Andrew Lark

Blog Mood...

Fascinating story in the latest New Scientist on measuring blog mood:

The software, called MoodViews, was created by Gilad Mishne and colleagues at Amsterdam University, The Netherlands. It tracks about 10 million blogs hosted by the US service LiveJournal.

The latest addition to Moodviews, a program called Moodsignals, tries to explain match these blogospheric mood swings to current events. It identifies emotional peaks by comparing recent label usage with records of previous use. When it finds a spike, the program picks out less commonly used words from relevant blog posts in an effort to identify the cause of the emotional change.

Undertaking a Difficult Sales Job

An entertaining read from the Washington Post. Some PR folk will just go to the mat for their clients... I'm going to avoid an PR commentary on this... it really is just too funny. Every industry employs people this silly.... read the whole thing, it goes something like this...

Me: I am in receipt of a pitch you sent to a reporter at The Washington Post... you begin by noting that The Post has recently been covering the controversy over the sale of port management contracts to an Arab Muslim country. Then, employing a non sequitur of breathtaking proportions, or possibly one of the most tasteless transitions in the history of written communication, you say that, in a related development, you represent the National Funeral Directors Association...

Heather: Well, you are incorrect. That is not in context...

Me: Okay, here's the context: "To follow-up on the articles being written in the Post about Bush's port deals, John Fitch, VP of Advocacy for the National Funeral Directors Association (NFDA), can discuss how America is planning to handle the potential mass fatalities from a terrorism standpoint -- and perhaps more importantly to you, how small business owners (funeral directors) will play an important role. Most funeral homes are owned by the same family for an average of four generations."

Heather: Well, yes. The roles they will play in mass fatalities.

The One Crucial Idea...

Down at SXSW they are chatting about (MP3) the Wisdom of Crowds - a book I really enjoyed. There is a key point in the book that gets drawn out over at Bokardo - it's as much about those who draw out the wisdom of the crowd as it is about the crowds wisdom. Take Google and their Pagerank algorithm as an example.

This notion has special significance for communicators. In a Web 2.0 world you should be monitoring and measuring those that are drawing out the dialogue as much as you and the media. For instance, what appears on Google News or Digg.

Next generation communications measurement systems will give you insight into - and weight accordingly - the "aggregators" of content. They will also start to give consideration to the conversations taking place on those sites. Take Digg as an example. Here it isn't just about aggregation, it is about the communities assigned weighting of that content and the associated commentary.

The new dimension in communications measurement will be relevance. Not as measured by abstract algorithms or as determined by communicators. But as measured by the wisdom of the crowd.

Good thinking on blog policies...

Trevor Cook has some good comments from an Aussie lawyer at Baker & MacKenzie on developing a blog policy. He also points to a piece in one of the big rags in Australia. Thanks Trevor!

Predicting the Oscars Using Search...

SLI used search to make some predictions as to the winners of this years Oscars. Interesting ideaand nice little PR stunt...

• Best Picture - "Brokeback Mountain"
• Best Director - Paul Haggis, "Crash"
• Best Actor - Terence Howard, "Hustle & Flow"
• Best Actress - Reese Witherspoon, "Walk the Line"

Here is a little about the "magic" they used to get there:

We found that rather than looking at the total number of searches for each nominee, it was necessary to look at how the search traffic had increased. This stopped George Clooney from automatically winning the best director - there are more searches for him than any of the other directors. This approach had it's own flaws - but I don't think it really matters. I'm looking forward to seeing how our predictions pan out.

Technorati : Oscars
Del.icio.us : Oscars

Feed Overload

How to handle all those feeds? Rubel suggests deleting them all when it becomes too much and starting again. Even Scoble's. What you miss most is what you'll hunt out and reload.

While this is an interesting idea (and mirrors some of the new thinking in time management - don't archive, just delete what you don't need), I actually value my feeds more than that. All of them. Some were hard to find. Some I share by exchanging files with freinds and colleagues. Others I just enjoy. My approach is to keep them filed. I have a must read folder and then the rest are categorized by my bizzare collection of interests. I only open the folders and look at the feeds when I have time or my interest is sparked. I'm also a fan of Dave Winer's River of News philosophy.

To do this I'm using NetNewsWire on my Mac and NewzCrawler on my PC. I also use FireFox (who BTW released a really anoying upgrade then other day - it wipes your themes and other extensions) - there I have a folder nestled in my toolbar with 20 of the feeds I follow most. I can then do a quick scan without opening any windows. I've yet to sort out the mobile thing - my damn Balckberry is already intrusive enough.

So, all of this enables me to avoid the extreme measure of deleting them at the point of maximum frustration. It's interesting that I have more tools for reading feeds than I do for reading email. It would be easier if Exchange/Outlook emails were just feeds.

The Honestsphere...

Two posts really hit me over the past two days as reflecting the honesty of much of the blogosphere. I doubt you'll come across many posts like Dan's on the Bayosphere on many company sites. This, along with the posts over at Meebo on fundraising are must -reads for any entrepreneur. As Dyson says, "only make new mistakes" - there are lots we can learn from these posts....

Edelman Trust Barometer

Microsoft the most trusted? Wild. But it's the truth according to Edelman's latest trust barometer.

Global opinion leaders say their most credible source of information about a company is now "a person like me," which has risen dramatically to surpass doctors and academic experts for the first time, according to the seventh annual Edelman Trust Barometer, a survey of nearly 2,000 opinion leaders in 11 countries. In the U.S., trust in "a person like me" increased from 20% in 2003 to 68% today. Opinion leaders also consider rank-and-file employees more credible spokespersons than corporate CEOs (42% vs. 28% in the U.S.).

