Context & Continuity

My Sad, Little Profession.

I've never been proud about what I do for a living, pushing public opinion this way and that at the whim of my master.  I was amazed the first time I learned that one could earn a degree in public relations, and despite the nurturing efforts of Ketchum Public Relations, I cast a sideways glance at something like a professional association.  The work suits me because it isn't necessarily hard and people's lives rarely hang in the balance so I can go about my work in a relaxed fashion. 

Be that as it may, I do keep an eye peeled for news about this line of work in an interest to stay abreast of the art and craft.  And that leads me to a posting I came across today from the PRSA, the professional association I referred to above.  

The name of the PRSA blog is...

...which is ok. 

The headline that got my attention today is this:

What Does Ethics Have to do With Social Media Anyway?

... which is too clever for its own good.  A million years ago, in a smokey little office in midtown Manhattan, Bob Walt taught me that if you write your press release with negative constructions and language, then your press release will have negative construction and language in it and that isn't at all what a press release is supposed to be all about.  I think Mr. Walt caught me trying to write something along the lines of "We aren't satisfied with ordinary work here."  And Mr. Walt correctly pointed out that it's much more direct if we were to write it, "We only do superior work here."  --But I digress.

Google Wave: First Impressions.

For reasons unclear, I received a Google Wave invitation and, as I'm fascinated by collaborative technologies, I jumped in.  Thankfully, I know how to swim. 

Please let me relate to you three impressions I have about Google Wave:

1.    You wake up in what you think is a bed and you are surrounded by darkness.  Very carefully, you ease yourself out of the bed, find a wall and grope your way around the room until you find a doorknob. 

In other words, there isn't much about Google Wave that's instantly obvious.  One must spend some time with it, get to know it, and find the way. 

2.    For those with short attention spans, Google Wave may be completely useless or doesn't offer enough differentiation from a chatroom with cool tools and all singing dancing bears.  Let me illustrate:

The first picture is what Google Wave looks like for those of us married to ASCII.   As I wrote before, it's very much like suddenly appearing in the middle of a strange narrative.

And then there's always the very smart, very cool kid in class who knows how to turn the bunsen burner into a gas-activated handgun.  This video illustrates that:

But if we imagine using Google Wave over Time, then the benefits start to shine.  Time is very difficult to demo.  There are few substitutes for the real thing. Steve Wright once remarked, "Everywhere is within walking distance if yo have the time," and such is the truth.  I can see how a problem statement could kick off a wave.  I can see a marketing or engineering program kicking off a wave.  But this becomes very tricky and many very bright people have tried to find a way through this problem, Ray Ozzie being chief among them.  

We know the following:

1.    Collaborative technologies are on the verge of something momentous.

2.    We've been in this position for the past twenty years.

3.    Capitalistic economics is a stumbliung block on the path.

4.    When the solution arrives, it will not look like Usenet on acid.  

That is all for now.  If you want to wave at me, you can find me find me treading water @ briandjohnson at googlewave dot com

It would be completely remiss of us...

 ... not to notice the debut of Gustavo Dudamel's debut as conductor of the Los Angeles Philharmonic.  This Saturday, both the NY Times and the Wall Street Journal published reviews of the debut and both were unalloyed raves.  Yesterday, on Performance Today, as aired by the newly reconstituted WQXR, highlights of the debut were aired and I got to hear the the performance of Mahler's First Symphony.  I don't have the ear that many people do, and heaven only knows what happens to the sound after it's been recorded, shipped around the world on satellite, broadcast over FM radio and then picked up by the internet, but... from what I could tell, it was a crystal clean performance.  Entire sections almost sounded like soloists.  --Regarding this, the commentators on Performance Today said the an orchestra usually tries their hardest for the debut of a new conductor.  Here's a link to the Performance Today page where you can hear the highlights for yourself.  

I'm very happy for the LA Philharmonic and wish them all the best.  LA has an outstanding number of great musicians and it rarely receives the notices it deserves.  The number of great musicians in LA has to do with the amount of work is available for them there.  As KUSC is so fond of reminding listeners, LA is the entertainment capital of the world.  And the lack of recognition has to do with the East Cost snobbery hard at work and probably some envy too because LA has had much better luck at building new concert halls than New York.  (Alice Tully Hall has been rebuilt how many times?  Four?  And they still haven't gotten it quite right?)

