Via Boing Boing. And I thought I wanted the fail stickers badly.
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Friday, April 24, 2009
Goodbye Moo cards, hello Meat cards
Tuesday, April 21, 2009
Email in the 1970s
Funny. Getting email at my desk is almost exactly like this.
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Monday, April 20, 2009
Communicate this
Have you been following the Domino's disaster? You know, the 'employees-stick-cheese-up-nose-and-put-the-video-on-YouTube' one?
One such commentator was Steve Rubel, popular blogger and digital strategist at Edelman. He Twittered about his appearance on Fox so I checked it out. And I watched it again. And I thought about it.
Is it me or does Steve's interview demonstrate the key problem that always occurs when PR people are asked to commentate? We spend our lives training people on how to articulate their messages to the press, but when we're asked to share our *own* opinion we struggle.
The Domino's interview on Fox is a brilliant example of this. You've got three people discussing what the company should do. Steve says they should 'communicate'. But that ain't going to solve their problem is it, say the others? They need to change some processes, maybe shake things up a little in the training programme (Pizza making 101: Don't fart on the salami), or install cameras in the kitchens?
Steve just says they should 'communicate'. Communicate what?
Herein lies the problem that will face every PR person at some time in their career. The client is facing a tough, time-sensitive situation and looks to you for help. They want to know what they should do. As a communications specialist, you're already naturally leaning towards you-know-what.
But remember, communication doesn't solve problems on its own. Maybe your best response would be "Fix the problem. Then let us know and we'll communicate to everyone how well you fixed it."
(Just as a side point, according to branding specialist Laura Ries, Domino's shouldn't worry as "the public forgets almost everything." Blimey, that's evil stuff. At least it gives Steve a chance to redeem himself with a little Google logic from, you know, *reality*...)
Friday, April 17, 2009
PR meets PR
I'm almost certainly breaking the law by posting this, but I saw a fascinating exchange this week between a PR person and a journalist that sums up a classic media misunderstanding so sweetly, that I had to share it.
To summarise: PR type Stephen Davies receives a press release and complains about it. National news journalist Guy Clapperton calls him on his complaint. Hilarity ensues.
Here is the Twitter exchange in its full glory. Warning: They wind each other up a bit.
(I have strong feelings about this, but will let you read this and share yours before I share mine. What do you reckon?)
--------
Steve Davies: Dear Marketwire. Please don't send unsolicited press releases to my company's contact email. I didn't ask for it and it isn't relevant. Thx! 8.16am
Guy Clapperton: So you're an information junkie who doesn't want unsolicited information? Interesting... 8.24am
Steve Davies: Er, no. I'm an information junkie who doesn't want spam. There's a difference - thought you'd know. 8.26am
Guy Clapperton: I didn't know press releases from a bona fide company was spam, particularly when you're saying you're hungry for info, no. 8.38am
Steve Davies: That's not the point. What has my Twitter bio got to do with my company's contact email? Nowt. 8.43am
Steve Davies: So you're telling me, as a journo, you've never considered a press release sent to you as spam? 8.44am
Guy Clapperton: Absolutely. I would look a fool if I put my head over the parapet as a freelance journalist and then objected to press releases. 8.50am
Guy Clapperton: Absolutely. I would look a fool if I put my head over the parapet as a freelance journalist and then objected to press releases. 8.50am
Guy Clapperton: So you're expecting PRs to put a metric in place that divides you into two separate identities and it's their job to sort it out? 8.51am
Steve Davies: OK, 2 questions. 1. Why send a press release to a business (not blog) email? 2. Why not ask for permission before sending? 8.55am
Steve Davies: Yes I do expect people to put a metric in place. That's good PR! It was a wire service though ... not an PR person. 8.57am
Steve Davies: This is not journalism. Even if they did send 2 my blog address I'm no journo. Want my attention? Email me personally. 8.59am
