The Flack

In a previous post, I relayed the story of a prominent CEO client of mine whose name was unceremoniously commandeered on today's popular microblogging platform. (Is there any other?)

I was asked by my client to try to put the kibash on the rogue Twitter handle. I appealed directly to two of Twitter's three co-founders and...they responded(!) Within 30 minutes, the account was suspended. (I guess if you control the switcher, you own the channel.)

Since that time (and prompted by a lawsuit from St. Louis Cards manager Tony LaRussa), Twitter's powers-that-be instituted a system wherein the most noteworthy Twitterers are anointed with a "Verified Account," which (somewhat circuitously) brings me to the point of today's post.

Did you see that PaidContent:UK story about the London-based web designer Moonfruit's efforts to game the Twitter trending list? This is the list on Twitter's home page of the most popular topics of the day as measured by the number of tweets.

Moonfruit enticed its followers (and their followers and their followers) to insert the hastag (#) Moonfruit to be eligible to win one of ten free Macbooks. The Twitter promotion proved so popular that #Moonfruit usurped #MichaelJackson and #Iran on Twitter's Trending Topics list. It was akin to Skittles transforming its website into a Twitter stream.

Yet, suddenly, mysteriously and without warning #Moonfruit disappeared from the list. Apparently the standards & practices department at Twitter (yeah right!) decided that it's not nice to fool Mother Twitter. The Moonfruit blog took issue with a post titled: "Twitter censors Moonfruit? What does it mean for the future of Twitocracy?" Moonfruit's Wendy Tan wrote:

"So if Twitter had come to us and said, 'guys, enough is enough', then we would have worked with them to limit the campaign, or complied with whatever they were demanding. However, if they have pulled the trending without explanation or communication, this sets rather a different tone."

Hey look. It's their sandbox, so they can decide who plays in it, right? Anyway, getting de-trended on Twitter is probably better than getting de-friended on Facebook. The Moonfruit promo gets another 15 minutes.

Labels: FaceBook, moonfruit, PaidContent, PR, public relations, Publicity, trend, trending topics, Twitter, twitter trends

Labels: future of news, industries, social media, Steven B Johnson

On Sunday, PR Newser's Joe Ciarallo asked me whether I had seen Claire Cain Miller's prominent piece on PR 2.0, or as some valley wags may soon call it, "the crowning of Brooke Hammerling."

Of course I had. Who hadn't? It's so rare that The New York Times visits our enigmatic profession, and with 3000+ words, even rarer indeed.

But I'd say that this fresh treatment of the profession, as embodied and astutely articulated by Ms. Hammerling and others, was long overdue. It was especially telling to those of us toiling for tech start-ups and in industry segments rife with social media-driven influencers that often matter more than holy grail "placements" in Newsweek and People or on "GMA" or "Entertainment Tonight."

Ms. Cain writes:

"This is the new world of promoting start-ups in Silicon Valley, where the lines between journalists and everyone else are blurring and the number of followers a pundit has on Twitter is sometimes viewed as more important than old metrics like the circulation of a newspaper.

Gone are the days when snaring attention for start-ups in the Valley meant mentions in print and on television, or even spotlights on technology Web sites and blogs. Now P.R. gurus court influential voices on the social Web to endorse new companies, Web sites or gadgets — a transformation that analysts and practitioners say is likely to permanently change the role of P.R. in the business world, and particularly in Silicon Valley."

I'm not so certain the "days are gone" when mentions in print and on television or on web sites and blogs are no longer valid. After all, isn't it a newspaper/website that will deliver to Ms. Hammerling's relatively fledgling PR firm its biggest payoff yet?

Also, any study of what clients crave most will invariably (and short-sightedly?) come back with "mainstream media hits." Publicity generation remains a thriving and still lucrative calling - especially at big, mainstream agencies.

So don't jettison your journalist/influencer engagement skills just yet. Even with new tools and channels, the measure of success for the PR professional remains remarkably constant: to help clients find their voice and parlay that voice into a sustained and positive branded presence in the "media" that produces esteem and/or action. It's the definition of media and those who create that have changed.

A week or so ago, I was poised to craft a reaction to Brian Solis' post in which he reprinted Burrelle/Luce's list of the "top media outlets," i.e., newspapers, blogs, and magazines (though no broadcast). I got sidetracked, but was glad to see him follow-up with a lengthy post on the new influencers.

You see, it's not a matter of traditional vs. digital vs. social vs. citizen media. They no longer are mutually exclusive. It's finding the right mix of these channels (and the right message). We will continue to help clients craft their salient stories/messages so they may more effectively and authentically engage directly with any individual who has a qualified sphere of influence, e.g., readership, viewership, listenership, Twittership.

As Mr. Solis thoughtfully opines on the Miller piece today:

"As the New York Times article leads you to believe, everything in PR focuses on the launch, however, the launch vehicles and the mouthpieces have changed thanks to the socialization of media. But what hasn’t changed is the process of connecting information to people seeking it, when, where, and how they ask questions, learn, and communicate. The only difference is that the tools and the people involved in the decision making process have augmented."

He further expounds on the requisite PR skills and mindset to succeed today:

"The eligibility to earn these relationships however, start with a completely new and enlightened state of market awareness, customer empathy, and social adeptness, bound by passion and a clear proficiency in the art and science of influence and community building."

I did find one key ingredient missing from Ms. Miller's profile. Her focus was on Ms. Hammerling's network of "friends" each of whom wields influence through their blogs, microblogs and old-fashioned personal networks. I didn't see much on content creation and optimization, and how this essential competency helps clients to build their own followers and, in doing so, advance their business objectives.

Again, [seeding, pitching, courting, engaging] those who have qualified followers is a fairly traditional path. Building a client's authority (and influence) through the creation of compelling text, images and video is where the PR biz seems to be heading.

Here are some New York Times readers who also took notice of Ms. Miller's piece:

• PR Newser (Joe Ciarallo) "Brooke Hammerling on NYT Story: Reporter Did an 'Excellent Job'"
• PR 2.0 (Brian Solis ): "PR Does Not Stand for Press Release: Equalizing Spikes and Valleys"
• TechCrunch (Michael Arrington) "The Reality Of PR: Smile, Dial, Name Drop, Pray."
• PR Week "The Cycle" (Aarti Shah) "NY Times on Silicon Valley PR"
  
• Twilight in the Valley of the Nerds "Viable Product or Service First, Then PR"
• Scobleizer (Robert Scoble) "Tech execs: how to reach “normal” users with PR and with TechCrunch/GigaOm et al"
• PR Squared (Todd Defren) "The Seven Elements of Good PR"

Labels: blogs, Brian Solis, journalism, Michael Arrington, New York Times. Brooke Hammerling, PR, PR 2.0, Robert Scoble, Silicon Valley, Tech PR, Twitter

After near record-breaking rain in New York for the month of June, the weather this July 4 weekend looks like it may actually cooperate. I know many waterlogged New Yorkers plan to take full advantage, including yours truly.


Enjoy the holiday. Treasure your family. Pray for our soldiers overseas.

Labels: afghanistan, Hamptons, July 4th, record-breaking rain

One can't help but notice the brouhaha that Malcolm Gladwell tipped with his prominent dis-endorsement of Chris Anderson's latest book Free.

His New Yorker magazine review of the timely tome, which portends an age where all media content shall be set free, prompted many in the Twittersphere to weigh in (mostly in favor of Mr. Anderson's perspective).

Here's a smattering of what the pundits had to say starting with Mr. Gladwell:

• Malcolm Gladwell "Priced to Sell: Is Free the Future" "His advice is pithy, his tone uncompromising, and his subject matter perfectly timed for a moment when old-line content providers are desperate for answers. That said, it is not entirely clear what distinction is being marked between 'paying people to get other people to write' and paying people to write. If you can afford to pay someone to get other people to write, why can’t you pay people to write? It would be nice to know, as well, just how a business goes about reorganizing itself around getting people to work for 'non-monetary rewards.' Does he mean that the New York Times should be staffed by volunteers, like Meals on Wheels?"

• Chris Anderson "Dear Malcolm: Why So Threatened" "So that’s the difference between 'paying people to write' and 'paying people to get other people to write'. Somewhere down the chain, the incentives go from monetary to nonmonetary (attention, reputation, expression, etc).

  It works great for all involved. Is it the model for the newspaper industry? Maybe not all of it, but it is the only way I can think of to scale the economics of media down to the hyperlocal level. And I can imagine far more subjects that are better handled by well-coordinated amateurs than those that can support professional journalists. My business card says “Editor in Chief”, but if one of my children follows in my footsteps, I suspect their business card will say “Community Manager.” Both can be good careers.

  Malcolm, does this answer your question?"

• Seth Godin "Malcolm is Wrong" "I've never written those three words before, but he's never disagreed with Chris Anderson before, so there you go. Free is the name of Chris's new book, and it's going to be wildly misunderstood and widely argued about. The first argument that makes no sense is, 'should we want free to be the future?' Who cares if we want it? It is.
  
  The second argument that makes no sense is, 'how will this new business model support the world as we know it today?' Who cares if it does? It is. It's happening. The world will change around it, because the world has no choice. I'm sorry if that's inconvenient, but it's true."
  

• Mark Cuban "Free Versus Freely Distributed" "You can have it for free, if thats how you want it, but you have to come get it where we want you to get it. On our websites. On websites we co produce with Youtube or Hulu or whoever. If you want it for free, you have to go through the exhausting effort of clicking to our website and giving us something in value in return. It may be your attention. It may be your interest. It may be a referral or your email address. We give you something free, you give us something that costs you nothing."

