Archive for the ‘Media’ Category

One of the free eZines I like is the AR Insider from KCG. Subscribe here. One of their writers has some tough commentary on the Gartner/META acquisition. Here are some of the highlights. First, they make the fair point that:

“…vendors that tend to get creamed by the analysts in M&A are the ones who make the announcement, but don’t seem to have any real plan for migrating customers, honoring contracts and articulating a go-forward plan and vision.”

On that basis they go on to recommend that companies don’t renew old Meta subscription based services until both Meta and Gartner management can tell you why you should.

Given what has been communicated so far, we feel that the chances of you getting what you want from the transaction and not having at least some of the value of the subscription vanish are very slim.

They go on to give a couple of reasons:

“…Many of Meta’s top analysts will leave as part of the acquisition.

…Lack of Communication or Plan. As of yet, Gartner nor Meta executive leadership has not stepped forward to offer anybody, not even their best clients (nor many of their senior analysts and managers) any indication as to what the new combined entity will look like and most importantly, how current Meta clients will be accommodated.

…Lack of Management Direction Leads to Stupid Sales Rep Tricks. This is where it gets almost unbelievable. The behavior right now of Meta’s sales force is pathetic. I don’t mean evil or even hyper aggressive, I mean pathetic in its dictionary definition – dismal, sad, pitiable, weak or feeble… we have seen the evidence and it isn’t pretty. We have seen over a dozen emails over the last three weeks from Meta sales reps to our clients, where they have tried, in vain to conduct business. We have seen denial “There is a good chance the acquisition won‚t go through”, we have seen obvious misstatement “Meta will not be merged into Gartner anytime in the foreseeable future (let‚s see Gartner management sell that one to Wall Street) and we have seen obvious desperation.” “Just sign now and we’ll figure out the details later”.

…The Bottom Line. So, you have a 50:50 chance that your key analyst (which, of course, for vendors is more important than the firm) will still work there, you have no guidance as to how any business you do with Meta now will translate into similar services with Gartner as the deal consummates and you have rudderless Meta sales reps trying to tell you that business is usual and nothing has changed.”

KCG deserves a huge amount of credit for flagging what is, isn’t or might be going on here. Sign-up for the newsletter.

Interesting piece in the Chron this morning on employers firing bloggers for breaching variours company policies. Included a quote from Schwartz:-

“Well over 1000 (Sun employees) have been given space for blogging. There’s no restraint on what they can blog about. We provide tools and expect them to use them responsibly. Restricting what you can write on a blog is the same as restricting what you can say in an email or a phone call. And if they aren’t speaking as an employee, well, we live in a country that values free speech.” — Jonathan Schwartz

Tim Bray, another Sun blogger also has some interesting pointers on blogging sensibly.

Shit. January is nearly over. Where’d it go!

You Gotta Pay To Play. So after a week chatting about that Ketchum thing there’s this little doozy flagged by Dan Gillmor. In a bitchy letter to Wal-Mart the erstwhile editor of the National Newspapers Association – Mike Buffington – all but says that in order to get coverage, you need to advertise. Screw having something meaningful to say, something of local interest or importance, something your readers might like to read about. No:

“So why is it that community newspapers in America are good enough to help you fend off critics with free PR, but we’re not good enough for your paid advertising?

You can’t have it both ways.

Based on a number of previous conversations I’ve had with newspaper publishers and editors across America, I don’t think you will find very many who are willing to give you the requested free PR space to fend off attacks from your corporate critics.

I believe my view is one held by many newspaper publishers: If Wal-Mart wants to communicate valuable information about itself to our readers, then you can purchase our valuable advertising space to do it.”

OK – so now we’re all clear. What’s between the ads in newspapers is PR-space and to get that all you need to do is advertise. And, if you have valuable information you’d better advertise as well. Brilliant! I’m not sure he could have crafted a more insulting letter to journalists and PR professionals.

IT Conversations has a great Podcast from the Gillmor Gang with some lucid comments by Stephen O’Grady of Redmonk. Lots of chatter on Schwartz’s blog which this last week had an interesting post on Network Intelligence.

