Andrew Lark

INFLUENCEABLES

Johnnie has a bit on the coverage of Duncan Watt's ideas on Influencers vs. Influenceables... If you haven't read it, you should... His view is that that ordinary people have just as much influence as influential people have in making something popular. Cory, Guy, Seth, Spike, and scores of others have all chimed in.

On The Media interviewed Clive Thompson who wrote the Fast Company article that compellingly explains Duncan Watts’ word-of-mouth randomness theory. In the radio interview (available online here), Clive summarizes Duncan’s complex theory this way,

“It’s not how influential each person is, it’s how influenceable everyone else is. If society is ready to embrace a trend, almost anyone can start it.”

It really got me thinking.  I'm ready to hold Gladwell's ideas and Watt's in my head at the same time.  I don't think they are exclusive.

What I don't agree with is that society is "ready" to embrace trends - especially commercial trends.  That's what marketers do.  They prepare society for trends and then activate those trends... Kind of like Geoffrey Moore's Crossing the Chasm.

There are instances where society becomes ready to embrace a trend - like Green -- and smart marketers figure out how to leverage that.

Corporate Journalism

Stowe flags a contender for word (or phrase) of the week: Corporate Journalism.

[...] In conversations with another McKinsey colleague, Tom Hayes, a former NYT reporter, we came up with the term “corporate journalism” to describe what we were doing inside of the Firm: applying classic reporting techniques inside of an organization to determine what, if anything, was “interesting” and deserved attention. That filter, “interesting” is subjective. Through McKinsey’s lens it meant information that could enrich the firm through more client engagements and increase the effectiveness of its consultants.

This takes me back to a phrase that Mark Tolliver used lots when I was at Sun: "evidence based marketing". In short, get rid of all the platitudes and well-worn phrases and start with the evidence - then back into they hype if you must. These two concepts together are powerful - communications, message-making, marketing, the act of business, all should start with investigative rigor and evidence. From there, a fair dose of honesty and transparency is required.

The Speechmaker

Big speeches require a massive amount of effort.

Good communicators know this and smart executives commit to it.

The Wall Street Journal has a piece this morning on how Bill Gates developed his commencement address for Harvard.

What's intriguing is how committed Bill is to the process - this is rare in an executive.

A couple of observations:

1. Pick keynotes your execs can get passionate about. As much as you want to establish a sense of importance, it can only be important to them if it is important to them.
2. Pick issues, topics, themes that those same execs can get really passionate about. Chances are it isn't the industry you are in.
3. Models are useful - speeches by others provide good context and illumination. In Bill's case: "The speech, delivered at Harvard's commencement on June 5, 1947, outlined the Marshall Plan, the bold economic relief program that lifted Europe from the ashes of World War II. To Mr. Gates, the general was describing the challenges facing postwar Europe in terms similar to how the software billionaire sees his own, 21st-century crusade: using philanthropy as a catalyst for reducing global inequities in health, wealth and education."
4. Tone is as important as content. Don't confuse the Exec's tone with the tone required for the audience and speech. Bill groked that: "In late May, Mr. Gates tapped Mr. Buffett again. He wanted to press graduates to become more aware and active in helping solve global inequities but was worried about sounding "overly preachy." Mr. Gates went to Omaha, Neb., for the annual shareholders meeting of Berkshire Hathaway, Mr. Buffett's company on which Mr. Gates serves as a board member. After the meeting, Mr. Buffett gave Mr. Gates some tips on delivery and tone."
5. The notion of the single speech writer might work in Political circles but you are going to have a greater chance of success by bringing in collaborators. In Bill's case: "When he started working on the speech in December, he used as a sounding board a Gates Foundation staff member who had written for Slate, the online magazine started by Microsoft. The two traded outlines and drafts of the speech. By the end, Mr. Gates and his staff had met six times for brainstorming sessions, completed six drafts and traded many long emails. Mr. Gates wrote some of the longest ones himself."
6. And, no matter how good you are at collaborating and crafting the content, the exec has to be committed to molding the speech into something special. I'm not talking about the standard rehearsal the day or hour before. I'm talking about time spent on putting their thumb-print on it.

Why 47% of Campaigns Fail and How to Make Sure Yours Succeeds

Jon Beattie of Marker is up at the Future of Online Advertising Conference - he's put together a great summary of a keynote on why 47% of campaigns fail - a summary of the presentation by Greg Stuart at the Future of Online Advertising conference today in New York. Greg is the former CEO, IAB (Interactive Advertising Bureau) and co-author of “What Sticks“.

He claims: Over US$112 billion ad spend is wasted out of a total of $295bn - Advertisers and agencies use the excuse of “publicity” to justify a failed campaign.

Here are the three highlights I liked:

1. Did the campaign message get through? 31% of campaigns failed
2. Out of 5 advertisers (P&G, J&J, Kraft, Nestle, McDonald’s) that did creative research of online campaigns: 1 was okay; 2 found half didn’t work; 2 all ads failed and had to start again
3. McDonald’s took 20 per cent from TV put 13.4% into online kept the rest and increased awareness by 5 per cent when it had previously leveled out using traditional media.

How The New Opinion Leaders Drive Buzz On The Web...

Another interesting piece, this time on how opinion leaders drive buzz...

Bloggers, discussion-board denizens, and social networkers are courted by marketers, who believe they build buzz that can make or break new products and Web sites. But there's growing controversy surrounding such efforts, and debate over just how much sway these opinion leaders really have...

