Morgan McLintic on PR

PR and paranoia

Most good PR people are paranoid. Admit it. You are. This is because it pays to think through what might go wrong. For instance, how might this story be interpreted? What potential crises are looming? What happens if the laptop fails in the presentation? What if there's traffic on the press tour?

The mantra is plan for the worst and hope for the best. It's a recipe for long hours and sleepless nights. Get used to it or get out quick.

Personally, I'm fine with scenario planning and asking the awkward questions you're not supposed to ask. But there comes a point where healthy paranoia becomes, well unhealthy. There are plenty of things to worry about in PR. We're paid to do that so clients don't have to - it's called responsibility. But there is a point at which it becomes destructive and you end up chasing phantoms.

Getting the right level of paranoia is hard. Too much and you end up burning cycles and midnight oil on increasingly unlikely events. The trouble is - it's a vicious circle. The one time things go off course becomes a justification for a mountain of purposeless planning.

Paranoia yields decreasing marginal returns. Knowing when to stop can make the difference between a sustainable work rate (and mental state) and burn out. In general, the management of paranoia is a function of experience. Newbies tend to lack sufficient paranoia until they make a mistake and pay the consequences - you don't do it twice. Veterans have seen the cycle a few times and know enough to handle issues if they crop up. I find the crunch point is in between - the account management level - when you know the consequences but lack the flight time to put the risks in perspective. Here be demons.

Sad to say though, the demons are personal. No-one can make you not worry, however much rationalizing they may do. And, heck I'll recruit people who care enough about these details every day over the blase Devil may care types. But recognize the trait and learn to harness and manage it. Healthy paranoia is a good thing, but it has to be just that, healthy.

Happy Halloween

Happy Halloween from the LEWIS team.

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I see dead people

Lots of them. In this new mag I just learned about - Obit. A magazine choc full of well, obits. It's actually very good. For instance, I just learned this about Colma, south of San Francisco.

People come to Colma mainly to be buried. On San Francisco’s south flank, sharing a fog bank, Colma has 17 cemeteries to San Francisco’s none. Long ago San Francisco booted out the cemeteries and moved most of the graves to this little necropolis.

Colma calls itself a necropolis (“city of the dead” in Greek) despite its 1,500 live residents. It is commonly listed as the country’s only necropolis, incorporated in 1924 to protect the cemeteries that now occupy 73 percent of Colma’s 2.2 square miles.

The necropolis business started with the California Gold Rush in 1849. As people rushed in, so did disease and death, and San Francisco’s 26 cemeteries were mostly filled in the late 1880s. Soon state law forbade backyard burials, or internment anywhere except in an established cemetery. By 1900, land already was too valuable for low-revenue uses like graves, so the noose tightened on San Francisco cemeteries and burials were banned...

You can also go shopping in Colma. I think the necropolis might be more interesting...

Wired editor blocks PR people, outs them

Chris Anderson, editor of Wired vents about 'PR spam' in a recent post. It's a common theme and I guess we all reach a point where enough is enough. In fact, who can't sympathize with this sentiment, regardless of your profession?

So fair warning: I only want two kinds of email: those from people I know, and those from people who have taken the time to find out what I'm interested in and composed a note meant to appeal to that (I love those emails; indeed, that's why my email address is public).

I only want those kind of emails too. He then publishes a list of offending email addresses. PR pros probably scanned down the list and like me were relieved not to find themselves or their agency on it. But we knew our firms could have been - or why the relief? Why even look?

The fact is that PR and media do have a symbiotic relationship. And all relationships wax and wane. Email is a useful tool and sometimes people are lazy, short on time or even just learning. So mistakes are made. And there's a list of people who perhaps made them this month.

Their reward will be to get some spam and some more headhunting pitches. And Chris Anderson gets to vent some steam. Perhaps that system works. Or perhaps the punishment doesn't fit the crime.

Personally I think these things reach a balance - you reap what you sow. Some PR consultants send broad based emails because it works for them (or else they wouldn't right?). Occasionally they get flamed. Some reporters are more sensitive to unsolicited mail (or calls even) than others and so get fewer pitches. Occasionally they miss the big stories. The majority fall in the middle - working hard to build relationships, accommodating others' working styles and understanding their pressures.

That whole podcasting thing

I'm trying it. Kinda.

Here's the pilot. (Thanks Ian for doing this on the spur of the moment). Am sure it can be made better. I joked on 360 that it was sponsored by the word 'perfect' which i seemed to use six times in three minutes. Learning by doing and hopefully I'll get a bit faster.

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Leopard launches

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Morganutiae

You can now find all my updates to Facebook, Flickr, YouTube, Twitter, Del.icio.us and PodBean on my Tumblelog - Morganutiae. If you're unfamiliar with Tumblr it takes feeds from a number of social media sites and general RSS feeds and aggregates them in a lightweight, sparsely formatted blog.

I've called mine Morganutiae because there's probably more detail there than anyone might need but it was quick to set up and I really like Tumblr's clean interface. It's interesting to see the aggregated digital output for each day. Sometimes it's just the odd tweet or FB update. Others, like today, there's video, blog posts, tweets and even a very short podcast. For those with enough time on their hands, the feed is here. Those who are yet to set up their own blog and who don't need much customization might consider Tumblr as their platform.

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Blackberry's Facebook app

As if Crackberry isn't addictive enough...

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If you can't beat 'em

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San Francisco Chronicle on the move?

I heard on the radio this morning that Hearst is thinking of selling The Chron's offices on Mission and Fifth. The area has seen a lot of development recently (mainly with the Bloomingdale's opening) so real estate prices are rising, despite the crunch. Must be tempting to move to a cheaper location but it's a shame to see newspapers move out of town a la Fleet Street in London.