This debate shows no signs of abating. Last week, it was the veracity of citizen versus traditional journalists. This week it's a continuance of the discourse on what business models can work in an age of diminished audiences, ad spends and CPMs. I guess I'll head over to Michael's next week to hear directly from Mr. Anderson.

Labels: chris anderson, free, free content, malcolm Gladwell, Mark Cuban, Paid Content, seth godin

The Wall Street Journal's ad reporter Suzanne Vranica today raised a relatively overlooked, but not unimportant dimension of Michael Jackson's multi-dimensional life. In so doing, she brought back some good memories.

My first brush with the child star happened by phone. It was shortly after "The Wiz" had shuttered on Broadway and just before the show's scarecrow went "Off the Wall." Jackson starred alongside his mentor Diana Ross (or "Ms. Ross" as she insisted on being called). I was just out of college and working for a small entertainment PR boutique in NY that had handled publicity chores for "The Wiz," and subsequently for Ms. Ross' first solo U.S. concert tour.

A call came into the office and the caller, in a soft voice, identified himself as Michael Jackson. He requested that the cast album from the show be sent to a certain address. Fan, friend...who knew? I asked the caller to confirm he was indeed Michael Jackson. He immediately provided his home address, phone. etc. My boss called Michael's father who verified the accuracy of the info. The album was sent.

Years later, at Hill and Knowlton, we repped Pepsi, which along with its ad agency BBDO and Jay Coleman, had pioneered the use of pop artists in commercial advertising. We were initially retained by Pepsi International to help manage the overseas introduction of New Coke -- yes New Coke. That's another story. See post here.

For Pepsi USA, however, we were charged with publicizing the post-Thriller Jackson and specifically, his new multi-year contract for a second round of advertising spots. (It was during the taping of the first that the star's hair caught on fire, creating global headlines.) To announce the deal, Jackson reluctantly agreed to make an appearance alongside then Pepsi USA CEO Roger Enrico at a NYC news conference held at nightclub called the Red Parrot on West 57th Street. (See above video clip.)

As if the throng of expected media wasn't enough, we convinced Mr. Jackson's reps to allow us to deploy an ENG video crew backstage to follow him around and onto the presser stage. After the obligatory intros and Jackson's three words of thanks, the enigmatic star tried to slip off the stage. Mr. Enrico, to his credit, pulled the star back for an impromptu Q&A.

Later that day, we delivered that behind-the-scenes footage via satellite to hundreds of major market TV stations nationwide, let alone a handful of national TV entertainment programs and segments.

The commercial itself, if my memory serves me well, was destined to debut on the Super Bowl. (Pepsi had a penchant for making big splashes, and getting its money's worth.) Yet, Mr. Jackson, the perfectionist that he was, was in control. In fact, it was Jackson who oversaw the editing process, which put everyone at Pepsi in Mentos mode when the spot remained in edit the night before the Super Bowl game.

It had to be perfect, and guess what? It was.

Labels: advertising, celebrity advertising, diana ross, Hill and Knowlton, michael jackson, Pepsi, PR, Super Bowl, suzanne vranica

The spat between TechCrunch's Michael Arrington sparked by The New York Times's tech editor Damon Darlin seems like eons ago, in spite of only hitting a crescendo in the last two weeks. (I guess today's continuous news flow creates short-memoried news consumers.)

You may remember that Mr. Darlin decided to compare the journalistic proclivities of bloggers versus those of mainstream news reporters. Darlin wrote:

"For some blogs, rumors are their stock in trade. In October, for instance, Silicon Alley Insider discussed a rumor that first appeared in a “citizen journalism” section of the CNN Web site that Steven P. Jobs, the chief executive of Apple, had had a heart attack. He hadn’t."

Darlin continued:

"Mr. Arrington and the other bloggers see this not as rumor-mongering, but as involving the readers in the reporting process. One mission of his site, he said, is to write about the things a few people are talking about, “the scuttlebutt around Silicon Valley.” His blog will often make clear that he’s passing along a thinly sourced story."

Having the pundit pulpit that he does, Mr. Arrington decided to use it:

"I can't help wondering if our occasional criticism of the NYTimes prompted their most recent attack, this time aimed squarely at us. Not only does writer Damon Darlin get a lot wrong, he just absolutely failed to write the real and far more interesting story that was staring him in the face."

The debate in essence pitted the quickdraw approach versus the more thorough, yet sluggish process newspapers and their ilk use before pulling the trigger. As the "first write of history," mainstream journalists strive to get it right the first time, and leave corrections or extended coverage for later as necessary.

If a rumor has a hint of truth, bloggers (and increasingly microbloggers) seem more comfortable with letting the crowd decide. First breaker status seems to hold greater allure than the mandate to get it (completely) right.

I was reminded of this debate after reading another Times story today that revealed how The State newspaper of Columbia, South Carolina sat for months on an alleged amorous email exchange between the now infamous Governor and his Argentinian lover.

"'We had not determined they were authentic,' Leroy Chapman, the political editor at The State, said of the e-mail. 'What it was, was a puzzle piece that was hardly discernible.'"

What if The State had published the email exchange back then and let its readers weigh in on its veracity? Does that reporting model serve the public better than the traditional model, which demands information be withheld until truly verified?

I personally believe that both models have their merits, but with one caveat: the first write of history, or post of a rumor as the case may be, invariably leaves the most indelible impression. It's that embedded impression that's often hard to shake even if subsequent facts don't support it. What's more, that conjecture lives permanently online, findable by anyone via Google.

Hence, I err on the side of caution. Let the journalists do what they're trained to do: report the facts when they're fully baked. Here are some links that further expound on the subject:

• NPR "On the Media" "Process Journalism" (June 12)
• BuzzMachine "Product v. process journalism: The myth of perfection v. beta culture" (June 7)
• TechCrunch "The Morality And Effectiveness Of Process Journalism" (June 7)
• Journalistics "Process Journalism and Its Twitter Enabler"(June 16)
• Bay Newser "Arrington: 'Getting It Right is Expensive. Getting It First is Cheap'" (June 6)
• Miami Herald "Commentary: Accuracy Standards & Online Journalism" (June 23)
  

Finally, regarding the Michael Jackson news of late today, these related tweets caught my eye:

• standupkid Jackson story shows the limits, risks of breaking news tweets vs. traditional vetting by legacy media.
• anildash Unfortunately it's true, according to (the reputable) @LATimescitydesk

UPDATE: And the debate rages on anew today (Friday).

Labels: blogs, citizen journalism, Damon Darlin, Michael Arrington, process journalism, Quick Draw McGraw, Rumors

I recently wrote about the conundrum of posting under your own name to serve your employer's social media needs. We're all familiar with our friend fronting for Ford and the man behind the @ComcastCares Twitter handle.

Many recommend using a real person in order to make the engagement more human, authentic. While other minders of (mostly) consumer-facing products lead with a commercial brand to build esteem (and followers).

In terms of the latter approach, I may enjoy their products but you won't see me among Pepsi's 200K+ Facebook friends and 5K+ Twitter followers or Sharpie Pens' 13K+ FB friends. (I'm probably in the minority.)

I'm beginning to believe in a hybrid model that blends the product name with a human one. Think @Zappos (Tony Hsieh), @ComcastCares (Frank Eliason) and @Richard@Dell (Richard Binhammer). But what happens if you've built a personal-branded following on the back of your employer, and then leave the company for a competitor? Who owns those legions of fans - you or your employer?

One prominent corporate social media chief, who tweets under his own name, said it was no different than when a company CEO departs. And who doesn't abscond with his "Rolodex" when moving on?

I recently noticed that our industry's blogging pioneer (and a friend) Steve Rubel quietly added a second, personal-branded blog to his social media portfolio. It's called The Steve Rubel Lifestream. I asked him about it:

Why did you start Lifestream?

In my role I am charged with helping Edelman and our clients innovate. As part of this I am always evaluating new platforms and services. Posterous is one of those platforms.

I started the Lifestream because I was attracted to the simplicity of Posterous as well as the ability to post and "manage" it via email. There are many days when I am accessing the Internet more from my iPhone than I am on a PC so this was the ideal technology. I also wanted to find something in between Twitter and a blog - and a site that could handle multimedia easily (which Posterous does also via email).

What are the differences between the Lifestream and Micropersuasion (content-wise)?

I am still figuring this out but I believe that Micro Persuasion will become a place solely for essays (eg longer think pieces). The Lifestream site will also post these but also include far more links, photos and videos - all with bits of insights and daily. Twitter will post links to new items but also be more or engaging in conversation than just seeding links.

How do you find time to feed/sustain both blogs (and service clients too)?

It's not easy but basically my entire life is centered around work. I don't have my own family. I have no plans to have one so this allows me to focus more of energies here.

What happens to these blogs should you ever decide to leave Edelman?

All of these are personal sites that I own. So they would remain with me. That said I love my role with the firm and I plan to be here a long time.

There you have it. I guess I should probably figure out what to do with the domain PeterHimler.com. Any ideas?

Labels: FaceBook, lifestream, Pepsi, personal branding, posterous, PR, sharpie, Steve Rubel, Twitter

In following all those forward-thinking PR and media types on Twitter, I often lose sight of the profession's various other dimensions. Information technology has created so many positive industry benefits to help us advance our clients' communications objectives, we have a tendency to get lost in the digital sauce. Just consider:

• How Ford's social media chief Scott Monty can mobilize his sphere of 24,000+ Twitter followers (and their followers and their followers) with less than 140 characters.
  
