in (further) defense of public relations.

The Long Version:

Newsmedia, and Journalism, isn't the paragon of ethics it pretends to be. This massive concentration of power is in the hands of business interests, like anything else. Journalists are influential, intelligent, and often have an agenda, whether based on personal opinions or editorial mandate. A careful twisting of an off the cuff statement has the potential to do massive damage to a reputation and business, without necessarily crossing the boundaries of libel or slander. PR has an image problem. PR has a lot of catching up to do with developing media, and the changing way people get information. PR will be necessary as long as there is a concentration of influence among media outlets that may be biased, because individuals will always try to protect their personal interests, including their image.

The Short Version:

Everyone thinks the world would be better without Lawyers, too, until they actually consider what the law would look like without individual representatives.

why can't i be ripped off by somewhere reputable.

Oh look, a year old blog post of mine has be re-published somewhere.

To be fair, I don't have a specific problem as long as there's reasonable attribution (which there isn't, in this case). I don't hoard ideas, generally. But I'd like at least a link and my real name if you're going to use my material to draw attention to your work.

Of course, this got me thinking about my own piratical actions. I'll probably blog about that later on today.

fake follow = fail feed.

Reading PSFK today I saw a post about Fake Follow, a feature on FriendFeed that makes me supremely uneasy.

What amuses me, is that this is getting positive feedback so soon after the 'PR is evil' meme showed up.

Social media is supposed to run on a principle of honesty, I'm so often told. We're supposed to connect on a personal level, even if it's mediated. Sharing, caring, etc. Fake Follow is more or less designed to create the impression of a connection, without the upkeep that a true connection would require.

This is sad, because the amount of effort necessary to maintain a single connection online is comparably negligible, when you take a look at relationships that exist in meatspace.

Social media is about relationships. If you get angry when outsiders step in, and either attempt to game the system, or to interfere without an understanding of how those relationships work, you should be fairly disgusted with the idea of something like Fake Follow. If you want the connection, you should be willing to listen to what that person has to say. Transparency, in things like this, is only reasonable.

Otherwise, you're campaigning for the fake web. You're asking for the least desirable, most charicatured aspects of the media industry to take precedence over the concepts behind social networking.

This may be the reason FriendFeed, which I hear so much about, has such minimal penetration in comparison with the hype. The people this would appeal to most are the people who are the notable pundits who love FriendFeed so much - the people who aren't actually participating in social media anymore.

on google's android.

I love Google. My blogging, email, search, online document, etc etc etc needs are fulfilled by them nearly exclusively. But I have no interest in seeing an Android phone, because I don't understand why that should excite me.

Google has never knocked me on my ass with an interface. Google has never created a beautiful UX that has changed my life. Google has always excelled at one thing - organizing and increasing access to information.

This isn't what a phone is for, really. I conduct a lot of business over the phone and via email, but my contact list isn't usually long enough to need a Google-level of search to sort it out. Phones are more about use than they are about organization.

In my mind, I already have a Google Phone - one that connects to the internet, has wi-fi, and has direct links to Google apps stored online.

All I can picture is a blank screen with one text box, and one button. This isn't so appealing, when I'm looking for a service rather than a well edited, well maintained list.

worser.

Talking about Bell's new ad campaign on the subway today, and I realised something. The entire thing, and therefore Bell's current identity for consumers, is predicated on 'er', a sound that is more or less used as a tentative delaying tactic.

Bell = 'errr...'

Maybe they know something I don't.

PSA.

I'll be M.I.A. this weekend. Spending some time at the cottage with my wonderful girlfriend.

Expect more bloggery come Monday.

passive promotion; or, i want hyperdunks.

[This is very much an example of blogging as talking out an idea.  Sorry if it meanders.]

I love creative advertising.  A great idea, something original well executed, ceases to become advertising to me - it becomes content.  Great content is watched, shared, etc.  But such a small portion of advertising reaches this level.

Which brings me to passive promotions.  Product placement, gift lounges, product seeding, etc.  Letting the presence and value of a thing speak for itself.  Product placement is valuable, but most often I find I think of it in terms of 'ways to keep television afloat despite rampant bittorrent downloads'.  This is a failing on my part.

If advertising is about creating awareness and interest, on-the-street visibility is priceless.  my question is why poorly done, low budget traditional advertising isn't almost always replaced by careful seeding.  Gifting lounges have been brought to consumer level in other countries already, letting random people from the street visit and test products, in hopes of creating word of mouth and interest.  While this isn't suitable for everything, it's suitable for something.

While lots of people will attack advertising because it represents a point of view, and offers something to be countered, the only arguments against free product are based on the quality, ethics, and environmental effects of what is offered, other than knee-jerk hate from the Adbusters crowd who sees an enemy behind any commercial offering.

