Category: General

Fri, 06 Sep 2002 10:25:42 GMT

A new twist on the wire….
There have been a number of high profile cases where press release wire services have been used by third parties to distribute false information which has materially affected a company’s stock price.

Now a new case has emerged and this time there’s a twist.

In the previous cases the releases, which were sent across Internet Wire, were hoaxes designed to engineer stock price fluctuations. However this time, the company in question, eConnect, allegedly sent out false press releases themselves!

According to PR Week, eConnect’s CEO, Thomas Hughes, was indicted last month for attempting to increase eConnect’s stock price by issuing false releases.

David Armon, president of the Americas for PR Newswire, who Hughes used for distribution, is quoted as commenting: “Just as we sent out releases for Enron, WorldCom, and Tyco, this one went out because our job is to verify the company issuing the release is really the company issuing it. We are just a distributor.”

I think that’s a fair comment, but if it’s true it’s another blot on the corporate landscape.

Tue, 03 Sep 2002 13:58:52 GMT

PR people staying put in troubled times….
The results of a recent poll at the League of American Communications Professionals website found that over thirty three per cent of visitors were remaining at their current job because of the slow economy. Fourteen percent were staying on because of good pay (I thought that was a startling statistic for our business!), twenty eight percent because they enjoy their jobs, twenty two percent felt their team was worth staying on for, and THREE percent because of the potential of future advancement! The survey is online here.

Fri, 30 Aug 2002 08:17:48 GMT

The Blog – A Corporate Guidebook…
Deborah Branscum is back and has an interesting piece on “Blogging and PR”, in particular on the dangers inherent on allowing employees to blog. She doesn’t believe in corporate blogs: “the very idea of a corporate blog is an oxymoron. Marketers can learn much from weblogs, which represent a true-blue, kick-ass innovation in communication. But the best blogs are written by missionaries, not marketers.”

While I agree that there are issues to be resolved (or at least rules of engagement to be agreed) with respect to employees blogging on the corporate domain I think there are real opportunities.

I believe a corporate blog could be a very useful means of highlighting what is happening at a company (particularly a technology company). The hyperlinked nature of a blog provides a useful summary and archive of what a company is up to. I think that ‘corporate blogging’ serves a much different purpose to the visionary stream of consciousness blog. (That’s a bit of a mouthful). The corporate blog is if you like a guidebook to what’s new. There might be a place for both of them….