I hope Dudamel and LA have many happy years together. 

David Hockney's Favorite iPhone App as per t/ NYRB

I've noticed that most users of the Brushes application tend to trace out their brushstrokes with their pointer finger. (The screen measures changes in electrical charge, and can be operated only with a conductive object—like a finger—rather than a pen-like stylus.) As I discovered on a recent visit, Hockney limits his contact with the screen exclusively to the pad of his thumb. "The thing is," Hockney explains, "if you are using your pointer or other fingers, you actually have to be working from your elbow. Only the thumb has the opposable joint which allows you to move over the screen with maximum speed and agility, and the screen is exactly the right size, you can easily reach every corner with your thumb." He goes on to note how people used to worry that computers would one day render us "all thumbs," but it's incredible the dexterity, the expressive range, lodged in "these not-so-simple thumbs of ours."

Hockney, who has carried small notebooks in his pockets since his student days, along with pencils, crayons, pastel sticks, ink pens, and watercolor bottles—and smudged clean-up rags—is used to working small, but he delights in the simplicity of this new medium:

    It's always there in my pocket, there's no thrashing about, scrambling for the right color. One can set to work immediately, there's this wonderful impromptu quality, this freshness, to the activity; and when it's over, best of all, there's no mess, no clean-up. You just turn off the machine. Or, even better, you hit Send, and your little cohort of friends around the world gets to experience a similar immediacy. There's something, finally, very intimate about the whole process.

[more]

If I were to ever write a book about Public Relations...

... which is a horrible thought because the profession is so simple it's hardly worth documenting, but if I were to write a book about Public Relations, this would be the entirety of the first chapter:

If you guessed this is from a very old edition of the New York Observer, you're correct.

Ketchum / Ray Kotcher: "Dancing Backward in High Heels"

Ray Kotcher, senior partner and CEO of Ketchum, is one of the most talented and harkest-working people I know in Public Relations.  I was very fortunate to have worked in Ketchum's New York City office while he was the director there.  For me, it was the equivalent of a graduate degree in the profession. 

Mr. Kotcher recently gave a speech in Beijing and his remarks are publishing on Kethcum's webiste.  Here's a taste of what he said: 

Some of you will remember Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers, a dancing team and the darlings of Hollywood in the 1930s. Fred Astaire today is remembered as an actor, singer and choreographer – but most of all as one of the greatest dancers of his century.

 

Ginger Rogers is remembered mainly as Fred Astaire’s partner, not as a great dancer herself. But it should be pointed out that as great a dancer as Fred was, Ginger matched him step-for-step – and her steps were backward and in high heel shoes. 

 

I think of this when I look at companies from emerging markets that are trying to break into North America or Europe. They face the same barriers to entry as any other company. But like Ginger, they will have to dance just as well as better-known companies. And they must do it backward in high heels. Or in the case of businesses, they must match the performance of their competitors in the context of an environment with long-held stereotypes and misperceptions.

...

This takes me to my next point – nothing is local anymore.

 

In addition to the way that media coverage sometimes reinforces stereotypes and misperceptions, the expanded speed and breadth of coverage also increases the amount of information that people look at.

 

This has created a compelling duality. On the one hand, the speed of communication and amount of information available can result in rapid change in how we see the world.

 

On the other hand, people have a tendency to bucket ideas in ways that we already understand. So, much of the new information that we have to deal with is collapsed into already existing molds.

 

When these two factors work together, new stereotypes can be created overnight, and once established, they are incredibly difficult to change.

I highly encourage you to read his speech.  You can find it here. 

NY Times, 3.6.9: President Sticks to the Script, With a Little Help

Fascinating article in the Friday NY Times about President Obama's use of the Teleprompter.  Read this: 

For Mr. Obama, a teleprompter means message discipline, sticking close to the intended words. While some presidents prefer extemporizing, Mr. Obama likes the message to be just so. After all, he is a best-selling author who has helped write a lot of his major speeches, so he presumably feels a certain fidelity to the crafted text.

Michael Waldman, who was President Bill Clinton's chief speechwriter, said Mr. Obama was one of the few politicians able to use a teleprompter effectively.

