Maybe there is a future for newspapers after all

Or, like one of the first comments says, maybe you could have given these execs an ipad with a wireless connection.

by Duval Guillaume, the agency that has become “the reigning king of online viral epics” via Business Insider

Planning in the Digital Age. Keep It Simple

Great graphic from the Planning Lab:

Click to enlarge

Based on this, I’m excited to update my slides on the four types of media with this new overlay of how they could and should work together.

The copyright issue

From the UK, Sally Whittle has this cautionary tale of an Irish air traffic controller blogger who had a post lifted (almost wholesale), it’s words taken out of context and reprinted as an expose on her industry.

This blog was supposed to be an account of my life, what I do, and how I got here. Today it has been transformed into a weapon to be used by an unscrupulous, nasty person against some of the people I care most about.

Pretty damming stuff but based on the TSA incident a few months back, I do wonder if there are two sides to the story and I’d be interested to hear the journalist’s point of view on why this happened.

Apart from the human element, I can see a couple of major learnings from this:

1. Ensure you have copyright over everything you write and post online. From Sally’s post:

One of the things I tend to do with any blog I write per myself or a client is pop a copyright statement on the site.

Good idea – this blog also has a disclaimer which means any comments to the blog are forever licensed to me:

By posting a comment to this blog, you are granting its author (me) full and irrevocable license to your comment and acknowledge that the authors do not have a duty to modify or withdraw posts, but that we may do so if we choose, for any reason.

2. More prescient for our industry as a whole is just how time-strapped journalists are and how desperate they are for good, compelling content. If a journalist at a (relatively) prominent national newspaper is prepared to do this, what else is going on that isn’t being reported? Journalists are under huge pressures and many don’t know exactly how to deal with a new world which requires them to write their features, do daily blog entries, record multimedia, interact with readers and maintain the same standard of quality throughout.

As I have been saying for years, the future of marketing is content. If you are marketing, one of your KPIs should be how your content is shared. If you are in PR, you should be considering how easy it is for the media (and I would include bloggers in this) to share and repurpose/reprint your content – with recognition of the source and ideally in the proper context.

I can’t begin to think how Melanie feels after something of this magnitude.

Make it easy to connect with your stakeholders

Great quote from Mathew Ingram on why organizations should be experimenting with social media:

The principle is simple: Instead of requiring people to come to us, reach them with our content where they are and connect to that to our site.

This is exactly what we do at com.motion. We use the existing technologies to connect our clients with their stakeholders. We go to them; we do not expect them to come to us.

Clients are spending a lot of money on content or on creating online assets – why make it hard for the end user to find it?

The Globe and Facebook.

Would you ban the Internet?

A couple of months ago, the IABC asked me to expand this article, Irony is a Social Network, into a longer piece. It lives behind the paywall on the IABC site, but here it is, for your reading pleasure.

If you could have instant access to the very customers, stakeholders and influencer that you, as a communicator, hope to influence, wouldn’t you want to listen to them? Interact with them? Read what they read, watch what they watch and gain an unprecedented insight into their likes, dislikes, hopes and fears?

Communicators have always wanted to get inside the heads of their audience; to find out how their constituents want to get their information and what messaging or positioning works best. And now they can.

Ethnographic Research

With the advent of social networks such as MySpace, Friendster and Facebook, communicators now have access to a focus group of some 25 million where they can perform deep, meaningful ethnographic research into their target audience.

Used in the correct way, social networks can tell you who the next great band will be, which politicians will win the next election and which brands are gaining or losing momentum. The same networks will also reveal insight into your employer or client’s brand and, more importantly, what that brand means to the people who use it.

On the Black List

However, more and more organizations, including the Ontario Provincial Government, are lumping social networking Web sites together with serial time wasters, productivity drainers and offensive material like YouTube, online gambling sites and pornography.

I agree that sites such as Facebook (my poison of choice) can be addictive, time consuming and a complete distraction from more important matters such as, well, work. But the lines between “work” and “play” are blurring. I can’t ignore the possible groundswell of opinion against my client or my employer within these burgeoning communities – anyone who’s read the Kryptonite bicycle lock case study will know that the company’s value tanked after one post on one forum mushroomed into a full scale assault on a key product.