Couple of comments on the podcast. The notion that lawyers might shut down Schwartz’s blog is, well, unlikely if not a little amusing. The Sun team is smart enough to take counsel and as Jonathan has pointed out he has to worry about SOX, fair disclosure and all those other issues a section 16 officer has to.

What the conversation does point to is a central issue facing all communictors, evangelists and managers of corporate blogs – how to ensure your obligations as an employee in a public company are considered when posting to blogs. I don’t believe the law differentiates between a personal and private blog in this respect. What it does look at is fair disclosure of material information and today, blogs are not regarded to represent fair disclosure in the same way that a wire service is.

Bloggers as Employees. So while much of the debate focuses on the difference between a journalist and a blogger, we might also start focusing on the blogger as employee… are they different from your mainstream blogger? This is a similar issue that has resulted in Apple going after ThinkSecret. Simply put, bloggers aren’t seen as journalists, blogs aren’t seen as media outlets.

Open Dialogue. Take a look at Jonathan’s latest blog, an open letter to IBM. While it would be easy to view this soley as smart PR it is something more potent – transparency. I can’t think of any more public and effective way of speaking with the Sun community and enlisting support. Dan Fraber touches on this over at ZDNet:

Sun is using blogs, open letters, Web sites, and customer testimonials as guerilla warfare, take-it-to-the-streets tools to force a much larger competitor to accede to its needs/demands. It’s becoming totally embarrassing for IBM. It’s hard to imagine how IBM can come up with any reasonable excuse that the IT community (customers) would accept and save face at this point. Given the public forum and the support Sun has built up among customers and other vendors for its request, IBM should just bite the bullet and port the apps.

At the end of the open letter, Schwartz says, “We stand at the ready to help you tear down this wall.” It’s not an epic battle of communism (Berlin Wall) versus democracy, but we can expect to see more companies using a similar tactic–using public forums rather than just backrooms to alter the course of business.

Yes, blogs will alter the course of business. But it takes the guts and savvy Schwartz is consistently willing to show for that to happen. Sun is also demonstrating a willingness to use Blogs to further what is right for it’s customers – something IBM doesn’t seem so willing to do.

Listen to the podcasts coming out of the “Blogging, Journalism and Credibility: Battleground and Common Ground” conference. David Weinberger makes some interesting points on the incompleteness of Weblogs. I find all my entries are generally incomplete – and that I do change my view as folks chat to me about my postings. David also makes the important point that Blogs are the key to having an online community:

You can’t have a weblog if your style of writing is that you finish your pieces. Therefore, anybody who works in a profession which depends on completed documents– journalism, academia, law, engineers, medicine– it is impossible to develop community. Posted on the Conference Site – not sure if he actually said this.

Accepting incompleteness is going to be a real challenge for communicators. We’re trained to write perfect, polish like crazy and present views set in stone. But central to blogging is incompleteness and community – both of which are tangental in some respect to all we have been taught.

Entertainment Break. If you love web radio, you gotta love KCRW. I’m now listening to more on my computer than on traditional radio. Tip For Communicators: Turn that staid news site into a fully-fledged broadcast channel. Feedroom is a great and economical way to get going.

Opensource Analysts… Alex Barnett and Tom Murphy have more detailed posts on Redmonk’s recent moves. Stephen O’Grady – the other half of Redmonk has five pointers on why the open source analyst model might work:

1. Open Source is as Applicable to Industry Analysis as it is to Software

2. Great Ideas Come Can Come from Anyone

3. The Group Mind is Smarter than the Individual

4. An Idea’s Power is Proportional to Its Audience

5. Proprietary Analysis is a Myth

6. Open Source is About More than Source Code

Blogging Ethics. Some interesting ideas on blogging ground-rules and ethics and a story over at AP.

Great Graphic. I’ve been a big evangelist of PR people using graphics to tell stories. Here’s a great example of a graphic that tells a story.

Hardball. A great incentive to read the book from Fast Company. Tom Peters hated it – which is a stunner in so far as Tom’s positive on just about everything. Here are some of the tenets of playing Hardball:

Unleash Massive and Overwhelming Force. After Eagle Snacks grabbed a 6% share of the salty-snack business, Frito-Lay responded with an all-out war of quality improvements and price cuts. Eagle ultimately folded.