... The notion that a small subset of individuals has disproportionate influence was formulated more than 50 years ago by academics Paul Lazarsfeld and Elihu Katz in their book Personal Influence: The Part Played by People in the Flow of Mass Communications. But it was Malcolm Gladwell's 2002 best-selling The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make A Big Difference that popularized the notion. Gladwell divided people into connectors, people who bring other people together; mavens, who get a kick out of passing along knowledge to others; and salesmen, who like to persuade others of the validity of an idea or product. When taken altogether, Gladwell argued, these archetypes create "epidemics" that spread like viruses throughout the population, triggering massive trends that couldn't be achieve by traditional top-down imposition of messages on the general public. The Influentials, by Jon Berry and Ed Keller, published a year after The Tipping Point, comes to many of the same conclusions.

It's critical to understand, however, that all these proponents of opinion leaders as drivers of social and commercial trends aren't talking about media stars or personalities, but about otherwise seemingly ordinary members of a community who, through accumulation of knowledge or number of connections with others, act as catalysts for change.

Why Code-of-Conducts Don't Have a Role to Play

It's simple really, because it is a conversation and conversations by there very nature should be free ranging expressions of interest.

While I do believe that anonymity breeds irresponsibility, leave that up to the Blogger to decide. Some blogs might benefit from anonymous posts.

I have a real problem with any formal codes of conduct. And screw civility. I expect people to be very uncivil regarding some of my views. Some very useful conversations can be very uncivil.

But I do draw the line, no hate-speech, nothing nutty or abusive. And, I get to make the call in the context of the conversation.

Code of Conducts exist outside the context of the conversation. The conversation that takes place here, might be very different to that to takes place elsewhere. Why subject them to a common standard?

I also find it particularly concerning that we would somehow, someway subscribe to a group policing mentally in which a few could potentially get together "When we believe someone is unfairly attacking another, we take action.". This is deeply troubling. Who, for instance, gets to define the "believe" part of that? Sometimes it might be self-evident - such as the attacks on Kathy Sierra. I suspect most won't be. And the attacks on Kathy aren't a job for a bunch of self-appointed "blog vigilantes" - they are a job for the Police.

Blogs ultimately should be about transparency. We should revel in what they expose, not seek to limit or hide it. And lets leave the policing to the real police.

:: Backreading ~ ComputerWorld; Scoble; Techmeme; Jeff Jarvis

The Naked CEO

This great piece on the value of transparency and pretty much a must read for communicators. Clive's blog is worth a look as well.

As with most pieces on the rise of blogging and participatory media, Clive can't help but take a swing at PR folks and their craft. This marrs the story with causal assumptions. While I agree with the central tenet of the story - transparency is great and should be used to your advantage, the notion that you need to "fire your publicist" and "abandon the message" to be transparent is nonsense.

In fact, nothing in the story seems to support this or point to the fact that complete transparency is the luxury of the unlisted, closely-held start-up. Nearly every corporation other than RedFin cited in the story have an army of PR people encouraging and driving transparency. Not does it point to another real-estate brand - Zillow - that has achieved superior mindshare (albeit in a different segment of the real-state market) on the back of a great PR effort.

Now that's not to say I don't like Redfin. In fact, I love it. Redfin also has a PR rep and still seems to issue press releases... I wonder why...

Transparency and engagement are the hallmarks of all great communications - that doesn't mean they don't require publicists or messages.

I also find it hard to see Google as a "reputation management system". It does no managing. Customers, bloggers, pundits and the like all have a new found power to shape reputations. Google mirrors the popular vote, effective optimizer of search, and ranks sentiment that isn't necessarily a reflection of what your customers think but is a reflection of where the heard is running. Does that make it a "reputation management system" - I don't think so.

What I do agree with is that Secrecy is dead. And Google is a terrific truth machine. And that customers have become "working partners".

Thanks to Noel for the pointer... btw Noel, get a blog man!

The Beginning of The End for Newspapers

There is no question in my mind that we are at the beginning of the end for newspapers. Tim O'Reilly jumps in this morning:

[from SF Chronicle in Trouble?]

I hate to play Valleywag, but I'm hearing rumors that the San Francisco Chronicle is in big trouble. Apparently, Phil Bronstein, the editor-in-chief, told staff in a recent "emergency meeting" that the news business "is broken, and no one knows how to fix it." ("And if any other paper says they do, they're lying.") Reportedly, the paper plans to announce more layoffs before the year is out.

It's clear that the news business as we knew it is in trouble. Bringing it home, Peter Lewis and Phil Elmer Dewitt, both well-known tech journalists, were both part of layoffs at Time Warner in January (they worked for Fortune and Time, respectively), and John Markoff remarked to me recently that "every time I talk to my colleagues in print journalism it feels like a wake."

Meanwhile, Peter Brantley passed on in email the news that "a newspaper newsletter covering that industry publishes its own last copy":

The most authoritative newsletter covering the newspaper industry issued a gloomy prognosis for the business today and then, tellingly, went out of business.

Many newspapers in the largest markets already "have passed the point of opportunity" to save themselves, says the Morton-Groves Newspaper Newsletter in its farewell edition. "For those who have not made the transition [by now], technology and market factors may be too strong to enable success."

Buffett said that newspapers are "a business in permanent decline." Stowe also hits out hard this morning: "We should stop wringing our hands for the moribund local newspapers. They are going under. Period. Full stop."

