Archive for the ‘Communities’ Category

James of Redmonk has an interesting analysis of Microsoft and IBM’s big announcements this week.

IBM wanted to frame the debate using terms like "collaborative processing" and collaborative design. What the hell is collaborative processing? Who cares, as long as it means brand z9 and brand IBM are associated with one of today’s hot memes, collaboration. And the association worked bloody well, as these links show.

I’ve had many "moments" with analysts – all flavors in fact. These include "moments" where I’ve recommended companies stop funding certain industry analysts. But that is very different than Altera’s moves covered in the NYT this morning. They are cutting a financial analyst out, claiming it is not in the interests of shareholders to work with him. Bad move on their part. No need to do business with them if you don’t like their views, but I beleive companies have a responsibility to communicate.

First, this sends entirely the wrong message to shareholders. So you are going to make calls on who gets to ask questions and who gets information? As a shareholder I want you to be entirely transparent. Opacity is a reason to sell, not to buy. Assuming we don’t have the smarts to read and interpret research is insulting.

Second, we’re in the Participatory Age. That means fostering participation through engagement and transparency. It doesn’t mean cutting out people whose opinions you don’t agree with when you have a responsibility to deal with them on behalf of your shareholders. All this does is call into question your business practices.

I’m selling.

I’m tired of all the bloggers whineing about being pitched by PR people. Get the heck over it.

The irony here is that the less the bloggers want to be like traditional media, the more they sound like them – complaining endlessly about PR people; screaming self importance from every rooftop; trying to figure out how to manage a profession that can’t even police itself…

So, big tip – do what Dan Gillmor did years ago and let the PR people know what works in terms of pitching you, and what doesn’t. They’ll listen. Well, at least the smart ones will. As for the rest, stupid is as stupid does. You get to punish them in your own special way.

Some asked for feedback on what to do, so here is some. I have zero interest in navel gazing at conferences or group policy development… or another stupid manifesto that the A list salivate over while the real world struggles to even remotely grasp tagging… zero. Instead, I suggest we go with the flow and let people participate. That we encourage participation. That is what all this is about. PARTICIPATION!

You wanted it. You got it.

Russ’ idea of pretty little boxes telling PR people might work for the A-List – and hey, it involves colored boxes which most of us can deal with (red = bad). What it ignores though is that the vast majority of these pitches are the worst kind – they are just PR spam. And just like email spam doesn’t come from legitimate marketers, PR spam doesn’t come from legitimate PR pros. And spammers don’t care about pretty little boxes. Your email has probably made it onto a list and is being used by people who have never visited your blog. My recommendation – reflected in my policy – is that if someone is harassing you and they aren’t listening – drop their client’s CEO an email. PR people tend to react to that pretty quickly. I do like Russ’ other guidelines and thoughts though.

We need to let folks know what works for us as individuals. As far as I am concerned, shoot me news, ideas, pitches. I’m listening. There is a 90% probability I won’t write about anything you send me. If I feel you are wasting my time I’ll let you know – and if you don’t respect my request I’ll let the CEO of your client know. I’m not so important. I’m very proud to be not A list. I just like hanging out here and think its cool you might want to share something with me.

And, if you work for Apple, Audi, Porsche or Canali I definitely would like a pitch that involves me getting a freebie…  (sorry, couldn’t resist that…)

I’ve long advocated the need for the PR industry to embrace commoditized media measurement in order to direct more dollars to measuring what matters. Seems the Advertising industry is heading in this direction.

A joint-task force composed of members of the Association of National Advertisers, American Association of Advertising Agencies and the Advertising Research Foundation yesterday unveiled an initiative that would shake up the classic equation of advertising math that determines consumer exposure to an ad. It would replace the concept of frequency — the number of exposures to an ad — with “engagement,” a metric that could better reflect the growing number of media choices facing consumers, from cell phones and the Internet to video games and podcasts. [AdAge]

This will only become more important as communicators discover the need to measure the degree to which customers are participating in their communities and brands. The best campiagns will measure what changed: did we move markets, change minds and increase sales? This isn’t just about driving communications accountability, its also about driving marketing accountability.

Public relationships has been what Public Relations has been about since the phrase was first coined. Read any history of the industry. The future, much like the past, will all be about public relationships albeit in new ways with new tools. But, IMHO, defining it in these terms is of little help to any PR practitioner. What we do need a deeper understanding of what this Participatory Era is all about. I’m not just talking the need for a new tag.

I see and meet many communications professionals working hard to understand what to do next. Much of the focus is around using all the new technology we have at our disposal to engage in deeper conversations with communities – not just audiences – that surround products and businesses. And, how to participate authentically with them. In this context, Blogs are not public relationships. They are however a tool or platform for engaging in the kind of dialog that underpins healthy relationships.

Another notion I’d like to challenge is the premise that companies could communicate much more
effectively in this Era by just encouraging everyone to chatter away. This is as much of a
bunk as the notion that PR people are purely intermediaries and connectors. I’m not saying it will work or not work exclusively – but as a
premise its nonsensical. It assumes that "the public" actually cares
about the thousands of opinions a company might express through these
thousands of micro-channels, let alone that they have the time to do
it. And, maybe PR people have an even greater role as intermediaries – just not with the other intermediaries: the media, influencers and pundits – but now directly with their communities?

Now, I’m not saying don’t let people blog. I advocate quite the opposite.
Let them at it. But viewing this as a communications strategy is a big mistake. What it really misses is what the audience wants. What is important here isn’t what we want PR to become but what communities want from their partners. That will define what PR is.

In fact, where PR really gets challenged is that their intermediaries are becoming less important. With the emergence of direct communications channels like podcasts and blogs I want to hear directly from the source. I’m not interested in anyone who is an intermediary – traditional media and pundits esp. And I’m increasingly frustrated that some of my favorite brands (they all begin with A) haven’t got this yet.

Anyway, what so many of these posts miss is that the people driving the spin and opacity in communications today are primarily the business and marketing leaders – OK, PR people are in the mix – but they aren’t the driver. Pointing to PR people and the profession as the origin of the problem is a total cop-out. We need to move this dialog into the c-suite. This revolution we are in the midst of is all about changing the ways companies communicate and that needs to start at the top.

I also don’t know what the PR industry will look like in 10 years (although I have some ideas). What I do know is that a deeper understanding of what it is today and what it has been are desperately needed if we are to really grasp the implications of blogging and the Participatory Era for business – and the business of communicating.