Morgan McLintic on PR

BuggeredOff

I'm launching a new social notworking event this week which will be hosted on a beach in Mexico. The event has no WiFi or cell phone reception and will last until August 1. Sessions include Unplugged and Unconscious; Turn Off, Tune Out, Drop Off; VoiceBlogging - harnessing the power of real-time conversation; and Media Distractions - how to survive without the news.

I think it will be a popular event, though tickets quickly sold out. I may re-run the event later in the year at a new venue. Will post any relevant images onto Flickr.

See you on August 1, 2005. Thanks.

Trapping the power of the blogosphere

The final panel of the AlwaysOn conference talked about harnessing the power of the blogosphere. Time Inc, Technorati, Dan Gillmor, ThinkEquity, Forbes, Mayfield and AlwaysOn were all on the panel. Here are a few notes:

• Dave Sifry says Technorati is tracking 13.6m blogs, 11 posts a second (1m per day) and adding 110,000 new blogs per day.
• Dan Gillmor highlighted the London bombings as an excellent, recent example of bottom up media breaking stories in more detail than MSM.
• Time Inc says it's 'very early days for us when it comes to blogging.' Some of its research revealed that many of its readers don't know what a blog is.
• Forbes.com represents 40% of the revenue of Forbes.
• Dan Gillmor says we need to find a way to sort through all the citizen-generated content (photos, posts) since the one finite commodity is time.
• Dave Sifry highlighted that one of the benefits of blogging surrounding the London bombings, was not just the news content, but also that bloggers could post messages to their families which they could not contact via their cell phone to say they were ok. It also gave a channel for people to lend their support and sympathy to those involved.
• Allen Morgan from Mayfield says one benefit of blogging for him is that it has helped him clarify his thinking about his own business. (I personally agree with this).
• Dan Gillmor says that blogging should be part of the communications strategy of companies to engage with their stakeholders and have conversations with their constituents. 'You'll find they probably know more than you thought. You can't help but come out better as a result of that.'
• PR should stand for Public Relationships - Dave Sifry quoting Weinberger and Edelman.
• Ned Desmond of Time Inc says that a number of its publications want to go to a blog format, but its content management system has challenges introducing RSS, trackbacks, comments etc which are standard blog features.
• Blogging provides a vital feedback loop for companies to listen to what their most passionate customers feel. They would be foolish to ignore that pointed out Allen Morgan from Mayfield.
• Dan Gillmor reminded us that the value per reader of a small personal blog only read by family and friends is higher than that of even the most popular blogs, and that power should not be ignored.
• When it comes to journalist shield laws, Dan Gillmor wants it to apply to the act of journalism rather than to journalists (or bloggers) themselves. That might include a blog post.
• Forbes is launching a blog called 'Dunce of the Week' tomorrow to highlight the most foolish comment made about the economy.
• Dan Gillmor doesn't think reporters can be 'objective' - but believes they should be four things: thorough, accurate, fair and transparent. 'If we have all of those, I don't care if you call [an article/journalism] objective or not.'

Technorati Tags: AlwaysOn, blogs, publishing, journalism

Mark Cuban's keynote

Short notes from Mark Cuban's session:

• IceRocket will be renamed BlogScour and compete with Technorati and PubSub.

• Individual podcasters will not make money but current content providers will use it as a new distribution mechanism.

• His film company, HDNet, will release films at the same time in theatres, on cable and DVD on the same day. 'I will provide it in the format you want to consume it.'

• IPTV will take hold over next 12 months, especially since DirecTV is pushing it.

• Mark Cuban has learned most about marketing from Bill Gates, Michael Dell, Dennis Rodman and Paris Hilton. Fancy that.

Technorati Tags: AlwaysOn

David Kelley's keynote

Am sitting in the audience at AlwaysOn for Mark Cuban's keynote. I have a few moments to enjoy the show following moderating David Kelley's keynote. Our session seems to have been well received.