There are several drivers:

1. We get information digitally, most newspapers haven't made this easy or convenient.I drive over what lands in my driveway. I read what lands in my inbox.
2. Information is live. Most newspaper sites aren't. We want live news, not dead news.
3. Content is a commodity (that doesn't mean it isn't unique or valuable - just look at all the money made selling pork bellies and salt). If I get content - even their content - from my personal network, why would I pay to subscribe? Doc says this well: "Stop calling everything "content". It's a bullshit word that the dot-commers started using back in the '90s as a wrapper for everything that could be digitized and put online. It's handy, but it masks and insults the true natures* of writing, journalism, photography, and the rest of what we still, blessedly (if adjectivally) call "editorial". Your job is journalism, not container cargo." Right!
4. Their content is mostly irrelevant or of no value to me. I'm less and less interested in what they write about. The local community I care about isn't geographic. It's a mash-up of topics, interests and locations that I build myself in my RSS reader.
5. Their business model is flawed. Print advertising has been replaced by more efficient mediums (CraigsList, eBay, LinkedIn). Better deliver mechanisms mean I don't need paper dropped in my driveway. My community is a better prioritizer of news, and feeder of content.

Doc has a good list of what Newspapers might do. His most compelling advise (for me) is that they have to figure out how to encourage participation from their communities. That means linking, pointing, incorporating bloggers, allowing photos to be posted to the site by readers. If you've got a printing press - even a virtual one - why not unlock it for all to use?

Gmail as a Killer Productivity App

Gmail is a killer productivity App. Steve has a series of terrific posts on how to get the most out of Gmail. If you don't have a Gmail account, go get one and take it for a spin. You can really turn it into your personal nerve center. Steve's piece has several parts:

• How to turn Gmail into a massive personal database (Gmail + the Google Toolbar)
• How to get real-time news updates in Gmail (Gmail+ Google Talk + Twitter)
• How to automatically store your bookmarks in Gmail (Gmail + del.icio.us + Yahoo Alerts)
• How to manage Calendar and To-Dos in Gmail (Gmail + Backpack + GCal +  GTalk + iMified)
• How to blog from Gmail (Gmail + Wordpress/TypePad/Blogger + IMified)

Getting Back On Deck... Thoughts On Corporate Blogging

Haven't been blogging much later - just very busy and on the road in Europe for a week with customers and partners.

Interesting pointer from Stowe to an interview by Paul Dunay with Jack Welch about corporate blogging. Jack's advice? Be authentic.

[from Buzz Marketing for Technology: EXCLUSIVE: Jack Welch Discussing Web 2.0 by Paul Dunay]

Buzz Marketing: So what is your advice for companies adopting new Web 2.0 technologies like RSS, social networking, podcasting and videocasting?

Jack: Just be authentic. Be clear in your vision, and have one message and one view that are authentic. I worked somewhere once where they had different messages for employees, analysts and the press. There should be only one message for everyone, and fight like hell to get that message across everywhere you go.

I was asked some similar questions on corporate blogging (which I've always thought was a bit of an oxymoron).

1. Is "ghost-blogging" a no-no: At the heart of any blog is authenticity and the writer's voice. Ghost-writing runs against the very point of a blog which is to engage in a conversation with the community that surrounds you and your company. You can't ghost a conversation...
2. Is there a place for anonymous corporate blog posts (like the Economist?): No. It's hard to have a conversation with an anonymous person. The intent of a blog is not to publish but to converse. I do see room though for participatory blogs where a diverse range of bloggers blog to a single site. I think this is practical for most companies and more interesting for the readers. The Economist is an anomaly in the publishing world.
3. PR person says blogging is “reputation management”. Right or wrong? That PR Person doesn’t understand blogging or the blogosphere – they are contextualizing it through their own lens. And, they are taking a relatively hackneyed descriptor – reputation management – and applying it to a world in which it has little relevance. Various marketing niche’s have tried it with their thesis – brand managers are doing the same with “brand management”. You only have a reputation in the sense that others assign it to you. You earn it. Of course, it could be argued that everything a company does from a communications standpoint is “reputation management” – and that is the problem with the notion. You would hope that blogging would improve and not destroy your reputation right? But does that mean blogging is in fact reputation management in disguise – not at all.
4. How about internal editing of blog posts? This is common. I encourage executives to keep others involved in their posts. They have legal and HR risks associated with every conversation so why not mediate some of that risk. What they do need to do though is time-bound others involvement and be clear on the kind of feedback they are looking for. Blog posts are like bananas – they bruise easily and are best served ripe. They need to let folks know they have but a couple of hours to respond – or a day. This shouldn’t be a highly iterative process that people take a week or so to get done. Too many companies treat the blog post like a press release – at least initially.
5. Other tips: First, participatory media and platforms – from blogs to wikis and podcasts – represent one of the most significant opportunities available to companies to transform their relationship with customers. They represent one of the most significant transformational opportunities since the Internet. Don’t constrain your engagement. Drive it into every corner of your business. Many of the companies I’ve worked with have seen as much value internally as they have externally.

Second. Just do it. Get going internally and let it evolve. If you get it, get going. Don’t spend hours on consulting fees or hanging with PR people, web teams and lawyers. The technology is available as a utility. A blog can be created in minutes.

Third. The rewards significantly outweigh the risks. But the biggest rewards come not from writing blog posts but rather the comments and resulting dialogue. You shouldn’t look at this as a publishing mechanism but rather a “conversation machine”.

