02/28

If he pulls it off, he could be a shoo-in for the next election.  If he doesn't, he will go down like his father but not for the same reasons his father did.

He is a fellow full of his conviction, and there is no compromise when it comes to Iraq.  He will work with the United Nations to get his way, and it remains to be seen, if he will move without the United Nations if Chirac gets his way. 

As we have written more than once, if he is bluffing, his strategy is brilliant.  But, it seems less and less like he is.  At least, I am now convinced that he will indeed go to war to get his way.  I think that Iraq also is convinced, which may be a problem for the administration.  How does one convince another without pushing that individual into a self-protective and belligerent stance?

From a managerial communications point of view, it is not easy.  A hard-head often needs hard treatment to know one is serious.  That is why, for example, a drill sergeant is so damn mean when recruits first start basic training.  The sergeant wants to make clear that the recruits are not there for fun and games.  War is not pleasant and fighting is a fearsome, devastating thing.

I am not qualified to say if Bush is right or wrong in what he is doing.  Time will tell.  But, if his political instincts are true and he pulls this off, it will be a textbook case of public relations on an international scale.  I am not sure that most presidents would attempt it.  I can think of one or two in our history, perhaps, but not much more. 

I just hope he's right.
 

02/27

CEOs, Editors Agree: Biz Coverage Needs Improvement

Now they say it.  The story went on to report even more "news".  Business coverage in most newspapers has low priority.  Reporters are poorly trained, and they don't understand business.

This was a problem long before I was a reporter in the 1970s.  All the 1990s proved during the Internet Bubble was how unskilled business reporters were -- and are.  Far too many never saw hype founded on small sales and no earnings.  The business media are among the groups that stand accused of aiding and abetting sleazoids of the past decade and rightly so because they weren't critical enough.

Why is business reporting bad?  Some editors say no one really wants to go on the business beat.  It isn't fun, and one has to spend time learning. 

The same can be said for PR practitioners working in corporate relations.  Our job requires an ability to read a balance sheet and income statement.  We're boring people to PR practitioners in marketing who handle trade shows, product launches and events.  On the other hand, we're arrogant because we deal with CEOs and "we're above all that sales stuff."  (We're not, of course.  We sell at a different level, and we could learn from the creativity of marketers.) 

The depressing thing about the news story was a survey of editors.  Only 18% rated their business staffs as excellent compared with 44% that thought their sports coverage was excellent. Does that tell you something? 

It would be nice if more business students got into reporting, but a cub reporter's pay is generally wretched outside of major cities and most graduates with school debts won't be tempted to take a pay cut for the privilege of writing for an unloved section.
 

02/26

Airlines have a PR problem that comes from service, which -- shall we say -- is highly irregular.  It's more like Pete's barnstorming and mail delivery from the 1920s.

Take yesterday.  We went to visit a client in Ithaca, New York.  One airline flies there from La Guardia airport -- US Air.  It flies Dash 80s, the ungainly looking, high-T tail, twin turboprop aircraft that seat about 40 people.  There is a flight at 8:30 a.m. and 10 a.m. and a return flight at night at 7:55 p.m.  One spends a long day in the snow and cold in Ithaca. 

I live about 15 minutes from the Newark, New Jersey, airport, the second largest airport in the New York area, but I travel an hour and cross the Hudson River to get to La Guardia.  This meant getting picked up at 6 a.m. for the 8:30 a.m. flight to account for security. 

We get there in plenty of time and wait for the plane.  The gate time of 8:30 a.m. slowly approaches then passes.  No announcement.  We walk to the counter and ask if the plane has arrived.  The ticket agent says bluntly, "The plane is here.  They're working on it."  That's confidence building. 

We go to the large plate glass windows overlooking the flight line and sure enough, there is a Dash 80 with a mechanic on a ladder and his head leaning into the cowling of the left engine.  The co-pilot is reading through USA Today. We can't see the pilot yet. 

So we wait -- and wait -- and wait.  It's after nine o'clock. (We're not going to make the first meeting.)  The mechanic is sauntering between the interior of the plane and the left engine, his bag of tools on the ground and his ladder going from vertical to horizontal each time he goes inside.  The pilot arrives at some point and now there are two people sitting idly in the cockpit.  The co-pilot continues reading slowly through USA Today.

