The Silicon Valley firm that helped Al Gore create a movement to curb climate change introduces strategy team to help leaders spark and sustain change. Guest post by Chris Knight 

In 2012, Nancy Duarte and Patti Sanchez set out to write a book to help business leaders envision the future and make their big, audacious visions a reality. In their 2016 book Illuminate: Ignite Change through Speeches, Stories, Ceremonies and Symbols, they lay out a five-part taxonomy for leadership movements.

Based on four years of in-depth research, Illuminate is rich in case studies about how great leaders like Apple's Steve Jobs, Starbucks' Howard Schultz and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. used speeches, stories, ceremonies and symbols to mobilize the masses.

In a review of Illuminate, Forbes’ contributor Nick Morgan highly recommends the book for organizations that are keen on thinking through and telling stories that take

“best advantage of human cultural symbols, signs and signposts along the way. You can run an organization without telling stories to bring employees, customers, and the public into your fold – but you can’t run it very well.”

Last month, the Sunnyvale-based firm announced the launch of a new strategy practice to help leaders ignite powerful, persuasive movements built on the strategic framework and insights from Illuminate. 

For the past 30 years, Duarte has played a role in many movements that matter, including its work with Silicon Valley's leading brands such as Cisco and Salesforce, former Vice President Al Gore's "An Inconvenient Truth," and the transportation revolution led by Hyperloop One.

Duarte helped Hyperloop One crystallize and communicate its vision for high-speed, on-demand transportation during its first public technology demonstration in the Nevada desert in May 2016. NBC Nightly News was one of the many media outlets to cover the first moment of that movement here.

Introducing Duarte’s new strategy practice team…

From left to right: Patti Sanchez, chief strategy officer and co-author of Illuminate; Becky Waller Bausman, SVP; Brie Osgood, communication strategist; and Dave DeFranco, communication strategist. (Photo credit: Chris Knight)

Duarte's new team of senior strategists are veterans of moving audiences through systematic use of empathy, storytelling and impactful moments.

Practice leader Patti Sanchez has led transformative communications initiatives for brands including Cisco, Hyperloop One, Hewlett-Packard and VMware for more than 25 years.

Other founding practice members include three new senior strategists experienced at C-suite advising:

- Becky Waller Bausman, SVP of Strategy at Duarte, whose background is rooted in positioning and product strategy.

 - Dave DeFranco, who’s led sales enablement and change initiatives for many of the world’s largest B2B tech companies.

- Brie Osgood, who has deep experience with executive communications at Moody’s, Johnson & Johnson, HP and Hewlett Packard Enterprise.

The senior team introduces the new Duarte strategy practice in a video here.

"Great leaders create a feeling of hope that inspires people to contribute extra energy to a transformation until they arrive at the goal. The vision – or dream – of the end state must be so compelling that it creates a sense of longing to pull employees, partners, and customers toward the future," says Sanchez.

"To sustain people's interest and commitment over the long haul, leaders need to deliver an ongoing stream of meaningful and timely communications that are articulated with clarity, certainty, passion and empathy."

"Change is hard for a lot of people, which is why a lot of movements fail and a lot of corporate transformations fall flat," says Bausman.

"The collective wisdom we bring as a team helps leaders solve how to best communicate in one moment or over several moments in time to make a movement successful."

To learn more about the new practice, visit www.duarte.com/strategy

- - -

Chris Knight has worked as a brand-marketing consultant for startups and global corporations in Silicon Valley for nearly 20 years. He consults for Duarte Inc.

From right: Michael Kanellos, (standing) SanDisk; Scott Lowe, Activision; Stephanie Losee, Politico; moderator Henk Campher Allison+ Partners.

The Holmes Report's Innovation Summit in San Francisco featured a panel of former journalists, now engaged on producing a broad range of editorial content for large brands, speaking on the topic of Content Marketing.

The first question was should the average person know anything about Content Marketing? They all nodded vigorously: No, because it is all about great content, and since the goal of Content Marketing is publish editorial content of substantial value then it is no different from the goals of independently produced content.

But there is a difference between the two. One is masquerading as if it isn't advertising. Surely readers should be made aware of the difference rather than everything blending into one? 

[Later, during questions the panel agreed that labelling was important.]

Stephanie Losee from Politico said that things were messy in terms of distinguishing different types of content and that bad players are ruining things for everyone else. But she says things will improve because these are early days -- too early yet to say if content marketing is failing us.

Michael Kanellos from SanDisk said that with content marketing you can design the editorial content to target a specific set of people. An audience of three thousand is more relevant than a mass audience to some clients.

I've noticed that most Content Marketing fails because it is trying to produce Editorial Content but the leadership is in PR or in Marketing and so the result is marketing or PR content. It needs to be editorially led to be successful.

Scott Lowe at Activision said that at his, and other corporations, they are trying to make their editorial departments autonomous in some way. 

Foremski's Take:

My view is that Content Marketing is failing us and causing a lot of damage to society and to the Brands that bankroll this practice.  

Content marketing, especially in the form of Native Advertising where it pretends to be legitimate third-party editorial content -- erodes trust in independent media.

A large Edelman study on Native Advertising found that it boosted perceptions of a Brand if it was seen on a trusted media site; but it did not enhance the reputation of the media site carrying the native advertising.

Brands are eroding trust in the media that carries their traditional advertising. It’s an incredibly short-sighted strategy. The bogus value of native advertising is poisoning an already confused media industry that can’t say no to bad ideas. 

Many people already see all media as corrupt in some way. Content marketing is fortifying this view. 

Content marketing is failing in yet another way: it's too expensive. Creating lots of high quality content is terrifically hard and tremendously expensive -- especially the way PR and Brands do it, with dozens of stakeholders involved at every stage of the production process. 

There is no magic blog post or piece of content that will turn the dial on Brand awareness. Repetition is needed. It costs a lot of money and time to produce a single piece of editorial content and then you have to do it again, and again, and again.

Every company is a media company but they'd rather not be media companies because it is hard work. They will wish they could go back to the good old days when SanDisk would invite Michael Kanellos, senior reporter, on the chip industry beat at CNET News.com, to come visit and Michael might then write a story, and the boost from an independent media source was a lot better than from content on its own site. 

Stephanie Losee spoke about how corporations could effectively sponsor investigative reporting at independent media publications and that trust in the Brand could help to produce trusted news.

I agree and I've said that Corporate Media could potentially win a Pulitzer Prize because Brands would only seek to publish highly trusted content otherwise it would harm their reputation. However, as Michael Kanellos pointed out, Brands are not in the business of investigative news [or winning Pulitzers]. 

There is a role for Brands in helping to build a thriving independent, investigative media industry -- but not through Content Marketing.

Here's some suggestions:

- Brands are buying bogus traffic from bogus publishers to bump up their numbers. At least $6 billion to as much as $16 billion annually is lost by the media industry (which calls it “Ad Fraud” and doesn’t realize it’s their money). Brands should only advertise in Real Media -- vetted publishers that employ journalists, etc. 

- Programmatic ad buying means an individual publisher can't sell the merits of their title and its readership.  Programmatic is problematic because content quality is not directly rewarded.

We still haven’t figured out a stable and sustainable business model for a thriving, independent media industry. Hugely important issue. 

Brands should seek out media titles that are important to them and their industry and then pay extra for advertising to make sure that they are able to stay in business. It beats trying to be a media company.

 Please See: 

Largest Native Advertising Study Finds Benefits For Brands At The Expense Of Publishers

Desperate Moves: NYTimes Reduces Labeling On Native Ads To Appease Brands

The Risks In Native Advertising Subterfuge: The Loss Of Brand Identity And Trust

What's Next When Every Company Is A Media Company? MaaS Media...

In this Guest Post, PR industry veteran Mike Maney makes a strong case for embargoes. I work with embargoes because publishing a press release before its time is not a scoop. If I'm smart enough, I can come up with an original and exclusive angle on an important story, from having time to ask the right questions. 

By Mike Maney

A common complaint among the media is that embargoes are the spawn of Satan. An unnecessary evil foisted upon reporters for the sake of squeezing every last drop of digital ink from a marketer’s jargon-filled pitch.

This is true of embargoes 99.999% of the time. I’ve railed on them. A lot. I do my best to avoid them. I like laser-targeting stories I’ve uncovered (or manufactured) to the journalist who would be the most interested in the topic. Not the two, three or ten journalists, but the one.

It’s tough work (okay, not tough like oil rigger tough, but…). It requires paying attention to rivers of news, to reading things from wildly different corners of the media world, to actually engaging with reporters as humans when I don’t have anything to sell them.

That isn’t done with a pitch list.

But there’s that other 00.001% of of the time. It’s the time when you actually have news. Not earth shattering “Hey, we found Amelia Earhart!” news, but legit news.

This is when the judicious use of the embargo becomes necessary. It’s necessary not because the news needs to be controlled, but — wait for it — because reporters have made it necessary.

How many times has a company’s news team received this email: “Sorry, my competitor already ran the story. Yes, I know it’s a story my readers should hear, but I can’t do anything with it now that it’s out there.”

So, news that is news isn’t news unless it drives clicks (read: advertising). Uh huh. Yeah. Hence, the embargo. A way for companies to *help* reporters by leveling the playing field and take the “Ooh! I was first! Nah nah nah!” out of the journalistic equation.

Readers don’t care who was first. They care about the story.

The White House press corps has it right, so do some professional sports: pool reporters to cover the basic stuff, individual reporters to dive deep and give stories the attention and analysis they deserve.

AP announced automated game recaps - a victory for data & algorithms is another body blow to journalists 

http://t.co/HPt9bJGHra

— Tim Blair (@TimothyBlair) 

March 6, 2015

Is it time for a similar tech press corp? A corp where rookie journalists are thrown into the pool to cover press release and event news, leaving seasoned reporters the time to dive deeper into the issues and trends that surround the industry?

And, if that’s the model, where do these seasoned reporters dive deep?

They do it from inside the khaki lined walls of Corporate America, where budgets exist to support them and forward-thinking companies give them the access, time and support they need to tell strong, smart and insightful stories.

Because as much as we all want to think the relationship between trade reporter and tech company is adversarial, the reality is all they really want to do is find and tell good stories about their industry.

Sadly, the traditional outlets for telling those stories are dwindling, victim to a business model that relies on commodity news for clicks (see embargo above). But the stories still exist, they still need to get told and there are an increasing number of topnotch reporters on the market who still want to tell them.

- - -

Mike Maney is the founder of ManeyDigital, where he provides experienced communications counsel to startups and members of the Fortune 500.

Paul Holmes (center) gives an award to Inner Circle Labs in early 2014.

Paul Holmes of the Holmes Report, writes that, "The importance of defining public relations has never been greater than it is today."

That’s because as various communications disciplines converge, as corporate reputation and brand image begin to blur, as clients seek solutions that encompass paid and earned and owned and shared media and engage multiple stakeholders, PR people find themselves competing with rivals from advertising, from digital, from other disciplines to offer critical insights, develop truly differentiated strategies, and to provide multichannel execution.

... a focus on “earned media” is surely too limited... Chris Graves, the Ogilvy Public Relations chairman ... believes he has the answer, or at least an answer. Rather than focusing on earned media, he says, the industry should be emphasizing its ability to deliver “earned influence.”

In his address to the PR Council and its members on his recent appointment as Chair, Graves said that public relations means that,

We understand the art and science of building relationships. When successful, those relationships allow us to engage others with purpose and respect, to share, educate, inform and entertain. Through these relationships, we earn the right to try to join conversations and maybe even change minds. We earn that right to influence others.

Call it [PR] earned influence.

Foremski's Take: I'm not persuaded by Chris Graves' argument to rebrand public relations as "earned influence." It sounds too much like PR spin and it shouldn't.

["Brand journalism" is another nonsensical PR spin on what should be plainly called corporate media.]

The only thing "earned" is the monthly PR retainer. Surely, it's better to choose words that are honest and accurate. Trying to link "earned influence" with "earned media" just double-underlines the misuse of the words.

Let's remember that the best PR in this new media age is all about authenticity.

"Earned media" sounds as if it happens all by itself, a natural phenomenon that is based on the merit of the subject itself, rather than paid agents actively promoting their client through relationships with journalists, Tweeters, social sharers, and any other influencers they can find.

"Earned influence" sounds as if it happens all by itself, the influence is earned on the merits of trust and mutual respect with influencers, rather than motivated by client dollars.

Words matter. Let's be straight with ourselves and everything will follow.

PR agencies are paid to persuade, to use their relationships for mercenary purposes. There is no need to disguise it. Everyone accepts that PR agencies have a business service to provide. 

PR "relationships" are viewed with suspicion by journalists, and everyone else for a good reason: the relationships come with an agenda to persuade — based not on the merits of a client's story — but on the merits of the client's budget.

Journalists need PR people to help them feed the daily beast. At its best, it's a mutually beneficial relationship that produces high quality media content, at its worst it is cynically manipulative and ethically bankrupt. 

PR agencies are paid to persuade influencers.  PR is the art of Persuasive Relations. It's more accurate and honest.  

Graves' efforts to establish a new definition of PR is to set it apart from competition with advertising agencies, SEO services, and every other form of paid persuasion service. But it's far more important to understand that PR has become just one of many types of persuasion services. Now what do you do? Do you pretend that PR is something else?

PR's challenge is that it is an artisanal, hand-crafted service operating within a brave new digital media world that rewards scale.  Ad agencies, SEO services, Facebook, Google, Twitter, know how to scale their promotional work through technology. 

Where are PR's scalable technologies of persuasion? 

Edelman, the world's largest public relations firm, has named outsider Kelly Schwager, General Manager, Silicon Valley. She replaces Maria Admundson, who was promoted to global chair of the Technology group. 

Schwager was the CMO and Senior VP at Streetline, a startup specializing in connecting cars with parking spaces. She also worked at Silicon Valley companies SAP, Symantec, Veritas, and Cunningham Communications. 

Diana Bradley at PR Week reports that Edelman, the world's largest privately owned PR firm, has appointed senior executive Trish Smith (above) to a new senior position: "Diversity and Inclusion MD."

Smith's appointment is part of the agency's plans to establish a diversity and inclusion leadership team. The group will be comprised of about 10 staffers who will set goals and develop strategies for improving diversity within Edelman's workforce and culture, said Smith.

She reports to Edelman US COO Julianna Richter.

Smith will be very busy:

Smith will partner with HR as well as leaders across offices and practices to guide Edelman's organizational strategy and approach to diversity and inclusion. She will also manage diversity training, recruitment, and engagement within the firm.

Smith said:

"There is value in ensuring greater diversity within our workforce because it drives innovation and thinking, which helps us develop better campaigns and creates greater business success." 

Edelman is also looking to build internal communities that reflect the diversity of its workforce.

Smith's focus will be divided between her diversity work and her current work. She still keeps her old job:

Smith previously served as EVP and group head, providing counsel to clients on multicultural issues and engagement, which she will continue to do.

This morning I spoke with Bill Calder and Ken Kaplan about the project (http://freepress.intel.com). Here are some notes from our conversation:

- With all the changes happening in media, journalists are having to cover a lot of beats and they don't have the time to do in-depth reporting on Intel, or much in-depth reporting at all. It is frustrating because there are some great stories within Intel that aren't being told.

- We know we have the expertise in-house to report on these stories so we thought why not do it ourselves? We have people on Intel's communications team that are former journalists so we put together a team, that includes us and one or two others, to try and tell these stories.

