Over the River

When I talk with people, clients, companies, organizations, etc. I’m amazed by how much content - often awesome content - is just sitting around unused. Old brand materials (ads, packaging, signage), physical artifacts (products, packaging, prototypes) and information (historical data, b-roll, photographs) that could be doing a world of good in the light of day are simply being ignored.

It’s time for there to be a good old fashion content harvest. Look around at some of the great content you or your client or your company has on hand and imagine what could be done with it to make it accessible, engaging and exciting to people.

Have examples of every model widget your company has ever produced? Photograph them - show the evolution of the design - and post the photos onto Flickr. Have footage of every CEO speaking at a company event for the past 40 years? Cut it up, mash it up and use it to tell the story of change over that period. Tag it, post it, get it out there. This isn’t hard stuff - it just isn’t always obvious.

“But how will this approach support the current story or key messages?” you might be tempted to ask (although I hope you aren’t). Well, sometimes we get so fixated on telling the immediate story that we forget there are millions of forgotten or untold stories that will spark conversations and build excitement around individuals, brands and companies.

Come on, this stuff isn’t getting any fresher . . .

Technorati Tags: content, brands, marketing, communication

I’m a bit tardy in getting up my scorecard from last week’s event - I had to travel, got real busy, etc., etc., etc. OK, so it’s lame that it’s taken a week; but better late than never, right?

So let’s see how I did calling the companies:

FlipKey

These guys are all about helping find great vacation rentals. Now you may be saying to yourself, “how hard can it be?” and to a certain extent, you’d be right. But their point is that most people find it much easier to simply book a hotel room rather than looking for a place to rent. They’re also saying that there are tons of vacation properties around that are vacant most of the time so their owners are missing out on some economic upside. FlipKey wants to make finding and renting a vacation property simple. Maybe it’s not a cure for cancer but sounds pretty cool to me.

Expectation that I’ll be wowed – not super high. The idea makes sense and all but I’m not sure it’s going to be a big show-stopper demo.

Chances that I’m way off base - pretty low. I get the idea and am looking forward to seeing it but don’t expect it’s far from my expectations.

I was definitely impressed by what these guys had to say. There was one point in their demo when they showed a search for property on VRBO. It was a totally confusing mess. Then they showed the same search on Flipkey. Let me just say that the results were way, way different. And different in a good way - no, a great way. The site is slick, the content strong and they’ve really seemed to think through the business details.

I missed the boat in terms of being wowed by the demo - the night and day difference between Flipkey and what’s out there now was pretty dramatic.

Lemonade

Billed as ecommerce for everyone, I’m a little confused by Lemonade. It’s not like you have to own the products you sell on your stand, you only “recommend” them. You can put your stand on Facebook and other social networks which is good since who’s going to go to Lemonade to find my stand? Seems odd but what the hell, I signed up. That process was pretty smooth (the section for selecting your date of birth didn’t really work) and parts of it were really slick (the tool for choosing your stand color comes to mind). The range of products you can include on your stand is pretty extensive – almost a million – and they run the gambit from pretty cool to pretty crappy. One thing that I wasn’t clear on – and it might just because I didn’t read everything as carefully as I should have – was how you (and Lemonade) actually make money. I guess they’ll explain all that on Tuesday.

Expectation that I’ll be wowed – I really, really want to be wowed by this. If it’s a way for me to make a little cash I’m all over it.

Chances that I’m way off base – very high. This sounds too good to be true so it probably is.

So I saw the demo and heard the story but I still wasn’t that blown away but Lemonade. I get the idea, but I’m not a big impulse shopper and that’s kind of critical for this to work. I mean, if I’m looking for something, I’m more likely to go to a company Web site or Amazon or Google rather than a friend’s Facebook page. But that’s just me.

I will say that they have a good looking site and that they’ve considered how they’re going to make money - both good things; but I just don’t see how it’s going gain any traction. Of course their job got a whole lot harder when Facebook announced a new, friendly approach to advertising . . .

iiProperty

I guess if one “i” in front of a word is good, two “i”s must be twice as good. Either that or this is targeting aspiring sailors. Joking aside, this is an online property management tool for owners, builders, realtors, etc. who need to manage property as a commercial asset. This is the second property related demo at the event and it will be interesting to see if there is any connection between the way they each talk about themselves and their market. It’s also the second company I’ve seen in the past few days that seeks to automate a business process to make it easier and more palatable. (The other is FreshBooks http://www.freshbooks.com/ - which is seeking to provide billing systems.) Not being in their target market (although I do like boats) I didn’t register for this one to check it out. The idea makes sense though, and I will say, I was a building manager at one point and there were lots of parts of the job that would have been easier with a computer or something but it was the 80s so what can you do?

