December 2004 - Posts
So TIME didn't bite on the pitch, but ABC News' World News Tonight recognized the difference bloggers made in 2004, calling them:
People of the Year.
The Corporate Engagement gang point to a great article today on copyright infringement
by Kathy Biehl over at LLRX.com. Biehl, an attorney who advises
on copyright protection and use, does a great job addressing the many
copyright myths that exist in today's online world.
One of the myths she brings up is the widely used, yet
misunderstood, concept of "public domain." While I would suggest
that every practicioner read the entire article, this section on public
domain is a must-read.
And here's the million dollar question. Is it okay to use
material if it doesn't have a copyright notice? According to
Biehl, the answer is no. No notice is required for works published
since 1978 - meaning that you must request permission to use anything
that is less than 25 years old, regardless of whether or not it has a
copyright notice.
Consider yourselves warned.
Dan Kennedy discusses podcasting in the Boston Phoenix. He asks: "Will it save us from corporate radio? Or further isolate us inside our own miniature media worlds?"
Whether viewed as a savior or isolator, I think we're only just beginning to envision its implications in the PR realm. The possibilities seem limitless right now. What has impressed me and Dan points this out is that the concept of podcasting has only really been around in strength since August.
I like Glenn Reynolds' quote in the article:
In a sense, the meta-story is that something this cool can happen that fast. It’s a sign of the overall health of innovation.
Fortune Magazine's January 10 issue discusses the 10 Tech Trends to Watch in 2005. Number one on this list is "There's No Escaping the Blog."
David Kirkpatrick and Daniel Roth analyze the good and bad with
blogging and conclude that the blogging force is a powerful tool that
will play a big part in 2005. Yet another year-end story that discusses
the impact of this tool.
In their analysis they point out that blogs can be a corporation's
worst PR nightmare. What they fail to point out is the potential it
holds as a PR tool. Blogs will grow in 2005 to be a tremendous media
relations tool for corporations who effectively use them.
While discussing his
favorite topics of 2004 on ClickZ, Jupiter Research analyst Gary Stein offers a few words of wisdom that could go a long way in 2005:
The ability to tap into
consumer conversations is fantastic and powerful. Companies are falling
all over themselves trying to figure out how to use the blog phenomenon
to their advantage. All too often, they conclude they should use blogs
to talk. Please. Brands do enough talking as it is. Use the blog space
to
listen.
Rather than just italicize "listen," I think he should have italicized the whole sentence.
USE THE BLOG SPACE TO LISTEN!
This is sound advice. The power of blogging resides not in what
we have to say, but in how people respond to what we have to say.
Bacon's announced last week
their new blog monitoring initiative. According to the press
release and follow-up discussions, beginning in January 2005, Bacon's MediaSource research
module will identify 250 of the most reputable blogs, the messages they
contain and the frequency with which client-relevant information shows
up on the blogs.
Jeremy Pepper posted some additional feedback
today on his Musings from POP! blog from the Marketing/PR Director at
Bacon's. The net-net being that Bacon's is approaching this with
quality in mind versus quantity.
What interests me is the story that MediaPost hints at
behind Ruth McFarland's vacillation to pull three of her editors off
their normal beats to have them solely focus on monitoring the
blogosphere. McFarland is the senior vice presdident and
publisher for Bacon's.
I tend to agree that no one is accurately monitoring blogging's
influentials and we still lack a solid blogger taxonomy, but it's only
a matter of time. However, I believe the process and
identification will require adjustment and evolution over time.
New voices will be discovered and added every day--just look at the
numbers. Quantity will continue to increase, bringing with it
more clutter, but also the promise of new and respectable talent.
You know you've been hooked when after only a month of stealth-mode
blogging, you're already brainstorming internal and external wiki
possibilities, and dreaming of the power of podcasting on the heels of
a soon-to-be iPod purchase (maybe a Christmas gift--crossing
fingers).