The Edelman Trust Barometer found Microsoft Corporation the most trusted global company, followed by iconic companies in their home markets, including Toyota in Japan, Haier in China, Samsung in South Korea, and Petrobras in Brazil.

The Internet is a big gainer as a trustworthy source:

Television is the big loser in media trustworthiness with the rise of the Internet. When asked where they turn first for trustworthy information, 29% of respondents in the U.S. still cite TV first, down from 39% three years ago. The Internet is now cited by 19%, up from 10% in 2003. The same trend is evident in the U.K., where television has declined from 42% to 33% as respondents' first choice, while the Internet has risen from 5% to 15%. Newspapers, which are often thought to be the most serious casualty of the Internet wave, show rankings essentially unchanged in most markets at approximately 20%. Newspapers remain the first trusted medium of choice for respondents in France, Germany, Japan, Brazil, Korea, and Italy.

I couldn't see it in any of the materials on Edelman's site, but one thing they ought to do is indicate which of the companies in the survey are clients - like Microsoft.

Another Media Disgrace

The NYT reports that the ex-chief of HealthSouth (he claims unknowingly) paid for positive coverage:

Throughout the six-month trial that led to Richard Scrushy's acquittal in the $2.7 billion fraud at HealthSouth Corp., a small, influential newspaper consistently printed articles sympathetic to the defense of the fired CEO.

Audry Lewis, the author of those stories in The Birmingham Times, the city's oldest black-owned paper, now says she was secretly working on behalf of Scrushy, who she says paid her $11,000 through a public relations firm and typically read her articles before publication.

It's just stunning that this kind of stuff keeps happening without any kind of ability for censure by industry bodies - both media and PR. I'm sure there are as many frustrated journalists as there are PRs who are sick of having their profession tarnished by this kind of behavior.

The New Journalist/ism

In case you missed it, the new journalist/ism is upon us. Powered by wifi and blog-engines, journalists like Dan Farber over at ZDNet are hammering out stories live from announcements. They are breaking a few rules along the way - commenting on what 'competitors' are saying - in this case Shankland, opting for speed over gramatical accuracy, and capturing the essence of the event.

This has been going on for a while now - Farber's peice on ZDNet today just bought it home for me.

If you are in a non-technology industry and see this happening in your trade rags and elsewhere I'd love a few other examples.

Media Extensibility

The power of the media coupled with the power of participatory communications can be a wicked thing.

I've been waiting eagerly to see the first reviews on the new Windows Treo and if there is one review to wait for, it is Walt Mossberg's. His brutal, but polite, honesty is to be admired. The cascade effect of his review can be witnessed over at BuzzMachine. Today, rather than the echo of a negative review being solely restricted to word of mouth - or a "did you see that" - it is a case of "did you read, see, hear that" as well. The echo isn't just louder, it has more depth.

I wonder what effect this will have over time on the theory of "Chasm Crossing" (a theory I passionately beleive in). In the past the power of PC Magazine and Walt were absolute. They made and killed product in a couple of pages. Now I can triangulate news quicker - not just listening to the reviewer but also the early adopter. This has definitely changed the mechanics of "Chasm Crossing" - it might have even altered the concept.

One thing that many of these reviews fail to focus on is the ecosystem that surrounds a device of this kind. I recently bought one of the new Blackberry's. The device itself is nice, although the lack of camera and WiFi is annoying. What isn't nice is the absolutely archaic email service that a consumer has to use to collect and forward emails. The automated deletion of emails on the server once they are deleted on the device rarely works and so you pretty quickly are unable to recieve emails until getting to a PC and browser.

To make things work, Blackberry's world is a Windows world. The mail interface works inconsistently across platforms, only working well on Internet Explorer.

And, Cingular is still stumped as to why the International roaming capability works OK in some places and not at all in others (I know this will result in a conversation about replacing my SIM card - meaning the problem is unique to my device).

Finally, the lack of applications for the Blackberry is really apparent. I got used to all kinds of useful apps on my Treo and Sony phone. There are very few for the Blackberry and those that are there aren't priced to move.

I was ready to give the new Treo a shot but I'm going to wait. Triangulating the news has convinced me again not to be an early adopter.

Mine Explosion

Just prior to reading Paul's entry on how the tragic mine explosion has been handled I stumbled onto this site which provides the Journalist's perspective. It's a really enlightening read.

Getting to #1 On Google...

Read Harry's post on how he got to be #1 on Google. Lots of SEO wisdom and smarts:

"I'm telling you this so that you will:

1. Integrate your weblog into a coherent and scalable sales process that tightly conforms to how your ideal prospect actually buys, and ...
2. Invest in a URL that clearly telegraphs your unique selling proposition to that prospect..."

    Technorati : PR, SEO

Tom On Things Learnt...

Tom has a great list of things learnt in 2005. I especially like his first three:

1. Blogging is the most honest form of self-promotion bar none because if you can't walk the talk you won't get the clicks.

2. Content will be king because all those links have to point to something of value--otherwise they are pointless.

3. Every company is part media company--it is both publisher and publication and tells stories all the time.

Aside from being a pretty good bloke, Tom was one of the first hacks to jump ship and become a fulltime blogger.

Technorati : Blogging, PR

Big Brand Campaings On The Way...

Will be interesting to watch how SBC/ATT and Intel handle their new brand efforts and what, if any, role Participatory Communications will play in that. The WSJ covers how Intel is about to embark on a major transition:

The changes include a new version of the company's blue logo -- without the dropped "e" that has long been a part of Intel's branding -- along with a new tagline "Leap ahead," which emulates such campaigns as "Think different" from Apple Computer Inc. or "Just do it" from Nike Inc.

