Category: General

• I’m not sure how I missed it but Rene Blodgett has a blog called Down the Avenue.

 

• MS&L have a blog called Blogworks up and running.

When I started this blog many moons ago it was to capture useful PR-related content from around the InterWeb.  At the time there wasn’t a huge amount of decent content and the PR publishers were increasingly hiding their content behind the firewall.

No vision for me, nope.  I didn’t spot this fundamental shift in communication models, nope. I just wanted to aggregate links to content that I thought was useful.

If we fast forward to today it’s amazing to see the change.  We now have well over 100 PR blogs (see the right hand list for many of them) with more being launched all the time. Their authors are delivering fantastic content and opinions and recently we’re seeing a whole raft of very interesting interviews with various PR luminaries.

I’m a firm believer that you never stop learning in this game and one of the best ways to learn is to listen and read. So check out some of the more recent PR interviews:

• Renee Blodgett, Founder Blodgett Communications [Shel Israel]
• Richard Edelman, CEO Edelman [Shel Israel]
• Al Golin, Chairman of Golin Harris [Jeremy Pepper]
• Neville Hobson, Business Communicator and Prominent Blogger [Shel Israel]
• Shel Holtz, Principal, Holtz Communication + Technology [Shel Israel]
• Mike Manual, Voce Communications [Shel Israel]
• Tony Russo, CEO Euro RSCG Life PR [Robb Hecht]
• Steve Rubel, PR blog king and CooperKatz blog leader [Shel Israel]
• Jerry Swerling, Principal of Swerling & Associates [Jeremy Pepper]

alarm:clock for the unitiated is an online magazine/blog that covers technology start-ups.  Last week they posted a story advising start-ups to fire their PR firm because they’d be better off doing the PR themselves – and they’d save a lot of money in the process.

Among the criticisms they make are:

1. PR agencies are full of hot air
2. Journalists prefer to talk directly with the start-up
3. PR agencies don’t get the new model (i.e. blogs)
4. The best start-ups don’t use agencies
5. It’s a waste of money

As you can imagine, the post started a fire storm. I recommend you read the original post and its comments then read David Parmet‘s post, Jeremy Pepper‘s take (and the subsequent comments) and Mason Cole‘s comment.

The problem with this discussion is that it is completely theoretical.

I would strongly disagree with alarm:clock’s assertion that start-ups don’t need PR agencies, as I would disagree with anyone who believes that all start-ups need PR agencies.  It depends on their business, their requirements, their assets and most importantly their objectives.

Life just isn’t that simple.

I think I have a fairly good perspective on this issue, I’ve worked on the agency side, I’ve worked in start-ups, I’ve consulted with start-ups, I’ve worked in large public firms and I’ve consulted with large public firms.  So I have a good view of the strengths and weaknesses of each combination.  What that experience has taught me is that there’s no one simple solution.

My advice to everyone is to think long and hard about what you are trying to achieve with Public Relations. What resources do you have available, both in terms of human resources and budget. What are your business objectives? What do you need to do to help you achieve those objectives? Do you have the necessary infrastructure to support an internal staff member or an agency?

The first step in this process is to build a clear picture of your requirements and your objectives.  When you have done that you are ready to move to the next stage.

Unfortunately there isn’t any fast and simple solution.  However, I recommend you get out and talk to people.  Talk to your friends, colleagues, business contacts, journalists and analysts and find out their views on the PR people and PR firms they know. Build a clear brief that outlines your requirements.  Then at least you can begin to make an informed decision.

Finally, always ensure that your expectations are aligned with those of your PR staff member or PR agency.  I’ve always found that the biggest source of problems in a PR relationships is misaligned expectations on both sides.

Remember just like most business functions there is no silver bullet…

 

 Constantin Basturea has put together a fantastic del.icio.us resource with links to the more interesting PR news of the day… it may render PR Miscellany unnecessary.

 Shel Israel has some very interesting interviews with Shel Holtz and Richard Edelman over at the Red Couch.

 Nick Denton has some refreshingly fortright views in this New York Times interview on Gawker and the whole blog phenomenon:

“The (blog) hype comes from unemployed or partially employed marketing professionals and people who never made it as journalists wanting to believe,” he said. “They want to believe there’s going to be this new revolution and their lives are going to be changed.”

 Randy Schwartz over at SearchViews asks are blogs the future of Corporate PR.

 Morgan McLintic asks should PR firms ghost-write client blog posts.

 Insulting the interviewer is always a great way to get a good interview… or so Paris Hilton believes [Courtesy of Topaz Partners]

 

 Jeremy Pepper has a great interview with Dan Gillmor, former San Jose Mercury News Tech luminary, author of the wonderful We the Media, contributor to the Financial Times and latterly founder of Grassroots Media Inc.

“Just that I would encourage people to understand that this is all still fairly new, and people are starting to get it in a significant way in the news business and in the PR business.

