Lest we forget

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A little theory we're working on...

Crossing over: The nexus between marketing, technology and business process.

Historically technology existed in back office silos and then it moved to also being a facilitator of company window dressing with the intro of website marketing and static pretty sites. But now we’ve reached the point where the best use of technology can be found at the nexus between business process and marketing.

I know you will have heard the saying that marketing is about “selling the sizzle, not the steak” but in fact now we need the sizzle plus the steak – cook, carved and served to the exact standards the customer requires every time. And to do this there absolutely must be synergy between the technology and people at the forefront of the business and the marketing activities and business processes and technology behind the scene to create customer engagement. 

What do you think?

Technology & the Healthcare Industry

One of the great things about working in the Technology space is the enormous scope of vertical industries that we get to work with as technology becomes so pervasive in almost every aspect of our lives.

Over the last few months conversation around the National Broadband Network has firmly turned the spotlight on e-health. Government stimulus spending is at an all time high and debates around privacy are becoming less heated as the world acclimatises to sharing personal information on the net with Web 2.0 applications and as developments in web security progress.

Recent progress in the health technology arena has seen so many amazing solutions and products come to the fore, products and solutions that will have real, lasting effects on Australians. As an avid technology fan with a past life in the healthcare industry, I have to say this particular set of products really excite me.

I mean sure, iPods are cool, but they mean diddly-squat when stacked up against the da Vinci robotics products, that allow surgeons to operate on patients from anywhere in the world and in the least invasive way possible. How about Cisco’s HealthPresence – TelePresence for the healthcare industry – which means in the future I could go to the shopping centre, pop into the HealthPresence pod and be seen by a Doctor for my checkup- regardless of my Doctor’s location. These pods are being trialed on the other side of the ditch at the moment and elsewhere.

Just last Friday a consortium was announced to manage Chronic Disease Care in Australia – the Chronic Disease Management Network (CDM-Net). According to Karen Dearne at The Australian’s article "CDMS basically uses the web and our intelligent software to automate a number of tasks, such as populating an electronic health record and generating a treatment plan using best-practice guidelines. The doctor shares this information with other team members, such as pharmacists, diabetes educators and podiatrists, and in turn they contribute their observations so there is ongoing collaboration and much more effective care for the individual patient.”

There are also many Australian (and international companies) doing great work into the digitising of our medical records and taking on the massive task of connecting all our disparate health data. Organisations such as NEHTA (National E-Health Transition Authority) are pushing the initiative along, saying; “Across Australia there is a groundswell of support for a better, more connected healthcare system. More than 80 percent of Australians are in favour of electronic health records and are increasingly aware of the safety and quality benefits that e-health can deliver.” Unfortunately it has not been the easiest task, and as Andrew McIntyere’s blog at Medical-Objects notes, “Health IT is hard because the problem that we are trying to solve is huge, changes rapidly and cannot be modelled completely at any one point in time. It also rightly needs to be done with a very high level of security and even low levels of fraud and security breaches are intolerable and cannot be assigned to an “acceptable level of fraud” - which is what happens in the banking industry.”

So yes, I am looking forward to seeing Apple’s next installment of the iPhone, but really, the above marks such an enormous contribution to our society, and one day, it might even save your life.

More on product reviews

Today the largest ever delivery of merchandise arrived at the Kinetics office. So big in fact the courier was courteous enough to call from the basement/car park of our building to enquire whether we had a storage unit down there that he could perhaps leave it in. Alas we do not any such a fabulous storage arrangement and therefore we are left with this for the end of the day: the leaning tower of Logitech Guitar Hero drum kit simulator-thingys! The photo below doesn't really do it justice as there were other piles like these around the place this afternoon, in very convenient locations like the walkway between desks! The "wall" should be gone in a day or two of course, sent out to eager journos (who hopefully have some space to play with them) but it's an interesting fact about being a PR company with consumer tech clients that your office is often a loading dock for all kinds of interesting gear in pristine condition, until it disappears into the lock up cupboard!

