TechCrunch Post on PR and Blogging

Michael Arrington over at TechCrunch has a post today about the practice of PR in today's blog-intensive world. Basically he posits that PR professionals are not keeping up with nor understanding how to work with bloggers and new media, and are consequently delivering less and less value to their clients. The whole post is worth reading.
I actually agree with Mike's overall premise here--the world of PR IS changing in many, many ways due to the underlying, fundamental changes in the media world. It's not just the emergence of the blogging community that keeps today's PR pros on their toes, but a whole raft of additional changes:
----the emergence of the 24 hour news cycle
----gross fragmentation in media outlets
----ongoing decline in traditional print outlets, print and magazines
----new, visual communications tools

All of these very fundamental changes have occurred over the past few years, mostly due to the anytime, anywhere communications made possible by the Internet. It's no wonder that even the most conscientious PR professional is going to have a hard time keeping up with all of it.

And, still have time to do a good job servicing clients, and blogging! :)

But, despite all this change, and something that Arrington misses totally in his post, is that some things have not changed and probably never will. And, it is this value-add that clients need most from their PR professionals.

PR still is, and always will be, a relationship-based business. It's who you know, what you can tell them, and how you foster those relationships on an ongoing basis that's important. Most CEO's do not have time to manage all the media relationships and still run their companies. That's why they hire good, well-connected PR professionals to help them out with this.

More on this important topic later...

Reflections on the "D" Conference

A couple of weeks ago I was fortunate to attend the annual “D: All Things Digital” conference sponsored by the Wall Street Journal and co-produced by preeminent technology journalists Walt Mossberg and Kara Swisher. The format for “D” is somewhat unique in that, instead of executive keynotes or ‘fireside chats” that are typical at executive conferences, “D” features a series of executive interviews. Usually these are done mano a mano where Walt or Kara interview a specific exec but sometimes the format varies slightly and two execs from the same company are interviewed by Walt and/or Kara. The interviews last about 45 minutes and there is time for Q&A.
This interview format works particularly well at "D" because of the interviewing skills of both Kara and Walt. Because of their long-term experience in the tech and media industries, they are able to ask insightful, hard-hitting and thought-provoking questions.
As a communications professional, it’s interesting to observe each executives’ prowess in handling the interview itself. Do they answer the questions directly? Do they dodge the tough questions? Is he or she a master of spin? Or, are they honest and straightforward. Are they off message or on?
And, of course, content is key. Do they have anything to share in their answers? Do they know their business backwards and forwards? Can they articulate a clear mission/vision or raison d’etre for their company? Is there a strategy? Do they have a sense of the future and how to win the competitive battle at hand or ahead? Do they understand the technology trends and how to take advantage of them? Do they know the specific drivers impacting the day-to-day business, the key stats that keep the motor humming?
Throughout each interview the listening audience, comprised of nearly 400 technology industry veterans, several dozen leading tech journalists, bloggers and pundits, large corporate CIO’s and representatives from all the leading venture firms, is evaluating the executive based on an ongoing analysis of the above dimensions.
It’s a wonder any of them get through this wringer unscathed. Surely, aside from a raucous shareholder meeting, this may be the most challenging interview situation ever faced by many of these executives.
So, this year. Who won and who lost the battle. Well, the clear winner in my mind, and many others whom I spoke with, was Rupert Murdock the founder, majority owner and long-time CEO of News Corp. News Corp is perhaps the largest and most diversified media conglomerate in the world, owning newspapers like The Australian, The London Times, The New York Post and as of last year The Wall Street Journal, online leaders such as My Space, television networks such as Fox News and Star Broadcasting, and the Fox movie business, as well as, the All Things Digital conference. So, it was quite interesting when Murdock took the stage and sat down to answer a series of questions from Walt and Kara. And, even though he is their boss, Walt and Kara asked tough, serious questions about all of the News Corp businesses.
Throughout the interview, Murdock was the face of relaxation, clearly enjoying the banter and give and take. Because he approached it more like a discussion than an interview, he came off as relaxed, comfortable, and enjoying the back and forth. At the same time, he demonstrated a firm grip on all the fundamentals of his business, clearly communicated a sense of vision and long-term commitment, showed that he understood the technology, competitive scenarios and drivers behind each specific business. It was a showcase of how to handle the tough interview for any executive to watch and learn from. You can see some of the video highlights here at the AllThingsD website.
Showcase that against other attempts that left the audience confused in one case, and decidedly lukewarm in another. When Jerry Yang and Sue Decker, CEO and President of Yahoo! took the stage there should have been a single, over arching goal: regain credibility. Despite Walt and Kara’s best efforts to illicit a clear articulation of their business direction, strategy, value and, indeed, their own sense of leadership, neither Yang or Decker were able to step up to the challenge. Their answers left the audience with more questions and did nothing to clarify important issues of direction for the company. An opportunity was lost.
Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer were interviewed the first night of the conference, and although their message was articulated more clearly, they still could not convince this audience that they had a viable strategy going forward to effectively combat the frontal assault of Google.
Lastly, a miss was also made by Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook CEO and new COO Sheryl Sandberg. Clearly the darlings of this crowd, there was probably more residual support for this duo than any of the others. Unfortunately, Zuckerberg was over-rehearsed and could only manage to repeat a one-line mantra over and over, never answering a fundamental question of “why” and Sandberg valiantly tried to illustrate the company’s advertising potential with two relatively weak examples.
The most creative attempt to control the interview had to go to Jeff Bewkes, CEO of Time Warner who, when being interviewed by Swisher, reframed her questions by describing what she was really wanted to asked but didn’t. It worked; he was able to effectively recast the tough questions which enabled him to communicate the information he wanted to.