- Our communications team, for good or bad, is very focused on product launches. But there are so many other stories to tell. Intel is a very large company with many interesting projects, and people.

-It is very much a dream position for us, we've been talking within Intel about doing something like this and its great to be able to have the resources to launch this venture.

- Anyone is free to use the stories from Intel Free Press. Our goal is to have some of the largest news sites running these stories, in whole, or in part.

- Our biggest challenge is credibility. People tend to distrust corporate blogs, so we have to show that our stories are fair, and high quality, so that people trust us.

- Our goal isn't to compete with other news sites, we aren't going to do a deep dive into the technology or benchmarking our chips. It's about telling stories that haven't been told yet. For example, a story on our VP of Investor Relations (Caught in the Crossfire: Intel's Investor Relations Chief - SVW)

- We will also write about our partners, showing some of the interesting things they are doing. There will be a wide variety of stories every week.

- We also have a team of about 15 people that produce "Circuits." This is written for Intel employees and only available internally. There is a lot of great content there that we will publish on Free Press.

- Intel Free Press will be our main job. We may expand the team by bringing in outside contributors, other journalists. We want to create a media brand that is clearly distinguished from the rest.

- We decided not to use bylines so that we can use one voice and give it more of a news agency feel. And that should make it easier for other publishers if they want to reuse all, or part of our stories. They don't even have to attribute it to Intel.

- Success will be measured by the take up in search results and also the stories being re-used by major media outlets. And that should also lead to bloggers linking to the stories.

- Our legal department has been pretty good about it.

- We've set up Free Press as being separate from the Intel newsroom although there is a link from the newsroom.

- You can follow Intel Free Press on Twitter: @IntelFreePress.

Foremski's Take:

It's great to see a large company taking this step and willing to experiment with new approaches to communications. I recently spoke with Cisco, and it too is following a very similar strategy, wanting to produce a news magazine with stories sourced from within Cisco but not focused directly on Cisco.

(Cisco Plans Relaunch Of News@Cisco)

It's good that Intel has established a separate brand for this venture because that will help it track its progress and also help establish credibility outside of the main newsroom. Credibility will be established over time and by consistent, high quality content.

Some news organizations might see Intel Free Press as a competitor. It is possible that they might not cover a story, say the one on Intel's VP of Investor Relations, because Intel has already written that story. I was on a Bulldog Reporter panel last year with Kara Swisher, the former Wall Street Journal columnist and now at All Things D, and she was berating companies for posting a news announcement on their own website, saying that she wanted the scoop. Intel Free Press won't be writing those types of stories so Kara should be OK with that.

I'm looking forward to tracking this venture and seeing how it is received by other news organizations.

- - -

Intel Free Press.

Please see:
Every Company Is A Media Company

Shannon Latta EVP at Horn Group writes:

Today we announced our very own iPhone app, live in the iTunes App Store. We think we're the first agency like ours to design a mobile app like this -- that combines agency news and industry insights, sharing and commenting functionality, and a handy directory of our entire staff -- for clients, prospects and employees. Have you seen anything similar from anyone else? I know Lewis PR has a news aggregator for the iPhone but it's nothing like what we've built.

Here's our launch package:

• 
  Press release
• 
  Video demo of the application
• 
  The app itself

We're seeing a lot of interest from marketers who want a mobile presence for their brand. We think it's becoming as important as having a website and agencies have to evolve to meet this need. Our iPhone app, built entirely in-house by Horn Group ID, shows off some of our new mobile capabilities. We can quickly and affordably build applications like our own for clients -- ideal for sales, marketing and employee communications.

I applaud Horn Group for taking this step and I look forward to hearing how it is used and if apps are a good vehicle for PR.

I've been fascinated with Jon Iwata ever since he was appointed head of IBM's Corporate Communications and Marketing. It's highly unusual for one person to hold both positions and it could mark the beginning of a new trend.

As a senior VP of Marketing and Communications at IBM, the world's largest computer company, Mr. Iwata has a tremendous amount of influence within the computer industry and beyond.

- He holds a B.A. from the School of Journalism and Mass Communications at San Jose State University.

Here is an extract from a speech at the Yale Club in November 2009:

One day soon, every employee, every retiree, every customer, every business partner, every investor and every neighbor associated with every company will be able to share an opinion about that company with everyone in the world, based on firsthand experience. The only way we can be comfortable in that world is if every employee of the company is truly grounded in what their company values and stands for.

What are we doing about this at IBM? We have created a new discipline within my organization that puts together brand management and workforce enablement, or what we used to call internal communications. This may sound to some like external and internal messaging coming together - employee as brand ambassador. Sure, that's an aspect of it. But the centerpiece is something quite different. We call it the IBM Brand System.

Picture a framework with five columns. From left to right the columns are labeled what it means to look like IBM, to sound like IBM, to think like IBM, to perform like IBM and ultimately to be IBM.

"When you think about the PR profession -- what it'll look like 10 years from now - start not with PR but with the world at large; not with the decade, but the century," said Iwata, adding that a century from now, the world will look back on the early 20^th century as a time when "civilization took a great leap forward," marked by "changes in what people know, changes in what people expect and ultimately changes in behavior."

Though attempting to analyze such a period of change while simultaneously experiencing it continues to prove difficult, Iwata identified new disciplines in the corporate function, emerging from an environment characterized by transparency and readily available information. At the core of these emergent disciplines is a stress on behavior management--a sense of corporate integrity permeated down to and communicated directly from the individual employee.

"Lincoln said character is like a tree, reputation is like its shadow," Iwata said. "Many believe their job is to manipulate the shadow rather than tend to the health of the tree. In this world of transparency and democratized media, it is increasingly difficult for organizations and individuals to lead double lives. There can be no image management without behavior management.

"People care about the corporation behind the soft drink, or bank account, or computer - they do not divorce their opinions of that company from the company's products and services."

Iwata went on to suggest that the behavior and subsequent image of a company goes far beyond the surface, indicating a need for the instillment of unique corporate values among all employees, as "they only matter if lived and applied consistently by everyone in the company."

According to Iwata, it is through the consistent maintenance of and adherence to a brand's values and promise that they are able to succeed in another emerging discipline--that of building constituencies. The idea of merely reaching an audience and achieving message penetration is not enough. "Pumping out information only adds to the nosie and compounds the challenge of being heard... Value will come from offering perspective and useful information and providing a contribution to our audience's knowledge."

Citing Apple as a company that does this well, Iwata suggested, "They don't just advertise, they teach. They don't just sell, they create learning experiences in their stores. They want you to learn everything their product can do, so then you will teach others... In the process they recruit new and loyal customers that become advocates and evangelists."

Crafting and disseminating a valuable message and building this constituency is no longer, however, the task of solely communications professionals. Iwata described a third and final major shift as the development of the eminence of a company's workforce--training employees to act and communicate as experts who produce valuable information for the public and extend the power of the brand.

"2010 is the year that corps grapple with and ultimately accept that their employees are engaging with social media... But simply having your people on the net is not the differentiator. It's what they do once they get there."

(Jump to about 21.00 to cut out welcoming remarks.)

I hope this has whetted your appetite for finding out more about Mr. Iwata and his pioneering work at IBM and how that might influence the broad practice of corporate communications and PR.

Jon Iwata (coastw) on Twitter

The premise of Swagapalooza is to invite 85 bloggers to hear five minute pitches from a variety of companies and at the end of the evening leave with a bag of swag.

There is no obligation to write about anything.

I had a fun time primarily because I had expected some kind of super-smart marketing event, after all, Guy Kawasaki (Super Spamurai) was the keynote speaker. I expected a crass display of bloggers transformed into spammers, Twitting marketing messages all night long because of all the free stuff they were going to get.

It wasn't anything like that. Instead, the presentations were so wonderfully unrehearsed and so funky, and so funny, that at times I thought we might all be in some hidden-camera reality TV show.

The Tweets were hilarious, the running commentary was very funny.

But, there were plenty of moments when I really couldn't tell if things were carefully rehearsed comedic sketches -- or the real thing.

Fortunately, we weren't in some twisted TV reality show -- all the presenters represented real companies, even the guy who looked like a very young Christopher Walken and talked like him -- was real.

Nearly a billionaire...

Guy Kawasaki kicked things off with a long, rambling, top ten tips for entrepreneurs. There was lots of good advice. But it was clearly just a gig for Mr Kawasaki, he stayed in his green room before the event and didn't mix with anyone, and he was long gone by the time the presentations were finished.

Mr Kawasaki did reveal something interesting: he said he was offered the CEO position at an early stage Yahoo. But he didn't think Yahoo had much of a future and didn't take the job. He said if had taken the job, he would be a billionaire and he wouldn't be where he is today, in a dingy night club talking to a 100 people. Ouch.

"5 minute" presentations...

We then saw a bunch of "5 minute" presentations that were more like 15 minutes, repetitious, and some were becoming tedious. But, it was this authentic approach, rather than some slick presentation, that I enjoyed.

The other neat thing about Swagapalooza was that the companies weren't the usual tech startups I normally see. There was Black Garlic, which sells a delicious black garlic that tastes like licorice; a guy told a very long story about his inspiration for a bicycle helmetlock; there was Equmen - a male underwear company with engineered supports for a svelte figure; a company selling a bacon flavored hot sauce (not yet FDA approved so no samples(!))( Nick Aster was wondering if bacon might have jumped the shark - I think he could be right); WhiteyBoard, selling a roll of adhesive backed white plastic in 6 sizes for turning any surface into a whiteboard; Backflip - a protector for your iPhone with a 'kickstand' so that you can stand it up on a table; Gorillapod - a flexible camera tripod; and a few others that I don't recall...

The only tech company was Fotobabble with its "talking photos." I spoke with Kamal Shah, the CEO, he said that you can annotate any photo with any audio. Such as for promotional uses but also for family photo albums.

The swag bag...

The "swag bag" was a collection of fairly innocuous samples, not much different from the tchotchkes you find at trade show booths, I didn't feel tainted or corrupted by the modest value of its contents.

Also, our fellow audience members were great, most weren't from the tech industry, they were food bloggers, etc. It was very refreshing to spend some time outside of the normal geek groups and echo chambers.

The organizers launched their web site last night, LaunchHear.

Interesting format...

My buddy Nick Aster said he loved the format and we discussed maybe doing something similar in our neighborhood. The local music club in our San Francisco, Divisadero neighborhood (The 'Dero) is The Independent, and on Mondays, when it hasn't any shows, it opens up with a free movie night. What if Mondays at The Independent were to become a platform where local businesses/shops could make a pitch, pass out some samples, engage with their neighbors? It could work...

- - -
Here is a PearlTree of web pages, focused on the event, put together by Shannon Clark - it also has some of the Tweets.

 ptInitTree('pt-pearl-1_727381-709',1,53473,1,727381,1); 

Internet 1.0 meant we could publish to any computer screen be it mainframe or pocket. Now we are in Internet 2.0 and that means that any computer platform, be it mainframe or pocket, can publish back. We now have a two-way Internet, an Internet on steroids.

But what is so striking about the online world is how little conversation takes place, how little two-way communication happens. One comment to an article is not a conversation. 300 separate comments on an article is not a conversation. If you look, these interactions peter out within one or two exchanges -- is that a conversation?

There's a lot of 'preaching to the choir,' which doesn't encourage conversation because the choir agrees with the sermon. I rarely see an online conversation that moves beyond one or two exchanges, or that doesn't degenerate into name calling. [Here is one example of a great (rare) online conversation that is well argued, reasoned, and fascinating: Goodbye Dubai | Smashing Telly - A hand picked TV channel.]

Twitter: not much conversation going on because it's not set up for that. Facebook, has a little more room for conversations but I rarely see much. All we have in social media is all still very much a "broadcast" media/communications channel. Yet we hear so much about "conversational marketing" and so on. But it doesn't (yet) exist.

The next phase of the Internet is when we have lots of conversations, that's Internet 3.0. (That's the real semantic web.) We don't have it yet because we're not yet used to it. Our most recent media communications paradigms are all broadcast based.

With Internet 1.0 we complained about information overload. Wait until we, most of us, complain about conversation overload.

- - -

SVW is one of the sponsors of the NewComm Forum, April 27 to 29 in San Francisco. NewComm is one of my favorite conferences of the year. I'm very pleased to be asked again to speak at the conference, my fifth time (...how quickly time flies.)

The conference is organized by the Society for New Communications Research (SNCR - http://sncr.org), a Palo Alto based think tank. I'm honored to be an early member of SCNR and a founding fellow.

At the conference you will be able to take part in presentations from SNCR fellows such as:

• SNCR Fellows Laura (@Pistachio) Fitton, author of Twitter for Dummies, and Shel Israel, author of Twitterville, with industry analyst and co-author of Groundswell, Charlene Li "Twitter: Exploring the Impact of Micro-communications Tools"

• SNCR Fellow Alan Kelly, president, The Playmaker's Standard addressing the question "What's in a Tweet"

• SNCR Fellows Paul Gillin and JD Lasica discussing "A World Without Media: What Will Fill The Void?"

• SNCR Fellows Joseph Thornley and J.D. Lasica with Forrester analyst Jeremiah Owyang and Amy Muller, GetSatisfaction discussing "Things That Go Bump In the Night - Challenges of Managing Social Media"

And there is lots more. . . Social media and new media experts gather at NewComm Forum in San Francisco April 27-29

Please see: http://www.newcommforum.com

If you send me a message through Twitter I will send you a discount code. I'm @tomforemski

"Why are you upset?" he asked. I said I wasn't upset but in fact I was upset by his rudeness. I'm not a media slut like many in this business. Everyone else jumps at any publicity. I'd rather be selective and I'd rather that someone ask me first.

In today's age where everyone can publish and Twit anything at anytime I think it is time for some new rules etiquette especially for those people that need to have it spelled out.

I go to a lot of events and I have a lot of conversations and people tell me lots of things that would get them into trouble if I published it. Yet they trust me and trust that I won't burn them but I'm not sure everyone understands this etiquette especially those that are new to publishing.

Sometimes people ask me "Can I blog that?" when I say something. Sometimes that's OK but at least they are asking first.

My line is: "This conversation is just between the people in this group, If I wanted the world to know what I just said then I would have blogged it myself," and usually I say it with a smile. And usually people understand that there are new rules and that if people over step those rules then others will take note and future conversations might be rather stilted.

The new rules are don't publish private conversations--these are not public conversations--and ask first.

- - -

Support the source: Rave reviews find out why! - Order the The Amazon Kindle Electronic Book Reader!

Even though Wells Fargo has a blog page "Join the conversation" it doesn't.

Last April I had a really bad experience with Wells Fargo and wrote about it. Within minutes I had people commenting on their bad experience! It was the fastest response I had ever had to a post!

I wrote about my bad experiences several times actually. I was wondering how long it would take for a Wells Fargo representative to notice and leave a comment. As I pointed out, I'll get over my rant but the search engines will continually bring up my story and you would think that Wells Fargo would want to leave it's side of the story, at least say, "Sorry about that, here's a toaster..." or something.

But nothing came from Wells Fargo.

Sure enough, every few weeks someone finds my rant and and leaves another story about Wells Fargo. You'd think after about a year, someone might notice at Wells Fargo and "Join the conversation!"

(BTW, last month I met one of the bank's directors John Chen, the CEO of Sybase and mentioned that someone at the bank should keep an eye on what is going on online.)

Here is a recent comment about Wells Fargo from NKB that I received on March 18, 2008. I've got quite a collection and I know I will get more.