By 9:30 a.m., the gate attendant suggests that we take the 10 a.m. plane.  That seems like a good idea, so we re-book.  The 10 a.m.  plane loads on time and immediately is grounded.  There is a leak of some kind.  The pilot tells us we are going to unload and go back to the gate because "It could be 45 minutes or so."  We all stand to deplane when the mechanic rushes up and tells us to stay put.  He'll look at the leak and tell us what to do. "It could be five minutes or 15 or more."  We sit down and we wait. 

The mechanic clears us about 15 minutes later and the pilot tells us that we can take off quickly, but we don't.  We taxi hither and yon about the aprons of La Guardia while the pilot comes on sheepishly to say that he has been routed to a different runway. 

We arrive in Ithaca just in time for lunch.

Yesterday afternoon, we are in our last meeting and have just enough time to grab a dinner and get to the airport an hour early for the 7:55 p.m. flight.  No problem.  The phone rings.  It's US Air.  Our 7:55 p.m. flight is now delayed until 9:05 p.m.  Something about a maintenance problem.  We get back to La Guardia at 10 p.m., and I walk in the door at home at 11 p.m. 

In the time it took to go 200 miles to and return from Ithaca, New York, I could have flown 3,000 miles from New York to Los Angeles.

But at least the pretzels on the plane were fresh.

02/25

An independent film production called "I Love Your Work," has an official blogger (http://iloveyourwork.com/) who keeps fans up to date on the progress of the movie.  It's a great idea although it is not working quite like the company anticipated.  All copy in the blog has to be approved by the director and actors, but then, that is the way PR always is.  The blogger also cannot get into destructive gossip that fan magazines look for, and the blogger is kept from the actors and actresses if they are in character or don't want to be bothered.  Still, the blog keeps movie fans up to date on the shoot, on additions and changes and other tidbits that enthusiasts track.

It is a good idea that, I suspect, will take root in other films quickly -- just as Web pages have done.  There are cautions, however.  Blogging that is too sales-oriented and promotional can build resentment as much as relationships.  Bloggers have to remain objective and keep clients and readers happy.  This is not an impossible task.  As PR practitioners, we should be doing that all of the time anyway.

Filmmaking is controlled chaos so just a record of the day-to-day near-disasters can be entertaining.  The blogger on "I Love Your Work," is a "fly on the wall," capturing the excitement and anxiety of a typical Hollywood movie production.
 

02/24

We worked about three years ago for a telephone equipment maker who had plunged into Voice Over Internet Protocol (VOIP) and touted its advantages.  We learned the hard way that a VPN was essential.  The client handed out telephony software to the media to test:  It was terrible on the regular Internet.  On the other hand, the client's VPN network linking its offices throughout the United States worked well.

Recently I had read good things in the Financial Times newspaper about an Internet telephony provider located in New Jersey.  I thought maybe Voice Over Internet Protocol (VOIP) providers had finally gotten Internet telephony right. 

So I checked out the firm called Vonage.  One of the first things I discovered was that its founder was in trouble with the Securities and Exchange Commission for misadventures during the Internet Bubble era.  He had paid a hefty fine for a purported trading scam.  That set me back for weeks.  But then I continued to check a bulletin board where Internet telephony users relate their experiences -- www.dslreports.com/ -- and the feedback was excellent. 

What to do?  I dithered because I had put WiFi into our system and was worried it might crash and leave my wife's business disconnected.  Finally, a week ago, I held my breath, signed with Vonage and put down my credit card number. 

A box came in the mail with a CISCO ATA 186 analog telephone adapter, a new phone number and a service contract.  It seemed simple, but then nothing has been easy with my system.  Yesterday,  it was time to stop looking at the box and to put the system in.  I read the instructions and realized with my WiFi router in place I should be able to plug the CISCO Adapter into the router and the phone into the Adapter -- and it should work. 

It couldn't be that easy, but it was.  I got dial tone immediately and the first call I made was to the regular analog phone downstairs. When my wife answered, I told her we had Internet telephony.  I've subsequently called around the country and so far the system works well.  But, we'll continue to test it for the next few months, and we're not getting rid of our old telephone line.  Not yet, anyway.