High-Tech PR Blog >> Beyond the Hype

Twitter English, MySpace English, Business English

A colleague sent me a link to an article in the Washington Post pondering in a rather amusing way about e-mail decorum.  The author does so by deconstructing and attempting to "decode" an e-mail thread that includes recipients irrelevant to the conversation, and is protracted by the default "reply to all" action most people take when participating in such threads.  Much has been written about e-mail etiquette in the past, so I won't elaborate on the article too much.

One aspect to the article that I can't help but comment on, however, is how it characterizes the (over)use of exclamation points and question marks in typical e-mail communication, something I've caught myself doing too much of in the last few years.  This brings me to the point on how much business English has changed -- for the worst -- not only because of e-mail and instant messaging, but now because of channels MySpace, Facebook and Twitter.  Twitter, tremendously growing in popularity (I've seen a 10 fold growth in my colleagues getting on board in the last two weeks), limits everyone to 140 characters per tweet, so it requires shorthand through a whole new dialect.  Writing on one's Facebook Wall, dropping messages into Super Pokes and the like demands another flavor of quick, snappy (and hip) conversation.

With these networks and others being used more and more in a business context, I fear that we'll see Twitter speak or Facebook-ese bleed its way into places where good old-fashioned business English is needed and expected, which is most business e-mail correspondence, not to mention other business documents.  I'm already seeing it. 

Now, not to come across as a Gen X curmudgeon, I'm all for certain new flavors of business English -- dialects appropriate for Twitter or Facebook or Flickr or whatever.  But, the traditional style of "old English" will never go away and we will do our best to make sure of that here.

Social network funny

When you have 5 minutes to take in some comic relief, this is must see 'net video!

(Hat tip to Tom Foremski via Twitter.)

Why Stop at Twitter? Try Thunkit

As an advance guard for our clients in the social media world, I am doing my best to try the various communication vehicles so we can advise them appropriately. So I'm not only in Facebook, but I also ventured into Twitter last week. Watching the stream of thoughts, quips, to do lists being checked off, and links being shared on the web by bloggers, journalists and some of my colleagues, it occurred to me that the next step is shared thought.

I introduce to you Thunkit.com, which takes social networking to a new paradigm, the sharing of thoughts. With a special chip added to your Bluetooth headset, you can send your thoughts at any point in time to people you choose to link with. Simply touching their name on the your Mac or iPhone address list connects them with you, as Steve Jobs -- clearly the deepest thinker in the industry today -- has embraced Thunkit and enabled all of his technology with this capability. Uri Geller has signed on to be the celebrity spokesperson. He's not making any appearances, though. He's just sending his thoughts to everyone who signs on.

When it happens, as I'm sure it will, the VC community will pour money into it.  But remember, I Thunkit first.

Taking Responsibility

My son’s teacher sent me an email and was upset that my son wasn’t prepared in class with the magazine he needed for class.  My son claimed she never gave him the magazine (only to find it in his locker later), and then proceeded to advise her to “keep extra copies in class in the future.”  We had to explain to our son that he needs to take responsibility for his actions and apologize for not being prepared in class.  He did, and the teacher was happy.

This connected with a great article I read in Fortune magazine entitled, “The Secret of Enduring Greatness” by Jim Collins, a bestselling management expert and author of the books Good to Great and co-author of Built to Last.  His article on how corporate stars rise and fall in an age of turmoil, offered some similar advice to what I had given my son.

The best corporate leaders never point out the window to blame external conditions; they look in the mirror and say, “We are responsible for our results!” Those who take personal credit for the good times but blame external events in bad times simply do not deserve to lead our institutions.

The same applies to PR.  Executives need to be truthful with reporters and analysts on facts, customers and delivery timetables.  They shouldn’t promise something and an exclusive to one reporter and then give it to another without going back to the first.  When companies or executives make mistakes, misrepresent the truth or a crisis occurs, they need to admit it and acknowledge it instead of blaming external events, saying they “mis-spoke” or trying to sweep it under the rug. If they don’t, they undermine their credibility and integrity and the situation typically escalates rapidly into negative press.