Simply put, there are many, much worse, timewasters at work – the water cooler, the cigarette break, the long lunch, the conference calls, meetings, those interminable emails, that much beloved and possibly patented “desk perch” that your boss loves to do and something called the Internet.

Just because something could waste time, doesn’t mean it will. Just because you can black list a site doesn’t mean you should.

Irony of I.T.

If, as Marshall McLuhan is so fond of saying, The Medium is indeed The Message, then what message does banning such an important form of communication send to constituents? Does it communicate openness, accessibility and collaboration? Or does it give the impression of an organization out of touch with its audience and out of touch with the very people who provide its mandate to operate? More importantly, which of those messages would you have your organization put out?

As far as government is concerned, there is a perverse irony of politicians using Facebook to cultivate, aggregate and motivate their own supporters while the people who are supposed to be executing policy are cut off from the very people who are supposed to benefit from it.

As communicators, we should be acutely aware of what our constituents are saying and where they’re saying it. The best messaging in the world will be rendered useless if it’s directed to the wrong place. We need to be going where our audience is. We need to adapt to our audience’s changing media habits – what worked five years, or even five weeks, ago won’t necessarily work tomorrow.

Ignorance is No Excuse

If you’re new to social networks, and are feeling a little overwhelmed with the possibilities, here’s a quick primer of how they may change your day-to-day job.

1. More monitoring and reporting. Now you know they’re there, you can’t ignore them. Sign up to the network du jour and periodically perform vanity searches for your employer or your clients. I guarantee you’ll be surprised what you find. Did you know there are more than 500 Facebook “groups” dedicated to “Nike” and “iPod”. How many people are interacting with your brand?

2. More influencers. As with any community, there are people who lead the community’s direction. Luckily for you, these people are self identifying in a searchable and trackable manner. They’re only a few keystrokes away so why not find them and introduce yourself?

3. Your own community. There may be hundreds, even thousands, of unofficial groups you’re interested in, but there’s no substitute for the “Official” group. Try creating your own group, your own space for people to play with your brand on their terms. Give them the tools to express themselves with and content to discuss before stepping back.

Whatever your feelings on social networks and the Internet, as a communicator you have to be aware that your toolbox is growing and how you can take advantage of the new channels of communications afforded to you by the interactive Web.

This article first appeared in the always excellent IABC newsletter, CW Bulletin.

 

PR is the Experience Business

Care of “…the world’s leading…” blog comes news of the Intel Centrino Pro Challenge, a series of YouTube-ified videos that feature ZDNet Journalists (led by one Rupert Goodwins) taking on IT executives from Nexus in a University challenge style quiz.

The whole shindig is chaired by Intel’s UK CEO and was conceived by H&K’s London office. Kudos for executing what must’ve been a tough event to coordinate. Those journeys from London to Slough are tough…

I think the concept of the Pro Challenge is great and really goes to show that PR people are now in the experience business. The experiences of journalists we’d like to cover our client and, increasingly, the online experiences of people who want to interact with our clients.

The problem is that this project works extremely well in real life but doesn’t translate to an effective digital experience.

While this would’ve a great yarn for the beer hungry journos (Goodwins’ formula for media coverage depends heavily on the amount of beer you buy him involved in the briefing), Intel customers (no doubt to be quoted in a prominent upcoming case study) and Intel execs (see customers) I’m not sure why it needed to be broadcast on YouTube six times.

Yes there are a few funny moments, as twl points out, but it’s not a great viewing experience. Thank heaven for small mercies that the master clip was edited into smaller, more bite sized portions. 20 min of that would have been almost unbearable.

I’m a big proponent of great media experiences – FH Canada client Gatorade recently had a media hockey game and I caught this sponsored football match from the Talksport presenters a few weeks back.

But some word’s of advice for PRs -

More of this,

Less of this please.

If you’re reading this in a feedreader, please click through to read PR is the experience business and view the embedded videos.

Public Relations is…

about relationships.