“If he were just reading something someone handed him and didn’t understand what it said, that would be one thing,” Mr. Waldman said. “But I don’t think anybody doubts that he’s expressing his own thoughts.”

What's interesting me me is that working with a Teleprompter is not an easy skill to master.  And you might recall how, during the presidential campaign, Senator John McCain couldn't work with a Teleprompter at all. 

Someday, perhaps, we'll read a story about the person who has to "drive" the Teleprompter for the speaker.  Anchors on the network news drive their own Teleprompters with a switch on the desk or a foot pedal.  Politicians can't do that so someone, off to the side, has to advance the copy for the speaker, perfectly in step with the speaker's cadence.  It can be a very intimate -- and very nerve-wracking -- experience. 

Et Tu, USA Today?

On February 11, 2009, USA Today published a story by Seth Brown on the topic of public relations.  The rasion d'etre of the article was the publication of a new book, PR- A Persuasive Industry: Spin, Public Relations and the Shaping of the Modern Media.

Whenever I see public relations in a headline, I know that there is just about absolute certainty that the story will be negative.  So how this this story score?  It only took Mr. Brown three paragraphs before he mentioned these three words:  Hitler, Goebbels and the Nazi.  Guess what:  Not only does Mr. Brown not like public relations, he also doesn't like the book.  Imagine my surprise. 

People gravitate to PR for a number of reasons: variety of the work; prospect of high pay; chance to be your own boss; glamorous lifestyle.

Perhaps the most alluring thing about being a PR consultant is that no formal training is required: no certification, no universally acknowledged test, no courses offered at many prestigious universities (although some colleges offer PR studies). Essentially, there are no barriers to entry. Acknowledging the general bad reputation of public relations, the authors feel the need to offer a defense, calling PR "a wholly legitimate aid to the exchange of information and ideas in society."

Oh, the glamor indeed. 

Even in my most generous mood, I couldn't shed a tear for the authors as Mr. Brown lambasts them.

The authors explain much about the industry: that PR is amoral, difficult to define and difficult to measure.

So, talk about adding insult to injury:  As if it isn't bad enough that a new book skewers the field of public relations, the authors of the book can't even get a good review from a journalist that hates public relations. 

Amazing. 

This very much affirms one of my core beliefs:  Never try to turn the public relations into the story.  Please step out of the spotlight.

But what I really want to know is how you feel about Pittsburgh.

It's probably a sin to take delight in other people's misfortune so the German's came up with a word for it: Schadenfreude.  So please let me apologize in advance for have more the one or two laughs about this article in PR Weeki: 

 A Tweet by a Ketchum staffer that was visiting the agency's client, FedEx, in its hometown prompted an angry memo that reached executives on both sides and the blogosphere.

A Twitter post made by the screen name “keyinfluencer,” which lists James Andrews, VP, director of interactive at Ketchum, as its owner, made the “true confession” that “I'm in one of those towns where I scratch my head and say ‘I would die if I had to live here!'”

An employee of FedEx then wrote a letter to both FedEx and Ketchum leadership that said the comment was "inappropriate” and they were “confident” that “it is enough to expect a greater level of respect and awareness from someone in your position as a vice president at a major global player in your industry.” The memo was posted on the blog of Peter Shankman. 

[more]

What tickles my funny bone is that the story arrives at a perfect intersection for me:

1. It's about an alma mater, Ketchum, an agency for which I have tremendous respect and an agency with its corporate headquarters in Pittsburgh.
2. The protagonist of the story is a "creative director" for an "interactive group," which is just another way of saying that he probably doesn't have P&L or account responsibility.
3. The downfall comes through a message on Twitter as a result of a bit too much hubris. 

I can just imagine the reaction of Dave Drobis and Ray Kotcher and the other gods of Ketchum, current and departed, when they got the call from the client.  Day to day life is hard enough without some yahoo with a fancy title and no good sense upending a key account.  Oh my goodness.  Mr. Andrews will probably be on a very short lesh for quite some time. 

Oh, and Mr. Andrews' apology?  He blames the medium of Twitter and its 140 character limit and not his own lack of skills as a "creative director" for an "interactive group" at a top-tier, world-wide public relations firm.  --Amazing. 

Honestly though, this should come as no surprise.  His blog features sections called "Geek Sexy TV" and "Under the Influence."  But really, for someone who lives in Atlanta to throw rocks at Memphis, well, that's some nerve indeed. 

