Flack's Revenge

Solving Geller's I/O Dilemma (Why I sometimes Go Radio Silent)

In reviewing the latest round of input/output (I/O) acceleration offerings (technology that works in the data center to speed the flow of data in and out) it became painfully aware to me that I have an I/O problem of my own.

You can draw a direct analogy in the IT world.  There you can have server virtualization, which enables pooling of data center resources (which is generally good), and solid state storage, which enables screaming storage performance (also quite good). Servers are getting faster all the time via multi-core processors. The networking technology that connects these components is also constantly improving.

Which means that the brains, memory and connective tissue of data centers are nothing short of brilliant each in their own right.  However, depending on how the data center is architected, and the specific combination of tech you use, things can get royally hosed in the process of ensuring fast and efficient movement of data in and out of the data center, meaning that you are not getting the most performance you can and indicating the need for I/O acceleration.

I have been struggling to understand all this and think I finally got it. However, in the process I have developed serious concerns about my own I/O challenges.

Namely, my brain often comes up with ideas which are not half bad if I must say so myself.  So I guess you could call it a high performance storage and processing device (please indulge me here).

My various personae - husband, father, tech PR pro, blogger - merge online, creating a virtualized resource. I have no shortage of output devices as I am active on Facebook, Linked In, Twitter, my own blog, agency blog, etc.

The problem is that the middleware in terms of my actual work and personal lives gets in the way and gums everything up in terms of my ability to generate, OK, why not, often brilliant commentary on my many and varied output channels.

In short, my ports get oversubscribed, fabric gets saturated (which can can get messy), and my CPU utilization gets shot to hell, creating a serious I/O issue and preventing said brilliance from being expressed to the extent that it could be.

Calling all entrepreneurs, I sense I am not the only one with this problem - there is potentially a vast untapped market -and encourage innovative solutions to this dilemma.

Obama, great PR for Beer

Reasonable people can debate and disagree about the wisdom of Obama's public musings on the Gates issue.

I think most people (myself included) felt that Obama was off base in his initial comments.  He shot from the hip on a hot and very polarizing issue.

Some, mostly those on the right did not cut any slack when Obama tried to set things right via his spiel about a "teachable moment."  To me this statement seemed heartfelt and struck the right tone.  He made no bones about backtracking from his earlier comments and did not rely on a prepared statement or his spokesperson to deliver this message.

One thing is for sure, it's becoming clear that Obama is a strong believer in the power of beer as a great equalizer, uniter and universal salve.

During the campaign Obama used "sitting down over a beer " as a metaphor for settling the differences across the political aisle.

And now he has invited Gates and Crowley to sit on the White House lawn for a beer. The story continues to command attention and drive buzz.  I have heard more than one radio talk show honing in on the topic of beer and symbolism behind the specific beer selection.

The beer industry should be frothing over this indeed.

Evolution of Core PR Skills

There's an interesting thread on Ajit Jaokar's blog about WOMMA, which in turn refers to an earlier post on the topic of Agency 2.0.  Although he mostly focuses on advertising, Ajit does touch on PR.

As Ajit (who I have interviewed for this blog) said in his post The Elephant in the Room:

Can agencies be a part Agency 2.0? I.e. The future of Agencies (Agency 2.0) may be out of the hands of the Agencies themselves

So these are good questions to ask: what should PR's role be going forward (assuming there is a role) and, if so, what should the new core skills be?

We don't want to be the proverbial technology in search of a problem; simply rolling forward and applying old metaphors to new realities may not work.  E.g., print journalism is struggling to adapt to an online world in which most people expect info to be free.  And, when it comes to PR 2.0, you can't just replace media relations with blogger relations and call it a day.

I believe PR agencies need to thoroughly reevaluate all areas of their businesses.  We need to look at how people are recruited and trained, our range of services, the value we provide, etc.

We are moving from a world in which one of the most valued skills is simply to "get media" and all this implies (hiring armies of young people and equipping them with the minimal tools needed to pitch media) to a world in which we are increasingly becoming vested in the conversation.