Expectations that I’ll be wowed – moderate. I don’t really know all the ins and outs and intricacies of property management so I may be pretty easy to impress.

Chances that I’m way off base – equally moderate. Who knows . . .

So it turns out that the “ii” has nothing to do with sailors - which is kind of disappointing. What wasn’t disappointing was their demo. Now I’m not going to say that EVERYTHING about it was cool or impressive but there was certainly some stuff in there that was. They are going after “casual” landlords - people with a few properties but who aren’t living the landlord dream.

They showed a pretty slick dashboard for managing properties, contacting tenants, etc. It looked pretty nice. But that wasn’t all. They also showed a version that’s intended for renters. It allows them to put in repair requests, correspond with their landlord and even, in the future, pay rent online. There was another slick little think they showed - the rentometer - that showed all of the current rents for specific kinds of properties. It looked nice and all but I don’t think it’s going to help anyone argue for a rent reduction . . .

Side Dishes:

Carbon Rally

Now this is cool. It uses competition to get people to make little changes in their lives to deal with environmental issues. The site issues challenges – things like giving up bottled water for a week – and calculates the carbon impact this will have. It encourages people to create teams of friends and colleagues to compete with others to see who can eliminate the most carbon from their day-to-day activities. As someone who recently gave up his parking space in Kendall Square in favor of the train, I’m all for what they’re doing.

Expectations that I’ll be wowed – pretty high. I like what these guys are doing, I like the approach they are taking and want it to work.

Chances that I’m way off base – pretty low. What I’ve seen of the site looks good.

I had a chance to talk to these guys a little before things got rolling and was impressed. It’s clean and simple site, it’s not trying to do too many things and I could see how it might get people engaged. What I don’t see is any way from these guys to make money.

Mixandmeet

Kind of like flashmobs meet online dating – but not quite, Mix&meet lets you create social situations with random people on the fly. Hmmmm. So you feel like grabbing a drink after work but all your co-workers are losers? Just tell Mix&meet where you are and what you want to do and you’ll get a note telling you who you’re meeting, where and when. It sounds pretty cool to me. I actually met the founder, Bruce Franco, the other night at the xconomy launch party and he sure made it sound appealing. I signed up for the service but it’s not quite ready just yet so I guess I’m going to have to wait.

Expectations that I’ll be wowed – as someone who loves going out to drink and meeting new people, I expect I’ll think this is pretty cool.

Chances that I’m way off base – pretty good. I’m 41 and I’m willing to bet that this is going to be popular with a slightly younger set and I’ll be seen as kind of an outlier.

I didn’t have a chance to talk with Bruce but saw his short description of the site. It does sound good and he’s pretty passionate about it. I can’t really say much beyond that.

Panospin

Haven’t I seen this somewhere before? Panospin provides 360 degree panoramas and to be honest, I know these have been around for years – years and years and years. So I’m honestly curious about what makes this different, new or better than previous incarnations. The language on the site seems a little bizarre to me - “Although still photography is good for detailed views, it doesn’t simulate a real life experience the way a 360 degree panorama can.” Huh. By this logic, video would be even better for “simulating” real life, so why not just grab a camcorder and go nuts. Color me skeptical.

Expectations that I’ll be wowed – hovering at or below the Mendoza line.

Chances that I’m way off base – fair I suppose – it’s possible that I’m missing some wonderful and essential fact about Panospin that will totally blow me away . . . but I doubt it.

OK, so I checked this out. Still doesn’t do much for me but I do understand it better. These guys didn’t develop the technology or anything, they’re basically a production company that can make products, sites, etc. look good in 3D. I wasn’t wowed, not by a long shot, but I guess I can understand why people might use them. How many places have this capability themselves? Let alone the skill and eye to do it well?

360gadget

When I first saw this company’s name I thought, “is it really possible that there are TWO 360 degree panorama companies coming to WebInno?” Not surprisingly, the answer is “no.” So what does 360gadget do? The apparently provide a customized Facebook page that can contain all sorts of terrific stuff – Google search, RSS, YouTube, etc. I say apparently because every link I tried on the page gave me a slightly different error message. I’ll try it again at some point but I didn’t really do that much for me.

