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Phil's Blogservations
Sunday, January 04, 2009
Posted by philgomes 6:22 PM
Having A "Message" Is Fine, It's "Messaging" That SucksIn PR 2.0 circles, it has long been hip to say that there is no place in modern communications for a company with "messages" and that any company with "messages" is somehow lost in the digital weeds. A PR person who says otherwise is derided as a knuckle-dragging troglodyte while the supremely useless you-don't-get-it crowd gleefully jumps in and piles on.
I disagree with the premise that messages are necessarily dead. This was a fallacy that was allowed to progress because the some PR folks were too busy ingratiating themselves with a small set of influencers to think the issues and distinctions through.
If your company doesn't have a "message" — a set of clear ideas that codify how it sees itself, its industry, and the world at large — then why the hell does it even exist, let alone communicate?
Frankly, a distinction needs to be made.
Messages aren't dead. In fact, in an age when meaning is more important than ever, I argue that that having a message or clear set thereof is vital and necessary.
It's "messaging" that's dead, defined as the development and cloying repetition of corporatespeak statements devoid of meaning, rendered in a language that no one uses, delivered without the benefit of listening first, and presented in venues and contexts where they are clearly inappropriate.
A communications environment where a company needn't have a "message" would be great for lazy communicators who don't want to be bothered with the qualitative measurement of the success or failure of their programs. At that point, "just having a mostly positive conversation" is considered "success".
I should hope that, as a profession, we can do better.
Now, only a fool would expect that online communities would ever speak "on-message". Only an irresponsible communicator who is unfamiliar with how online communities operate would set that as an objective.
However, we're in the business of making a persuasive case on behalf of clients — helping companies, organizations, and even individuals to convince other individuals and third parties of a particular vision or point of view.
That's a "message".
How the message is conveyed — either by entertaining one-off YouTube video or sustained, mutually beneficial conversation with online communities over a period of time — is a lengthy discussion for another time. The fact is that a company should have a message, or risk irrelevance.
Technorati Tags: pr, public relations, social media
Tuesday, December 30, 2008
Posted by philgomes 10:16 AM
2009: Hoping For Audacity, Believing We Can ChangeFrom the Edelman Digital blog:
The first few years of my PR career in Silicon Valley were marked by a singular frustration — most PR professionals did not aspire to be, nor were they particularly expected to be, as driven to innovate in their own field as their clients were in theirs."Just get into the Journal," seemed the dictum. "Everything else is secondary."
For a number of reasons so tangential to this story as to be distracting, the advent of social media is what kept me in public relations at a point in 2001 when I asked myself "Is this all that there is?" Years later, I'm glad to see there's a lot more. A hell of a lot more.
For what it's worth, 2009 will be the year when real innovation starts to come back into PR — not in the relatively cosmetic form of press releases gussied up in Web 2.0 regalia and such, but fundamental changes in how the art of communications is applied day-to-day. Some of these changes won't be all that sexy. Most of them will be perhaps only operational in nature. However, they will be no less important.
I won't venture into trying to predict the innovations themselves but, rather, discuss the emerging conditions that make them possible.
Technorati Tags: pr, public relations, 2009
Saturday, December 20, 2008
Posted by philgomes 6:13 PM
Media Postions GM PR Adviser As 'Auto Analyst', While Arrington Derails PR's FocusYuck:
CBS’s 'The Early Show' included a statement in its Dec. 18 report on the Big 3 bailout from 'auto industry analyst,' Dan McGinn. Letting the massive car companies fail 'would be like 10 Katrinas hitting America at the same time,' McGinn asserted. 'The American public understands that.'You'd think media organizations would know the difference before booking such a guest.What the report didn’t say is that McGinn is also an adviser to General Motors. Furthermore, TMG Strategies the public relations firm McGinn heads, lists GM as a client. McGinn has been making the case for an auto bailout in many news stories and issuing some compelling statements on behalf of his client.
And, yet, nothing from the you-don't-get-it crowd!
I guess there's just too much else to be angry about... I'm sure we'll see a post soon about the growing horror (shock!) of corporate blogs that don't allow comments, or companies who don't follow as many people who follow them on Twitter.
Or maybe we'll see examples of highlighting the extreme and making it the norm, a favorite tempest-in-the-teapot rhetorical tool for those to wish to defib attention a little.
Seems that TechCrunch's Michael Arrington dealt with a few bad flacks who were dishonest about embargoes. His solution: Be dishonest right back!
I've never been dishonest about an embargo and, in fact, I've always had a deep respect for what asking a journalist for such an agreement entails. I've also been smart enough to actually, oh I dunno, develop real relationships with the media and influencer communities to determine who is and is not an embargo risk! (A concept that you spray-and-pray PR folk have yet to grasp.)
The two best commentaries about this mess come from Charles Arthur and Allen Stern.
The point that TechCrunch and most of its fawners don't understand about embargoes is that they don't matter as much as they used to.