Other tips:

• There are no corporate bloggers – there are just bloggers. Be real. Be authentic.
• Blogging is a conversation. You need to move from transmitting to participating.
• You don’t need a blog to be blogging. Start contributing to others blogs with comments and thoughts.
• Never, never, never spin, lie or pour smoke into the blogosphere. Straight-talk will win you kudos.
• Give it time. Don’t expect raving fans at day one. In fact, expect the opposite for a bit. The blogosphere is very critical and self-correcting. Take feedback and tune accordingly.
• Have fun. This is a relatively informal medium. Revel in it.

Thoughts... Comments...

Cisco Acquires Five Across

While I'm not sure there is a great deal of synergy with Cisco's core business, the Five Across acquisition gives Cisco some street cred on the business side of Participatory Platforms. Will be interesting to see how they integrate it.

Cisco delivered the usual corporate patter in explaining the acquisition:

“Cisco believes the network is the platform for organizations to connect with their constituents and for individuals to connect with each other,” said Dan Scheinman, senior vice president and general manager of the Cisco Media Solutions Group (CMSG). “With the acquisition of Five Across, Cisco is taking an important step towards helping its customers evolve their website experience into something more relevant and valuable to the end-user.”

I've always been impressed with what Five Across have been doing in creating communities for big brands. They have a platform that scales. Does this mean Cisco is getting into the Participatory Platforms business though? We'll have to wait and see.

Explanations

• Good explanation of RSS.
• Good explanation of the Second Life opportunity for PR. Text 100 was the first PR agency to establish a presence in Second Life.
• On Social Bookmarking.
• CNN on CEO bloggers. What's surprising here is the lack of new CEO stories. It's the same old crowd.
• DemoFall companies announced.
• Of the Google brain via Fortune:

"What emerges from months of interviews with employees ranging from fresh-out-of-college hires to the CEO is that Google firmly believes it has a framework for figuring out the future. It should come as no surprise that the plan is as irreverent, self-confident, and presumptuous as the company itself. Google's executives don't articulate it this way, but the framework can be found in the title of Shona Brown's book: structured chaos. Indeed, along with Googleyness, chaos is among the most important aspects of Google's self-image. Understanding how Google thinks about chaos -- like Page's teachable moment after Sandberg's million-dollar mistake -- is critical to divining where the company goes next. "Are lots of questions hanging out there in the market?" asks Sandberg. "Sure. Because we don't always have an answer. We're willing to tolerate that ambiguity and chaos because that's where the room is for innovation." Good strategy -- if it actually works."

Webcast Plug

Steve Rubel, (MicroPersuasion, Edelman) and I are doing a web cast at the invitation of PR Week on Thursday, September 28. Details below. Nonsubscribers can register, by the way.

Everyone is talking about new media channels such as blogs and podcasts. But what does this reality mean for the future of PR and communications? PRWeek is convening a Web cast to discuss critical issues in the ever-changing new media landscape. Moderated by Keith O’Brien, PRWeek news editor and editor of prweek.com.

PR Tech Leader Doesn't Get the Blog Thing...

Paul Abrahams, ex FT hack turned flack at Wag-ED really doesn't understand what all the fuss is about...

Is blogging the 21st-century equivalent of citizen band radio, the personal radio technology that became so popular in the late 1970s that it was included in a Coronation Street plotline and spawned a generation of bad Burt Reynolds 'Good Ol' Boy' movies?

Tom fires back:

Mr Scoble created many millions of dollars in positive publicity for Microsoft, on a salary of less than $100K. I don't think WaggEd could have done a fraction of that, for 100 times the payment Mr Scoble received.

It is pretty remarkable that any communicator doesn't quite grasp the impact of participatory communications and social media - it is even more remarkable to go public with it in such a way. Don't think bad of Wag-ED though, Frank Shaw has a pretty good blog running which I follow.

If all Paul was trying to do was ignite the debate with a contrarian view - and goodness knows we need them right now - he has done a great job.

Blogs a Powerful B2B Presence @ Media Buyer Planner

Well worth a look. According to the study, Blogs have made inroads into B2B technology companies with more than 53 percent of respondents saying the content they read in blogs has an impact on their work-related purchasing decisions. Some 80 percent of respondents say they read blogs, with 51 saying they read them at least once a week.

The Cascade Of Influence

Tom highlights how the cascade of influence is changing - using the LonelyGirl15 (LG15) story. Turns out that LonelyGirl15 (LG15) is in fact and aspiring NZ actress - and - that the videos were anything but amateur.

The first parts of the story were published in online sites, then came the major newspapers: New York Times, Chicago Tribune, LA Times with their coverage. Their stories then helped spark the interest of TV and radio news crews.

The LG15 story is not an important story in itself, but it is an important news story. This is not a contradiction, it is a description of its place in our culture.

The LG15 story shows how the media functions, how they influence each other. It shows how the media networks: blogger, citizen, mainstream, and anything in-between -- push/pull news stories up into the broader mediasphere.

To get into the broader mediasphere, it seems news stories often have to make it into flagship publications of journalist rigor, such as the New York Times, Chicago Tribune, LA Times, the Wall Street Journal,  and The Times (London.)

Tom says it well in an earlier post.

Yes, the subject matter of this story was not about anything that matters that much. But imagine this same type of cooperation on really important stories--that's what excites me.