I thought I would just add my 2 cents regarding the WF's outrageous policies regarding holds.

I deposited a bonus check for in excess of $5K from my employer via an ATM and received an email a day later saying that WF will hold $4900 for a week and the remainder for 2 weeks.

Facts:

1. I am WF customer of more than 30 years.

2. The deposited check is drawn on BofA.

3. The same BofA account is used to make a direct payroll deposit into my WF account twice a month.]]> Wed, 26 Mar 2008 03:15:35 -0700 https://content.presspage.com/clients/150_2054.jpeg?10000 https://content.presspage.com/clients/150_2054.jpeg?10000 https://www.siliconvalleywatcher.com/evolve-press-release-evolve-evolve-evolve/ https://www.siliconvalleywatcher.com/evolve-press-release-evolve-evolve-evolve/241629. . . IABC Takes Over New/Social Media Release Leadership

 

It was just over two years ago that I penned my infamous "Die! Press Release! Die! Die! Die" post/rant. I wondered why the press/news release did not have any hyperlinks, did not tag/label various sections for easy information retrieval, and did not use any of the new media technologies we have at our disposal.

 

 

It quickly became a controversial subject. My headline should have read "Evolve! Press Release! Evolve! Evolve! Evolve!" But maybe it wouldn't have gotten the attention that it did.

 

 

Half the people that read the original post it said I was mistaken, the press release would never die. The other half agreed with me and set about creating a new format for the press release.

 

 

Chris Heuer agreed to start a working committee on what we were calling the new media release and we had other key help from Shel Holtz, Brian Solis, Todd Defren and Shannon Whitley

 

 

The name for the new media release is now the "social media release." I'm not keen on the name too much, as I've said before I'd prefer a more neutral term, but that's how it is being referred to.

 

 

The interesting part of all this is that the International Association of Business Communications (IABC) has assumed the responsibility of providing a leadership role in "the development of standards to govern the creation and distribution of social media releases, a format for making company news available to reporters, bloggers and the general public.."

[Please see: IABC Assumes Social Media Release Leadership Role]

 

 

We'll see how this turns out. I hate to think that my legacy to the world will be something as obvious as suggesting the use of new media technologies to reformat the news/press release but I'm glad that I'm not the only one that sees value in this approach.

 

 

However, it is still a controversial topic. There is still a lot of work to be done. And it won't be easy work. It'll be interesting to see how the IABC executes on its leadership responsibilities.

 

 

Here is the IABC announcement in old format style: IABC Assumes Social Media Release Leadership Role

 

 

And in the social media format style: IABC assumes Social Media Release leadership role

 

 

Additional info:

 

 

The International Association of Business Communicators (IABC) is a global network of communication professionals committed to improving organizational effectiveness through strategic communication. Established in 1970, IABC serves more than 15,000 members in 70 countries and 100 chapters. For more information, visit www.iabc.com.

 

]]> Wed, 05 Mar 2008 08:20:11 -0800 https://content.presspage.com/clients/150_2054.jpeg?10000 https://content.presspage.com/clients/150_2054.jpeg?10000 https://www.siliconvalleywatcher.com/mediawatch-monday-2-years-on-from-die-press-release-diedie-die/ https://www.siliconvalleywatcher.com/mediawatch-monday-2-years-on-from-die-press-release-diedie-die/241350
Evolving the news release with microformats...

When I wrote Die! Press release! Die! Die! Die! nearly two years ago, it got a lot of attention and a lot of work has gone into creating a more modern news release that includes much of the media technologies that make up Internet 2.0.

Chris Heuer, Shel Holtz, Brian Solis, Todd Defren and Shannon Whitley are some of the many people that have worked hard to bring attention to new formats for a press/news release, which is sometimes called a new media release, or a social media release.

We are still far from what I described in the original post:

In most news stories, the spin or angle, is set by the journalist in the first couple of paragraphs.

Much of the rest of the news story is factual: what the CEO said, when the company was founded, where it is based, the stock price, the specs of a product, the price, etc, etc, etc...



Deconstruct the press release into special sections and tag the information so that as a publisher, I can pre-assemble some of the news story and make the information useful...



The tags would be things like: recent share price, founders, first quarter revenues, analyst quotes, etc...



And because we are dealing with tags that are attached to facts--there is no spin so there is no problem in printing the information as it is received. If we can get the tags to be finely tuned, as a publisher, I could spec out a story and assemble it automatically and then quickly edit it by hand before publishing.

Read more here...Die! Press release! Die! Die! Die!

We are far from this vision but we have the technology to do this. It is because it requires a cultural change and we know that culture is always slow to change. And so we have to be patient.

In the meantime, Shannon Whitley has done some excellent work on creating those tags I mentioned, which in Geek speak are called microformats. He has been part of the hRelease Working Group and has done a stellar job in producing the basis of a standard.

Now we just need to have people start using it and refining it.

Just before the holidays, a few of us got together to do a New Media Release podcast that discusses microformats. From For Immediate Release: The Hobson and Holtz Report

Content summary:The usual suspects: Chris Heuer, Shel Holtz, Tom Foremski, Brian Solis and Shannon Whitley. Shannon runs down the recently-released pre-specification working document, which needs your input. The group discusses the flurry of posts taking pro and con positions about the social media release.

You can listen to it here.

Shel provides some reference materials:

Working document referenced by Shannon Whitley.

The new Social Media Release site

Google Groups mailing list for New Media Release discussion

hRelease wiki

Technorati Tags: mediawatch, newmediarelease, socialmediarelease

]]> Sun, 20 Jan 2008 15:44:38 -0800 https://content.presspage.com/clients/150_2054.jpeg?10000 https://content.presspage.com/clients/150_2054.jpeg?10000 https://www.siliconvalleywatcher.com/how-to-suck-up-to-chris-anderson-in-1000-words-or-more---/ https://www.siliconvalleywatcher.com/how-to-suck-up-to-chris-anderson-in-1000-words-or-more---/241227
Ever since Chris Anderson, the powerful editor-in-chief of Wired magazine's recent momentary lapse in self-composure, in which he publicly blacklisted several hundred PR people for sending him bad pitches, the PR industry has gone into a frenzy of self-flagellation.

Masses of PR bloggers have been writing very long essays and about how Mr Anderson is right, and that the PR sector needs to get its house in order and and eliminate bad PR pitches. It is as if Mr Anderson was the first editor to discover that there are bad PR pitches and brought it to the attention of the world, and now the PR world is going to sort out the problem.

This is BS

Bad PR pitches have been with us since the beginnings of recorded history and will continue to be here. It is what separates the good PR people from the bad ones, and there will always be bad ones.

Bad PR pitches will continue because:

- many PR firms use juniors to scatter-shoot generic pitches hoping someone will bite.

- the fragmentation of media means there isn't enough time to customize each pitch for each journalist/blogger.

- many PR firms have very small numbers of people with the domain expertise in what their clients do.

Pitch perfect problem

Maybe I should publish a whitelist of PR people who are doing a great job, pitching excellent story ideas, offering exclusives, arranging interviews with their top CEOs, and generally looking out for me and my product.

Mr Anderson complained about getting 300 pitches that have nothing to do with Wired magazine. My problem is 300 pitches that are right on target, that demonstrate that the PR people know what I 've been writing about, that are thinking about related stories, and offering top access to their clients.

What happens if your PR pitch is pitch-perfect, it sets exactly the right tone, demonstrates an insight into the subject and the publication, and you still can't get an editor interested in it? That's going to be happening more and more because PR agencies are on a hiring binge while the professional media world is shrinking.

When it comes to media relations, there will be ever larger numbers of PR people, chasing ever smaller numbers of journalists, writing for a dwindling number of publications, which are publishing fewer pages.

Getting media coverage for clients is going to be increasingly more difficult no matter how good the PR pitch.

]]> Sun, 11 Nov 2007 10:57:09 -0800 https://content.presspage.com/clients/150_2054.jpeg?10000 https://content.presspage.com/clients/150_2054.jpeg?10000 https://www.siliconvalleywatcher.com/chicken-or-rooster-engaging-in-online-debates---/ https://www.siliconvalleywatcher.com/chicken-or-rooster-engaging-in-online-debates---/241152
Over the past couple of weeks I've written a few posts that were intended to remind the PR industry that significant changes are underway in their sector, a point of view that wasn't warmly received.

My recent post "Wiley E Coyote: Traditional PR is running on thin air" was part of a theme I've been writing about for a couple of years. It was intended to remind my PR contacts that we have disruptive technologies in our midst, and that disruptive technologies disrupt business models. Media is hurting their industry will too...

It was interesting how many people took this personally. I had to remind them that I did not call out their PR firms by name, nor did I invent the fact that disruption is happening in their industry (it really has nothing to do with me...)

But I've also been hearing from my PR contacts about the furious debates that my posts sparked internally, within their firms, and how useful they were. And I wondered why they didn't take those discussions online--it is a perfect opportunity to share and move things forward.

Some of my friends, who are bloggers in the PR community, were frustrated that their colleagues were too bashful to take their discussions online. And I can understand that frustration. Because as I popped into various Silicon Valley events over the past couple of weeks, there were many in the PR industry that engaged me in passionate debates. But it was all offline, they wouldn't go online. Which is a shame because they had some interesting things to say.

(En)Courage Online Debate

Every time I write a post I put my name behind it and I risk everything. Anyone can step up and engage and challenge me online or offline.

But there are too many people that will only engage me offline then shy away if I ask for an online debate.

I'm not asking from them anything that I wouldn't do myself, which is to state my point of view, and put my name behind it. It is an invitation to step up and share.

]]> Wed, 24 Oct 2007 17:51:05 -0700 https://content.presspage.com/clients/150_2054.jpeg?10000 https://content.presspage.com/clients/150_2054.jpeg?10000 https://www.siliconvalleywatcher.com/can-people-distinguish-pr-news-releases-from-news-stories/ https://www.siliconvalleywatcher.com/can-people-distinguish-pr-news-releases-from-news-stories/241426[This is response to a discussion in the comments section related to my recent post: Social Media Releases are Moving in a Bad Direction - Questionable Ethics in Masquerading as "News" ]

I think lots of people can distinguish content as promotional, as in a press release, or content that is a news story written by a journalist. The latter is trusted more because it is independent of any direct financial incentive.

But just in case readers get muddled, let's clearly mark PR content along these lines: "This is promotional content on behalf of Acme Corporation."

So if a news aggregator such as Google News picks it up by mistake readers can clearly identify the source of the information. They can see that it is self-serving, biased, paid-for-content -- and readers won't confuse it with news journalism.

But there are PR firms and PR practices that profit from a flaw in Google News, Yahoo News, and other large online news distributors, that pick up press releases and distribute them along with news stories written by journalists. There are studies that show that a significant number of readers get confused and think some press releases are news stories. Let's make things clear by marking content clearly.

If you have them, please send me examples of media using press releases in this way. I'll be publishing a few examples over the coming weeks.

This is becoming an interesting discussion and I thank people for their contributions.

It is an important issue because our society needs high quality information to make high quality decisions. Otherwise it is garbage in, garbage out, which doesn't bode well for us making the right decisions on global warming, foreign policy, healthcare, tech policy, and many dozens of extremely important problems.

Let's not let minority elements in PR, media, and search sectors profit from practices that reduce the quality of our information. Let's point out such practices.

. . .

NEW! - Get SVW on your Mobile Phone!

]]> Mon, 22 Oct 2007 17:51:04 -0700 https://content.presspage.com/clients/150_2054.jpeg?10000 https://content.presspage.com/clients/150_2054.jpeg?10000 https://www.siliconvalleywatcher.com/mark-all-pr-releases-not-to-be-distributed-by-news-aggregators/ https://www.siliconvalleywatcher.com/mark-all-pr-releases-not-to-be-distributed-by-news-aggregators/241473
Since Google News, Yahoo News, and other online news aggregators sometimes have trouble distinguishing news journalism from news releases from corporations or their surrogate PR firms, then the ethical thing to do is to mark all company releases: "Not to be distributed by News Aggregators."

It is the ethical thing to do. Because some people might mistake company releases, especially if they are in social media release format, as real news stories written by independent unbiased parties. Especially if they see those press releases on sites such as Google News, where they are mixed with legitimate news stories written by journalists from around the world.

Also, the company news release should clearly state at the top:"This content was prepared to promote the products or services of the following company or companies: [put company names here] and was created by: [PR firm or individual]."

Does anyone have any problems with that? It upholds transparency and it directly identifies the source of the content. It allows people to make their own judgement on the quality of the content.

Who'll be the first to send me a press release with those marks?

Or do you tell your clients how they can get their press release wide distribution through Google and Yahoo news? And charge them for it?

- - -

Please see: Why Social Media Releases are Moving in a Bad Direction - Questionable Ethics in Masquerading as "News"

]]> Mon, 22 Oct 2007 08:42:57 -0700 https://content.presspage.com/clients/150_2054.jpeg?10000 https://content.presspage.com/clients/150_2054.jpeg?10000 https://www.siliconvalleywatcher.com/updated-why-social-media-releases-are-moving-in-a-bad-direction---questionable-ethics-in-masquerading-as-news/ https://www.siliconvalleywatcher.com/updated-why-social-media-releases-are-moving-in-a-bad-direction---questionable-ethics-in-masquerading-as-news/241380
Brian Solis from FutureWorks PR and and Todd Defren from Shift Communications have collaborated on a post called: " The Future of the Social Media Release is in Your Hands."

They have both been strong supporters of my call for a different type of press release described in my post "Die! Press Release! Die! Die! Die!" Mr Defren quickly came up with a template for my ideas. And over time, it began to be called a "social media release."

I have welcomed such efforts simply because it can make my life easier in assembling the information and materials I need when I'm writing stories.

Make my job easier

The whole point of my rant about the press release was that it was not suitable for use in today's online world. Put some links in it, (still, very few press releases have links), tab/label various sections so I can quickly find relevant information; give me links to relevant stories; give me a page of analyst quotes and customer quotes; provide me with links to stock price; provide links to other media formats such as podcasts and vidcasts. It is all very obvious stuff, imho.

Also, I prefer the term new media release, it is a more neutral term than "social media release."

But there is a much bigger and more worrying difference than just the name. The social media release is evolving into something much different - it seeks to bypass journalists altogether.

Mr Solis and Mr Defren write:

...search engines are an incredible catalyst for news distribution: people are finding news through Google and Yahoo and as a result have become more accepting of press releases as legitimate information resources, on a par with trusted trade journals (this has been documented by several analysts tracking the media space).

Their argument appears to be that a social media release is a good thing because readers will attribute the same trust to a social media release as to content written by trade journalists. Self-serving content will appear as if it were unbiased content.

Not a good thing

Why is this a good thing? It is clearly not.

Journalists are accorded a certain level of trust by readers because of their independence. Press releases are accorded a lower level of trust because they come from self-interested parties. Social media releases (SMRs) are taking advantage of readers mistaken perception that Google and Yahoo News carries content created by journalists.

This is not a good thing. This a questionable ethical PR practice. (I'm sure this is NOT what Mr Solis and Mr Defren are advocating, I know them both and they are extremely ethical and trustworthy. However, their post is encouraging further development of the social media release to gain even wider distribution.)

SEO for social media releases

Mr Solis and Mr Defren complain that not all search engines discover social media releases. Technorati is one of those problematic search engines. Which I would say is a good thing, that the Technorati algorithm, unlike Google and Yahoo's, recognizes the difference in the content between self-serving corporate releases and the posts of bloggers and journalists.