Cloud

Recently I heard Rodney Haywood, resident subject matter expert at Alphawest talk about the benefits of the next big thing in IT - cloud computing.

There are many, many, different explanations of Cloud Computing and Private Cloud up all over the world wide web. Try this from Wikipedia: Cloud computing is a style of computing in which dynamically scalable and often virtualized resources are provided as a service over the Internet. Users need not have knowledge of, expertise in, or control over the technology infrastructure in the "cloud" that supports them.

VMware (virtualisation specialists) says about 'private cloud': Transform your IT infrastructure into a private cloud—a pool of virtualized resources within a datacenter, or internal cloud, federated on-demand to external clouds—delivering IT infrastructure as an easily accessible service.

Cloud computing can be one of the more challenging concepts to wrap your head around (for all of us non-IT people) although when you take it back to its more basic level - applications like gmail, that live on the web - not on your server, the concept of private cloud is just like renting your IT infrastructure or applications like you would your internet. Haywood explained that the hype surrounding cloud is very quickly turning into a reality for three key business reasons: faster, cheaper, better.

In Australia Alphawest have partnered with Cisco and VMware (and their telco owner Optus) to provide a unique cloud offering for customers. Here's some links to some extra information if you're interested:
Cisco's ANZ Data Centre lead Dylan Morison talking about his recent CIO roundtable discussing around cloud

Alphawest's partnership with VMware for the vCloud beta announcement

Where next for Twitter?

Twitter has become this year's the biggest online phenomenon being talked about offline, which is a strange intersection in itself. So I've seen the talk about Twitter on Sunrise and The Today Show, I've read the Sydney Morning Herald articles, I've seen the 'how to' pieces in business management publications and heck I've even had to interupt (and correct) a close-to-elderly relative mid-lecture to other elderly relatives explaining Twitter.

So I've thought for some time now the end must be near. Much as Twitter is close to my and the teams' hearts it's very fast becoming "like so 2008". Not that we'll be leaving it anytime before 2015, we're in PR after all and we need all the communication channels we can get!

But this week an unprecedented offline commentary on Twitter occurred and I'm pretty sure it's finally 'jumped the shark'. Yesterday's Australian Financial Review ran on its front page the story Why Tweets Have Got Bosses All A-Twitter, which was followed up by a full-page piece on page 60! Oh dear, when Australia's leading business and financial publication has jumped onto the topic you know you've gone mainstream. Better yet when your boss wants to ban it you know you've really made it. I especially liked this quote "Twitter is emerging as the communications tool of choice for a growing number of twentysomethings and hipster web surfers..." Yeah that's it!

So what do you think? Is Twitter on the way up or on the way out?

Twitter for business

A couple of months ago I was asked to provide some comment for a training session on Twitter's value for business. This presentation was given in Melbourne this week - I am famous (from slide 59) :)

Can Twitter do Business?

View more presentations from Anthony Caruana.

MasterChef lessons for the PR world

MasterChef season one has finally come to a close. And what a successful one it was - more than 3.7 million viewers tuned in to see Julie crowned Australia's first ever MasterChef - making it the most watched TV non-sporting event since ratings began. According to an article on SMH "Including sports telecasts, it still comes in third place, beaten only by the Hewitt v Safin Australian Open match in 2005 (4.04 million) and the 2003 Rugby World Cup final (4.01 million)."

So after countless tries by the TV networks in varying reality TV formats and genres, why was MasterChef so incredibly successful?

To hazard a guess I would identify passion as the primary ingredient. The shows contestants (and definitely the shows judges) displayed enormous amounts of passion for their chosen genre, and the contestants in particular were often made to articulate and re-articulate their passion for cooking and food throughout.

What does any of this have to do with PR? Much like a TV show, PR’s aim is to engage with an audience, and if successful a very large audience. The importance of being passionate about your subject is often overlooked. Journalists (or any audience for that matter) become excited, involved and really engaged with people who are passionate about what they do, they are swept up in others enthusiasm – if the enthusiasm is credible. Having a deep understanding and most importantly passion for the industry that you work in cannot be undersold in the PR world – whether it be an organisations spokesperson, or the PR person who works on your behalf.

