Murphy's Law

Doc Searls confirms that journalists prefer press releases on websites to be posted in HTML and not PDF or MSWord. I agree completely with him.

If you post your press releases exclusively in Adobe Acrobat (PDF) files (and you’d be amazed at how many companies do) then people can’t re-use the information (Note: there’s nothing wrong with offering PDF as well as HTML).

And as regards Microsoft Word, I personally never send press releases in Word format.  There have been too many slip ups in the past thanks to the danger of hidden mark-ups.

Best practice for press releases is plain text for e-mail and HTML for websites.

PR Opinions’ market valuation is moving up nicely 🙂

I’ve had a lot of feedback on the posting about PR Watch. For the most part your e-mails pointed out that they seem to have an agenda all their own.

An e-mail from Virge Randall summed up a lot of your views:

“PRWatch appears to be an attempt to poison the well of public opinion for one side only – presumably because they have a monopoly on the truth and it must be told by any means necessary…. I’m not holding my breath waiting for hypocritical, self-righteous pseudo-watchdogs to turn the high beams on themselves and their beliefs – I’m just grateful our society allows the other side to grab the mike, too.”

My take on PR Watch is that I always treat ‘holier than thou’ websites with a grain of salt. PR Watch is no different.  While it purports to save the world from evil public relations practices – and in many cases it does correctly highlight wrongdoing, it inherently has it’s own agenda. Balance isn’t something PR Watch is designed for.

 

A humorous look at the best-known bloggers..

PR Opinions is a PR blog.  The objective of this site is to provide information on Public Relations that is hopefully useful to PR and marketing professionals. Of course, by its nature, this site does cover a lot of blog-related news, but hopefully only as it relates to PR.

This week a high profile conference on blogging organized by ClickZ and Juptermedia took place in Boston.  As you’d expect, a lot of the content from the conference has been written up in various blogs and I’ve included a lot of the links at the foot of this posting, please do take a look at it.

However, from reading the accounts and the opinions of various attendees and contributors, one disturbing trend comes through. There is an element of bloggery.

It seems that some of the pioneers of the blog world, to whom we are indebted for facilitating the medium, believe they have the sole rights to what is or is not a blog. In response I thought I’d post some key thoughts on blogging that are my most humble opinions – well maybe not.

 Users not innovators define a technology
The enginneers who created GSM cellular phones never foresaw that the number one application of their invention would be short text messages – rather they saw it as simply a better means of providing voice services. Similarly, how weblogs develop from here will be based on how Internet users want them to develop.  It’s out of the pioneers hands.

 Blogging is not mainstream
It’s widely popular and growing fast, but it is not at this point in time mainstream. Web browsers are mainstream, blogs are not.

 Commercial interests are key to it’s success
The small population of Internet pioneers were irked when ‘newbies’ started appearing in newsgroups and were appalled when people started trying to make money from the new medium.  But guess what, it was commercial pressure that helped the Internet go global. Blogs will follow the self-same model. (ref: the growth of the PC and hobbyists)

 Blogging isn’t owned by anybody
I also say to the purists (who have done us a great favour by pioneering this application) that you do not have a divine right to tell everyone else what is or is not a blog. We don’t care, we’ll decide.

 Respect, understand and adapt
When anything includes participation by large numbers of people, there will always be different opinions. Just because someone’s opinion is different does not mean it’s wrong. Get over it.

Blogs are still immature, but are already very useful. I just think we get ahead of ourselves sometimes.

So back to the conference..

Marketing Fix: “What is a weblog, why should we care?”

Marketing Fix: Further comments on the conference

Fellow PR professional Michael O’Carroll Clarke was a panelist at the conference.

Heath Row’s amazing conference transcripts:

• Using weblogs in large IT organizations
• Christopher Lydon: Live Blogging
• Tony Perkins of AlwaysOn
• Panel: The law of the blog
• Weblogs — New Syndication Models Or Uncontrolled Platforms?
• Jason Shellen: Where Weblogs Matter 
• Panel: Blogging Technologies And Platforms — Today And Tomorrow
• Panel:  Blogs and/as Content Management
• Panel:  Strategies and Tips for Business Blogging Success
• David Weinberger: Why Weblogs Matter
• Panel:  Managing A Business Blog
• Panel:  Are Weblogs A Threat Or Opportunity For Enterprises?
• David Winer: What Are Weblogs?
• Michael Gartenberg: Business Weblogs — Blogging For Fun And Profit

The folks over at PRWatch.org (creators of “Spin of the day“) have created Disinfopedia “a collaborative project to produce a directory of public relations firms, think tanks, industry-funded organizations and industry-friendly experts that work to influence public opinion and public policy on behalf of corporations, governments and special interests.”

