Category: General

I am writing a short opinion piece on weblogs and PR.  An ‘inlog’ is a term I am using for weblogs inside your organization.  I’ll post the article in the next while (notice no committment to a date – the perfect plan!)

There’s a high profile court case taking place in the UK at the moment surrounding the dismissal of high profile DJ Chris Evans and his erstwhile employers Virgin Radio.  Interestingly Virgin’s former head of communications appeared in court this week as a witness.

As I’ve discussed before, bloggers aren’t journalists (unless of course they are journalists* – if you catch my drift!), however they are increasingly influential in the online world.

This influence means that it makes a lot of sense to adopt an informal code of ethics.  Rebecca Blood, author of “The Weblog Handbook” has published a six point charter for ethical blogging and it makes a lot of sense.

And of course where ethics end and good taste takes over there’s already the Blogger Manifesto.

* Deborah Branscum, Dan Gillmor, Doc Searls, Jon Udell, Karlin Lillington and Bernie Goldbach to name but a few!

According to research from Manning Selvage & Lee, technology companies in the Silicon Valley area score more highly than their non-technology counterparts in the media (national and local).  Of course technology companies in the area also core lower than their non-technology counterparts.  Maybe it’s more accurate to report there are more technology firms?

I am also adding Manning Selvage & Lee to our infamous Flash Hall of Shame.

This week has been full of Analyst Relations (AR) content and today is no different.

Brodeur‘s Jonathan Simnett has an interesting article on International AR and why it’s important for US companies to look beyond the continental United States. The story was originally published in Technology Marketing’s newsletter.

There’s an archive of Jonathan’s previous articles here.

Analyst Relations and the mafia….. 

The Knowledge Capital Group’s latest issue of their Velocity newsletter is out and includes a very interesting article that suggests the post-boom economy has created a new mafia that is threatening high-tech entrepreneurs, namely partners, influencers and customers. As always it’s a good read.

Mediamap’s ExpertPR newsletter has an analyst relations primer this month, though it you are interested in finding out about Analyst Relations I’d recommend you visit the back-issues of the Velocity newsletter.

When checking your visitor logs is a bad thing…..   

As I mentioned last week I regularly check where visitors to the blog are coming from. However, I am thinking of ceasing this activity as yesterday one of the Google references was: “Tom Murphy”+Killed.

Ahem.

The passing of a history maker…..   

The high-tech PR business was built around the innovation and intelligence of a small number of early entrepreneurs. 

Adam Osborne, the creator of the world’s first affordable “laptop” in 1981, was one of those people.

His company, Osborne Computer Corporation, although a huge success at the time, selling over 100,000 computers in one year, fell foul of a common practice amongst technology vendors today. They pre-announced a successor to their hot selling product, the Osborne 1, it was delayed, and sales collapsed.  The result was bankruptcy.

Although out of the industry limelight for the past decade, Osborne left a rich legacy. 

He died in his sleep last Tuesday in India. 

RELATED LINK: “A computer in every hand” – Salon

The changing face of Tech PR…..  

Ketchum’s newsletter this month has an interesting interview with PR Week‘s Andrew Gordon, looking at how Tech PR is fairing in the downturn.

“What I hear most frequently is that clients aren�t as concerned about what publications they appear in but what publications their competitors appear in. �Why aren�t we there?� is still the main question. There�s still some egotism involved.”

Looks like some things never change (in any industry!)

They also have an interesting piece written by Mark Jackson on Technology PR in the UK.  Mark is a former colleague [FLASH and pop-up warning!] of mine from the dim and distant past – you know when Windows 95 was really exciting! Of course that was before he was doing testimonials for software companies.

Aside: Someone passed Ragan’s fine feature on “blogging and PR” to me the other day and I noticed I was  listed as a “British PR Pro”, while I take no offence at the “PR Pro” reference, I must protest my innocence of British nationality!

PR and the Oscars……  

USA Today last week ran a prominent story on the importance of studio publicity in landing the coveted gold statuette.  The article analyzed some of the recent scandals affecting nominees, though it doesn’t look like they influenced the outcome….