Threaten Your Competitor’s Profit Sanctuaries. First, Japanese automakers attacked the U.S. car market, capturing more and more share while the Big Three gorged themselves on profits from SUVs. Now the Japanese are moving aggressively into that market.

Take It and Make It Your Own. In other words: borrow, mimic, copy. Microsoft does it, of course. But so does Ryanair, which has copied Southwest Airlines and transformed the airline industry in Europe.

Break Compromises. Don’t go along to get along. If everybody in your business is closed on Sunday because, well, that’s the custom, you should open your doors

Keynote week… I’ve been working hard on my Keynote for the NewComm Forum this week. Really looking forward to it. WIll post notes, thoughts, copy of the preso and transcript here later in the week.

Have a good one!

David Berlind has a great piece on transparency over at ZDNet.

Wherever there has been a gross injustice because of a broken system, the muttering “transparency” usually isn’t far behind.  If we can go behind the scenes, we’ll spot trouble before it happens, and the actors–knowing we’re there–will all behave better. David Berlind, ZDNet, Jan 18, 2005

First, he deserves applause for recognizing transparency as a major issue for all journalists. Equally, PR practitioners at every level need to recognize that transparency is priority in every aspect of our business. From providing spokespeople through billing and into measurement. An understanding and implementation of transparency (which is rooted in ethics) would have enabled us to avoid the Ketchum issue.

Second, David makes some great points with regard to the application of technology to improving transparency – and provides a salient example. But moreover he nails it in that we have to earn our reputation and then protect it through our actions. There is no fine-line here. Just a solid yellow. Cross it – become opaque – and integrity goes out the window. David provides a great example of this in the story.

At the end of the interview with UserLand CEO Scott Young, he offered to send me a book by Rogers Cadenhead on how to use Radio UserLand.  I accepted the offer.  It’s not unusual for vendors to provide journalists who are reviewing their technology with additional documentation.  But, as I played the recording back and thought of how transparency was in effect, I couldn’t be absolutely certain that all members of ZDNet’s audience would see it the same way.  I’m not going to send my address to Scott Young and, instead, if I decide that I need the book, I will pay the $24 charge for it with my own company’s money.  Already, transparency is having its effect.

Technology can help close the credibility gap – for media and PR – but only if underpinned by transparency and a solid code of ethics.

Transparency is as a major issue for tech communications which are largely opaque (at best). For a long time the media published endless diatribe from a major customer of a major Linux vendor without ever revealing that that the CEO of that company also held a large amount of stock in said Linux vendor. Just a few weeks ago a read an article about a telco equipment vendor switching server suppliers without any reference to the fact that that vendor had a competing technology to its incumbent server supplier. Not only should it have been switching but it shouldn’t have even been using that suppliers technology in the first place.

Before technology can address the transparency issue – or drive us towards more of it – we need to rethink practices and resources – and educate on ethics – which should be a priority for every PR department and agency. We should not assume that people arrive with a clear understanding of ethics, the policies and practices that underpin them and the resulting transperancy. Behavior needs to be taught.

The stuff that seems to be a nuisance – producing transcripts following keynotes, setting up webcasts, posting notes from interviews – need to become embodied in the day-to-day practice of communications. And communications teams need to be resourced to do it. Action for Communicators – resource the little stuff and the big stuff will take care of itself. And, get on with the little stuff. Post those transcripts when the article hits. Get them out within an hour or so of a keynote.

Jay Rosen recently called for CBS to start posting transcripts from its interviews – a great first step to restoring credibility post-Rathergate.

And, never provide a non-employee spokesperson without revealing if that person is paid and the position they support. Maybe companies should start publishing a paid spokesperson (and industry analyst) registry on their sites? Maybe all publicly funded campaigns should have the same registry? Maybe our industry bodies could maintain that registry?

