036939051852017-04-22T00:16:00.001-05:002021-07-20T22:28:10.794-05:00Chi Hack Night develops its civic roleI've been the balding guy near the front of the room for three of Chi Hack Night's five years.
Working in newspapers was an education in civics, and in hacking. Chi Hack Night helped me put the two together.
As Chi Hack Night marks its 5th anniversary this week, its role in Chicago's tech community and civic life , and I'm personally grateful for its endurance.
At a 2014 Blue1647 hackathon, Stephen Rynkiewiczhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13574865850762545756noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14968414.post-55451210248745305752017-03-28T08:02:00.001-05:002021-07-20T22:29:07.559-05:00Accessible design and the law: a personal visionBrenda Rotzoll with editor Bob Mutter at a 2013 Chicago Sun-Times alumni dinner.Web accessibility law is still sketchy but best-practice guidelines are clear, and users are your co-workers.
Without realizing it, I watched one of my co-workers go blind.
These things can happen slowly. Brenda Rotzoll was quite nearsighted as a Chicago Sun-Times feature writer. She never gave up her big Stephen Rynkiewiczhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13574865850762545756noreply@blogger.com0