Recently in Minding Media Category

Is technology an addiction? Well, spend a few hours around my 17-year-old who treats her iPhone like it's her first born and you'll have your answer.

On a typical weeknight, I come home after a day connected to my computer and "Smart" phone to find the family in the following positions:

Wife: On computer with headset or Skype-ing with someone on the other side of the globe.

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Son: Sitting on couch watching TV, playing games on iTouch with laptop nearby.

Daughter: Holed up in bedroom video chatting on her MacBook Air while Tweeting at speed that crushes the sound barrier.

These are the reasons I could enthusiastically relate to Bill Davidow's recent article in The Atlantic, "Technology Addiction Will Lead to Our Evolution or Enslavement."

After reading Davidow's piece, I'm not so sure that machines enslaving the human race someday is so far-fetched. I'm certain Newt "Fly Me to The Moon" Gingrich might agree.

Anyway, one of the most captivating points Davidow makes is that "for the past 150,000 generations, evolution has designed our minds, brains, and body to live in only one world at a time. When we attempt to live in two simultaneously - the physical and the virtual - the consequences can be very serious."

Davidow highlights how technology can be a marvel (laptops in the operating room) and a menace (driving while under the influence of texting), and ponders whether or not Orwellian control over our technology use might actually be a good idea.

Frankly, if I had more time, I'd consider it, but I'm too busy answering my daughter's text, while simultaneously on hold with customer service about my Android phone, Tweeting about last night's dinner and drafting my blog item on my iPad.

-- Ron Neal, rneal@pondel.com

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Entrepreneur Magazine recently published "Mark Cuban's 12 Rules for Startups."  Many of the rules provide a common sense approach to starting a new business.  But the eleventh rule made me woozy.

Here's what it said: "Never hire a PR firm." You can certainly understand my bemusement when reading these words.

Cuban qualified this rule by saying that PR folks are calling and emailing reporters and editors when, in fact, the founders of companies should be calling and emailing the same reporters and editors "who will welcome hearing from (them) instead of some PR flak."  Gosh, that's harsh.  I mean, calling PR folks "flaks" is the equivalent of calling a fresh piece of rye bread a "crouton."

Indeed, Cuban is talking about startups and not established companies, and hiring a PR firm isn't always a top priority when eating and keeping the lights on are hard enough.  But if you cannot afford to hire a PR firm, you should probably ask a flak friend for some pro bono advice before banishing their firms altogether. 

Here are my top six reasons why:

1.       First impressions matter.  If you send a lackluster pitch or sloppily written email to any self-respecting reporter or editor, it's going to be tough getting their attention.

2.       It takes a lot of time and energy to cultivate media sources, so determine whether you have extra time to contact editors and reporters with punchy and seductive things to say.

3.       Crafting your own messaging (basically how a company describes itself to the public) is about as simple as staring at yourself in the mirror and describing what you see.

4.       It's not easy communicating a calm and cohesive message to employees, investors, customers and others who rely on your services when you find yourself in the midst of a crisis.  That's when PR pros really come in handy.

5.       The number of professional reporters and editors is shrinking due to consolidation in the media industry.  That means startups and established companies alike are responsible for generating their own buzz, and at the very least, communicating with important constituencies.   That's what PR firms do.

6.       And finally, always question someone who criticizes the value of a PR firm when they themselves are billionaires, not to mention shameless self-promoters.  From the Washington Post:  "He (Cuban) is on television or the radio marveling at his charmed existence ... 'When I die, I want to come back as me,' he likes to say..."  Unfortunately, we're not all Mark Cuban.

-- Evan Pondel, epondel@pondel.com

New York Times advertising columnist Stuart Elliott may finally have given the public relations industry some needed street cred. His November 20th bylined article, "Redefining Public Relations in the Age of Social Media," discussed why the Public Relations Society of America has embarked on its own campaign to change the definition of "public relations."  

This blogger over the years has had several conversations with Stuart about the importance of public relations (PR) long before this recent column, prompting the need for more coverage on the industry since it has become more integral to the marketing efforts of brands and organizations.

The existing definition, "public relations helps an organization and its publics adapt mutually to each other," has been around for nearly 30 years.  You'd be surprised at a few of the suggested changes being floated around, some worse than others.

Quite frankly, nothing has changed.  Public relations still helps organizations "talk" to their constituencies.  The only real change is the way these organizations communicate with key audiences since the rise of the Internet.  Social media is just a new vehicle or another medium, whether it's a brand interacting with consumers, a business-to-business organization talking with customers or even a publicly traded company communicating with investors.

