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Avoiding PR "Gotchas" -- a list of don'ts to learn from

I don't know about you, but I'm always a sucker for lists of do's and don'ts.  A recent email to me from a magazine I subscribe to included the "top 25 beauty mistakes" and, of course, I clicked on it.  I learned a few things, so it was worth the investment of time.  It inspired me to ask our PR experts to help me assemble a list of the biggest PR mistakes they have seen recently that we all can learn from:

• Telling a business press reporter after an interview that if he writes about your company it will raise interest in it, which would be a good thing.  Get ready for a major eye roll from the reporter on that one -- unless he is a stockholder.

• Capitalizing on a tragedy, especially with the words "if they had used XX product/service, this wouldn't have happened."  This is one time you have to pass up a newsworthy angle.

• Speaking for quotation to the media on behalf of a partner or a customer.  It's always better to direct them to the customer or partner for their own quotes rather than risk souring your relationship by saying something they would not want to see in print.

• Being unwilling to comment on industry trends or issues during an interview.  Reporters are happy to hear about your company, if you are relevant in your market, but they'd also like to hear broader perspectives.  It makes you more valuable as a source too.

• Answering the reporter's end-of-interview question, "Do you have anything to add?" with a smile and a quick "No."  You just missed a great opportunity to briefly summarize the key points you hope the reporter got from your interview.

• Telling a reporter "don't write what I just told you."  Only a red flag in front of a bull is a more visible symbol to "charge" and get that scoop.

• Keeping your PR team in the dark on corporate events.  This sometimes happens to internal and agency people when a senior team's style is close-to-the-vest.  It really blunts the effectiveness of the entire PR team to not have all the nuances of what is happening and why to shape their programs.

• Starting a call with a journalist with the statement, "I think you are very wrong."  An interview is a conversation and this, ladies and gentlemen, is a conversation killer.

• Suggesting a headline for the article you want them to write and asking when it will run.  This type of behavior makes for good stories at internal editorial meetings at publications, but it doesn't work.

• Promising a customer by name to a journalist before clearing it with them.  If you aren't sure the customer will clear it, tell them you'll check into it and get back to them with a name.

• Agreeing to author a blog if you don't have the time to post.  No one will take you seriously as a blogger if your content isn't fresh.  Assign someone else or wait until you're really ready to provide regular postings.

• Sending a reply on Twitter (which goes to everyone who follows you) instead of a direct message (which goes just to the person you want to engage with).  Always think before you "tweet."

• Insisting that PR take the toughest question out of the FAQ preparation document for a major announcement.  Removing the question will not guarantee no one asks it and you will be much less prepared when it is asked.

• Being so anxious to "tweet" that you reveal some news or comments from a partner, customer or company leader before a planned announcement.  This is what social media policy guidelines are written to prevent.

• Not respecting a journalist's deadline.  If you offer the best customer contact, but it is right on top of or after the reporter's deadline, you not only won't be included in the article, but you also will hurt your chances of her calling you for the next story she is writing.

• Assuming too much knowledge on behalf of reporters.  These days, with publications being smaller, reporters are asked to cover a wide range of "beats" and they aren't always experts in all of them.  It always helps to provide context and spell out acronyms or at least do temperature reads to give them a chance to ask for a backdrop on a technology or market segment, if they need it.

End of an Era at IndustryWeek

 It's worth noting that John Teresko, senior technology editor of IndustryWeek magazine retired this week after 50 years.  Consider that number.  FIFTY YEARS!  The big 5-0!  John started covering technology and the manufacturing industry when TV was black and white with just three channels, America was the manufacturing center of the world, commercial airlines flew planes and not jets, America's Big 3 ruled the automobile market and rock n' roll was just taking hold.

It's mind boggling when you consider the scope of changes and advancements in technology that John has covered, but what's even more amazing is that he spent his entire career doing it with IndustryWeek and its predecessor Steel magazine.  This kind of longevity and career continuity is rare and it's unlikely we'll see the likes of it again.