This wouldn't be worth anything to many companies.  But, Nike consistently has the best advertising in the world, from a creativity, ingenuity, and beauty standpoint.  And I didn't want a pair of Hyperdunks until I saw the Chinese and American Olympic basketball teams squaring off in them.

Passive promotion is the simplest response to the army of people who like to pretend they aren't affected by marketing.  All it takes is a product that speaks for it self, and a well planned means of introduction.

pr, journalism, blogs, and going off on a tangent.

Email made it too easy.

As soon as you could build a list of contacts, reach each one of them seemingly individually, and fire everything at them instantaneously, building a tight, targeted, well maintained list fell off most PR firms radar - and, depressingly, with good reason.  If you can send out a loosely targeted blast, and then follow up with a series of tightly, carefully targeted pitches, it's possible to get more results for a minimally greater amount of work.

But it involves a lot of risk, because PR is a reputation and relationship business.  Now, though irritated, traditional media journalists have learned to tolerate this.  While reporting may be a vocation, a calling, and an integral part of identity, in the end it's a job, done to secure the means of live a comfortable life.

Blogs are different.  The majority of them don't result in rich writers, and the ones that are centered on a personality/brand rather than a brand, and then hired personalities, are as much identity as work.  If you email a blogger, there's a good chance it's at the address his friends email him at.  If you ignore his published history, you aren't ignoring the last 6 weeks of his work, you're ignoring the last 6 weeks of his ideas, conclusions, and concepts.  Blogs are more personal.  At least, based on my experience blogging and my interactions with journalists.

The long and short is, blogging is comparatively new, influential, and generally not willing to conform to the rules of the game as it is played.  There is both more (in a personal sense) and less (in a financial sense) on the line.  What amuses me is, the journalists who will get high and mighty about the importance of their industry in a proper democracy are usually half as uptight about freedoms and independence as bloggers who cover the same information.  And, those same journalists are twice as uptight about standards, sourcing, and credibility of the reportage.

I realize I wrote bitterly yesterday about the quarterly crucifixion of PR at the hands of the social media punditerati, and I don't really think I was wrong.

But if I'm going to expect new media publishers and creators to accept that there is a lot of good in my industry despite failings, I'm also going to have to ask PR to recognize that expecting anyone they interact with to behave the same, despite the differences in mandate, delivery, drives and accountability, is insane.

The right message, in the right way, to the right person.  Sounds so damn easy, but it's also more or less the only question in communication theory, asked a thousand different ways.

in defense of public relations.

In what is a fairly common occurrence, the blogosphere hates PR this week.

This is going to come off defensive, as PR is what I do for a living, but I feel like two things need to be brought to light.

My mother is a teacher, and her and I have a fairly regular argument regarding the children she works with.  She consistently argues that the internet has ruined research skills in the generation of kids she currently works with.  I argue that the failure isn’t based on the internet, it’s a failure to teach children research skills that relate to the research tools that are relevant to them.

This came to mind when I was reading about the Cuil fiasco, and chuckled when people blamed overzealous PR, etc, for the fact the bloggers, print media, and television collectively went crazy over an experience that is more or less completely underwhelming.

If the situation has changed, and you’re having trouble delivering results, blaming someone else isn’t the solution to the problem.  If you work in a journalistic capacity, you are supposed to be the gatekeepers.  If you can’t fulfill that role, you probably shouldn’t be blaming someone for providing information that led you in the wrong direction.  Update your skill set, so you can judge what is worth covering, and how to cover it.

That said, there’s no excuse for PR reps that out and out lie.  No one, especially not the clients, is helped by that.

The other thing I’ve noticed, despite everyone complaining about PR, is that traditional media journalists complain about PR the way I complain about taxes.  I hate paying them, but I recognize they serve an important purpose.  That said, I get irritated when my taxes are wasted, or used against my own beliefs.

More often than not, it seems like bloggers complain about PR the way a 15 year old complains about curfew - they have something resembling the point, but they irritatingly ignore every positive aspect, and would rather throw the entire industry out with the bath-water than learn to work with the practitioners who get it, and the aspects which are positive.

PR has an image problem.  A serious one.  That’s something I look forward to working against.  Pretending PR has become irrelevant, however, because there is an ever larger number of unofficial information sources to parse, makes no sense whatsoever.

Signal is noise, because anyone with an opinion can publish.  Crafting valid, relevant signals, as getting them in front of the right people, is what I do.  Done well, that’s inarguably valuable.  But only done well, and with an understanding of how the game is changing.

just for the record.

There's someone out there on answerbag who also goes by the broken gentleman, although he seems to prefer capitalization.  I am in no way affiliated with him, other than getting many, many google alerts related to his answerbag postings.

Carry on.