Thanks Max Clifford, shyster extrordinare and the very definition of a snake oil salesman, for that one. Clifford is one of the reasons the Public Relations industry has such a bad name.

He’s the sort of person who argues that Public Relations practitioners do not have a duty to the truth. The man who the dregs of society go to if the want to extend their fleeting and utterly undeserved 15 minutes of fame.

I’m not denying that Clifford is good at his job. He is more connected with, and holds more dirt on, the media than anyone in the UK. He is a master publiscist who earns his money the hard way.

However, when your career is built lying to the press (the infamous “Freddie Starr ate my hamster” headline was a completely fabricated masterstroke) and selling “kiss and tell” stories to various UK rags, it’s easy to see why he may not be the best de facto spokesperson for an industry trying to recover its reputation…

It doesn’t help much when every mention of his name in the media is prefixed with the words “PR Guru”. I know of at least one magazine in the UK who retained a PR agency with the sole objective of replacing Max Clifford as the go to source for opinion on Piublic Relations issues.

Public Relations Prevents Piss Poor Performance

Here’s a snippet that didn’t make it into my Blog Herald column for tomorrow. **Update** The column is now up and, as expected it’s about the “leaked” briefing note on Fred Vogelstein. My take is about 800 words of “meh”. 800 very interesting words! Go read it…

We’ve all seen and had a bit of a guilty chortle about the Microsoft/Waggener dossier on Fred Vogelstein but today I bring you the Apple dossier on the Wired contributing editor.

**Update** Just to be clear, SJ is Steve Jobs…

Choice quotes include -

• Fred is physically unattractive and kind of a schlump. Try not to stare at him or make him uncomfortable. Do not make fun of his clothes or his haircut. NB: You will be tempted!
• Fred has been at Fortune for a couple of years. We expect he’ll suck up to SJ big-time in order to curry favor with Kirkpatrick and Schlender, both former concubines to SJ.
• Fred tends to “blow with the wind.” He’ll sing the praises of a company one day, then turn around and savage them the next. We predict in the future some blog like Valleywag will take him to task for this. Just remember, if he’s been nice to you in the past, that doesn’t mean he’ll be nice to you now.
• Fred’s mind works at a “majestic” (read: glacial) pace. He rambles. He says, “ah…” and “um…” a lot. For an idea of what to expect, zip into the future and view this video clip which Microsoft will post on its web site in early 2007. You will probably need Internet Explorer to view this, however.

Thankfully, he’s a good sport.

Venture Knowledgists

Or how the twitter bug is a few beats off key.

It’s certainly an exciting time to be working in the Internet space. Social media is bringing everyone closer together. RSS and widgets are making our lives more productive and there are some very cool web applications for people to mess about with.

Blogging, podcasting and social networking have clearly been game changes for how we, as marketing folks, do business. There are now new distribution channels for our messages, new markets and an increasing amount of invaluable niche audiences to communicate to.

Everyone wants to be able to use the new media, the social revolution to their own benefit and this has led to the rise of the venture knowledgists.

Definition

Venture Knowledgists are the ultra early adopters. The people who trawl the Web looking for new apps to try and then pimp to their colleagues, friends, family members and network.

Motivation

Their raison d’etre is to be able to say “I was one of the first people to use XXX” and they live to able to contribute some sort of critical mass for the things they have a stake in.

Payoff

Obviously their stake isn’t money; its ego. There’s no tangible return for being the first Twitterer or the the first Second Lifer. In fact, being first can often be lonely. Just try getting into your office/campus building at 7am.

Caveat Emptor

There is, however, one way that venture capitalists and venture knowledgists are incredibly similar – the failure rate. I’m no VC but I believe from what I’ve read, that if one in ten investments are a success then that’s a good success rate. VKs are in the same bracket.

For every Myspace, Facebook or Skype there are a tonne of useless Web apps that have been mercilessly pimped by the marketing industry. Things like Second Life and soon, I’m afraid to say, Twitter.