I first met John back in 1991.  It was on a media tour with a client.  Some of you may remember those.  We flew out to Cleveland to meet with him face to face to brief him on the company and explain how our new product would help manufacturers become more nimble in response to customer demand and engineering changes.  The meeting took place over lunch at a very nice restaurant overlooking the downtown and Lake Erie.  How often does that happen with an editor or reporter today?  Indeed, how things have changed. 

The changes wraught through the Web, online publishing and social media has created a new dynamic, which is still being played out, that fosters continual change at an ever accelerating pace.  And while change is good and necessary for growth, there is something to be said for longevity, experience and perspective.  And with John's retirement we've lost some of that, which is irreplaceable.  But I'm sure that John would be the first to tell you that to remain competitive, whether we're talking about a company or an individual, you must embrace that change.  After all, John has been on front lines watching and reporting on it for 50 years.  I'm sure he can tell you that its not only the strong who survive, but those who are willing to embrace what's new.

Advertising vs PR -- amazingly, the debate continues

One of my colleagues pointed out a piece in CNN Money.com answering a question about which of the marketing elements -- advertising or PR -- would be more effective for a smaller company during the recession.  If you really boiled down all of the answers and the comments to the posting, the answer would be "it depends."  But I found a few nuggets that I thought would be good to share.

First of all, the person posing the question received a number of offers for PR help at a very low cost if he chose PR over advertising.  I know times are tough, but it almost sounded like "Will do PR for food," which was a bit distressing.  Here's his specific comment:

I always thought PR was too expensive for small businesses, but in doing my research I posted my project on AllPublicists and got many low-cost offers from publicists. One firm, for example, doesn’t charge anything unless they deliver results.

Ah, the offer of pay for results -- which I lovingly refer to as contingency PR.  It sounds very enticing to prospective clients.  At the end of the day, all PR is about delivering results and if you aren't hitting and beating the metrics you have signed up for you should be let go.  But telling a company that you will only be paid for specific results turns PR into an ATM machine of sorts which can lead to scatter-shot pitches to untargeted media or "low hanging fruit" just to pile up some hits so you will get paid.  Or it can cause the PR person or team to be overly aggressive with the media or bloggers even if a story doesn't have all of the elements it needs to make it newsworthy.  Either case could potentially damage that company's reputation with key media and, ultimately, be lower ROI than a focused, well-targeted program where the PR person or agency is paid for strategy as well as execution, with carefully agreed upon metrics.

Two researchers, Don Michaelson of Echo Research and Don Stacks from the University of Miami, have been studying the topic and reported finding little difference between the effectiveness of advertising and PR.  They based this on the awareness created by a fake NY Times story and fake advertisement about a fictitious product shown to mall shoppers. In the CNN Money article, Michaelson stated:

"At every single point of measure, when you found out about the very basic level of awareness and intent of purchase, there wasn’t a lot of difference between the two."

There were a few areas of divergence. When it came to communicating depth of information, public relations was more effective. Ditto for the “relationship” between a product and person, and for inspiring thoughts about how it might fit into their lifestyle. But with advertising, the message was much easier to control. With PR, you not only can’t guarantee placement, you have little say in what comes out on the other end.

So the researchers found that the simple answer is “there is no simple answer,” Michaelson says. When you are dealing with choice between PR and advertising, the answer isn’t one or the other, it’s both.

In our own specialty areas, technology and life sciences, we definitely see the PR advantages the researchers cite.  For complex messaging and stories, PR is the right tool to use.  It also is the right approach for companies that don't have a large, sustainable advertising budget, as PR can be used cumulatively and continuously in a planned way more cost effectively than a sustained ad campaign -- online or in print -- in targeted media and sites.

None of this is particularly new data for this debate.  What was interesting, in my view, was citing free sites that small business owners could use to get their own coverage:

Free sites such as PitchRate.com, which Nicholson helped found, and Help A Reporter Out narrow the gulf between you and the media. If you have an area of expertise or compelling personal story behind your business, sign up on those sites and put your shingle out. If it’s relevant to a reporter or producer, they will contact you. And it’s not just free until a story happens– it’s completely free.