There is always intense competition to be first with a story--but that is good. And it is complimentary competition rather than adversarial. There is no such thing as bloggers versus mainstream media.

This is the media model for the future: a mediasphere that uses the best qualities of professional media combined with relentless pursuit of information by citizen journalists. That's a potent formula that bodes well for our society, IMHO

New Influencers book

Thanks to Steve for the pointer. Looks like this could be an interesting read and the draft's are worth a scan. Steve is featured in the book along with other pundits such as Scoble... Would love to see some of the influencers that are using participatory media and that aren't 'A-List' bloggers - this includes the new media.

Link to New Influencers book - draft chapters for review

Rivers Of News To Go

Dave Winer's notion of "Rivers Of News" gets picked-up in The Guardian - a good overall summary of a powerful concept.

"As the name suggests, it's a simple idea. Each news item arrives in plain text and consists of a date and time, a headline, and usually one sentence...

New items arrive when they are posted, and old ones are automatically deleted to make room. You can dip into the river whenever you like, and click on any headline to get the full story from the original site...

... As Winer commented on his blog: "Predictable backlash from people who say that reading news on a BlackBerry is nothing new, they've been doing it for years. I'm sure they have, and people were listening to MP3s on Macs and PCs before podcasting, but that doesn't mean it wasn't a turning point for audio on the Internet."

Dave is right - and this concept is different in its inherent simplicity and speed. Rivers are reverse chronologies, like weblogs. Current offerings attempt to transport the desktop to the device, are typically slowed by ads and other crap, and are an amalgamation of links that force you to keep on soaking-up bandwidth and minutes. "Rivers Of News" work. Current approaches don't.

Also, take a look at the NTTimes new mobile site.

A ZeFrank Classic

Something to cheer-up your Friday afternoon... Brilliant!

Southwest Blog Videos on 9/11

Southwest has integrated a series of video vignettes onto its blog in which employees speak to 9/11. Well worth a look. A great airline with great people.

disclosure: I worked on helping create the Nuts About Southwest blog - but not on these posts. Southwest is a client of Group Lark and we luv them!

Technorati : SWA, Southwest, Southwest Airlines

Chocolate Blog

Paul highlights the blog behind the phone. This is a terrific example of a PR blog. Like Paul, the transparency here is great. It describes the program and highlights their intent. Love the links etc. Great work by H&K.

The blog is definitely a "blogvertisement" or PR blog ("Prlog") that uses blog features to promote the phone. What is missing here is community activation (as far as I can tell) - that is, activating the community of early "chocolate phone" adopters by providing them with a platform on which to engage and participate. It also doesn't link to citizen recommendations on the product.

That said, it's a great example of what it is and not ashamed to be that. It does highlight - in case anyone was confused - that their is a difference between commercial and marketing blogs and citizen blogs.

Is This A CEO First...

Jonathan Schwartz, CEO, Sun comments on Sun's recent earnings on his Blog in what might be a CEO first - at least I haven't seen a CEO expanding on their earnings call on a blog. It really adds good insight for those of us without time to listen in - or in my case - on the other side of the planet when the call took place.

Jonathan is also featured in a piece in the NY Times in a piece on CEO blogging. Steve makes a good addition to the piece, recommending that CEOs don't venture into the blogosphere alone.

Technorati : PR, Participatory Communications, Sun

How Often Should A Blogger Post?

I get asked this question often - and become acutely aware of it when not posting for short periods of time. Last week I was on the road downunder and just didn't have time to get to posting.

For me, the simple answer is, as often as you can and whatever you are comfortable with. Not posting for extended periods of time will definitely cause folks to stray to other things. Will they come back? RSS keeps you on the radar for when you do raise your head - but I am still amazed how many folks are not using an RSS reader.

I'd rather post and read content of some quality than drivel for the sake of posting. So, rule of thumb - shoot for once a week, more if you can.

Thoughts?

Big Trends Done Quickly

Keith over at PRWeek asked for some thoughts on the most important trend, tool, service, company, or whatever will be in the second half of 2006. Here are my quick thoughts done late at night and on the fly. Caveat - when it comes to predictions I am normally wrong... Let me know your thoughts...

1. Trend: Communities and their citizen editors reassembling the fragmented media and conversation space creating powerful micro channels to which millions flock.
2. Company : The one with the biggest community. Think Nike, Apple, VW, Lego. …ok, so I wimped out… Apple if they can integrate the iPod, video and phone fully. And Microsoft - the degree to which key technologies such as RSS is implemented in IE7, Vista and Office 2007 is fantastic.
3. Technology : The Wiki & Community creation platform (think FiveAcross).
4. Service: SixApart, (TypePad, Vox). And, Dabble db - finally we can build our own applications in real-time! And iTunes - what AP/PR Newswire was to the press release, iTunes is to the Podcast.
5. Person: . The blogger, podcaster, vcaster and participatory communicator.