They offer tips and techniques to overcome such limitations for social media releases and go on to conclude:

The key to the SMR’s long-term success will be the ability to truly be social; to not only deliver the news in a snazzy new format, but also to facilitate discovery through Social Media channels, encourage sharing and spark conversations, all in a way that brings customers, journalists, bloggers, and analysts together around your story and your community.

And they issue a call to action:

How you develop and issue SMRs is ultimately up to you, and given that these are the early days, the interest level is high in making sure we get this right. We’re all in this together.

My advice is don't. I am a huge fan of the work of Mr Solis and Mr Defren. But on this issue of making social media releases that can find even wider distribution to readers by using various tricks and techniques I part company.

Our society needs high quality information and it is the job of journalists to sort through many sources and try to come up with something that reflects a truth.

Companies and their PR firms create self-serving materials. And if those materials, under the disguise of social media releases, fool readers into thinking these are the same as if written by journalists-- it does not make the world a better place.

Similarly, if those self-serving materials find wider distribution than news stories written by journalists because of sophisticated tricks and techniques--it does not make the world a better place.

Let's go back to the concept of a new media release: the release of relevant content in formats that make the job of a journalist easier. Readers can still discover the original materials that the journalists use to write their stories and thus companies will still be able to present their side of the story.

Brian Solis replies:

Tom, well said, and honestly, I think we all agree here.

Perhaps we weren't clear enough in our post and for that, we will have to update it.

This isn't a call to action for people to take garbage to new levels of distribution and reach.

It all starts with thinking about what you want to say and figure out why it's important to those you want to reach.

A crappy press release is still a crappy press release regardless of multimedia or social bling.

Our intention is the furthest thing from offering tips and tricks to manipulate people.

Writing the news in a way that's helpful, informative, and relative is a critical starting point for any release to be successful now and in the future.

The reason for this post is to remind people that tricking out press releases for the sake of tapping into a trend doesn't do anyone any good.

Garbage in, garbage out.

Press releases, for better or worse, ARE already showing up in search engines as a natural part of the wire distribution process. It's just a "benefit" for the $1,000 fee you pay.

According to Outsell, Inc. over 51% of IT professionals are reporting that they get their news from press releases in Yahoo and Google news over trade journals.

It's a fact that is changing the game for PR, and it's not only being driven by journalists, but customers too.

What it really represents is an opportunity, dictated by necessity, to do things better.

As we talked about last week, PR won't change until it has to.

Our post simply explains the differences between multimedia and social media versus the packages that you, as pr pros, are buying and what/where it gets you.

Tom, there are vendors now that are selling social media release packages that aren't full social. So, we're calling attention to the building blocks and the channels to help people understand the entire game and to guide them how to tell a better story without adjectives.

As you say, "...the release of relevant content in formats that make the job of a journalist easier. Readers can still discover the original materials that the journalists use to write their stories and thus companies will still be able to present their side of the story."

This is a call to action for PR people to stop and think about the entire process and take the challenge for improvement, whether multimedia or social.

What we all agree on is that we have a responsibility to you and to our customers that we need to finally take seriously. And, in order to build/continue relationships, we have to provide information in way that works for the different groups of people that want info, without the usual b.s. or spintastic hype.

Thanks Brian I certainly agree with you on these issues and I'm glad we can both point to the dangers in moving the social press release beyond its charter. There are many people in the PR industry that love the fact that they can capitalize on flaws in the search engines to move corporate messages into the mainstream.

Technorati Tags: new media release, New Rules Communications, social media

]]> Wed, 17 Oct 2007 04:01:16 -0700 https://content.presspage.com/clients/150_2054.jpeg?10000 https://content.presspage.com/clients/150_2054.jpeg?10000 https://www.siliconvalleywatcher.com/changes-in-pr---is-your-pr-firm-changing-too/ https://www.siliconvalleywatcher.com/changes-in-pr---is-your-pr-firm-changing-too/241535
Every company, large and small, needs to rise above the white noise of the mediasphere and get its message out--and collect the messages about it and it's space.



Now that we have these two-way media technologies such as blogs, wikis, and RSS, and the many hybrid media formats that they make possible, how do companies achieve their basic goals of boosting sales and boosting their brand perception?



It used to be done by hiring PR firms. These days there are many other ways of getting things done, there is a fundamental change in how PR will be done. I've been writing about such changes (and upsetting a few people.)



My premise is simple: traditional media is undergoing great change and so will traditional PR for very similar reasons--but change won't happen until pain is felt, as it is being felt in traditional media. A change is certainly coming and some firms will make it others won't.



Yet many in PR feel that they can have their cake and eat it. That they can continue to sell traditional PR services and new PR services. Clients won't continue to pay for both, the money will flow to what is most effective, and most cost effective.



The new media technologies are extremely disruptive technologies. And disruptive technologies disrupt business models.



Here are some excerpts from a just published report from The Council of Public Relations Firms: (Hat tip to Sam Whitmore.)

‘RELATING TO THE PUBLIC’

THE EVOLVING ROLE OF PUBLIC RELATIONS IN THE AGE OF SOCIAL MEDIA



BY PAUL M. RAND AND GIOVANNI RODRIGUEZ,

ON BEHALF OF THE COUNCIL OF PUBLIC RELATIONS FIRMS



. . .



Clients must find and engage the best partners with the best ideas, regardless of whether they are

public relations agencies or not.



Peter Debreceny, former vice president of corporate relations, Allstate Insurance Co., expressed concern for the profession, “as many more competitors step into the traditional agency PR space.” He thinks confusion about the roles and responsibilities of various marketing and communications providers is steadily increasing and adds: “I don’t like where the trends are going.”



. . .



As for future skills, social media must become part of the way public relations practitioners do business or

they will become obsolete.



. . .



Hybrid compensation models are likely to develop that are more closely tied to audience

engagement than hourly revenue.



. . .



Clients often serve as catalysts for revamping PR agencies’ business models. Says State Farm’s Fernandez:

“Things are changing, and we don’t have a mandate to buy PR from PR firms and ads from ad agencies.”

Thus, to become communications partners, public relations agencies must illuminate how they develop the

best ideas from all the media tools available.



. . .



Within the public relations industry, practitioners increasingly understand that the media communications

landscape has changed dramatically. A Council of Public Relations Firms’ survey in the 2006 third quarter found

that a majority of public relations agencies (52%) say they have run into advertising agencies or other

marketing providers that are pitching and/or delivering services today that they consider traditional PR services.



. . .



For public relations professionals, 2007 will be an important year to determine what path they take as an

industry from the critical crossroads they’re at today. Will agencies embrace social media and move to

incorporate its various forms into client communication strategies? Or will they allow outsiders to furnish

those services? It promises to be a very interesting period ahead.

Read the report here: http://www.prfirms.org/



BTW I had no idea I was quoted in the report:

Sometimes, it’s helpful to consider the views of non-PR communicators.



Former Financial Times reporter Tom Foremski, who hosts the SiliconValleyWatcher blog, says

he’s often asked to recommend public relations agencies to companies and also how to choose public

relations agencies, especially ones that understand a bit about new media and, specifically, the blogosphere.



“Here is a key pointer:” he advises, “If you are looking for a PR company that understands something about

blogging, find out who in that organization blogs, and how long have they been blogging, and what is their

blog page rank and traffic. You will find that in many large PR agencies, it is their most junior staff that are

the in-house bloggers, and there lies the rub. PR companies that ‘get it’ have senior staff as bloggers, and

they blog regularly, and they have decent traffic, and they also use other types of new media such as wikis.”

]]> Tue, 16 Oct 2007 04:16:09 -0700 https://content.presspage.com/clients/150_2054.jpeg?10000 https://content.presspage.com/clients/150_2054.jpeg?10000 https://www.siliconvalleywatcher.com/media-architect-josh-hallett-joins-voce/ https://www.siliconvalleywatcher.com/media-architect-josh-hallett-joins-voce/241665
Josh Hallett has joined Voce Communications, which is quite a coup for this Palo Alto PR firm. Voce is one of my favorite Silicon Valley PR firms because they really understand new media/social media and are building a great team of leaders in this area.

Josh has been working with many large newspapers, creating the infrastructure for their blogs and online forums. He is what I like to call a media architect, a software engineer that knows how to implement the media technologies that make up Internet 2.0.

Voce's Mike Manuel writes:

. . . “conversation” and “community” are words that easily roll off the tongues of marketers these days, but too often it’s without knowledge or regard for the technology that’s required to carry these things from conference room concepts to real-world experiences.



This is where Josh excels. The guy’s a master translator between marketers and web developers, between ideas and experiences, and ultimately, between companies and customers.



Josh is the newest addition to our growing team of social media strategists here at Voce. Earlier this spring Andrea Weckerle, a DC-area blogger and author of New Millennium PR, joined our gang, as did Scott Sigler, author, podcaster and social media provocateur. And yeah, yours truly continues to act as this team’s lead wonk.

From Voce Nation - Now With More Cowbell

Earlier this year I published a video of Josh talking about his experiences building media systems for companies such as New York Times. There is tons of great advice and stories here:

Social media in the enterprise: How to deal with IT roadblocks

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Technorati Tags: voce

]]> Mon, 15 Oct 2007 00:56:34 -0700 https://content.presspage.com/clients/150_2054.jpeg?10000 https://content.presspage.com/clients/150_2054.jpeg?10000 https://www.siliconvalleywatcher.com/a-reader-writes-the-death-of-the-press-release-wont-happen/ https://www.siliconvalleywatcher.com/a-reader-writes-the-death-of-the-press-release-wont-happen/241442
[I recently received an email from a reader in reference to my infamous post: "Die! Press Release! Die! Die! Die!"]

By Harry Zane

I am retired from a career that began in journalism, turned to PR, then to marketing, and finally to consulting. And I agree wholeheartedly with what you said in your column. However, I am astonished that in 2007, PR is still slogging lower and lower into a press-release and press-conference tactical miasma.



I think the media, despite their constant carping about their dislike of press releases, are largely responsible. Many years ago, while working at a major university, I can recall a meeting of journalists and educational PR pros when the biggest complaint was that we PR folks sent out too many press releases. So we cut back, and the first complaints came only weeks later – from reporters, who couldn't understand why we were pitching stories without sending them "press releases."



I recall as well some 25 years ago working at a then major technology firm in Massachusetts when I had to fight endlessly with my peers and executives to keep the self-absorbed, self-unaware nonsense out of press releases. My "reward" was praise from the editor of the biggest industry trade journal. He really liked my releases because, as he said, they were brief and contained "no bullshit."



I took little comfort from his attaboys, however, since he ran unedited the competition's endless column inches of yammering right next to, or well above and ahead of, mine (the longer copy, rather than concise content, better fit his need for lead story layouts), creating the impression to casual readers (most trade journal readers are) that the competition had more to say than my company. Needless to say, this didn't sit well with the puffery-spouting peers and execs I'd just vanquished, either.



The reason, of course, for his actions are entirely explicable. His was a labor-intensive business, and he needed the free copy. Such is the fate of all media today: copy, no matter how untrue, uninformative, or unbecoming the author, trumps solid content.



PR people won't stop creating press releases because PR people, be they consultants, or employees will not stop serving the pleasure of their benighted bosses and clients; most media will continue to take content anywhere they can find it for little or no cost; and reader expectations for something better will continue to spiral downward with the whole sorry mess.



You are obviously a dedicated journalist with healthy amounts of skepticism and ambition. Your idea is sensible, laudable, and intelligent, but I don't see it happening. Ever.

Technorati Tags: die press release, mediasphere, PRWatch

]]> Wed, 03 Oct 2007 13:30:02 -0700 https://content.presspage.com/clients/150_2054.jpeg?10000 https://content.presspage.com/clients/150_2054.jpeg?10000 https://www.siliconvalleywatcher.com/the-trajectory-of-ideas-or-why-my-older-posts-show-up-fresh-on-techmeme/ https://www.siliconvalleywatcher.com/the-trajectory-of-ideas-or-why-my-older-posts-show-up-fresh-on-techmeme/241186
Todd Defren from Shift Communications dropped me a note to point out that my Die! Press Release! Die! Die! Die! post is on the front page of TechMeme. That was written in February 2006.

But the date doesn't really matter. I've noticed that happen with some of my other posts. Search engines will kick them back into view and others will reference them and they live again in the mediasphere.

It's interesting to watch what I call the trajectory of ideas. Sometimes I will write something I think is significant and 2 people will tell me they thought it was important. Yet I can write the same piece a year, sometimes two years later or more, and 20, or 200 people will pick it up and discuss it.

That's a totally understandable phenomenon because more people now understand the ideas and conversations that emanate from Silicon Valley about the changing nature of media and its changing mediums. With simple technologies such as RSS we can now create totally new forms of media, and totally new ways to distribute and generate media.

- - -

Please see:

Ross Dawson's Trends in the Living Networks: Deconstructing the press release: how tagging will change journalistic workflow



Brian Solis: Future of the Press Release - Acceptance

Technorati Tags: puppy

]]> Fri, 28 Sep 2007 05:29:36 -0700 https://content.presspage.com/clients/150_2054.jpeg?10000 https://content.presspage.com/clients/150_2054.jpeg?10000 https://www.siliconvalleywatcher.com/3-dot-weekend----social-media-and-it-there-are-iphones-and-non-iphones-gaia-hackers-upset-kids/ https://www.siliconvalleywatcher.com/3-dot-weekend----social-media-and-it-there-are-iphones-and-non-iphones-gaia-hackers-upset-kids/241145
Social media and IT . . .

If you missed my panel on social media at Intel Developer Forum, you can watch it here. You can find out how Intel has been using blogs and wikis. It is always interesting to see how a very large and established company such as Intel (Intel is a sponsor of SVW) is able to change and embrace social media - it is not an easy process. We also had an Intel lawyer on the podium.

- - -

iPhone religion . . .

I meet a lot of people and many of them like to talk about their cell phones and then go on to tell me why they don't have an iPhone, and/or don't need one. This is interesting because these are unsolicited and unprovoked comments. It is as if just the presence of my iPhone stirs some pangs of guilt or justification.

Let me say this: I like my iPhone, but I'm not religious about it, but many people are religious about their non-iPhones. Which is interesting.

My response is this: think of the opportunity cost to you in your business and professional life. Waiting for another price reduction or until your contract comes up for renewal makes sense if you are the average consumer. It makes no sense if you live and work in Silicon Valley, if you are in media, in PR, or are a developer, or an investor. Saving a hundred or few hundred later, will cost you bigtime now because you will be behind in experiencing and being experienced with this platform.

The iPhone is a media delivery platform of a unique kind. My colleague at TechOne Steve Gillmor, says this:

The iPhone has effectively replaced my laptop for much of my working day. The extent to which I can create the necessary metadata to do my various jobs determines what applications I use.

The iPhone does have problem spots but they are mostly software fixes--it will get better very quickly. What is the cost to you in not having experience with this platform? It is far more than saving a few bucks.

- - -

Blue moon . . .

Lunarr invitations. Let me know on Facebook (send me a friend request) if you'd like to check out this unique collaborative platform created by two Japanese entrepreneurs based in Portland, Oregon.

Lunarr: A Once in a Blue Moon Company with a Unique Collaborative App

- - -

Gaia hackers . . .