Intel will no longer use the well-known "Intel Inside" logo but is keeping the related marketing program that provides incentives to companies for using its products. - WSJ

Technorati : BLogs, Brand, PR

Alaska Air's Near Disaster Unfiltered...

I Hope Jeremy has big bandwidth and a big server because his account of the Alaska incident is scarry - and it's going to attract zillions of eyeballs. Via Jeff Jarvis. Compare his account with news reports- some of which are featuring Jeff's photos.

"Citizen Journalism" in action. Jeremy P makes a really interesting point that one lesson for any PR practioner facing a crisis is that you are going to need to manage transparency. It seems that Alaska employees are going nasty-comment-happy on Jeremy's (the Jeremy on the plane) blog. Assuming he would never know I guess, they commented away. Jeremy simply looked at the originating IP addresses, which were from Alaska. And he was gracious enough to suggest that they might have been hackers using Alaska's IP addresses. Not likely mate!

So, if your communications policy doesn't cover commenting on blogs as an employee - then you might want to make sure it does.. and then make sure employees know it. And, if your crisis communications plan doesn't feature monitoring of and communications with the blogosphere - better get on that as well.

Technorati : Alaska, Blogs, PR
Del.icio.us : Alaska, PR, Travel

They Say Things...

to make you laugh and cry... Wired covers hillarious tech exec remarks from 2006, including:

"Screw the nano." -- Motorola CEO Ed Zander

"I'm going to f***ing bury that guy, I have done it before, and I will do it again. I'm going to f***ing kill Google." -- Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer

"Lightweight, and crank it on, and you shuffle the shuffle." -- President Bush

Via tech.memorandum..

Comment From Donna @ Kryptonite

Donna kindly responded to my piece below on the Kryptonite thing. It's worth reading the comment - she makes some fair points. In response I'd say:

1. I did read the response to Rebecca on Dave's site. I'll leave it at that.
2. Communications is an integral element of any brand - it directly influences reputation and consideration, which in turn impact buyers behavior. So, to answer the question, "shouldn't you buy a lock based on the effectiveness of the lock? Thieves don't care how we communicate an issue, they care about whether or not they can defeat a lock on the street." The answer is yes - but you can't break the company, the lock and the brand from each other. They are one. That's why I didn't buy. Oh, and theives aren't the audience, bikers are - especially those of us stupid enough to fork out thousands on a new bike. We really care how good the company that made the good lock is. And if you aren't telling us that where we are reading (aka, blogs) - we won't find out.
3. To the point that Kryptonite would like to get past this but can't because people like me write about it, well, I'm only writing about it because you are doing interviews. You've made the very issue hot again and of interest to me. You turned the conversation back on. Which gets back to my point that you always want to avoid speaking to the mechanics of the past.
   

So, here is another thought. Kryptonite is clearly a good, "do no evil" kind of  company. Start framing this one positively. Show us how incredibly strong these locks are. Use every opportunity to talk about that. And issue a $1m challenge to anyone who can pick it using a Bic pen. Take it to the market. Explaining the mechanics of the past is of less interest to us prospective buyers than the integrity of the company and product today.

Maybe I'll get a Kryptonite lock for xmas?

Santa?

PR Not Measuring Up

Last weeks' Holmes' Report covered its recent survey of more than 100 PR Agency principles - the results of which point to some of the problems that continue to make research  and evaluation a major issue for the industry.

"In general, their responses  suggested that an failure of commitment- rather than the absence of necessary tools and techniques—is behind the industry’s poor performance."

Damn right. Never have we  had more tools. And more arrive every week. The barrier however remains a lack  of commitment at the top. Too many organizations I talk to are only looking to measure where Executives demand it. It's not viewed as a key ingredient in strategic planning and establishing a proactive dialog with the business. As a  result, it's not resourced or budgeted for.

Look at any of the best-in-class measurement efforts - like those at Southwest airlines - and you'll see the reverse in action: a commitment from the most senior levels of the company to measuring not just to validate spend, but to drive business strategy; dedicated resources; and they've put their money where there mouth is (and this is one very, very, very budget sensitive organization).

According to the study, Agency leaders believe the biggest obstacle to effective measurement is the unwillingness of clients to pay additional fees for evaluation Why not just mandate it as part of any budget? If you aren't clear on the outcomes, and can't measure your effectiveness in achieving those outcomes, why work for the client? Holmes gets this:

“At the very least, that suggests the need for a broader dialogue between agencies and their clients about the importance of research. But it might also require a change in attitude on the part of agency leaders, who need to realize that investing in measurement is the only way to guarantee that clients value the services agencies provide and commit to PR spending in good times and bad.”

I just don’t understand how any PR department or practitioner can operate without a measurement program in place. Measurement isn’t monitoring. Monitoring isn’t measurement. What I am talking about here is a deep understanding of how communications impacts business outcomes. An understanding based on research not just of what occurred in the media, but also in the minds of your customers. Without that you shouldn’t expect resources, budget, even a job.

Email Is So Yesterday...

I remember the excitement I felt when email first landed in my lap - literally, on a Dell notebook - it was some version of Lotus. Soon, I'm hoping, it will be gone in relation to much of the work I need to get done. When recently working on a major site redevelopment a Wiki did so much more for the team in terms of communication - we all edited content in real-time, in the same place, without any confusion in relation to versions. It made a significant task so much more productive.

 

BusinessWeek touches on the utility of blogs and Wikis as a replacement to email. They start by going down the old route that most of the email you get is a waste of time:  "Indeed, the onetime productivity wonder has turned into a maddening time waster. Despite the brawniest corporate filters, more than 60% of what swarms into corporate in-boxes is spam."

