Day: July 10, 2003

People.  It is time we all took stock on the online environment.

Information flows, therefore we must be careful to ensure sensitive information, plans etc. that are within our control are managed. There’s enough information out there that we can’t control, without adding to it ourselves.

Elizabeth Albrycht, who so kindly alerted me to my “no comment” issue, has sent me a link from Internet Week to another PR blunder. 

While AMD were kindly pre-announcing their product plans for the rest of the year, Auto-ID Center, a research group affiliated with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, has mistakenly released documents from Fleishman-Hillard, on how to “neutralize opposition” and respond to potential privacy concerns from the public and media.

Nice. Personally I can’t wait to see the follow up on neutralizing leaked information.

Postscript:

Now I know that you are all dying to have a look at these documents, because I am. And of course they have been removed from the Auto-ID website, but they are still available thanks to the wonder of the Internet. Here’s the F-H presentation on Managing External Communications (PDF) and other leaked documents are available at the website of the snappily named Consumers Against Supermarket Privacy Invasion and Numbering or CASPIAN.

Radio Userland has decided, for no obvious reason, that it no longer wishes to take your comments. It’s not personal, honest.

This technical glitch, which was kindly pointed out by Elizabeth Albrycht, will I am sure absorb a lot of what otherwise would be productive time. I just love it when software decides to fall over.

I’m not a departing Userland employee so that removes one possibility, now I just have to nail down, 4,500 other inter-related possibilities.

In the meantime, if you are kind enough to want to comment on any of the trivia you find here, drop me an e-mail.

 The Inquirer takes its usual cynical look at PR, this time the AMD mishap we discussed yesterday. “But being a spin doctor or spinaret is a very high risk job. You’re there to take the blame when things don’t go right. It’s always nice to have a scapegoat with a kickable butt, and the poor PR folk are nearly always the ones who get the thorough kicking.”

 Deborah Barnscum has taken some time out of her vacation to post some typically thought provoking items. She includes a link to a piece from MediaBistro on how an Editor views pitches from freelancers. And you thought you had challenges! “You know that major story that everybody’s going to be writing about? We’ve already assigned it to one of our high-paid contract writers. You don’t have a chance.”

 The Sydney Morning Herald has an article on how advertisers are coming to terms with corporate social responsibility.

 

Vocus, in their own words “the market leader in online software for corporate communications”, has purchased PRAnywhere from LexisNexis. PRAnywhere was previously Press Access.