Communications Slop

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"The modern chief executive lives behind a wall of communications operatives, many of whom ladle out slop meant to obscure rather than reveal."

David Carr

-- David Carr of The New York Times lamenting the way many CEOs have long interacted with members of his profession. Not surprisingly, he lays the blame on communications professionals. The quote appears in his must-read column today on Rupert Murdoch's sudden embrace of Twitter. More on that below.

He's right, and wrong.  Yes, the PR pro is charged with advising C-Suite executives on what to anticipate in a media interview, and how best to respond to journalists' questions. Frankly, why should only the reporter's editorial agenda be met? Shouldn't the company also use the opportunity to advance its agenda? If not, why grant the interview in the first place?

And just as a good reporter will do some homework in advance of engaging a newsmaker, the better PR people among us will strive to wrap their arms around where a reporter's journalistic proclivities will take the conversation. In fact, there is no shortage of ex-journalists making their livings as "media trainers," though few of them directly interface with reporters to ensure that the goals of both sides of the media relations equation are met. (We take special pride in pegging reporter's questions in advance.)

Obfuscation? Maybe in the eyes of the journalist, but from the perspective of the CEO, C-Suite or Board of Directors, this is a necessary step for advancing a company's POV, let alone enhancing its reputation.

Mr. Carr does make a good point when he infers that the CEO has traditionally hidden behind the company's communications (or general counsel as was more likely the case). This began to change a bit as corporate blogging took root. The CEO of Sun, vice-chairman of General Motors, founder of Zappos were just a few of the corporate chieftans who embraced blogging early on as a means to share their (mostly) unfettered musings. It was also a way to bypass journalistic scrutiny to speak directly to core constituencies.

UMass Study of Corp. Blogging Among Inc. 500 ('09-'11)

Ironically, it was probably the company's PR department that nudged their CEOs into this brave new medium, though a new study of the Inc. 500 by UMass Dartmouth indicates that corporate blogging may now be on the wane:

"Small businesses are backing away from blogging as a marketing tool and shifting to other social media outlets. Bye-bye, company blog—and hello, Facebook? The number of Inc. 500 companies maintaining corporate blogs has dropped."

Rupert Murdoch (graphic via Gawker)

Are they being replaced by shorter-form, and less time-consuming tweets? Perhaps. The catalyst for Mr. Carr's piece was the unlikely embrace of Twitter by the octogenarian (and lately much beleaguered) CEO of NewsCorp, Rupert Murdoch. Carr writes:

"But, Twitter has the potential to cut past all that clutter. Given its ubiquity, there’s a chance to get a glimpse into the thinking of otherwise unapproachable executives, and sometimes even have a real dialogue with them. No one can be forced to use Twitter, but some people, even captains of industry, cannot resist."

What's ironic about Mr. Carr's take on the PR profession is that the "flacks" he accuses of masking the company's real CEO are again the same folks who advised Mr. Murdoch to take to the Twittersphere. The strategy was simple. After Murdoch was hammered in the media stemming from his appearance in the British courts and subsequent revelations, someone on News Corp's comms team had an epiphany: let's use Twitter to humanize him. It worked like a charm. Mr. Carr end his piece with this:

"Mr. Murdoch’s desire to be seen as a paragon of civility in any media realm, old or new, is rich. But give him credit for engaging in the world we all now live in and for not losing sleep over what pops out."

Ironically, News Corp's top communications officer resigned today. Was it the phone-hacking scandal or Rupert unleashed on Twitter? We'll probably never know for sure.

Those Five-Star Reviews

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How important are consumer-generated reviews in your purchase-making decisions? If you're like me, the answer is VERY. When assessing hotels, the write-ups on Virtual Tourist and Trip Advisor invariably make or break my booking. The reviews on Yelp play the deciding role in tipping the restaurant scales. Same with Fandango for movie reviews.

Then there's the granddaddy of them all, Amazon, which recognized the intrinsic value of its customers' reviews early on in the game. It even applied for and was granted a patent.

As I think about it, nearly all of the big-branded retail websites today allow customers to weigh in -- good, bad and ugly. More importantly, these "peer" reviews have attained such influence, they've pretty much usurped the influence of professional gadget, restaurant, and film reviewers at media outlets like CNET, New York and TIME magazine, respectively, who do this full-time for a living.