• How an apologetic Domino's president took to YouTube to quell the employee-fed assault on his brand
• How listening to its customers helped Comcast temper the tenacious taint on its reputation
  

PR observers tend to forget just how much of the profession remains mired in a time sync of off-line connection and gossip fodder. Witness this first-person account of how one NYC publicist helped an unknown writer gain the recognition that qualifies as celebrity nowadays.

The piece posted last week to the (mostly) entertaining and insightful Daily Beast blog:

"One month ago, I was what people who care about the difference would call a nobody—no society connections, no celebrity boss, no trust fund to buy tables next to people who are people."

Jessie Rosen, whose claim to fame is that her blog has been optioned for a TV show, retained Lizzie Grubman PR to open the PRoverbial doors (in exchange, I suppose, for the Daily Beast coverage).

"Kelly Brady—a seven-year LGPR veteran and one of the five MTV PoweR Girls—is my social concierge for the next three weeks. Kelly is a professional introducer. 'This is Jessie Rosen—she has an amazing blog that they’re turning into a TV show!' she tells every single person we come in contact with. Within 20 minutes of our first night out (drinks with InTouch magazine editors and a birthday party for longtime club promoter Jason Kim), I pick up five business cards, a freelance assignment, and some guy."

So instead of advising Ms. Rosen to build her personal brand through the digital tools and channels that have elevated the likes of Gary Vaynerchuk, Tony Hsieh and Robert Scoble -- all relative unknowns prior to jumping on the social media bandwagon -- Ms. Grubman's PoweR Girl leveraged the simple "blog-to-TV" story meme on the vapid NYC party circuit to give her client that 15 minutes of fame (and perhaps more).

Some things change. Many things remain the same. And what's wrong with that?

Labels: 20-nothings, celebrity PR, daily beast, Jessie Rosen, Lizzie Grubman, PR, public relations, reputation

Is it cool to leverage an unfolding human tragedy to promote one's product or service? That's the question a Valleywag reporter posed in his "Flackery" column late yesterday.

Apparently, an Israeli-based mobile communications platform that links SMS, IM and Twitter into one seamless interconnected content-sharing app called fring is publicizing its use by the Persian protesters who are risking their lives daily to exercise some semblance of the First Amendment:

"The internet calling startup has enjoyed back-to-back coverage on Sky TV News and on Al Jazeera English, and that's probably not luck: The company's flacks distributed a press release about heavier Fring usage in Iran; they've also been working the press on Twitter."

Here's the opening graph from fring's PR person's pitch letter:

"I’m writing to let you know that there are some interesting news coming out of Sky News related to fring. Following the outbreak of protests in Iran and the communication restrictions imposed upon citizens there, fring’s been seeing a steep rise in traffic coming from Iran in the last couple of days, with thousands of local Iranians using fring to talk (using mobile VoIP), chat, send pictures to friends and family (inside Iran and abroad)."

It can be a dicey proposition to tie one's client to human hardship in the news, even if the client purportedly provides relief to those in pain. In the aftermath of 9/11, some had valid reasons to draw attention to their services - at least those offering respite to victims, e.g., the Red Cross. Others clearly didn't.

I don't see many castigating Twitter for the audacious media coverage it has engendered around #IranElection. Perhaps it's the organic way Twitter was thrust into the headlines or the fact that we don't see Twitter's PR team -- do they even have one? -- priming the PR pump. Or maybe it's because Twitter fills a vital communications void and doesn't stand to profit from its enhanced public prominence...yet.

Labels: #IranElection, communications, fring, IM, mobile, PR, SMS, Twitter

I have nothing personal against Vocus. It's all professional. First, I should say that I'm not a subscriber to this media database management, distribution and monitoring company. I have been known to disseminate a release or two via PR Web, which happens to be owned by Vocus.

I should also disclose that I co-developed with a Vocus competitor the PR search application MatchPoint that helps media relations pros find the most editorially appropriate journalist or blogger for their story queries. (It's based on a journalist's cumulative body of work, not title or reported beat.)

Nevertheless, Vocus does impact my life, and the lives of many of my readers - for good and bad.

On the good side, one has to give them credit for embracing information technology expedite many of the mundane and time-consuming activities conducted by today's PR professionals. On the bad side, one has to discredit them for embracing information technology to expedite many of the mundane and time-consuming activities endeavored by today's PR professionals.

Pure and simple: the automation of media outreach leads to PR spam. How embarrassing was it when The New York Times's Saul Hansell, sitting alongside his bold-faced named colleagues Andrew Ross Sorkin and Tara Parker Pope on a panel I recently moderated at the Media Relations Summit, actually called out Vocus as a prime purveyor of PR spam before an audience of 500+ PR pros (including the company's sales reps)?

Then today, that meme resurfaced on everyone's favorite microblogging service with some choice tweets by Vindu Goel, deputy technology editor for The Times. Here's the Tweet scan in reverse chronological order. (Goel's colleague at The Times, ad reporter Stephanie Clifford, also twimed in.):

VinduGoel Fellow journalists, @vocuspr agreed to remove me from their database. Do speak up if you find you are being spammed by their clients.
2 minutes ago from web

stephcliff @vindugoel Me too on Vocus. It's equivalent to spam.
6 minutes ago from web

VinduGoel @kpiper When I unsubscribe, I get sent to a Vocus site. Trying to figure out why so many Vocus users essentially send spam.
12 minutes ago from web

VinduGoel On Vocus -- do they sell the e-mail contact lists also? I get more inappropriate pitches through Vocus than any other way.
17 minutes ago from web

VinduGoel To all you PR folks out there: Does anyone use VocusPR's software to send releases to journalists?
42 minutes ago from web

As I said, Vocus has some really good products. I especially like the breadth and functionality of its media monitoring product. Still, when journalists cast the PR profession as nothing more than a bunch of spammers, you can be sure that the cloaked, mass-distributed news releases and pitch letters via Vocus to reporters of inexact title played some role in the characterization.

Oops. I just received my weekly email pitch from The Entertainment Technology Center at the University of Southern California. It is "making available a primer that details the concepts and terms related to 3D movie viewing." I guess Vocus learned that I worked on Diet Coke's 3D Super Bowl promotion back in the 80's. Doubtful.

Labels: MatchPoint, PR, pr spam, public relations, Twitter, vindu goel, Vocus

Michael Wolff's gonna think I'm stalking him. After attending and posting on his tete à tete last week with Bloomberg's Andy Lack, I stumbled across his piece in the July issue of Vanity Fair in which he extols the virtues of the White House press operation (another favorite subject of this blog).

In the piece, "The Power and the Story," Wolff leads with:

"The Obamas may have the smartest, most finely calibrated press operation in White House history, parceling out scoops (The New York Times), partisan talking points (the Huffington Post), and First Family tidbits (the celebrity mags) to a desperate media. Just don’t ask them to admit it."

Apparently, Mr. Wolff set out to dissect the Press Office's PR process, and was promptly rebuffed.

"Even though I’ve been invited to the White House for a talk with Gibbs, there’s an abrupt cancellation when, after some chitchat with Burton, it becomes clear that my interest is in process rather than, per se, message."

Now this really impresses me. What possible gain can be realized by talking about the machinations of PR versus the messages those machinations are designed to propagate? I once chastised Wal-Mart's agency for inviting a New Yorker reporter to peak under the retailer's PR hood. That piece produced PR pain and no client gain.

To his credit, Bill Burton, the 31-year-old Beltway media relations careerist (pictured at right) who heads the White House press office, disarmingly explained:

"'The process aspect of media, the insider stuff, is not—it’s not our thing,' says Burton, whose entire career in the press offices of Dick Gephardt, Tom Harkin, John Kerry, and Obama during his Senate term has been about nothing but media process. 'We won’t miss it if you don’t do the story.' Big cheesy smile.”

And smartly so.

Labels: bill burton, Michael Wolff, PR, public relations, Robert Gibbs, Vanity Fair, White House Press Office

Much has transpired since last year's historic U.S. Presidential elections. The dramatic real-time run-up to November 4 kept many of us totally tethered to our digital news screens.

Since then, that frenetic and insatiable state of political engagement has pretty much dissipated...until last week.

The prospect of a Twitter/SMS/blog-fueled Presidential election to overthrow the Holocaust-denying, WMD-seeking, woman-oppressing, propagandizing Iranian dictator brought back (at least for me) emotions not felt since David Axelrod and co. overthrew the Bush-Cheney-Rumsfeld-Rice juggernaut.

But unlike in America where the powers-that-be could manipulate, though not silence, the public discourse, the Iranian mullahs and military executed their election coup d'etat while keeping dissidence to a twitterful minimum. Did it work? (Well, let's just say Iran isn't China.)

I honestly didn't hold out much hope for regime change, and tweeted the following on Friday:

PeterHimler Even if Ahmadjinedad gets trounced, will the world ever know? Does anyone believe he'll cede power? Think Zimbabwe.
3:01 PM June 12th Power Twitter

The state-decreed election results set in motion massive demonstrations in Tehran and elsewhere. The media punditry, as expected, ratcheted up the debate on the relative value of competing media for their respective reporting (where possible) and ability to mobilize.