We discussed the state of innovation, how companies can instill a culture of innovation, the stages in innovation and how to spot a good idea. David also introduced Stanford's new design school, the d.school, which he has set up. The aim of the school is to introduce a new way of thinking - design thinking, as opposed to analytical thinking. These multi-disciplinary designers will be the glue in creative teams.

David and his firm IDEO are at the forefront of innovation. His new d.school will train a new breed of entrepreneurs who combine business kudos, technical acumen and design thinking.

I think the session will be archived, so I'll post the link when I have it. My thanks to David for his time. He was a pleasure to talk to.

UPDATE - here's the link with the blog chat as well.

UPDATE 2 - Michael Kanellos covers the session for CNET.com.

Technorati Tags: AlwaysOn

AlwaysOn giveaways

IMGP2136
Originally uploaded by Morgan McLintic.

Each of the AlwaysOn attendees gets a rucksack of freebies from those involved. Tired of the pens, golf paraphenalia, t-shirts and marketing blurbs, we thought we'd give something useful - snazzy, branded shower radios.

Most people don't have one, they're related to breaking the news, not punitively expensive or insultingly cheap, work for both men and women and get frequent use. Plus the bags look cool too.

I'm a big believer that good marketing is all about having a strong idea and implementing it well, not just splurging money on the same stuff as everyone else.

Branded mint anyone?

Media Asia covers LEWIS' move to China

Media magazine, PRWEEK's Asian equivalent, covered our move into China on Friday [requires subscription]. This followed an interview I did with Arun Sudhaman last week. The piece also features Erin Atan, who runs the Asian region and is doing most of the hard work getting the office off the ground, alongside Elizabeth Priester, our new China GM. In it I'm talking about the internationalization of PR and how tech companies are looking to market themselves on a global basis, often from the get-go. From a communications perspective, this can be a challenge since many agencies have only a national reach and others, while global in principle, are not in practice having been bolted together from disparate firms. Like many aspects of marketing, the challenge is in the implementation when it comes to global PR campaigns.

While I'm on the topic of interviews, my blog post questioning whether PR firms should ghost-write corporate blogs has sparked the cover story in Ragan's Media Relations Report. I spoke with Christine Kent who wrote the piece having read my blog. Fellow PR blogger Josh Hallett is also quoted along with the seemingly ubiquitous but ever insightful, Steve Rubel. Yet more proof that blogging can influence opinion and cascade into the print media, even in the somewhat limited mediasphere of PR.

Technorati Tags: blogs, LEWIS

AlwaysOn is ready to rock

The AlwaysOn 2005 Innovation Summit kicks off on Tuesday, and it's lining up to be a great event [link requires free registration]. I met with many of the AO100 companies on Wednesday to walk through the PR around the Summit. At that point we had about 80 confirmed media and bloggers attending. Now we're up to over 110 and are actually having to restrict the number of press attending from individual publications (there are only 700 attendees in total). The list makes impressive reading - BusinessWeek, CNBC, Economist, Forbes, Fortune, FT, Newsweek, NYT, SF Chronicle, SJ Merc, WSJ - so it's a good chance for companies to meet the media face-to-face.

I also had a chance to catch up with David Kelley, the founder of IDEO, who I'm interviewing for a keynote on Wednesday. He's a fascinating character and a brilliant speaker. We'll be discussing how design thinking can spark better innovation, not just in products but also services. We'll also talk about Stanford's new d.school which he has set up to train a new breed of creative design thinkers.

Meantime, there's a profile of Tony Perkins, the founder of AlwaysOn in today's San Jose Mercury News [requires free registration], which Matt Marshall penned following the session on Wednesday.

If you're coming to the event, be sure to look me up. I'm also sitting on several judging panels in the CEO Pitch tent, so will be hiding out in there for much of Wednesday afternoon. I'll post some photos and thoughts from the conference next week too.

