Context & Continuity

NYTimes, 7.18.10: Another Message from the Internet's Shores of Discontent

Then the third of today's articles in the NYTimes that forwards its Technology and its Discontents series, there comes the essay from the backpage of the Sunday Book Review, Only Disconnect.  I can highly recommend the essay by Gary Shteyngart.  And you just received bonus points for remembering that, earlier today, I posted an interview w/ Shteyngart that ran in today's Sunday New York Times.   That means that the NYT's awarded Shteyngart SuperHero status an is letting us know that, for this week, he's the one to watch.  Observe:

As of two weeks ago, I am a Facebooking twit. With each post, each tap of the screen, each drag and click, I am becoming a different person — solitary where I was once gregarious; a content provider where I at least once imagined myself an artist; nervous and constantly updated where I once knew the world through sleepy, half-shut eyes; detail-oriented and productive where I once saw life float by like a gorgeously made documentary film. And, increasingly, irrevocably, I am a stranger to books, to the long-form text, to the pleasures of leaving myself and inhabiting the free-floating consciousness of another.

I am sitting underneath a tree beside a sturdy summer cottage rebuilt by an ingenious Swedish woman. The birds are twittering, but in a slightly different way than my New York friends. I open a novel, “A Short History of Women,” by Kate Walbert, a book I will grow to love over the coming week, but at first my data-addled brain is puzzled by the density and length of it (256 pages? how many screens will that fill?), the onrush of feeling and fact, the surprise that someone has let me not into her Facebook account but into the way other minds work. I read and reread the first two pages understanding nothing. [more]

Facebook Creates Own International Currency.

How big is Facebook?  Are you sure you want to know?  Really?  Then ask yourself a question:  Does the company you work for have its own currenny, i.e. its own money accepted around the world? 

Let's say you work for one of the large companies in Silicon Valley:  Cisco.  Does Cisco have its own currency?  No.  Or another company here in the Bay Area, Safeway.  Safeway comes close because it has its own prepaid cards, and that's what Facebook is creating with the help of a company in Malaysia.  (Malaysia?  Great company, but why go so far to create Facebook Credits?  Oh, of course.  It's off shore.) 

Here's the quick reporting from Business Week / Bloomberg:

Facebook users may buy credits to use in games such as Farmville, developed by San Francisco, California-based Zynga Game Network Inc., which attracts more than 62 million players monthly, according to Facebook’s website.

MOLPoints will be available in cybercafés, 7-Eleven Inc. convenience stores and online banks...

Some of us, well that would be me, aren't quite sure we (I) understand the notion of life in this new fangled virtual world.  If that's the case for you, perhaps you'll want to follow my lead and spend some time digesting the new issue of First Monday, an online publication you really ought to learn more about and appreciate.  In the current edition, one finds the following stories:

Seller Activity in the Virtual Marketplace

My Life as a Night Elf Priest: An Anthropological Account of World of Warcraft

And this very interesting article,

Pirates of Silicon Valley: State of exception and dispossession in Web 2.0

Which includes this gem

Our conclusion is then that the definitions of and attitudes towards legitimate piracy is very much in the air right now.

Indeed.

Overall, please visit First Monday.

This Just In: Press Releases Are Boring.

Todd Wasserman, crack reporter at Brandweek has made a discovery:  press releases are boring.  Mr. Wasserman has written what's probably an amusing analysis of the contemporary press release and I wish I had the distance from the subject to laugh out loud but I have way too much invested in the subject.  Perhaps you can find at chuckle in the following excerpt:

Imagine, if you will, that a friend of yours has come over for supper. Stepping through your front door, he tells you, “I’m very excited by this opportunity to attend dinner. Dinner is a wonderful tradition that is enjoyed by citizens of every nationality throughout the world. I expect this meal to fulfill my goal of nourishing myself between the hours of 5 and midnight.” Then, after you sit down and offer him a chicken leg, he announces, “Chicken brings a unique combination of taste and nutrition to the equation. I’m confident that its proteins and fats will stimulate my digestive system.”

By this point, you’d hopefully boot this weirdo out of the house. After all, what kind of person talks like that? Well, no one—nobody in real life, at least. But this is exactly the kind of language you’ll find in most any quote within a press release.  [more]

What Mr. Wasserman describes has been a business opportunity for me for the past twenty years.  I never could understand why press releases had to be boring other than a lack of imagination on the part of the public relations guy.  Sometimes, my clients initially resisted the idea of a press release that was so different than what they were used to, but, after the sales staff checked in with their enthusiasm for the new voice, debate ceased.  So, I feel good about boring press release.  They make my work look great.  

What the Hell Were They Thinking? Spotlight on Duncan Boothby

So, the General McChrystal contretemps has claimed its first body, Duncan Boothby, who may or may not be pictured wearing the jacket in the picture accompanying this post.  Rather a shame, really. 