A case of role reversal

A large part of our jobs as PR professionals is securing media interviews for our clients and briefing the spokespeople on how to best handle these interview situations. Well this week the tables were turned when I was asked to be a media spokesperson for a charity fundraiser I am participating in this month, Dry July www.dryjuly.com

All of a sudden I was the one in the spotlight, having a journalist fire questions at me down the phone line - and I thought the abstinence from alcohol for a whole month was going to be the tough bit.

Okay, so perhaps it wasn’t the AFR, The Australian or even The Daily Telegraph, but it was the Central Coast Express Advocate – the newspaper from where I grew up and lived for 22 years of my life. So sort of a big deal!

No longer a cool and calm PR but a nervous interviewee, I was lucky to have my colleague and co-founder of the charity on hand to give me a thorough brief on the publication and journalist, run through a Q&A document and give me a good pep talk.

So I will now have a much greater sympathy towards those execs that have no choice but to make media interviews part of their job but I must say I think I was smack bang 'on message'...

"Hopefully it will benefit our wallets and our waistline as well as
raising money for a good cause,"Ms Wright said.

Twitter to save journalism?

The social networking platform Twitter (which you must have been hiding under a rock not to have heard of) has been getting a lot of column space over the last few weeks.

Some journalists are quick to dismiss it and yet others are hailing it as the saviour of journalism.

Renai LeMay, the editor at online technology news site ZDNet.com.au wrote this piece last weekand said that "Twitter represents a way for journalists to get back to their grassroots history and connect with readers and audiences in the most personal way." Despite the 'Nights of the roundtable' mythology analogy used throughout his think piece, LeMay makes a good argument about the importance of social media (in this case Twitter) to directly reach his audience and more importantly, to reach his sources of information.

Five days after LeMay's article appeared Sally Jackson from The Australian wrote a similar piece about the media use of Twitter and the publishing houses policies around its use. While the article notes Twitter's shortfalls it also extols the benefits for hacks, clearly tipping the scales in its favour. The same could easily be said for Twitter’s use for the PR community.

Increasingly, we are finding that the traditional mediums from which the public derive their information are becoming less all-powerful as a direct engagement model becomes more popular. On the same day as Jackson’s story, another journo at The Australian, Simon Canning, reported on how organisations are using Twitter to exploit the direct engagement model it offers companies. He also notes the disadvantages associated with not participating at all.

While the medium may be (relatively) new, the idea that a consumer is influenced by multiple channels is not a new one for PRs, who simply need to continue to assess all influencers and engage with the most appropriate. All the noise around Twitter simply adds to its users, increases its influence, and therefore makes it more important that this new channel join others (media, associations, analysts... ) on our targets.

Unwanted followers...

Have you recently dived into social networking applications?

Now that you are an established member of the community are you finding that your are being followed by undesirables?

A came across this image of Pac-Man being followed by the infamous ghosts on an undisclosed social network and - retro as the pic may be - I really felt like I understood what was running through Pac-Man's mind



I have been tweeting for quite some time now but only just recently joined facebook (as I'm a true believer in telephone calls and human contact) and within 24 hours of joining I received over 75 friend requests - half of which I didn't really want to accept.

The visual image of Pac-Man and his ghost followers made me feel somewhat closer to the iconic 80's arcade game figure... And made me ask the question - is it rude to ignore unwanted friend requests and block unwanted followers?

What are there etiquette guidelines for letting people down gently via social media networks?

And more importantly - should I be offended if someone considers me an "unwanted follower"?

Organisation skills and time management

If someone ever asked me what I would rate as the number one basic PR agency skill this is the answer I'd give: impecible organisation skills and time management.

I'm not saying it's absolutely make or break stuff, nor I do believe that it can't be taught - it absolutely can and creating an effective to-do list should be in induction programs the world over. However I do know that TIME is the central part of a PR agency.