 

That isn't why I don't like email anymore. Its more about what I do like about the virtual collaboration space of the Wiki. " Among them: private workplace wikis (searchable, archivable sites that allow a dedicated group of people to comment on and edit one another's work in real time); blogs (chronicles of thoughts and interests); Instant Messenger (which enables users to see who is online and thus chat with them immediately rather than send an e-mail and wait for a response); RSS (really simple syndication, which lets people subscribe to the information they need); and more elaborate forms of groupware such as Microsoft Corp.'s (MSFT ) SharePoint, which allows workers to create Web sites for teams' use on projects."

So far, companies have invested 95% of their spending in business processes, according to Social Life of Information author and former Xerox Corp. (XRX ) Palo Alto Research Center director John Seely Brown. A scant 5% has gone toward supporting ways to mine a corporation's human capital. That's why fans say the beyond-e-mail workplace will become a key competitive advantage. In the global race for innovation, it's not as much about leveraging what's inside your factories' machines as what's in your employees' heads.

It's worth a read.

Transparency In The Participatory Era

One of my new laws for communicators is "the more you participate, the more transparent the dialog becomes". Think of it as an exponential curve with each step driving more transparency. Browsing through Gizmodo I stumbled across this hilarious example.

Here we have a new product - which while I agree is a tad stupid, will probably find a home in plenty of stockings. But the more the company the communicates, the more it lands itself in hot water. Traditional media might have had a hard time reporting this one. But not participatory media, here there is plenty of virtual real estate in which the dialog can unfold for all to see. And the tone of the dialog is laid bare for all to see. The result, transparency at its best.

Stonyfield Farms

Great post on one of my blog heroes Stonyfield Farms. Here's a quote:

Stonyfield's sales have also increased 25 percent over the last year, and the company has just begun a major expansion that will double the size of its existing plant ... All that with almost no traditional advertising." Gary (CEO) comments: "The proof, first of all, is that on our website, we have 750,000 subscribers to our four 'Moos Letters.' Dannon doesn't have that, Yoplait doesn't have that, Kraft doesn't have that"

They get that its all about participation. And so, how does a company rationalize new marketing strategies and entering the blogosphere. Gary says it all here:

Underneath it all, Gary says, is the constant creation of new strategies. "We never knew what was really going to work because there were no models for us," he explains. "We led with the only things we really knew -- our yogurt and our causes."

What's your cause?

The Panel That Never Was

I was meant to be at Ad:Tech this week in New York. Unfortunately it wasn't to be - but the panel I was meant to lead looks like it went really well. Look at some of the things leaders had to say about podcasting:

“Reach is pretty limited right now, but you’re reaching an enthusiast audience,” Ms. Papadopoulos said. She said the Volvo sponsorship on Autoblog.com reached about 120,000 people a month. Ms. Pitcher’s (Citrix) reach ranges from 10,000 to 100,000 monthly.

“People like ads, they don’t like interruptions,” said David Goodman, president-marketing at Infinity Broadcasting. (I really agree with this - the rise of the participatory era is the death of the age of interruption)

IBM Says Blogging Marketing's Next Big Thing

From the folks at AdAge, blogging... "goes a long way in personalizing brands and creating one-to-one relationships with customers. While IBM says it does not want to use new media as traditional sales and marketing tools, it has succeeded in opening discussions in health care and video gaming with “outsiders,” which in turn could lead to new business relationships."

“This is a way to get our expertise out there, not by shoving it down people’s throats, but by just starting conversations,” Mr. Barger said. “It expands our reputation, perceptions and reach of IBM, at the same time expanding the number of people we can learn from.”

Where I am not on board with the AdAge story is that technology companies are more advantaged by social networking technologies. As GM and Stoneyfield Farms have demonstrated, the more you think about your customers as participants in your company's success - and as part of a community - the more participatory communications works for you. It's not about the technology, it is all about how you view marketing.

Confidence Down....

From this morning's Holmes Report, a study from the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press says Americans are increasingly cynical about a wide range of major institutions, with confidence in business suffering a particularly steep decline.

Favorable ratings for corporations are 20 points lower than they were in a similar survey conducted in March of 2001. Just 45 percent say they have a favorable opinion of business corporations, while the same number express a negative view. Since the mid-1980s, solid majorities have consistently expressed positive views of corporations, but just 49 percent did so in July.

Measuring the Chatter....

Steve has a great post on measuring the chatter using Ice Rocket and other tools. I'm a big fan of Ice Rocket and like Steve tend to use this more than Blogpulse. With tools like these there is no excuse for PR not to start speaking to the conversation in its dashboard.

Our challenge as communicators is to now move to understand the impact of these conversations on purchasing and other customer behaviors. Then we go from speaking about the conversation in the context of communications to demonstrating the value of conversations to the business.

Great Comment...

Mark Dill posts a great comment on my entry below on Technology Policies Run Amok. More than often comments get lost unless folks are really inclined to click on through. Here is what Mark had to say:

I'm in the middle of revitalizing an Intranet for a large corporation. We have lots of discussions about content management as well as blogs and wikis. One of the reasons I'm here is that nothing is off the table. Effective companies will understand transparency or what I have called for years now an open system. You can't be sloppy about these things, and everyone involved needs to understand that freedom demands responsibility. Think about this way. Employees that criticize their leadership in blogs aren't saying anything they haven't said in other conversations for years. It's just now they have an unprecedented public forum. Professionalism will foster policy development. But the reality is that technology is enabling much deeper visibility to management and operations. Like every other pervasive technology change, people that embrace it prosper and those that think they are powerful enough to resist such advances will endure great pain. But just because something is new and different doesn't mean those basic change management rules don't apply. It just might mean a company's executive team needs a history lesson.