Duncan Boothby was the civilian press aide to General McChrystal and it was apparently Mr. Boothby who was responsible for booking and managing the interview between General McChrystal and Mr. Michael Hastings of Rolling Stone.  Okay.  Let's think about this for a minute. 

First, I'm somewhat cheered to know a hard working public relations guy can get a sweet gig like representing General McChrystal without having to learn how to shoot a gun or dig a foxhole.  I'm ok with that.  Really. 

Second, Let's play back the tape.  One fine day, Mr. Boothby bounds into General McChrystal's office and says,  "Hey Stan!  I've got a great idea!  This guy at Rolling Stone wants to profile you!  It could be AWESOME!"  If so, then shame on General McChrystal for stepping into that steaming pile waiting for him.  Please.  What part of "Hunter S. Thompson used to write for Rolling Stone" don't you understand.  Of course Mr. Boothby would be culpable for being as dumb as a post, but alas, this is a condition all too common in my line of work. 

Third, let's assume that Mr. Boothby was dragged kicking and screaming into the opportunity by General McChrystal's outsized ego (which I think is a fine thing in a soldier).  Let's say that the General and other parties involved thought they could "control" the opportunity.  Then let's play out the scenario that Mr. Boothby was in the room when this dialog took place:

"Who's he going to dinner with?" I ask one of his aides.

"Some French minister," the aide tells me. "It's fucking gay."

Let me give you an insider's perspective on what should happen next because I've been shoulder-to-shoulder with a couple of spokespeople when they've let similar words fly out of their mouths.  In this situation, a great public relations executive is able to self-induce a heart attack and / or projectile vomiting.  Nothing changes the topic faster than someone collapsing to the floor and turning blue.  Short of that, being covered in someone else's lunch will suffice.  --I know what I'm talking about here.  Apparently, Mr. Boothby was unable to effect this change in the vibe and I don't hold that against him.  But Mr. Boothby let the tape run.  Some time after the first piece of evidence that the "opportunity" might not be going well, Mr. Boothby had a professional obligation to call a stop to everything and limit the damage.  --Well that didn't happen, did it?

Here's the bottom line:  I don't know Duncan Boothby from Adam and I certainly can't speak to his professional qualifications.  What I can notice is the same thing you can notice:  General McChrystal and his staff -- and probably Mr. Boothby too -- demonstrated an appalling lack of common sense.  But if it was General McChrystal's idea to hide behind Duncan Boothby's limp body, then shame on him.  There's no doubt in my mind that if I were in a firefight, I would do whatever General McChrystal ordered.  Apparently, General McChrystal doesn't understand that Washington D.C. is more dangerous than Kandahar. 

TechCrunch, 5.24.10: Carol Bartz To Michael Arrington: “F*ck Off!”

Many people have said many things about high tech public relations, but no one ever said it's easy or without risk -- or reward.  Michael Arrington has been holding sway over the high tech journo pack for a couple of years now, coming out of no where and creating a lovely perch for himself.  Now, we be able to see the inflection point in high reign. 

Mike met up with Carol Bartz, CEO of Yahoo, at one of Mike's conferences. According to the transcript on Mike's site, Mike ran true to form.  

MA: So how the fuck are you?

And it went downhill from there.  But much to Bartz's credit, she was not cowed nor did she shirk from the opportunity to serve Mr. Arrington some of his own medicine. 

MA: Is your pitch kind of BS though?

CB: Steve Jobs came back to Apple in 1997 — the iPod came out 4 years later. 3 years after that is the first time his market cap grew. It took 7 years. I’ve been here a few months. Give me a break. You are involved in a very tiny company.

MA: Very tiny.

CB: It probably takes you a long time just to convince yourself what to do. So fuck off. 

I haven't administered the survey to my peers yet, but I'm fairly certain any number of PR folks are ready to greet Bartz with a high five.  

TechCrunch transcript here.

NYRB, 6.10.10: The Failure of the American Jewish Establishment

A very interesting article about U.S. Jews and Zionism and Israel.  The article begins with a story about a 2003 survey of U.S. Jews attending college and why they weren't more actively rebutting criticism of Israel.  The study was funded by U.S. Jewish philanthropists and conducted by the Republican pollster, Frank Luntz.     

Most of the students, in other words, were liberals, broadly defined. They had imbibed some of the defining values of American Jewish political culture: a belief in open debate, a skepticism about military force, a commitment to human rights. And in their innocence, they did not realize that they were supposed to shed those values when it came to Israel. The only kind of Zionism they found attractive was a Zionism that recognized Palestinians as deserving of dignity and capable of peace, and they were quite willing to condemn an Israeli government that did not share those beliefs. Luntz did not grasp the irony. The only kind of Zionism they found attractive was the kind that the American Jewish establishment has been working against for most of their lives.