Saying all that… some expanded thoughts... No company matters as much as the community. Communities are ascending as defining force. Nike matters less to me as a soccer fan than the Nike community Joga.com. The companies that matter to consumers will be those with rich communities. Other thoughts on what might happen:

1. Fortune 500 corporations hire their first "conversationalists" - staffers dedicated not to transmitting information (PR) but rather, igniting conversations.
2. Media continues to fragment and reassemble around citizen editors.
3. PR continues its rapid evolution from transmission of content to igniting conversations.
4. Measurement takes a backseat to monitoring as communicators efforts to keep track of the blogosphere and citizen media kick into overdrive. In background mode, measurement practioners start working on new metrics that track participation. (There is an absolute difference between monitoring and measurement).
5. Major agencies launch new press release formats, following hot on the heels of tech boutique Shift. BusinessWire and PRNewswire wake from their slumber and assemble these fragmented efforts into a compelling Web 2.0 offerings.
6. Having discovered the power of technology to add value to their clients, major agencies step-up their efforts with branded RSS readers carrying highly customized content to audiences and customers.
7. As media fragmentation accelerates, media planning starts to raise its head as a critical communications function. Once the purview of advertising departments, communications practioners deliver media planning as a means of hunting and communicating with elusive audiences.
8. More than half the PR profession is still in catch-up mode. They don't listen to podcasts, use RSS readers or blog. Therefore, the most important technology isn't the technology, it's the adoption of it which will continue to accelerate.
9. The Wiki & Web 2.0 technologies such as Writely and Dabble db. They will change the way PR practitioners work internally and share with clients. I'm using Quickbase today - which is pretty expensive but very good.
10. OMPL files finally start getting integrated into marketing offerings.

Big Trends Done Quickly

Keith over at PRWeek asked for some thoughts on the most important trend, tool, service, company, or whatever will be in the second half of 2006. Here are my quick thoughts done late at night and on the fly. Caveat - when it comes to predictions I am normally wrong... Let me know your thoughts...

1. Trend: Communities and their citizen editors reassembling the fragmented media and conversation space creating powerful micro channels to which millions flock.
2. Company : The one with the biggest community. Think Nike, Apple, VW, Lego. …ok, so I wimped out… Apple if they can integrate the iPod, video and phone fully. And Microsoft - the degree to which key technologies such as RSS is implemented in IE7, Vista and Office 2007 is fantastic.
3. Technology : The Wiki & Community creation platform (think FiveAcross). Service:SixApart, (TypePad, Vox). And, Dabble db - finally we can build our own applications in real-time! And iTunes - what AP/PR Newswire was to the press release, iTunes is to the Podcast.
4. Person: . The blogger, podcaster, vcaster and participatory communicator.

Saying all that… some expanded thoughts... No company matters as much as the community. Communities are ascending as defining force. Nike matters less to me as a soccer fan than the Nike community Joga.com. The companies that matter to consumers will be those with rich communities. Other thoughts on what might happen:

1. Fortune 500 corporations hire their first "conversationalists" - staffers dedicated not to transmitting information (PR) but rather, igniting conversations.
2. Media continues to fragment and reassemble around citizen editors.
3. PR continues its rapid evolution from transmission of content to igniting conversations.
4. Measurement takes a backseat to monitoring as communicators efforts to keep track of the blogosphere and citizen media kick into overdrive. In background mode, measurement practioners start working on new metrics that track participation.
5. Major agencies launch new press release formats, following hot on the heels of tech boutique Shift. BusinessWire and PRNewswire wake from their slumber and assemble these fragmented efforts into a compelling Web 2.0 offerings.
6. Having discovered the power of technology to add value to their clients, major agencies step-up their efforts with branded RSS readers carrying highly customized content to audiences and customers.
7. As media fragmentation accelerates, media planning starts to raise its head as a critical communications function. Once the purview of advertising departments, communications practioners deliver media planning as a means of hunting and communicating with elusive audiences.
8. More than half the PR profession is still in catch-up mode. They don't listen to podcasts, use RSS readers or blog. Therefore, the most important technology isn't the technology, it's the adoption of it which will continue to accelerate.
9. The Wiki & Web 2.0 technologies such as Writely and Dabble db. They will change the way PR practitioners work internally and share with clients.
10. OMPL files finally start getting integrated into marketing offerings.

Your Attention Please

BusinessWeek has a terrific piece on how Web 2.0 is pulling the fragmented mass market together. It starts with a look at how we now allocate out attention - less on the media's schedule and more on ours (time and place shifting).

Some nice quotes from Nike who are fully embracing communities with sites like Joga for soccer fans.

"Gone are the days of the one big ad, the one big shoe, and the hope that when we put it all together again it makes a big impact" - Trevor Edwards, vp global brand management, Nike.

Technorati : PR, Public Relations

Dell Launches Blog

Dell is out of the gate with a corporate blog... Like every corporate blog it is looking for a voice and will probably take time to find one. It's a little corporatey - but then its a corporate blog. The bloggerati just need to get over every blog coming out the gate reading like a conversation at the local pub and not rehashing the past trials and tribulations of bloggers. It takes time for a corporate blog to find its collective voice.

Perhaps the best thing we could do to welcome a new corporate blog isn't to critique it (just yet) but rather to participate. Engage them if you are interested. Give it time to settle and grow and nurture it with comments.

PRWeek says they are out to tell a story - if the story is - as it seems to be - "take a look at our really hot boxes" - then I hope they continue down the path of more recent posts which do seem to have more of a narrative.

The fact that they don't address past issues doesn't really bother me - I really could care less about the ranting and raving about Dell customer service - I use an Apple and a Sony... :-)

Anyway - I have a long history with Dell and am a big fan - it's great to see them taking steps in the right direction with regard to their communication. A company that has direct at its core should be engaging in conversations. The do to the tune of about 3 million calls a day so why not here!

Technorati : Dell

On The Road & Back Again...

