Category: General

I’m sure you’ve all heard of the Star Wars Kid.   Ghyslain Raza from Quebec, used his high school’s video camera to capture him undertaking a mock Jedi fight.  The only problem was he left the video in the camera.  His schoolmates uploaded the video on the web and like everything else on this medium it took off on a life of it’s own.

Ghyslain’s efforts have been put to music, had Star Wars sound effects added etc. They’re actually very funny. (You can see a host of these and the original here). But now the fun must stop.

Mr. and Mrs. Raza are suing the families of four classmates they accuse of maliciously turning their son into an object of mockery by uploading the files for a cool $225,000.

Before I disappeared for a week I mentioned a discussion taking place on the Adventive (now part of Up2Speed) I-PR mailing list on PR and blogging. As you’d expect I contributed my two cents on why blogging is important.  However, I was interested to read upon my return that a number of PR people think blogs are a fad and how they are busy enough already without worrying about something that will be gone in a year.

I have two comments on these views. As far as I am concerned, as a PR practitioner, it is my duty to understand and use all the tools available to me to promote my client. Ignoring potential opportunities is not a good reflection on our provision of a professional service.  Secondly, when a new magazine emerges, do we all sit back and wait to see if it survives into next year before targeting it?  I don’t think so. Blogging is simply a new application on an existing media (Internet).

Others blog-related news…

 Karlin Lillington has posted research from Blogcount that estimated there are over 3.4 million weblogs of which 1.6 million are live (i.e. updated regularly) – These statistics ignore some popular blogs such as those hosted on Radio and Moveable Type – but it’s interesting!

 Congratulations to Kevin Dugan whose PR weblog just had it’s first birthday!

 Michael O’Connor Clarke has moved his weblog to a new dedicated domain check it out.

Jim Horton (owner of Online-PR) continues to impress me with his weblog – it’s a triumph of content over form – it’s honest and objective and unlike charlatans like me, Jim actually writes about his opinions and trials and tribulations on a daily basis, he doesn’t just crop links.

Last week, Jim carried a series of observations regarding Objectivity and Public Relations and it’s well worth a read.  Interestingly one of his readers doesn’t agree with him.  Read it here.

“We can make great strides in building bridges to the media when we are honest with them and take the time to explain our positions objectively.  But it only takes a few jerks in PR to make it bad for all of us.  Pair that with poor training, and there is embarrassing  failure on the part of PR practitioners to practice the relations part of PR.  We’re too busy selling and spinning.”

I thought that since I haven’t been trawling the Internet for PR stuff in over a week there would be a wealth of news, views and links.  But it seems the Summer season is in motion and things are very quiet out there.

One interesting story I did come across was an opinion article in the Boston Globe written by PR practitioner Gene Denterlein of PR firm Denterlein Worldwide. The story looks at the implications of the recent court ruling that found there was a “client privelege” between PR practitioners and their clients.

While reading the article I thought one particular quote succinctly sums up why PR has a greater role to play in today’s complex and noisy media environment:

“In a society saturated by TV, radio, the Internet, and e-mail messages, no one, including the very real human beings who interpret and apply the law, can possibly block out the loud shouts vying to shape public debate.”

Back from vacation and catching up on what’s been going on for the past week.  I’ve over two thousand five hundred spam messages waiting for me and only eight hundred have been caught by my spam filter.

Fantastic.

I am taking a much needed vacation for a week so there will be no posting on PR Opinions until Monday, July 28, 2003.

I hope you won’t miss me too much!

Up2Speed have published a list of business blogs.  It’s worth a look.

On the upside they have included Cape Clear’s corporate blog and on the downside….

“I am not so much interested simply in B2B blogs written by business-nerds that track a particular niche but are really written in someone’s basement and have nothing to do with supporting an actual business venture.”

Jeez, I’m a business-nerd. Now that’s embarrassing.

The Sacremento Business Journal has a detailed piece on the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision to refer the Nike case back to Californian courts. Effectively the case centers around whether PR content comes under free speech or commercial speech. If the Californian courts find it is the latter then PR content (press releases etc.) is therefore subject to the same regulation as advertising etc.  Although this law is unique to California, it will affect any firm operating in California – read everyone.

The Portland Business Journal has a firm rebuttal from the PRSA.

I think the quote from Paul Vetter, president of the local PRSA chapter (see below) is a little over the top.

“Vetter sees a chilling effect from the decision, with companies cutting back their public communications to reduce their chances of ending up in court.“

I’ve never been truly comfortable with the term “Buzz”.  It’s a little esoteric for my tastes.  Don’t get me wrong I understand the value it’s just that the term is a little fuzzy.

A new book published under the auspices of BrandWeek entitled “Buzz: Harness the Power of Influence and Create Demand”, which follows in the footsteps of previous books like “The Anatomy of Buzz”, is sure to create more interest around the whole Buzz concept. (Note: I didn’t say it would create Buzz 🙂

Richard Bailey points to an article in Fast Company that examines how smaller firms are using Buzz to compete with larger companies.

When I read the piece I couldn’t get the thought out of my mind, that maybe what we are doing is creating an alternative channel.  Most companies use a sales channel to distribute and promote goods in a traditional sense, but with Buzz there is an alternative influencers’ channel.  Where the “goods” are ideas.

I think that’s a nice way of looking at it and we could then stop using the term Buzz which makes me cringe every time I type it.

This is a typical buzz-related quote:

“Finding the superconnectors is the key to a targeted, successful buzz strategy. Go to the trend spreaders and plant yourself intelligently on their radar.” According to a May 2001 McKinsey & Co. study, 67% of U.S. consumer sales are influenced by word of mouth.

There was some interesting follow-up on yesterday’s post on Blog Relations.

Justin Hitt asks the question what’s the best way to target bloggers that are covering areas relevant to your business.  Dave at B2Blog responded that he appreciates well targeted pitches.

My thoughts on this particular issue is that most blogs are different.  Some will definetely be interested in relevant PR pitches (me for example) however many others will be defensive against what they see as commercial interests.  When you come across that type of blog, rather than pitching a story, sometimes it’s more beneficial to try and get a dialogue going. Do your executives have passionate views on relevant issues? Are there new trends in the area? These less commercial approaches can often be better.

The difficult thing from a PR perspective is you will only find out their preferences through reading their blog, understanding their audience and then carefully targeting them.  To add even more problems to the mix, many bloggers will want nothing to do with you.  But that’s life.

On the plus side, there are a host of bloggers willing to listen if your (product) pitch is interesting. Gene Smith points to Anil Dash’s account of a positive PR pitch.

So what does all this tell us? Well here are the takeaways for me:

• There are no hard and fast rules – because blogging is in main a personal not commercial pursuit.
• There are thousands of blogs ready and waiting to hear from you in traditional PR style
• There are thousands of blogs who will never want to hear from you
• There are thousands of blogs willing to engage in dialogue if it’s relevant and interesting to their subject matter

I think one of the final comments posted by Anil at the link above sums up the challenge nicely.  In response to a reader’s comment that he had been “played” by Fox, he wrote the following response:

“If you accept that promoting something in response to a request to do so is being “played”. I don’t. Sometimes my friends make websites and ask me to link to them. I don’t feel like they’re playing me, either.

I mean, I got a free DVD. What’d you get for pimping Jello on your site? Doing it for free seems more like you’re being played.”

Your challenge is to identify blogs that are relevant and understand which is the best approach. It’s PR 2003 style.