One popular Twitter hashtag was #CNNfail, which alluded to CNN's supposed less-than-stellar coverage of Iran's staged election. A burka-outfitted Christiane Amanpour, the network's star correspondent, was quashed by the defiant dictator during his first post-election presser. Others begrudgingly acknowledged the first-rate journalism emanating from the so-called dying breed of ink-stained journalists, which refreshingly included New York Times executive editor Bill Keller reporting from Tehran.

But most continued their anointment of Twitter (and live bloggers) as the predominant drivers that enabled a disenfranchised electorate to band together after the government shut down the other people (and mainstream)-powered media platforms.

In a Howard Beale moment, it was Twitter that sent Tehranians to their rooftops to proclaim "death to the dictator." And it was Twitter that enabled the oppositon rally on the streets of Tehran today.

There's no denying the power of this microblogging platform. Yet, there's also no denying the power of "trained journalists" doing what they do best to put in perspective the facts that flowed fast and furious from the Farsi fiefdom.

Don Tapscott tweeted his take today:

DonTapscott Iran demos and riots: Demographics (huge youth pop) and tech (web 2) = access to secular information = social explosion. Just the beginning

Labels: "Network", #cnnfail, #IranElection, CNN, New York Times, Tehran, Twitter

I had a chance to attend Digital Hollywood's Advertising 2.0 confab these last two days -- or at least two of the three keynotes that interested me. (I missed The Daily Beast's Tina Brown.)

Yesterday, Business Week's Jon Fine took IAC's eminently quotable CEO Barry Diller through the paces. Diller must have felt right at home. The conference was held on the ground floor of his company's Frank Gehry-designed world headquarters opposite Chelsea Piers on New York's far west side (photo above).

Today, I caught the spirited discussion between Bloomberg's Andy Lack and Newser founder and Vanity Fair contributor Michael Wolff. The former wore his "Rodeo Drive" black cowboy boots, while the latter, upon close inspection, had an uncanny resemblance to Dr. Evil.

There was much to be gleaned from these tete-a-tetes, especially for those following the transformation of news production and consumption. Here are a few memorable quotes or paraphrases:

Barry Diller: Local is one of the few areas that is not yet colonized.
Barry Diller: Local is very hard to do.
Barry Diller: Citisearch has been a long siege. We're in it for ten years, but it will come through.
Barry Diller: We've seen no pullback on Match.com in this economy. It's not affected at all. Younger users aren't as desperately serious.
Jon Fine to Barry Diller: Why didn't you buy AOL?
Barry Diller: I guess I didn't get it
Jon Fine to Barry Diller: Do you see a business model in Twitter?
Barry Diller: No
Barry Diller: The transference from advertising offline to online will smooth out in the next five years.
Barry Diller: The Internet is passing from its free days to paid. It's going to be paid for. People will pay for content.
Barry Diller: The iPhone is a great example of what's happening -- specifically premium apps and the "uplifting" way they're being paid for.
Barry Diller: Vimeo, with 15 mill uniques, now has 20K subscribers for premium storage apps.
Barry Diller: Even with the bad economy, Expedia will have $300 million in net cash flow this year. Such a tragedy?
Barry Diller: Monetization is a brainless word that should abolished.

The Andy Lack-Michael Wolff session opened with a debate on the merits of quality journalism versus citizen aggregators and regurgitators. Lack argued for The New York Times. Wolff questioned the need for newspaper reporting... and newspapers, in general.

Personally, I side with Mr. Lack in believing that trained journalists play a seminal role in the media ecosystem, let alone a democracy.

The conversation touched Mr. Lack's tenure as president of NBC News and the importance of "screens," especially mobile ones. Here are some outtakes from that session:

Andy Lack to Michael Wolff: What FACTS are you going to get from the blogosphere?
Michael Wolff to Andy Lack: Is Bloomberg going to buy the New York Times?
Andy Lack: I personally would, but it's not in Bloomberg's DNA to buy things...we want to buy the most talented reporters wherever they are.
Michael Wolff: It [The Times] would only cost you $800 million.
Andy Lack: Not a bad deal
Michael Wolff: I started the rumor about Bloomberg's interest in The New York Times.
Andy Lack: I don't think there's anything online that can do what The Times does.
Andy Lack (Pulling out his red translucent PDA): This is as important as the desktop or TV screen.
Andy Lack: Once NBC news had cable infrastructure, it became very profitable
Andy Lack: Bloomberg is a niche business, our audiences want to see the world through a business filter - across all platforms (screens)
Andy Lack to Michael Wolff: Was Murdoch's purchase of the Wall Street Journal a good deal?
Michael Wolff: Ask whether it was the worst deal ever.
Michael Wolff: MySpace was a terrible buy for Rupert Murdoch. Now it's a point of panic within the company.
Michael Wolff: Why would you pay for content?
Andy Lack: I would pay for "60 Minutes." I want to get my news and info from people trained to get the facts.

I realize I didn't capture all the worthwhile bites from these two sessions, so if you're up for some unedited audio (of so-so quality), take a listen here:

Barry Diller-Jon Fine June 10, 2009, NYC (RT: approx. 60 minutes)

Andy Lack-Michael Wolff June 11, 2009, NYC (RT: approx 60 minutes)

(Also, catch the question to Mr. Lack from this PR person on the challenges Bloomberg TV faces.)

Labels: Advertising 2.0, Andy Lack, Barry Diller, Bloomberg, Business Week, IAC, jon fine, Newser, NYC

As the world turned its attention to Apple's WWDC yesterday to hear the carefully crafted news of the $1199 13" Macbook Pro and the "stronger" iPhone 3GS, other influencers, including The Times's inimitable gadget guy David Pogue, opted to attend the suddenly de rigeur Webby Awards in New York City.

He wasn't the only digital luminary who graced the red-carpeted, white table-clothed awards dinner. Other bold-faced digerati included Arianna Huffington, Biz Stone, Gary Vaynerchuk, Nine Inch Nails' frontman Trent Reznor, SNL's Seth Myers (who hosted), Cameron Diaz (who presented Webby Person of the Year to Jimmy Fallon and who follows exactly no one on Twitter), and Charlie Rose who introduced Sir Tim Berners-Lee as winner of the Lifetime Achievement Award. (There were so many others, but not this blogger.)


WSJ.com's "Speakeasy" blog had this headline:

"Webby Awards Recognize Internet’s Weirdest and Wackiest"

...and this lead:

"Tonight, the crème de la crème of the Internet scene will be waltzing down the red carpet at New York’s Cipriani Wall Street to be honored..."

The WSJ post also featured Isabella Rosselini's winning "Green Porno" video clip in which she sprouts an extra long penis to make her point. (Forgive.)

I especially liked the micro-acceptance format in which all awardees were limited to just five words (versus 140 characters). Ms. Huffington used Twitter to crowd-source her five words for winning "Best Politics Site and People's Voice for Best Political Blog:"

"I didn't kill newspapers, okay?."

Other winning quips included:

• The Economist: "Read a fucking newspaper, please!"
  
• Boston Globe: "It's not journalism that's dying."
  
• The Onion: "Free all attractive political prisoners."

Anyway, this sure beats the blah blah blah of the myriad self-aggrandizing social media and future-of-journalism panels. My favorite gadget guy Pogue, who did end up reporting on WWDC, summed it up to Gillian Reagan (@gillianmae) of the New York Observer like this:

"In all seriousness, it looks as though, from the size and prestige of this, that this whole thing about Web 2.0 means that ordinary people will have a stage, that true broadcasting talent doesn't need an organization behind it, has come true!" Mr. Pogue said. "I mean, half of these people, total unknowns, have been discovered purely through merit alone."

Even with the success of the Webby's, the very nature of the medium almost always spawns a dose of digital discerners. This is CNET's Caroline McCarthy's headline from her Webbys post today:

"Do we still need the Webby Awards?"

To her credit, she left the door open to debate on the micro-blogging platform du jour:

"Digital media's triumph is cause for celebration from all sides. And the Webbys team puts on a well-run, enjoyable show every year. But the increasing presence of celebrity is a sign that maybe this is an industry that's outgrown the need for a quirky awards ceremony. Or maybe it isn't. I'm sure there are plenty of people who'd be happy to debate the point on Twitter."

Labels: arianna huffington, David Pogue, digerati, New York, Webby Awards, WWDC

Nearly two years ago, my blogging buddy Ike Pigott called my cell with a brainstorm. Let's start a service that offers to protect the branded identities of those using the day's popular blogging platforms, e.g., Blogger, WordPress, Typepad... (Twitter was still a twinkle at the time and Facebook was not nearly as ubiquitous as it is today.)

Ike felt that it was too easy for some enterprising and nefarious types to steal online identities and in doing so, destroy reputations. I agreed, but would brand-keepers, celebrities and other notables pay for such a specialized service, and how significant was the problem anyway?

Last week, St. Louis Cardinals manager Tony LaRussa sued Twitter claiming that someone was ignobly tweeting under his name. He wished to put an end to it and promptly took the legal route. Yours truly tweeted a link to the original AP story on it:

PeterHimler Keep an eye on this: StL Cards manager sues Twitter after his name hijacked. http://bit.ly/11yXp0
9:13 AM Jun 5th from Power Twitter

Before I update you on the latest developments, I had a similar client experience that precipitated probably the last direct customer service response from Twitter's founders. A well-known CEO client of mine had his Twitter name plundered, and the stuff being tweeted was, let's say, less than CEO-quality. My contact in corporate communications called to ask for relief.

Not knowing anyone else from Twitter, and suspecting that filling out a form on the terms-of-service page might not elicit a quick response, I decided to dm and email @ev and @biz to apprise them of the problem, but without naming my client.