One, two, five stars...how ripe are these reviews for gaming? Wouldn't an enterprising marketing executive fork over some dollars to elevate the ratings for his company's product or service? A computer scientist at the University of Illinois tells The New York Times:

“More people are depending on reviews for what to buy and where to go, so the incentives for faking are getting bigger,” said Mr. Liu. “It’s a very cheap way of marketing.”

A few years back, I wrote about how one cruise line (smartly) cultivated some prolific bloggers whom they identified as rabid fans of the cruise line. Consumerist cried foul, implying that the company was resorting (excuse the pun) to a pay-for-positive-play scheme.

The ubiquity of consumer reviews on e-commerce sites has given rise to more sophisticated methods to manage this increasingly important determinant of purchase decisions -- from the perspectives of both retailer and manufacturer. When it was learned that an author of a book being sold on Amazon had pseudonymously written a review of his own work, Amazon stepped up efforts to shore up the sanctity of its reviews. Or so I thought at the time.

A piece in today's New York Times lets shoppers know that there's still some gaming going on. One firm made a business out of selling rating stars for $10 a piece.

"By the time VIP Deals ended its rebate on Amazon.com late last month, its leather case for the Kindle Fire was receiving the sort of acclaim once reserved for the likes of Kim Jong-il."

Of course, it's one thing for the retailer to monitor and moderate the reviews posted to its site -- if that's even scalable at Amazon given the number of reviews it hosts -- and another to put the kabash on companies outside its control who seek to capitalize on this new "very cheap way of marketing" that permeates the world of e-commerce. The Times alerted Amazon to its findings, which prompted Amazon to reply that:

"...its guidelines prohibited compensation for customer reviews. A few days later, it deleted all the reviews for the case, which itself was listed as unavailable. Then it took down the product page itself.

Asked why Amazon did not seem to notice that at least a few consumers called into question the VIP deal on its own site, a spokeswoman declined to comment. Nor would she say exactly what happened to VIP’s other products, like the Vipertek VTS-880 mini stun gun, which also disappeared from the retailer."

If the world's largest online retailer can't fully get its grips around the duplicity that exists within its consumer reviews section, just think about the myriad other online retailers hosting such reviews.

Maybe I'll rethink my blind reliance on these reviews when I purchase my new video camera, and head back to CNET or gdgt whose motto is "Reviews from people who actually know." As for pricing and interface, Amazon, you still rule.

Update: Received a link to Big River Review via email after my post appeared.

Pando's 'Cuda

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In case you hadn't noticed, a very refreshing bi-product has risen from the ashes of the rather acrimonious breakup between TechCrunch founder Michael Arrington and his wealth-creating nemesis, AOL. The tech/social news-savvy site PandoDaily, led by former TechCrunch ed-at-large Sarah Lacy (aka @sarahcuda on Twitter), burst onto the scene only a week or so ago and already is a must-follow in my stream.

PandoDaily's Sarah Lacy

Some initially dubbed it TechCrunch II, but I'm finding PandoDaily to be less of a mix of frenetic, short breaking news stories about the latest start-ups to land notable VCs' millions or the coolest new apps and gadgets. Ms. Lacy offers a more thoughtful take on the issues swirling around the whole media-tech-social-finance ecosystem.

The jury of course is still out, but based on the posts emanating from the keyboard of the seasoned Ms. Lacy, PandoDaily is destined for greatness -- which today means influence.

Google chief Larry Page

Take for example her post today. It delves a little deeper into the whole Google-Twitter-Facebook smackdown wherein Google finds itself fending off allegations that it has gamed its vaunted organic search results in favor of its own socially generated content.

Search Plus Your World (or SPYW for the digital cognoscenti) supposedly surfaces Google+ postings to the exclusion of those generated relevantly from Twitter or Facebook.

"I’ve heard from several Googlers who are embarrassed and unhappy with the company’s silence the last two days as the core of the company’s values have been called into question," Lacey writes.

I mentioned this perniciuous PR problem in a post last week, which prompted a call from Google PR -- not about SPYW, but rather to ask me to update the company's position on some ethically challenged third-party operatives in Kenya hired to build Google's local advertising business. (I already had.)

Ms. Lacy pegged her post to Google co-founder/CEO Larry Page's internal "ultimatum" on Friday to fellow Googlers:

"This is the path we’re headed down – a single unified, ‘beautiful’ product across everything. If you don’t get that, then you should probably work somewhere else."

