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Glad to see that next week Toyota Motor Corp. President Akio Toyoda will appear in Washington and spend some time doing something that Tiger Woods would not do yesterday – answer questions. Word from Politico's Mike Allen is that Toyota, who spent $4.1 million lobbying Congress last year, also hired our friends, DC communications firm Glover Park Group to help manage the crisis (likely a long-term assignment).

After Mr. Toyoda's appearance in front of the U.S. House of Representatives Oversight and Government Reform Committee, I recommend that Mr. Toyoda continue his day by reaching out personally to a few of the most influential voices on this issue in the social media space. The full-page ads and talking points pledge transparency -- almost nothing would say more than a few minutes with the following bloggers and Twitterers:

(1)  Start with @RayWert, editor and chief of Jalopnik, Gawker's car blog, his blog has more than 500k monthly visitors and more than 3,000 people follow him on twitter. His Twitter feed in particular has been pushing and RTing much Toyota content in the last week;

Now that we officially have a new U.S. Senator in our home state, I thought I'd share a little of the analysis that we've been doing in our spare time.  At first, I hesitated posting this, but believe the lessons learned here the last two months will have vast implications this fall in every corner of our country.

First some stats:

• 149 (42%) of 352 cities and towns in the state voted for Obama in 2008 and Scott Brown in January 2010;
• 7 of the 10 towns (and 14 out of 20) that showed the most significant swing (from +Obama to +Brown) are in Worcester County;
• The average swing in these towns is -42 points for the Democrats;
• Of the 8 towns (out of 20) that swung most heavily toward Brown that we have census info on -- only 2 towns are above the state average for education level -- Mansfield and Franklin;
• Turnout in Suffolk County (i.e., Boston) dropped by .9 since 2008, while turnout in Middlesex County increased by .8.  The other counties were slightly more stable relative to the 2008 presidential election.

While much has been written about the “Scott Brown independent voter” – the lesson here is that there's no such person.  There are two distinct kinds of Scott Brown independents.  I refer to them below as “Jack the Plumber” and “Don the VP” (think Don Draper).

"Jack the Plumber" – he’s between 35 and 50 years old, lives in a small town/city in Worcester County/Central Massachusetts (i.e., Southbridge, Athol, Winchedon, Fitchburg, Clinton, etc.), is less educated than the average Bay Stater and works (or used to) in manufacturing or the trades.  “Jack” was among the most hopeful in 2008 (probably voting for Obama while holding his nose) -- and now is among the angriest, most disappointed voters in the state.  On average, there was a 40-point swing in the town where “Jack” lives from 2008 to 2010 against the Democratic candidate (Coakley).  “Jack” is easy to spot – we know him well in Massachusetts and he has was the recipient of a fair amount of attention in Governor Patrick's State of the State:

The other day a friend of mine in the music business and I were talking about the state of the industry  -- and specifically the impact that the Internet's "long tail" can have not only on new and emerging artists, but also on the classic rockers that at least a few of us in the office grew up on in the 70's and 80's.  You know who I'm talking about...

While this isn't breaking news, or shouldn't be for hundreds of bands like Arctic Monkeys and Weezer who play primarily to college audiences and have close to 500,000 Facebook fans each -- this is news I think to classic rockers who still tour, produce quality music and have somewhere between "hardly there" and "emerging presences" on the major social media sites -- Ringo Starr, Mark Knopfler, Van Morrison and Boston's own Peter Wolf come quickly to mind.

The latest numbers on who's on social media are staggering -- and my latest factoid has caught many of my friends off-guard:

Did you know that there are about (give or take a million) as many people on Facebook in there 50's and 60's than in their teens?  It's true, check out iStrategyLabs' latest report.

In addition, the latest Deloitte study on "State of the Media Democracy," reports that at the end of last year, 46% of online Baby Boomers (ages 44-62) maintain a social networking profile -- up 50% in two years; and Quantcast recently told us that 44% of Twitter users are over age 35.

So let's go guys (I'm talking to you Van and your former roommate Peter Wolf) -- take these compelling numbers, sprinkle in a plugged-in website, a smart use of AdWords and Facebook Ads, some Facebook, MySpace and Twitter presence (tailored to fit your persona of course) -- and give the Boomers (and Xers) what they're looking for.  As I hope this short presentation shows, it's a win-win.

I’m writing this from an old cottage in the New Hampshire Highlands that we bought years ago when our kids were tiny, with the expressed intention of having a place for family time away from the blare of electronic media. In the mid-nineties, that meant NO television. For a few years, the plan worked. We had a landline phone, a mediocre stereo and, in the summer, a radio on the porch for Red Sox-by-moonlight. The children read Potter (Harry and Beatrix), played games, hiked, swam and built a monster tree house. Life was simple.

Then the technology began to leak in…

Along the way my employer forced a series of cell phones on me. I had managed to keep them confined to my car, each new car I bought would be immediately defiled by men with cordless drills, ruthlessly attaching brackets and fixtures to the shiny new dash, ripping up new carpets and upholstery to fish wires, cutting holes for the spiral antenna. All this, before the car’s first scratch. My commuting time was no longer my own, and the electronic perimeter had been extended, but it stopped at the end of the driveway.