It�s going to take a lot of trial and error to get it right, but the best thing for people in traditional industries is to not try to control it � or to “harness” the power of citizen media. In the physical world, to harness means, for example, to throw a bridle over a horse�s head and fight with the horse to where it�s going to go. That�s not what I want to do, nor what anyone else should be trying to do. It�s about working with, and paying attention, to the blogs and grassroots.

It�s a conversation.”

 Walt Mossberg at the Wall Street Journal has a guide to using RSS. [Thanks to Mike Manuel for the link]

 New and Notable: a new PR blog from Ken Kerrigan called InPeRspective.

 More accusations of possible impropriety in the award of a government PR contract and here’s another one for a public schools PR contract.

 Speaking of possible impropriety in government PR circles….

 In the latest move towards transparency in journalism 🙂 Fast Company magazines asks its readers to pick the winner from three recent PR pitches.

 

If you’ve worked in any kind of Public Relations role for more than four or five minutes you’ll know the joy of knee jerking. Ah yes, nothing is more personal than a media story.

How many times have you taken calls from clients or colleagues who are outraged at something a journalist has written, which in the cold light of day is at worst case a mistake and best case the truth.

Your job (should you wish to accept it) is to bring the world of reality to your client. We live in an imperfect world.

Often what seems, at the time, to be a major injustice, is in reality, when observed with an objective viewpoint nothing.

One of the more unappealing aspects of blogs and blogging is this same knee jerk behavior.  It seems to me that people spend more time reacting to issues than actually thinking about them.

The most recent example is Molly Wood‘s article for CNET which I referenced below. Molly talks about how in a world full of blogs and rumor sites the traditional NDA tactics of technology vendors have passed their sell by date. I agree with her in many respects, and in fact for all the blog zealots out there, she’s actually saying that blogs are becoming a mainstream source of information.

Now you would have thought that was something that the bloggers would like – particularly as she linked to them.

Oh no.

Jason Calacanis, CEO of Weblogs.com fires a broadside at Molly entitled:

CNET tries to take down Engadget

Oh dear.

What follows is a self-serving rant on how wonderful weblogs.com is and how Molly is a bad journalist for not contacting them for comment. Now re-reading Molly’s column I still can’t work out why there would have been a need to contact them.  Furthermore did anyone notice the irony that Jason contradicts his entire argument by not contacting Molly for a comment?

He makes it worse by finishing up with what can only be described as the “throwing your rattle out of the pram” strategy:

You don�t own the news, and since you�re so interested in ethics you�ll be happy to know that I�ve launched my own little investigation into ethics at CNET. Anyone with information on ethics at CNET can call me at 310 828 8284 or send me details at jason at calacanis dot com.”

Jebus.

Now whilst I am not a ‘leading PR blogger’ (Edelman said so, so it must be true), I am an ‘old PR blogger’ (I said so, so it must be true) and one of the advantages of old age is experience and reason. 

This child-like rant serves no purpose other than to make Jason look like some sort of spoilt child.  He has completely mis-read Molly’s column, in my opinion, and of course in the blog echo chamber I’m sure his rant is getting more pick up than the original column.

This, ladies and gentlemen, is the latest example of why traditional PR counsel is every bit as relevant today as in the past.  If Jason had some sensible PR advice he could have used this episode to his advantage rather than coming over as some sort of crank.

Always think before you push the send/publish button.

 

 Ben Silverman has completed some very interesting research with fifty journalists at daily newspapers.  Among the findings:

• 26% of those surveyed open less than 50% of press releases they recieve via e-mail
• 36% recieve press releases via fax and 56% of those, read the releases they get via fax
• 70% monitor the press release wires
• 76% don’t believe that blogs provide a useful research tool

Ben has a lot more here.

 Molly Wood over at CNET has a really interesting opinion piece on the reality of IT vendors’ “control” over unannounced products.  It hits on a key point for PR and marketing people everywhere. In an online world control isn’t an option.

“And that brings me to the crux of my point today. Thanks to the Internet, there’s a new model for controlling information–that is, a complete lack of control. Bloggers, rumor sites, and even inside sources are running the show, but tech manufacturers are still stuck in their Cold War-like product release behaviors….. We media types need to quit kowtowing to manufacturers who are trying in vain to hold on to the last shred of control they think they have. Those manufacturers need to wake up and smell the RSS feeds–the information’s already out there. Quit acting like you’re doling out spoonfuls of sugar to the deserving few. Your audience is getting its sugar elsewhere.”

 Alice Marshall and Pete Shinbach both point to another example of the clueless pitching the blogger.

 Steve Rubel has a very interesting post on the impact of new collaborative sites such as Wikipedia on the corporate brand.

 The current issue of Bacon’s (nee MediaMap) Expert PR is out with stories on corporate image, PR and RSS, sponsorship, and an interview with Bob Wallace, Editor in Chief of Telecommunications Magazine amongst others..

 

I praise the good work of Good Morning Silicon Valley regularly through this collection of HTML pages.  They’ve now launched a blog which I highly recommend.

• Peter Himler has kicked off a new PR blog called The Flack.

 

• Steve Lubetkin has launched a relatively new PR blog.