Technology Policies Run Amok

In the "stupid is as stupid does" category, Wired reports that companies are blocking access to blogs as part of their standard security policies:

...companies worry that employees might leak sensitive material -- perhaps inadvertently -- while posting comments to blog message boards. In a survey of over 300 large businesses conducted in conjunction with Forrester, Proofpoint found 57.2 percent of respondents were concerned with employees exposing sensitive material in blogs. That's higher than the portion concerned with the risks of P2P networks.

Communicators need to get engaged in setting clear policies and communicating them. What is even more ludicrous is the suggestion that blogs be blocked for reasons of "productivity over security". Technology companies, like Proofpoint, that suggest this should spend more time on the productivity benefits and articulating a value proposition around that.

Ragan Communications Summit

Spent Thursday and Friday of last week at the Ragan Communications Summit in Chicago. A great event focused on communicators. If you attended and are looking for a copy of my Keynote, you'll find them all here

The master presentation is a big download so you might prefer it in bite sized chunks - Part One and Part Two. I strongly recommend that you take time to watch the brilliant E.P.I.C animation.

Ouch!

Dvorak attacks the media for their lame and Apple-friendly reporting. He says: "As big and as important as Microsoft is, the coverage of the company is quite mediocre. This is particularly true in the mainstream press. The reason for this is that today's newspaper and magazine tech writers know little about computers and are all Mac users. It's a fact."

You can read the rest... He really lays into the media and exposes the nonsense that has been going on for years now.

Every time Steve Jobs sneezes there is a collective chorus of "Gesundheit" from tech writers pounding away on their Macs.

This reality is not going to change. In fact it will only get worse as technology coverage is handed to newer, less-qualified observers who simply cannot use a Microsoft Windows computer. With no Microsoft-centric frame of reference, Microsoft cannot look good. The company essentially brought this on itself with various PR and marketing policies that discouraged knowledgeable coverage...

I know plenty of journalists that don't use Macs. The ones that don't wish they do. So I'm not entirely with him (although a good ways there) on the assertion that using Macs makes the media clueless to reporting on MSFT. It does seem to make them very Apple friendly and tolerant. Ah, to have a product that inspires such favoritism - and the moxy to use such aggressive, litigious and anti-free speech PR practices... A quick aside - upgrading your Powerbook, as I have done, does not make one particularly Apple friendly. The bad news is it runs slower, does weird things and sucks the life out of a battery in just over an hour. The good news is you can fry an egg on the base with the heat generated during this process.

What is really intriguing in his commentary is the remark on "frame of reference". Four years ago, MSFT framed the entire industry. Apple is the frame now. Arguably it is a frame for broader trends in design and the like. As much as we might like to blame the media - and they deserve plenty of whacks on this one - we shouldn't take anything from Apple which through stunning execution and design has redefined what we expect - and will tolerate - in computing, music and now entertainment as a whole.

Lots On In the Logosphere

I've been up to my neck in it at LogLogic as we get a new website, blog and version 3 launched. Sorry for the lack of posts. It's been a major undertaking and we're thrilled with the results. The team at RD2 did a terrific job - a tireless and extremely talented bunch.

We've done some interesting things with the site and blog. First, we housed the blog as an element of the overall loglogic.com architecture. This enables blog content to be searched and presented alongside the broader site content. Second, we're using MoveableType to power large elements of the site. This will make the site a lot more self serve. Third, we automated much of the functionality - integrating the blog feeds and site. So, you post the blog and it automatically appears on the loglogic.com home page. Finally, we've added RSS for everything from news releases through job opportunities.

We've got much more to do and it has been a really interesting project so far. The bottom-line is that building a web site with participatory functionality makes for a much more powerful experience. Let me know what you think.

Search Puts Blog On the Front Page...

Yahoo! News is now delivering blogs as a component of a news search result. This has major implications for PR practitioners. Suddenly those searching for news on your product get a feel for what users, the community, and the pundits are saying - unfiltered. It has equally major implications for blogging. It enables anyone with the energy and enthusiasm for a particular topic to potentially sit on the front page right alongside traditional news sources. If PR people hadn't woken up to the voice of bloggers, they now need to wake up to their reach as well.

Here is an example. Yesterday I blogged on NetNewsWire's acquisition by NewsGator. I searched for NetNewsWire using Yahoo! News. To the left you can see traditional news media covering the story. To the right you can see my post from yesterday.

The other question this poses is that is this the beginning of the end for blog search engines? While I'm still keen on many of the blog search engines, most remain incredibly frustrating for users. While some are giving up on them due to search quality, most of the calls I get are related to usability and sheer frustration.

I wonder why Google can't provide a version of Google News that incorporates blog content. Or, a version that triangulates the major blog content from across the web. Google Blog for instance. Yahoo might beat them to the punch.

Small Numbers, Big Spinning

Spinning small numbers into big moves is pretty common in the tech sector. Seems its also common in the TV business according to Variety:

Put simply, as numbers get smaller, percentages grow bigger. That means when your 0.4 rating becomes a 0.6, viewership has "soared" 50%, even if that shift practically falls within a statistical margin of error, or could represent a couple of people with Nielsen meters ordering take-out pizza instead of going to dinner.

Granted, if most reporters were adept at math, we'd have more respectable jobs, but even Stephen Hawking might be struck dumb by some modern press releases, which slice and dice ratings with the skill of a sushi chef.

(thanks to FH/SFO for flagging...)

IDC Xchange

Silly name, good blog from the gang at IDC.