Shel Holtz and Neville Hobson
have both inspired me. They've moved beyond dreaming to reality
with the first test of their weekly PR podcast for communicators, "For Immediate Release." I just listened to the audio and can't wait to hear what comes of this in early January when they begin casting.
It was really interesting to listen to their introduction of this
project. Neville brought up how this will be without script so
it's conversational. It reminded me of an email exchange I had
with him recently when he pointed out that blogging [wikis or
podcasting] is just a part of what we're really
doing--communicating. He's right. With new technologies
serving as catalysts, we're coming into our own as communications
professionals.
These are exciting times--envisioning, and executing on, effective communication.
The Associated Press is spelling out a new ethics policy, according to Editor & Publisher. As part of this initiative, the AP is establishing a clear policy on the use of anonymous sources:
One of the lengthiest parts of the new guidelines relates to
anonymous sources, stating they can only be used if the material is
informational, not opinion or speculation; with approval of a news
manager; and if the manager knows the source's identity.
The USA Today ran an interesting article earlier this year
about how journalism has to offer something different, perhaps a bit
more credible, in order to compete with "the noisy buzz of the
information age" which no doubt includes the blogosphere. So as
PR people, this means helping mainstream journalists get the scoops
they need to stay competitive--providing access to high-level
executives, pitching more exclusives, etc.
There's a good article on WebPronews today highlighting the top six reasons for marketers to engage in blogging, including the following:
- Fast search engine spidering and indexing of your site
- Blogs can build backlinks quickly
- A frequently updated blog will keep the spiders visiting your site
- Your site is sticker and more appealing to visitors
- A blog is the fastest and easiest way to build a brand-new Website without training
- Keywod competition in RSS feed sites is much less than in the SE's
Blogging seems to be a great medium for creating synergy between
marketers and PR professionals as companies launch blogs as joint
ventures. Both professions can obviously see great value in real
discussion with prospective customers and partners. It will be
interesting to see how this synergy evolves in 2005.
We've already seen statistics showing the fact that women make up the majority of bloggers, this article
from Press Trust outlines 10 strategies that can give an edge to
women-owned businesses in 2005. The list comes from Dr. Letitia Wright
of the Wright Place TV Show. Numbers 1, 2 and 7 from her list stood out
to me:
1. Blog - blogs are easy to use and maintain and give you the
freedom of updating as little or as much as you want. You can have
blogs where you write, create audio or even video if you want.
2. Power PR - More women business owners are understanding the power
of Public Relations and making sure News Releases about them or their
businesses go out about 5-9 times a year.
7. RSS - This is new but you can use RSS to get the information
without surfing for it, it comes to your desktop, and your customers
can get your information every time you update it. Those who know how
to use RSS will jump ahead of everyone else. You need a RSS reader, the
one at www.pluck.com is very useful in a lot of different ways.
Neville Hobson's NevOn has now joined the ranks of Steve Rubel's Micro Persuasion, Andy Beal's SearchEngineLowdown, and Jerermy Zawodny's blog.
Similar to the others, it is an informal arrangement, where WebProNews
will choose to re-publish at their discretion.
Congrats to this gang of bloggers, particularly to Steve and Neville
for how this advances the cause of PR. Imagine this...one day
these guys just decided to start blogs, whose visibility may have
not reached past their cubicles, and now they're being viewed by the
masses.
Hmmm...there's certainly something to this. And mark my words,
this is just the tip of the iceberg. Watch the relationships like
this unfold in 2005.
We've discussed the power of knowledge sharing on this site
previously and it is a topic that I think we'll continue to write more
about as the industry tries to harness its power and internalize it.
As I did research on this topic recently and how the company I work
for could create some type of forum for our senior employees and junior
employees to interact and exchange knowledge, I stumbled upon CommuNitelligence, a site created for PR and marketing professionals to exchange their insights, experiences and wisdom.
The site hasn't developed the type of community that would lfully
end itself to rich interaction between communications professionals
yet, but John Gerstner who is leading the undertaking, has set up a
couple of great forums to spurn such interaction. I was most impressed
with the Discussion and Wisdom sections of the site which allow for
professionals to share and learn based on industry topics. You'll need
a membership to access the Wisdom content.
