Category: General

John Markoff has been around for quite some time writing about technology in the trades and then moving on to newpapers and for the past ten years the New York Times.

The Online Journalism Review has an intriguing interview with Markoff asking his views on new technology and how it will affect journalism.

His pragmatism is refreshing, though I note he’s already had some negative feedback from some notable bloggers.

He represents the alternate end of the spectrum from these people and I think we’ll find he’s right about many things.

Technology follows well worn paths of adoption and even though changes happen faster and more frequently these days, they still don’t happen as soon as everyone thinks.

If that were the case IBM wouldn’t still be making a lot of money selling mainframes.  And they do.

I just read a piece that takes a very common sense approach to the opportunities and issues of blogs written by Perry De Havilland.

It is a realistic piece that points out that bad blogging is worse than no blogging at all and that:

“Similarly, some companies will never have the necessary corporate culture to actually let their employees talk to the public without surrounding them with a deadening phalanx of PR consultants and lawyers who sanitize every word they type. Just having a blog is not enough� you must allow the writers to blog correctly.”

He’s absolutely right.  There’s a lot of potential, but the simple fact is that it’s not for everyone.

There’s still a huge delta in understanding of what blogs are, what they’re not and what they are useful for. Blogs are still not mainstream and I think it’ll be at least another year. It’s popular.  But popular is a far way from mainstream. 

This dovetails nicely with a post from Karlin Lillington recently where she tackled the closed nature of the blog pioneers.

“This is the side of writing a weblog that sits really, really uncomfortably with me. I have heard one of blogging’s inner circle just not get a question from a neo-blogger who complained during a seminar that entry to blogging’s higher ranks was not, as the speaker proposed, due to merit but mostly because other A-list bloggers decide to link to you, thus perpetuating an inner circle (or thru a deliberate attempt to heighten your hitcount by writing to woo the googlebots). The speaker’s denial that this was so was backed by the example that if the speaker (whose blog was extremely popular) linked to the questioner’s blog, the questioner would find herself amongst the chosen in no time at all because all sorts of other people would then be interested in her blog, the speaker having given her talent the needed exposure. “Well, exactly,” she said in exasperation, and the speaker beamed, feeling he’d refuted her point and brought her into his blogging-is-the-new-E fold.”

Exactly….

Mark Glaser at the Online Journalism Review has an interesting article looking at how PR people can be a real asset to journalists.  It’s a nice change from the usual “Flacks are rubbish” comments.

“I have a dirty little secret. I like PR people. OK, I don’t like all of them, but I must admit that a lot of publicists have helped me in my quest to speak to the right person, set up an interview, give me background info. This might sound strange to fellow journalists (or may secretly ring true), but a few of my best story ideas came from flacks.”

[Link courtesy of Jeremy Pepper]

Jim Horton has written an interesting piece on “Mudslinging” [PDF], its effects and some strategies to counter it.

“The best defense against mudslinging is a good offense.”

Richard Bailey has some interesting comments on how it applies to the UK.

I have to say I was struggling with blogging today.  Mid-week, loads to do and no one topic jumping out.

Luckily the ever useful MarketingProfs jumped to my rescue.

Barbara Payne has a thoughtful piece on Business blogging, where she looks at the benefits of salespeople writing blogs…

“Last spring, I wrote to all my customers to suggest that it was time for them to start letting at least their salespeople write blogs for their customers and prospects. It sounds radical to many managers, but there�s no denying the power of authentic communication when it comes to building loyalty between people�and clearly your customers are people first.”

This issue also has a media relations primer written by Margie Fisher which provides some common sense advice to newbies..although the more “PR” incidents I hear, the more I think we should all try and remember the basics…

Tom Yager over at Infoworld is offering readers of his blog an opportunity to role play as a technology journalist.

It would be funny if it wasn’t true. I particularly like the fact that the pitch in question has been sent to him twice and cc’d to the Editor in Chief.

Ladies and gentlemen when you next throw back your head and wonder why it is PR people get such a hard time. Don’t wonder.  Understand that there are a lot of unprofessional practitioners out there making your job harder and the media less interested in your call.

UPDATE: Some mandatory web research leads me to believe these are the culprits.

For solo practitioners and small firms, the cost of a new release of Microsoft Office at $400-$500 can be daunting.

I’ve been taking a look at the latest version of OpenOffice, version 1.1, and it’s come on in leaps and bounds since the earlier releases. The current version supports Windows and Linux, though Apple users should wait for a new ‘Aqua-compatible’ release in the near future.

It lacks much of the polish and some of the power of MS Office, particularly in some of the more advanced features you may have come to love, but it’s a fine product and will certainly cope with the usual (80%) word processing and spreadsheet tasks.

One additional feature that’s very worthwhile is the ability to create Adobe PDF’s from within your word processor. You simply click on the ‘File’ menu and select ‘Export as PDF’, nice and simple.

OpenOffice won’t import all the sophisticated tables and formatting in existing Word documents but it certainly does a great job importing most documents I have. It won’t hurt to have a look. The one big missing is an e-mail/scheduling/task management component. Linux users have Ximian, but Windows users are a little stuck for a full -featured Outlook replacement.

The bottom line is I’m not ready to move from Office yet, it is still the best office suite out there, but OpenOffice is closing fast and the purchase price is quite compelling. Upgrade pricing runs from $0.00 to $0.00.

It’s been a while since we last discussed online newsrooms.

Like any web design project, the specification for an online news room should start with your audience.  What information are journalists visiting your website for, and what’s the best way to deliver it?

Vocus have released their third annual survey on the best practices for online newsrooms.  Among the survey’s more interesting findings are:

• 92% of journalists in the survey use corporate websites for gathering information
• Only 24% of journalists usually find the information they are looking for (up from less than 10% last year)
• 45% of journalists say that finding the right information on a corporate web site affects their decision to include a firm in a feature
• The most popular items journalists want online are press releases, contact information and corporate information
• Their number one issue is no contact information!

There are some absolute cardinal rules for online press rooms:

 Post your contact details on the front page and on every page of information.  These details include direct phone and personal e-mail addresses

 Post press releases in real-time as they cross the wires (and include contact information with every release online)

 Provide background information and resources including photography etc

 Do NOT force journalists to register for access

 Post press releases in HTML – you can also provide them in PDF but always provide them in HTML first and foremost

 Enable journalists to sign-up for future press releases

 Ensure easy navigation from the front page of the website

 Clearly time-stamp press releases and materials

Then there’s a whole range of “nice to have” considerations for a press room. These include publishing your press releases as RSS feeds, providing feature suggestions, providing downloadable press kits.  The ExpertPR article on news rooms below includes a good list of these, however beware that in my opinion a number of their recommendations are not essential (and are promoting the work of the list’s authors) such as a full featured content management system, wireless distribution, built-in approval process etc.

Building an effective press room isn’t difficult.  Start with your audience and very quickly you can have an effective online resource.

Happy Monday morning.  If you’re looking to ease your way back into a new week, here’s a list of some interesting PR-related reading to get you started.

 Overcoming your nerves to make successful PR pitches [ExpertPR]

 Running a media training program [LACP]

 Tips for television appearances [ExpertPR]

 Why good creative PR requires discipline [RLMPR]

 The differences between print and web media [ExpertPR]

 PR and the principles of persuasion [LACP]

 A good checklist for what you need on your online press room [ExpertPR] Read more in the posting above.

 Defining PR [RLMPR]

 Building an effective media list [ExpertPR]

 Statistics on Corporate Morale [LACP]

 What’s the most effective means of pitching? E-mail (41%) Phone (36%) Face-to-Face (23%) [via LACP Online Poll]