Month: May 2003

There’s a lot of new content online about how blogs can assist organizations in communicating online. 

Allan Karl, founder of Wirestone believes that weblogs might succeed where corporate websites have failed, namely in communicating in a voice that is clear and representative of the organization. [Thanks to Adrants for the link]

Rich Karpinski’s piece in BtoB magazine echoes these sentiments in a story on Weblogs and E-mail, again reinforcing the benefit of a human voice.

And sharing in the view that weblogs promote the ideals of the Cluetrain Manifesto, Opt-in News has an article from Todd Brehe on how blogs can work with corporate newsletters.

The message that blogs serve a useful purpose in connecting with your audience is gathering momentum.  Now might be a good time to see how they might assist your organization. 

I came across an interesting press release on a (non-scientific) survey of 120 Financial journalists that investigated how they are using the Internet. (92% visit web sites, only 37% visit press rooms).

I thought they might have more information on their web site, so I went up to Thompson Becker International [FLASH Warning]. Not only is there no more information on the survey, not only are they using a horrendous Flash intro – and Flash for navigation, but there is no mention of the survey on their web site…. This is not good communications practice. If you’re putting out a press release make sure you have it on your web site with any additional information. This is not advanced PR advice here.

I am delighted to add Thompson Becker to the growing Flash Hall of Shame.  Today, I am also adding Cordiant, Incepta and In Context. 

Just in case you thought things were getting back to normal, recent results from some of the major advertising-PR conglomerates make for difficult reading. 

Of course these results could be indicative of a fundamental flaw in the belief that bigger is better – particularly in the PR agency business – but all the same it’s a lot of practitioners who have lost their jobs.We’re not out of the woods yet.

Interpublic have made over 1,400 people redundant and today Larry Weber has stepped down not to mention their recent loss for Q1.

Incepta [FLASH Warning] has made a loss of �30 million.

Cordiant [FLASH Warning] has troubles of it’s own with debts of �250 million.  As reported yesterday, it looks certain that Financial Dynamics will buy it’s way out of the group and the UK Guardian has an interesting timeline on Cordiant’s downward spiral.

FYI…Meanwhile here’s an interesting piece from last year in the UK’s Daily Telegraph on the PR industry’s difficulties. 

The Hill, a newspaper for US congress is running an interesting PR supplement. Articles cover topics like media relations, Activism and the Washington DC PR test.

Hong Kong has hired a US-based PR firm to address the negative effects of SARS. PR Week has a feature on the impact of SARS.

Financial Dynamics’ MBO from it’s parent Cordiant (FLASH warning) is imminent. More at PR Week and the FT.

 

“If there’s anything more important than my ego around, I want it caught and shot now.”

“Arthur hoped and prayed that there wasn’t an afterlife. Then he realised there was a contradiction there and merely hoped that there wasn’t an afterlife.”

When the unexpected occurs and a crisis rears its ugly head, sensible PR practice teaches us that full and early disclosure is the best course of action.

In what may well become a case study of it’s kind.  The New York Times yesterday disclosed that one of its staff reporters, Jayson Blair, “committed frequent acts of journalistic fraud while covering significant news events in recent months.”

In a report on the issue, the Times disclosed detailed information on an internal investigation into Blair’s reporting, including some damning findings into how this occured such as “a failure of communication among senior editors.”

The article describes the event as a “low point in the 152-year history of the newspaper” and an editorial states that: “The Times regrets that it did not detect the journalistic deceptions sooner. A separate internal inquiry, by the management, will examine the newsroom’s processes for training, assignment and accountability.” 

I think it’s a very interesting case study, and the Times’ full disclosure of the issue is to its credit.

It’s worth a read this morning. 

What happens when your founder leaves the company that shares their name? The eponymously named Sterling Hager PR firm were faced with just that problem when Mr. Hager took the decision to get out of the PR business. The senior management team at the firm have migrated all the staff and clients to a new firm called Shift Communications. The former firm’s website has been consigned to the fantastic Wayback Machine.

PR Week reports on how to manage the departure of a senior executive and also looks at how Wal-Mart is preparing a PR offensive in advance of potentially the largest employee discrimination case in the US.

Vocus have announced that Mensa have chosen their PR management software. I hope at this stage Vocus have started using their own software as five months on, I still haven’t heard from them…

Finally, while I was doing some research on domain name issues, I happened across a very useful resource for any practitioners who might be facing issues from people hijacking derivitives of your domain name such as Acmesucks.com. The World Intellectual Property Organization has some very sensible guidelines.

Quiet news day today. 

Mediamap’s ExpertPR newsletter is going monthly. The latest issue has an interesting story on how the Catholic Church’s PR advisor in Boston managed their crisis. It also looks at alternative media outlets and preparing for future product announcements.

LexisNexis’ The Scoop newsletter this month interviews Richard Laermer, co-author of  the latest PR book, Full Frontal PR. They include a review and ExpertPR have reviewed it also.