Expectations that I’ll be wowed – gimmie a Z, “Z”, gimme an E, “E”, gimme an R, “R”, gimmie an O, “O”, what’s that spell? “Zero!” What’s that spell, “Zero!!”

Chances that I’m way off base – very high. Look, the thing wasn’t working when I went to check it out and so it might be beyond fantastic. Having a broken site isn’t good though so I’ll have to wait till Tuesday to see for sure I guess.

So I didn’t really check this one out. Things came up, what can I say? I have to say though that I just don’t think this is very interesting at all.

Student Concourse

Ah for those halcyon days of carefree youth! But it looks like youth isn’t as carefree as it used to be (or at least as carefree as I remember it). Student Concourse vows to help though and they’ve created what looks like a pretty slick application. Not only does the application itself look pretty cool, the site is nice as well. Being that I’m not a student in the most technical sense of the word, there’s plenty about this application that’s probably Greek to me but I’m still looking forward to checking it out.

Expectations that I’ll be wowed – very high. From the little I’ve seen I want to see more so I am hopeful.

Chances that I’m way off base – pretty low. I think this looks cool – of course there are a ton of questions and I’m only talking about this from an application/technology perspective – who knows about the business model . . .

OK, so I didn’t really check this one out either. But what was cool about it is that it was developed by a kid in high school. I’m betting he has a pretty good handle on what’s needed to be a successful student these days so I’m willing to guess that this is probably a pretty solid offering. A pity that I won’t have the occasion to attend high school again, that would rock on so many levels.

Untravel Media

So just because of the order they’re listed on the WebInno page (kinda sorta alphabetical) this is the last company I checked out. It also happens to be the one that I think is the most interesting. It combines a bunch of stuff that I really like – mobility, travel, media, etc. So what is this all about? It’s about portable content on places produced by the people who live there and telling interesting stories. There are a few examples up on the site now - “Creeping through Boston” - that has to do with Salem (for Halloween and all). The concept, content, site, etc. are all very polished. The process for creating the content is pretty complicated and I hope that it isn’t always going to be (you have to apply to product content, go through a review and training process, attend regular meetings, etc.). It would be great is people were able to do these films in a faster and more flexible process. I can imagine people seeing this content and deciding they can do it without all of the process and overhead. Either way though, this is cool.

Expectations that I’ll be wowed – super high. I like this one very much.

Chances that I’m way off base – tiny; it’s possible that it’s going to seem way less cool when I see it in person but I don’t think so.

I went in expecting to be impressed and I wasn’t disappointed. Having worked at Alcatraz (I was a park ranger) I understand how much people love location-based rich content (I’m referring to the audio tour of the prison). Untravel is making that kind of content - even richer with the addition of images and video - available for anywhere someone wants to produce it.

The types of content and kinds of devices they support was good and will only get better as they add GPS support in the future. I also love it that anyone can create content for the platform. I like being able to share and hear stories about places (I liked SpotStory and am bummed that it folded) and can imagine all sorts of tours that I’d like to create. The tools for doing them looked good and I am hoping to try my hand before too long.

So that was it in terms of the companies last week. Beyond the companies though there was the whole social scene that is WebInno. That continues to grow and improve. No more WebInnos now until the end of January. That stinks.

Hope you enjoyed this little recap. Let me know what you think - if you agree, disagree, etc.

Technorati Tags: WebInno, FlipKey, Lemonade, iiProperty, Carbon Rally, MixandMeet, Panospin, 360gadget, student concourse, untravel media

I saw this on my local news last night; and today it is on the front page of CNN.com: Experts warn of lightning-strike injuries with iPods.

Emergency physicians report treating other patients with burns from freak accidents while using personal electronic devices such as beepers, Walkman players and laptop computers outdoors during storms.

Now maybe I’m missing something here, but getting stuck by lightning - with or without and iPod - is a pretty big deal. The coverage did point out that personal electronic devices don’t increase ones likelihood of being struck . . . so why did anyone even bother doing the story? As a PR guy, when I read or watch the news, I find myself asking, “who’s behind this story? what might be their agenda?” and frankly I have no idea about this one. Just dumb.