If you have savvy communicators internally and a very small budget, you definitely can check out these options to get your story out.  It may catch the eye of the reporters you want to talk with.  Then again it may not, which is why PR professionals and agencies add tremendous value when a company is at the level to need a sustained push in a competitive market.  Reporters are so pressed for time right now -- and are such a scarce commodity -- that they are not necessarily trolling for stories on sites.  They are juggling multiple stories about large companies and doing their very best to stay up on the smaller players in the markets they cover.  PR people can be a help to them by making sure they are aware of these smaller players and are kept abreast of the news of value to their readers, either by directly contacting them or using social media to get a company's story and news out more broadly.

PR is never free, just as nothing of value really is.  Someone in those small companies who are using those free sites has to devote a serious chunk of time planning what information to make available, doing the outreach and following up with reporters or bloggers who may express interest.  It's a great option for the really small companies who want to put a toe in the water.  Ultimately, though, the company will have to bring some real professionals on board with an actual program, whether they invest internally or they decide to outsource.

The last interesting point for me in the discussion was in the comments section.  One of the commenters, listed only as John H. from Albany, NY, noted that PR people can double for advertising people easier than the ad people can drift over to the PR side.

PR reps are trained to be out in front, disseminating the company’s message and being the face of the company and can be especially effective if they have intimate knowledge of the organization that they work for or are hired by. They often bring the additional benefit of some level of graphic arts/design to go along with the crafting of a message which is in line with advertising.

We definitely have been seeing this blurring of the lines, especially around the elements of social media newsrooms and videos/podcasts that we're helping companies add to their sites to communicate with customers as well as the media and analysts.  This evolution likely will continue for quite a while -- long enough to prompt another another article on this subject a quarter from now. . .

Is the press release going through an identity crisis?

In the past, the press release was the one tried and true form of communicating to the press and the best way for a company to come to an agreement on the overall messaging around an announcement. It also served as a great proof point for harried sales people who wanted to document that they were signing on customers and making traction.  It wasn't a sale if a press release didn't make it official or hadn't gone on the wire. These days, though, it is becoming clearer and clearer that the press release has become many things to many people.

The most dramatic change in press releases came with the advent of the social media style release.  Less narrative in its form, this style release comprises of a bulleted sentence structure, product and/or executive images (via Flickr/YouTube), tags and social media links (i.e. Flickr, Delicious, Technorati, Digg, Slashdot, etc).  The social media style press release can pack in even more information than standard releases, such as a link to a short video from a new customer talking about why they chose a company's products.  However, it is less of a messaging vehicle, which is probably why journalists love it (less is more, as we always say), but marketing people still can be skittish about the change.

The format of press releases also seems to have changed from a strict adherence to AP-style to a much more relaxed tone.  Some releases even blur the line between pitch letters and press releases.  Lead sentences don't provide the news right away, but instead ask a question or create a word picture.  The writing is more colorful, certainly, than some of the staid releases that we all know and many hate.  However, there is a danger that as one of my colleagues asked recently: "I wonder about the media's response to releases that don't present clear, unbiased facts and let the reporters build the story.  It seems that standards and adherence to rules and procedures on press releases -- particularly in the consumer space -- have just relaxed to a point where anything goes." 

Is the press release undergoing an identity crisis?  Should it become the new pitch letter?  Is a press release irrelevant now that so many companies are publishing blogs themselves with great links to video, audio and written content like white papers?  Should the release of the past simply be an alert with pointers to the news that's being reported on the company's own blog -- shorter even than the social media style release and able to be shortened to a tiny URL to "tweet" out to everyone who is following your company on Twitter?  Or, is there still value in having a document that outlines a company's strategy and messages clearly and succinctly so news has a context and there is something solid to point back to as the company executes against its strategy?