All this chatter about a definition change ironically is good publicity for public relations, which has gotten a bad rap now and then.  The word "spin" has a negative connation and often is incorrectly used to help explain PR, which is only a small component of the broader discipline, although there may be no denying some truth to the negative sentiment.

Explaining public relations to those that don't really understand it always has been a challenge, whether educating a family member or even a new business prospect.   It's very complicated to say the least and probably more art than science, not to mention nerve-racking. Coincidentally, public relations continually ranks high in surveys about the most stressful careers.

One crude yet effective way to explain public relations is to compare it to advertising.  Advertising is an organization talking about itself and public relations is someone else talking about that organization.  A client once said that people will remember an article in print or online but very rarely recall the ad next to it.

Selling PR to prospective clients may be a little easier as more people engage in the discussion about a definition change. The reality however is that people are talking about PR and for the public relations industry that's a job well done

 -- George Medici, gmedici@pondel.com

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The Occupy Wall Street movement is less than two months old, and yet it feels like the story has been around for decades.  I'm not convinced it's a result of the Occupiers' public relations prowess.  It's probably more of a function of the archetypal roots of the story - media have been covering protests ever since the dawn of newsprint.  And think about the ingredients that comprise this protest story.  There's emotion, civil disobedience, and plenty of cause, especially with a staggering unemployment rate and an allegedly clear and present culprit: Wall Street.

But the future of the Occupy movement is unknown, and even though big banks are the targets du jour, who's next in line and what are the Occupiers' long-term goals?  It appears the movement is in the midst of a public relations crisis, and unless the collective consciousness can think of something quickly, the cold snap of winter is going to shut this protest down.

War, civil rights and genocide all present perfectly valid theses for inciting protest.  There is a means to an end, and even if the end is not near, the path to salvation is clear.  But the Occupy movement has no such endpoint.  All of the ingredients are present, with the exception of a well-articulated goal.  Hey, hey, the protesters might say, the movement is evolving organically because that's what the people want.  But when was the last time you tried to accomplish something without knowing what exactly you were trying to accomplish?

So here's some public relations advice to keep the protest alive and media engaged:

• Set some realistic goals that Occupiers and non-Occupiers can understand and rally around to stay motivated;

• Assemble a dream team in Washington, i.e. lobbyists, politicians, union leaders, financial executives, etc ... and create an action plan that everyone running in the 2012 election will have to address and promise to review if elected;

• Keep the messaging consistent across the country.  Yes, there are a lot of things people are angry about, but staying focused on specific topics will ensure a more cohesive and powerful message;

• Know your allies and do whatever is possible and practical to support them;

• Do not generalize or stereotype when attacking a target.  Be specific.  Not everyone on Wall Street or who works for a big bank is an enemy.  The movement has already alienated itself from powerful people who can help accomplish the very change the Occupiers are (perhaps) seeking.

-- Evan Pondel, epondel@pondel.com 

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The Federal Reserve Bank of New York, largest of the 12 regional Reserve Banks, has issued 44 news releases so far this year. 

The subjects have ranged from economic updates and special studies, to the appointment of new officers and board members, to a little publicized announcement last March of a blog launch, Liberty Street Economics--serving as a platform for the Fed's Research and Statistics Group to share personal insight on current issues, as well as engage in direct dialog with a "broad online audience."

In addition to pushing information out, however, the New York Fed--also in a scantly publicized notice--now wants to know what is being said about it on social media, and they are seeking bids from monitoring companies to help them. 

Fed officials, as recently reported by Walter Hamilton in the Los Angeles Times, want to "get a better sense of the relevant concerns and discussions that are taking place in the public domain in order to enhance and improve...the role it plays in supporting the U.S. economy."

We advise our clients, almost daily, that it is critical to know what their constituents are thinking and what they are saying, if for no other reason, to react appropriately and address concerns. 

For the Fed, certainly much of the findings will undoubtedly be negative because of the state of the economy.  But oddly, word of the Fed's move has exploded in the political blogosphere, firestorm style, with fears of how the information will be used and talk of Big Brother.

My goodness! Calm down, fellow bloggers, this is no big deal. It's just old fashioned market research being applied to a new medium.

Ironically, it's amusing to note that in Hamilton's coverage, he quoted an executive at New York-based software company ConvergeEx Group, which recently issued a press release about a new product, Spectrum, offering the "power of dark liquidity," and "the benefits of executing in a diverse array of dark venues" and enabling users to trade cash neutral in the dark." 