Technorati Tags: AlwaysOn

What brand is your toothbrush?

Is it Oral B? Aquafresh? Colgate? No idea right. It's just a green one with the new flexible head which cleans your teeth better. So what toothpaste do you use? You probably know the brand, but what's the product name? Crest with Whitening? Hmm - still a bit more to chose from - want Vanilla? Cinnamon? Citrus? There's about 20 different Crest toothpastes to choose from.

This is product segmentation gone wild. With toothbrushes, they're all so similar we can't tell. With toothpaste, I buy Crest in a blue tube. Except they're all blue now and there are lots to choose from even within the same product family, many of which probably taste foul. Not sure my preference can be salami-sliced this thinly. Buying toothpaste is supposed to be a low engagement purchase. Now the consumer has to read each packet to make sure they're getting what they had last time - the one which tasted ok and stopped their teeth falling out.

Which all goes to prove that you can spend too much on marketing, branding and product differentiation. Sometimes the consumer just wants predictability. Don't mess with my toothpaste - whatever it was called.

Technorati Tags: Differentiation, Marketing, Crest, Toothpaste

The $100m RSS fund

Last week saw the announcement of the creation of a $100m VC fund exclusively aimed at RSS investments. RSS Investors, as the fund is known, “will invest in companies working on different aspects of the technology, such as better security and new ways of managing the traffic on Internet content,” according to the SF Chronicle.

The fund was one of the hot topics of conversation at the AlwaysOn/Technorati Open Media 100 reception on Thursday. Those I spoke to seemed enthusiastic but bemused - are there really enough companies to fund to the tune of $100m using RSS? Even if you extend it to include podcasting, will this fund find enough companies to back fast enough to give a good return? It will be interesting to see if their timing is good. At the moment, they've got $20m from LPs and seem confident of getting the rest. If they're right, it's going to be an exciting few years in the content distribution and media space.

Technorati Tags: Venture capital, RSS

Agencies should provide way in to PR for graduates

As the market heats up in the Valley, I've noticed agencies are mainly looking for staff with 3-7 years' experience - the senior account executive to account supervisor level. These are the folks who form the core of account teams and campaign implementation.

I've noted before that the number of people with this amount of experience is low due to the lack of graduate recruitment during the downturn. Now we are feeling the pinch.

However, the number of agencies recruiting at graduate level now seems to be low. I'm not sure why - in order for teams to progress agencies need to bring in staff at the base. There is plenty of work to be done at that level, but I sense that many agencies are reluctant to train new entrants to the industry.

Graduates with a Mass Communications or Journalism degree do take a lot of training before they can become 'client-facing'. Many candidates fail - I'd say as many as 50% don't make it to the 36-month mark. It's a tough job and not suited to everyone. I guess some agencies have taken an HR policy of only recruiting people that have a couple of years under their belts. Those candidates know the basics but are still willing to learn, don't have bad habits and can have an immediate impact.

But that's a short-termist approach, and not good for our industry. There has to be a clear track into PR to attract fresh talent. I'd say the larger the firm, the greater the responsibility to have a solid graduate training program.

On a personal level, I also think it makes sense to recruit and train graduates. Seeing someone who you have trained get their first BusinessWeek clip or broadcast piece, win their first new business pitch, get praise from the senior client contact, even recruit their own team, is one of the most satisfying parts of the job. Of course senior people can do these things - and I'm sure we all enjoyed each landmark ourselves - but there is more pleasure in training others to achieve their goals than to simply repeat the exercise yourself.

So let's see agencies take a more responsible view by operating internship programs, and recruiting at the account coordinator or assistant account executive level. [I've just looked on several large agency sites and many have nothing for graduates or aren't advertising junior vacancies]. Sure we all want that core team with 3-7 years, but don't slam the door on new entrants just yet. In three years' time, you might just need them.

Technorati Tags: Graduates, Recruitment