I’m not saying that we don’t need VKs — in fact they perform an invaluable purpose in uncovering new things — I’m saying that we should all be aware of their vested interests (do we need full disclosure?!) and put anything they suggest through a full level of scrutiny. Something all the young PRs/marketers should be doing anyway.

What to do?

So next time the Steve Rubel pimps the latest Google App or For Immediate Release breathlessly announces another user has been added to Second Life or Mitch Joel gives you his Twitter feed, take a step back and think why they’re pimping it and whether you can actually use it or not.

**UPDATE** Chris Edwards (not Green – see below), a journalist in the UK, has found another way for PRs to annoy the hell out of him. Yes, it’s Twitter which Charlene Li thinks will be dead before too long. I guess the backlash has started but I may see if the iStudio team can use it for project updates…

**UPDATE 2** http://twitter.com/edlee

Technorati tags: social media, web2.0, web applications, venture capitalists, venture knowledgists, facebook, myspace, skype, google, second life

What would you do?

The preamble

When I was at school, during the holidays I’d sometimes go and stay at friends’ houses. We’d get listen to music, play sports, get drunk, chase girls and for a lot of the time, watch TV.

One of my friends, James Biddle, had a dad who’d always keep us thinking. I remember one day we were watching an ODI and he came into the living room and sat down with us. After about five minutes he asked me “What would you do if you were captain?”

I was a little thrown but managed to come up with something about getting the bowler to put the ball in a certain spot and change some field placings. I got the feeling that Bidds got asked that question a lot.

Because the answer isn’t the point, the point is to always be thinking about how you would deal with a particular situation. In the same way as the salesman should always be closing, a worker in the knowledge based economy should always be thinking.

Cue Glengarry Glen Ross clip:

The Point

As a blogger, I often write about what’s happening, what I think about things and, sometimes, what I would do. I think that’s pretty much the same as most other bloggers you read.

But for the most part, nothing we talk about actually happens. It’s just more content for Google to index and sell search-based advertising against.

Anyway, now all social media commentators have the chance to shape the way one extremely esteemed offline publication’s online presence.

The Economist is bringing its Web site into the Web 2.0 space with “Project Redstripe”. The project team’s mission is to “develop truly innovative services online” – at least they’re starting big!

So, get over to their Web site and their blog and tell them how to run their business.

What would I do?

First off, I love The Economist. I don’t read it as much as I’d like, mainly because we don’t get it in the FH/iStudio office and partly because it’s expensive, but whenever I do, it’s funny, knowledgeable, insightful and slightly subversive.

There are clearly some incredibly smart people at the magazine but very few of the articles are bylined. In an era of transparency and of letting people all the way into your lives (ahem Twitter cough), that seems a little crazy.

So that’s the sea change that The Economist probably needs to undergo but what would this mean for you, the hopefully loyal reader?

Some tactics:

I want to read (when I can afford it) what these guys have to say, but I also want to hear their thoughts on the story. What interviews did they do that didn’t make the final cut? Danny Bradbury is great at doing this. What information did they find that was just mind blowing? What stories people are tracking?

Another thing I’d like to get is a view behind the curtain. The Economist was (last time I saw it explicitly mentioned in an article) pro the war in Iraq and pro legalisation of drugs. Why? Explaining the editorial policy would be great; drive engagement and all that great stuff us social media zealots spew at anyone who’ll listen.

All of this is based on the basic social media stuff – blogs and podcasts and maybe an insight into the del.icio.us pages the writers are using. Football365 just launched a new podcast (no permalinks so they have some work to do on it) that does pretty much all of the above; why not The Economist?

Comments would be a good thing too.

Mark Evans has been saying the newsroom is changing for a while, but the problem is that in this case, The Economist is not a newsroom. It already does the things Mark proposes: less news, more analysis, perspective and context.

So the question is how to change the game. Clearly The Economist’s prize asset is its content and how to sell advertising around it. The above ideas would all generate a huge amount of page views around the excellent product but what technical advance would revolutonise journalism?

Watch this space to find out what they would do, but use this space to let us know what you would do.

If I can indulge in some comment-whoring, I’d love to hear from my blogging journalist, and ex-journalist, friends Mathew and Mark