Given the need to trim costs wherever possible and do more with less, it definitely makes sense to streamline the announcement process as much as possible.  It is also important to best serve and take advantage of new social media channels for communicating news directly to customers as well as to press and analysts.  If new approaches to press releases get the job done and avoid a long and costly review cycle inside a company for approvals, the time and resource savings alone may make them a more palatable alternative.

I would love to hear the thoughts of PR people, journalists and bloggers on this subject.  The press release certainly has been around for many years -- and has often been kicked around by the media during this time -- but its face is definitely changing rapidly.  With social media, texting and "tweeting" reducing communications in many ways to short bursts of information and abbreviations, what truly is the press release's purpose now?  Please do share your thoughts and concerns, as no one has the definite answer quite yet.

The House that Pat Built

Last Thursday night, I went to the IDG Alumni Reunion in Newton, MA, a sold-out affair with 250 attendees and many more on a waiting list.  I worked for IDG from 1981 - 1983, starting as a staff writer for ComputerWorld and moving pretty rapidly to Senior Editor/Software.  Catching up with my old colleagues like Bill Laberis and Cheryl Gelb (now Eppsteiner) really took me back to my earliest days in the technology industry.  The editor who hired me at CW, Drake Lundell was there with his wife and former CW Editor Nancy French Lundell.  He actually hired me twice -- the second time at PCWeek (now eWeek).  There were folks from all of the various publications, IDC, and IDG itself.  The latter figured largely in a series of photos, which was kicked off by a funny 007 spoof that starred IDG founder Pat McGovern as "The Man from IDG."  McGovern spoke briefly and clearly was touched that all of these people who had fanned out from the company he founded many years ago had elected to get together in the middle of this crazy economic downturn.

A lot of the discussion involved comparing notes about the impact on business and jobs.  But one piece of the conversation, with my former colleague Catherine Marenghi, reminded me of McGovern's style of management.  I still have in my memorabilia some of the notes he used to send employees on the corny news-boy illustrated stationery that singled out the "good news" of something you accomplished.  As Software Editor, I got one that highlighted a great front page story I wrote.  And every year before Christmas, McGovern would personally hand each employee a bonus check, saying something specific about your contribution (after a quick side briefing by one of his team.)  He would tell me how important software was to the publication.  I knew he really didn't know who I was, but the fact that he still took the time to make the effort meant something -- the notes, the hand-shakes, the personal thank yous.

In these days of a struggling economy, it's really relationships, reputation and networks that will pull all of us through and help us succeed when things improve.  Pat McGovern certainly set a great example and people like me who got their start in the tech industry in the company he created are doing our best to honor his legacy and take it forward.

Thanks, Pat!

How the demise of scoop-driven journalism will affect PR

Illustration Paul Gilligan

On Friday, my colleague Christine Simeone pointed out a very interesting piece by Jon Friedman of Marketwatch, which raises the question whether journalistic "scoops" still matter.  Despite the ego-stirring excitement of getting a jump on a story that I still remember well from my IT press days, Jon answers his own question about the relevance of scoops: 

Not so much, I'm afraid. With the exception of a Watergate-like bombshell, news exclusives don't mean as much as they used to, I'd argue, with hand over heart. 

How long does a scoop last nowadays on the Internet? Ten seconds, maybe?

 

In a post last week, I talked about the attempt by AP to protect their valuable content from being gobbled up by search engines, with no appreciable return to them, and to create their own portal where their latest valuable reports and, one would assume, "scoops" will reside outside of the Googles of the world.  Jon Friedman's contention seems to suggest that the speed and increasing anonymity of where the news comes from will make this irrelevant anyway, as no one cares who got it first.  In many ways, he continues, it is about who does the best job reporting on the news and puts it into context for the readers.  That news analyst may be from a major publication or may be from a tier one blog or an industry-specific or topic-specific blog that has a smaller but avid group of followers.

 

So what does this mean for companies who are trying to maximize the impact of their major news announcements?  Some of my LP&P colleagues offered the following:

 

Rick McLaughlin wrote, "What I found most interesting was perhaps new criteria in which we want to evaluate how we pitch/write ideas," based on this assertion in Friedman's article:

The Internet makes it possible for publishers and editors to measure a story's worth according to three criteria: most read, most emailed and most reader comments generated.

