Day: June 9, 2003

 One of the major challenges the Internet poses for PR practitioners is that it removes many of the barriers that traditionally protected information.  Protected it, that is, until you were ready to release it. But now information has a life of it’s own and your ability to control it is much reduced.  Look at this story in Wired about how this Wall St. Journal conference issued embargoes to all attending journalists, but forget about the bloggers in the audience, who reported on the event in real-time.

“We’re trying to figure out what to do next year,” he said. “It’s an interesting issue. You just have to have a better definition next time. Maybe we’ll change the rules. We don’t know.”

 One of the issues for everyone in PR moving forward is identifying how stories and information move around the weblog community. The folks at Microdoc news have researched how a number of stories propogated around webogs and the web.

 The New York Times isn’t the only newspaper with some reporter-related issues.  According to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch a sports writer and movie reviewer for the Sedalia Democrat has been fired for plagiarism.

 Spam isn’t killing e-mail.  If you target the right people, with the right information at the right time, e-mail is still very effective.

 Mandy Grunwald examines why the media has such a hard time handling PR in the wake of the New York Times debacle.

 Media Life has an interesting analysis of how trade magazines are faring and it doesn’t make for pleasant reading. While consumer magazines are finding the Internet is a useful companion to print editions, it seems the Internet is eating into trade magazine advertising and readership thanks to the faster delivery of news online.

 PR around the year’s most awaited book launch is gathering momentum.

 Darren Barefoot has kicked off a blog for professional communicators.  The blog plans to cover PR and more general communications topics.

 Pam Stein from Clientize.com dropped me a line to tell me about a website her firm is hosting.  The PR Survey Observer is a “free survey resource center designed to help PR pros and communications managers identify newsworthy survey techniques.” You can search under a variety of topics for different surveys. Clientize create and host surveys online. 

 Indianapolis’ Mayor has decided to hire a New York firm to bolster the city’s image and the locals are getting restless.

With a combination of good timing, great preparation and a little luck, certain PR tactics will exceed your greatest expectations.  Human nature tells us to repeat these tactics again and again, but most times the law of diminishing returns kicks in swiftly and the return from those tactics lessens.  When that happens it might be worthwhile to re-evaluate how your tactics are working and look for some new tactics.

Microsoft is a case in point.

Microsoft is an amazing company.  A company that has been built with clever engineering, a little luck and fantastic marketing. If any company provides a template for how Public Relations can successfully support commercial growth, Microsoft is it. Sure from time-to-time mishaps like the iLoo slip out, but they just serve to underline how effective the Microsoft PR machine is.

However, I think it’s time Microsoft revisited some of it’s tried and tested techniques.  Their CEO memo, which is “leaked” to every major news organization on the face of the planet, used to provide Microsoft staff and the market – customers, partners, competitors and media – with a clear roadmap of where Microsoft was going to put focus – and thereby win. These memos have in the past helped to turn the market to Microsoft’s advantage.  A perfect example of this power was Bill Gates’ memo in 1995 that concerned Netscape. The market took notice and Microsoft took market share.

However in recent times these memos have had a reduced affect on the market.  The latest CEO memo from Steve Ballmer, which hit last week, targeted Linux –  “Linux in particular, present a competitive challenge for us and for our entire industry” .  But this message jars with earlier messages about Linux. 

In April, according to Ballmer, Microsoft wasn’t losing any sleep over Linux. And last November, internal research (leaked) showed that Microsoft’s negatice stance on Linux was backfiring. 

I am not a believer in mentioning your competition, particularly when you are a leader. Where in the past these proclamations have helped to destabilize competitors, it would appear that certainly in the case of Linux, it is unsuccessful.

Some advice to Microsoft, measure the effectiveness, if it’s not working, change the tactic. Slagging off Linux is playing into your competitiors’ hands. The old tactics that worked in the past are no longer relevant, it’s time to reinvent some new ones. If there’s any PR machine that can do that, it has to be Microsoft.