Plan. Pitch. Print.

Behind the Scenes of Presidential Debates

First, off, it really doesn’t get better than Charlie Rose interviewing Jim Lehrer for my money. I love these two gentlemen. But beyond, my nerd obsession, this interview was incredible because they discuss Lehrer’s book “Tension City” which is a behind the scenes of Lehrer moderating the Presidential debates.

In the interview, they discuss some of the biggest debates and the key moments that affected not just the winners of the debate, but the elections. And many of them were based on body language, gestures, or style - not the words they said. Those of us in communications know the importance of these, but how fascinating to see it in play where the stakes couldn’t be any higher. Definitely adding Lehrer’s book to my reading list - right after Steve Jobs biography.

Image Credit: Barnes and Noble

The importance of role models – who are yours?

I’ve been extremely lucky to come across incredibly smart people who I’ve watched and listened to in hopes to be a bit like them one day. They helped shape who I am, helped me develop, helped me work through adversity, enabled me to keep learning, and nudged along my success.   I was inspired to write this post from an article by Tom Foremski of Silicon Valley Watcher about Jon Iwata, SVP of Marketing and Communications at IBM. Foremski’s article is a few months old; sorry, but I’m a bit behind on my reading and blogging.

Foremski highlights Iwata as the most forward-thinking person in communications today. You should definitely read his posts on Iwata. From Foremski’s article and the quotes from Iwata included, I’d have to agree that he’s out in front of the pack. One of the things that resonated with me is Iwata believes you need to improve a company from the inside out in order to truly effect perception change. I agree 100% with this. I’ve thought about this at points in my career, but hadn’t put the idea together as completely as Iwata has. Nor had I gotten 1) that PR could impact this issue (silly limitations of others defining what PR is and isn’t) and 2) how to make it actionable on a massive scale, as is needed for IBM.

It makes me think about medicine and doctors. When you are sick, they almost always treat the symptom with medicine: high cholesterol, heart disease, anxiety, etc. Got a problem? We got a pill for that. The problem - as I hope people realize - is you aren’t fixing the root cause so these issues will continue to happen and your body is still being damaged and working overtime. They should instead be prescribing things that actually impact the root cause, which might be diet or exercise. And we need a cultural change so people are as religious about diet changes and exercise as they are about taking a pill.  You have to treat the cause.

In effect, treating the symptom is what PR is expected to do. Fix the symptom of negative opinions. How are those caused? Well the list is endless, but the most common are internal dysfunction, poor decisions, bad products, or lateness to market with a me too product.  Or my favorite to fix (note the sarcasm) - people think a product that sucks, well, sucks. Hate to pull back the curtain, but we’re not miracle workers or magicians, and people aren’t stupid. You can’t turn shit into a diamonds (that’s different than turning lemons into lemonade). If you want people to like your product, then build a better product. If you want people to think your company has changed for the better, than it needs to really have changed for the better. PR can drive a cycle or two to try to fix the damage, but it won’t be sustained, consistent coverage and therefore genuine perception change unless it’s an authentic change from the inside out. Iwata seems to get that better than a majority of people doing PR. And not only does he get it, but he’s actually coming up with solutions to impact change.

So I’ve added Jon Iwata to my list of role models. Other role models in my life professionally include:

• Becky Emmett – Becky was my manager early in my career who is now doing PR at Intel – she’s been a role model and directly mentored me. She taught me how to do PR, how to manage the politics, how to manage my emotions, and how to be an amazing manager. I feel like I owe her a lot for where I am now. She also showed me how to be amazing at your job and balance the demands of a family. She is able to manage her hours at work to make time for her three amazing kids and husband. I’m constantly in awe of how she does it. She still is one of the first people I call when I need guidance on a tough situation.

• Heidi Sinclair - Heidi just joined Weber Shandwick as the global tech practice head and she’s incredible. I’ve only begun working with her, but she’s extremely respected, well connected and experienced in technology and social impact PR. She’s kind of a big deal and I’m not timid to say she’s what I want to be when I grow up J

• Scott Trepanier – Scott is my peer and we used to work together. He’s now at Columbia Sports doing PR. He is the person who always knows the latest and greatest web technologies and comes up with innovative ideas for his clients/company. And one of my favorite things about him that I’ve learned from is he has the confidence to say what others might be only willing to think and does so unapologetically.