Taking responsibility may be a simple lesson but, it still holds true in life and in the success of companies. 

Is it truth or is it Polito-speak?

I'm begininng to reach election fatigue -- probably not unlike many Americans about now.  Trying to truly understand the results of the Pennsylvania primary win for Hillary Clinton and whether it is meaningful at all or creates doubts about Barack Obama's ability to win in the general election, as today's WSJ piece seems to suggest, is quite tough to figure out.  I listen to news reports.  I read blogs.  I chat with people.  Talk about missed messages. I have to do constant filtering, as many of the spokespeople on broadcast programs or in the print media are partisan for one of the candidates.  And the blogs definitely have their biases.  Some are more open about these than others.

So this morning on the way in to work, I tuned into the POTUS channel on XM radio, which is doing round-the-clock coverage of the race for the "President of the United States" and heard a commentator from Politifact.com, a site that has a truth meter for candidate attacks, statement and even videos.  It is worth checking out and has won some awards.  Of course the skeptic in me will be watching to see if the site seems to be leaning one way or the other in terms of biases.  But I must admit the "pants on fire" symbol next to some statement made by candidates or their supporters (there is one next to Bill Clinton right now) is pretty funny.

It got me thinking about political communicators and how often they are described as "spin-doctors."  The concept of "spin" is attached to the PR profession, unfortunately, and it makes it seem like our reason for being is to color the facts, tell half-truths and hide the faults of our clients and their products or services.  In actuality, what good PR does, especially in more of a business to business space, is to help companies tell the truth clearly and concisely so people quickly can grasp what they do and why it should matter.  We also work to make their truth interesting so people will pay attention.  A recent video interview with one of our clients demonstrated that the client could do a decent job of conveying facts, but wasn't making those facts as relevant or interesting as they could have been. In this age of entertainment-oriented news (remember folks, Rupert Murdoch now owns the Wall Street Journal), not being interesting is the cardinal sin in any interview, podcast or video.  It takes extra prep, with your PR pros, to make sure you're going to keep the audience interested.  But it pays off because you will be asked again and again to do interviews.   

But back to politics.  I really don't think of political campaigns as using PR the way I believe it should be done.  They are more about obfuscation than clear, honest communication.  At least that's my humble opinion.  What's yours?   

Things we can afford to forget -- PR Edition

Steve Baker at BusinessWeek sent out a tweet yesterday asking what things, such as phone numbers, we can now afford to forget. He posted his responses on his blog. My first thought was television station numbers and how to use a card catalog. Other things mentioned were paying bills by mail, street directions and spelling. This got me thinking about how things have changed in PR and what we can afford to forget. Here's some of mine: how to write pitches for delivery by anything other than email or social tools such as Facebook and Twitter, reporter's fax numbers and timing every piece of news towards Thursday deadline days for the trades. What other things can you think of?

Dogbert's Guide to Press Releases Next?

I had to chuckle this morning when I read the Techdirt post about Scott Adams decision to allow his audience to get in the act of finishing some of his Dilbert comic strips on the Dilbert website.

Eventually, this will extend to filling in the text of the whole cartoon. While there are no official plans to publish any of the results, Adams seems curious to see what pops out.

Techdirt refers to it as Adam's venture into crowd-sourcing.  It got me thinking about whether it will prompt other changes in the order of the universe.  Our technology clients sometimes work closely with their customers on key product features, taking their recommendations and even getting them involved in the development as well as the testing of new versions.  But these are close customers who have made a long-term investment to the software vendor.  They are as close as you can get to family members from a business perspective.  Some corporate blogs invite posters to comment on products and product direction.  They don't have to take the advice, but they at lest read it. 