The problem that this and perhaps other industry knowledge sharing
sites are having comes partly because of the college class rank
mentality we all possess. College students are hesitant to share any
golden nuggets of wisdom they've found on a certain class topic which
might give them a competitive advantage on tests. Similarly, we are
very concerned about sharing "trade secrets" with an open community for
fear that we'll lose a competitve edge. Are these fears valid? Perhaps,
but certainly debatable.
While I think a site such as CommuNitelligence will eventually find
their place in the industry, internal sites can flourish right now
giving the NextGen of PR pros a source of rich knowledge.
As we near the end of the year, where predictions run rampant, The Big Blog Company poined out this gem of a quote:
“Dissemination of information is great, but how much of it is
trustworthy? [Blogs] are an interesting phenomenon, but I don’t think
they will be as talked about in a year’s time.”
-Mike Smartt, editor of BBC News Online, 25 March, 2003
Nearly two years later, the BBC News Online is not only
calling out "blog" as the word of the year, but they're also
blogging. Blogs are just about the most talked about item
on the tech scene. So much so that TIME Magazine highly considered bloggers for their People of the Year. They're here to stay--like it or not.
Okay, so bloggers weren't named TIME's People of the Year
(Pres. Bush won that honor), but the magazine did cover the blogging
phenomenon in two separate articles in the same issue.
Unfortunately, access is limited to subscribers. Here's a
preview:
"10 Things We Learned About Blogs."
1) Blogging can get you fired, 2) Bloggers get scoops too, 3) Bloggers
keep news alive, 4) Bloggers can be titillating, 5) Bloggers can be
fakers, 6) Bloggers make money, 7) More bloggers are women, 8)
Candidates love blogs, 9) Pets have blogs too, and 10) Anyone can do it.
"Historians may well date the golden age of the blog from 2004."
"Blogs Have Their Day." TIME focuses on how three lawyers (TIME calls them amateur journalists) John Hinderaker, Scott Johnson, and Paul Mirengoff, put Dan Rather in the hot seat with their Power Line blog.
"Before this year, blogs were a curiosity, a cult phenomenon, a faintly
embarrassing hobby on the order of ham radio and stamp collecting. But
in 2004, blogs unexpectedly vaulted into the pantheon of major media,
alongside TV, radio and, yes, magazines, and it was Power Line, more
than any other blog, that got them there." I have to admit,
I had never heard of Power Line until the 60 Minutes-Bush National
Guard Memos fiasco, but it's a great example of the "power of one," or
in this case the power of three and what is possible with the blogging
medium.
"Conventional media may have more readers than blogs do, but
conventional media can't leverage those readers the way blogs can. Want
a glimpse of the future of blogs? The more popular blogs are, the
stronger they get. And they're not getting any less popular."
So while bloggers didn't make the cover, I'd very much classify this as due interest from TIME and an honorable mention to say the least.
We all have moments, where that light bulb in our heads turns on, where we hear, read or see something and it resonates, strikes a chord and moves us to action, or at the least begins the wheels of thought turning. I call these ah-hah moments.
Another befitting word is parallax, as it denotes a new line of sight because of a shift in observational position. This is what is happening in PR right now. The blogosphere and its relative technologies—RSS, wikis, podcasting, etc.—are requiring a shift. A shift in view; a shift in perception; a shift in counsel; a shift in execution.
What’s exciting about all this and why I love PR is that we have the power to be change agents. We bring about the parallax. We catalyze the ah-hah moment.
I spoke at the PRSA Chesapeake Chapter Conference a few weeks ago in Linthicum Heights near Baltimore. While my presentation focused on establishing a voice of reason amidst crisis, I felt I would be amiss if I didn’t bring up the potential of blogs and RSS in our crisis communications arsenal. To my surprise, these thoughts were met with dozens of blank stares. Not one person was familiar with RSS and only a handful of others had heard of blogs. How is this possible?