Both replied (!) with @ev asking me to name the then quite newsworthy CEO. I pinged him back with the name and the fake handle. Ten minutes later, he notified me that the "impersonation" account was suspended. Whoa. Now that's customer service!

Still, I couldn't help but think about the ease with which anyone could fraudulently establish a Twitter handle, and the reputational repercussions that could ensue. Twitter must do something, or face myriad similar schemes. At first, the AP reported that Twitter agreed to settle the LaRussa suit out of court. That was quickly denied on the Twitter blog:

"Twitter has not settled, nor do we plan to settle or pay."

Instead, Twitter (smartly) announced its plans to introduce into beta a system whereby account verification is mandated:

"We do recognize an opportunity to improve Twitter user experience and clear up confusion beyond simply removing impersonation accounts once alerted. We'll be experimenting with a beta preview of what we're calling Verified Accounts this summer. Verified Accounts will feature a special seal.

The experiment will begin with public officials, public agencies, famous artists, athletes, and other well known individuals at risk of impersonation. We hope to verify more accounts in the future but due to the resources required, verification will begin only with a small set."

Boys (@ev, @biz and @jack) -- you're making all the right moves, and nice TIME cover this week too!

Labels: ike pigott, mashable, online reputation, PR, tony laRussa, Twitter, verification

I was watching Seinfeld the other night. It was the episode in which Jerry and George were biding their time with Elaine's curmudgeonly father while Elaine was nowhere to be found. (<---Jerry was wearing his expensive new suede jacket with the pink-striped liner.)

Seeing Jerry and George fret over the no-show Elaine, I was struck by the fact that Seinfeld may finally be showing its age. Why didn't Jerry just whip out his mobile phone to call her??? Could it be that the brick-sized cordless handset in Jerry's apartment represented the latest in mobile technology during the Seinfeld first-run era? No one had cell phones?

Today, we were greeted with the latest flurry of media coverage surrounding Saturday's consumer debut of the Palm Pre. (I could swear that the Palm brand lived its glory days during those Seinfeld years?) Maybe this why the company tapped Costanza to host and Seinfeld to perform at the Hollywood coming out party for the latest iPhone wannabe.

Nostalgic glitz aside, two conflicting views emerged of the Palm Pre today. The Times's David Pogue, echoing the pre-release sentiment, proclaimed in a column titled "Palm Pre, Elegant Contender"

"...The Pre, which goes on sale Saturday, is an elegant, joyous, multitouch smartphone; it’s the iPhone remixed."

Separately, actually much separately, we caught Silicon Valley insider Henry Blodget's caustic assessment of Palm's wishful return to gadget stardom. Its headline "The Palm Pre Will Bomb:"

"The Pre may be a cool device, but it won't restore Palm to its former glory."

The party itself also elicited some paradoxical coverage.

"Tonight was a night of contradictions, driving to the Palm Pre VIP event in Hollywood, it was raining and the sun was shining at the same time," wrote Lynn Wolford on the Wireless and Mobile News blog.

George Costanza (aka Jason Alexander) gushed:

"This phone has the power to end my marriage and start a new one. It's that powerful."

(I wonder what his appearance fee was?) Still, in an age when product launches have to work double-y hard to gain any kind of broad media awareness, you have to give the Palm Pre engineers and ergonomics folks credit for their good work, and its PR team kudos for seeding the right gadget gurus in a pre-release buzz blitz.

We still can't overlook Blodgett's point about how all those third-party apps for the iPhone may prove an insurmountable hurdle preventing any mass platform defections in Palm Pre's direction. And then of course there's the return of Steve Jobs to Apple with a new iPhone in hand. Did you know that the Palm Pre syncs with iTunes?

Labels: blodget, David Pogue, gadget, George Costanza, Jason Alexander, Jerry Seinfeld, Palm Pre, PR

The Wall Street Journal recently laid down the law regarding its employees' engagement with the social media graph.

In fact, most enterprises, especially news organizations, have refreshed their rules of employee conduct to include sections on what's acceptable and what's not in the indelibly incestuous worlds of blogging, Facebook, Twitter and YouTube.

But rather than spelling out the no-no's of personal brand-building on the company's time and dime, I haven't seen much in the way of a codified corporate approach that actually mandates all rank and file employees to embrace social media to help bolster the company's brand.

Today this happens in a relatively controlled and centralized manner at places like Comcast and Ford. But what if companies expanded the model to include ALL employees? Wouldn't the employer's brand get a boost through te sheer scale of it. Or is there a point of diminishing return when too many voices act as evangelists? After all Tony Hsieh almost single-handedly drives the Zappo's brand.

So does it make sense to cultivate all employees' (already existing) involvement with social media to the betterment of brand and business? And do companies really want employees tweeting about material news, litigation or their belligerent bosses?

Paid Content's David Kaplan reports this week on an EconAffinity panel titled "How do We Manage Twitter":

"As for the issue of whether to restrict staffers from using blogs freely, Jack Rotolo, EVP, North American Sales, Glam Media, said it’s simply unnecessary: 'We’re a Silicon Valley-based company. Everybody has to have that DNA. We have professional editors on staffs and they understand what’s acceptable on Twitter as well as how to entertain and keep an audience there. The WSJ doesn’t seem to be handling it in the best way. A lot of editors on staff are already brands. You need to encourage them to continue the conversation.'"

And last week, my friend Max Kalehoff and I memed on a related topic resulting in his post "The Company is the Marketing" that touches on mass employee empowerment to drive brand:

"What higher calling? On a pragmatic level, why not strategically view your entire company as your internal marketing team? Why limit imagination and opportunity through silos and top-down power structures. Sure, department structures help drive accountability. But if marketing is not fully embraced as part of every employee’s job, then the firm is strategically disadvantaged. Importantly, this idea doesn’t end with employees; it applies to external stakeholders like customers and partners, who should be counted as members of the team as well. As I’ve said before, marketing leadership is shifting from command-and-control to cultivate-and-coach."

In an age of media atomization, the ability to scale a ten-person communications department to efficiently engage detractors, nurture supporters and accommodate journalists may be coming to an end -- out of necessity. In its place: a decentralized, ubiquitous and more organic communications culture (versus function) that knows enough to steer clear of legal, competitive or regulatory matters.

As for who owns the personal sphere of influence/followers built on the back of an employer, and is it portable should the influencer move on? Hey, I always take my Rolodex with me from employer to employer. Don't you?

Labels: communications. pr, influence, PaidContent, social media, Twitter, wall street journal rules

The U.S. gets an "F" in public diplomacy. That's the assessment of the General Accounting Office, which yesterday issued its analysis of the government's (futile) efforts to change negative foreign perceptions of the United States since 9/11. Here's how the report opens:

Since the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, the U.S. government has spent at least $10 billion on communication efforts designed to advance the strategic interests of the United States. However, foreign public opinion polling data shows that negative views towards the United States persist despite the collective efforts to counteract them by the State Department (State), Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG), U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), Department of Defense (DOD), and other U.S. government agencies.

Granted, Mr. Obama's relatively forward-thinking communicators have only sat in the driver's seat for several months. Hence, much of the PR ineptitude cited in the GAO analysis invariably rests on the shoulders of the previous Administration. (Gee, that's a familiar refrain.) Who can forget the insidious efforts by the Bush appointees to propagandize their way into the hearts and minds of America's detractors?

The GAO report hopefully will serve as a wake-up call to those shaping the way in which we're viewed around the world:

"Based on the significant role U.S. strategic communication and public diplomacy efforts can play in promoting U.S. national security objectives, such as countering ideological support for violent extremism, we highlighted these efforts as an urgent issue for the new administration and Congress."

Of the six recommendations the report made, I was enamored with the last, which cites "social networks and technologies" like "Facebook and Twitter" as a potential remedies for curing what ails our PR campaign to gain foreign friends and influence:

(6) Interagency efforts to adopt a new approach to public diplomacy-- Dynamic shifts in how target audiences obtain and use information have led many public diplomacy practitioners to conclude that the United States must more fully engage emerging social networks and technologies (such as Facebook and Twitter) in order to remain relevant. Referred to as "Public Diplomacy 2.0," this new approach to strategic communications is exploring ways to operate in this evolving information environment. However, substantial questions exist regarding the challenges associated with this new approach."

Labels: foreign perception, GAO, PR, public diplomacy, United States

When newly minted college grads inquire how to break into the PR biz, I usually respond by asking them "what's your passion" or "what really turns you on?" Answers almost always include: "I'm a people person" or "I like to run parties and events." Groan.

My question is designed to elicit something along the lines of "classical music," "helping the homeless," "city politics," "college sports," "global climate change," "mobile technology," and even "video gaming" -- all of which need and use PR (as these links show).

Most PR industry aspirants lack in-house or agency internships, so an ability to showcase a demonstrable passion or expertise can go a long way to opening doors. "Should I work for an agency or in-house?" tends to be the second most popular question from PR hopefuls.

In his post this weekend to the influential tech blog Ars Technica, Ben Kuchera visits the subject of PR in the video game realm. His opening observation hardly inspires:

"Working in the PR business is a thankless, grinding thing."

He then explored the "in-house versus agency" question:

"When looking for sources for this story, the thing that stuck out was that of the public relations professionals that gaming writers enjoyed working with, almost all were internal, not simply a contractor with an outside firm."

The internal PR reps with whom he chose to speak echoed his lack of enthusiasm for agency types. Aram Jabbari, the manager of Public Relations and Sales for Atlus USA, spoke strongly about the merits of game developers' internal PR resources.