Technorati Tags: lightning, ipod, injury

You know that social media has made it when you see so many PR firms and practitioners jumping on the bandwagon with dubious POVs, offerings and initiatives that miss the mark or misunderstand the situation. In the past I’ve written about Ogilvy’s 360 Degree Digital Influence idea and everyone has seen what happens when agencies decided that transparency doesn’t really matter – and now we have Larry Weber publishing “Marketing to the Social Web: How Digital Customer Communities Build Your Business.”

You can almost hear the glove snap as the doctor tells you to bend over . . .

Communicating in the social media world isn’t something that is done “to” an audience; it’s a conversation among groups and individuals that actually have something of value to say.

The other thing that drives me crazy is the Kool-aid sipping devotion people seem to have for the latest and greatest product/site/service. Sure, they may be cool but they’ll all be supplanted by something even later and greater. This can leave the seekers of the new looking like a dog chasing its tail – they may get close and they may even if they catch it; but even if they do, what then?

Maybe it’s a generational thing; but what’s important is to apply new thinking – not simply new platforms or practices – to the process of communications. I’ve been fortunate to have been exposed to some of this new thinking though my involvement and participation in activities at MIT. Things like the New Media Literacies Project point the way to developing a deeper and more sophisticated understanding of communications and of the changing and blurring relationship between content creation and consumption.

As communications professionals, we need to help our clients and colleagues – both internal and external – understand that social media isn’t so much about the technology; but rather about the potential created by the technology. There isn’t some formula or series of switches to be thrown in order to make social media work, and I worry that too many people are out there selling glib solutions to some very complex problems.

Technorati Tags: PR, Larry Weber, Ogilvy, Social Media, Communication, Marketing

Melvin Yuan, a PR blogger in Singapore, has been giving some good thought to the evolving nature of PR. He wrote an excellent post the other day in reaction to the Wired story, “The See-through CEO,” which ended with his summary of the role of PR in the emerging transparent environment:

PR, Clive Thompsons-of-the-world, is far higher up the rungs of leadership than you perceive it to be. It is more about relationships than publicity, and more about leadership than relationships.

We PR folks get our priorities mixed up sometimes; but some of us are changing things.And CEOs, this is not the time to “fire your publicists, go off message and let your employees blab and blog”. Even more than ever, you need the counsel of true PR professionals who understand that our chief mandate should not be “to create publicity”. We build the vital, trusted relationships that your companies depend on, and not the illusion of it.

“PR” is not a job title or “marketing strategy”. It is organisational leadership made public and personal. And today, we have the tools to do this better than ever.

The PR 2.0 Universe.com » Being transparent doesn’t mean being stupid or sloppy

I think Melvin has hit the nail on the head. It’s up to everyone involved in communications to make sure that the role and value of what we do is understood and appreciated. Now more than ever there is a need and an opportunity for good work to be done.

Technorati Tags: Melvin Yuan, PR, social media, transparency, leadership, relationships

Blogged with Flock

Shel started by asking how to make sense of everything that had been discussed over the preceding days.
How do we manage all of the new channels that are available? People have limited time and budget; and the expectations is that they will continue doing traditional communications while they begin working with social media.

Shel opened the floor for questions regarding channels. Inexplicably, RSS continues to be a huge source of confusion. I don’t get where all the trouble comes from.
The issue of internal communications came up and Shel pointed out that there is a blending and blurring between internal and external communications and that every employee can be viewed as a spokesperson for their company.

Someone raised the question of how the openness of social media can be reconciled with protecting IP. Shel suggested that engaging in conversations with appropriate audiences makes sense. You can get information that you’d never get anywhere if you don’t begin to talk with people.

He made a few points on channels (which was supported by a very handy chart) - until the 1940s there were a limited number of channels - then came TV and that was almost all we had for some time until the introduction of cable. The Internet has meant a huge fragmentation of channels. It isn’t about reaching a lot of people anymore, it is about reach the key influencers that are able spread the word. Fragment right along with everyone else.

Despite this fragmentation and the emergence of social media, traditional media still matters. Shel pointed out that only 767M people around the world are online - this is only 16% of the world’s population. For these people traditional media is the only media that’s available.

Do company Web sites still matter? Of course. Page views may not matter any more, now what matters is the experience that users have. Making that experience portable is key.

What are the biggest issues people are going to face when trying to bring social media into an organization? Time to manage it is one issue. But the more people do it the easier it will become and the less time it will take.

Presenting social media as a solution to real business problems rather than simply as new and interesting channels.

