Month: December 2003

Why technology will never replace face to face communication

Jeremy Pepper raises some interesting points on my follow-up RSS posting in particular that:

“RSS is another step down the slope where PR people don’t interact with humans.”

He also points out that whilst Tech PR is leading the way, for many industries, PR people’s tool of choice remains the phone.

I think these are great points.

First of all, as e-mail volumes have risen, I now find myself using the phone more often and in many cases, for all parts of my work, it’s more effective. E-mail is still number one from a volume perspective, but the phone continues to play an essential role when you need to get things done.

Furthermore, I think if we look at technologies like RSS as a means of distancing ourselves from our audience, whether that audience is media or non-media, I think we’re in trouble.  I look at RSS as a tool that may in the future increase the reach and effectiveness of information, in a world where e-mail is beginning to struggle.

What’s the most effective means of communication? Without question face-to-face is the number one. You can only build limited relationships over e-mail and indeed the phone, which is why video conferencing, often the poster child before the Internet’s rise to prominence, never took off as it was supposed to.  While it’s useful for brief meetings with people you already know, it’s not an effective medium for building relationships.

This was brought home to me a couple of years ago I had two detailed conference calls with an analyst.  The calls went well, there was a good exchange of information, but when we met him face-to-face, his first question was “What do you guys do?” – the face-to-face meeting solved that issue!

In summary, I think we should look at these technologies as a useful adjunct to the traditional disciplines of this profession, i.e. communication. It’s not a wall we’re putting up, it’s a way of increasing our reach and responding to changes in how people find information.

If RSS (in the future) helps that process then it will be used, if it doesn’t it won’t.  PR people have to be completely pragmatic.

Phil was wondering if there are any studies on the uptake of RSS. I don’t know of any, if you do please let me know. I would guess that RSS is still in the very early adopter stage.  The Technology sector normally pioneers this stuff and technology journalists are only beginning to look for RSS feeds, so I think widespread adoption is a long way off. However, we already have a large number of subscribers to our RSS feeds, so I think engineers and other IT-related end-users are already using RSS every day.

Foot in the mouth award

This year’s winner of the annual “Foot in the Mouth” award is the US Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld for this beauty:

“Reports that say that something hasn’t happened are always interesting to me, because as we know, there are known knowns; there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns � the ones we don’t know we don’t know.”

The awards are presented by the UK’s Plain English Campaign which is a pressure group demanding that public documents be written in (surprisingly enough) plain English.

My favorite previous winners are:

“I think that [the film] ‘Clueless’ was very deep. I think it was deep in the way that it was very light. I think lightness has to come from a very deep place if it’s true lightness.” – Alicia Silverstone

“I know who I am. No one else knows who I am. If I was a giraffe and somebody said I was a snake, I’d think ‘No, actually I am a giraffe.” – Richard Gere (the 2002 winner)

RSS and Public Relations Redux

Yesterday’s post on RSS generated some interesting feedback both via e-mail and the comments below. I thought it might be useful to expand on some of these areas with regard to the role of RSS in PR.

No religion required

You won’t find any zealous procrastination here.  RSS is a communications tool, pure and simple just as e-mail is a tool. It’s not the answer to the world’s ills but it is useful.

Nothing replaces good PR practice

RSS is a tool.  It’s not a replacement for good PR practice, it is simply a new communication channel. As a result, the standard set of PR activities are still required. You still need to work on building personal relationships, communicate effectively and understand market dynamics. You still need to inform and educate your audience about your client. RSS is a second stage PR technology – it comes into play when you have created awareness.

RSS is not just for Press Relations

I estimate that the majority of subscribers to our RSS feeds are not journalists, they are customers and partners. As more communication takes place online, then we (PR pros) all have to look at how we are helping our clients or employers to communicate, not just with the media, but staff, customers, partners etc. 

RSS provides a useful way to deliver information to any audience because it doesn’t clutter their inboxes and it alerts them when there’s news.

RSS behavior is unknown – so let’s make some rash assumptions

It’s too early to understand how people will use RSS feed to gather information.  As it’s still in its formative stages we can only guess.  So here’s my prediction.