...

But the message of the American Jewish establishment and its allies in the Netanyahu government is exactly the opposite: since Jews are history’s permanent victims, always on the knife-edge of extinction, moral responsibility is a luxury Israel does not have. Its only responsibility is to survive. As former Knesset speaker Avraham Burg writes in his remarkable 2008 book, The Holocaust Is Over; We Must Rise From Its Ashes, “Victimhood sets you free.”

[more]

Right now, and for some time now, I've resisted holding an opinion about Zionism.  My personal background is rather ... unorthodox (pun intended).  Therefore, I try my best not to rush to judgment about this lightening rod issue. I have some opinions left over from my Early Years that still color my current view.  But even at this juncture in my life, I am torn so I'll flatter myself with the time worn quote from F. Scott Fitzgerald:

The test of a first rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time, and still retain the ability to function.

"We'd like your cooperation..."

Google can't seem to keep itself out of the hot zone.  Today, Google has decides to become "transparent" regarding government requests for information about people who use Google services and requests from governments for Google to take down information that's posted to its services. 

You can see the map of requests here:

http://www.google.com/governmentrequests/

From this we learn that the U.S. is second to Brazil in requests for information about people who use Google services.  During the period between July 1, 2009 and December 31, 2009, Brazil made 3663 requests and our United States made 3580 requests for information about people using Google services. "Why Brazil?" you may ask.  That's an interesting story having to do with Google's social networking service called Orkut which never made a single dent in the U.S. market but, for reasons having to do with the serendipity of social networking caught fire in Brazil and now Orkut is, for the most part, a Brazilian / Portuguese-speaking social networking site.  (Odd how these things work out, eh?)  

So, the United States made 3580 requests for data and 123 removal requests.  According to Google, it complied with 80.5% of the removal requests fully or partially.  Of those requests that Google complied with sixty-three regarded YouTube videos and seven additional YouTube videos were removed by court order.  

Of course, we're describing requests for information that have traveled over the internet and anyone who knows anything about the internet probably knows that the NSA can grab anything that crosses a piece of fiber or copper or the air so these official request numbers are very interesting but might as well be a red herring. 

Then, there was the news from the Wall Street Journal yesterday that privacy officials from ten countries demanding that Google build in more privacy.  You can read the .pdf of the letter here:  Letter to Eric Schmidt from Ten Countries

What interests me the most is that these diplomats are getting down to business, very specific business, by the second paragraph and on to the third:

However, we are increasingly concerned that, too often, the privacy rights of the world's citizens are being forgotten as Google rolls out new technological applications.  We were disturbed by your recent rollout of new technological applications.  We were disturbed by your recent rollout of the Google Buzz social networking application, which betrayed a disappoint9ing disregard for fundamental privacy norms and laws.   Moreover, this was not the first time you have failed to take adequate account of privacy considerations when launching new services. 

Wow.  Just wow.

Now you'll have to excuse me so I can find a solid VPN provider and get back up-to-speed on PGP. 

 

McKinsey Quarterly, April 10: A new way to measure word-of-mouth marketing

A reminder of the obvious. 

Indeed, word of mouth is the primary factor behind 20 to 50 percent of all purchasing decisions. Its influence is greatest when consumers are buying a product for the first time or when products are relatively expensive, factors that tend to make people conduct more research, seek more opinions, and deliberate longer than they otherwise would. And its influence will probably grow: the digital revolution has amplified and accelerated its reach to the point where word of mouth is no longer an act of intimate, one-on-one communication. Today, it also operates on a one-to-many basis: product reviews are posted online and opinions disseminated through social networks. Some customers even create Web sites or blogs to praise or punish brands.

As online communities increase in size, number, and character, marketers have come to recognize word of mouth’s growing importance. But measuring and managing it is far from easy. We believe that word of mouth can be dissected to understand exactly what makes it effective and that its impact can be measured using what we call “word-of-mouth equity”—an index of a brand’s power to generate messages that influence the consumer’s decision to purchase. Understanding how and why messages work allows marketers to craft a coordinated, consistent response that reaches the right people with the right content in the right setting. That generates an exponentially greater impact on the products consumers recommend, buy, and become loyal to.

[more]

What You Should Have Read in this Sunday's NYTimes

Out of the Loop in Silicon Valley

Oh.  Someone noticed that women don't rise to the top in Silicon Valley.  My opinion is that this particular ... situation isn't restricted to the wonderland of Silicon Valley, but from sea to shining sea.  America has high expectations on our "new" culture and values.  That doesn't excuse us, but it doesn't let us off the hook either.