"With an internal PR team, knowledge exchange is more rapid, and the folks tasked with communicating to the gaming public and press end up being in a much better position in terms of having an intimate understanding of the games."

Kuchera solicited a second in-house opinion from Garth Chouteau, the senior director of Public Relations with PopCap Games, who had even stronger words for internal PR:

"'I'd go so far as to say that in-house PR is virtually always better than outside support via contractor or agency,' he told Ars. 'The opportunity to completely immerse oneself in the product or service in question is always more possible from within the company proper. Sure, an agency or contractor can be a valuable source of fresh ideas and perspective from time to time, but in general, in-house is the way to go. This is probably even more true in the video games industry, where really being familiar with the products/services you represent is critical.'"

So where does passion play in the mix?

"If you're not in love with gaming as an industry, this is probably not the job for you. Enthusiasm goes a long way. 'I’ve been in love with games as long as I can remember. I started on the PC, with classic Sierra and Lucasarts adventure games, later owning and adoring just about every home console from the NES onward,' Jabbari said."

Kuchera's conclusion probably won't hearten the legions of agencies and consultancies where the opportunities for landing gainful employment typically exceed those on the client side.

"...Dealing with many people in the PR business is a painful affair...By cultivating your own PR team, hiring gamers who honestly love the product and know it well, and staying up to date on the industry as a whole, you're guaranteed to have a PR team that more effectively talks to gaming writers, the mainstream media, and the gamers themselves."

If you land at an agency, don't be disheartened. You will no doubt derive much satisfaction through exposure to a wider range of industries, techniques and, of course, people. In the interim, here are some non-conventional online resources that might help stir your passions.

• The Flack round-up of PR job sites
• Path 101
• Brazen Careerist
• Road Trip Nation
• Heather Huhman on Twitter
  

Happy hunting.

Labels: agency versus in-house, ars technica, college graduates, employment, entry-level PR jobs, gamers, PR jobs, public relations, video games

So it appears the newbies in the White House press operation have discovered the lowly VNR. This much-maligned means for managing the message for TV news consumption and regurgitation has reared its ugly head according to ABC's Jake Tapper and now, TV Newser.

The packaged piece in question features a relatively innocuous White House visit by the UConn Varsity Women's Basketball Team. Rather than asking for pool coverage from one of the TV news operations, the White House set out to produce and distribute its own (and the only) video record of the portion of the meet-up that everyone pined to see - the Obama shoot-around with the team. From the pool report of the incident:

"The pool was held back from the stroll down the drive and around the corner, and couldn't see the court. Poolers could hear periodic cheering coming from the other side of the bushes."

"Now we all know why," Tapper writes. "Obama White House officials decided to do their own media report on the visit, complete with cuts, interviews and chryons identifying who's speaking."

Now we all remember the kerfuffle a couple of years back when the Bushies used fake TV reporters to advance its policy objectives. It even prompted a Congressional hearing where famed VNR company chiefs Larry Moscowitz and Doug Simon, and others, were summoned (or did they volunteered?) to defend the long-standing PR practice. I kind of remember PR Watch also playing a role in drumming up the frenzy over these so-called faux reports.

But unlike the previous administration's nefarious use of this tactic to advance its many ill-conceived and quite consequential (and controversial) policies, it seems rather silly to complain about receiving hand-out footage of the 6 ft. 2-inch Forward-in-Chief sinking a jumper from the top of the key.

Tapper concludes:

"Is the goal to ultimately replace the pesky photographers who film what they want to and not what they're told to (not to mention the annoying reporters who ask uncomfortable questions about, say, detainee policy and bank bailouts)?

Do you want your OTV? (I'll bet there are a few takers out there.)"

Next time, I would only advise the White House PR team to forget the chyrons and just make the raw footage with nat. sound available. Also, be sure to clearly identify the source!

Labels: ABC, fake news, Jake Tapper, Obama Press Office, PR, TV Newser, TV pool. journalism, UConn, VNR

The last two years took the Bulldog Reporter Media Relations Summit to the Beltway and the Bay area. This year, it was the Big Apple's turn to host the annual PR/media confab.

Two Dans keynoted. I missed Mr. Rather, but I'm told he offered a sobering assessment of the current state of journalism, while Mr. Abrams waxed on his new PR consulting model that taps journalists (many out of work) as "experts" to advise on crisis issues and mainstream and social media strategies.

I caught Mr. Abrams' keynote in which he described himself as a "walking living breathing axis of evil," i.e., lawyer, journalist and now PR person. I also grabbed some sound with him immediately following his preso. Here's the audio clip.

In addition to "2500 freelancers," Abrams Research (wisely) chose to also align itself with some established agencies including Abernathy MacGregor, Dan Klores, Qorvis and The Horn Group. He said he was inclined to channel specialized assignments to these agencies when his network of freelancers is not be suitable.

On Monday, I attended the panel discussion about the state of corporate blogs featuring Kodak's Jennifer Cisney, RealNetworks' Lacy Kemp and moderator Debbie Weil. I also sat on the Twitter panel alongside Mr. Abrams' colleague (and Daily Beast contributor) Rachel Sklar, PR 2.0's Brian Solis and Sally Falkow.

For the corporate blogging panel, Weil raised the question about what restrictions, if any, did the companies place on the content. Kodak's Cisney said she's never been told what not to blog about, but explained that her three blogs are non-controversial: passion for photography, reviews/product-specific and how to grow one's business (B-to-B).

RealNetworks' Kemp admitted that her company advised her to avoid the company's current litigation or any material news. She explained, however, that RealNetworks built a separate litigation site on which news stories -- "good, bad and ugly" -- were posted for all to see.

Later that day, we convened our Twitter panel before a packed house. The session eventually got around to Ford's social media chief and prolific Twitterer Scott Monty. (Don't they all?) One meme revolved around the use of a personal versus corporate brand name on Twitter. All agreed that Scott's persona was a fab asset to the only big-three automaker that refused a Fed bailout.

Even so, this blogger had to ask what would happen if Scott decided to depart Ford, taking his 20K+ followers with him?

Scott caught wind of the meme, being the good listener that he is, and offered the following:







l. to r. Sally Falkow, Himler, Rachel Sklar and Brian Solis


Scott Monty Tell @peterhimler that it's no different than when the Ford CEO leaves. #mrs09
about 20 hours ago from TwitterBerry

Of course, I was then compelled to ask:

Peter Himler But are you followers transferable?
about 18 hours ago from Power Twitter

...to which he replied:

ScottMonty @peterhimler When we're effectively leveraging @Ford @FordDriveGreen @FordCustService @FordMustang @FordFiesta, etc. they are.
about 18 hours ago from web in reply to PeterHimler

OK I can buy that, but I still think there's something to having a real name fronting that Twitter feed.

That evening, my Digital Dumbo friend @KMaverick and I co-hosted a Tweet-up at a conveniently located and aptly named venue: SocialBar | NY. Stopping by were @LeeOdden, @briansolis, @katiepaine, @tiffanypr, @cvvalencia, @KDPaine, @davearmon, @ivylee, @stacymgreen, @albertmaruggi, @howardgr, @Summer2, @Josh_Sternberg, @TCHayes, @Lisa Cruz, @LisaRedShoesPR, @webmetricsguru, @dfriez, @CatherinVentura, @jblhcomms, as well as Keith Little, Greg Radner, Brian August, Devin Brown, and too many others to remember.















l. to r. Howard Greenstein, Brian
Solis, Katie Paine, Lee Odden


l. to r. Stacy Green, Joe Ciarallo
(B-day boy) and Kristin Maverick

For the second day luncheon keynoter, I sat with three esteemed reporters from The New York Times: Saul Hansell, Tara Parker Pope and Andrew Ross Sorkin, (pictured below l. to r.). All were adamant that PR peeps read "the paper" before endeavoring to engage. Email is the preferred channel. Do NOT follow-up an email with a phone call.

Mr. Sorkin told the audience that he receives 500 emails daily and has 30 voice-mail messages waiting for him when he arrives to the office. With some 320,000 people now subscribing to Deal Book and many times that visiting his pages, you can understand why.

With regard to Twitter, Ms. Parker Pope strongly advised NOT to contact her her via that channel, and relayed an instance when she was pitched a story via her Facebook account. It sounded as if that FB friend was no longer one.

When asked about how he derives his story ideas, Mr. Hansell said he uses a wide and varied number of sources. He did cite PaidContent , Silicon Valley Insider and Techmeme as among the media outlets he follows.

Finally, I talked with Bulldog Reporter publisher (and show organizer) Jim Sinkinson, in from the Bay area. Here's an audio clip of our conversation. More on the conference can be found on Twitter (hash tag: #MRS09)

Labels: #MRS09, Abrams Research, Bulldog Reporter, Dan Abrams, Media Relations Summit, orter, scott monty, social, The New York Times, tweet-up, Twitter

Here's how last Thursday started for me (via Twitter):

PeterHimler Gmail is like so misbehaving right now!
11:05 AM May 14th from Power Twitter

PeterHimler I'm wondering today what's worse: a cyber-terrorist attack or a Google tool fail?
11:26 AM May 14th from Power Twitter

This was the paralysis that I (and millions of others) felt when Google's productivity tools and its news and video channels simply ceased to function. The company on which so many have grown helplessly dependent estimated that "14% of its global user base" were affected by #googlefail. (See the trough in the image here?)