My 13 year old daughter Sarah is very sad this week, someone hacked into her Gaia Online account and stole all the things she had collected from over a year's worth of work, and erased all her friend info and other malicious damage. I did some searching and there are several sites that teach others how to hack Gaia user accounts.

I sent Sarah this to cheer her up . . .

Technorati Tags: gaia online, IDF, iphone, lunarr, social media

]]> Fri, 21 Sep 2007 01:48:26 -0700 https://content.presspage.com/clients/150_2054.jpeg?10000 https://content.presspage.com/clients/150_2054.jpeg?10000 https://www.siliconvalleywatcher.com/the-trajectory-of-ideas-in-the-mediasphere----and-dredging-up-the-past/ https://www.siliconvalleywatcher.com/the-trajectory-of-ideas-in-the-mediasphere----and-dredging-up-the-past/241788
The most fascinating aspect of being a journalist blogger is observing what I call the trajectory of ideas. How publishing a post can reach just six people, who will see it as significant and respond. Yet a year later, or two, the same post will resurface yet this time seems relevant to 600 or 60,000 people, who will comment on it, or respond to it, and discuss it further.

I love to watch this happen and that's why I generally never ping my colleagues in the media about a post (which is not the way things are usually done...) because I want to see what the organic effect of the mediasphere produces.

Sometimes this is frustrating. There are times when I feel I have discussed an important issue yet hardly anyone seems to notice, 2 people will say that it was great. Yet other times my posts seem to hit a chord I didn't realize was there and the uptake is surprising.

There are several posts recently which seem to have resurfaced. One is my classic: Die! Press Release! Die! Die! Die! A late night rant about putting links into press releases, which is now revolutionizing the PR industry, believe it or not(!) leading to what is also known as the "social media release."

Permalink Concrete

A more recent example is a post about a bad experience with Wells Fargo Bank. I wrote a second and third post, hoping to get a response from the bank, I even started linking to sites that reported shady Wells Fargo practices. Nothing. I even found a page on Wells Fargo's site "Welcome to the conversation" promoting their blogs.

I wrote that I have a conversation here that I would love it to join. I pointed out that I will get over my rant, but the search engines will continue to dredge it up time and time again.

Why didn't Wells Fargo leave a comment, right there next to the rant, offering an apology and a free toaster :-), or just an apology so that its view is represented each time the search engines dredge up my complaint.

Nothing from Wells Fargo. But I do get comments and emails every few weeks from people who have had bad experiences with Wells Fargo and they found me through the search engines.

. . .

Please See:

Wells Fargo Case Study: From Crisis Meeting To Conversation



From Wells Fargo: Blogs are interactive online forums that allow us to communicate and share ideas with our readers. We're here to start a conversation with you. Wells Fargo Blogs Join The Conversation I have a conversation I'd like to...

Posted by Tom Foremski on April 28, 2007 2:37 AM

RantWatch: Extremely Poor Service from Wells Fargo

I used to be impressed by Wells Fargo, professional and with great service. My local bank manager even used to call and invite me to barbecues. That was when I had money in various accounts. He never calls anymore, now...

Posted by Tom Foremski on April 23, 2007 3:27 PM

]]> Wed, 01 Aug 2007 14:02:42 -0700 https://content.presspage.com/clients/150_2054.jpeg?10000 https://content.presspage.com/clients/150_2054.jpeg?10000 https://www.siliconvalleywatcher.com/will-social-networks-turn-journalists-into-social-pariahs/ https://www.siliconvalleywatcher.com/will-social-networks-turn-journalists-into-social-pariahs/242180
I've been thinking about journalist sources. I know some of mine are among my FaceBook and LinkedIn friends. Could that become a problem in the future?

What if I write about Apple and Steve Jobs thinks it has been leaked and sacks a friend who works at Apple, because he can see my social network even though that's not my source. What about a two degree separation? A friend of a friend...could that still cause a problem?

Should I keep my network private?

http://blogs.zdnet.com/Foremski/?p=191

]]> Thu, 26 Jul 2007 12:26:20 -0700 https://content.presspage.com/clients/150_2054.jpeg?10000 https://content.presspage.com/clients/150_2054.jpeg?10000 https://www.siliconvalleywatcher.com/pr-in-crisis-will-top-execs-snub-grass-roots-activists----/ https://www.siliconvalleywatcher.com/pr-in-crisis-will-top-execs-snub-grass-roots-activists----/241763
By Tom Foremski

Strumpette, the popular blog site for the PR industry, has laid down a gauntlet, inviting the top 50 executives of the world's top PR firms to confront the changing nature of the PR world.

This is an interesting issue, one that seems to be splitting the leading edge elements in the PR industry from the trailing edge traditionalists.

This is the first part of a remaking of PR. It is similar to the changes the media industry is going through.

However, Strumpette's call to arms could be a false dawn because the PR industry has been very slow to change, it needs an economic bust to change its habits. Either way, it is all part of the process that PR needs to go through.

Here is an excerpt from Strumpette:

To the Leadership of the PR Industry:



Where are you?!! Listen: We had a Call to Action last week where we invited a number of you here to a debate about the future of the business. Not one showed up. NOT ONE! Well, that's marked a turning point.



WE'RE OUTRAGED! While there's absolutely a growing cancer in our industry, you (plural) seem bent on lining your pockets exclusively. Regrettably, your peers are involved in behaviors that will surely kill our business. And when it goes to hell and you make off with your millions, we are the ones who will be left holding the bag.

]]> Tue, 24 Jul 2007 14:02:55 -0700 https://content.presspage.com/clients/150_2054.jpeg?10000 https://content.presspage.com/clients/150_2054.jpeg?10000 https://www.siliconvalleywatcher.com/media-industry-is-going-to-hell-in-a-handbasket---where-is-pr-industrys-handbasket/ https://www.siliconvalleywatcher.com/media-industry-is-going-to-hell-in-a-handbasket---where-is-pr-industrys-handbasket/241807
By Tom Foremski

With all the disruption that is going on in the mainstream media industry, where is the disruption in the mainstream public relations industry? PR companies and corporate communications teams are still going about their business in the same way, and seem to be thriving.

You would think that there would be a corresponding shakeup in both industries. After all, one is dependent on the other. The PR teams work with the journalists to find stories, and help them research whatever information is needed for their articles.

Always Linked

There has always been a close correspondence between the fortunes of both sectors in the past. This could be seen in the dotcom dotbomb fallout.

PR companies suffered large losses when thousands of internet related companies went bust. Job losses in both media and PR were directly related to the fact that there were now far fewer customers.

Fewer dotcom-related firms meant less demand for advertising services and thus less demand for PR services. But now there is a growing disconnect; the mainstream PR sector is booming while the mainstream media sector is fading fast.

The PR boom paradox

Over the past two years the PR sector has been growing quite nicely. The PR firms serving Silicon Valley companies have been been hiring people steadily as the local startup companies seek to raise their visibility.

Every PR firm I know has many vacancies, and there is a very short supply of experienced PR practitioners in the 5 to 8 year experience range. And the demand for PR services continues to grow as new startups come onto the scene and want to raise themselves above the noise level of their competitors.

Yet the number of media outlets continues to shrink. There are fewer mainstream media outlets, there are fewer journalists to pitch stories to; and there are fewer pages to carry stories because there are fewer ads.

Mashup metaphors: The Cows are coming home to roost

What this means is that the realities of this situation have not yet hit home. The realities are these:

-Companies can sell their products and services with a far lower cost of sales these days, because it is easier than ever to reach their customers directly through search engine marketing and blogs.

-This means there that there is far less value offered by mainstream media and mainstream public relations in the product and services sales process. . .

. . .

The above is an extract from a post I wrote 18 months ago, in January 2006. Since that time, the disconnect between the fortunes of mainstream media and public relations industries has grown tremendously.

The San Francisco Chronicle recently cut 100 newsroom jobs, 25 per cent cut. Business 2.0 is on its last legs, yet 18 months ago it had increased ad rates on booming sales.

The IT trade media, all the computer magazines from the East Coast are dead or online only. And private equity vultures are snapping up declining media companies.

Things are getting far worse for media companies yet PR companies continue to boom.

Are PR firms doing more new/social media?

Yes, a little bit more, but most of their time is spent doing traditional PR practices, trying to influence the publication of stories into smaller numbers of media outlets and they can't get enough staff...

Something is seriously out of sync here.

]]> Tue, 24 Jul 2007 06:09:06 -0700 https://content.presspage.com/clients/150_2054.jpeg?10000 https://content.presspage.com/clients/150_2054.jpeg?10000 https://www.siliconvalleywatcher.com/from-press-release-to-news-cutting-out-the-independent-media/ https://www.siliconvalleywatcher.com/from-press-release-to-news-cutting-out-the-independent-media/241958Shannon Whitley is behind the very interesting PRX Builder, a way to produce company press releases that include many-media, links, etc.

PRX Builder now has a feature that allows companies to use Google AdWords to advertise the "news headlines."

Although news releases should not be advertisements themselves, there’s nothing wrong with hawking your headlines to get peoples’ attention.  That’s why I developed NewsAds™ for PRX Builder.

What’s a NewsAd? 

NewsAds are advertisements that are published to the Google AdWords network.  You know, the ads that appear besides the Google search results and on web pages across the internet.  PRX Builder now offers NewsAds as an additional feature for each news release.  Publish your release through PRX Builder and then create a NewsAd about your release on Google AdWords.

http://www.voiceoftech.com/swhitley/?p=317

This is an interesting development because parts of the PR industry thinks it can do quite well by getting around the media and publish directly to potential customers. Yes, they can, but few people ask if this strategy makes much sense.

Morgan McLintic, over at Lewis PR recently wrote about an event discussing the successful use of search engine optimization to get a high Google ranking for a press release.

I asked a few people after the session what they thought. Everyone said you want people to find your content online. Agreed. No-one said they'd ever bought anything based on finding a press release.

Everyone agreed a PR team should know which media might be interested in a press release, and that they should be approached directly. No-one felt that media would spend much time reading releases they'd stumbled across on the web.

SEO PR - missing the target?

A high Google rank should not be confused with a successful news release. Readers know when something is from the company. Readers respect independent media articles over those from a company. Much better to promote those independent media pieces than press releases, imho.

But with independent media rapidly disappearing, what are the PR firms going to do? Publish to Google it seems...

]]> Mon, 23 Jul 2007 16:03:39 -0700 https://content.presspage.com/clients/150_2054.jpeg?10000 https://content.presspage.com/clients/150_2054.jpeg?10000 https://www.siliconvalleywatcher.com/updated-goog-doubling-its-pr-crew--pr-and-press-neednt-apply/ https://www.siliconvalleywatcher.com/updated-goog-doubling-its-pr-crew--pr-and-press-neednt-apply/242325[UPDATED: Google says that 25 new people are joing this month and that they have plenty of PR professionals on their staff, with many years of experience.]

When I was over at Google late last month, I caught up with corporate comms bosses David Krane and Brian O'Shaughnessy. They told me that their staffs were being doubled in June with about 50 new people joining their teams.

I asked how many of those new people were from the PR industry. I was told none. How many of those new people were former journalists, again I was told none. They are all new hires straight out of the top schools in the US.

There is only one person on the Google communications team that was once a journalist, and only for a very short time. There are very few people, about 5 or 6 recruited directly from the PR industry.

This is the policy of Elliot Schrage, head of corporate communications.

I can understand that it is often worthwhile to hire people that have not been taught how to do things because then you can teach them your ways of doing things.

But there should be more media professionals on the GOOG team, imho.

UPDATE #2 (Aug 18 2007- I didn't notice that Google had sent me an email shortly after publishing this post, asking for further corrections - here they are. BTW the comments section is a quick way to post corrections because my Gmail inbox gets incredibly crowded. )

From GOOG:

I believed when we spoke I explained that the team was getting roughly 30 new college graduates (the number is actually closer to 25 - as you have corrected- thank you) However they are joining Google over the next few quarters - not "next month". While I will concede that these recent college graduates are not media professionals - these are entry level PR positions and these are incredibly impressive young people that believe in Google's mission and want a chance to make their mark in Mountain View or in our offices in New York or DC or even on the YouTube comms team.

And as I noted earlier they are joining an incredibly seasoned team of PR professionals - in fact, the Directors on the team have an average of twelve plus years experience in agency, corporate and technology PR and journalism experience. These are communications professionals that have joined from such PR teams from Cisco, Microsoft, Gap, and VeriSign.

The bulk of their direct reports have joined from the a variety of fields including media and politics - however the vast majority come with solid communications experience (either in house or on the agency-side). Google is very proud of the team assembled (and continues to look for new additions) --- and we are also very excited about the opportunities that lay ahead and to not correct the record is a disservice to their experience.

]]> Thu, 14 Jun 2007 08:52:33 -0700 https://content.presspage.com/clients/150_2054.jpeg?10000 https://content.presspage.com/clients/150_2054.jpeg?10000 https://www.siliconvalleywatcher.com/movable-type-scales-up-goes-open-source/ https://www.siliconvalleywatcher.com/movable-type-scales-up-goes-open-source/242395By Tom Foremski

I use Movable Type to publish Silicon Valley Watcher although many other bloggers moved to Wordpress a long time ago. I like it because I know it and I don't want to learn another platform if I don't have to, plus it works. So I was very interested to get a briefing on the new Movable Type, Version 4.0.

I spoke with Chris Alden, EVP and General Manager of the Professional Division at Six Apart. He said that version 4.0 represents the largest investment of engineering years that the company has ever made in Movable Type. And it answers critics who said that Six Apart was spending more time building its hosted services businesses, than on Movable Type.

I can't wait to try it. It has social/community features built into the platform. Users can rate posts and each other; they can be given special publishing rights, they can be given permission to write posts without moderation, they can even publish their own blogs on the blog.

There are a lot of new content management features built in, favoring large scale deployments. It is designed for four types of users: large publications such as New York Times; Universities and academic uses; Marketing and promotional; and internal blogging within large organizations.

A lot of features, previously available as plug-ins, are integrated into the platform. And Six Apart will release "functional packs" that are targeted at different types of users, such as large media companies, that contain specialized functions that don't need to be in the base platform.

Also, the look and feel of the software has been completely redesigned--the first time in five years.

And, Movable Type will be available under an open source software license in Q3. The open source version will be based on Movable Type 3.x series with some Version 4.0 features.

"It will be a similar model to that of MySQL, which offers an open source licence as well as a commercial version that is supported," said Mr Alden.

The current Movable Type version 4 is beta, but the shipping version is just 6 to 12 weeks away.

Wordpress is a good blogging platform and popular among individual bloggers but Movable Type, with its ability to run multiple blogs from a single installation is gaining ground in enterprise applications.

I'm looking forward to trying it out and moving SVW to the new platform-- after the beta period.