Ms. Lacy peppers her post with links to Business Insider's Henry Blodget, Chris Sacca and former TC colleague MG Siegler posting to Pando. She didn't link to this TechCrunch-posted video interview with Brad Noble on the subject:


She continues:

"The quasi-ultimatum caught our source by surprise and underscores just how important this new direction is for Page. It also helps explain why Google’s PR was so silent since evidence of the Don’t Be Evil toolbar came out yesterday. If this is the future of the company and it flies in the face of Google’s stated values, what can they say?"

Now we know how Ms. Lacy got her Twitter handle . (Hint: it wasn't derived from her last name.)

My Big Messy Social Life

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My social life is a mess. And I know I'm not the only one mired in the digital muck. Here's the lowdown, which stands  in contrast to just two years ago: 

I'm feeling pressure to bolster my presence on the red hot Pinterest even though the app (on Chrome) couldn't find the image of Danny Meyer's new downtown dining spot on the home page of Eater.com, which I had hoped to add to my hot NYC restaurant board.

I still get daily emails from Empire Avenue even though it's been months since I've traded in anyone's personal stock.

Someone just started following me on Google Schemer. Geesh. I forgot I registered for that one.

I continue to use Google's Blogger as my primary blogging platform, but the lure of Wordpress and Tumblr grows.

I have taken a few photos using Instagram on my iPad, but it's a bit clunky and the utility remains a mystery to me. (I suppose it's really made for the iPhone.) I guess I'll wait for the next-gen social media-enabled DSLRs.

Twitter is a lifeline. I say this in spite of the spousal grief I endure when checking the stream at the dinner table. It is the one channel I actively manage. I also have it linked to Ping.fm, which syndicates my tweets to other social channels. Also, the advent of social news aggregators that auto-curate content from those I follow, such News.me and Zite, is proving a wonder.

Bit.ly's been great to gauge the traction of my tweeted links and blog posts. 2012 will be the year when this dominant URL shortening service will do something big-time with all that data it collects.

Plancast is another channel to which I pay a fair amount of attention. It lets me know the events for which my friends in the social spheres have registered.  NEWS rthios weekend is that its CEO may let it go by the wayside. Here's a must-read on Plancast's fate.  I suppose it has replaced Dopplr, even though Dopplr's more geared to travel.

I am a member of Yelp, and have even reviewed a restaurant or two.  I suppose if the eating establishment is exceptional good or atrociously bad, I'll take the time to contribute my opinion. Otherwise, it's a great resource to find local dining spots. I'm liking its iPad app too.  Same deal with Virtual Tourist and TripAdvisor.

The consumption and socialization of music has its share of channels. Spotify allows one to tap my and my friends' iTunes files and listen on the go.  I had signed up for the lowest-level premium account, but didn't see any added value so I scuttled that.  Also, the UK-birthed music site just restricted the ability to experience free unlimited listening. Of note, Ticketmaster's new Facebook app has Spotify baked in, while Facebook just bowed its  own Listen With feature.

The other site I played with for a while until it became too much of a time sync is Turntable.fm. I created a standard avatar, found the room with the music genre I liked (yes, I did find some rooms with deeper cut from classic artists), then queued up to take one of the five turntables on which I could expose the other avatars in the room to my taste.  Tunes came could be uploaded from my own collection or gleaned from the site's massive archive. Spending four hours/week as a progressive FM radio station DJ in college was cool. Today? Not so much.

If you thought the socialization of music was big news, keep an eye on what's happening in the TV-viewing space and how mobile devices are bringing the promise of interactive TV to life. Sites like GetGlue, Miso, Umami, IntoNow and others have added a new dimension to the TV viewing experience -- one that benefits viewers, programmers and advertisers.  I've checked in a few times on GetGlue, but I'm a little skittish about sharing my sometimes pedestrian viewing tastes on Twitter. Also, no dopamine released for me when getting a badge for watching a particular show.

I also like the synchronously-delivered content and conversation model of Umami TV (a client). Social Media Week plans a panel on the topic Feb 16.

One can't help but be impressed by the success of Quora, at least in terms of the size of its user community and the amount of original content it produces. I hear the site is planning a Pinterest pivot and will keep an eye on that. How do I know the site is successful? Try posting a question not already posed (and answered) by its members.

After meeting the founders of vYou, the social video startup at SXSW last year, I registered for an account. VYou is kind of like Quora for the moving image set. I set up my page, but only received one question (out of left field). The NY-based company just did a major update to the site, so we'll see where that nets out.

After Delicious melted down, I quickly migrated all my past links to Diigo, only to re-migrate them back to Delicious after it was acquired by AVOS, led by YouTube founders Chad Hurley and Steve Chen.