Tips For PR Pros

There isn't a day that goes by on which advice for the PR profession pukes forth from the blogosphere like a broken New Orleans levy. (This in some part has to do with the people offering the advice deriving some - if not a large part - of their revenue/income from consulting to the PR industry).

Some it is smart. Some of it tiresome. Some of it just plain stupid. Here is today's flow in the order it lands in my NetNewsWire:

• Shel via James over at Redmonk points to the needs for companies to not speak with one voice - I take this to mean "any message goes, say whatever you want, distribute whatever information you want". This is different though than speaking authentically and honestly. Sun is the master of speaking in many tongues but with one voice. Nobody wants to sound like a corporate drone. Nobody wants to be entirely repetitive. Everyone want to have their own twist. Any good communicator has been advocating this for years.

There is no question that the odd critic from within creates a sense of authenticity (content + tone), but when this becomes a cacophony, you get the kind of perceptual meltdown Microsoft has been recently going through. So, I'm with you that authenticity matters. I don't agree with communications anarchy. We're running businesses with shareholders.

Oh, and lets not confuse how perceptions are formed amongst the blogerati - we have a pretty academic view when it comes to brands vs. the mainstream buyer or user. It's very different in the 'real world'.

• Onto the rest of Shel's list then. He says "Listen, Really Listen" - yep, been advocating that for years. Unfortunately most listening by PR types is directed to executives and not customers and users. Just ask any agency what their listening/research budget is. His second and fourth points, "Feed the Bloggers" and "Be Transparent" are self evident. Yes.

"Be Out Of Control", point #5 is one of those neat little phrases that gets bloggers all excited. It's just nonsense in the context of business; to which PR and communications are irrevocably connected.  A business needs to be managed. It needs to be governed - both by its own policies and regulations. It is influenced by an aggressive competitive dynamic. And communications is part of a broader set of  functions. So, communications needs to be controlled.

While the Participatory Era has created an entirely new context for managing those communications we need a more intelligent response than this. (And, BTW, agencies  have much less control over orchestrating events  than the management teams and legal departments inside their clients.)

• I feel the same about #6 on Shel's list - "Facilitate, then be quiet". Research aside (plenty of other professions faired less well than PR), I don't buy that PR people shouldn't engage in dialog. To suggest this is to suggest that PR people are little more than meeting makers, devoid of content and intellect. Where Shel is right is that PR people shouldn't view themselves as gating and control points for conversations. In fact, the way for PR to build trust is for them to be outspoken. How they do it and what they say is a very different matter.

Afterall, aren't all folks enaging in blogging on behalf of their company doing "public relations" in the broadest sense of the word? :-)

So, I hope these comments are taken in the spirit in which they were given, as part of conversation.

Next up was Dan who has some great remarks for the PR profession (these are from is most recent article in PRWeek for whom he is now writing a monthly column):

In a world of blogs, podcasts, video mash-ups, interactive maps, and so much more, the nature of corporate communications must change from top-down control to multi-directional openness - from lecture to conversation. If all that is daunting, however, keep in mind that the new options are available to the newsmakers and the PR people advising them, not just the bloggers.

The way entry-level PR people and journalists deal with each other isn't a trivial matter; solid press relations are part of a smart PR strategy. But they are becoming less important than the way newsmakers - the people and institutions journalists cover - deal with various other constituencies.

I love the idea of "multi-directional openness" - this is a far more powerful notion than that of "be out of control". Implicit in it is that those you have a conversation with are also going to be open. Are the media are for the same degree of transparency they seek from companies?

Dan also nails the point I am trying to make when I say it isn't necessarily right that companies should have many voices - but that it is right that the tone and construct is authentic and original:

"Blogs are all the rage, and I encourage their use as part of the external - and internal - communications process. Unlike press releases, which tend to read as if they'd been composed by the mating of a computer and lawyer, good blogs have a distinctly human voice. They are conversational almost by definition."

So, maybe I am getting wrapped-up in semantics re: voice/message and tone. I don't think so though.

As Dan says, we all have plenty to learn.

New Pew Internet Study Out

Pew's latest research is out. Always worth a read.

Sixty-eight percent of American adults, or about 137 million people, use the internet, up from 63% one year ago. Thirty-two percent of American adults, or about 65 million people, do not go online, and it is not always by choice. Those who are currently offline have had varying levels of exposure to the online world. One in five American adults say they have never used the internet or email and do not live in an internet-connected household. At the other end of the spectrum, 53% of home internet users have high-speed access, creating a new divide among internet users.

Having trouble sleeping? Get the full study here!

CMO Tenure

This is a bit worrying given my new gig. I wonder if I can outlast the elephant? The understory here is interesting - how can companies create long-term shareholder value with these kinds of tenure periods?

Look out! If current trends continue, the tenure of a typical CMO may soon outlast the gestation period for an elephant. According to new research by executive search firm Spencer Stuart, the average CMO tenure at business-to-consumer companies has gone up by nearly a full month—from 22.9 months a year ago to a whopping 23.7 months. (For the record, elephant moms carry their kids for two years before giving birth.) . - CMO Magazine

A New C/Net

C/Net has long been one of my first reads. There is a new C/Net on the way. Take a look at this very cool beta site.

What is really cool is the center section in which stories are ranked in terms of the conversation - based on comments. This is a fantastic idea. Those that are participating in the news, get to set the editorial flow.

Also love the scroll through treatment of the mast area. Idea. Also like how they have moved away from the traditional industry segmentation navigation. And a new, Media 2.0 news section. That's smart.

This is a vastly improved version of an important news site. Anyway, I'll keep looking and sharing views.

So, what do you think?

PR Week Gets New Look & RSS

Like the new look and feel - and RSS at last. As I sat in my office looking at a foot-high stack of decidedly un-environmentally friendly magazines it struck me that I could do without them all given the publishers themselves would embrace the web fully.

