WSJ's Take on Improving Public Relations

I mentioned a few weeks ago in this blog that we are holding our annual Austin event titled "The World at Your Fingertips" on Oct. 15. LP&P will be bringing together an impressive panel of constituents representing distinct spectrums of the communications industry (social media, academia, media and corporate communications) who can offer unique insight on the state of global communications.

Our panelist representing the journalist's perspective is Neal Boudette, who is currently the acting Detroit bureau chief for the Wall Street Journal.  Prior to Detroit, he was the Bureau Chief of Wall Street Journal's European edition in Frankfurt. We asked him to be the on the panel for a variety of reasons beyond the obvious, which he is clearly talented at what he does for living. But he also has an extremely broad perspective, along with an inside view to how companies are marketing and promoting themselves to journalists. Based on these noted elements alone, he will provide a much-needed perspective that will be extremely valuable for any marketer or PR professional in the room. He is currently covering the worldwide automotive market, so he can also give us interesting insight into how companies in the EU, Asia-Pacific and the U.S. differ from each other in regards to PR and marketing approaches.

Neal was interviewed yesterday in a Q&A by AustinStartUp.com and the piece gives you a preview of his opinion on the automotive market at large, as well as what technology companies can learn from auto companies' PR failures. I thought his comment below was especially worth noting because it pertains to so many companies that I have worked with through the years that sometimes have a hard time understanding why national business publications aren't interested in writing about their technology.

"Be honest. Don’t tell people your technology will change the world if it really won’t. You can be passionate about your company or technology, but don’t inflate your story, don’t over sell it. In the same sense, think of your company and how it fits into the big, broad trends that are re-shaping the US economy as we know it. The biggest mistake PR people make is they suggest I or my reporters do a story about their company, or their CEO or their product. We rarely do stories like that unless it’s Apple or the iPhone or Steve Jobs.

If you pitch your company or product to reporters as a piece of a bigger trend, a reflection of something playing out on a bigger stage, you’ll have a better shot at success."

We are very lucky to have Neal Boudette visit Austin and share his insight, I think we all (even the best PR people) need to get in front of business reporters whenever we can to remind themselves about the real agenda of a journalist. It's not to promote a person or company; instead, they are trying to tell an authentic story or uncover information that has yet to be reported. It's our job as PR professionals to somehow make these disparate agendas collide successfully.