03/28

This kind of flap always is annoying because one has to waste time defending oneself and trying to get back into the client's good graces.  So, my colleague and I dug up all the e-mails and documents related to the two interviews and examined them in detail.  We proved in an e-mail back to the client that everything we were accused of was not true.  On the other hand, we also had to admit that because of the way we had reported our activities, it was reasonable for the client to make an incorrect assumption. 

It was all my fault.  I had quickly skimmed some e-mails to the client and approved them without thinking about it much.  I had forgotten that the client is new to us and the chances of miscommunication are much higher when one is still breaking in with a new person.  Had I been smart, I would have had everything detailed to the client to avoid just this kind of headache.  I wasn't smart.

So, I wasted a good two hours yesterday on something that should never had occurred in the first place.  And I wasted the time of my boss and my colleague who works on the account with me. 

Sometimes a little thinking in advance can save a lot of time later.
 

03/27

What took them so long?  The next logical step is to do that throughout the day using XML/RSS protocols that sweep news sites and post them automatically to a central point.  Bloggers have been doing this for awhile. 

The point is that the newspaper is now the final resting place for news and not the launch pad for it.  News appears on the Web first and has impact before it reaches print.  There is also more news online than can reach print because the Journal has only so many pages it can afford to fill a day. 

The Journal says that it now has 675,000 paying online subscribers daily and notes that would make it the seventh largest newspaper in the U.S., if the product were printed.  As the site grows, it will likely surpass all but the largest papers such as USA Today and the print edition of The Wall Street Journal. 

If you have clients who still believe that it isn't news until they see a headline and photo on paper, show them the online Journal.  I would scramble to be in the online edition.
 

03/26

The story has to do with a popular television program, called Big Brother, that puts 12 people in a house for several months under the lenses of TV cameras.  Big Brother has apparently been launched throughout Europe and most recently, it debuted in Bucharest, Romania.  The presenters went on the air and were commenting as the cars traveled through Bucharest with the contestants to the house where the program was to begin.  The scenes were shown in real-time -- or so viewers thought . 

The problem was the cars were traveling in the rain while a viewer watching the program in real-time in Bucharest was sitting under perfectly clear skies.   Of course, the shots had been done the day before when it was indeed wet.  The viewer immediately went to his Web site and and the local TV station and proved the opening episode was a fraud.

This is a minor incident and embarrassment for the program but a warning to those who think they can fudge such things.  You can't.  Fess up and tell viewers what is happening because someone is going to figure it out anyway, and that someone can easily tell the world through the Web. 

It is disturbing, of course, that a reality-based program depends on lack of reality, but it has never been much different.  The truth is a rubber band to most people in entertainment.  They stretch it to tell a good  story. 

PR cannot afford such excesses anymore.  Publicists used to pull truth beyond the breaking point, and some practitioners still do.  But it is too easy to be caught in the Big Lie today.  If you are a PR counselor who believes a "little white lie" is OK here and there, be prepared.
 

03/25

What the BBC has done is to place all of its reporters' short observations on a single page from all over the battlefield.  One can quickly read the news and move on.  It strikes me that this has immediate applications for  PR practitioners.  Take a large event like Comdex or CeBit where there are hundreds of technology exhibits and no way to see them all.  It would be simple for a company checking on the technologies to send employees over the show and have them post to a central page in real-time what they find along with digital photos.  This would inform everyone quickly, including those not at the show who want an idea what is happening.  In fact, the tech media have offered logs close to this for years, but most were not in real-time.  They were closer to daily news reports.  The virtue of a log is immediacy.

BBC's approach is not original.  Demonstrators protesting the war on the streets of San Francisco have been posting up-to-the-minute logs of events as they occur.  They are posting these reports using WiFi radio transmission from the street directly to blog pages so interested parties elsewhere -- and the media -- can follow the course of a demonstration.

The Iraq war is showing off the powerful realities of the Web that have always been there but never quite as exploited as they are now.  Whether or not you favor the war, look at the communications techniques being used.  They are an education in themselves.
 

03/24

For one, Cyberjournalist.net  notes that several media have developed interactive maps and precis sites to help readers grasp the totality of the war.  It points to the Washington Post's interactive Troop Tracker  that follows the progress of forces daily.  Click on a map position and a brief appears that tells the unit there and its activity.  Newspapers and magazines provide large-scale maps, but they are static and not as elegant as the Troop Tracker.  USA Today has a similar interactive map showing daily events with numbers on the map corresponding to action with attached explanations.  So too, the Guardian's interactive map details activity on all fronts with a running record of events down the left hand side of the frame.  Meanwhile, CNN chose a conventional page with a digest of events arrayed cleanly and neatly for one to review quickly. 

PR practitioners should study these sites.  They are lessons in economical and effective presentation of information.   It is the craft of simplicity.  The same craft can and should be applied to company Web sites.  For one, there is not much use of interactive mapping in company web sites, and that's a pity.  A map of the world with one's locations on it and photos of sites is more compelling than a list of plants, sales offices and administrative sites.  There is no reason either why calendars cannot be interactive.  Click on each month and a menu drops down to provide the news of that time period including releases and other pertinent information hyperlinked to the menu.

News organizations have moved quickly and well in adapting to the Internet.  Reuters, for example, provides a page with raw, uncut video, that allows one to view the action immediately without waiting for an editor to sift through cuts.  This was forceful in the early hours of the war, and it is still up. 

There is little doubt the Web is a mature news medium and will never again be treated as a stepchild.  PR practitioners should realize that as well.