Guy Clapperton: You pitched yourself as an information junkie, people are sending you information. You opened the box, Pandora, no point moaning. 9.02am
Steve Davies: Naah, you're completely missing the point. Where on my company site (where it was sent) does it say send me press releases? 9.21am
Guy Clapperton: You're missing a larger one - where on any site does it say it's anyone's job but yours to manage your online identities? 9.26am
Steve Davies: So you're saying it's OK to send bloggers (and other social media users) unsolicited email they don't necessarily want? 9.29am
Guy Clapperton: I'm saying by declaring yourself an 'information junkie' you've invited these items of information. Your description, in public 9.38am
Steve Davies: I just can't see how my Twitter bio somehow says 'send press releases that I didn't ask for to my company email address' 9.45am
Guy Clapperton: I'm saying by declaring yourself an 'information junkie' you've invited these items of information. Your description, in public 9.38am
Guy Clapperton: Just blogged "Bloggers and press releases « Social Networking Blog" (http://tinyurl.com/cqvn9x ) 9.58am
Steve Davies: Where on my Twitter profile does it say 'send me information' or 'send me press releases'? It doesn't. 9.58am
Guy Clapperton: Oh for goodness' sake, you describe yourself as an information junkie so people send you information! Is it so difficult??? 10.02am
Steve Davies: That's a very strange way of looking at it, Guy. But thanks for your thoughts. 10.05am
Steve Davies: Don't know why you haven't included my name in your blog post. I stand by what I said http://twurl.nl/2yj8gr 10.08am
Guy Clapperton: Didn't have your permission but wanted to give the issue an airing. Feel free to respond on the blog, of course. 10.09am
Steve Davies: They didn't send the release to my blog. It was sent to hello@3wpr.co.uk - not even a person address. 10.12am
Guy Clapperton: OK, manage your online ID or even talk to the sender! (CHECKS WEBSITE) You're in PR yourself? My mind is really boggling now. 10.16am
Steve Davies: Yes I am in PR and it's bad tactics like this that gives us other PRs a bad name among you journos. Boggling mind also. 10.22am
Guy Clapperton: If you don't want info, don't say you're an info junkie; if you don't want releases, don't put a publication or blog out there. 10.42am
Steve Davies: Don't agree with that notion at all. I haven't said I don't want releases. I said I don't want ones I didn't ask for. 10.44am
Low-Fi Sci-Fi [feedly]
These book covers rock.
Low-Fi Sci-Fi
If the main objective of a book cover is to make you stop, pick up said book, perhaps read the back or the first few lines (and consider buying it, of course) then the new Gollancz range of science-fiction classics has certainly got something right. The ten titles stood out when I saw them on display in a bookshop earlier this week, so I asked Orion Books' designer James Jones to explain the decidely low-fi approach they took to this new sci-fi series…
"The idea was to bring sci-fi to a wider audience," says Jones, who art directed this particular series. "We wanted to create a series style that would adhere to the nature of the content – eg its complexity – but employ a hands-on approach.
"We'd recently seen Sanda Zahirovic's work at the D&AD student awards and in working with her over a period of two weeks, we created the ten covers in-house.
"Each cover was created using A4 paper, with all the typography printed and placed on the structure by hand," Jones continues. "We then photographed each paper structure and, upon seeing the original black and white images, we didn't feel that any tweaking or further alterations were needed."
On closer inspection, some of the most striking covers were achieved by photographing a single piece of rolled-up or chopped-up paper or, even – as with Paul McAuley's Eternal Light – the discarded paper circles from a hole punch. Here's the rest of the set:
Design: Sanda Zahirovic
Art direction: James Jones
Creative director: Lucie Stericker
Series editor: Simon Spanton
Gollancz is Orion Books' science-fiction and fantasy imprint.
All the titles in the series are on sale now at £7.99.
Thursday, April 16, 2009
LG's netbook guide has some handy tips
Like "Computer games cause mental disorders in feeble people".
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Wednesday, April 15, 2009
Testing Jabber
Our IT team have set us up with super instant messaging. Now with added file sharing and hi-res video.