• Bill Gates – I am pro Bill Gates. Pro PC. Pro everything he does. I just adore him. It’s not because I work on a Microsoft PR account, it’s WHY I work on a Microsoft PR account. I’m passionate about technology because of what Windows let me do growing up. It got me into writing, spreadsheets, email, the Web, social networking before it was called social networking. It’s what helped me identify my passion for technology and doing PR for technology. That’s a big influence in my life. 

I have a relationship with Becky, Heidi and Scott, and they know I look up to them and want to learn from them. But Iwata doesn’t know me and as much as it kills me to say it, neither does my beloved BillG. :P. In today’s world, they don’t need to - that matters less and less as more technology creates and encourages people to share and enables connections. You’ve heard me rave about how important Twitter is as a service to connect people, but another thing it does is lower the barrier and give people like me access to thoughts and ideas from someone like Iwata more consistently and easily than I’d otherwise have a limited opportunity to hear (Tweets can take 15 seconds vs. the hour+ it’s taken me to write this blog post). That’s really important as an equalizer for education and learning.

Iwata can help me expand my mind to the possibilities and positive impact PR can have to help companies not just appear better, but actually be better. And he doesn’t even need to know it.

Who are you role models? Why? The why says a lot about who you are and who you want to be.

P.S. I wrote this over the weekend - I’m against blogging during company hours - but it’s more relevant to post M-F during biz hours. :)

Why the silence on speech recognition in Windows 7?

I’m lying in bed tonight trying to sleep.  But there I was, 4:00 AM, wide awake thinking about how long my to-do list is and how I really need a personal assistant. Then I start planning how I can sell my husband on the idea and rationalize the cost.  Then it dawned on me, if I can dictate my notes and email responses to my computer, it would be way faster than I could type and I could probably get everything done much more quickly. 

So I pulled out my Droid Incredible and Binged ‘speech recognition Windows 7’.  I don’t know what I expected to find, but I didn’t expect to find that Windows 7 had speech recognition built in natively.  One of the first links was to this YouTube video demoing the capabilities. I’m so blown away by the idea of this that I jump out of bed, turn my computer on, and test it out. 

An hour later, here I am, speaking this blog. I even tested it out and replied to an email from a colleague in EMEA.

Now it’s not perfect.  It works best if you dictate, they go back and correct on the keyboard, but still, dictating this is so much faster than typing it would be.

I realized, why have press not been talking, no pun intended, about this? It’s groundbreaking and actually works (unlike past efforts). Instead, we are all punch drunk on multi touch and iPads. Multitouch and iPads are amazing, I’m not going to pretend they aren’t, but speech recognition would truly revolutionize the way we interact with computers.

Take this a step further - imagine a mash up of multi-touch and speech recognition. As soon as I thought of this, I realized that’s possible today with the new touch screen monitors and laptops that run Windows 7.

I literally, have wished for decent speech recognition since 1998, when I was in high school. Ask my dad - he tried to explain why the software wasnt’ good enough yet. My future, is now.

Tomorrow, I’m going to give it a test run and use this at work tomorrow. And at the bottom of my emails I’ll say “email spoken through Win7…pardon my language”

Foursquare, Events & Online Experiences

There’s a great guest post in TechCrunch Check (In) Yo’ Self Before You Wreck Yo’ Self: Why Foursquare Users Check In “Off The Grid”. Besides the funny headline, it’s a great look at why people check in ‘off the grid’ or checking in without letting your friends see where you’ve checked in. I’ve done it when I go to church or the doctor’s. I just don’t think people need to see that intimately into my life. Plus, for the past 7+ months that’s about all you’d see me checking into. :)

But the article also references another idea related to Foursquare about adding Events. The idea is that when a specific event is going on somewhere people can check in at the venue and be associated with a specific event. I have thought about this from a PR/marketing perspective - it would be a great way for marketers to get create exposure for their branded event through Foursquare. It creates exclusivity and coolness to have badges for going to certain events. It also adds value to users - it’s boring to see your friend checked into the Tacoma Dome, but seeing they checked into Lady Gaga’s concert? I’d find that more interesting. This could also become especially interesting for meet-ups - you may be more willing to go meet up with a friend at an organized event than show up unannounced at a restaurant.