---

Additional Info from Six Apart:

Six Apart Announces Movable Type 4 beta - blogging's next step toward a
flexible, extensible social media platform for individuals and
businesses
Easier to use than ever, MT4 provides the most powerful blog tools for
any size organization
San Francisco, CA - June 5, 2007  - Six Apart, the world's
leading independent blogging software and services company, today
announced the beta release of Movable Type 4, a blogging platform
designed to meet the website content management needs of growing
organizations and to serve as a social media platform that enables
businesses to create community-driven websites.
Today's announcement marks the first of a series of new products,
features, and services around Six Apart's flagship blogging platform
that will be unveiled throughout the summer
"We have a wide range of customers, such as the Washington Post, Oracle,
Boeing, Intel, TBWA/Chiat Day, NYU, and Whole Foods, using Movable Type
for publishing, marketing, and internal communications," said Chris
Alden, EVP and General Manager of the Professional Division at Six
Apart. "They demand flexibility, scalability and interactivity as they
deploy blogs throughout their organizations. MT4 has been re-designed
and re-architected as a platform to address their needs while providing
a basis to build social networking features that re-define the scope of
blogging,"
Six Apart also announced the inauguration of the Movable Type Open
Source Project, an initiative that will make an open source version of
Movable Type available in Q3 of this year. Developers and customers
interested in the project can visit www.movabletype.org for more
information.
The new Movable Type includes numerous features and improvements that
make it the easiest and most powerful way for individuals, small
businesses and companies to begin, and then scale, their blogging
initiatives:
*        MT4 includes more than 50 new features that make it easier than
ever to use, including an installation and upgrade wizard, easier and
more powerful template management tools that speed site development, all
new default templates and themes to help users create a great looking
blog in minutes, and a completely redesigned user interface focused on
streamlining common tasks. Advanced WYSIWYG composition and editing for
a dramatically improved posting experience and a system dashboard with a
dynamic graphic display that gives a powerful summary of recent activity
also contribute to ease of use.
*        MT4 is a social media platform that allows users to turn their
audiences into communities. Readers can become members of a website
through Movable Type's community management features, with rights to
post alongside authors and to add and share rich text and media posts
with photos, videos, and audio. Movable Type also has a ratings
framework to enable recommendation features. There will be more
information later in the beta period about an optional functionality
pack with community features for Movable Type.
MT4 saves users time by allowing management of many blogs and many users
in a central interface. Users can install, manage and publish an
unlimited number of blogs with one installation. The Movable Type
aggregator pulls multiple blogs into a single blog, and users can be
managed more effectively with customizable roles and groups. There will
be more information later in the beta period about an optional
functionality pack with enterprise capabilities for Movable Type.
MT4 can power an entire web site - not just a blog. MT4 provides the
power and flexibility to build web sites that are easy to manage and
easy to update, at a fraction of the cost of traditional content
management systems. New content and asset management tools make
uploading and revising photos, documents, and videos incredibly easy.
Users can create standalone web pages that automatically inherit the
design of the blog, to ensure the entire site has a consistent look and
feel. Easy-to-use template management tools put the focus where it
belongs: on content, not on code.
MT4 scales to meet the needs of growing organizations with the most
advanced technology, power and performance. Six Apart runs some of the
largest sites on the Internet, and has brought the technology that
powers these world class sites into Movable Type. MT4 leverages
technology that helps scale Vox, LiveJournal and TypePad, as well as
sites from AOL, Microsoft and Facebook. These technologies include
database caching through Memcached and Data::ObjectDriver, and
authenticating of users with OpenID. Movable Type can now be run in
multi-server environments, with broad support for operating systems
(Linux, Windows, and Solaris) and databases (MySQL, PosgreSQL, Oracle,
and SQL Server).
MT4's new component-based architecture enables solution-specific product
extensions. MT4 introduces a new architecture for the Movable Type
platform that unifies its commercial and enterprise product lines while
enabling advanced capabilities with optional functionality packs. Making
use of Movable Type's open plug-in API, Six Apart has architected the
platform to accommodate full featured packs that support enterprise
integration, community management and other solution-specific uses.
In addition, MT4 includes the world-class customer support that Six
Apart has provided since Movable Type's inception. A network of
professional consultants, developers, designers and business
professionals is available to customers to provide customization and
extra services when desired.
Pricing and Availability
Developers and customers can download a beta version of Movable Type 4.0
at www.movabletype.org, and are encouraged to provide feedback at the
beta community website at the same URL. Personal use of Movable Type
continues to be free, with no restrictions placed upon the number of
blogs or authors. Personal use customers have the option to purchase
support separately if needed. Commercial, Education, and Non-Profit
licenses for the current version of Movable Type, MT 3.35, will include
a discounted upgrade to MT 4.0 during the beta period. Existing users
may buy upgrades to MT 4.0 at a pre-release discount. For detailed
pricing information please visit www.movabletype.com/pricing. Enterprise
customers should contact sales@sixapart.com for information about
discounts on MT 4.0 during the beta period.
About Six Apart:
Six Apart Ltd. provides award-winning blogging software and services
that change the way millions of individuals, organizations, and
corporations connect and communicate across the world every day. Founded
in 2002 by husband and wife team Ben Trott and Mena G. Trott, Six Apart
has grown into a global company with its headquarters in San Francisco,
CA, and offices in Europe and Japan. The company continues to lead in
the blogging and social media industry with the Movable Type publishing
platform, the TypePad hosted blogging service, LiveJournal, an online
community organized around personal journals, and Vox, a free blogging
service for friends and families. For more information visit the Six
Apart corporate web site at http://www.sixapart.com/.
Six Apart announces easier than ever website-building features in
TypePad Blogging services provider responds to individual and business
customers' evolving requirements for all-in-one website tools
Embargoed
San Francisco, CA - June 7, 2007 - Six Apart, the world's leading
independent blogging software and services company, today announced a
combination of features in TypePad, the award-winning hosted blog
service, that make it easier than ever for users to build and maintain
professional, updateable websites in minutes. The new features, the
most-requested in a recent TypePad customer survey, include TypePad
pages, new professional themes and layouts, and enhanced visitor
statistics. The company also announced enhanced integration with Windows
Live Writer.
TypePad's new features make it easier than ever to build an entire
website. More than 20 percent of professional and business customers
already use TypePad as their primary website because of its
user-friendly interface and the ability to quickly and easily update
information. Other customers use TypePad alongside their traditional
websites to enhance customer engagement and increase search engine
traffic.
Denise Wakeman, TypePad customer and founder of The Blog Squad, said,
"I'm thrilled to have the ability to add pages to my TypePad blogs.  I
can now create stand alone pages to use on my blogs as I would on a
static website for things like contact, bio and product info. Being able
to define the URLs also helps me be more strategic with the search
engines. As I say to my clients, you really don't need a 'traditional'
website anymore when you can do everything so much more easily on a
blog."
With the introduction of TypePad pages, traditional web pages become as
easy to create and update as blog posts, giving professionals an
all-in-one, easy-to-maintain web presence.  Pages found on traditional
websites, like "About Us," "Our Products," or "Contact Us," can now be
created in TypePad using a wide variety of new themes and layouts
designed expressly for professional and business users.  These new
themes and layouts, along with TypePad's dozens of existing themes and
layouts, can be used for web pages and blog pages alike. Users can set a
page to be the home page for their blog, so it's the first thing readers
see when they go to the website.
TypePad business customers range from large media organizations like USA
Today to real estate offices, wineries, and legal and accounting firms
to smaller organizations such as crafts and clothing retailers.
 "Professionals use TypePad to promote their businesses and to easily
and frequently engage with their audiences," said Chris Alden, EVP and
General Manager of the Professional Division at Six Apart. "With the
addition of these new features, businesses can use just one service -
TypePad - to build their website, with design, hosting, blogging, and
world-class support included."
In addition to TypePad pages, Six Apart introduced enhanced support for
visitor statistics and Windows Live Writer. Every website and blog owner
needs to know how many visitors come to their site and how they arrived.
Enhanced visitor statistics give website owners this information through
a quickly readable graphical presentation showing historical visitor
information and a downloadable Excel file for deeper analysis.
Integration with Windows Live Writer means that users can compose and
post their web pages in the same way they've been able to compose blog
posts: in a rich offline editing environment, whenever and wherever they
like.
About TypePad:
TypePad is the award-winning hosted blogging service preferred by
professionals, small businesses, and enthusiasts. TypePad provides a
rich set of features for publishing, updating, and sharing information
on the Web. No installation or configuration is required. TypePad blogs
are fully hosted and managed by Six Apart.
About Six Apart:
Six Apart Ltd. provides award-winning blogging software and services
that change the way millions of individuals, organizations, and
corporations connect and communicate across the world every day. Founded
in 2002 by husband and wife team Ben Trott and Mena G. Trott, Six Apart
has grown into a global company with its headquarters in San Francisco,
CA, and offices in Europe and Japan. The company continues to lead in
the blogging and social media industry with the Movable Type publishing
platform, the TypePad hosted blogging service, LiveJournal, an online
community organized around personal journals, and Vox, a free blogging
service for friends and families. For more information visit the Six
Apart corporate website at http://www.sixapart.com/.]]> Mon, 04 Jun 2007 16:41:31 -0700 https://content.presspage.com/clients/150_2054.jpeg?10000 https://content.presspage.com/clients/150_2054.jpeg?10000 https://www.siliconvalleywatcher.com/pr-watch-horn-group-to-keynoters---get-a-clue/ https://www.siliconvalleywatcher.com/pr-watch-horn-group-to-keynoters---get-a-clue/241829Sabrina Horn, head of Horn Group, Silicon Valley's top independent PR firm, says she has heard too many sales pitches from conference keynoters from large IT vendors--and they are making a mistake.

...you appear almost defensive when you only talk about yourself and your products in these keynotes...

Ms Horn suggests...:

Audiences today really want to hear what you think about the industry and where it's going. What should we be worried about? What are you worried about? Where are our opportunities? What are your ideas? The dirty little secret is, if you did that, we'd probably like you more and want to buy even more from you.

Link to Horn Group Weblog: Get a Clue!

I agree. A CEO makes a keynote speech at large conference and delivers a sales pitch?! What a wasted opportunity.

A sales pitch can be delivered in a video, an advertisement, it shouldn't be delivered in a keynote. I usually skip them because 95 percent of the time they are sales pitches--and I know plenty of other journalists and bloggers that do the same. 

A Keynote Is A Unique Opportunity

At conferences, a cavernous, cathedral-like room is filled with thousands of people in a darkened space happy and willing to be there. It is a perfect setting to deliver an experience, something hard to forget.

Apple is very good at this sort of thing. I remember several MacWorld keynotes from Steve Jobs and guests that were unforgettable. (One of them was when Mohammed Ali was there, just a few feet away from me.)

]]> Mon, 14 May 2007 17:18:17 -0700 https://content.presspage.com/clients/150_2054.jpeg?10000 https://content.presspage.com/clients/150_2054.jpeg?10000 https://www.siliconvalleywatcher.com/updated-zdnet-offers-sponsored-blogging--and-other-tales-from-outcast-ceo-event/ https://www.siliconvalleywatcher.com/updated-zdnet-offers-sponsored-blogging--and-other-tales-from-outcast-ceo-event/242276Outcast PR's CEO Dinner was good this year, much better than last year. I didn't write about it last year because I had nothing much to say about it, this year was different.

I've got lots of interviews, lots of video to publish from the event. And I have lots of stories to tell too, which will appear over the weekend and over the following days.

Here are some teasers:

-ZDNet advertising/marketing services will unveil a new business model. Buy our marketing services and we will write your corporate blogs as part of a sponsorship deal. 

"It is going great," said Chris Jablonski, a former ZDNet blogger, who is now in the marketing department at ZDNet. "We've set up blogs for Computer Associates and other large IT companies. If they don't have a writer we will write their blogs for them." The blog posts are not identified as ZDNet authored. It is similar to how public relations companies ghost write for clients.But will it work in this context? Is it a new and viable media business model? UPDATE: The blogs are labelled as sponsored blogs. Here is an example: http://blogs.zdnet.com/Dice/ The blog is written by ZDNet on behalf of Dice.
...   

-Sam Whitmore from Sam Whitmore's Media Survey. This time I interview Sam instead of the other way around.

-Come back to hear Sam's take on the implosion of the East Coast IT trade media.

-Plus, there is an upcoming merger in the works for Sam.

Don't miss:

• -Video interview with Satish Dharmaraj, CEO of my favorite, favorite, Web 2.0 company: Zimbra.
• -Tim Turpin from Outcast interviews me and my hush hush project.

I'm still getting used to toting a video camera around with me, so some of the interviews might be a little experimental in quality. I will do better next time around, and the time after that too, I promise  :-)

]]> Thu, 03 May 2007 16:48:08 -0700 https://content.presspage.com/clients/150_2054.jpeg?10000 https://content.presspage.com/clients/150_2054.jpeg?10000 https://www.siliconvalleywatcher.com/which-pr-agencies-are-doing-a-good-job-using-social-media-digital-communications/ https://www.siliconvalleywatcher.com/which-pr-agencies-are-doing-a-good-job-using-social-media-digital-communications/242394I was asked this question by one of my readers in Russia. Is it the large PR agencies or the smaller boutique agencies that are best at using digital communications and social media?

My reply was that while some of the agencies have pockets of knowledge and experience within them, generally, none of them, large or small, are using digital communications and social media well, or even reasonably well.

Yet they will all tell you, and their clients, that they have an experienced practice in new/social media.

If a PR company is not using social media to effectively promote and market itself--then how can it do it for its clients? It can't.

Show me a PR agency that has bloggers amongst its top execs and also across levels within its organization. And is using podcasting and vidcasting to represent itself.

Show me a PR agency that does that, and you will have shown me a PR agency that "gets" social media and digital communications.

There is no "generational gap" in understanding these things, there is an "experiential gap."

The only way you can know how to use these digital communications effectively is by doing. It is not something that you can read about and then do it.

(PS: There are a couple of smaller agencies that get it but they are very rare.)

]]> Sat, 28 Apr 2007 01:39:45 -0700 https://content.presspage.com/clients/150_2054.jpeg?10000 https://content.presspage.com/clients/150_2054.jpeg?10000 https://www.siliconvalleywatcher.com/wells-fargo-case-study-from-crisis-meeting-to-conversation/ https://www.siliconvalleywatcher.com/wells-fargo-case-study-from-crisis-meeting-to-conversation/242433From Wells Fargo:

Blogs are interactive online forums that allow us to communicate and share ideas with our readers. We're here to start a conversation with you.

Wells Fargo Blogs Join The Conversation

I have a conversation I'd like to invite Wells Fargo to, but they seem to be rather shy.

RantWatch Extremely Poor Service from Wells Fargo

I've been biting at Wells Fargo's ankles for a couple of days because they insist on sitting on my checks for up to ten days. Everyone and their grandmother knows they could clear and deposit a check into a customer account in a Silicon-Valley-micro-second.

My complaint has resonated with my readers, some have shared similar stories. But nothing from Wells Fargo.

I'll get over my annoyance with the bank but the search engines will continue to dredge up my complaint, plus comments, for a long long time.

I asked some friends in PR about this puzzling lack of comment from Wells Fargo: "They are probably having a crisis meeting and you'll get a response in about three weeks time."

I'm looking forward to it. BTW, I don't feel that I've been unfair or mean with Wells Fargo, I have a legitimate complaint. If anything, I'm doing Wells Fargo a favor, I'm helping it to figure out how to respond to these types of bad publicity situations.

---

Case Study Wells Fargo's Effective Brand Management . . . Not!

RantWatch Extremely Poor Service from Wells Fargo]]> Fri, 27 Apr 2007 17:37:38 -0700 https://content.presspage.com/clients/150_2054.jpeg?10000 https://content.presspage.com/clients/150_2054.jpeg?10000 https://www.siliconvalleywatcher.com/the-metrics-of-influence-buzzlogic-tracks-the-mediasphere/ https://www.siliconvalleywatcher.com/the-metrics-of-influence-buzzlogic-tracks-the-mediasphere/242154

Brand management is a tricky thing. How do you know who is blogging or writing about your brands, and if the sentiment is positive or negative? There are millions of online "conversations" happening every day.