Talking about YouTube, I find it useful to post video I shoot (e.g., #2 and #3 sons' sailing regattas and lacrosse games). More recently, it's been a great outlet to upload (and link to) video clips from the industry events I cover, e.g., NYTM. Right now, my YouTube page is not all that social, but I suspect 2012 may bring some changes in this regard.

Having ignored Farmville, I have been liking Zynga's Words with Friends -- Scrabble for the social set. It's a total time sync. When you play with strangers, however, the lack of a time limit for adding letters can be frustrating. I just wonder how Hasbro missed the boat on this one. (Shades of Scrabulous?)

I continue to post to Google+ with its 90 million regular (?)  users, but wish there was an easy way to merge my Google-hosted business account with my free GMail (to which all my Google tools and apps are linked). Thank goodness for my #2 son's roommate who works at Google. He introduced me to GMail's Incognito window.

I like what LinkedIn has done with shared updates on profile changes, and the channel's new ability to add "skills" to one's profile. I also signed up for Job Change Notifier, a nifty little third-party app developed by PaperG co-founder Roger Lee. It tells me when anyone in my LinkedIn network has changed jobs. Now I just need to figure out how to take all the business cards I've scanned via CardScan and merge them with LinkedIn's newly acquired CardMunch.

Foursquare still gives me that dopamine release, especially when collecting new badges or leap-frogging one of the digital influencers I follow. I'm, not too happy with Blackberry's Foursquare app and its frequent inability to find venues. This frustration may very well be the straw that sent this camel to iOS.

Facebook, the elephant in the social room, has so many bells & whistles that one would be hard-pressed to find anyone fully utilizing them. Maybe one day I'll collect and digitize all my life's media assets and add them to timeline? Should I try to accomplish this Herculean task in time for FB's IPO, which may also coincide with the one billion-user milestone? Then again, do I really want Facebook monetizing my life for its own aggrandizement, let alone that of its advertisers & marketing partners?

PR for Startups: Deconstructed

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Blog Maverick

It turns out that my post last week about item #11 on Mark Cuban's list of 12 Rules for Startups -- "Never Hire a PR Firm" -- set off a firestorm that prompted a more nuanced response from Mr. Cuban.

In his expanded view, Mr. Cuban did not disavow his disdain for the PR industry. In fact, he even attempted to school the PR community by drafting a sample pitch letter. More on that in a moment.

My first post mentioning Mark Cuban came in August 2005 during the nascent days of this blog. A then-ascendent New York Times business reporter named Andrew Ross Sorkin had just published a less-than-flattering profile piece on the founder of Broadcast.com and owner of the Dallas Mavericks. As a fellow blogger and admirer of Mr. Cuban, I dashed off an email to him early that morning offering some free advice on what he might do to set the record straight.

Andrew Ross Sorkin

I didn't hear back, but about 90 minutes later, a line-by-line retort of Mr. Sorkin's story appeared on his blog. It turns out the interview was conducted via email, so Cuban simply reposted the unedited Q&A, adding his own clarifying remarks. (Very cool early example of "We the Media.")

Taking a page from the newly crowned NBA champ, I thought I would deconstruct his less-than-ebullient take on the PR profession, at least as it relates to providing value for the startup community.

Mr. Cuban:

"The first problem with hiring a PR firm is cost. Cash is always in short supply in startups. Given all the potential places that you need cash in a startup, is the company better served having that cash available to potentially keep the company alive another day, week or month ? Or hiring a PR person? I would rather have the cash."

In effect, Mr. Cuban is correct. When should a startup consider retaining PR counsel and why: for initial positioning, funding news, product launch, partnerships...? The cost, however, will vary from agency to agency, and often is considerably less compared to other marketing disciplines. A small consultancy can run as little as $5,000/month, solo practitioners even less. Mid-sized agencies tend to go for $10K+/month, and larger agencies $15-20K+. (I'm generalizing here.)

Mr. Cuban:

"The next issue is time. The thing about PR people is this: while they may have great contacts and they can get articles placed, they are not capable of doing a vulcan mind meld. They don’t automatically know all the elements about your business that you want to convey to media, partners, customers, potential employees and even potential investors."

Tipping Point's Art Chang Judges Ultralight Startups

Yes, it's can be a time sync to have to continuously educate a third-party vendor on a startup's underlying technology, its audience, business goals, etc.