Gabriele from Dow asks about the fact that in the past we told people that they couldn’t talk to the media without training and supervision; and the fact that this is a huge cultural change. Shel response that it is a cultural change and that it is going to take training and consideration.

People aren’t doing social media because it is cool or new; they are adopting it because it works and allows them to do the things that they need to do. You can’t implement these social media tools unless you are living and using the tools yourself.

People worry about control but we all need to get used to the fact that NOBODY is in control. What we need to learn is how to get into and direct the conversation.

We’re living in a “do it yourself” world when it comes to content and there is no reason why we can’t all create content and use it to engage in a conversation.

What about engaging in the conversation? It’s best to be a part of the conversation and to allow the conversation happen on your site because it is going to happen - let it happen where you can be engaged.

The conversation is what is important.

Where is all this going to lead in the next five years? Most people believe that businesses are adopting this technology now and that in five years all of this will be totally accepted.

It’s interesting to hear this enthusiastic - yet in some ways more balanced - conversation on the topic. It really rounded out an excellent series of panels and discussions.

Technorati Tags: Shel Holtz, newcommforum

This morning, I read John Cass’ post on Sterling Hager’s post, Sanctimonious 2.0. (I also went and read Sterling’s post because there is nothing more annoying than people who comment without reading the original article.)

Sanctimonious or not, the communication landscape has changed and is changing. Social media has created community-based conversational communications and the conventions of traditional PR just aren’t going to be effective or well-received.

Hager seems to be arguing that the medium doesn’t matter, that the message is the message and PR practices - having reached their zenith - shouldn’t be monkeyed with. This doesn’t make any sense at all.

Whenever new technologies have been introduced they have forced change. Where people resist change they can look kind of silly in retrospect. Here’s a non-PR communication example. If you watch early silent movies, the performers are using stage conventions and it looks really overblown. As sound came in, the overly-emotive style of silent films lingered as people sought to understand the new medium. Technology drove changes in convention.

The same thing is happening here. Traditional PR has been an effective way to reach audiences through the mediated channel of the press. That will continue to be the case - to a greater or lesser degree - in most businesses. Social media though has changed the definition of audience. The audience is no longer an anonymous group of passive content consumers. Technology is allowing them to become active participants and contributors to the conversation.

The traditional media understood and accepted the conventions of the relationship between the press and PR. The social media has no reason to. Hager poses the following question:

I’m assuming these holier-than-thou distinguished panelists have stopped inventing quotes for news releases that portend to speak the words of the client’s senior executives? Or is it OK still to be inauthentic and opaque when it comes to that kind of scribe work… that old, traditional, yukky, not hip PR? It’s OK to pen words that are not transparent or authentic for media consumption… just not blog readers?

Sanctimonious 2.0 » AgencyNext

You bet people are still drafting quotes for client press releases. That is an accepted convention - just like wildly exaggerated facial expressions were in silent movies.

He goes on to equate blogs (and presumably by extension social media in general) with traditional PR vehicles:

I think the sanctimonious are trying to convey that blogs are oh so special. Alternatively, somehow, things like white papers, viewpoints, web site copy, user stories, feature articles, news releases, speeches and all the rest of the things we write — with authenticity by the way – are old testament rituals that just don’t qualify any of us inauthentic unwashed to near the altar to commune directly with the people on behalf of a client.

Sanctimonious 2.0 » AgencyNext

The fact of the matter is that they are different. The examples he cites are, for the most part, one-way channels. They might be authentic but they are also largely static and don’t invite participation. They are not social media. A blog does invite conversation; and for a conversation to really work you need to know whom you’re talking to (that’s why the issue of identity in social media is so important to me).

Traditional push PR has its place. It isn’t going to be going away in the foreseeable future; but it also has its limitations. It isn’t conducive to community participation, it isn’t social and it isn’t especially transparent. Those things are all critical to social media.

For a while I expect that we’re going to continue to hear this debate. In the end, social media is going to require PR people to rethink how they communicate. It isn’t a bad thing.

[tags]sanctimonious, PR, social media, public relations, communication, blogging[tags]

A few weeks ago I went out to California to pitch a piece of business. It was a large enterprise software company and we pulled together a big and very competent team to think about and present our ideas about their communications challenges. We did an awesome job; but learned last week - unofficially at least - that we did not get the business. (Hence the fact that I am not going to name the company - which isn’t that germane to the story anyway.)