We all have a right to engage in promotion and propaganda. But if we do so without transparency then we cross an ethical line that will ultimately harm us. Not just you, but all of us. And the very ideas that we seek to promote will be undermined. Steve Hayden said it well in a piece in Fortune on blogging:

“If you fudge or lie on a blog, you are biting the karmic weenie. The negative reaction will be so great that, whatever your intention was, it will be overwhelmed and crushed like a bug.”Steve Hayden, vice chairman, Ogilvy & Mather

So, wrapping-up, to steal a line – and edit it – from Jay, after trust me journalism, communications and spokespeople must come openness..

Apparently we’re all bad, bad people for not jumping on the Ketchum issue:-

Bloggers Are Missing in Action as Ketchum Tests the Conscience of PR

“Maybe this is the way things are done all the time in PR today. It’s one of the most plausible explanations we have for the Ketchum contract, the apparent fraudulence of which is roughly parallel to the memos in the Dan Rather case.”

First, Jay is so, so wrong. There’s been plenty of dialogue flying around on this. And lets not be so arrogant as to assume that dialogue needs to take place here – although fair point that more might of. From me as well. Richard Edleman’s commentary is commendable as was that of Paul Holmes.

And since when does anyone get to set the nature or volume of the editorial agenda – and the hypicrosy is a little rich – there are dozens of issues I see media bloggers absent on – circulation, ethics, disclosure, inaccurate reporting, advertiser bias.

OK – so enough of the “ain’t we all bad bloggers” side-show… And on to the real issue, which for me is as much about media ethics as it is about PR ethics. So lets start there.

In all the materials I’ve read and looked at there doesn’t seem to be anything explicity in writing calling for Williams to provide positive commentary – although this is implicit in the payment. Bias and space was bought. The media were hoodwinked. Or were they just asleep at the wheel? Either way, Ketchum employees and Williams should not have knowlingly engaged in such flagrant media and public manipulation, made all the worse for doing so with public funds. And neither should go without some kind of censure that would include the return of misused public funds. That was our money. We’d like it back.

Ketchum is a fine company with hundreds of ethical hard working employees. There initial response has done them irreversible reputational harm but they at last seem to have come to thier senses.

The issue of Williams disclosing the payment is also an important technicality in my mind. Spokespeople are paid to speak every day, by every sector of industry and government. And the media fails to force disclosure every day. In fact I still beleive that the majority of jounralists do not engage in any kind of fair disclosure with regard to thier interest, sources and content. We need a clear disclosure standard managed and monitored by our professional bodies and, most importantly, by the media. And the media need to embrace a disclosure standard of their own.

Saying that, the PR Industry has a code of ethics provided by our various industry associations. These seem to have been broken. If we can’t self-police then someone will do it for us. Elliot Sloane touches on this in his commentary on Richard Edelman’s blog:-

So far, I appear to be the only pr firm CEO to have withdrawn from the Council of Public Relations Firms in protest over this “trade group’s” defense of one of its largest and most significant dues paying members. My colleagues and I see this as a defining moment for our firm and we are public with our convictions. There’s plenty of room on my rock if someone wants to join me.

Kudos to PRSA president Judith Phair called Ketchum’s situation ‘a shame, disturbing and harmful’. But what is the PRSA going to do? Phair did make the point that:-

“clearly contrary to the PRSA Member Code of Ethics, which requires that public relations professionals engage in open, honest communications, and fully disclose sponsors or financial interests involved in any paid communications activities.”

OK – so now what? Nothing? We all just move on? Enforce the code of conduct or it’s not a code at all. At least the National Association of Black Journalists was discussing action against Williams.

We need to get our industry organizations – both media and PR – in a position to take action for such flagrant breaches of our codes of ethics. For all of us that have not engaged in those organizations (me included) it’s time to do so.

“I thought we in the media were supposed to be watchdogs, not lapdogs,” said NABJ Vice President-Print Bryan Monroe, assistant vice president-news at Knight Ridder. “I thought we had an administration headed by a president who took an oath to uphold the First Amendment, not try to rent it.

At the end of the day I welcome the commentary and do agree we need deeper dialogue and discussion of the issue. More than anything, we need our PR industry bodies to stand-up and take action. Lisa Stone has a pretty reasonable list of other questions that deserve answering.