Jerry Michalski on Public Relations

A million years ago, I had the honor of doing a little job for Jerry Michalski when he was working for Esther Dyson.  Mr. Michalski is a Very Smart Person. 

For a variety of reasons, he has spent a bit of time thinking about public relations, especially as it intersects some of his mainline interests.  Recently, he reposted a note to his blog about public relations that is only a little bit dated as per its references to Scoble as an employee of Microsoft.  (Remember that?)   Nevertheless, it's a thoughtful look and think about the question he poses at the end of the post. 

Cisco Sets the Pace...

My colleague, Kevin Petchow has been very busy and very productive over at Cisco.  Doing what?  Re-inventing public relations: 

In March this year, Cisco launched the ASR 1000 Router Series. No big deal, but for the fact that it was delivered completely via social media. This was apparently Cisco's fifth most successful campaign, and according to the company it has proved to be a turning point for the way Cisco takes products to market: "virtually, virally, and visually."

The biggest lesson here is this: Routers aren't sexy. If Cisco can make a router exciting enough for social media, you too can utilize social media to create a buzz about your product or service.

[more]

What elephant? I didn't see an elephant.

Don't get me wrong. I love the career I've chosen. It's just sometimes I find that my colleagues are doing our profession a disservice. Take for example this week's issue of PR Week (yes, I'm a subscriber). The April 11 issue features a roundtable in San Francisco / Silicon Valley and around the table sit some of the leading lights hereabouts.

One question posed to this august group was, "So, what about the recession?" Everyone at the table, save one voice, replied, "What recession? There's a recession? I don't see a recession." The lone dissenter was Mr. Paul Bergevin, formerly of IBM and Cunningham and currently enriching the public image @ Intel. Mr. Bergevin noticed that the last time the economy went through a mild recession, there were heavy casualties in technology media.

Okay. If I were the president or MD at an agency, or the VP of Corp Comm at a company with a market cap larger than most countries in South America, I might not want to let on that the heavy rains of the economy were puddling in my front yard. Nevertheless, ... please. How credible is it for these folks who do more revolutions per minute than a carousel at Coney Island to turn away from what is blindingly obvious to most of us, even President Bush, for crying out loud.

I don't usually get worked up about what my peers say or think, but it just so happens that I know more than a couple of the people around that table and I know they are smarter, better still, wiser than this. It hurts all of our credibility when a group of very bright people don't admit there's an elephant in the room.

Hacks / Flacks, according to the newspaper of record.

As a rule, I think it's unwise for reporters and publicists to discuss each other's professional standards.  Afterall, I would never divulge the name of the reporter who showed up drunk for an interview with my CEO and then further embarrassed himself by throwing up all over the CEO's wingtips.  And I'm more than sure that many of us publicists have committed grievous sins.  As a rule, I think it's best that we remember we live in glass houses and honor our long-standing truce. 

I think both professions, if I can ever type that without smirking, have some fascinating moral and  I think that if both reporter and the publicists can git overthemseles, they stand a chance of having a pretty good relelationship.  Of course if really helps if the publicist actually takes the time tot rreaad what the reporter writes and somehow stream into the reporters continutity. 

The NYTimes story is here. 

I Come to Praise Burson, Not Bury Them...

(Apologies to the Bard for tweaking his prose for my own purposes.)

Anyway, the way I was raised in the business was that the agency didn't want to get the media coverage -- ever.  Today's there's a good example of this in today's Wall Street Journal.  Burson is helping Countrywide get through some rough seas and part of the campaign is centered on Countrywide employees. 

One fact in the story seems very silly: 

Rick Simon, a Countrywide spokesman, said the transcript was sent to employees Friday. It says that employees are expected to sign a pledge to "demonstrate their commitment to our efforts," and Mr. Simon says about 11,000 have signed. Each employee who signs up receives the Protect Our House wristband made of green rubber. "We believe there's a great story about the strength of the business," says Mr. Simon.

To counter criticism that its lending practices are to blame for a surge in foreclosures, Countrywide plans to emphasize its "mission" of helping Americans become homeowners, the transcript says. "I want employees to look down at their wristbands and remember our fundamental mission to help customers achieve the American Dream, and to help them withstand those malicious outward attacks and to motivate them to continue on our journey with unwavering conviction," the transcript quotes Mr. Gissinger as saying.