One poster to PC World advised in hindsight: "Don't get stuck in the cloud," while another saw the fail's silver lining: "Why Google's Outage Wasn't a Complete Failure." It's the latter post that this PR blogger found worth a look:

"Now, I don't want to give the impression that I'm on a Google soapbox here," wrote JR Raphael on PCWorld.com the following day, "typically, trying to get answers from that place is tougher than resisting regurgitation at the sight of Paris Hilton's face. Google is not known for its transparency or accessibility to anyone (ever tried to get someone from the company on the phone?)."

He went on:

"Google screwed up. No question about it. My morning was a mess because of its error, and countless other people were equally peeved. But the company actually communicated with us. Its people told us what was going on. They apologized and promised they were taking action."

He compared it to Amazon's recent #PRfail:

"Compare the whole thing to Gmail outages of the past, where often, no explanation has ever been given. Worse yet, compare it to Amazon's now-infamous gay book glitch from last month. That little mishap directly affected far fewer people than the Google outage, yet the outrage was enormous and anything but fast-fading."

Recognizing the degree to which customer service and PR have grown inextricably intertwined, JR parted with these thoughts:

"Customer service in the online tech world has a long way to go, and Google is far from a model of perfection. But its steps this week moved in the right direction, and for a company shrouded in mystery, that's something I'm happy to see. I can only hope that Google, Amazon, and others notice what a difference it can make to treat their valued customers like valued customers -- and, little by little, move toward becoming even more open and honest with us all in the future."

Now I just have to figure out whether the email I received from Facebook last week was legitimate. It invited me to re-set my password after I fell victim to a malicious phishing scheme from which I flamed all my FB friends. I thoiught so at the time and gratefully tweeted the following:

PeterHimler Kudos to Facebook for alerting me to malicious software and allowing me to reset my password. Do not click on FB messages that say check: 121.im
3:01 PM May 14th from Power Twitter

Later that night, however, I was told that the FB email message may also have been fake -- an extension of the phishing scheme. Groan. I definitely need to get my head out of the cloud.

Labels: #googlefail, 121.im, Amazon, cloud computing, communications, customer service, FaceBook, Google, PC World, PR, Twitter

Volvo's recent decision to hand the reins of its social media, SEO and digital PR programs to WPP's esteemed media buying agency Mindshare has tongues-a-wagging and fingers-a-pointing.

Brand Republic and others reported the surprising news that reignited the debate over which marketing discipline is best suited to deliver clients' growing digital dreams.

Mat Morrison, global digital head, Porter Novelli:

"Media agencies hear the phrase social media and think ‘we can buy that’. That is a big mistake. Smart PR agencies see it as protecting a client’s reputation online. There is no way in hell a media agency is incentivised to look at those things. It is a battlefield and media agencies are getting in there."

Carolyn Watt, business director, MindShare:

"The role of SEO as part of an integrated digital PR and social media solution is about how we take a client brand and establish its presence in the digital space. It allows you to put an ROI measurement on something PR agencies have traditionally found difficult to measure."

In more simplistic terms: it's the data-driven quants versus the fact-based storytellers. Do clients accord greater value to analytics-driven media-buying firms with their ability to quantify a campaign's ROI? Or do they appreciate more the core PR competency of creating compelling and cogent content? (And why can't they have both?)

Andrew Bruce Smith add his opinion on Social Media Today:

"...In my experience, media buying agencies have access to much better data on which to base their approach...I also think their planning skills are generally better than PR firms (perhaps because they are using better data?)...And it is up to PR firms to realign their skillsets and resources around what clients really value. (Having spent a week in New York, the phrase “digital land grab” seems to be one of the most overused on both sides of the Atlantic – but PR firms generally aren’t the ones doing the grabbing)."

This next quote will chill PR peeps everywhere:

Both Forrester and MindShare business director Carolyn Watt dismissed these concerns. ‘Just because we are a media agency does not mean we don’t understand the power of PR,’ said Watt, who has hired two PROs for her team.

In reality, the industry has spawned hybrid agencies that take both a quantitative and qualitative approach to using social media to deliver value. (And I'm not talking about PR firms that promote blogger engagement as social media expertise.)

One friend who heads such a firm, Rob Key of Converseon, had this to say:

"Social media still falls in the netherworld between marketing disciplines. There is, however, a new generation of firms that have successfully combined these previously distinct competencies to offer both accountability and creativity. Still, many more PR firms will lose out on social media client assignments if they resist building or borrowing these tools from across the marketing aisle. Media services bring a level of analysis and measurement that PR firms haven't yet mastered. And in this environment, brands are expecting social media campaigns to be able to report on ROI in pretty sophisticated ways. "

Here's the perspective of Duncan Forrester, Volvo’s UK Head of PR (and the man who hired Mindshare):

“It’s about partnering with an agency who really understand the Volvo brand, its customers as well as the online audiences and influencers. It’s also about partnering with the right agency who can deliver on the brief.”

PR firms certainly understand that, or at least I think they do.

Labels: Converseon, digital PR, measurement, media buying, PR, ROI, social media, Volvo, WPP

My old friend and former Burson-Marsteller colleague Gene Grabowski took the spotlight yesterday in a New York Daily News profile regarding his latest high-profile client Roger Clemens.

The piece, which appeared on the sports pages of the NYC tab, cited Gene's current PR specialty -- sports stars behaving badly:

"Grabowski is no stranger to ESPN; he has appeared on its radio network in recent months to comment on Michael Phelps' bong picture and Alex Rodriguez's steroid use."

Since when does the retention of a PR man merit media interest beyond the trades? Maybe Grabowski ascension beyond the traditional behind-the-scenes advisory role precipitated the coverage?

The Levick crisis counselor is now a cog in the story. ESPN Radio's top-rated "Mike & Mike Show" not only interviewed Clemens, but they handed the mike to the Rocket's PR man - Grabowski. Both segments were pegged to the publication of the book, "American Icon: The Fall of Roger Clemens and the Rise of Steroids in America's Pastime." The authors: four Daily News reporters.

Given Mr. Clemens' much-criticized star-turn on "60 Minutes," in which he vehemently denied using steroids, perhaps adding his PR man to the media mix helped amplify the message. Also, name an athlete whose talents for turning a phrase equals that for physically scoring (no double entendre intended).

Nonetheless, I find it unusual for a reporter to talk with a newsmaker's PR rep when the newsmaker himself avails himself for an interview. I guess ESPN's top talkers deemed this affable PR man enough of an insider, in spite of his background as the communications chief for a food industry association.

I remain a stalwart believer in clients remaining front and center, as long as they have the skills to go toe-to-toe with their journalistic inquisitors. Clemens does a decent job:

"I know what your polls say, [but] I've been getting great responses everywhere I've gone in the cities I've traveled to. All I can do is be me and give them the message I just told you about that steroids are bad for these kids. You don't want to have anything to do with them the way they tear your body down," he said. "But I can't defend a negative. When you've got somebody that's out there that is really just crawling up your back to make a buck -- which is what this is -- other than speaking out, what else can you do?"

Or as Joe Torre quipped on a different ESPN radio program:

"There's a side of Roger that makes you want to hug him," Torre added. "He's been that guy that everyone's paid attention to and nobody's ever questioned, so it may be a point in time where that has to sort of run out the hourglass."

So what about reputation redemption for a famous 23-year-old life-long sequestered swimmer who's learned about life the hard way? There's a glimmer of hope, with an assist from his coach...not his PR rep:

“The trade-off is he [Michael Phelps] missed some experiences that other people had,” Bowman said. “I guess the question is, what do we do after that? And I think that’s what he’s working on now, expanding his horizons beyond swimming.”

Labels: "American Icon", athletes, ESPN, media triaining, Michael Phelps, Mike and Mike, online reputation, PR, rocket attacks, Roiger Clemens

As PR 2.0 twists and turns its way into PR 3.0, we are constantly reminded of our growing role as producers of content that drives awareness, opinion, and action.

Cases in point: the Twitterization of the Skittles home page, the de-listing of one's Facebook friends for the sake of a Whopper, and the first appearance on YouTube by the president of Domino's USA (and he hopes his last).

We now have options that transcend the arbitration of journalists to allow an increasingly tethered public to directly receive and/or discover our text, still images and video messages by way of their desktops, laptops, Blackberries and iPhones.

Even so, the news business is not going down without a fight. This weekend, Frank Rich, Maureen Dowd and even President Obama extolled the virtues and value of dedicated news professionals in a Jeffersonian democracy. None offered a remedy for slowing the deterioration of their role in preparing the main course that once satisfied the public's appetite for news content.

"If we lose the last major news-gathering operations still standing, there will be no news on Google News unless Google shells out to replace them. It won’t." Rich wrote.

I've previously shared my feelings about the value of quality journalism. So instead, I wish to draw your attention to an unsettling piece from Friday's Wall Street Journal that in my mind is an insidious development on the road from journalism 2.0 to 3.0. (No, it's not WSJ.com's micropayment plans.)

It involves the confluence of three big digital drivers: advertising, algorithms and content creation:

"...former MySpace Chairman Richard Rosenblatt has spent the past three years refining a set of algorithms that it uses as a guide for mass-producing content that it publishes on its many Web properties."

As I understand it, Mr. Rosenblatt's company, Demand Media, creates content, not based on a journalistic assessment of what's news or newsworthy, but instead on an algorithm that matches (and attempts to monetize) consumer and advertising demand for a given topic. The Journal's Emily Steele writes:

"Demand's system works by analyzing data from thousands of sources, ranging from search engines and online advertising networks to Web analytics firms and the million domain names Demand Media owns. The algorithm finds search phrases with three common characteristics: demand from audiences, demand from advertisers and an ability to generate traffic."