Been on the road over the last week visiting partners, customers, more customers and speaking at the PRSA technology conference in New York City. Thanks to Eric over at iPressroom for the invite. Also managed to catch-up with a few of my team that are now ex-Nortel. Was great to see them doing so well.

I'm not sure why I don't post as much while on the road - no reason other than the frantic pace of running between this airport and that. Here are a couple of posts that I enjoyed along the way...

• The People Formerly Known As The Audience: Right on. Audiences are for people that transmit. For people that choose to engage, we are people as well (think complete humans, not body parts (aka, "eyeballs"), often living in tribes or communities.
• The New Analysts: Nice post from James. It occurred to me that calling "the new analysts" analysts is kind of stupid. Ok, the analyze, but the moniker has such an overhang that it is limiting.
• And, this piece on the power of the recommenders and conversationalists. "But as angry clients increasingly turn to the Internet to settle scores, companies, independent retailers and everyday wrongdoers are learning that consumers can have the last word -- and often the last laugh. The Web has turned into a place where shame and humiliation are sometimes the strongest weapons in fighting scams and unfairness."

On the flight home this all got me to thinking that we are in an age in which a power shift is occurring from specifiers to recommenders. Specifiers speak from a position of authority and exclusivity. Recommenders speak from a position of experience and participation. I picked-up a copy of PC Magazine - it is getting pretty thin. Once the power specifier in the consumer tech space it really is little more than a catalog. If I really want reviews and insight, I head to Cnet, Engadget, Amazon, Gizmodo... I look at what real users are saying and rating. I read the informed opinions of Redmonk and Alex. Then I filter.

(For those looking for my presentation slides, I'll post them tonight).

Technorati : AR, Analyst Relations, PR, Public Relations

Job Applications...

I've just been working my way through a stack of emails for a range of positions we have open here at LogLogic. It got me thinking that I could probably help all you job seekers out with a few pointers on the things that drive us nuts:

1. Don't ask questions prior to sending a resume. For instance, "before I send my resume over, is this a newly created position?". It is unlikely you will get a response and those that do have a resume in the pipe now have a lead on you.
2. If you aren't clearly qualified, don't pretend to be and don't apply. Your application is a basic indicator of intelligence and comprehension. If a recruiter says "five years of technology sales experience required" they mean five years and technology and sales. Not five years and real estate and coordinator. We might be closed minded but we know what we want.
3. Don't just attach your resume. Give the five most relevant bullets in the body of the email and specifically flag time with relevant companies. Anything more than 2-3 paragraphs won't get read. If you don't think we will have the vaguest idea who your employer was, give us one line on them.
4. In delivering your resume, use the format specified in the ad and if nothing is specified put the body of the resume in the email and attach a .pdf. Avoid word.doc attachments if you can.
5. Name your resume with your name. myresume_2_draft.doc doesn't look professional and will get lost in the filing process.
6. I know it is tricky but when applying using personal email try to use a professional address. It is hard to take an email from "sexydog@gmail.com seriously - if it even makes it through our spam filter.
7. Avoid puffery in your language. Nothing works better than good, plain English. This kind of thing won't work... "I know very clearly & absolutely before to submit my submissional application for the post-recruited requirements... I will prove my supreme liase abilities, hugely Graymatters-accessible triumphancies... & my superiorated talentedness to do my job at excellent." Ummm, really.
8. Check spelling!

As I said, this stuff drives us nuts. We will take the time to look at your resume despite what seem to be best attempts to cause us not to do so. But at the end of the day you want to be ahead on points before you walk in the door.

Good luck. There are wonderful opportunities out there. Don't start behind the pack with a lousy application.

Technorati : HR, PR

The Strange Death Of Modern Advertising

Maurice Saatchi has a piece in today's FT titled "The strange death of modern advertising". He observes that "At the age of only 50, advertising was cut down in its prime. Advertising holding companies used to boast about their share of the advertising market. Now they are proud of how much of their business is not in advertising. How did this happen?"

It is happening because creativity declined just when it should have exploded. Instead of treating consumers with respect advertisers chose to assault us with and endless tirade of irrelevant and shallow ads. And the media - the medium (for the most part) lost our respect.

He goes on to touch on message clutter. Marketers made this mess for themselves by zig-zagging on messages.

Each brand can only own one word. Each word can only be owned by one brand. Take great care before you pick your word. It is going to be the god of your brand.

Try this simple test on your own company's products or services.

Pick a brand. Any brand.

Maurice offers a pragmatic solution - "one word equity". I couldn't agree more. "In this new business model, companies seek to build one word equity - to define the one characteristic they most want instantly associated with their brand around the world, and then own it. That is one-word equity."

This act of distillation and focus should be a priority for every communicator. It might not solve the problems advertising has, but it would certainly improve communications effectiveness.

Technorati : Advertising, PR

Southwest CEO Contributes to SWA Blog...

I think it's a first but Southwest's CEO clarifies recent remarks on their seating policy on the "Nuts About Southwest" blog. This is a good move - gets the message out unfiltered, start's up a conversation with customers, and delivers more transparency.

disclosure: Southwest are a Group Lark client and did some consulting awhile back on the blog.

The Hightest Paid Person In PR?

Is Steve Parrish the highest paid person in PR? Perhaps. According to the NYTimes Magazine the senior vice president of corporate affairs at Altria (think Philip Morris and Malboro pulled in a cool $14m last year.