People will group relevant RSS feeds together.  If we take the example of a journalist with a range of technology beats, they might have one group for Web Services, one group for Operating Systems etc. By simply clicking on the RSS group they can immediately see which companies have made announcements.  If you group your RSS feeds by sector, you can include large, medium and small organizations and in seconds have a view of the latest developments across an entire sector.

I think people will subscribe to company feeds if those companies are relevant (and obviously they are aware of them).

RSS is new…

The truth is we don’t know how effective it will ultimately become, however we do know that people are already using them and a growing number of companies are providing them.  Back in the early 1990’s the number of people with e-mail was relatively small, but that didn’t mean we didn’t need e-mail!

PR is a complex business that often involves a leap of faith, sometimes a story you think is a killer never gets picked up, sometimes a small story spreads like wildfire.  Advertising is guaranteed, PR is a little more unpredictable. Give RSS a try, if you’re unhappy with the results, don’t use it.

All I can share with you is my own experience with RSS, which to date has been very positive. We simply treat it as another distribution channel along with our in-house lists, our wire service etc.

UPDATE: EWeek have an interesting case study on how a technology firm, Triple Point Technology, is using RSS to maximize communication across departments.

When is an PR RSS feed appropriate?

I just had an interesting e-mail discussion with a friend of mine regarding when it’s appropriate to have an RSS feed.

He is working with a client and has encouraged them to provide an RSS feed for corporate news. All good right and true so far…

However, they were a little sceptical.  As a small company they only have probably a limited number of news items every month – two on average and they are concerned that it doesn’t warrant an RSS feed.

My advice is that there is no critical barrier on the number of news items you push down your RSS feed. The beauty of RSS, is that even if you only publish an item every six weeks, your audience’s RSS reader will flag the new item as it’s published.

We don’t really know at this point how people will use RSS readers, however it’s very likely that individuals will subscribe to companies they track and even small companies can participate.

There may even be a role for PR agencies here, just as with the G2B Group example last month, where journalists subscribe to agency RSS feeds, and there they can read about all the clients – or as Elizabeth Albrycht has suggested, the agency could provide sectoral feeds for “Semiconductors”, “Developer Tools”, “Gardening Tools” etc.

This stuff is still in its formative stages, but journalists (primarily tech to date) are already using it.  Can you afford to ignore any audience? Remember it’s not the size of your RSS feed, it’s the quality 🙂

Hiding the news under a bushel (so to speak)

Reuters takes a look at the time-honored practice of hiding bad news.

It seems a lot of PR people were busy breaking bad news last week while the rest of the country were tucking into cooked Turkey. 

Among the companies use the holiday period to cushion bad news were: Federated Investors Inc.  (PDF) (Tuesday night – results of an internal investigation), Lumenis (A stock exchange de-listing notice on Wednesday after trading closed), Microlog (Loss of government contract), Visteon (New CFO not joining).  Interestingly the stock in all these companies, other than Federated Investors, suffered heavy reverses on Friday even though it was a shortened trading day.

Now in fairness, many of these firms may have had legal requirements to get this news out, regardless of the timing.  SEC regulations don’t give you a lot of flexibility on timing, however timing is a well known weapon of news squashing. If I remember correctly, the UK government was accused of using the Queen Mother’s death to hide some bad news (I think the allegation was unproven).

However, while these quiet time announcements *may* reduce short-term column inches, does it help organizations in the long run?

Communication is a long-term process.  This means that it includes the good and the bad.  If you don’t front up the bad news, your audience might feel a little aggrieved. A more rounded, mature approach to dealing with bad news can often prove more beneficial.

To dust off the academic case study, Tylenol’s handling of their tampered drugs issue got them more positive press and perception than probably any of their “good news” communication.  Bad news is a fact of (business) life, what seperates the good from the ugly is the ability to communicate well is hard times while being professional enough to claim mea culpa when it’s required.

“That (releasing bad news during holiday periods) kind of ploy can really break down confidence and trust,” said Michael Morley, deputy chairman for PR firm Edelman.