The reason that we lost was that we weren’t felt to have the same depth of knowledge of the enterprise software space as some of our competitors. I don’t believe that this was the issue; members of our team had a great deal of enterprise experience - both internally and on the agency side. What we didn’t have was faith that enterprise software matters to the media in the way it did in the past.

I spend a fair amount of my time talking to reporters and analysts and most of them are pretty frank that this stuff just isn’t that interesting for them anymore. It isn’t that they don’t think it’s important or valuable; it’s just that it isn’t as newsworthy as it once was. One conversation in particular - about the company we pitched - illustrates the point. A reporter at one of the major business magazines said that she hadn’t written about their category in a while because it was “boring.” She mentioned that four or five years ago it was cool but that things hadn’t changed that much since then. She pointed out that she understood that businesses benefited by working with them; but that the benefits were the same today as they were in the past. In short, what they were doing just wasn’t that new or newsworthy.

There are a couple of things that are coming together that are going to make this a more and more common refrain. The first is that the IT industry is maturing. While there is lots of very cool and exciting stuff being done, not EVERYTHING that is being done is cool or exciting. This doesn’t mean it isn’t valuable or important or worthy of attention; it just means that it needs to be presented and discussed in different terms.

Fifteen years ago, when I started in PR, you could talk to the media about a technology and odds were that if it were interesting enough it would be covered. Very quickly reporters started saying, “sure, it sounds cool, but does it work?” Reviews became the order of the day for technology products and every publisher began investing in larger and more complete testing labs.

After a while, reporters would say, “OK, it does what you said it would; but how does that help a business?” Case studies and user stories were critical - some publications wouldn’t even talk to a company unless they could provide a referancable customer that would lay out the benefits, dollars saved, ROI, etc.

Now, we’ve reached the point where reporters are saying, “right, I accept that the product is what you say it is, does what it it meant to do, delivers some form of measurable business benefit; but it that all there is? Is the whole purpose of this just to add a few fractions of a cent per share? Does this really matter?” And that’s where we are now. Yes, a company’s hardware/software/service may be all that it says it is, preforms as promised and delivers some legitimate business benefit - but it might also not be different enough or relevant enough (to the larger world) to get the level of attention that it did in the past.

The other thing that is changing is that there are just a whole lot fewer publications out there - and for many companies, print publications continue to be seen as the standard for success when it comes to coverage. In the early 90s - during the time when the technology and reviews were the focus - think how many publications there were: PC Magazine, PC World, Windows Magazine, Byte, Windows Sources, PC Computing - and these are the ones just off the top of my head.

As the focus moved from the technology to the business story, a whole crop of other publications came up - Fast Company, Business 2.0, Red Herring, Wired, Industry Standard, etc. - and the technology coverage in traditional business publications also expanded. The failure of so many Web 1.0 companies - and the loss of the ad revenue they represented - knocked out many outlets. The result is that there are fewer and fewer outlets in general and even fewer that are going to cover technology the way they did in the past.

Too many PR people (and their clients) are clamoring around a dwindling pool of media, talking about things in the same old ways they did in the past. That just isn’t going to keep working much longer.

That was essentially the message we delivered to the client we lost out on. Not that we were all doom and gloom - we were excited about the possibility of telling their story (which could be an exciting one). Unfortunately, it wasn’t necessarily the story they wanted told. I think I know the very moment we lost - a colleague and I were presenting our ideas - which had nothing to do with the company’s technology - when we were asked how we would work the products into what we were describing. We explained that the products wouldn’t be a part of the story - that the story was about the company, the business issue they sought to address and how they were taking a much different approach. The program we had come up with relied heavily on Web relations and non-traditional elements - not because (as the client felt) we didn’t understand enterprise software; but because we did.

The days of simply telling clients what they want to hear need to end.  This is not in anyone’s best interest - even if it feels good doing it.
Old school PR isn’t going to be able to carry on much longer - at least not for technology companies. PR needs to bring relevant topics for conversation - not just company/product/benefit/customer to all constituents - and not only the traditional media. PR needs to also be an open, honest and active participant in the conversation.  Trying to manipulate things from the sidelines is a sure way to screw yourself and your clients. PR already gets the cold shoulder from the Wikipedia - which somehow sees us as not being a part of the community - and that has to change. But it isn’t going to change until PR people recognize, understand and act like a part of the community and help their clients do the same.

Technorati Tags: PR, public relations, technology, enterprise software, social media, web relations, media, communications