When I resubscribed to AdAge over the weekend I got the option to pay a little more for the digital print edition - that's the print edition in digital format. I had to download Zinio to be able to read it. I really like this idea. It's enormously compelling.

Simplicity = Goodness

Most communicators struggle to pull together strong presentations for and with their excutives. But for a few, the effort to drive simplicity is more than often nuked by executives that would rather push more content onto slides than listen to good counsel.

Steve Jobs not only listens, he is in a league of his own. Take a look at this terrific view of his recent Nano preso. It is a text book case-study in how a presentation should be... Zen like.

Open Source Analysis...

James has an interesting post inspired by Armadgeddon (a great read for any AR professional). While I think they (Armadgeddon) are probably placing a little too much emphasis on Insystek naming Gartner as a partner, the point James makes that:

Categories are breaking down like tundra. That is why you have to go with the flow. Can the major analyst firms afford to do that, though? RedMonk can. Macehiter Ward Dutton can. Quocirca can. If you work for an independent analyst firm and agree with any of this why don't you leave a comment.

James then goes on to point to the "mass amateurization" that is underpinning this... The term "mass amateurization" is a terrible one in my book - if only because it frames those not engaged as professionals. However, information and dialog is increasibgly getting open sourced by folks who aren't paid to do analysis. They are using participatory technologies to drive their own knowledge into the public domain. Traditionally the value of this commentary was diminished in that it was  single voice. Now it tends to be informed by a collective.

Some of the big analyst firms get this, some don't. But so long as CIOs and VCs continue to place so much emphasis on "Magic Qadrants" (and believe me, there is a fair degree of magic involved), the big analysts will continue to weild enormous power.

Like James I love Clay Shirky's writings and thinking. One thing is clear to me though, and that is a huge amount is assumed in relation to the intelligence and time of the buyer. Most have lots of one, but not both. Or are lacking on both counts. Thus, they turn to the magic quadrant and conventional analysis. This points to one of the key benefits of the large analyst firm - information utility. I'm not talking quality, just utility - which often replaces quality in most decision making.

And this is where James' point hits home. Now we have technology which is fusing information, dialog and utility. All of which is going to make for a very interesting period of time.

Handbook For Bloggers...

Have scanned through this and enjoyed the read. Love the notion of "reporters without borders" as a descriptor for bloggers... and a movement. Rebecca says it well...

The Handbook for Bloggers is for people who want to be serious participants in the emergent online global conversation: How to set up a quality, credible blog. How to get it noticed. And.. if you’re in a country where there government might not like what you’re saying, how to avoid getting in trouble when you by-pass the information gatekeepers and talk directly to the world.

Julien writes in his introduction to the booklet:

Blogging is a powerful tool of freedom of expression that has enthused millions of ordinary people. Passive consumers of information have become energetic participants in a new kind of journalism - what US blog pioneer Dan Gillmor calls “grassroots journalism… by the people, for the people” (see chapter on “What ethics should bloggers have?”).

Bloggers are often the only real journalists in countries where the mainstream media is censored or under pressure. Only they provide independent news, at the risk of displeasing the government and sometimes courting arrest. Plenty of bloggers have been hounded or thrown in prison. One of the contributors to this handbook, Arash Sigarchi, was sentenced to 14 years in jail for posting several messages online that criticised the Iranian regime. His story illustrates how some bloggers see what they do as a duty and a necessity, not just a hobby. They feel they are the eyes and ears of thousands of other Internet users.

This is all a little rich...

This is a reasonably off-topic post... I'm watching the Google copyright fracas with interest. Let me first state that I am clueless on most things legal in this area so this isn't a legal viewpoint.

I have however watched in amazement at how Google, in the interests of the people of course, has repackaged news content while enriching their own revenue stream... The relationship between news organizations and Google has always struck me as reasonably symbiotic...

Google News points to news site while in the process representing some it's copyrighted material --> news site benefits from traffic and profile --> Google gets some review from clicks and the like --> news org relents due to benefit of traffic, and who wants to piss off the search Gorilla anyway...

The difference between this and books is that the symbiotic relationship is much less clear. OK, seeing the book might tickle my fancy to spur me to shop for a copy. But not really. Amazon and BN already do a pretty good job of that. And if I want to search for a book I can use any number of legitimate library search engines.

The silent voice in all this is Amazon - the company most likely to be harmed by this. I definitely see the utility in me searching a book on Google and then getting 5 places to shop for it with low prices, and maybe even a link to my local library. But boy would that screw with Amazon.

At the end of the day, why should an individuals copyrighted content be paraded about, driving Google's revenue even higher without their permission - or participation in the revenue stream. Wouldn't Google have been smarter to invite publishers and writers to participate - and share the revenue with them? To which Google says this:

"The use we make of all the books we scan through the Library Project is fully consistent with both the fair use doctrine under U.S. copyright law and the principles underlying copyright law itself, which allow everything from parodies to excerpts in book reviews. We regret that this group chose to sue us over a program that will make millions of books more discoverable to the world -- especially since any copyright holder can exclude their books from the program. What's more, many of Google Print's chief beneficiaries will be authors whose backlist, out of print and lightly marketed new titles will be suggested to countless readers who wouldn't have found them otherwise."

To which I say, don't insult us... If this is the case, just focus on books no longer protected, or writers who agree with you. Invite them to participate.

And, if Google book search works as Susan describes, why do it at all. Sounds pretty useless to me. I guess, like me, the Authors Guild suspects something bigger to be afoot. Afterall, Google isn't just scanning one page and the cover. So they are creating much, much more that a simple index card. This isn't the first time the issue has flared up. And, it will keep coming-up until the issue of fair use is resolved.