However, as I said in the comments section of his post,  the startup should hire a rep who's a quick study and will take the time to fully understand the competitive landscape, what distinguishes the startup’s product or service, and most importantly, what keeps the founders up at night. This is where most firms fall down.


The very best in our business will fully immerse themselves in the client's DNA, freeing up the founders to build the business, while leaving the communications piece to the communications professionals.

Mr. Cuban:

"But the reality is that for the vast majority of startups, particularly tech related startups, most of the media that is going to benefit you out of the gate is trade related or local media. And these people are ALWAYS looking for stories to write. They want to hear from unique companies."

Shoutem Showcased at Ultralight Startups Event Jan 12

Not necessarily. Tech trades, bloggers and even local media are not "always" looking for stories.  And if the are, they tend nowadays to be primarily influenced by those whom they follow on Twitter and Google+, their Facebook friends, and their RSS readers and social news aggregators like News.me and Zite. An email from the founder of a cool new tech start-up, no matter how cogent or compelling, will rarely be opened. In-demand tech journos received hundreds a day.

A seasoned PR professional may have represented many startups and thus be known by the reporter. Who stands a better chance of gaining traction: an unrecognized founder of an unbranded and untested company or the PR person with whom the reporter has worked before?

Mr. Cuban:

"It’s amazing how often a simple email to a writer for a trade publication or local media will get a response. The key to getting a response is being short, sweet , hyperbole free and to the point. You have to sell your differentiation in a paragraph.

Subject : Tracking Traffic to Reduce Vacancies

Dear Real Estate Industry Writer,

My name is Mark Cuban. I would love to tell you more about our company motionloft.com. We have internally developed a sensor that when placed on the side of a building can track in real time the number of people and cars that pass by. Motionloft is being used by building owners in San Francisco and New York to lease space by showing potential tenants the exact amount of foot traffic in front of a store location. Its being used by tenants to determine the best time to open, close and to offer specific products in services.

In one test case we would love to share with you, a tenant decided to rent a store front and go against the conventional wisdom of the area and open for lunch…with great results. They made this decision based exclusively on the data provided by motionloft.com

If you would like to see more information about motionloft.com and how your readers could benefit, just let me know!

all the best

mark

Nice pitch, Mark, but it ain't happening for you. Yes, if that pitch were coming from the owner of The Dallas Mavs, as opposed to Joe Startup, it might get an airing.  To your credit, there's much good in the query including a lack of hyperbole and rhetoric, brevity and a positive, conversational tone. These are sorely missing in many of today's PR pitches.

Robert Scoble & Michael Arrington

Still, the reality is that tech journos are drowning in hundreds of daily story suggestions -- mostly irrelevant -- but many from pathbreaking companies whose products or services actually merit editorial consideration.

The ability to capture the limited bandwidth of a tech or startup beat reporter takes time, trust, perseverance, ingenuity and frankly, a little luck. Clearly a company's co-founder has better things to do with his or her time.

Mark Cuban:

So back to startups hiring a PR firm. Yes, you can get there from here with a PR firm, but im a believer that you accomplish much, much more with direct relationships than by using an intermediary. And that cash you keep in the bank can be the difference between staying alive as a small business, or not.

Spotted at Ultralight Startups Showcase in NYC 

As I said in my initial post and in the comment section on your blog, it matters little who’s opening the doors to reporters and digital influencers. In fact, I agree that it's preferable to have the client interface directly with the journalist. We're perfectly happy to remain in the background, providing advance prep, positioning and the narrative.  We're also there for the client who's not familiar with the delicate dance that exists between the newsmaker and journalist, and more importantly, what it takes to tango.

What value can one place on the PR counselor who prevents a journalist from skewering the client's business or POV, or one who is so passionate, articulate and infectious that the client can sleep at night knowing that his or her interests are well represented? What would you pay for that, Mark?

Don't Be Evil

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Scott McNealy

In March of 1998, the straight-talking CEO of Sun Microsystems travelled to Washington to testify before Congress on the then-monopolistic ways of one famous tech company out of Redmond, WA. Scott McNealy, with whom I sat the following morning in the green room of NBC "Today," had this to say:

"The only technology I'd rather own than Windows would be English," McNealy said. "All of those who use English would have to pay me a couple hundred dollars a year just for the right to speak English. And then I can charge you upgrades when I add new alphabet characters like 'n' and 't.' It would be a wonderful business."