Even the best of monitoring companies won't likely penetrate that.

Roger Pondel, rpondel@pondel.com

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A few weeks ago, a cantaloupe farm from Southern Colorado became the center of attention, but not the kind of attention a small organization would opt for. A listeria outbreak linked to the farm caused 72 illnesses and 13 deaths, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. This outbreak has been deemed the deadliest in the United States in more than a decade.

Disasters such as these serve as important reminders to make sure crisis communications plans are ready to go. Following are some ideas to keep top of mind when starting or reviewing that plan:

·       Create a messaging platform - A number of important points should be put together to combat any questions brought on by the media and any customers, such as addressing the issue at hand, explaining what the company is doing to settle the issue and move forward in a positive direction, etc.

·       Provide constant updates on new information - As more information is gathered and received, every bit should be readily available and shared with the public.  

·       If needed, gather third party support - If there are holes in the information for the crisis, hire additional support, such as investigators. Do everything you can to find out all of the little details so there are no missing pieces to the puzzle.

·       Gather support from the industry - If this is an issue comparable to the cantaloupe saga, it will affect other players in the industry. Communicate with other companies in similar spaces who can help communicate information about the issue as well.

·       Hire a communications firm with experience in crises - There are many firms that focus extensively on crisis management and can help companies mitigate the damaging effects of a crisis.   

For more information on Crisis Communications, feel free to contact me at mwilson@pondel.com and I'd be happy to introduce you to our team.

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This past week has been quite the roller coaster for investors and public companies alike. The Dow fell 513 points on Thursday, August 4, the biggest drop since 2008.

Following are some quotes from a few publications to sum up this week's sentiment among the investment community:

-- "The very fact that we have been engrossed in dealing with our debt ceiling issues has taken our focus away from the task at hand--growing our economy and job creation,'' said Bill Nuti, chairman and CEO of NCR Corp, a maker of automated-teller machines and other products."If the U.S. credit rating is downgraded, he warned, "our economy will transition from a slow-growth scenario to a no-growth scenario, and we could likely find ourselves in a double-dip recession." www.wsj.com

-- "You've got a weak economy, the aversion of a debt crisis but not a solution, and you've got the rest of the globe starting to implode in a lot of areas, especially Europe," said Barry James, president and chief executive of the James Advantage Funds. "It's natural that people would react with fear." www.wsj.com

-- "The markets were very similar from a macroeconomic standpoint as they were on May 6 of last year, and obviously things performed much better," said Joseph Cangemi, managing director of electronic trading for Convergex Inc. "We could have had a situation at any one time where capitulation could have happened, but the market structure itself did not allow it to breach any critical levels." www.wsj.com

-- "Investors are anxious about the U.S. and global economic outlook, and the current market volatility reflects their distress," said Larry Leibowitz, chief operating officer of NYSE Euronext. "While high volume has accompanied this volatility, we have not seen a real panic," he added, asserting that exchanges' performance has been "high" through a "difficult time." www.wsj.com

-- "People are worried about liquidity and where the economy is going, and don't see any sort of life preserver as yet," said Doug Roberts, chief investment strategist at Channel Capital Research. www.marketwatch.com

-- "The ECB needs to continue to be aggressive in its efforts to solve the euro-zone debt crisis, but this will not happen overnight and as a result, will affect the U.S. economy in a negative way," said Kevin Giddis, a fixed-income analyst at Morgan Keegan. www.marketwatch.com

-- "The most important thing for people to do right now is to take a deep breath, whether you're reacting to the latest, pretty good job numbers or you're still in shell shock from everything else we've learned in the last week," said Jerry Webman, chief economist at Oppenheimer Funds in New York. www.yahoofinance.com

-- "The burden of debt has become much more onerous because the outlook for growth is sliding back. That is very concerning for the markets," said Don Smith, economist at ICAP, the largest inter-dealer broker in the world. "The fear is ultimately about defaults and business failures." www.yahoofinance.com

-- Meg Wilson, mwilson@pondel.com

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Social media have been a part of our lives long before the advent of the Internet.  When our ancestors used ochre, hematite, charcoal and other materials to paint their triumphs and tragedies on cave walls and ceilings, they were engaging in social media.

When ancient Egyptians carved elaborate scenes on vases, amulets and pots, they were engaging in social media.

And when Pauline Phillips established her "Dear Abby" advice column in 1956, she was engaging in social media.

Media have always been social.  The difference today is that the Internet speeds up the dissemination of information, which is often repurposed and then dubbed "social" when it's tweeted or published on a blog, YouTube or Facebook.   The challenge for professional communicators is harnessing the speed and power of the Internet to communicate effectively.