This does not mean traditional media does not count any longer, it just stems from the recognition that the emphasis is shifting.

So what should the core PR skills be in this new world?  We need to be able to:

• Understand the new communications channels and evolving influencer landscapes
• Master the mores and mechanics of online, social media and social networking comms
• Be comfortable with and skilled at communicating in a public forum
• Be credible and genuine, not spammers but people who and add value in public exchanges

Together these skills are much more complicated and amorphous than simply "getting media;" but it is I believe where we need to fcous and excel if we are to remain relevant and add value.

Some people will dismiss us as flacks and shills whatever we do, simply because we are paid to represent clients (ironically, some of the very same people use social media to build their own brands and shamelessly promote themselves, their friends and business associates).

But is a PR person blogging, tweeting or commenting about clients so different from an employee who blogs about their field of work and employer?  Or from formerly captive journalists who are becoming "unplugged" from publishing brands and building out their personal brands?

Our fields of specialties and the clients we represent are in fact extensions of our personal brands; there is no reason why we can't credibly engage on these topics to express our own thoughts while at the same time helping clients meet their communications objectives.

Novel PR Tactics Help R.E. Agent Stand Out

As those who read this blog know, I am in tech PR, and most of my posts relate to this field and the general realm of social media.  But sometimes I see interesting stories that are outside of tech, and one in particular that caught my attention ran in last Sunday's NY Times Real Estate section.

The article It's Thinking Cap Time covered interesting tactics for selling real estate in Westchester County, NY, where I live.  As the article says:

WHEN it comes to selling real estate, desperate times call for desperate measures — or, at the very least, creative thinking.

Of the several examples cited, one stood out as an object lesson in creative PR tactics.  Real estate agent Debbie Meiliken became a self-appointed expert on Treasury Secretary Timothy Geitner's unsold $1.635 million home.  An article she wrote for The Loop, a local online newspaper, attracted the attention of the Associated Press; their story about it was in turn picked up by Huffington Post, CNBC, The LA Times, USA Today and and many others (exactly why everyone found this so fascinating is anyone's guess, as I often find when it comes to the media, there's no accounting for taste). 

According to the article:

She has become the recognized expert on the house’s market travails. “It wasn’t priced aggressively enough,” she asserted recently. “I would have listed it for $100,000 less. Everyone’s looking for a bargain today.”

The hullabaloo has landed her a few new listings, she said.

Now The Loop, a "hyperlocal blog," is also famous (see their story about the story).

The funny thing is, Meiliken did not even have the Geithner listing.  But she was not afraid to use the new media to voice her opinion on an apparently hot topic, in a way that attracted the attention of some very big media guns, increased her visibility and helped her business in the process.

Launching a Company Blog: Getting Started in 3 Easy Steps

The following is a step-by-step guide for companies that want to get started with blogging. 

Step 1:  Choose Blogging Platform

There are a variety of options for blogging platforms.  They range from expensive, enterprise-class content management systems to free open source software and hosted services.

It is easiest to get started with hosted options like Blogger, TypePad, and WordPress.   Costs range from free to about $200/year.  Premium services offer more control over the design and implementation of the blog.  Some include built-in metrics (e.g. TypePad does).

Many people swear by WordPress because its open source roots have resulted in a wide array of add-ons and options.  The Fusion blog is based on Blogger, and this blog uses TypePad Professional.

 Step 2: Blogging Concepts – Themes, domain, and design

There are many options when it comes to blogging concepts.  How you approach this should also influence your decisions regarding the design and domain name.  These decisions, in turn, will determine the results the blog can help you achieve, e.g. in areas like marketing and SEO.

The most successful blogs are organized around compelling themes that have specific audiences in mind.  Many blogs are associated with individuals rather than corporate entities.  Either way, the blog(s) can help further the company’s communications goals.  I do not feel that anonymous blogs, or blogs that appear to be little more than an extension of the company website and marketing department are particularly effective.