Effectively they are posting all the informatin they have on PR practitioners, issues, campaigns etc. It’s worth a look.

Technical Point: Disinfopedia is a Wiki… Phil Gomes has more on it in this months G2B Group Tapeout newsletter. 

It’s very very quiet in the PR-blogosphere today…very quiet. Anyone have anything interesting to tell us?

 Entrepreneur magazine gives some PR advice..

 Well you have to give him bonus points for pure perseverance. Dave is still banging on about how blogs will replace journalism… oh not they won’t <awaiting response>. Just to recap: rebuttal one, rebuttal two.

 Articulate Communications made an announcement yesterday, but more interestingly they’ve been added to the Flash Hall of Shame.

 One of the major challenges the Internet poses for PR practitioners is that it removes many of the barriers that traditionally protected information.  Protected it, that is, until you were ready to release it. But now information has a life of it’s own and your ability to control it is much reduced.  Look at this story in Wired about how this Wall St. Journal conference issued embargoes to all attending journalists, but forget about the bloggers in the audience, who reported on the event in real-time.

“We’re trying to figure out what to do next year,” he said. “It’s an interesting issue. You just have to have a better definition next time. Maybe we’ll change the rules. We don’t know.”

 One of the issues for everyone in PR moving forward is identifying how stories and information move around the weblog community. The folks at Microdoc news have researched how a number of stories propogated around webogs and the web.

 The New York Times isn’t the only newspaper with some reporter-related issues.  According to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch a sports writer and movie reviewer for the Sedalia Democrat has been fired for plagiarism.

 Spam isn’t killing e-mail.  If you target the right people, with the right information at the right time, e-mail is still very effective.

 Mandy Grunwald examines why the media has such a hard time handling PR in the wake of the New York Times debacle.

 Media Life has an interesting analysis of how trade magazines are faring and it doesn’t make for pleasant reading. While consumer magazines are finding the Internet is a useful companion to print editions, it seems the Internet is eating into trade magazine advertising and readership thanks to the faster delivery of news online.

 PR around the year’s most awaited book launch is gathering momentum.

 Darren Barefoot has kicked off a blog for professional communicators.  The blog plans to cover PR and more general communications topics.

 Pam Stein from Clientize.com dropped me a line to tell me about a website her firm is hosting.  The PR Survey Observer is a “free survey resource center designed to help PR pros and communications managers identify newsworthy survey techniques.” You can search under a variety of topics for different surveys. Clientize create and host surveys online. 

 Indianapolis’ Mayor has decided to hire a New York firm to bolster the city’s image and the locals are getting restless.

With a combination of good timing, great preparation and a little luck, certain PR tactics will exceed your greatest expectations.  Human nature tells us to repeat these tactics again and again, but most times the law of diminishing returns kicks in swiftly and the return from those tactics lessens.  When that happens it might be worthwhile to re-evaluate how your tactics are working and look for some new tactics.

Microsoft is a case in point.

Microsoft is an amazing company.  A company that has been built with clever engineering, a little luck and fantastic marketing. If any company provides a template for how Public Relations can successfully support commercial growth, Microsoft is it. Sure from time-to-time mishaps like the iLoo slip out, but they just serve to underline how effective the Microsoft PR machine is.

However, I think it’s time Microsoft revisited some of it’s tried and tested techniques.  Their CEO memo, which is “leaked” to every major news organization on the face of the planet, used to provide Microsoft staff and the market – customers, partners, competitors and media – with a clear roadmap of where Microsoft was going to put focus – and thereby win. These memos have in the past helped to turn the market to Microsoft’s advantage.  A perfect example of this power was Bill Gates’ memo in 1995 that concerned Netscape. The market took notice and Microsoft took market share.

However in recent times these memos have had a reduced affect on the market.  The latest CEO memo from Steve Ballmer, which hit last week, targeted Linux –  “Linux in particular, present a competitive challenge for us and for our entire industry” .  But this message jars with earlier messages about Linux. 

In April, according to Ballmer, Microsoft wasn’t losing any sleep over Linux. And last November, internal research (leaked) showed that Microsoft’s negatice stance on Linux was backfiring. 

I am not a believer in mentioning your competition, particularly when you are a leader. Where in the past these proclamations have helped to destabilize competitors, it would appear that certainly in the case of Linux, it is unsuccessful.

Some advice to Microsoft, measure the effectiveness, if it’s not working, change the tactic. Slagging off Linux is playing into your competitiors’ hands. The old tactics that worked in the past are no longer relevant, it’s time to reinvent some new ones. If there’s any PR machine that can do that, it has to be Microsoft.