As if this new reality of digital publishing isn't unsettling enough for a reporter or a columnist to ponder, coming soon to a Web site near you: The powers-that-be will clamor to add a fourth variable. They'll be measuring precisely how much time readers/consumers are spending on each individual story.

Don Jennings commented that he's been hearing about these kinds of changes at some of the trade publications, where reporters aren't "measured on breaking news or investigative reporting; rather on being the 'Most read' story on the site."   He said that this approach can start to turn off the journalists when they see that the story covering what the Hogwarts IT department is doing rates higher than the latest new product introduction by an industry bellwether. 

Carol Hanko, one of our former journalists, thinks this approach of measuring journalists' articles by counting clicks isn't anything new.  "A hundred years ago, the most successful papers were the ones that attracted the most buyers due to the shocking stories inside.  Now we can just measure the specific stories getting the attention, versus the newspaper edition.  But the difference today is that people don't have the time to actually read these stories - we have more information coming at us that anyone could ever imagine. In journalism school, we were taught that readers never turned the page to read the rest of the story.  Now people don't read beyond the third paragraph (if a writer is lucky), which means fewer facts, less context and ultimately, more sensationalism.  For a PR person, this makes
things much more challenging.  If we want our clients to be included in these stories, spokespeople have to go out on a limb like never before."

I'm not sure where I sit on this matter, as a former journalist myself.  I can tell you as a PR person that scoops and exclusives still matter to journalists, because they still ask for them.  Clearly we in the PR and journalism fields are on shifting sands and are likely to be there for quite a while.  It sounds like the two sides of the desk need to collaborate more than ever, with the ultimate goal being the most accurate, complete and fair coverage that, as Carol notes, includes particularly interesting insights from our clients that will raise an article's value on the web.

Crossing the Social Media Chasm

This week, AdAge ran a story on Union Square Venture Capitalist Fred Wilson's presentation at AdAge's Digital Conference in NYC.  His message -- companies will no longer be able to buy their visibility through media purchases, but rather earn it through social media.  Given the rapidly declining state of the advertising business on the whole, there is nothing surprising about this.  PR pros know all about earning their placement.  It's what we do. 

This got me to thinking about what is the state of adoption of social media within companies right now?  How many have made that transition -- intellectually, emotionally and socially -- to embracing social media to help them earn their placements not just with traditional media, but directly with their customers and prospects?  In the past few months we've seen Twitter's awareness explode into the public's consciousness.  It seems as though it's being talked about everywhere. 

This made me reflect on just where are we on the adoption curve.  As a point of reference, I thought about Geoffry Moore's Crossing the Chasm.  My assessment is that we're now at that point where social media has crossed the chasm from Innovators using it to a fast growing Early Adopter phase. 

The question corporations should ask themselves is where do we stand on this adoption curve?  From my standpoint, too many are still standing on the sidelines.  The Innovators and Early Adopters have taken a "build it and they will come approach", while the rest have been waiting to see "clear" evidence that an audience already exists to whom they can connect.  The reality is that audience does exist.  They just need to create the compelling content and use the right set of tools to make them aware of it and engage directly with them. 

So the question is, where are you on this social media adoption curve?  Are you already earning your position, or are you risking your earnings opportunity by being too far down that adoption curve?  Tell me what you think. 

No Twit Here: Twitter Co-Founder vs Colbert a win for Biz Stone

When one of my colleagues pointed out the interview Stephen Colbert just did with Biz Stone, the co-founder of Twitter, a micro-blogging service I have used for quite a while now (@boslfp), I was expecting the worst.  After the silliness of the Oprah Live interview with Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook a few weeks ago, which was pandering of the worst kind from Oprah and friends, in my view, and a really boring interview as usual from Zuckerberg, I feared that the droll comedian Colbert would have Stone for lunch.  I was wrong.