Another potential backer invited her for a weekend yachting excursion by showing her a picture of himself on the boat — without clothes. When a third financier discovered that her husband was also a biking enthusiast, she says, he spent more time asking if riding affected her husband’s reproductive capabilities than he did focusing on her business plan.

Ultimately, none of the 30 venture firms she pitched financed her company. She finally raised $1.8 million in March 2008 from angel investors including Golden Seeds, a fund that emphasizes investing in start-ups led by women.

[more]

Eve of Destruction

A book review by Michael Gross of Michael Lewis and Roger Lowenstiein take us backstage on Wall Street. So if you’re showing up late to this party, you had better come either with a strikingly original take that offers an enhanced understanding of the debacle or with an elegantly constructed narrative that covers the story from origins to bailout. Michael Lewis has done the former; Roger Lowenstein has done the latter.

[more] 

I've been following Mr. Lewis appearances in the media and he's perfectly perfect in his enthusiasm for the topics he covers.  It's reminds me of George Plimpton, the guy who knew he was the luckiest guy in the world because he wrote about everything that interested him. 

Indecision-Making

Book Review by Virginia Postrel

A congenial writer, Iyengar is less hard-edged and ideological than Schwartz and less glib than Malcolm Gladwell, who she says encouraged her to write this book. “The Art of Choosing” should appeal to fans of both writers. It’s full of the experimental results that make for good cocktail party chatter, but it offers fewer explicit lessons. Iyengar favors exploration over conclusions. “Isn’t this interesting?” she asks, rather than “Isn’t this awful?” or “Isn’t this useful?”

[more] 

This is very reminiscent of John Gardner's Grendel: Alternatives exclude.

Welcome to Confederate History Month

by Frank Rich

Most Americans who don’t like Obama or the health care bill are not racists. It may be a closer call among Tea Partiers, of whom only 1 percent are black, according to last week's much dissected Times/CBS News poll. That same survey found that 52 percent of Tea Party followers feel “too much” has been made of the problems facing black people — nearly twice the national average. And that’s just those who admit to it. Whatever their number, those who are threatened and enraged by the new Obama order are volatile. Conservative politicians are taking a walk on the wild side by coddling and encouraging them, whatever the short-term political gain.

[more]

Russia and Poland: A Blood Feud Rooted Deep in the Past

Russians who hoped for reconciliation saw reason for optimism. Alexey Vasilyev, deputy director of the Russian Institute for Cultural Research, went to Poland’s embassy. “This is a tragedy that can join us, that can unite our two countries,” he said. “All of us who love Poland and Russia’s friendship with Poland want this to happen.”

[more]

The Agency of the Future: Be Still My Heart

I refuse to go into much detail on this as I having a paying client to serve, but I must bring this article to your attention, if for nothing else to cause you distress or amusement.  Your choice.

Ms. Jodi Harris, who we can tell from her picture, is not some wizened much less long time experienced observer of the Public Relation scene, reports on a speech by Bryan Weiner, CEO of 360i made at something called the IAB Ecosystem conference held last week in Carlsbad, Calif.  Her reporting includes the following:

"It's time to leave the pessimism behind. This represents an unprecedented opportunity for agencies to become indispensable marketing partners," said Weiner...

Not to be too catty, but I've always believed deeply in my heart that pessimism was Very Counter Productive for agency life.  

If marketers want to radically impact change in the marketing ecosystem, it starts with how you allocate dollars.

Well, that's Painfully Obvious for some of us who have toiled in the Public Relations fields for almost any length of time. 

Think about how your property can serve as a conduit for deeper interactions between brands and consumers.

I'm just going to leave this nugget from Ms. Harris in the file marked "cryptic."

Here's a real good one:

Yet the fact remains: Advertising is about getting consumers to be product and service advocates. To be able to do that today, agencies need to find innovative solutions, and do so at reasonable prices.

I double dare you to walk into the cube of anyone responsible for spending precious corporate dollars on advertising to support this idea.  I have met and worked with the folks, some from our most highly esteemed companies and can honest report to you that advertising is about selling more stuff to more people.  Nevertheless, as a Public Relations guy, I'm happy for anyone to take a shot at Advertising.

As Weiner sees it, the model for the agency of the future doesn't exist yet, but marketers can help create it in their own environments by focusing all their efforts toward meeting client needs.

Well, that's probably why the speech is about the Agency of the (wait for it) ...Future.

Again, I apologize in advance for taking such a cheap shot at this reporter and the story.  I'm an almost old and certainly crusty PR guy who has seen how the business works (and doesn't work) and I become annoyed when people who obviously have know idea what they're talking about blow some of their bloviation in my direction. 

[link to story]

That's all for now except to wish you a great weekend. 

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. 

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. 

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.

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