Part of me wants to attribute this response to the fact that we’re still in the early adoption phase—just on the cusp of this thing tipping among practicioners—and its still slowly spreading through the ranks and different segments of the industry, beginning of course within the tech field. But the other part of me thinks it's an evangelism issue.
While I may have been met with blank stares, it was this small part of my presentation that sparked the most reaction and dialogue from the group. You could literally see the gears turning in their heads, as they hurriedly noted some Web sites and suggestions I shared. Perhaps we gained a few converts that day, or more simply catalyzed ah-hah moments that changed views of how our role as communicators is changing.
I cringed the other day while listening to
Tom Martino’s radio show during which he adamantly insisted that consumers NOT buy a certain brand of PC.
Tom Martino, as you may know, touts himself as a friend of the consumer and works to fight rip-offs and con-artists.
As
I listened to him rip this company to pieces, I envisioned a
hard-working PR person like myself strategizing about how to respond to
what was, no doubt about it, flat-out negative PR.
The Media Insider blog is
running an article today on responding to negative press.
The article talks about the reaction of the Mount Horeb Mustard Museum in Wisconsin after
Reader’s Digest profiled it as one of “Five Museum Not to Plan Christmas Around.”
If you ask me, this might be one perfect example of the idea that “any publicity is good publicity.”
How
often does the Mount Horeb Mustard Museum get mentioned in the Reader's
Digest? Would we even know it existed if not for that
article? In any case, the museum took some steps to respond to
the Reader's Digest that seem to be working.
As PR people, responding to negative press is undoubtedly part of our daily lives.
We’ve all cringed while reading inaccurate reporting or a negative review including our company or our client.
The
new medium of blogging has created a new avenue to respond to,
requiring new strategies and tactics to effectively control the “buzz
machine.”
Some are even tagging bloggers as more dangerous and influential than mainstream press.
So how do we respond to and react to negative “press” in the blogosphere?
While I don’t think the rules have been written yet, it seems clear to me that listening and monitoring is the first step.
Thoughts?
Three new blogs have just been announced as part of the Weblogs Inc. Network today. The three blogs, all worthy of note, are Droxy.com (which will focus on satellite and digital radio), FlashInsider.com (which will focus on Macromedia Flash) and The SAS Blog (which will focus on SAS the company).
Blog networks have really picked up steam lately. It seems that between Weblogs Inc. and Corante, there is a new network blogger being named every few days who will specialize on a certain topic.
Among the bloggers who’ve been recruited by Weblogs Inc. for this
series of new blogs is Seattle’s own Glenn Fleishmann who will lead up
Droxy.com. Fleishmann has established himself as a “must-know” for PR
professionals in the wireless networking space with his Wi-Fi Networking News blog. I imagine that he’ll continue to have such a following as he takes on satellite and digital radio with this new blog.
Considering
Computerworld's prediction that more corporations will create official blogs, Brian Kladko at
The Record in New Jersey
bylined a timely article today
on corporate America's use of blogs. His article cites a couple
of examples of companies trying to be more "warm and fuzzy" through
blogs, although he notes that only 5 percent of online consumers read
blogs, and 40 percent have never heard of them.
Blogs are
forcing many companies to break out of the typical corporate America
image and it seems to be a difficult transition for some. The article
notes that the stereotypical blogger is “not a suit-and-tie executive,
but a young, creative geek with opinions on everything – from the
latest lame video game to vote-fraud allegations in Ohio—and wants to
share those opinions with the world.”
The article also included Forrester analyst Charlene Li’s tips for blogging, which are worth repeating here. Many
of us are advising our clients or employers on blogging as a PR tactic,
so this is good advice for corporate America looking to explore this
new medium.
- Start
small, perhaps with an internal blog meant for employees only. When
you're ready to attempt a public blog, choose a product team that's
already communicating regularly with customers. Start with a few
trusted workers, and provide them with clear guidelines.
- Launch with a dozen postings and add new material frequently.