The company then entices thousands of journeyman freelancers with an offer of "$20 per article or video" to produce the "in-demand" content. The vetted pieces are posted on a Demand Media site and syndicated across other websites, with ad dollars to follow. At least that's the model.

"One holdup is that most of Demand's individual sites lack the big audiences major marketers need to warrant big ad deals, says Jean-Philippe Maheu, chief digital officer at WPP's Ogilvy North America."

The advent of automated content creation, based on an ad-driven algorithm, takes the notion of news as a commodity to a whole new low, i.e., that of an automated commodity. Or as VivaKi Ventures' Tim Hanlon notes:

"It seems like you are backfilling search results with content after the fact versus being an organically created, legitimate or interesting source of content beforehand."

Pictured above: Rocky Mountain News newsroom, February 27, 2009, its last day of publication after 150 years (Getty Images)

Labels: algorithm, citizen journalism, demand media, emily steele, Frank Rich, maureen dowd, social media, Wall Street Journal

The lead op-ed in today's New York Times features U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner explaining in his own words the rationale and machinations behind the bank stress tests whose results will pop big time later today.

Already, the Treasury Dept. selectively leaked some of the test's more tantalizing tidbits in an effort to temper the anticipated tumult in domestic and world markets.

The Times's op-ed page editor's acceptance of Mr. Geithner's submission was a no-brainer. After all, Mr. Geithner, the ultimate authority on today's lead story, was willing/eager to share his unadulterated opinion -- exclusively -- with a news organization whose influence continues to hold sway over the national news agenda. (I wonder if he followed the prescribed op-ed submission procedure? Nah!)

Did Mr. Obama's PR consiglieres consider offering Mr. Geithner's prose to the Wall Street Journal's editorial pages? Probably not, given those pages' political proclivity, i.e., today's Journal carried a first-person piece by Karl Rove making a thinly-veiled case for yet another right-wing reactionary to join the Supreme Court. Anyway, Mr. Geithner had his turn in the Journal back in March.

Could the administration have better advanced its POV by solely posting Mr. Geithner's words on the U.S. Treasury's website or by direct communications with the millions of Americans in its database? Probably not. MSM still has the capacity to catalyze the conversation, though the deployment of d-to-c options should not be mutually exclusive. You'll notice that Treasury did build a special sub-site to explain its economic stabilization plan.

Anyway, let's see if the administration's PR maneuverings in advance of today's roll-out achieves its goal of reducing market stress.

Labels: Barack Obama, communications, New York Times, op-ed, PR, stress tests, timothy geithner, u.s. treasury

I went to sleep last night with TechCrunch reporting that Google was in late-stage talks to acquire Twitter. I woke up this morning with TechCrunch reporting that Apple is in late-stage talks to acquire Twitter.

Co-founder Evan Williams reportedly rebuffed Google's overtures. TC has a "normally reliable" source who says that Apple expects to announce the deal in June...if there even is a deal.

To its credit, TechCrunch does hedge with the following:

"Twitter is strongly signaling that it doesn’t want to sell at any price right now. The founders took significant money off the table in the last round valuing Twitter at $250 million, we’ve heard, and are aligned with investors to see Twitter through to the end."

Boy, the PR folks at Apple must be keeping busy, or maybe not. Does this rumor rise to the level that warrants a company response? Should the Cupertino communications corps be required to answer the TechCrunch-catalyzed reporters' calls and emails? I bet a prominent Wall Street Journal newspaper piece would give them sufficient motivation to craft a statement.

Well, the Journal did weigh in, sort of. Kara Swisher of All Things D posts "Ignore the Twitter Buyout Rumors." (She seems to revel in tweaking -- as opposed to tweeting -- her competitors.)

"Oh, the very notion of Apple and Twitter is a Techmeme dream-ticket, sure to be chewed over for days on end. (I once considered doing a post that just said “AppleTwitterAppleTwitterAppleTwitter….” for 1,000 words to see how much idiotic traffic I would get.)"

On Friday, I presided over a PRSA panel featuring some hefty bloggers including Curbed, HuffPost, Mashable, BusinessWeek and Inhabitat. While we all pretty much agreed that many A-list bloggers have entered the mainstream - in terms of the quality of their journalism and influence over the national news agenda -- we still wondered why a story in one of the big mainstream media outlets continues to supersede blogs in the eyes of corporate America.

Why does a print hit in The Times or Journal still have greater PR cache than an online-only piece? The latter clearly reaches a wider audience with its link-driven capacity to go viral. Isn't this what really matters?

As for the conjecture from TechCrunch, few would argue with Michael Arrington's ability to get tongues-a-wagging. It's just not the tongues of Apple's PR department...for now.

Labels: Apple Inc., blogs, corporate communications, D: All Things digital, Google, journalism, media strategy, PR, TechCrunch, Twitter

Has there ever been a time when we've seen so many media and marketing industry confabs? They range from six-person tweet-ups to the much buzzed-about annual gathering pictured here ------->

The organizers of these events sure know how to entice attendees with all the right buzzwords, e.g., "new media," "social media," "PR 2.0," "Web 3.0," "community," "digital impact," "ad: tech," "search," "summit," "metrics," "meet-ups," "tweet-ups," and the latest, "140 conference," a less-than-cryptic allusion to one's max number of Twitter characters.

You'd think that given the state of the economy the number of these gatherings would wither on the vine. After all, budgets for professional development tend to be the first to go when client revenues tighten. Yet, these conferences abound. Here's a testimonial for the events hosted by one such content/event company:

"MediaPost continues to host valuable industry events. With a down economy, it seems like events like these would be hard pressed to generate the attendance necessary to make them valuable. As it turns out, that has hardly been true. The OMMA events are well attended by the right people in our space to facilitate open conversations around how we can continue to grow online media..."

To me, the proliferation can be attributed to several dynamics:

• The need for ad-driven content companies to derive revenue from sources other than advertising
• The desperate desire for media, marketing and PR professionals to ramp onto the social media revolution -- for fear of irrelevance, and
  
• No shortage in supply of self-styled social media pundits who seem to make a living through their punditry.
  

Here are some useful resources should you have the time, budget and motivation for self-enlightenment:

• Gary's Guide
• MediaPost Events Calendar
• MediaBistro Events
• Digital Hollywood
• WOMMA Recommended Events
• Mashable's Social Media Events Guide
• Somewhat Frank
  

Finally, I'd be remiss not to mention several gatherings where this PR pro and blogger plans to speak:

• PR for Start-Ups (tonight, April 30)
• PRSA Digital Impact Conference, A-List Bloggers (May 1)
• Social Communications: The Case Studies (May 12)
• 2009 Media Relations Summit, Microblogging Session (May 18)
• 2009 Media Relations Summit, New York Times session (May 19)
• PRSA Teleseminar, Social Media & PR (June 9)
  

I hope to see you on the circuit.

Labels: calendar, events, marketing, media, professional development, social media, TED, tweet-ups, Web 2.0

Some years ago, we were called on by the Mexican Ministry of Tourism to help put in proper perspective the damage caused by the massive earthquake that hit that country. As you might imagine, tourism is big business in Mexico, making up 9.4 % of its GNP - mostly from American visitors.

To preserve this vital industry, we dispatched video crews to Mexico City to capture the (isolated) damage, and more importantly, the areas that were left unscathed. Armed with that footage, we arranged for the Mexican Minister of Tourism to talk with every national TV news organization and any major market local news programs that would listen.

Today, Mexican Tourism officials must be feeling more than just headaches, fever and sore throats. Now only has the CDC advised against travel to Mexico, but so have the UK, France and Germany. Some cruise lines have cancelled all their Mexican ports-of-call.

But have the symptoms really set in for tourism officials? A visit to Mexico Tourism's main English-language website makes no mention of this epidemic that's consuming their industry. None, Nada. Even the Mexican government's crisis communications seems a bit spotty:

"The Mexican government has given out information on the outbreak and its victims only in bits and pieces, refusing to provide details on who the dead are and where and when they died. For the second consecutive day, the government was on the defensive against criticism that it acted too slowly to contain the virus and to alert the public to the dangers.

"'We never had this type of epidemic, this type of virus in the world," an increasingly exasperated Cordova said at a news conference Monday. "We don't know how many days this will go on, because it's the first time in the world this virus has appeared.'"

Having also worked with the Hong Kong Tourism Board to put in perspective the SARS epidemic and its aftermath, I have to say that the contrast between the two approaches is stark. HKTB regularly and pro-actively communicated with its key constituents all developments -- from precautionary measures to news emanating from the WHO.

While consistent and credible communications can't stop the spread of a viral infection, it certainly helped accelerate the healing process once the disease started to dissipate.

Talking about tourism, I'm keeping a watchful eye on Disney, and how aggressive a stance it is taking in response to the unconfirmed rumors of a single suspicious case of the flu from a Mexican tourist visiting Orlando:

"Disney told Eyewitness News late Tuesday morning that they have not received any confirmation about a swine flu case involving a guest."

With attendance at Disney theme parks already soft, a viral rumor of swine flu at Disneyworld (which I first noticed on Twitter), could be quite damaging -- whether it's true or untrue.

Labels: crisis communications, Disney, hong Kong tourism, mexico tourism, PR, SARS, swine flu