But what if you took it a step further and invited the general public to advise you on what to announce externally and how to do it?  We could put up "fill in the blanks" press releases on corporate websites. 

Something like, "Acme Technology Group, [fill in corporate description] announces version 2.0 of its Velocity product suite, its [fill in product category and description here] that offers its customers [fill in benefit ]. 

Just think of it.  No more need for messaging and positioning sessions.  You can go with the best description of your company, product and its benefit from the crowd.

And no more need for staid, vetted quotes from the CEO or the CTO.  Let the crowd decide what this means for the company. 

"This new version of Velocity has been two years in development and will [fill in expected impact] for Acme and our customers."

I doubt anyone will let the casual reader fill in pricing and availability.  But who knows?  As social networking advances, maybe everything will be an auction.

What Warrants Business Press Coverage?

It's an age-old question...

How do I get into the [Wall Street Journal, New York Times, BusinessWeek, Forbes, Fortune, USA Today...] "fill-in-the-blank" business publication?

Having just returned from a series of meetings with our clients, I had a number of discussions about this very topic. And given it's such an important one, I thought it would be useful to offer some of the insights we regularly share through a short business press FAQ.

Q. Who merits a meeting with the business press these days?

If you’re not Google, Microsoft or IBM, it's not easy to get in the door. But the business press will take a meeting with hot companies, public or private, that offer unique, dominating or first mover products or services that are truly (and probably) disruptive. 

Business press follow leaders, but are always on the lookout for the upstarts who could be tomorrow's leaders.  Still, the onus is on you to prove that you, or your client, has a shot at the top spot.  Some indicators could be:

• A unique and compelling offering that is gaining traction in your market (who are those guys?).
• A well known management team with a track record of success (they are doing it again!).
• Investment by one of the big players who seem to have spotted another winner.

Q. If you get the meeting, will they write anything?

That’s part 2 of the issue. How do you ensure you get some ink. Sometimes the meeting is about building a relationship. Your CEO may not be a household name, but he or she may have quietly assembled an incredible string of successes and have a viewpoint that will be very interesting to the reporters and their readers.

But the key element you need is something new -- the basic definition of “news.”

• Unusual applications of products or services within name brand companies (customers who can talk are key) who can describe specifically and in an interesting and entertaining way a new approach to doing something that others could learn from.
• Relevant information about trends or issues.  For example, the business press and its readers don't want to hear about your deep packet network inspection, but they may be interested in learning more about how countries are waging cyber-wars against each other. The latter makes the story relevant to a broader business audience rather than focusing on product details which won't cut it with most business press reporters.
• Expert sources who can make stories come alive. One of our client (which actually DOES do deep packet inspection) has gotten incredible business press coverage because they consistently deliver an expert in cyber-terrorism who is just plain incredible to talk with. He is a wealth of information about what is going on worldwide and gets tapped frequently for articles or broadcast pieces on this subject.

Q. If you don’t have news or customers who will talk, is it ballgame over?

Not completely. There is a growing entertainment aspect of business publications and broadcast news outlets. If your CEO is particularly colorful or unique and is willing to talk about his background or hobbies, he may break through.  For example, we have a great client who has some very interesting hobbies that the press has found intriguing and worthy of business press inches. The primary interest of this CEO, as appropriate, is talking about his company, but he's been good enough to participate in these meetings as part of the relationship building that is so key to getting good press in a noisy market.  And his time has paid off in higher visibility for his company and products.

Q. Do you have to be public?

A. No, but it certainly helps to be a well known, large, publicly-traded company.  And remember that magic fairy dust isn’t sprinkled over you when you enter the public market to prompt the business press to bang down your door.  Public or private, you still need to emphasize the elements that make you newsworthy:  growth, disruptive technology or market-changing products or services.  Major news – something that will affect a broad cross-section of the publication’s readership – will give you an edge in consideration for coverage. 

