Day: August 10, 2005

After an incredible amount of hard work by a whole range of people , the program for the second Global PR Blog Week has been released.

This year’s event will take place on the 19th to the 23rd of September, 2005 and it’s highly recommended as a unique collection of free PR content, advice and opinions.

I believe special thanks should go to Constantin Basturea who, as always, has invested a lot of personal time in getting the program up and running.

ZDNet journalist David Berlind poses a number of interesting questions in a recent posting. In particular he tackles the spectrum of journalists and bloggers and their willingness (or not) to publish and be damned (i.e. don’t let the facts get in the way of a good story). He also asks can PR people adapt to shorter news cycles, and in particular the instant deadlines imposed by blogs.

These are interesting questions, particularly for anyone involved in communications on behalf of individuals or organizations.

First and foremost, I believe that, for the most part, journalists and bloggers who take the time to check their facts will, over time, attract a wider audience than those just willing to post any unsubstantiated rubbish online. Credibility is important in any communications medium and the Internet, and faster turnaround, does not change that. There are exceptions. The Internet provides the perfect medium for connecting like minded individuals. As a result if “Group A” find an unsubstantiated rumor that attacks “Group B”, then many of the participants in Group A will be happy to publish, read and discuss that rumor regardless of its basis in fact. But for the majority, credibility is not a commodity.

On the question of PR people meeting the needs on online publishing, there is no question we can do a better job turning around queries. However, there needs to be a sense of realism here. There are limited resources available, executives have busy schedules and sometimes there are valid reasons why certain information takes longer to produce. So while PR people need to raise the bar, I also believe that there needs to be some agreed rules of engagement around what is an acceptable turnaround time for an incoming request. I’m sure we’ve all been victim to an incoming request for comment at 5.45pm for a deadline of 6pm which has been specifically delayed to try and get a rushed response or worse an “unavailable for comment”.

There are going to be speedbumps as we evolve into new publishing cycles, however it will only work if we agree some standard rules of engagement for the behavior of both parties.

More on David’s post from Andy Lark and Jeremy Pepper.

I am having RSS-induced guilt. All this unread PR content… maybe I should just stop taking vacation….

• Colin McKay points to a very interesting “Crisis Response and Communications Planning” manual prepared by the Department of Plant Agriculture at the University of Guelph in Canada for the Ontario Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs.

• Excuse me as I sit back and reminisce for a moment. When I started this blog there were only a handful of PR people blogging and one of the first was Phil Gomes. It turns out Phil has landed a new job at Edelman where he will be “Senior Counsel, Online Communications”. Heartfelt congratulations to Phil and to Edelman.

• Phil also has a post on the latest corporation to take the heavy handed (and myopic) approach to effective media relations. More on Google’s misdirected PR efforts here. Here’s a recent post that outlines my views on this practice.

• Jim Horton takes a shot at critically analyzing the Future of Media Relations. The PDF is available here.

• On a related subject, Chen PR‘s Randy Wambald has some comments on the evolving nature of media relations today.

• McClenahan Bruer have an interesting marketing measurement case study from Textronix. You can even request a copy of the slides.

• Issue #57 of For Immediate Release, the world’s foremost PR podcast :-), is now available for download.

• PR blogger, Steve Lubetkin is interviewed in the New Jersey Star Ledger providing some sound advice to PR professionals who find themselves unemployed.

• TM Writes: This post highlights the danger of not paying the correct attention to detail. Andrew Smith kindly pointed out this story is from (ahem) five years ago. My sincere apologies to Firefly [Website]Now this is one of those time-sensitive posts that will in the next few days probably become irrelevant. It seems UK PR firm Firefly has gotten into something of a ruckus with our favorite irreverent IT pub The Register, who questions the validity of findings that Firefly are the UK’s #1 agency with journalists. At the time of writing the Firefly site (as referenced in the story) is down. The Google approach is gathering momentum.
• BL Ochman compares the blogging policies of IBM and Sun. [IBM’s public policy | Sun’s public policy]

• Duncan Chapple shares four very accurate myths about Analyst Relations.

• The Dallas Morning News has a story on how firms are increasingly recognizing the potential of blogs.

• A little off topic, but an interesting story from CNET on the top ten flops of the bubble. This is certainly of interest for those of us with a morbid fascination in that extraordinary period. The top five are Webvan, Pets.com, Kozmo, Flooz and eToys.

In the latest installment of “new PR business development” advice, here’s another little nugget.

If you’re sending out a newsletter promoting your PR expertise to prospects, it’s probably a worthwhile exercise to clean your mailing list before you send it, to show you have a little “mail merge expertise”.

Sending seven unsolicited copies of the same e-mail over a period of two hours, probably isn’t the best showcase of your “expertise” – regardless of how good your content, skills, experience and track record are.

Well the number of PR blogs continues to (thankfully) grow…

• Hill and Knowlton has launched Collective Conversations, a centralized portal for employee blogs. Currently there are contributions from Niall Cook (a long-time blogger), Chris Colby and Guy Howard.
• There’s a new UK Marketing/PR blog from Arlo Guthrie of firm “Consult the Guru”. Thanks to Drew for the link!

If there are any I’ve missed (not on the blogroll) let me know.

There’s fantastic news that New York PR Pro Shari Kurzrok who was critically ill and in need of a liver transplant, had a successful operation last weekend, and while she is still in ICU, she is making good progress.

Our thoughts are with her on her road to recovery.

You can keep up to date on Shari’s progress on the blog.