Tuesday, April 07, 2009
Handle with care #2: Technology journalists
Absolutely ages ago I wrote a post containing a wonderful guide to handling technology PR people. At the end of it, it seemed like a good idea to turn the concept into a series, and promised a similar guide for handling journalists.
Since then, a lot has happened in the mediasphere. Twitter has taken off like a rocket, sort-of-but-not-really revolutionising how information flows across the various peaks and valleys of the media landscape. There are some journalists who - get this - would rather be pitched via the immediate, concise and infinitely portable Twitter than receiving a phone call asking them if they received an email featuring and attachment containing your press release. Fancy that!
Elsewhere, people are giving up on journalists as a 'dying breed'. As the Press Gazette closes in a puff of poorly-written PR, journalists are allegedly scratching around, starving and confused, for morsels of work from the remaining publications who are apparently only accepting free vendor content anyway. Don't worry, none of this is true.
In reality, journalism is alive and well and adapting to the new communication channels of 2009. The websites of the big publishing houses are better than they've ever been and, while there have been some closures, there have also been launches.
So, fear not dear technology PR or marketing person. There are still people out there that might want to listen. The only challenge left facing you is knowing how to handle them. Hang on a minute... I know! How about a handy guide?
Seven tips for handling technology journalists:
1. Be confident. Despite the fact that you've been sick three times and are now cowering under your desk merely at the thought of having to call one, technology journalists don't actually know that much more about technology than you do. Stop crying and trust me - and start with a backgrounder on your client and what they do first, because they probably can't recall much about them.
2. Don't ask them how much they know about your client. Most of them will say "assume nothing" rather than have to dredge their tired minds for the time they once met the ex-ex-CEO over a foul coffee at a trade show to discuss a product or service that the company hasn't sold for two years, in a market they now deny being part of.
3. Respect their deadlines. To you, a deadline is something that a client gives you arbitrarily, and a couple of hours often won't make much difference. To a journalist, it's the fundamental lifeblood of their existence. If you miss it, or - even worse - miss it and then send your material / set up the interview after the deadline has passed without acknowledging that you're late, you really need to reconsider your career choice.
4. Avoid being patronising. Contrary to popular belief, journalists are actually paid money to work. Inviting them to lunch to hear about your client's integration-optimised, end-to-end business process management analytics solution isn't doing them a favour. They could afford to buy a nice sandwich themselves, so it's fair to say they're coming because they're interested. Tell them something interesting, and thank them for coming.
5. Don't say 'thanks'. Thanking a journalist for writing a nice piece about your client is like telling the NUJ and all their colleagues that they've just taken a bung to reproduce your press release and ignore how much money the CTO just embezzled through his Swiss bank account. Writing stories on their own merit is what they do. They don't write to make you thankful.
6. Give. There are many things you can give a journalist to make their stories better. Give them decent spokespeople. Give them appropriate-resolution images of these spokespeople that someone other than the spokesperson has taken of themself, in a place other than the office car park. Give them good copy. Give them good stories. Give them ideas. Give them a call back.
7. Give a sh*t about their readers. Sorry for the bad language, but the journalist you're about to call has just slammed the phone down to someone pitching them a story about UPVC guttering, or giraffes. Do you know the demographic of the readership of the publication? Have you even read it? Ever? If you haven't, go and read it. Otherwise, you're about to hear much worse language from the other end of the line...
Oh, I almost forgot. Coming up next in this series-that-I'm-happy-I've-actually-gone-and-turned-into-a-series...
Clients.
Since then, a lot has happened in the mediasphere. Twitter has taken off like a rocket, sort-of-but-not-really revolutionising how information flows across the various peaks and valleys of the media landscape. There are some journalists who - get this - would rather be pitched via the immediate, concise and infinitely portable Twitter than receiving a phone call asking them if they received an email featuring and attachment containing your press release. Fancy that!
Elsewhere, people are giving up on journalists as a 'dying breed'. As the Press Gazette closes in a puff of poorly-written PR, journalists are allegedly scratching around, starving and confused, for morsels of work from the remaining publications who are apparently only accepting free vendor content anyway. Don't worry, none of this is true.