The blog theme should influence your choice of domain name.  Domain names that include the right keyword(s) for your space can boost SEO results for the blog.  Using a sub-domain of your company website URL can boost traffic for the site, and the website in turn should boost traffic for the blog.  I recommend including a link (or links) to the blog(s) on your home page.

To really separate the company brand and website from the blog, you should get a totally separate domain name.  This will also in general be a shorter string and thus ostensibly easier to remember and enter.

The theme can also influence the design.  Unless you are trying to make the blog blend in with the company website (which, again, I do not recommend) you will need to decide on things like color scheme, graphics, content selection and layout.

Most blogging services make it easy to pick and arrange content and design elements.  It does not cost much to create a distinctive and appealing design that looks more impressive than the standard templates offered.

Step 3: Launching the Blog

Once you have selected the blogging platform and chosen its theme and design you are ready to launch the blog.  The specific steps will vary based on your choice of blogging platform and the options and add-ons you use.  Some of the steps required to set up and design the blog may have already been completed as part of Step 2 above.

In general, you will want to make sure the following items are addressed before publishing the first post:

1. Roles and Permissions – This should be addressed if there will be multiple contributors and/or if the person who sets up and maintains the blog will be different than the one who posts content.  You will need to specify roles and editing/access rights.

2. Domain name mapping – If you have secured a domain name for the blog or want it to be a sub-domain of your company website, you will need to make sure that domain name mapping or redirection from the domain of the hosted service is in place.
   

3. Publicity options – There are a variety of feeds and pinging mechanisms that should be set up.  These alert search engines and RSS news readers/aggregators when you have a new post.
   

4. Commenting, trackbacks, social sharing – There are various ways in which these elements can be enabled.  Having them set up correctly can boost participation in the site and sharing of the content.
   

5. Metrics – You will want to make sure that you have a way to track where traffic is coming from, pages visited, search terms used, RSS feed consumption, etc.  As mentioned above, some platforms have metrics built in.  Otherwise, it is fairly easy to sign up for and start using free services such as Google Analytics, StatCounter and FeedBurner.
   

There, that’s it!  Once the above steps have been completed comes the fun (and often challenging) part: ensuring a steady stream of fresh and interesting content for the blog.   Also, there are a number of ways to promote the blog and drive traffic to it, which I will be covering in a future post.

Article in the NYT covers Changing Nature of Tech PR

There was a fairly lengthy piece in the NY Times yesterday about evolving PR practices: Spinning the Web: PR in Silicon Valley.  It specifically focused on how tech PR is changing, framing the topic by taking a look at Silicon Valley companies and players.

I thought the article did a pretty good job of summarizing some of the forces that are changing in the profession, and of documenting evolving PR practices.  For example, it describes the growing importance of social networking connections and Twitter and positions traditional tools such as press releases and press tours as perhaps passe'. According to the article:

Gone are the days when snaring attention for start-ups in the Valley meant mentions in print and on television, or even spotlights on technology Web sites and blogs. Now P.R. gurus court influential voices on the social Web to endorse new companies, Web sites or gadgets — a transformation that analysts and practitioners say is likely to permanently change the role of P.R. in the business world, and particularly in Silicon Valley.

The article was ironic on a number of levels; first it describes newspaper circulation as "old metrics" and said these are sometimes viewed as less important than "the number of followers a pundit has on Twitter."  I am not disagreeing, just saying that this is funny seeing this in the pages of the NY Times.  At the same time, the article is generating buzz in its own right, and I am wondering how many of the people mentioned within do not value the coverage.

Although it does nail some of the changes taking place in the profession, in my opinion, by focusing on Brooke Hammerling (one hyper connected gal) as being emblematic of these changes, it still feeds into the cliche' of the PR person as a fixer and implies that relationships are the only thing that counts.

Her extensive network amongst the tech elite would seem to be of great value if you are raising money, or are otherwise trying to forge connections in the tech world but I wonder how much the average corp tech buyer (or tech consumer) really cares about these tech influencers.