That testimony is reminiscent of the battle brewing in social circles between Twitter and Google, which this week, changed its indexing algorithm to capture the content generated on Google+, to the apparent exclusion of Twitter's hundreds of millions of tweets per day. Obviously, Twitter was not pleased. Its general counsel tweeted this example:

"Folks asked for examples,” he wrote. “Here’s what a user searching for ‘@WWE’ will be shone on the new @Google."

Results of Google search of @WWE (via Mashable)

Google shot back saying it does not index the @ symbol. The Electronic Privacy Infomation Center (EPIC), for its part, wrote the FTC requesting an investigation:

"Google is changing the results displayed by its search engine to include data from its social network, such as photos or blog posts made by Google+ users, as well as the public Internet," EPIC wrote. "Although data from a user's Google+ contacts is not displayed publicly, Google's changes make the personal data of users more accessible. Users can opt out of seeing personalized search results, but cannot opt out of having their information found through Google search."

Dick Costolo

It was only last October that Twitter CEO Dick Costolo seemed to shrug off the challenge by Google+ and Facebook:

"We think we can reach every person on the planet, we think the way to do that is to simplify it," he said. "Over time, Google+ and Facebook will be more and more different than the experience we want to pass onto our users."

Now that Google has flexed its search muscles in the social spheres, Twitter is crying foul:

“Bad day for the Internet,” tweeted Alex Macgillivray, Twitter’s general counsel. "We think that’s bad for people, publishers, news organizations and Twitter users.” 

We will keep a close eye on developments in this epic battle given the implications it has for any person, product or service hoping to build a bigger social footprint.

Separately, Google has another PR controversy brewing that may pose an even bigger affront to the search/ad monopoly's informal motto of "Don't Be Evil.'  In an effort to establish a beachhead of ad/website business in Kenya (of all places) from small local merchants, Google's sales teams insidiously tapped the customers of a Kenyan company called Mocality for its business leads.

Mocality set up a sting and soon learned that Google operatives were behind the sales overtures to its customers, and in the process, had misrepresented themselves. Business Insider reported:

"In September Google decided to replicate some of what Mocality had already done. It launched a program called, Getting Kenyan Businesses Online (GKBO). After Google launched GKBO, Mocality started getting what it calls 'odd calls.'"

Apparently caught with its finger in the Kenyan cooke jar, a Google rep could only say this:

"We're aware that a company in Kenya has accused us of using some of their publicly available customer data without permission. We are investigating the matter and will have more information as soon as possible."

In my experience, it takes three well-publicized controversies in a short time span to create a crisis tipping point that could indelibly hurt a company's reputation. Right now, Google is navigating two (that we know about).

Update 1/13/12 1:30pm ET: Google "apologizes unreservedly" to Kenyan firm. Here's the statement from its Europe and emerging markets product and engineering VP Nelson Mattos:

“We were mortified to learn that a team of people working on a Google project improperly used Mocality’s data and misrepresented our relationship with Mocality to encourage customers to create new websites.

“We’ve already unreservedly apologised to Mocality. We’re still investigating exactly how this happened, and as soon as we have all the facts, we’ll be taking the appropriate action with the people involved.”

"Never Hire a PR Firm"

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Maverick Mark Cuban

That NBA champ, author, and billionaire blogging maverick Mark Cuban offered up some mostly sound advice to the startup community this week in a post titled "Mark Cuban's 12 Rules for Startups" on Entrepreneur.com.

I say mostly because his #11-ranked recommendation read as follows:

"Never hire a PR firm. A public relations firm will call or email people in the publications you already read, on the shows you already watch and at the websites you already surf. Those people publish their emails. Whenever you consume any information related to your field, get the email of the person publishing it and send them a message introducing yourself and the company. Their job is to find new stuff. They will welcome hearing from the founder instead of some PR flack. Once you establish communication with that person, make yourself available to answer their questions about the industry and be a source for them. If you are smart, they will use you."

Mark, you're right in some limited sense. Many (PR-beleaguered) tech journalists have developed an inherent distaste for a profession that peppers them with inane pitches that are mostly irrelevant to their editorial interests.

In reality, many bad pitches emanate from the lazy ones in our profession who rely exclusively on those automated services to build their media lists, but who never take the time to properly vet them. (They've also been know to originate from junior PR types whose bosses don't take the time to vet their prose.)

It's no wonder that some reporters take glee in publicly posting these spammy overtures.

Please know that not all PR people fall into these unfortunate categories, though at times it may seem so.  In fact, an informed and conscientious PR professional can be a great asset to a time-challenged journalist looking for a lead on a hot new startup or one simply trying to find timely answers to his or her questions.

