06/13

But he didn't know what we could do for him because he doesn't understand public relations.  Apparently, this is and will be the fate of PR.  Few know what we do because we are so diverse in the services we offer.  

This fellow needed someone to help him flesh out an insight he has about an industry.  He's a busy man and has no time to write and less time to think.  He asked if we could help him.  We said we could. He asked if we could write an article or brochure for him.  We said that we do that regularly, especially for his firm.  He questioned us for 10 minutes about what we might do for him until he seemed satisfied.  I asked myself why.  Didn't he know materials he had seen over the years came from us?   Of course not.  The materials were under other people's names.   Why should he know?

I conclude from this episode that PR is often a stealth service.  Perhaps, the less people know about what we do the better.  I used to get upset that no one understands our business.  Even my father and mother never caught on.  I would explain my day to them, and they would give me the vague response, "That's nice."  I would overhear them tell others that I worked in advertising. 

I learned over time that it isn't worth worrying about what others think about PR as long as they hire us.  This sounds mercenary -- and it is.  But it takes too long to explain ourselves to everyone who comes along. 

The most frequent question I get on this web site is, "What is Public Relations?"  I have taken to providing a one-sentence answer because I promise to respond, but how many people would ask, "What is advertising?" 
 

06/12

http://www.fcc.gov/Bureaus/Common_Carrier/Reports/FCC-State_Link/IAD/hspd0603.pdf

At the end of 2002, there were 19.9 million broadband connections in use.  When connections reach 50 million, it should be a tipping point that makes huge areas of multimedia practical.  But the growth curve, although slowing, is huge and promising:

• High-speed lines connecting homes and businesses increased by 23% in the second half of 2002 to 19.9 million lines
• 17.4 million of those high-speed lines served residences and small businesses.
• Of the 19.9 million lines, 13 million provided service in excess of 200 kilobytes per second.
• Of the new lines that went in, ADSL began to catch up with cable modems, although cable modems are still far ahead.

We're not far from a time when a CEO can deliver weekly remarks to employees that are e-mailed as video files to the home along with multimedia news from around the country and industry.  It could be done now except that too many are still limping along with dial-up service.  (This is changing.  AOL announced it has lost about a million dial-up customers in the last year.  And, AOL now offers broadband.)

I, for one, can't wait until we can begin experimenting with broadband capabilities.  Webcasts will become a norm rather than exception.  Large and easily accessible databases of information will be standard rather than an hard-to-use annoyances.  Can you envision what you will do with a corporate news site at full broadband capability? 

The limit is your imagination.
 

06/11

Statistics in the article seemed to support this contention.  Ad pages for Business-to-Business publications fell 30 percent from 2000 to 2002, according to the Business Information Network.  Ad pages for consumer magazines were down 21 percent over the same period (Publishers Information Bureau).  In 2003, consumer magazines are up 3 percent; trades down 5 percent.  The clincher was that since July 2001, 150 audited trade titles have shut down while only 120 have started up.  Of course, trade staffs have been slashed, and coverage has declined.  When is the forecasted turnaround for trade publishing?  Not for four years. 

The betting is that more trades will end publishing on paper and publish only online.  And, why not?  Most workplaces are wired with broadband access to the Internet, and it is easy for workers to check news several times a day.  We see this already.  If this is the case for trade news in general, trade publishing will change completely and be more a wire service than magazine.  News will appear quickly on trade sites and perhaps, not tarry as long.  The hard part will be to lure print-based advertisers to the Web.

Another factor in trade media is the shrinking of the number of titles.  There might be just one outlet covering an industry segment now rather than two or three.  This, of course, will make life harder for PR practitioners used to circulating news around multiple publications eager for content.  On the other hand, it is likely one well-funded trade can do a better job of reporting than two or three weak ones that bend to advertisers' wishes.

The report noted one major trade has announced an immediate departure from print -- Internet World with a circulation of  225,000.  It was too expensive to print and distribute as a paper-based magazine with the dearth of advertising.   On the other hand, wouldn't it seem  logical for Internet World to go online?   I would be surprised if Restaurant News did the same thing. 
 

06/10

One Japanese company, Yano Research Institute ( http://www.yanoresearch.com) says IP calling will increase 73% this year in Japan from 3.1 million in 2002 to 5.3 million by the end of 2003 and a predicted 27.9 million by 2007.  Meanwhile NTT, the country's monopoly phone supplier, reported its first-ever decrease in annual sales during 2002.

All this is good in Japan, but I wonder if it will grow as quickly here.  It doesn't appear to be, and several companies have tried to establish IP systems.  We tested IP telephony at home this year and took it out.  The service was from a good vendor -- Vonage.  What we learned was that Vonage wasn't that much less than an AT&T one-rate plan for local and long-distance calling.  Further, it had disconcerting quality lapses that Vonage blamed on our phone cable rather than their service. 

We didn't stay around to find out.  After three months using it with spotty calling, we cancelled.  We also have to fess up to a monstrous mistake in using Vonage.  We didn't want to lose our local phone number because Vonage could not transfer it to the IP system, so we forwarded calls from our old home number to our Vonage number.  Verizon, the local phone company, hit us with $190 of forwarding charges.  After kicking ourselves, we paid the bill .   With AT&T we kept our old number.

My guess is that Japan is turning to IP telephony because it has few service options.  The US has too many service options.  I have little doubt IP telephony will make inroads in the US service because it offers advantages.  But, call quality has to be as good as a traditional phone.

What I like about IP telephony for PR  is that your number can follow you no matter where you travel.  That is, you need but one phone number and every call is a local call.  IP telephony also allows multiple offices to use extensions like they are in one office.  So the San Francisco office can punch an extension for New York and have someone pick up there like he or she is in the next room.   That's neat and quick.

But the promise is not here.  IP telephony is a technology that is always going to arrive REAL SOON NOW.  I'm still waiting.
 

06/09

This happened recently.  Apparently, The Wall Street Journal held a technology conference in which the conference organizers stipulated that reporters could not publish comments from panelists without panelists' permission.  Reporters honored those guidelines, but bloggers thought they didn't apply so they discussed remarks from Apple CEO Steve Jobs in their blogs.  The predictable happened.  The information flew through the cyberworld and into traditional journalism instantly.  To get the full story see:  http://www.wired.com/news/culture/0,1284,59116,00.html

What was the oversight?  Apparently it never occurred to PR practitioners arranging the conference or to bloggers that blogs are not exempt from restrictions.   I do not blame PR practitioners involved if they thought it was obvious that restrictions applied to bloggers as well.  It was.  But, it is clear that one has to stipulate who cannot publish.  The prohibition needs to be applied specifically to blogs. 

The interesting part of this is that promulgation of specific off-limits rules recognizes that in some form, bloggers are part of journalism.  And, they are, although they might not be as careful as mainstream journalists, and they might also be much more opinionated.  The fact is that it makes little difference if a person doesn't act like a traditional journalist, if that individual reports off-limits remarks, the remarks are public. 

This is extremely important to remember.  I suspect that blogs will bypass off-limits rules repeatedly until there is a firm reminder in every PR practitioner's handout materials that off-limits apply to bloggers as well.  And, if bloggers are not willing to follow that restriction, one might have to make them sign confidentiality agreements or exclude them from coverage.

Of course, the only way one can know if a blogger has violated off-limits terms is by monitoring the blog.  And, if you haven't been doing that, shame on you.  We're long past the time when blogs should be a normal part of media monitoring.