Almost-April-Fools'-Day "What Were They Thinking?" Awards

It's been a fun week of microphone gaffes, anger management issues and just plain dumb statements by a number of people who should know better (or have better handlers.) But that made it a great week for our regularly featured "What Were They Thinking?" communications awards. The "There is no such thing as off-the-record" award goes to U.S. President Barack Obama, who not only made off-the-cuff remarks to Russian President Dmitri Medvedev during a Nuclear Security Summit about his ability...

SXSWi: Now What to Do...Your Three Unofficial Swag Tips!

Now that SXSWi 2012 has "officially" come to an end (see our photos here), friends and colleagues eager to reflect and implement some of the key lessons learned have asked me what they should do between now and next year’s conference. So think of this as your swag bag of recaps and tips to ensure that your next SXSW experience is better than the last because, let’s be honest, it is only going to continue to get bigger (a.k.a. more...

Does CIO Plus CMO Equal Chief Customer Officer?

Gartner analyst Laura McLellan definitely got the tongues wagging and the keyboards humming when she conducted a seminar in January that suggested "By 2017 the CMO will spend more on technology than the CIO." The articles and blog posts that have been covering and reverberating off of that contention still are appearing this week, three months later. Her contention makes a great deal of sense, when you think about how rapidly marketing has been shifting over the past few years,...

How Tech PR Pros Can Work Effectively With Media

Last night, LPP hosted the Publicity Club of New England's latest media roundtable discussion. The evening's focus was "Tech's Hot Trends," and was moderated by Matthew Lloyd, director of communications at iRobot (aka @mattlloydbos). Panelists included Michael Farrell, newest technology reporter at The Boston Globe (aka @globembfarrell), Gregory Gomer, managing editor at BostInno (aka @sliggity), Eric Lundquist, VP Editorial at InformationWeek/ United Business Media (aka @ESLundquist), Dan Primack, senior editor at FORTUNE (aka @danprimack), and Dan Rowinski, writer at ReadWriteWeb...

SXSWi: “Surviving Technology” and Creating Accountability

While some of George Friedman’s predictions may be a bit far-fetched (as far as I know, we are not at war with Japan, nor on the brink of another Cold War with Russia), I found little to dissent with during his “Surviving Technology” presentation at SXSW Interactive last week. When my colleague, Linsey McNew, invited me to hear him speak, I was eager to attend thinking we’d get some further insight into what really went down with the Anonymous hack....

Social Media Managers Are From Venus -- And So Are Corporate Lawyers

You may be thinking that this post's headline doesn't make sense, especially if you have tried to push social media initiatives through legal approval. But it probably got you to read this, so bear with me and let me know at the end if you still don't agree with it. I'm just back from SXSW in Austin (and dried out as well). The conference is so large now that it's had to spread out over hotels a half mile or...

You Say Goodbye, but I Say Hello

Last Friday we said goodbye to one of our Boston employees in our kitchen over cupcakes arranged by her manager who was Skyped into the gathering, as she works remotely on Fridays. One of the people reminded this employee that she's now officially an LPP alum. The good will in the room as people shared fun moments with this individual and looked forward to connecting with her in the future as an alum and -- who knows -- maybe some...

SXSWi Survival Guide from a Local

Having attended SXSW for the past five years in many different capacities, I am now un-officially claiming authority for how to survive the mayhem that is the conference unlike any conference you’ve ever attended. Don’t get me wrong, I haven’t always known how to best maneuver around the noise and avoid the traps of networking, but I have since survived and thrived during the festival conference and hope that a few words of advice from an experienced SXSWer will save...

Bloomberg's New Tech Blogs: Takeaways for Tech Companies and PR

Watch out Forbes and NYT ... Bloomberg finally has brought an attractive date to the tech-reporting party that can sing, dance and charm! Bloomberg, with its shiny new Tech Blog and Tech Deal along with the ability to leverage original video content, is definitely a little late, but appears to be making quite a Lady Gaga-style entrance. It’s still early, of course, but it's good to see the long-standing media giant expanding its technology coverage to include a more robust...

"What Were They Thinking?" Awards: March 5 Edition

This week's contenders are from three very different venues: the Rock 'em Sock 'em Robots GOP primary battle; the culmination of Hollywood-loves-itself fetes, the Oscars; and the war of words that is beginning as baseball spring training is winding down. The “Pushing the Envelope Too Far” Award This award goes to trailing Republican candidate, Senator Rick Santorum for saying the late President Kennedy's speech to Baptist ministers about the importance of the separation of church and state made him "want...