In reality, journalism is alive and well and adapting to the new communication channels of 2009. The websites of the big publishing houses are better than they've ever been and, while there have been some closures, there have also been launches.
So, fear not dear technology PR or marketing person. There are still people out there that might want to listen. The only challenge left facing you is knowing how to handle them. Hang on a minute... I know! How about a handy guide?
Seven tips for handling technology journalists:
1. Be confident. Despite the fact that you've been sick three times and are now cowering under your desk merely at the thought of having to call one, technology journalists don't actually know that much more about technology than you do. Stop crying and trust me - and start with a backgrounder on your client and what they do first, because they probably can't recall much about them.
2. Don't ask them how much they know about your client. Most of them will say "assume nothing" rather than have to dredge their tired minds for the time they once met the ex-ex-CEO over a foul coffee at a trade show to discuss a product or service that the company hasn't sold for two years, in a market they now deny being part of.
3. Respect their deadlines. To you, a deadline is something that a client gives you arbitrarily, and a couple of hours often won't make much difference. To a journalist, it's the fundamental lifeblood of their existence. If you miss it, or - even worse - miss it and then send your material / set up the interview after the deadline has passed without acknowledging that you're late, you really need to reconsider your career choice.
4. Avoid being patronising. Contrary to popular belief, journalists are actually paid money to work. Inviting them to lunch to hear about your client's integration-optimised, end-to-end business process management analytics solution isn't doing them a favour. They could afford to buy a nice sandwich themselves, so it's fair to say they're coming because they're interested. Tell them something interesting, and thank them for coming.
5. Don't say 'thanks'. Thanking a journalist for writing a nice piece about your client is like telling the NUJ and all their colleagues that they've just taken a bung to reproduce your press release and ignore how much money the CTO just embezzled through his Swiss bank account. Writing stories on their own merit is what they do. They don't write to make you thankful.
6. Give. There are many things you can give a journalist to make their stories better. Give them decent spokespeople. Give them appropriate-resolution images of these spokespeople that someone other than the spokesperson has taken of themself, in a place other than the office car park. Give them good copy. Give them good stories. Give them ideas. Give them a call back.
7. Give a sh*t about their readers. Sorry for the bad language, but the journalist you're about to call has just slammed the phone down to someone pitching them a story about UPVC guttering, or giraffes. Do you know the demographic of the readership of the publication? Have you even read it? Ever? If you haven't, go and read it. Otherwise, you're about to hear much worse language from the other end of the line...
Oh, I almost forgot. Coming up next in this series-that-I'm-happy-I've-actually-gone-and-turned-into-a-series...
Clients.
Slice inconsistencies
How does this happen?
Hovis only has to do two things - bake bread and slice it evenly. How can they get phase two so wrong?
Slice inconsistencies, originally uploaded by PR Geek.
Hovis only has to do two things - bake bread and slice it evenly. How can they get phase two so wrong?
Slice inconsistencies, originally uploaded by PR Geek.
Monday, April 06, 2009
Press Gazette closes after 43 years
Media industry magazine the Press Gazette is being closed by relatively new owner Wilmington after two years of battling to save it. While this is a shame - I used to be a subscriber while at University, forcing my local shop to order it in for me - it appears that Wilmington will be keeping the site going as a resource for journalists, including the rollout of 'additional functionality'.
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Thursday, April 02, 2009
Office prank = danger
You'd have a word with your colleagues if one of them did this to you, wouldn't you?
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German retro-futuristic group-dancing (via Boing Boing)
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Wednesday, April 01, 2009
"John from Massive Corporation"
Making an appearance in the opening video for Michael Gonzalez' LEWIS
Forum speech.
LEWIS Industry Forum
Keith Lucas is on stage. Good turnout to the forum, despite concerns
about travel on G20 day...
Digital > Analogue
I love digital things becoming real. Jonathan Hopkins' post on some of the cooler things that have appeared in the last few weeks is a good roundup. I want, no *need* some FAIL stickers.
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