Also, the story describes how a Burson executive spoke on a conference call to employees:

"We wanted to assure you that my firm and I have brought companies through the worst type of publicity," Mr. Schechter said, according to the transcript. He added that a six-person Burson team was ensconced at Countrywide's Calabasas, Calif., headquarters, and about 25 people overall were working on the campaign.

A couple of things:

1.  I can imagine that Countrywide employees are feeling rather shellshocked right about now and feel as if the entire country is blaming them for the entirety of the home mortgage fiasco.  They feel blamed for more than their fare share of the problem.  Given that, Countrywide management probably wants to assure them that the company is taking steps to ensure that it's reputation rescued, in this case by a crack team of public relations professionals. 

2.  The whole business about the loyalty oath and wristbands seems very silly -- to those of us on the outside.  But having taken one or two (or more) rides through rough seas, this is the sort of symbol and action that can help rally a company.  I can remember during some of the darker days at 3Com, the negative attitudes of the employees only exacerbated our problems.  Any public relations professional will tell you that the rank and file of a company -- each and every one -- are ambassadors to the public.  As such, steps should be taken to ensure that they are good ambassadors and not random.  If it takes silly rubber bracelets, then that's a small prices to pay for a chorus of positive voices. 

Irony So High It Reaches the Sky

Few things stir my blood the way a mis-step by Microsoft public relations can.  Yesterday, I got a snoot full and have been chortling up my sleeve for the past twenty-four hours.  It was yesterday that the Wall Street Journal reported this story:

Microsoft Goes Behind the Scenes

Public-Relations Proxy
Aims to Gather Opposition
To Google-DoubleClick Deal

By ROBERT A. GUTH and CHARLES FORELLE
September 24, 2007; Page A4

Microsoft Corp. executives and a public-relations firm retained by the software giant are waging a quiet campaign to convince Internet companies, advertisers and regulators to oppose Google Inc.'s planned $3.1 billion acquisition of online advertising specialist DoubleClick Inc.

In recent months, public-relations firm Burson-Marsteller pitched media outlets and Internet companies on what it said were the dangers of the deal, which would bolster Google's already strong presence in online advertising. In the written pitches reviewed by The Wall Street Journal, Burson cites the deal as part of a larger discussion of "fair and free competition" in Internet-search and privacy rights of consumers.

The pitches cited a number of groups and an individual who had signed on to the effort. The pitches didn't disclose that Burson was working for Microsoft, Google's largest rival.

Josh Gottheimer, an executive vice president at Burson, said the firm was hired by Microsoft to set up i-comp.org as a "discussion forum" for issues of privacy and competition. He said the firm doesn't disclose its clients as a general practice, but said companies were told Microsoft was a member of the group. He said Burson -- a unit of Young & Rubicam, which is owned by WPP Group PLC -- pitched the effort to more than 100 companies and organizations.

snip

In the 1990s, Microsoft faced similar tactics by rivals as it cemented its own power in personal-computer software, and those efforts factored into its run-ins with antitrust regulators.

snip

On Sept. 5, an executive at U.K. insurer Esure received an email from a Burson director. It asked for support for an initiative to raise awareness of competition in the Internet-search market, according to a copy viewed by The Wall Street Journal.

The Burson representative wrote that he represents a "wider industry initiative" but didn't disclose the Microsoft connection.

snip

In the U.S., Burson contacted The Wall Street Journal this summer by email, referring to the "magnitude of what is not known about Google's handling of personal data and their related privacy practices." Without disclosing its Microsoft connection, the Burson email concluded that "it would be a powerful consumer service to delve into these issues with journalistic vigor." Burson then offered to arrange interviews with privacy experts.

Where on Earth do I even begin?

First, one of the easier ones:  Regarding Mr. Gottheimer's  comment that  Burson "doesn't disclose it's clients as a general practice..."  I only have  twenty-five years of experience in public relations, but, dear friends, the day my client tells me not to reveal their name to the media is the day I realize I'm not in public relations any more. 