If you want to play in the participatory era, you need to invite people to participate - and provide them with a mechanism for doing so. Scanning in other folks protected content - and in the process creating massive differentiation and revenue from that content strikes me as just, well, illegal.

Apple Supports Video Podcasting

This is pretty cool. Love it. A precursor of big things to come...

Software To Kill Press Releases...

How incredibly dumb. Maybe a new category of software: PRWare? It's got to be a spoof right?

"ShuTup 1.0, which is launching this week, is aimed at security professionals, IT administrators, journalists, and editors. These markets suffer crushing volumes of e-mail in the wake of the threat-du-jour."

Apparently they have a "patent pending pitch detection" engine. This is just too funny to be taken seriously:

"The heart of ShuTup 1.0 is its patent-pending 'pitch detection engine.' It combines a variety of techniques to spot self-aggrandizing speech, including deep BS inspection, application-level annoying behavior analysis, and kernel-of-truth-based assessment. The product is available immediately."

Gee, I wonder of any of these seriously bright IT guys have ever thought about creating a rule that just puts all content containing the word press release into the Junk folder... But hey, why use existing features in existing products when you can buy new stuff...

Morgan's also got more on this one...

Microsoft Culture...

BusinessWeek covers the recent departures at Microsoft. What's interesting is that they point to the role of blogs and email in laying the culture bare. While there is no question of the impact of both these mediums, the thing that had a real impact for me was the testimony of computer scientist Kai-Fu Lee which was heavily reported in mainstream media. Dragging ex-employees through court only to have this kind of testimony revealed just ain't a good thing.

Tracking your employees' reporting - and the tone of those posts - should be a priority for any communicator. Not to effect change on any one individual(or seek retribution, god forbid) but rather to create a new barometer of employee sat, especially given that small clusters of vocal employees typically influence the masses. In the Participatory Era you had better be tracking every dimension of participating. Tracking the dialog will give you a feel for whether employees really want to participate in your company.

Masters Thesis On Blogging

You can download this fascinating masters thesis on blogging, written by James Torio who wrote the paper for his master's thesis in advertising design for Syracuse University. Worth a scan.

New Report... Rebuilding Trust

EuroRSG just released their 11th Annual Survey of the Media with Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism:

• 51% of journalists use blogs regularly – with 28% of them relying on them for day–to-day reporting, despite only 1% believing they are credible.
• 49% of journalists have lost trust in corporations over the last year, while 45% are less trusting of the professional behavior of their own colleagues – up from 34% in 2003.
• 76% of journalists agree that corporate candidness in times of crisis is poor, and 66% say the same about corporate transparency during a company crisis.
• 93% note that they are less trusting of colleagues, and 79% believe that recent revelations about journalists taking payment from third parties has had quite a strong effect on media credibility.

Novell PR Blog Goes Live...

Novell's PR team launched their blog this week. It's good to see communicators blogging as well.

Project Platypus

Great read from GAIN with Ivy Ross over at Matell on brands and innovation. Tackles the issue of how you take a large, existing organization and encourage innovation:

GAIN: And the normal company structure didn’t allow for this type of exploration?

ROSS: I have 450 people who work for me. Everyone is busy all the time—practically 24/7—just growing our existing brands. No one has time to become truly immersed in the possibilities. Through this project we are trying to create a way of working together that is more of a living system. Take a cow, for example. If you want to get milk out of a cow, you have to give it time to graze. These days, no one has time to graze. No one has time to explore. It’s not just about giving people the best equipment and software to work with, it’s about feeding their soul, their mind and creating an environment that each of them can grow in.

Om on Woosh...

Om Malik writes on Woosh's announcements in NZ. They are launching a low-cost Voice-over-IP (VoIP) phone service, that runs over a TD-CDMA mobile broadband network, leveraging IPWireless’ mobile broadband technology.

According to Woosh, “Our phone and broadband plans represent savings for all Woosh customers of up to 50 percent on similar packages of services from other providers. Households can now have broadband and a phone connection for less than what it costs most homes for a phone line and dial-up internet.”

As Om says, this is totally disruptive.

Good Reads

CMO Magazine interview with Virgin America's Spence Kramer:

Why is it so important these days for a brand to make an emotional connection with customers?

Brands that don't make emotional connections, especially from the inside (product side) out, will eventually lose. Emotional marketing doesn't mean much if the company's people, products and services don't back it up. Nike doesn't succeed because Wieden + Kennedy makes great commercials. Rather, Nike succeeds because its core belief—its brand promise, its love of the potential for the athlete inside everyone—lives inside the people in Beaverton. When that love is manifested in their gear, consumers manifest it into their own lives. It's not only an emotional connection, it's an individual one. That's what we're hoping for, too: a one-to-one relationship, but with many thousands of people.

Google Blog Search...

Google has launched a Blog search tool.

"Your results include all blogs, not just those published through Blogger; our blog index is continually updated, so you'll always get the most accurate and up-to-date results; and you can search not just for blogs written in English, but in French, Italian, German, Spanish, Chinese, Korean, Japanese, Brazilian Portuguese and other languages as well." - Google

And Now, In the "Get A Freakin Clue" Category We Have...

The new "Juicy Fruit Blog" - Unfortunately we're going to drive a ton of traffic and attention their way as we point out what happens when interactive marketers fail to understand what a blog is and slap the word "Blog" on some Flash-like animation and marketing hyperbole. Is it a game? Is it a web site? It definitely ain't a blog. Get a damn clue!

Michael and Heather also take a swipe. Train-wreck is a nice way of describing this marketing SNAFU.