The revealing read points as much to his personal transformation as to the shift in position and message at Philip Morris - a company that has evolved from claiming that cigarettes weren't addictive and an individual choice to one in which they "area addictive and cause the disease and death of hundreds of thousands of people every year"; and, "when you set tobacco on fire and inhale it into your lungs, bad things happen".

Moreover, Nocera's piece points to the intrinsic link between communications strategy and business strategy. Philip Morris has shifted from a position vehemently opposed to the regulation of the industry to supporting it, for instance. In doing so the message has caused a shift in some of its opponents message.

"There is no question, then, that Parrish and Philip Morris USA are hoping that regulation could help lead the company to reclaim some legitimacy. From a business perspective, that could result in a higher stock price..."

This is arguably one of the most dramatic and socially significant shifts in message we have seen undertaken by a corporation.

Technorati : Message, PR, Public Relations

Ray Is Wrong...

Sometimes the V in VC stands for vested. As in vested interest. For this reason, Ray Lane's comments on press releases aren't that surprising. In this BusinessWeek interview, Ray Lane of Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers calls standard media and press releases "a waste of time." Instead, they should use "blogs and wikis and podcasts and videos." Ray says:

What's going to happen is, employees are going to start podcasting and blogging about what's really going on in the company. It's going to cause huge legal concerns on the company's part. But companies are not going to be able to stop it. Outside the company, you can't tell people not to talk about their products. We're not China. We can't shut it down.

The reality of how employees feel, and the reality of how customers and partners get information about your company, are going to change in the next five years from standard media and press releases - which are a waste of time now - to these other methods like blogs and wikis and podcasts and videos

He's right that companies should be using blogs, wikis and podcasts. He's wrong that press releases are a waste of time. In fact, they remain hugely valuable. That I place would place more credence on the drivel pouring out of most corporations whether in a blog or a press release is just misfounded. What is needed is better, clearer, more compelling communications - period. Whether a press release, podcast or blog - I really don't mind. What I would prefer, personally, is short blogs and podcasts on the corporate narrative - and I want a press release for all formal communications.

Ray's argument is also founded on a pretty major assumption - that employees will blog about "what is really going on" inside a company. Really? Not too sure about that Ray. First, they've got jobs that come with a fiduciary responsibility. Break that and they are out the door. Last time I looked, mortgage payments trump blogging on the list of things they are worried about.

Dana makes a point that I agree with - it would be terrific to hear directly from leading lights like Steve Jobs. I want to hear more from the thought-leaders and innovators. I don't need to hear from everyone - I'd love to here more from the people that matter.

Technorati : PR, Press Releases

Media Rating Points...

I've been meaning to write on the recently proposed Media Rating Points system. If you are a small business that can't afford to pay for a media measurement solution, or an agency that needs a means of communicating results, then this could work well. I don't like the idea of rating coverage... this introduces a layer of opinion and complexity not needed. Focus on opportunities to see and frequency of messages.

The MRP™ system includes templates and reach data. The templates can be downloaded free of charge by clicking here.

Don Bartholomew has a summary of the evaluation/measurement findings from the latest GAP IV study from the Strategic Public Relations Center at USC Annenberg.

Key findings include that respondents spent only 4% of their budgets on evaluation. In terms of measuring PR performance (articles generated etc.) this could be right but if this number includes measuring impact (did we change minds, move markets, influence decisions?) then it is way low. That number should be closer to 15-20%.

Read Don's post for a thorough analysis and the differing metrics used by PR departments that report to the C-suite and those that report to Marketing. Having run both functions in a number of companies I was always impressed how the brand teams started with deep research into the customer. The PR teams generally started with a brainstorm. I'll say no more.

Katie has more on this...

Technorati : PR, PR Measurement
Del.icio.us : PR

The Power Of Recommendation...

Sun CEO Schwartz points to a terrific move they are making:

"Which is why you'll see something very interesting next week start to appear on Sun's web pages and throughout our our on-line store. You'll start to see product reviews written by users. You'll see user defined ratings, right on our products. Just like book or product reviews as Amazon.com..."

They are starting with a few products and going from there. Brilliant!

This got me thinking about the need for a system for recommenders to be authenticated. Some kind of opt-in registry so those of us reading the reviews get even more transparency into who is recommending. As much as I would like it though, I'm not sure it is needed.

The very act of participating and the inherent transparency of the act turns blogs and the web into one big "transparency engine". Sunlight is indeed the best disinfectant.

Technorati : PR, Sun

How To Get Traffic For Your Blog

Seth has a good list on how to drive traffic to your blog. Thanks to Stowe for the pointer.

On OPML Feeds

PR Week has a short but good piece on OPML in which I'm quoted along with Steve who touts their value in demonstrating that influencers are reading the blogs they are targeting. The assumption of course being that we read the all blogs in our OPML file :-) Steve also points to a good peice over at Techcrunch.

Technorati : Marketing, OPML, PR, shareyouropml

Leslie's Got A New Blog

Leslie Gaines-Ross, who recently made the move from Burson-Marsteller to become chief reputation strategist at Weber Shandwick has a new blog. Similar to her last one it focuses on CEO Reputation stuff.

"An Exchange (like the New York Stock Exchange or London Stock Exchange) is a market where securities, options, futures or commodities can be bought and sold. In my world, reputation is its own form of currency. An organization, leader, company or country trades its reputation on the open market for the best talent, partners and investors that it can attract. The entity also uses its reputation to bolster its standing and win support in times