Keeping this as objective as possible, I'm once again pulling out my Executive Communications interview scorecard to measure how Stone did on the Colbert Report:

Anchor Points: Description of how well Stone did delivering his core messages during the interview.

My grade: A
Despite the usual hysterical grand-standing of Colbert, Stone delivered these three major points (I'm paraphrasing) from his interview: Twitter is a new kind of messaging that is building value worldwide.  Twitter will be unveiling a strategy to create revenue, much as Google did, but will do this carefully, with the backing of patient investors.  Twitter is a strong independent company that is going to continue to be based in San Francisco.   Not bad for a 10 minute interview with a master scene stealer.

Sound-bites: Colorful memorable statements.

My grade: B+
He didn't have a lot of them, but he produced one good one that actually appeared in a pull-quote that appeared under the video when I was pausing it to take notes:  "Twitter provides a new way of messaging that is really the messaging service we didn't know we needed until we had it."  I always tell people that the most colorful quote they provide will appear under their picture or over their name, good or bad.  This was a good one that appeared over Stone's name.  Colbert twisted it, of course, and said, "Isn't that like saying it's the answer to a problem we didn't know we invented the problem?" but it still didn't take away from the effectiveness of Stone's good statement.

Anecdotes/analogies:

My grade: B
He brought up the use of Twitter by Shaquille O'Neal to connect with his fans and by celebrities Demi Moore and Ashton Kutcher as a way to control their own messages rather than let the tabloids control them.  This was in response to Colbert's question about why Congressmen and celebrities use Twitter.  Interestingly, he stayed far away from the Congressmen question.

Pace: 

My grade: A
He was conversational in his pace and friendly in his demeanor, which worked really well against Colbert's manic style.

Pausing:

My grade: A+
He was well trained.  When he was making his statement about remaining an independent company in San Francisco, Colbert quipped, "Like Pets.com," referring to the poster child for dot-bombs.  Stone visibly paused, ignored the comment, and then continued his statements undeterred.

Answer and stop:

My grade: B
He was not a run-on speaker.  He was decent at answering the rambling questions and stopping and listening.  He did a good job of affably dealing with the Colbert schtick, for example when he was asking him about Twitter and why 140 characters and then as he was answering, Colbert was focused on Tweeting on his Blackberry and looked up and said, "What? Oh, was that rude?"  Stone laughed most of these things off.  At one point, he leaned forward and used hand gestures to say "this is simple, easy, Stephen," which was just on the border of being condescending.  But that's the only time he strayed from his relaxed amusement of Colbert's antics and ability to work in his messages in a non-obnoxious way.

Conciseness:

My grade: A-
He was forced to be concise by the format and by Colbert's interview style, which is intrusive and funny.  But he seems like someone who gets to the point and moves on.

Bridging: 

My grade: B
He didn't do a lot of this.  He just ignored the Pets.com shot rather than bridging, but that was the smart way to proceed.  He did a nice job of retorting that if he has a son one day, he'll name him "Flint" in response to Colbert's comment that his name makes him sound like a character from "The Flintstones."

Overall, he did great, but Colbert did ultimately have the last laugh.  When he asked Stone if people pay for Twitter and he responded that it was a free service, he quipped the best sound-bite of the interview:  "So Biz does not stand for business model."

If you haven't seen the interview, you can check it out below.

The Colbert Report	Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
Biz Stone
comedycentral.com
Colbert Report Full Episodes Political Humor NASA Name Contest

Buy a newspaper; save a journalist's job

During this morning's drive-time commute, I listened to Dennis and Callahan, the WEEI sports radio personalities, do what they do best -- not talk about sports, but instead, in a humorous and sometimes irritating way, trash the liberal politicians they don't agree with and talk about the latest news.  This morning's diatribe was about the report in Time Magazine that The Boston Globe is one of the top 10 major newspapers facing possible closures.  One of my colleagues just retweeted the link to this story from blogger Guy Kawasaki, so it's making the Twitter rounds now.