In the investor relations world, many professionals do not believe that today's social media outlets establish effective lines of communication.  The proof:  84 percent of IROs do not use social media to communicate with their constituents, according to a Thomson Reuters survey due out this week.

I understand that IR folks, including myself, are more cautious about embracing social media because so many of the facts and figures we work with require adherence to strict disclosure procedures.   But that shouldn't stop us from tapping into social media for other purposes, including the reinforcement of messaging and establishing dialogue with customers, shareholders and even employees.

As communications professionals, it serves in our best interest to understand how social media can be utilized to communicate more effectively with different audiences.  For example, London-based Derwent Capital runs a hedge fund that relies on Twitter for investment direction. StockTwits, which my colleague, Matt Sheldon, wrote about nearly six months ago, continues to garner more credibility in investor circles.

The bottom line is that human civilization has come a long way since relying on granite, clay and, yes, newsprint, to facilitate the flow of information.  Don't you think it's about time that IROs do the same?

-- Evan Pondel, epondel@pondel.com

"Think outside the box."  "Stretch your imagination."  "No idea is too big or too small."  How many times have we heard those phrases when brainstorming solutions?  Everyone who practices our craft strives to be as creative as possible to generate the best results for our clients, but how many communications professionals fully understand the ramifications of their chosen strategy?  That's why this story about a top-five public relations firm really piqued my interest.

I am not using this blog to place blame (plenty of media outlets have already done that), but rather to examine what happened and help others learn how to avoid what has become a rather public embarrassment for said PR firm.

On behalf of an unnamed client, who has since been identified as Facebook, Burson-Marsteller began a "whisper" campaign against Google to shed light on some of their privacy practices, presumably in the name of helping Facebook get out ahead of the competition.  While this practice might not seem extraordinary, the way the campaign was conducted, and the fact that it came from a highly respected firm, was a bit unorthodox.   

The events:

• A Burson employee, former political columnist John Mercurio, offered to ghost write and place an op-ed column for former FTC researcher and blogger Christopher Soghoian, but would not provide the name of the client to Soghoian.
• Soghoian responded by posting Mercurio's email pitch, along with his rejection, on the Internet. According to Forbes, Soghoian said, "I am quite capable of authoring my own anti-google stuff thank you."
• USA Today devoted a story to the campaign about a week later, which included information about the pitch they received from Burson employee Jim Goldman, a former CNBC reporter.
• Former Internet analyst Henry Blodget, who now writes for Silicon Alley Insider, later proclaimed, "BUSTED: Former CNBC Tech Reporter Jim Goldman Caught Spreading Lies About Google For Unnamed PR Client."
• Burson-Marsteller says that it shouldn't have pitched negative Google stories on behalf of Facebook.

 
In their apology, Burson conceded that, "When talking to the media, we need to adhere to strict standards of transparency about clients, and this incident underscores the absolute importance of that principle."

Media is a fantastic tool to get your messages to a broad group of people, but remember that everything you say or write is "on the record."  Should we continue to find creative ways to disseminate messages?  Of course.  Should we do so without transparency?  Absolutely not.  In most cases, taking the high road is indeed the best course of action. 

-- Laurie Berman, lberman@pondel.com

Last week, I attended a networking event hosted by Bank of America Merrill Lynch at the Paley Center for Media in Beverly Hills. The event included an exclusive screening of "I AM," a documentary that recounts the story of filmmaker Tom Shadyac after a cycling accident left him with post-concussion syndrome. Though he recovered, he emerged a changed man.  Known for directing films such as, "Ace Venture: Pet Detective" and "The Nutty Professor," Shadyac embarked on a journey to discover how he, as an individual, can improve his life, and what we, the audience, can do to make our lives better.

The film explored why today's culture is so engulfed and obsessed with competition and separation, instead of community and cooperation. The film features interviews with well-known cultural figures such as Archbishop Desmond Tutu and the late historian Howard Zinn, as well as lesser-known scientists, poets and evolutionary biologists.

After watching "I AM," it got me thinking about how Shadyac's film can not only be applied to each of us on a personal level, but to the business realm as well.

The film is particularly relevant to our line of work because it reminds us how important it is to understand the communities we serve, particularly investor constituencies.   The more public companies and investors understand and communicate with each other, the more likely it will enhance long-term shareholder value.  And that's something we can all appreciate in this environment.

-- Meg Wilson, mwilson@pondel.com