The article described the launch of a new consumer tech Web service and explained the logic behind end-running the tech blogs:

“Why shouldn’t we avoid them? They’re cynical,” [Roger McNamee} says, also noting his concern that Wordnik would probably appeal more to wordsmiths than followers of tech blogs. “That’s where I would be most uncomfortable. They don’t know the difference between ‘they’re’ and ‘there.’ ”

As Brian Solis said in his post on the article

As the New York Times article leads you to believe, everything in PR focuses on the launch

in his piece on the article, Scoble had this to say about the "right reason" for eschewing tech blogs in the launch that was described:

Because people who will use your product don’t read those tech blogs and they don’t read the influentials who read those sites.

Getting Started with Social Media

Some of my recent posts offered seemingly contradictory advice regarding getting started with social media at the organization level.

My post Is ROI Overrated? questioned the need to prove ROI and advised against getting caught up in planning paralysis.  In Don't Become Social Media Roadkill in Your Organization, I said that one needs to take a methodical approach and set the right expectations.

I truly believe that it is possible to accomplish both goals; to proceed decisively and without lots of fanfare yet do so in a rational way that boosts the odds of success.

Defining Success

First, what does it mean to be successful in term of implementing a social media program? 

At the most basic level I suggest that worthy goals are to help spread the good word about an organization's products, services, and to defend the brand and build corporate image.  I know these are the kind of things that many of my clients are looking for.

They are all very fuzzy concepts.  PR has struggled for years with measurement and social media adds a few new wrinkles. 

Suffice it to say, there are ways to do this.  I suggest not getting too caught up with measurement and ROI tracking in the early stages.  You can help set expectations while taking some of the pressure off to prove results by starting out on a small scale that does not threaten to "break the bank."

Defining Scope

Social media is not just another IT project or corporate initiative that needs to be managed and controlled with a vice-like grip.  It involves new ways and styles of communicating.  Success, to an extent, means letting go. 

This means letting your employees know that is OK to blog and Tweet (my wife works for a large company that runs tight control over all PCs, prohibiting use of Facebook and other social networking applications - I think this is incredibly shortsighted).

It means equipping them with tools, education and letting them know what the company is doing in the social media realm.  It means setting and informing about policies but not making these too restrictive or onerous.

Where to Start

There is a myth hat social media is free.  While it is true that you won't need to make major investment on par with the cost of significant ad buys or technology acquisition, there is a cost in terms of time, whether incurred by internal staff or in working with external agencies/consultants.

Here are some quick tips.

Look for low cost, high return areas, such as:

• Brand and reputation monitoring
• Customer service

Using social media to be a better listener is a no-brainer, and there are a range of free tools (some covered in an earlier post) that can keep you up-to-date in near-real-time about topics that are relevant to your brand, customer service and PR efforts.

The next level of commitment involves becoming active in using social media tools to engage.  This means getting involved with online conversations and responding to relevant Twitter streams, blog posts, online articles, chatter found in social networks, etc.

Doing this can either be an overwhelming or trivial task depending the amount of buzz in your space.  We work with clients to determine the types of forums, mentions and situations that should merit a response - the conversations that count - and an agile process for engaging.

Influencing the Conversation and Setting the Pace

The next level is to develop a process and platform for marshaling your content and intellectual capital (meaning experts) and using social media to increase your digital footprint, educate and in general communicate with customers, potential customers and other influencers.  The same general approaches can be used to drive a content marketing effort that could augment demand generation and result in very real payback (as much as I had admonished to put ROI aside in the early stages, it is not a four letter word and does not hurt of course).

This can become involved and tends to take the most time.  But tools such as blogging and Twitter are very well understood and in general not difficult to put to work.

If you are part of a large company that has many products and divisions, it could help to choose one area as a starting point.  Do not think about your organizational or product management grid - think of the audiences you are trying to communicate with and topical areas that they should find compelling.  Launching one or more blogs that focus on these areas would be a good way to get started.  Add Twitter into the mix (see my post Blogging and Twitter: A Powerful Combination) and you will be off to the proverbial races.

Then, you can go on to build from early successes.