Texas Back Institute of Plano recently featured on WB33 with unique new ‘AdaptiveStim’ implant. Device uses “Wii” motion sensor technology to ease chronic back pain.

Kodak filed for bankruptcy because – as we all know – the leadership failed to keep current.

According to Richard Harmer of the Brady Media Group, these Deal-A-Day sites don

Client Grand Homes CEO Stephen Brooks on the steps the company took to survive a down economy and difficult housing market. www.grandhomes.com

http://www.chick-fil-a.com/

Rudyard Kipling did it in 1892 with a story about a British soldier in India who learns a powerful lesson in courage and sacrifice through the example of a humble water bearer named Gunga Din.
It’s a rhyming ballad that challenges bigotry, racism and highlights the strength of the human spirit.
Every human being deserves to be treated humanely.

RKO made a movie with Cary Grant in 1939.

The last stanza is the most-frequently-quoted:
“Tho’ I’ve belted you and flayed you, By the livin’ Gawd that made you, You’re a better man than I am, Gunga Din!”

And it remains a powerful teaching tool – even today.

On this federal holiday, I could make many points about the importance of equal rights and non-violence – the twin pillars of Dr Martin Luther King Jr’s philosophy.
I could point to the changing demographics of Texas – as evidenced by the Census. We are becoming a more blended society.
Or I could summon biology and get specific about DNA. We know now – more than ever – that all people are engineered out of nearly identical chemistry.
Perhaps I could talk about federal government and describe the legacy of Barbara Jordan, who will be honored this year with a postage stamp.
She was the first African-American woman elected to the Texas legislature, the first African-American elected to the Texas Senate since Reconstruction and the first African-American woman elected to Congress from the South. Jordan served three terms in Congress and knew MLK personally.

But none of that would stick, most likely.

A story grabs us. Rivets our thinking and – sometimes – changes our behavior.

Here’s one that I will tell my seven-year-old son:

(Taken mostly from Wikipedia:)
The year was 1955.
One bus ride changed history. One simple ride toward heroism and humanity.

Rosa Parks worked as a seamstress in Montgomery, Alabama.
The south was segregated and tensions were high in those days. Separate seats in movie theaters, separate drinking fountains, separate schools, and black citizens were expected to sit in the rear of all public buses.
On Thursday, December 1, Mrs. Parks was sitting on a city bus.
When a white man boarded the bus, the bus driver told everyone in her row to move back.
Parks refused, and was arrested.

Four days later, she was found guilty and fined $10 plus a court cost of $4, but she appealed.
African-American leaders organized the Montgomery Improvement Association to start a city-wide bus boycott as a means of protest.
They elected a young preacher named Martin Luther King to lead the effort.
He asked for a fixed dividing line in the segregated sections of the buses. It only meant that if the white section of the bus was full, whites would have to stand; blacks would not be forced to give up their seats.

A White Citizens’ Council developed to oppose the change.
Martin Luther King’s house was firebombed, as were four black Baptist churches. Boycotters were often physically attacked.

King served two weeks behind bars. The move brought national attention to the protest.
King later said: “I was proud of my crime. It was the crime of joining my people in a nonviolent protest against injustice.”

Pressure increased across the country and on June 4, 1956, the federal district court ruled that Alabama’s racial segregation laws for buses were unconstitutional.
On November 13, 1956, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the district court’s ruling. This victory led to a city ordinance that allowed black bus passengers to sit virtually anywhere they wanted, and the boycott officially ended in December. The boycott of the buses had lasted for 381 days.

The Montgomery Bus Boycott reverberated throughout the United States and stimulated the national Civil Rights Movement.

It gave Martin Luther King, Jr. the national attention that made him one of the prime leaders of the cause.

It made Rosa Parks one of the pioneers of the civil rights movement.

Her bus ride changed history.

Her courageous bus ride.

Every human being deserves to be treated humanely.

See? Stories are better.

Here’s a little-known fact: in 1981, I won the Texas UIL Statewide Championship in Poetry Interpretation.
Yep. I did it by reciting a poem written in 1892. Gunga Din, by Rudyard Kipling.

Answer: Of course! It’s a tool. Just like any other technology. If it’s a legitimate way to reach out and contact another human being, then why not?

Yes, you will offend some journalists who don’t consider their personal Facebook page or Twitter account to be an acceptable avenue for business. Too bad.
Most working journalists are desperate for good story ideas, regardless of the source.

And journalists have been using Twitter and many other SM platforms for years now. There are plenty of resources to help journalists “crowd-source” stories and to help everyone else find Tweeting journalists.
Here’s a great article in Mashable: “The Journalist’s Guide to Twitter”

The best resource referenced in the above article is Muck Rack, which offers a real-time feed of journalists’ Tweets. I just checked, Jake Tapper, ABC’s Senior White House correspondent, is tweeting about the TSA.
Pretty cool.

We need to stop treating social media as some weird new animal and recognize that it is simply a new family of channels. Some of us use them, some do not.
In the same way, a hundred years ago the telephone was a bizarre new contraption that seemed odd and inappropriate in a professional setting. Out of place. A waste of time. A distraction.

But over time, we grew to like the convenience of Mr. Bell’s invention and the tremendous advantages it delivered.
Twitter is the same. Certainly NOT for everybody. But for some, a really helpful tool and an amazing new platform by which to connect people instantly.

So if you find a reporter Tweeting, Tweet back! But follow appropriate Twitter etiquette, please:

(First, make sure that this reporter would be interested in covering your story. Is it something he or she has covered before? If so, proceed.)

6. …but add that you want to make sure HE has it FIRST!

Then just wait for the response.
If nothing shows up, no real harm done, and you’re on to the next Twittering reporter:

1. Compliment her first on the AMAZING work that she does…

Social Media is a powerful tool. Use it.

Why?
The powerful pipes of Ted Williams, homeless radio announcer who’s become the year’s first YouTube rockstar of 2011.

In the unlikely event you haven’t heard, Mr. Williams was homeless earlier this week, hawking handouts on a Columbus highway. A self-confessed substance abuser and absentee dad, he had all but given up on his former career behind the microphone. That’s when a Columbus Dispatch videographer, on a whim, shot a clip of Williams using his golden baritone.

“When you’re listening to nothing but the best of oldies, you’re listening to Magic 98.9!”

The video went up on the Columbus dispatch website, then Youtube, and then PR “lightening” struck – as the short video drew millions of views. Viral pixie dust. It’s competely unpredictable. But amazing when it happens. Soon the Dispatch newsroom was fielding phonecalls for Williams, which led to local interviews, then a spot on the Today Show this week, then the offer from Kraft foods to provide the voice-over for the company’s iconic macaroni and cheese products tonight on ESPN.

Here’s a preview of the spot:

Kraft Mac & Cheese Ad w/ Ted Wilson Voice-Over

The company already had a mammoth publicity campaign surrounding it’s ‘Huddle to Fight Hunger’, an outreach to provide 20 million meals or more to a hunger relief organization. But this swift move has quickly dwarfed the rest of the positive pub in free mentions alone. (Was anyone planing to TiVo the Fight Hungar Bowl? Heck, had anyone even HEARD of the Fight Hunger Bowl – before Williams made media magic happen?) Kraft comes across as a company that cares, that is engaged in public discourse, that wants to do more than talk, and that is nimble and smart enough to do the right thing on short notice. Plus… every recent mention of Kraft is completely free of charge. What CMO wouldn’t be pumped over such a coup?
Williams recorded four TV spots – some of which will be seen during the Golden Globes next Sunday on NBC.

Kraft Brand Manager Noelle O