Next, regarding the whole notion of the whispering campaign and the phony-baloney front "coalition" ... I'm amazed, repeat, amazed at Microsoft's chutzpah or stupidity.  Does the public relations team not recall the whole "astroturfing" incident that the Wall Street Journal clearly remembers and cites in its article?  A better question, perhaps, is how many times between this incident and the previous one did Microsoft do the very same thing and wasn't caught? 

Finally, I can't wait to see what Richard Edelman has to say about this in his blog.  It was his agency that was caught out of bounds last time this came up with Microsoft and then again not so long ago when Edelman step in it again with Wal-Mart.  It will be fascinating to see if he has anything to say especially since Microsoft is still a client.  And it will also be fascinating to see if Microsoft take a hit on their Corporate Credibility score as measured by ... thant's right, friends ... Edelman.  That's ok.  Burson has a great corporate reputation practice that Microsoft can always fall back on. 

What Rand says about Madison Avenue and the War Against Terror

Here's a fascinating eBook from Rand about how there might be ways to better use public relations techniques to win the ware against terrorism.  It's a fascinating read, but I believe that, most of the time, actions speak louder than words. 

Virtually every action, message, and decision of a military force shapes the opinions of an indigenous population: strategic communication, treatment of civilians at vehicle checkpoints, and the accuracy or inaccuracy of aerial bombardment. Themes of U.S. goodwill mean little if its actions convey otherwise. Consequently, a unified message in both word and deed is fundamental to success. Business marketing practices provide a useful framework for improving U.S. military efforts to shape the attitudes and behaviors of local populations in a theater of operations as well as those of a broader, international audience.

Here's a link to the book.

Someone @ Google is Having a Great Day

I love newspapers and, about three years ago, started having "real" newspapers delivered to the home, the NYTimes and Wall Street Journal.  The real difference is finding stories I never would have seen online.  Saturday newspapers are my favorite.  The Wall Street Journal has put together a terrific Saturday edition that I look forward to all week long and the Saturday Times has been a favorite for more than twenty years.  There are always very interesting bits in it. 

Be that as it may, the NYTimes and WSJ both have page one stories on Google this morning.  The NYTimes has a Google lifestyle story about their commuter buses (complete with the most amazingly boring picture -- "Look!  Californians on a bus!).  And the WSJ has a story about Google winning a toehold in the realm of television commercials.  --Someone, probably several people, deserve a nice mimosa this morning.  Maybe two.

Synchronized to this is a move I made this week to further plight my troth with Google.  Because my business is very mobile, and because there are so many different computers in my life, I have been running a copy of Thunderbird off a USB drive, part of the excellent portable apps package (highly recommended).  But I've come to tire of the performance of Thunderbird-on-a-stick and still being tethered to something instead of working in the cloud.  Then, I found that I could make the Java gMail app run on my Treo and I vastly prefer that email program to even the souped-up email program I've been running for a couple of years now.  Then, I noticed that gMail now offers to pop my mail from all my different accounts, five that are spread over my thirty years of email history and this is necessary for email tidiness.  And, finally, I found a greasemonkey script that strips out the ads from gMail when I'm running Firefox. 

So, I imported a few thousand addressed into gMail and started to enjoy.  It's completed synched to my telephone and I can get to it from most any computer any time I want and this is Very Good.  And, it performs much faster than Thunderbird-on-a-stick even over USB 2.0.  I'm quite pleased.  --Not as pleased as having placed two front page stories in one day, but quite pleased. 

It's an issue of transparancy and guts...

Today, I read with interest, the following story in the Boston Post... 

Political bloggers fear publicists will infiltrate sites

By Alan Wirzbicki, Globe Correspondent  |  February 23, 2007

WASHINGTON -- Erick Erickson  has been running the popular blog Redstate.com long enough to know what his readers' postings sound like: red-meat conservative rhetoric served up with a little dash of populist anger.

So when postings from an unknown writer on the site showed up praising Senator John McCain -- one of the site's least-popular Republicans for his deviations from hard-core conservative orthodoxy -- Erickson thought he smelled a rat.

Or maybe a sock puppet, shill, or a troll -- Web slang for bloggers who pretend to be grass-roots political commentators but instead are paid public relations agents.

The author of the pro-McCain articles on  Redstate.com, Erickson determined after a Google search, was a Michigan political operative whose firm worked for McCain's political action committee.

