An Epidemic of Poor Communication

Before I address Vice President Joe Biden's "doh!" moment on the Today Show this morning around the H1N1 Influenza A virus (I'm an animal lover, so I'm staying away from the popular name), I have to say that the choice of wording of current alerts from the World Health Organization (WHO) -- that we are in Phase 5 readiness for a potentially pandemic epidemic that is imminent -- may be spreading more alarm and doing more harm than the actual...

RSA 2009 - bang or bust?

As the old saying goes, "if a tree falls in the forest and there's nobody there to hear it, does it make a sound?" The same can be said about RSA 2009, which took place last week in San Francisco. Arguably the biggest IT security show of the year, RSA typically arrives with much fanfare and a flurry of activity as security vendors, researchers and writers prepare to take in all that the show usually has to offer. I had...

Is the press release going through an identity crisis?

In the past, the press release was the one tried and true form of communicating to the press and the best way for a company to come to an agreement on the overall messaging around an announcement. It also served as a great proof point for harried sales people who wanted to document that they were signing on customers and making traction. It wasn't a sale if a press release didn't make it official or hadn't gone on the wire....

Simple answer to 'Why should I do social media?'

The most common objection or hesitation I hear from clients and others about why they should move forward with a social media program is that their customers are not using social networks and services to engage with each other or with companies. This is thinking about social media along one dimension, however, specifically whether or not there will be sufficient interaction or participation around a blog, Twitter channel or other network. I often respond to that objection by asking clients...

Craigslist CEO "Feels Terribly" but tells CNN no real changes planned

Craigslist CEO Jim Buckmaster certainly has had better weeks. When a Boston University med student was arrested on suspicion that he killed a masseuse he met on the Craigslist community bulletin board, he was quickly branded by the media as "the Craigslist killer" and the media began jumping on the angle of a killer using an Internet social media site to find his victims more than they were covering a murder. Buckmaster was video taped on CNN addressing the situation....

How to work with influential technology bloggers

About a week ago, I saw a tweet from Michael Krigsman (@mkrigsman) who blogs for ZDNet about IT Failures that said: Software vendors need to learn to engage bloggers in a relationship that is straightforward and uncomplicated. In an earlier tweet Michael had singled out SAP as a company that really understands how to build this type of relationship. In my never-ending quest to capture and execute best practices in communications for all of our clients, I contacted Michael to...

The House that Pat Built

Last Thursday night, I went to the IDG Alumni Reunion in Newton, MA, a sold-out affair with 250 attendees and many more on a waiting list. I worked for IDG from 1981 - 1983, starting as a staff writer for ComputerWorld and moving pretty rapidly to Senior Editor/Software. Catching up with my old colleagues like Bill Laberis and Cheryl Gelb (now Eppsteiner) really took me back to my earliest days in the technology industry. The editor who hired me at...

Should social media be regulated?

A colleague shared with me the other day the news that the Federal Trade Commission may regulate viral marketing and social media. It sounds ominous, but what's really at play is the fact that the FTC is updating its guidelines for the new era of marketing. It only took them 30 years to do so (guess they didn't think Web 1.0 was significant enough). The nut of the proposal is that bloggers or others that are paid to endorse or...

SNW, what's to come?

It was about this time last week that the dust was beginning to settle on another Storage Networking World (SNW) Spring Conference. No signs of hurricanes to delay the arrival of attendees or speakers as in years past. No signs of some major sponsors as in years past, Dell being one of many conspicuously absent. Few signs of major news conferences from multiple companies, Brocade being one of the only to leverage SNW for a press event. Fewer signs of...

How the demise of scoop-driven journalism will affect PR

Illustration Paul Gilligan On Friday, my colleague Christine Simeone pointed out a very interesting piece by Jon Friedman of Marketwatch, which raises the question whether journalistic "scoops" still matter. Despite the ego-stirring excitement of getting a jump on a story that I still remember well from my IT press days, Jon answers his own question about the relevance of scoops: Not so much, I'm afraid. With the exception of a Watergate-like bombshell, news exclusives don't mean as much as they...