"Out of Print" by Eric Alterman

For those of you following the trials and tribulations of the evolving news media, another great read is a recent article in the New Yorker, "Out of Print" by Eric Alterman.

25 Most Valuable Blogs

On March 26th, 24/7 Wall Street published its analysis of the 25 Most Valuable Blogs. It's an amazing list of new media that have been largely built in the last three-to-five years. In most sectors, technology (TechCrunch), Politics (Huffington Post), Media (Gawker) these blogs are now driving the news cycle for both online bloggers and off line print journalists. It's clear that this trend is only the beginning and the value of these and other blogs should continue to move up and to the right.

State of the News Media

Much has been written about the "State of the News Media" report published in late March by the Project for Excellence in Journalism so I won't spend time restating any of the obvious. Suffice it to say that, as we all know, disruption is overtaking traditional media and it won't be long before we consume all of our news digitally. This shouldn't be any surprise to those of us who work closely with the media and technology; in terms of a growing transition away from print, that train has left the station.
What I find most interesting about this report is the section "The Future of Advertising". This should be on the "must read" section of all practicing marketing professionals. It gives a concise analysis of the recent media trends from an advertisers perspective. And, talks about the dramatic shift in ad dollars to the Internet which is being preceded by the growing amount of time consumers spend online each day.
Most interesting, from a marketing services perspective, is the following:

"This ability to get much more granular data and the pressure felt by chief marketing officers to justify their ad dollars have made ad spending accountability the No. 1 priority among marketers today.
“ 'Accountability has gone from a buzzword to something that is much more expected in marketing and advertising spend,” says Matt Freeman, CEO of Tribal DDB, a digital offshoot of the ad agency DDB Worldwide, part of Omnicom Group. “That has led to a client shift to more addressable media.” More addressable media usually means anything digitally trackable, from online display ads to offline ads that ask cell phone users to text-message the advertiser to win a prize. Adds Denise Warren, chief advertising officer of The New York Times Media Group, “The [chief marketing officer] has to really show that their marketing spend is delivering results.' "

The challenge for all of us is to figure out how to measure the results of the services we provide in this brave new world.