Moreover, Mark, you're not wrong in recognizing that many journalists -- especially on the tech beat -- would rather hear directly from the expert or executive within the company versus the account exec at agency of record.  Certainly, you above all can appreciate that startup CEOs wear far too many hats to take on the blocking and tackling that goes with engaging reporters, industry analysts or trade show programmers.

At my firm, we prefer to open the door for our startup clients, then step back to let them directly  interface with the journalist. We're hardly divorced from the process, but we defer to reporters' desire to let the newsmaker be front and center. We're perfectly happy to remain in the background providing counsel. Invariably, the reporter will come back to us for varied informational needs.

Most importantly, we are there for the client who may not understand the nuances of the dance between the newsmaker and journalist.  I've had clients who've demanded a reporter's questions in advance, final copy approval, or that their story appear in a certain section. (Groan.)

Trust me, Mark, many startups, especially those on the brink of losing their media virginity, will derive and be thankful for the considerable benefit a smart PR firm can bring to the mix.

Wikipedia & PR: Friend or Foe?

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WIkipedia founder Jimmy Wales

Shortly before Christmas, I ran into an old friend who oversees social media for one of the big-branded management consultancy firms. He confided in me that he was having an issue with Wikipedia.

Wikipedia wouldn't grant him editing privileges, as a PR person, even though the information on the site about his employer was inaccurate. His question to me: should he pose as someone else to make the necessary changes?

I immediately said no. As untenable as the situation was, I thought it was clearly an ethical breach to misrepresent himself. (BTW - he was advised to do so by a reputable professional.) I then referred him to a friend in the biz who was much closer to the machinations of the world's largest crowd-sourced encyclopedia.

As for the tension between this Google-juiced, crowd-sourced repository of information and the PR community, here's what Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales had to say about it in 2006:

"I think we need to be very clear in a lot of different places that PR firms editing Wikipedia is something that we frown upon very very strongly. The appearance of impropriety is so great that we should make it very very strongly clear to these firms that we do not approve of what they would like to do."

Wikipedia's bias against PR pros (as bona fide site contributors) speaks to the challenge our industry faces as it seeks to redefine itself in a world where myriad other reasonably credible information sources abound.

Who's to say that PR people have the most timely, accurate and unbiased information about a company or topic? What's preventing PR people who represent clients with nefarious social, political or business agendas from tainting the site?

Edelman's Phil Gomes

As it just so happens, I coincidentally received a Facebook message last week from another friend in the biz John Cass inviting me to join a new group called "Corporate Representatives for Ethical Wikipedia Engagement" (CREWE), which was started by Edelman's Phil Gomes, another old pal from the digital PR trenches. Phil penned an open letter to Jimmy Wales in which he asserted that:

"A truly serious conversation needs to happen about how communications professionals and the Wikipedia community can/must work together. Since recent events have thrown this issue into sharp relief, I’d like us to have an open, constructive and fair discussion about the important issues where public relations and Wikipedia intersect."

Jack O'Dwyer

CREWE now has 72 members, including -- in the same forum no less -- long-time industry chronicler Jack O'Dwyer and his nemesis, PRSA, the industry's U.S. trade association. (Jack's interest deviated a bit from the others' in that he's lobbying to gain for his newsletter "third-party" status and thus the means to validate the acuity of what's posted about PR.)

For PRSA's part, the association's newly anointed chair & CEO Gerry Corbett had this to say:

PRSA's Gerry Corbett

"Public relations and corporate communications professionals are a resource, not adversaries when it comes to working with Wikipedia on behalf of clients, and employer companies and organizations to correct for inaccurate or missing information. Ultimately, that is one of the many valuable roles of public relations: to help organizations better connect with and inform stakeholders. And few can argue that there is any greater a stakeholder in the digital age than the hundreds of millions of people around the world who use Wikipedia as a source for information.

The effort by Phil Gomes and the group he has started on Facebook, is a critical advocacy activity that the Public Relations Society of America wholeheartedly supports. It is our intention to assist this effort however and wherever we can, and with the resources we have available. Doing so, we believe, will augment a timely campaign that will benefit the entire public relations and corporate communications industry, while helping to establish better relationships with the Wikipedia community, which clearly has an influential role in modern research for people of all professions.

One outcome we hope will come of this initiative is a better understanding by those from Wikipedia and others that PR is not about "spin," but about accurate and truthful information in accordance with an established code of ethics, such as PRSA’s Code of Ethics.