With big corporations now hiring public relations firms to pay fake bloggers to plant favorable opinions of the businesses online, many political bloggers are concerned that candidates, too, will hire people to pretend to be grass-roots citizens expressing views.  [more]

The troubling part is that the political operative decided to use deception / anonymity as part of his suite of tactics.  Of course this isn't anything new and, in fact even the media have been caught in the act.  Be that as it may, my point is this:  If you have the courage of your convictions, then you will post your position and who you are.  Take for example, James Carville.  He has a particular point of view -- that's been paid for -- and he is able to argue eloquently his point-of-view.  And he has the courage (or sheer ego) to put his own face and reputation on the line.

I don't think there's anything wrong with posting to a competitor's website or blog, but there is something wrong about not putting your own name to the post.  I've spoken in public and for attribution for many, many clients.  Never once have I resorted to being an anonymous source and if I ever post to someone's website stating my own or my client's point-of-view, then I'll do it in a way people will know who I am.   And if my identity subtracts from either the credibility or substance of my argument, then shame on me.  Public Relations people need to be involved in the dialog wherever it takes place -- weblogs included --  and have the guts to say it, mean it and sign it.

Arf. Arf. Arf.

Normally, I don't pay too much attention to the headlines I read in my emailed edition of The Daily Dog.  Don't get me wrong, I think it's a fine product from a fine company, it's just that my pulse doesn't quicken when public relations people discuss public relations issues to other public relations people.  (I probably picked up this attitude at the University of Missouri's School of Journalism where it's understood there's a certain discipline and set of skills involved in journalism, but nothing so complicated that it can't be learned in less that two years.)

Anyway, the headline that caught my eye was about press releases, specifically, The Dark Side of Social Media: Press Releases Are Not a PR Strategy.  This interested me due to the number of discussions I've recently had with clients, friends, and entrepreneurs about the changing role of the press release.  And it has certainly changed from when I started off in the business.  I won't bore you here with the history of the press release, but we will notice that it has changed from a tool used to inform the media to a tool that can be used to directly inform the public and, if one is on top of one's game, actively leveraged as a sales tool, customer communications tool, employee relations tool, etc.  --And, by the way, the SEC still considers it an act of disclosure. 

But back to the article in The Daily Dog...   I agree with the author on many points:

• A press release is a tool (tactic) not a strategy (duh).
• There are lots of other tactics to use.
• Many more "amateurs" than ever before are actively involved in the creation of press releases.

But what strikes me as odd is that the author still believes that a  press release is a media relations tool -- at all.  My experience is that it is rare, very rare indeed that a press release has media impact.  Here's the last example from my work that I can cite:  Here's the media coverage.  Here's the press release.    I wrote the press release with the sales force in mind, but I also wrote it with one media outlet in particular in mind, the Saint John Telegraph Journal.  I had a reason to believe that the newspaper would take the story.  (Not quite as .... thoroughly ... as it did, but still...)  And then I made sure that the newspaper received the press release two days before it wired, a tactic afforded to me by working for a private company. 

But back to The Daily Dog... the author seems to be making the point that the press release tool is being diluted by the participation of amateurs and we should somehow better control this.  She draws a parallel between the uncontrolled use of press releases and the uncontrolled real estate development in her home town due to lack of zoning regulations.  I suggest this instead:  It is incumbent on public relations professionals to figure out ways to add value beyond the read of the general public.  The toothpaste is out of the tube, dear.  Businesswire and PR Newswire are very OK with the idea that more people have more access to their primary service and can afford it and are willing to use it.  (I've met people who believe that PR is an acronym for press release rather than public relations.) 

But is also rubs me the wrong way when public relations staff argue with their clients about whether or not a press release should be written.  I've seen public relations staff object to writing and wiring a press release because it won't help them win media coverage -- and they're correct.  And the client's point is that they need a press release because it's probably the most concise, essential marketing communication that might ever be created for their  product / service -- and they're correct.  --But if it takes a public relations professional more than a couple of hours to write and win approval on a press release, even at a public company, then something is amiss and it would appear that some skills need to be sharpened. 

Come on.  Let's be real public relations professionals and make it a win / win / win for the client, the media and our own work. 

I'm shocked, ... shocked!