- Be
transparent and build trust. A common way of thinking about blogs is
that they should be like reading letters from someone; readers will
come to understand the author's interests and values. The voice and
tenor of the blog should reflect the writer's personality, not the
interests of the company.
- Encourage and respond to comments from visitors.
- Manage
bad news quickly and truthfully. "When bad news hits - and it
eventually will - don't run for cover; link to the bad news and address
it head-on. You'll gain credibility and loyalty for dealing with the
problem immediately."
- Syndicate
the blog. Using a technology called RSS, allow viewers to subscribe to
regular "feeds" of new content, rather than forcing them to visit your
site.
- Measure
not only the number of hits and visitors, but how many other sites are
linking to yours, the number of transactions that originate from the
blog and the reduction in customer-service inquiries.
Blogging makes not one, but two, of Computerworld's top 10 predictions for 2005 in this week's issue.
3. More people will lose their jobs over their weblogs.
It's happened already, and it will happen again. If you're posting
about your job or employer without consent, you're taking a lot of risk
with your future.
4. But more corporations will create official blogs.
Corporations have seen the weblog light, and blogs will become common
for business use. Unfortunately, far too many of these efforts will
just be marketing fluff disguised as weblogs.
It's ironic that as more and more companies will come to recognize
and try to harness the power of the blogging medium in 2005, others
will feel compelled, or may even argue that they've been forced, to
terminate employment because of fear of the ramifications of blog posts.
With the recent firings of Ellen Simonetti, Michael Hanscom, and
Joyce Park, I'm of the mind, that while I strongly believe in free
speech, I also join the consensus that a policy should be defined and
understood if there is any possibility of work-related posts. The
premise being that blogging is merely an extension of me, my voice, and
when it speaks in relation to my employer, common sense would argue
that my voice should be in accordance with our communications policy
and practices.
Case in point. As we've started this group blog external to
our employer, Connect Public Relations, it was important to us that we
not only kept the company abreast of our venture, but also had its
support. That said, I believe we ultimately control our destiny
in this. We'll be able to look back at this prediction at the end
of 2005 and it should be clear to us why it did or did not come to
pass.
Regarding the marketing fluff facade of corporate blogs, we can play
a significant role in ensuring that that is not the case. While a
corporate blog shouldn't be tethered to PR unless communicated as
PR-driven, as practicioners and trail blazers in this new realm, we are
positioned well to offer the counsel that leads to an honest and
transparent voice amidst marketing noise.
According to Forbes,
blogs may become a thing of the past, giving way to wikis as the next
generation of collaboration. "Think of it as an evolution." Blogs
"invite controlled collaboration," while wikis "are totally
collaborative."
The article goes on to emphasize the power of wikis as a better
platform for knowledge sharing. "Wikis go a step further in
democratizing the Web, making it possible for all of the fragments that
individuals would normally contribute through personal Web pages and
blog entries to combine as continuous living documents rather than
stagnating as dead ends."
While I recongize the knowledge sharing advantages of wikis, I think
it's far too early to remove blogs from their pedestal as an "it"
technology. Blogs are still so 2005. Just think about the
numbers. We're approaching five million blogs on the
Internet. There are more than 15,000 blogs introduced daily,
which means there is a new blog introduced somewhere in the world every
5.8 seconds. And we're not seeing any signs of a slowdown.
For me, blogs are very much a thing of the present, and for millions
of individuals and organizations worldwide, they'll be very much a
thing of the future. We're just on the cusp of this phenomenon
called blogging.
Don't get me wrong though. I'm excited about the prospects of
wikis and tapping into their potential as a poweful tool for mining the
depths of knowledge that exist around me, especially in my
career. One example close to home is when I look inward into our
company. I can't help but think how much valuable knowledge
exists throughout the organization -- based on years of wisdom,
experience, and interactions -- that could be called out into a central
forum where such collaboration would spur revelation and growth.
Talk about a new way for ensuring the process of "being in the know."
I'm just not ready to replace what is a new prospect to me in
blogging, with what some are pushing as the next "buzz" poster child in
communications technology. There's room for both in my world in
2005.