BuzzLogic, based in San Francisco has developed tools that allow corporations to track conversations across thousands of online sites, blogs, mainstream media and anywhere else online, in almost real-time.

And those tools can also determine how influential a site, a blogger, a writer is. And who they influence. After all, there is no sense in galvanizing a response team to an unfavorable post on a blog if its influence is zero.

The company recently completed its Series A funding, raising an impressive $9.6m after bootstrapping the venture for more than two years. "Its good to have a salary," smiles Rob Crumpler CEO. It is also good to have the validation that a VC investment brings.

BuzzLogic recently moved out of beta and in mid-April launched its BuzzLogic Enterprise service. More than 160 customers, many Fortune 500 companies, collaborated with BuzzLogic in the beta phase to refine the service.

"Companies are interested in knowing about themselves, how they are perceived and how their products are perceived," says Mr Crumpler. "And companies want to be able to spot potential problems before they grow into much larger issues."

There are many examples where a complaint online can mushroom into a major public relations disaster. Jeff Jarvis, a prominent New York blogger and his complaints about Dell is one such example.

The company's two key features are its algorithms and its visual display of the results which gives users an excellent view into the influence of a particular site on a specific topic.

Todd Parsons, the chief product officer explains: "Just because someone is influential within one sector doesn't mean that they are influential in other areas. Our algorithms can analyze influence and allow companies to focus on those sites that really matter. We can also track the rise and fall in influence of a particular site."

The algorithms cannot measure sentiment, but users can quickly tag online content according to positive or negative sentiments, which can be shared with colleagues.

Email alerts will warn of possible trouble in real-time. But each customer applies their own response. This can include contacting people and also getting involved in the online conversations.

BuzzLogic's technology also learns from its users, which should mean that the service continues to improve over time.

Foremski's Take: BuzzLogic's visual presentation of its data is excellent. The visual data is presented within a user interface that provides a view into who is participating in each conversation, over a specific period in time, alongside summaries of the content.

It is a service that could be used in many ways, not just for brand management. It could uncover new types of buzz bubbling up that could provide business opportunities for some companies. And it can also be used to test the effectiveness of a public relations campaign.

The role of search engines is one that is not yet part of BuzzLogic's measurement. Search engines can dredge up negative comments time and again, and can help sites gain influence despite other factors.

Services such as BuzzLogic's can give organizations an insight into how they are perceived without requiring focus groups. But most organizations don't yet know what to do with such data and what the appropriate response should be. But they will figure that out over time.

[Wells Fargo should take notice...]

- - -

Case studies:

• Corporate Communications
• Brand and Product Marketing
• Customer Service and Market Research
• Public Relations Agencies
• Bloggers

BuzzLogic Blog:

What's driving the U.S. Attorneys story?

Where there's folk, there's fire

Around the Buzz-o-sphere

Want to see what social media can do?

Using Social Media to Build Your Brand Buzz

Please also see:

Buzzlogic aims to untangle "Social Media"

Buzzlogic introduces on-demand software service to help companies identify key online influencers. From Buzzlogic: . . . BuzzLogic calculates and surfaces the influencers who are shaping and driving specific conversations in social media with algorithms that analyze relationships, such...

Posted by Tom Foremski on September 25, 2006 5:59 PM

 

How does public relations work in the blogosphere?

I took part in a Bulldog Reporter teleconference this morning, on the subject of Blogger PR and it was a record turnout, more than 80 leading PR agencies and corporate communications organizations called in, each...

Posted by Tom Foremski on March 23, 2006 1:59 PM

 

The metrics of influence--the mania for measuring the blogosphere

There is a current mania among corporations and PR companies to figure out which tools to use to find the influencers in the blogosphere. They are combing through the PageRank and Alexa rankings of online...

Posted by Tom Foremski on March 10, 2006 4:00 PM

 

 

 

]]> Wed, 25 Apr 2007 06:46:15 -0700 https://content.presspage.com/clients/150_2054.jpeg?10000 https://content.presspage.com/clients/150_2054.jpeg?10000 https://www.siliconvalleywatcher.com/global-english-teaching-english-as-a-service-to-global-companies/ https://www.siliconvalleywatcher.com/global-english-teaching-english-as-a-service-to-global-companies/242446The Web 2.0 Expo has dominated most of my week and I'm exhausted talking with "Web 2.0" companies. So Wednesday evening, it was a pleasure to have a much different conversation, with a company called Global English.  

Anastasia Marin from Connecting Point Communications had whetted my interest in this company. It teaches English to the employees of top multinational corporations such as IBM, Deloitte, Hewlett-Packard, using unique online techniques.

It is sold as an online service using the enterprise software model, and costs $400 per seat per year. Multinational corporations are using the service to improve the English language skills of their professional staff in places such as China and India, and 98 other countries.

The company is 8 years old, private, profitable, with revenues between $20m and $30m, and about 100 staff.

Labor Crunch

But isn't English already a common skill among people in tech and business sectors? Deepak Desai, CEO of Global English says that this is not always true.

"The competition for staff means that global corporations are having to look further afield. Outside of the major cities, fewer people speak English as a second language, or speak it well."

This is true even in India, where English is widely spoken. "I was surprised at how large our business in India has become," says Mr Desai, who grew up in Mumbai, India.

Global English uses a variety of learning techniques and technologies, some involve voice recognition to check on pronunciation. And it has a broad range of metrics to measure and check on progress. If you lag, you'll get nagging emails to do better, and your boss will see your report card.

But it's not just English that is taught. It also teaches the cultural context of the language.

"People need to know how to converse in different situations," says Mr Desai.

Lingua Franca 2.0

English is certainly the lingua franca of business and technology. And combined with the Internet--the other lingua franca of our times--it makes for a killer communications application.

I consider the English language, plus the Internet, as the key technology accelerating the globalization of our economies. But will English continue to dominate?

Global Mandarin

Mandarin is the language that many business professionals are learning. As China's economy grows ever larger, Mandarin is certain to challenge the dominance of the English language in global business transactions.

Mr Desai nods, and says that his children are learning Mandarin. But Global English won't be changing its name anytime soon. "It is important to focus," he says. Which is very true.

]]> Wed, 18 Apr 2007 15:53:17 -0700 https://content.presspage.com/clients/150_2054.jpeg?10000 https://content.presspage.com/clients/150_2054.jpeg?10000 https://www.siliconvalleywatcher.com/a-new-fair-use-proposal-if-you-re-publish-my-content-then-publish-my-adlink/ https://www.siliconvalleywatcher.com/a-new-fair-use-proposal-if-you-re-publish-my-content-then-publish-my-adlink/242167News aggregators and bloggers that carry third party content should carry at least one advertising link associated with that content.

It would be the fair thing to do and a large aggregator such as Google News could help establish this practice. 

Google News publishes the headline  and the first paragraph of a news story on its site. Since news stories are written in an inverted pyramid format, the headline and first paragraph contain most of the value of a news story.

Therefore, it's only fair that if you take most of the value of a news story, then also publish one advertising link from the original site.

And if you are a blogger and blog the content or quote it, then the same would apply: publish one advertising link from the original site alongside the content.

- For example, if you'd like to republish part of this article, you might agree to publish one of my three advertising links alongside the content:

  

          -Silicon Valley Watcher-reporting on the culture of disruption.

          -Silicon Valley Minute-Startups pitch in less than a minute.

          -Intel Core2Duo is here!

It's your choice which one of the three to carry, and your choice to do it or not.

But over time, it's a practice that would be seen as a mark of respect to the original content creator.

And it would help the original content creators recoup some of the cost of producing it--and it would encourage good content.

Google News doesn't monetise the news content it harvests from other news sites. If it carried one advertising link along with every news story it features on Google News, it would be respectful of the original content producers. And it would be in a leadership position that would influence others to do the same.

Also, many of the news sites run Google AdSense advertising links, Google would be bringing more clicks into its realm and do it for a good cause.

Also for RSS syndicators too:

- If you syndicate my content then please syndicate my accompanying AdLinks--don't strip them out. It's only fair.

If you re-publish my content -- then publish my AdLink.

This should also be an option for a new type of Creative Commons license.

For example: 

- Feel free to make money by republishing this post or anything else on SVW.

- As long as you make sure you preserve my links in the copy.

- And give attribution to SVW through a live link.

- And publish one of my AdLinks alongside each piece of content.

It should become the new "Fair Use."

Maybe Technorati could be the first to adopt this New Fair Use--it has been a champion of the blogosphere for many years.

Or maybe Digg will do it.

Whoever does it first will gain a spot in history, and a permalink spot in Wikipedia.

As for Google, do no evil is fine, but do some good is better, imho.

Please see SVW

The virtuous trackback A proposal for paying for content

April 7 - 2006

We need a Google AdSense on steroids: The Grand Challenge of Internet 2.0

 April 4, 2006

...

Technorati tags: New Fair Use, Google News

]]> Sun, 25 Mar 2007 05:14:34 -0700 https://content.presspage.com/clients/150_2054.jpeg?10000 https://content.presspage.com/clients/150_2054.jpeg?10000 https://www.siliconvalleywatcher.com/greetings-from-the-green-city-of-las-vegas/ https://www.siliconvalleywatcher.com/greetings-from-the-green-city-of-las-vegas/242191I've been in Las Vegas since Wednesday for the New Communications Forum speaking on two panels and a workshop. This is one of my favorite conferences, founded by Jennifer McClure and Elizabeth Albrycht.

I'm also a founding fellow of the Palo Alto thinktank the Society of New Communications Research, which is closely connected with the conference and provides most of the speakers for the event.

I'm backed up terribly on my emails but I'm meeting lots of excellent people and having lots of excellent conversations about the future of media and public relations, as we try to figure out some of the the new rules. I'll have more to write when I get back to San Francisco.

---

Thinktank formed to study the new communications channels and their impact on society

Think tank studies new communications channels and their impact

. . .

It has been about two years since my last visit to Las Vegas, and it has changed and grown a lot. I was thinking that Las Vegas might qualify as one of the greenest cities in the US because of the Hoover Dam nearby, which provides all of its power and water.

However, the green part of the equation must be balanced against the huge number of visitors arriving by burning massive amounts of carbon from airplanes and cars. Plus if Las Vegas were more conservative in its use of electric power and water, there would be more for other communities, and less carbon powered electricity would be needed overall.

Technorati tags: newcomm forum, scnr, green city, new rules

]]> Fri, 09 Mar 2007 02:30:37 -0800 https://content.presspage.com/clients/150_2054.jpeg?10000 https://content.presspage.com/clients/150_2054.jpeg?10000 https://www.siliconvalleywatcher.com/silicon-valley-has-become-media-valley---someone-should-tell-nyc/ https://www.siliconvalleywatcher.com/silicon-valley-has-become-media-valley---someone-should-tell-nyc/242369 Silicon Valley is rapidly turning into Media Valley--and New York, NY should look out--the capital of the media world is shifting about 3,000 miles westwards.

Some of Silicon Valley's largest companies are media companies: Google, Yahoo, EBay, for example are media companies--they publish pages of content and advertising around it.

Some of the most interesting and most valuable new Silicon Valley companies, such as Youtube, Facebook are based here in Northern California. So is Craigslist, the seventh largest online media company in the English language world (in terms of traffic).

Take a look at Business 2.0's 25 startups to watch and look at how many of these mostly "social" media and advertising companies and are based in the Bay Area:18. Only two are based in New York.

Masters of the Universe

But if you work in Manhattan you feel at the center of the media universe. Midtown and the Avenue of the Americas is where the capital of the media industry has sat for many decades.

Whenever I am in New York, it feels as if I am in the coolest, the most media saviest place in the world. Just as in the famous New Yorker magazine cover, in which New York is depicted large and the Rest of the World is shown as distant, small, and uninteresting, that's the way it feels to me when I'm there.

As a media professional, New York has always been a mecca, where I love to be. It was one of the perks and attractions of working at the Financial Times that our US HQ was smack dab in the middle of Manhattan, in the ITT building, and I loved those opportunities of working in New York.

Which leads me to my point, New York's media industry doesn't see the shift that is going on because it feels as if it is master of its universe. It has noticed that its business models are under tremendous pressure but it hasn't noticed the shift westwards, the competition in Silicon Valley and in Santa Monica.

Google, Yahoo, Ebay, etc, are keen to portray themselves as technology companies rather than media companies--it is much more conductive to establishing partnerships and ad network deals in which they benefit far more than their old school media partners. If they were seen as more media company than technology company, I'm sure things would be different.

The New York Times, for example, would not give over its online front page to Google AdSense, which means Google owns the advertisor relationship ("if you would like to advertise on this site click here").

If Google were seen more as a media company the partnership advertising deals would be a lot different.

Our media industry is growing

Which is why our media industry is growing by leaps and bounds. Last time I looked New York's media industry was contracting, facing lower revenues, layoffs and a confused future. But still building skyscrapers(!)   New York Architecture Images- Times Tower.

Let me help out the New York media industry...

Five basic rules for media company success:

-Tomorrow's media industry is all about being technology-enabled and community-powered.

-Get your content as near-to-free as you can with machine harvesters such as spiders and searchbots.

-Use algorithms and community-power (also nearly free) to organize the content.

-Publish it widely and in many forms (video, podcasts, etc) through the amazing scale that the global internet provides and that our media technologies (RSS, media platforms, TCP/IP, etc) provide.

-And remember Foremski's First Law of New Media: Content is infinitely scalable.

]]> Sat, 24 Feb 2007 08:18:34 -0800 https://content.presspage.com/clients/150_2054.jpeg?10000 https://content.presspage.com/clients/150_2054.jpeg?10000 https://www.siliconvalleywatcher.com/the-goog-threat-to-traditional-pr/ https://www.siliconvalleywatcher.com/the-goog-threat-to-traditional-pr/242361I ran into Andy Lark, earlier this week. Andy used to be corporate comms chief at Sun Microsystems. He now spends most of his time as Chief Marketing Officer at LogLogic, a fast growing enterprise software company.

LogLogic, like many other startups, uses a PR agency to help get its message out to potential customers. Andy told me that he recently noticed that he was starting to spend more money on buying Google adwords than on PR. And when push comes to shove, I know where most cmpanies will put their money. You can pin a ROI on GOOG adwords that you can't with PR

This is a very significant crossover point. It represents one of the many threats to traditional PR. And there are many PR agencies that only understand the old approach, no matter what they say about new/social media.

There is a disconnect in the PR world that is going to hit that industry hard.

....

Additional info:

Andy Lark's Blog.

SVW:

Andy Lark agrees...blogging is disrupting PR

]]> Thu, 08 Feb 2007 06:43:49 -0800 https://content.presspage.com/clients/150_2054.jpeg?10000 https://content.presspage.com/clients/150_2054.jpeg?10000 https://www.siliconvalleywatcher.com/press-releases-are-not-blogs----social-media-discussion/ https://www.siliconvalleywatcher.com/press-releases-are-not-blogs----social-media-discussion/242290By Tom Foremski
 

There has been quite a bit of discussion lately about the "social media press release" following a panel I was on at the Third Thursday event last Thursday. Stowe Boyd later raised some good points about the PR industry and its use of the word "social" and "audiences" in the context of blogging.
 

The problem lies in the terminology that the PR industry is using. It wants to use the blogging platform to distribute press releases but these are not blog posts. And the way the PR industry uses "social" is far different from what has been the accepted understanding.