It is an initiative we hope will be taken up by many and used as a catalyst for an open and honest discussion with Wikipedia and its editors regarding the role and value of allowing corporate communications and PR professionals to responsibly and transparently make necessary edits to their employers’ and clients’ Wikipedia entries."

For my part, I suggested that the group, and its more prominent members, engage directly with Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales and others in a decision-making capacity. Sure enough, members Shel Holtz and Neville Hobson called out Mr. Wales on the issue on Twitter and elsewhere, and John Cass invited him to join the group. He accepted and has been posting his POV with promises for a full airing shortly. Here are some of the exchanges:

Phil Gomes:

For one client (multi-billion-dollar U.S. company), there was frustration about the gross inaccuracies and old data on the company's entry. She created a login for herself and, in the interests of full disclosure, included the name of the company in her login name (e.g., JudyACME). She then went to the talk page and suggested some changes to bring the entry up to spec. Her login was summarily banned because someone felt that using the company name in her login was overtly promotional. (!) The items mentioned on the talk page went untouched for some time. They were eventually let through, but subsequent requests went ignored. (One unhelpfully leaves it as, I'm paraphrasing, "You have a conflict of interest.")

Summary:

- So, here we have someone going out of her way to be above-board and is banned on the slimmest of justifications. This provided some initial rationale, I guess, for ignoring what she had to say.

- The corporate representative made the entry *better* than it was, despite accusations that people in her line of work are buzzword-spouting automatons.

Jimmy Wales

Phil, send me the example privately so I can study it? [sic]

Jimmy Wales

I've got Marshall's example and I'm looking at it. If you can get me yours in the next 12 hours or so, I can look at it tomorrow morning. I hope to post something about these tomorrow afternoon. Obviously I won't mention particular clients publicly, that isn't the point. The point is discovering what went wrong and what could have been done better.

Elsewhere others chimed in:

Jack O'Dwyer

John: here is the correct link to my WP blog: http://bit.ly/v0Ndc7. If that doesn't work free user/pass for odwyerpr.com for Jan. are happy & year. What I mostly know about WP now is that the PR entries are woefully insufficient and lacking coverage of major topics. When I tried to post five entries, they were all removed by people without much knowledge of PR as far as I can determine. I assume this is true with all your subject areas--editorial judgments being made by inexperts. WP's reliance on "reliable" published sources is naive since no media are reliable on everything. Also, truth is hammered out in vigorous pubic debates and WP does not like controversy.

David King

I'll be damned. I went to check the policy to prove you wrong and there it is. "The principle of verifiability implies nothing about ease of access to sources: some online sources may require payment, while some print sources may be available only in university libraries" Which is interesting, because an editor was just telling me I may not be able to cite a book that is difficult to find and I've been told in the past not to use articles that require paid access.

Jimmy Wales

David, that's an easy to confusion to clear up. Easily available sources are naturally preferred, but if a hard to find source is better, then that can outweigh that initial preference.

Derek DeVries

Jack - If it's important to have your thoughts on the PR pages in Wikipedia, why not make your web content publicly-available for free to all? That would solve the problem.

Jimmy Wales

Derek, that's absolutely correct. Many brands should consider freely licensing a LOT of content so that Wikipedians can easily use it. But what I'm recommending goes a lot further than that. If you think a page should say something, write it up, and post it on the talk page. That actually works wonders in virtually all cases - I think the people claiming that it doesn't will be hard pressed to prove their case, although of course it is always possible to find rare cases where things have slipped through the cracks. And in those cases, there are clear and highly workable avenues for escalation. There is never a need for PR people to directly edit articles

We have to give Mr. Wales credit for re-engaging with the PR community on this topic. I firmly believe that the vast majority of professionals abide by ethical rules that strictly prohibit the willful spread of disinformation. As for the spreaders of misinformation (Frank Luntz?), they too are no small consideration, especially as the industry seeks to reestablish its credibility.

Others who have thoughtfully weighed in include:

• Phillip Sheldrake "Reputation and Wikipedia" 

• Stuart Bruce "Wikipedia & PR Have Got to Work it Out"

• Jack O'Dwyer "WIkipedia Desperate for Input on PR Subjects"

• Serge Reuter "PR, Ethics & Wikipedia"

• Stephen Waddington "Not All PRs are Rogues" 

Let's keep an eye on this, especially since Mr. Wales appears to have listened and may be poised to make some concessions to the PR industry.