Private Invites and Life in Austin

Stacey Higginbotham from GigaOm visited our Austin office earlier this week to provide us with new perspective from (yet another) established journalist recently turned blogger. We also learned that Om Malik is returning full-time to work in March, which was great news. Stacey is new at GigaOm and is covering the chip market, networking/telco and also looking for new start-ups. One of the things she said that seems to be taking off among her reader base is private beta invites....

Don't Let Economic Gloom Cloud PR Investment

In a post a few months ago I wrote about how the tech market presented many of the same characteristics of the prior tech bubble. Those of us who lived through it, or to put it more aptly, survived it, have always prayed that we'd never see another one like it. Today the economy is once again showing cracks. But this time the bubble is in housing. That condition, coupled with soaring energy prices is starting to affect other segments...

With a Strong Communications Strategy, Risks Can Pay Off

Location, location, location is definitely an axiom in the real estate business. But it's also a very important factor in the strategic discussion of when and where to conduct a major launch or announcement in the communications business. Those of us involved in discussions like that appreciate it when a journalist recognizes how important those elements are and commends companies for doing it right, as Jim Lyons did recently in his Observer blog post about ZINK Imaging's partnership launch with...

Conversation on integrated PR/IR

We're pleased to bring you episode 2 of our podcast series. This segment is the first of a two-part roundtable discussion on PR and IR led by LP&P's Rich Wadsworth. Rich is joined by Lois Paul, and our partners Jane McCahon and Mary Conway of Conway Communications. They discuss the synergies that exist between IR and PR and the obstacles to realizing those synergies. In particular, Jane shares her view that because of how the web has evolved, audiences for...

Twitter grows in influence

I've been doing A LOT more training and education on social media -- both internally and with clients. This is a great sign that B2B companies really are believing that social media can't be ignored. Yet, it's very interesting to see the reactions and to read the interest level of the people I train on the various dimensions, tools and techniques of social media. Probably the most interesting set of reactions stem from discussions about Twitter. To be sure, it...

It's not going to go away...

Three years ago Business Week published an article warning companies that they need to start blogging. This week the company has updated the story to tell its readers it is not just about blogging but about YouTube and Twitter and everything else that comprises Social Media. The key message, however, is the same: Catch up…or catch you later. If you are reading this entry, you know we at LP&P couldn't agree more. But if you haven't started adding social media...

Finger in the wind decision-making

What's a journalist to do these days? It's very hard to get a straight story from anyone regarding whether the U.S. truly is in a THAT WHICH CANNOT BE NAMED AND BEGINS WITH "R." In fact, FierceTelecom's Dan O'Shea is trying to determine where things stand in the telecoms market, the same way CNBC Moneyline and AP-Ipsos in their respective broader markets. He is doing a straw poll. Telecom service providers for the most part reported pretty solid fourth quarter...

Roger Protests too much, the press declares

Roger, Roger, Roger. Why didn't you take the sage advice I'm sure your agent and PR people have been giving you and just zip it? Sometimes the best counsel us PR types can offer our clients is to protect them from themselves. Example? Stopping the indignant CEO from wanting to respond to a "he said/he said" kind of issue that emerged in the press. If we let them vent publicly, the press eats it up and the story lives yet...

Why we do what we love, and love what we do

As kids get ready to pass out Valentine's cards in class, and keep Valentines' Day the second largest card-giving holiday of the year behind Christmas, and as those of us who celebrate the day for what its become, another way to acknowledge those we love and care about most, it seemed appropriate to do the same for why those of us at LP&P love what we do. And even better, I'll try to explain why, in under 100 words or...

Surveying the Scene

I've probably already mentioned The Onion on a previous blog, as I'm a big fan. Sorry to repeat the reference, but it has written several very funny stories on the ever-present survey data in the news we read regularly. I read my local paper every day, and each day, I read at least two or three stories centered around a new survey. You name the topic, there is a survey out there that covers it. Which brings me to my...