Many people have gotten hung up on the terms being used and that is understandable. And that is why I prefer more neutral terms that won't snag people's cultural sensitivity, that's the point of communicating clearly. However, we aren't going to get rid of the term "social" in the PR context and the discussions are good because they promote and educate others on what is being talked about.
 

When it comes to companies communicating with their customers, partners, communities, their staff, a blogging platform is a perfect vehicle for press releases because Movable Type or Wordpress has all the tools and features built in for discoverability by search engines, and by others. It has links, tags, keywords, it has trackback and talkback, it can accumulate information over time, it is a type of free-floating document on the internet.

These days, we don't publish to a web site or sites, we publish to the internet. We publish conversational documents.
 

And the reason documents published through blogging platforms work well is that Google loves blogs. The googlebot loves fresh content that has lots of links, especially from blogs because they are useful sources of great information. Which is another benefit companies get from using a blogging platform for press releases, the content gets into the Google index really fast.
 

What happens when the googlebot starts picking up corporate press releases launched from blogging platforms and finds out that this is not regular blog content? It won't take much to filter it out.
 

That's why publishing regular corporate press releases through a blogging platform won't work for long. The content has to change, it has to show that it can initiate and carry a conversation. It has to become a good member of the online society. Otherwise it becomes the dull person seen in the corners of parties, unable to engage with anyone. That's where "social" has meaning.
 

- - -

 

 

 

 

 

Here is Mike Manuel's report on the discussion :

 

 

 

 

Third Thursday Raises Stink

A new year of Third Thursday meetups kicked off earlier this week, the topic was the social media press release. A quick thanks to our guest speakers: Shel Holtz, Brian Solis, Tom Foremski, and Joel Tesch. Also, special thanks to Chris Heuer for leading the discussion. It was a good introductory chat. The entire thing was recorded as part of the ongoing NMRCast series, you can grab the feed over here.

Of course, if you haven't seen this already, Stowe Boyd thinks our talk just proves (to him) that PR folks still have a lot to learn about social media, and he says so in a kick-to-the-nuts sort of way.

He makes some valid points, the kind those of us stuck inside the PR echo chamber need to hear from time-to-time. I'll give him that, but I also think Stowe makes some bullshit assumptions about the PR industry and the changes many of us are already working to incite. For example, why he misses (or dismisses) efforts to form a standard PR microformat for press releases (i.e., hrelease) in his diatribe about the social media press release is, well, strange to say the least....

Read Chris Heuer's retort for balance. Brian's too.

Update: Stowe responds point-for-point to the link hords. A must-read for anyone. Technorati Tags: socialmediapressrelease, thirdthursday

 

 

Some additional links:

 

 

 

http://www.stoweboyd.com/message/2007/01/enough_already_.html.

 

 

The Long Tail: Long Tail PR: how to do publicity without a press release (or the press)

 

 

http://www.briansolis.com/2007/01/social-media-killed-press-release-star.html
 

 

]]> Thu, 25 Jan 2007 03:18:22 -0800 https://content.presspage.com/clients/150_2054.jpeg?10000 https://content.presspage.com/clients/150_2054.jpeg?10000 https://www.siliconvalleywatcher.com/new-comm-forum-conference-and-discount-for-svw-readers/ https://www.siliconvalleywatcher.com/new-comm-forum-conference-and-discount-for-svw-readers/242386 I've been speaking at New Comm Forum since the first one in January 2005 and it is my favorite conference because of the people it attracts and the topics.

New Comm Forum is about trying to figure out the new rules of communications in media and PR brought about by the use of two-way media technologies that we have at our disposal, such as blogs, wikis, social media releases, etc.

This year it is in Las Vegas from March 7 to 9 and SVW readers can get a $200 discount by using the promo code 612SHN.

More information is here: http://www.newcommforum.com/

]]> Wed, 24 Jan 2007 06:01:00 -0800 https://content.presspage.com/clients/150_2054.jpeg?10000 https://content.presspage.com/clients/150_2054.jpeg?10000 https://www.siliconvalleywatcher.com/wednesday-talking-about-svw-on-two-panels/ https://www.siliconvalleywatcher.com/wednesday-talking-about-svw-on-two-panels/242101Wednesday morning I spoke on a panel alongside some of the top journalists covering Silicon Valley:  David Kirkpatrick from Fortune, Jay Bonasia from Investor's Business Daily, and Rachel Konrad from Associated Press.  (More details here)

Then in the evening, I did it again, I was on a panel with Om Malik from GigaOm, and Matt Marshall from VentureBeat. What was interesting was that in the morning I addressed an audience of public relations professionals, and in the evening I spoke to an audience of media professionals--both audiences are trying to understand what blogging is about and how it impacts their work.

I knew many of the people at the evening event, which is a newly formed "tech writers" group organized by Dean Takahashi and Elise Ackerman, reporters at the San Jose Mercury.

The group consists of about 50 of the top reporters covering Silicon Valley. Dean and Elise have done an excellent job in bringing reporters together--it is extremely rare that we can chat with each other without PR people or others in the mix.

We met in an Italian restaurant in San Francisco. Matt spoke first, then Om, and then it was my turn to talk about the trials and tribulations of becoming a blogger journalist. The content of the evening is all off the record. However, I can write about some of the things that I talked about.

I spoke about how much I liked my job, and some of the many unexpected discoveries and insights that have occurred since I left the Financial Times in May 2004. I also said I didn't particularly like the work of trying to build a business and all that entails.

The operational aspects of running a business are time consuming. I'd much prefer just going out, talking to people, coming back, and writing. That is the simple life that every journalist wants. However, an independent blogger journalist has to do 15 other jobs/tasks too.

So it was great to hear Matt and Om talk about this aspect of their work and to hear about their pain. I just hope that we managed to discourage the assembled hacks from rushing out and doing the same as us, we don't need more competition :-)

]]> Thu, 18 Jan 2007 07:24:19 -0800 https://content.presspage.com/clients/150_2054.jpeg?10000 https://content.presspage.com/clients/150_2054.jpeg?10000 https://www.siliconvalleywatcher.com/the-mumbo-jumbo-of-social-media/ https://www.siliconvalleywatcher.com/the-mumbo-jumbo-of-social-media/242147By Tom Foremski

Tuesday evening I was in CNET's HQ in downtown San Francisco for my first Social Media Club experience. Social Media Club is a creation of my friends Chris Heuer and Kristie Wells, and it consists of bringing together small groups of people to discuss subjects and to share in idea creation.

The format is "world cafe" which means people discuss and debate in groups of four or five. After 20 minutes or so, everyone changes groups, and continues the discussion. Then everyone changes groups one final time. Towards the end, the entire room is invited to share their experiences and ideas.

It was time spent in the way I love to spend time: talking about media with some very interesting people. The topic that evening was social media and what could be the most powerful thing social media could achieve this year, and our role in it.

Within my groups that evening, a common theme was trying to understand what is meant by "social media." It is a term that is used a lot these days, especially within the world of public relations agencies, who create "social media news releases" (BTW, I have never received a social media news release), and some agencies have "social media practices."

The term social media seems to have become a catchall for the world of blogs, online forums, search-discovered content, trackbacks and talkbacks. I'm not a big fan of the term but it is becoming more common.

I think a better term would be "conversational media" because it is more descriptive and more neutral than "social" which invokes many other meanings. But I can live with the term, especially since there is some sort of common understanding starting to slowly emerge.

Tuesday night we all struggled in defining social media, then we struggled to figure out what could be the most powerful things it could achieve.

There were many common thoughts expressed that evening and many uncommon insights. One common theme that emerged was that social media needs to become a lot more inclusive and relevant to a lot more people.

For example, blogging is the largest component of social media, yet only a tiny percentage of people read them, and even fewer numbers write blogs. We often forget, that for the vast majority of people, all of our chatter about blogging, social media, etc, is just so much mumbo jumbo.

Tuesday evening was full of mumbo jumbo. Our challenge is to translate it into a common language and make it relevant and useful to the majority of people. Because it is a powerful thing and one that can change society for the better, imho.

]]> Thu, 18 Jan 2007 05:53:53 -0800 https://content.presspage.com/clients/150_2054.jpeg?10000 https://content.presspage.com/clients/150_2054.jpeg?10000 https://www.siliconvalleywatcher.com/doubleclick-survey-finds-online-ads-are-very-effective/ https://www.siliconvalleywatcher.com/doubleclick-survey-finds-online-ads-are-very-effective/242238Doubleclick, the online ad network, just announced survey results that prove online ads influence people to buy stuff.

The company clearly hopes that its report will influence online ad buying. But influence is best expressed when it comes from third-parties that do not have a self-interest, which is not the case here. 

The DoubleClick Touchpoints IV survey results revealed that influencers consider online advertising a key factor of their shopping process, second only to websites, as a source of further learning about purchase decisions. Nineteen percent of influencers cited web advertising as a source of information when they were researching a purchase, compared to 8 percent among the remainder of the sample.

Both segments cited websites as their top source of research when they are shopping, but influencers clearly rely more on the web than non-influencers, with 40 percent of influencers citing websites for this purpose versus 31 percent of non-influencers.

This part is curious: "influencers consider online advertising a key factor of their shopping process, second only to websites."

Aren't most online ads found on websites? Isn't context important in advertising? Will we get free floating online ads with no website needed?!

The DoubleClick Touchpoints IV survey: http://www.doubleclick.com/knowledge]]> Thu, 14 Dec 2006 01:23:51 -0800 https://content.presspage.com/clients/150_2054.jpeg?10000 https://content.presspage.com/clients/150_2054.jpeg?10000 https://www.siliconvalleywatcher.com/edelman-creates-tool-to-create-social-media-news-releases/ https://www.siliconvalleywatcher.com/edelman-creates-tool-to-create-social-media-news-releases/241907 

I caused quite a stir earlier this year with my Die! Press Release Die! Die! Die! post. It came about from my frustration with the usefulness of the conventional press release. I offered some characteristics of what a new media press release might have, such as more links, labels/tags to quickly find information, and have links to related news stories, etc.

Many in the PR community have been working to create a more useful press release, which is wonderful. I applaud all efforts to make my job easier.

Edelman [an SVW sponsor] just released a tool/template it calls StoryCrafter that helps produce what has come to be known as a "social media news release." Shift PR has produced one too, and so has PRX Builder.

I'm not a big fan of the term "social media" I think "new media" would have been sufficient--and a more neutral term. But as long as everyone agrees on one meaning that is fine.

PR companies are extremely competitive and so the vying over whose social media release tool/template is better than the rest is only just beginning. Will there be one standard for social media releases? Maybe, but not yet. Let's try out these and other formats. I'm sure that a set of best practices will develop and everyone will benefit.

What interests me is if the PRnewswire and Businesswire services will carry social media releases. My understanding is that they charge extra for every link carried in a news release. Since links reduce the need for long press releases, their business model is threatened.

It is clear that the newswires are facing more than one challenge to their business model and are becoming increasingly irrelevant as news distribution platforms.  The Internet is so much better at distributing information, it is vastly cheaper, and has far greater reach.

PRNewswire and Businesswire charge a lot of money,  money that could be better used in communicating company news through formats such as the social media news release, and technologies such as RSS.

All that is needed is a ruling by the SEC that a company's RSS enabled online newsroom and its web sites, satisfy requirements for broad and immediate dissemination of material information. I don't think that we are far from such a ruling, IMHO.

Link to :: Edelman :: EDELMAN INTRODUCES WEB-BASED TOOL FOR PUBLISHING SOCIAL MEDIA NEWS RELEASES

 

]]> Thu, 07 Dec 2006 05:51:14 -0800 https://content.presspage.com/clients/150_2054.jpeg?10000 https://content.presspage.com/clients/150_2054.jpeg?10000 https://www.siliconvalleywatcher.com/dan-farbers-experimental-blogger-army/ https://www.siliconvalleywatcher.com/dan-farbers-experimental-blogger-army/242296By Tom Foremski for Silicon Valley Watcher

05-Dec-2006
ZDNet Unveils the Next-Generation of Business Tech Publishing, Weaving Voice of Bloggers Around News, Product Reviews, Vendor and User Content

In 2003, led by ZDNet veterans Dan Farber and David Berlind, the site launched blogs and later in 2005 original podcasts, adding context and perspective to the day's news in a way that only experts and well-connected insiders could offer. Farber and Berlind quickly amassed a network of more than 30 bloggers that today includes some of the most authoritative and well-respected voices in the IT community.

I'm proud to be part of Dan Farber's blogger corp over on CNET's ZDNet IT news site where I publish IMHO (in my humble opinion). The ZDNet blogs have grown from strength to strength, largely because of Dan's leadership.

It is great to work on Dan's team because he exhibits a tireless pursuit of news. I don't think I've ever seen him without cameras and laptops attached.  I wouldn't be surprised to one day see him with a SNL Al Franken satellite upload dish on his head because that is how tenacious he is as a journalist to file a news story first.

Dan is everywhere, at many of the events that I go to. And I tend to avoid the obvious daytime news events because there are dozens of other journalists covering them. I go to the evening roundtables, the salons, because the journalists with day jobs are home with their families. That's when I get a chance to come home with exclusive content--except that Dan is often there too.

The ZDNet blog section has just had a new coat of paint, it has been relaunched with a new design-- everyone had to submit new photos of themselves. It is an experiment in media publishing that is well worth watching.

I've no idea if the venture is profitable. I and my fellow ZDNet bloggers are paid based on pageview numbers. The more pageviews the more money.

How much money? Well, I have never cleared the $500 per month base rate and I think that many of my colleagues there are in a similar pay bracket. The Apple guy has been the top performer, $4k per month and sometimes much more. It's pocket money for most  since nearly all of the ZDNet bloggers (except me)  have days jobs in well paid professional sectors (i.e not journalism!).

The money-for-traffic payments are becoming common at other publishers. Business 2.0 for example, has such a system for its recently launched staff blogger section. 

In theory, such a system of reward for content performance could encourage sensationalist headlines and posts. Or encourage  posts that goad the Apple community, which reliably responds in large numbers and with a lot of passion. (This is John Dvorak's favorite way to boost traffic on a slow day :-) But so far, that hasn't happened to any obvious degree over on ZDNet.

Although the financial performance of the ZDNet blogger group is not known, I will bet it is far more profitable than ZDNet's dwindling group of salaried journalists. And Dan's blogger elite is far faster in covering breaking news than the salaried journalists.

Look at the coverage on ZDNet on Yahoo's reorganization. The news was released late in the day, about 6pm Pacific Time, which is just about heading home time for the salaried journalists. But the ZDNet bloggers kicked up a storm of coverage, well into the night and early morning.

I like being part of ZDNet's blogging experiment and I think it is well on its way to becoming a Wikipedia section on how old media ccompanies can create a viable new media group.

My two cents on the project is that I could do with some basic support on the production side of things, such as a copy editor to look over my shoulder and correct those things that we become blind to because we have to edit ourselves.

And a production assistant would be great too. Putting in those links, adding images, pointing to other relevant and worthy content is something that adds value and richness to a post but is often difficult to do as a standalone journalist, when it is late at night and the analog world of sleep beckons.

Also, we know from the hundreds of years of producing news: great journalism is created by teams and not by individuals. Just as everything else in the world that is consistently good,  is the product of teams... IMHO.

]]> Tue, 05 Dec 2006 18:56:24 -0800 https://content.presspage.com/clients/150_2054.jpeg?10000 https://content.presspage.com/clients/150_2054.jpeg?10000