We recently got some great coverage for a young emerging company that is not public, but has created a very cool technology that is game changing in the melding of TV ads with the actionable "click-here" aspect of the Internet. The size of the company didn't matter. The fact that our staffer who pitched it knew how to convey why this technology was game-changing did matter. Being able to name a customer who signed on for this new approach was the news hook. The fact that his client delivered a strong interview and information that led to a good story the reporter could sell to his editor resulted in two pages and photos in BusinessWeek.

Q. Do you need to give them an exclusive?

Sometimes there is just no substitute for playing favorites with a story and giving it to one outlet over another.  As a former journalist who hated being burned, I never recommend this approach lightly. But there are occasions when a story isn't "hotter than hot," but would be more valuable to a business press reporter if he or she got it earlier and received special access, allowing that reporter to build a better story around it. 

When appropriate and when done with the right planning and execution, this strategy can help you break through, particularly if you are newly public.

What's really fascinating about all of this is that the evolution of the news media and the onset of blogs has not changed these fundamentals, in my humble opinion.

But I'm always eager to hear from others about what they are seeing.

All you ever do is pitch, pitch, pitch

"I have introduced myself.  You have introduced yourself.  This is a very good conversation."

No truer words were uttered than those from the lips of Katsumoto as he was speaking to Lt. Algren in the movie The Last Samurai.  Maybe Katsumoto was really a PR person and he didn't realize it.

So, when I ran across two blog posts, one from Byte and Switch's Mary Jander and another from c|net's Charles Cooper in the past 24 hours, they served as good examples of what we as aspiring conversationalists and good PR practitioners should be doing and factoring into our own conversations. 

Two lessons learned, when you ask someone to have a conversation with you, let alone decide to market to them on the value of your product or service, don't make the conversation one sided.  Or worse, don't kill the conversation with some rehearsed, or in the example Mary shared, possibly unrehearsed marketingese.

Second lesson.  Understand the value in the conversation.  In Charles case, he discusses the morphing of news around press releases.  This has been an age old discussion that takes on new meaning on any given day you have an internal conversation or discussion with colleagues and clients.  As Charles aptly points out,

"The value of news is never going to go away but the definition has changed."

Perhaps these more than subtle reminders will help us become better communicators to the audiences that we work with most.  Now that we've introduced ourselves in the discussion, introduce yourselves and tell us what you think. 

It's All In How You Say It

We encounter a lot of companies that work very hard to convey their value propositions to target audiences in an impactful way. And it's our role to ensure that these messages are delivered effectively and that they generate press coverage. As a former journalist, I pride myself in being more cynical than your regular PR professional about content-free corporate messages. My mind tends to shut down when I hear too much fluff in one sitting. And companies seeking press coverage need to remember that the media is the very same way. And they should be.

"The best stories are when people are people," said Kirk Ladendorf while recently visiting with our staff to discuss the best ways to appeal to business writers. Ladendorf, a technology reporter for the Austin American-Statesman, has been writing business stories for more than 25 years. He says spokespeople aiming for coverage need to be punchy and somewhat bolder than the average person. "It takes a certain amount of guts to approach the media."

His comment reminded me of a CEO I once worked with at Mattson Technology. In my former life, I used to call the national business press writers on behalf of multiple public semiconductor corporations. But when writers wanted the perspective from the industry, they always asked for Brad Mattson who worked for a company far smaller than most of the companies I represented. Mattson was succinct, aggressive, colorful and always told things like they were. Maybe that's why he is still ranked as the 8th most influential person in the semiconductor equipment industry today.

Take this BusinessWeek article as a perfect example. The reporter had his choice of senior executives from larger public companies, but the writer went to Mattson....and with good reason. Mattson succinctly explained semiconductor capacity issues as "lemmings running off a cliff together."

Case and point. If you want to appeal to the business press - tell them something they don't know, say it in terms that your Grandmother would understand, and paint a visual story with words. if you do, they'll likely seek you out again.