As Stern offers:
Some blogs like the embargo as it allows them to look like a news-breaking organization. The truth is, any exclusive that goes up on any blog, I can have a better post written about the story in 5 minutes.The early bird sometimes might get the worm, but it's the second mouse that always gets the cheese.Technorati Tags: gm, pr, public relations, techcrunch
Tuesday, December 09, 2008
Posted by philgomes 4:27 AM
In Defense Of The "Purist"I while ago, I was having lunch with my friend "Bart" whose supervisor "James" had left the firm he worked for at the time. Naturally, this meant that Bart had to take on some of his former boss's responsibilities — some considerable shoes to fill.
James was a leader in this company's online communications strategy, not just because of his considerable technical knowledge but, rather, the instincts he developed over a period of time.
During one of the necessary transition meetings, Bart had a meeting with James' former boss.
"The thing is about James was," the boss said. "He was just too much of a purist."
Considering Bart and James were pretty much parallel philosophically, this wasn't such good news for my friend. Bart would leave the firm soon afterward.
Since Bart told me this story, I've been asking myself, "What did James' former boss mean?"
It occurs to me that there are some folks within the marketing profession who are dismissed as "purists" when they confront supervisors or clients with the basic rules of how online communities operate. Typically, this purist is challenged by someone who feels — and is indeed quite desperate to believe — that there is nothing that he or she needs to learn.
Far from being simply naive, these purists respect the nature of online communities and are smart enough to know that companies can't merely "activate" those communities on a campaign-by-campaign basis to achieve a short-term marketing needs. The long-term potential out of the short-term gain you sought but never got is squandered.
These purists have enough experience to see that the best engagements are ones where objective value meets mutual benefit.
Go ahead... Ignore that purist. Keep telling yourself and your boss that you have an "online community strategy" when you really just spam bloggers under the faux nobility of "reaching out" to them. The competitors who listen to the counselor that offers a strong, intellectually honest basis for online counsel will have more sustainable and compelling success.
Ultimately, those purists will be counted on to do the right thing, and the agencies and companies they work for will greatly benefit in the long term.
The only time a "purist" gets in the way is when he or she loses sight of the companies they represent or forgets who signs his or her check. Such folks become much more interested in becoming advocates for the groups or individuals they seek to influence. Noble-sounding, but dangerous. Neither Bart nor James, of course, fall into this trap.
Again... Mutual benefit. Objective value.
The purist may not tell you want you want to hear, but the good PR folks — digital or otherwise — have the stones to give that "there ain't no Santa Claus" kind of bad news.
The best ones develop a compelling solution.
Technorati Tags: pr, public relations, social media
Monday, December 01, 2008
Posted by philgomes 6:20 AM
NYT Profile On Jolie's Media Management Shows PR Profession Has A Long Way To GoI'm still not sure whether The New York Times was repulsed or intrigued by the fact that that Angelina Jolie exhibits greater media savvy than the average Hollywood type, taking more than 1,500 words to tell its very literate readership what it already intuitively (or explicitly) knows about celebrity PR.
Where The Old Gray Lady sees a "carefully orchestrated image", I see a very smart woman who has a greater level of media savvy than the average actor or actress. Like Princess Di, Jolie also knows that she can channel interest in her celebrity life to bring attention to the topics and world issues she cares about.
Putting aside for the moment that the article puts "celebrity magazines" and "strict journalistic standards" in the same sentence, and appears to give more credence to anonymous sources than quoted ones, it clearly aims to portray anyone who manages their media presence as manipulative in the extreme. (While putting onerous conditions on coverage does smack of a certain arrogance, the most egregious examples are quite easily explained away in this piece, somewhat contradicting the slant of the headline and the lead paragraphs.)
It might raise almost as many questions as putting... Umm... Angelina Jolie and Princess Di in the same sentence, but I digress.
In the popular imagination, it's clear that anyone who manages how he, she, or his/her company is portrayed in the media must be some kind of Svengali... As cynical as Aaron Eckhardt in Thank You For Smoking, as vapid as Colin Farrell in Phone Booth, despicable as Tony Curtis in Sweet Smell Of Success, or as even as promiscuous as Samantha in Sex In The City. In any case, such a person must be worthy of examination.
Or... Such a person exhibits a new standard of self-comportment and care in an always-on, media-saturated, 90-second-news-cycle world.
Again, it will be a long time before PR can cast off its pejorative connotations.
Worth keeping an eye on... Especially People's Larry Hackett's response...
Technorati Tags: celebrity, pr, public relations, angelina jolie
Sunday, November 09, 2008
Posted by philgomes 4:41 AM
How To Behave In An Internet Forum
How To Behave On A Forum - video powered by MetacafeTechnorati Tags: online, forums
Thursday, November 06, 2008
Posted by philgomes 8:41 PM
Quick UpdateSo, I spent some time here:
Met this way-cool guy:
Stayed around Chicago long enough to do this:
And this.
Now back out to here, here, and here.
Learning an amazing amount... The intersection between media, cultures, education, perception, reality, opportunity, challenge, expectation, and influence.
Y'all know where to follow the action...
Technorati Tags: travel, propenmic, edelman, pr, public relations
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ABOUT THIS BLOG
This is the blog of Phil Gomes, SVP with Edelman Digital and senior advisor to the Society for New Communications Research. This blog not only discusses PR and media matters, but Phil's everyday observations about a variety of topics. Phil currently resides in Chicago, IL.
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