I come here with mixed feelings, which based on my experience, isn't the best place to start writing.  However, one of Microsoft's public relations agencies, Edelman, has received negative coverage for distributing high-end notebook computers to journalists so these scribes can test drive Vista.  The fact that some of these journalists ... oh, let's just call them opinion-makers ... are bloggers is not inconsequential as these are some of the folks that are shocked that Microsoft might be trying to influence them.

Okay, let's get a few things straight here:

If I were the Public Relations guy in charge of managing a Vista evaluation program, I would want to be absolutely dead certain there would be no hardware issues whatsoever.  Period.  Exclamation mark.  I give credit to someone for deciding it was worth the investment to drop Ferrari (literally) notebooks onto reviewers with Vista pre-installed.  The computers I work on would never, ever have the horsepower to run Vista and I believe many journalists (and many more bloggers) are my peers on this issue. 

I have shipped tons and tons of hardware in my day to journalists for review.  I ran a review program for two HP product lines, the Pavillion and HP PC Servers, as well as review programs for IBM's initial release of PS/2, Digital's reborn PC program and many stops in between.  To get reviews, product must be shipped out for review.  If it's software, then the Public Relations guy, as stated above, had better make for dead certain that sufficient hardware is present -- and including the hardware is fair game. 

Now, about the same time, it was discovered that Edelman had been creating pro-Walmart "employee" blogs and offering payments to people to improve its entry in Jimmy Wales Wikipedia. 

Regarding the first issue of Edelman creating the pro-Walmart "employee" blogs, this really doesn't come as a surprise for me as I am old enough to have been around in 2001 when Edelman was discovered to have been sending out letters of support on behalf of Microsoft over the signatures of dead citizens.  For the record, Edelman is based in Chicago so one might even have some sort of preconceived notion that its "politics" might be aggressive.  --And,  this is the  etymology of the use of the word "astroturfing"  as an expression for a phony grassroots program. 

Hence, I'm mixed.  Edelman definitively deserves a time-out for some of its behavior.  Other behavior is standard operating procedure.   In an odd sort of way, I give Edelman credit for exploring the boundaries, but, clearly, some of their behavior is beyond the pale.   And, worse still, is making the same mistake twice, once with Microsoft and once with Walmart.  --That's not only wrong but it's also dumb. 

PRSA Seminar: What CEOs Really Know about Public Relations and How to Reach Them

I received this missive from the PRSA in today's email:

Most of us would agree with the statement that CEOs just don't get the concept of public relations, and this shouldn't be surprising, since most CEOs don't have a communications background. Adding to the disconnect is the fact that their objectives are very different from ours. If they don't understand how our activities meet their objectives, the value of our activities goes unperceived.

You will learn:
-How CEOs evaluate communications
-How to make your department's achievements speak their language
-How to connect your results with their objectives.

This is embarrassing for many different reasons:

1. A public relations person should have enough self-respect (personal and professional) not represent an organization that doesn't their role in an organization.

2. It is incumbent on the pubilc relations professional to ensure that their organization to appreciate what they do and respect how they do it.

3. Regarding "how CEOs evaluate communications," well, I'll give you a quick clue: do these communications help an organization make money? If so, good. If not, not so good.

The New York Times Sunday Magazine, 11/23/03: The Ethicist

THE ETHICIST

Honest P.R.

By RANDY COHEN
Q: I'm considering hiring a public-relations representative to promote my new business, but I worry about having him write letters for me to sign. When I read an article or a letter, I expect the name on it to be the author's. The P.R. rep argues that he is simply conveying my message more effectively than I could. But wouldn't I be lying to tack my name on his work? Tal Ziv, Honolulu

A: Context is all.

Download file

Where a good public relations person when you need one?

This is a picture that the New York Times posted on its website.

Jack L. Messman, left, the chief of Novell, and Richard Seibt, the chief of SuSE Linux, in Nuremberg, Germany, last week. Novell has made a deal to acquire SuSE.

What do we see?

Two guys who took off their suit jackets to put on some t-shirts. I'm sure the t-shirts were thought to be emblematic of the Linux ouevre.

One of the guys has a pair of safety glasses in his hand, or a pair of very unfashionable spectacles.

The short guy has a shiny face.

The background is too busy.

And, this is a picture that was sent out by the public relations team. The photo credit is: SuSE Linux. So we can't even blame it on a photographer on the loose. This was a photo staged by and chosen by the public relations team.

Pity.