I’ve also thought about the idea of check-ins for virtual experiences - checkins for doing something online. This is a much more complex scenario because you wouldn’t want check-ins for everything. I also think it diverts from the core objective of Foursquare to connect to physical locations. I’m not sure how this scenario would play out, but could see it for something like watching major live events online, or checking in to Gap online to shop. It’s a natural extension to what we already share proactively online and could open up a lot of opportunities for brands and marketers.The naysayer in me says - what normal person would do this? But if the experience was fun and tap into that gaming culture, people might use it - I wouldn’t have thought people would want to show their location constantly either.

What do you think? Would you want event related check-ins available on Foursquare? Is checking in for online experiences going too far?

flash back: press coverage measurement

Some days feel like deja vu. Just cause the 80’s have had a revival doesn’t mean measurement in PR should. I feel like I have the same conversations with clients today that I’ve had five years ago about best practices in measurement. I find it insane that there are companies that still consider press release pick-up as part of a coverage count. I also find it insane to weight original articles the same as pick-ups of original articles. An agency should be measured on original coverage. Period. An internal PR person should also be measured on original coverage. Period. We have no influence or control over syndications of articles so why should we get credit for it?

I think people still count them for two reasons - lack of knowledge or fear. Some companies have just done it the old way and never modified their practices, not realizing or maybe not caring. But most often, I hear fear from internal PR people - it means their numbers go down. If you’re any good at your job - and this goes for internal and agency people - this shouldn’t be a concern. You should be able to manage up to your bosses why counting syndications doesn’t show press value.

Now I don’t mean to be so black and white - I think it’s still worth counting pick-up of original coverage. You should know where coverage is being distributed, but you can’t count them together.

I almost didn’t blog about this because it’s like a ‘duh’ for any modern day PR person, but it came up TWICE this week and from different clients. Just crazy talk.

and I’m back…oh my, apple

Thanks for giving me some time off to deal with my health issues which I can proudly claim are in remission. And now I’m back…and have stuff I can’t wait to blog about.

First up, is Apple. Its iPhone 4 launch…what a PR disaster. oh my, what can we say that hasn’t already been said? Well, if you follow the tech space, you’re aware that the latest iPhone is having some antennae issues which disconnect your phone calls if you hold it a specific way. People are pissed, but not pissed enough to give up their iPhone. I could care less about this. What I care about is how they handled it from a PR perspective. Press asked for comments about the anntenae issue and what did Apple respond with? Steve Jobs just blew it off saying, ‘don’t hold it that way.’ I mean, clearly his PR team didn’t weigh in on that response. It reeks of arrogance. It was just excuse after excuse - and one of my favorite Jobs quotes is that this has been “blown out of proportion.” Really? That’s what you want to tell your customer? ‘You’re pissed and I think you’re being ridiculous?’ There could be a brilliant “Really?!?! with Seth and Amy” on SNL about this. Then he says the bars on iPhones overstate the strengh of service AT&T is actually delivering and that this was a software flaw. I have a hard time believing that no one knew this was happening. It feels like a straight up lie. 

What? What does that have to do with the antennae??? Well, folks..it’s a classic case of using a bad PR situation to get out some equally crappy news so it all gets wrapped up into 1-2 news cycles instead of creating a second news cycle at another time. It’s a smart PR move to throw it in there. Offering free cases that minimize calls dropping from the antennae issue is also a smart PR move.

The decision to overstate the service however? Bad PR move. The kind of trust Apple has worked its entire lifetime to build and most companies would love to have. It’s the kind of trust that can’t be bought. And they just crapped all over it. I hope they learn from this and don’t do it again. They may get away with it once, but their bravado and arrogance will push customers away if it continues.

What’s most concerning to me is that Apple customers seem to be oblivious or care less that they were lied to. I would be furious. All I can say is Apple customers… keep your eyes open. You deserve to be treated better even if you believe the iPhone is the best smartphone on the market.