The properties were chosen on the basis of the financial strength of their parent companies, the amount of direct competition they face in their markets and industry information on how much money they are losing. Based on this analysis, it's possible that 8 of the nation's 50 largest daily newspapers could cease publication in the next 18 months.

Number five on the list is The Boston Globe: 

The Boston Globe is, based on several accounts, losing $1 million a week. One investment bank recently said the paper is worth only $20 million. The paper is the flagship of what the Globe's parent, the New York Times, calls the New England Media Group. The Times has substantial financial problems of its own. Last year, ad revenue for the New England properties was down 18%. That is likely to continue or get worse this year. Supporting larger losses at the Globe will become nearly impossible. Boston.com, the online site that includes the digital aspects of the Globe, will probably be all that remains of the operation.

Gerry Callahan of WEEI, who also writes for the Globe's competitor, The Boston Herald, had a field day this morning attacking what he believes is the myth that the Globe has a great sports section.  He said it used to have a great sports section, but now is sending reporters to cover Olympic trials, obscure sports and women's high school teams that no one cares about.  His counterpart, John Dennis, read the headline of the lead story on the front page of today's Globe, "2 moderators use obscure law to pad pensions" and said that he not only didn't understand it, but couldn't imagine anyone would care enough to read further. 

As a PR person who has represented many Massachusetts companies over the years, I'll admit I've had a love-hate relationship with the Globe, as have many of our clients.  There are many things I'd like to change about the Globe, including more coverage of local businesses and issues beyond a focus on their problems and failures.  We all have our wish lists and our gripes.  But I certainly don't want to see the newspaper go away. 

Here's hoping the situation isn't as dire as the Time article presents it for The Boston Globe and the other nine national dailies.  My friend and former client Joe Fuentes noted on Facebook that he wore black the day his former employer, The Rocky Mountain News, closed its doors.  We don't want to have to do the same in Boston, as fashionable as black is these days.

Ch, ch, ch, changes.....at the SEC

Since Lois and I attended a NIRI event about 10 days ago at which David Bergers, Regional Director of the Boston Regional Office of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, spoke, the changes at the SEC under Chairman Mary Shapiro have been getting more attention. Bergers spoke at past NIRI meetings, so we were looking forward to the perspective he was going to share on the roller coaster ride his organization has been on, along with the rest of the economy.

While he couldn't talk specifically about active investigations, he did discuss changes already taking place at the SEC and active conversations about certain areas of oversight. At the top of the list of changes Chairman Shapiro is making is streamlining internal processes so that it is easier for staff to take action against companies under investigation. At the same time there is a focus on looking for ways to improve the process for the SEC to triage complaints and assess the risk related to each complaint.

This is all about resources and prioritizing activities. And like all of the organizations we work with, the SEC can't do it all. We know they have considered hedge fund oversight. We know they are trying to figure out how to deal with the rapidly changing world of electronic communications and the implications of blogging and other social media vehicles on investor communication. And the list goes on.

Given the close tie to PR, I was particularly interested in Bergers' response when asked if there will be further statements related to use of web sites for disclosure, blogging, etc. Bergers noted that this involves an assessment of the technology the SEC has to track and monitor this type of communication and what form of resource it will take to enforce before they can offer further guidance.

Interestingly, his greatest concern in this area is related to anonymous bloggers who have the ability to move stocks based on the statements they make. Because of the viral nature of social media, rumors and erroneous statements can get traction pretty quickly and before anyone knows it, people are trading based on some random person's opinion or inaccurate information. The challenge here, according to Bergers, is that it's not that difficult to track down where these statements come from, but once you find the blog post, the more important step is to identify who wrote it.

All in all it was an interesting discussion, and it was clear the group conversation could have gone on for hours. I was encouraged by the changes afoot, and suggest that we all need to pay attention as there will be an impact to communicators. My hope is that any new new regulations and processes are helpful and prudent, but that the pendulum doesn't swing so far the other way that IR and PR people, among others, will have less time to do what is their top priority -- telling the company story to the investment community, media, analysts and the extended audiences.