Without efficient use of his or her time, the best PR in the world can come unstuck. I think it's partly to do with the business model behind most PR agencies which is billable time - now this model is shifting at the moment (just ask the PRIA for examples) but unfortunately while we're yet to come up with another unanimous way to track what we do time = money in a PR agency. But that's not all, I really do believe that part of the importance of time management in PR comes down to its relationship to journalism. Now there is a time and organisation driven profession - deadlines are called deadlines because if you don't meet them your 'dead'! So PR naturally has to have an understanding of this and a good PR professional doing media relations will absolutely mould their work to fit with the schedules of their target media. And this time-focused importance has only become more important in the last 5 to 10 years with the never ending rise of the digital age.

Now I want to hear from others in the industry - how did you get your head around the organisation and time management required for PR? Personally I remember an absolutely fabulous first mentor who set me up with a To Do List template that I will take to my grave. It wasn't an option, I had to use it and I had to use it well. Now I love it and feel lost and bereaved without it! This is not to say I never come unstuck, far from there are always days when way too much lands on the plate and something's gotta give but having the right list, the right tool, the right guidance makes all the difference. So how do you do the juggle?

Reviews programs

We run a lot of reviews programs for a lot of clients. Sometimes, the days when the courier arrives it looks like we have just moved into our office - boxes fill every corner and surface while the team gets on the phone to the journalists we want to have a play with (and write a review of) the new kit.

This morning the last Logitech wireless guitar controller (the key to all your Guitar Hero fantasies) has left the office for review. Before it went, I wanted to test out what everyone has been saying about it. Its heavy and shiny and feels just like a real guitar.... it made me wanna play some Jimi Hendrix style riffs....

Local news

What is the future of media? Will readers pay for quality journalism? Who has a responsibility to keep the media funded? These and other such highbrow and concerning questions are being asked in every PR agency, media company, freelance home study and, well, media company, around the world. But this post from a blog I like to read gave a whole new angle to the debate.

What about the local news? Anna Pickard (the author of Little Red Boat, and the afforementioned post) is a freelance features writer who recently moved to San Francisco with her 'beloved', Bobbie Johnson, the tech writer at the Guardian. Australian readers of this blog will be familiar with both their writings as they are syndicated in many of the Australian papers.

The purpose of this post is solely to get you to read Anna's post on a couple of local newspaper articles she has found since her arrival in the USA. In case you missed the link above - you can find it here. It is incredibly funny and reminds us of the lighter side of the media.

We are all grown ups here....

An interesting story broke over the weekend, which got me thinking...

Mars (the chocolate bar people, not the planet) has reduced the size of its iconic bar by 11% - from 60g to 53g. They are keeping the price the same.

And why did they say they did it?

To help us fight obesity.

Because removing that last mouthful from your calorie-packed afternoon naughty will make all the difference....

Mars' actions are intiguing to me. They demonstrate either opportunism (I can picture an over excited product manager; "Hey, can we make this a good spin? It's going to go down really well... I have seen loads in the press recently about obesity") or fear (VP marketing; "Since Caburys launched that thing that looks a bit like a Mars bar our ratings are taking a tumbling - our focus group results strongly indicate a risk of consumers feeling ripped off in these economic times. We need to save money but lets make it look like we are doing it for *their* sake." Goodness maybe its even the 21st century incarnation of their old tag line; A Mars a day helps you work, rest and play. Its all about healthy lifestyles afterall.

But is there really anyone that would fall for this? Is it necessary to find a positive angle in everything?

If Mars' motivation was health related it could either have taken 11% of every Mars bar sale after the bar size reduction and donated it to appropriate health charities, or cut the price - because this isn't about money.

Frankly, as a savvy consumer I know its financially motivated and you know what, I don't mind. It's Mars' business and if I want a Mars bar I will buy a Mars bar (hey, we all know Wagon Wheels are smaller than they used to be, and it doesn't stop me!).

It's just rather patronising to see an entire corporate comms team and its PR agency go to all that effort to communicate such nonsense to me. Makes me think that they reckon I am thick. Not a nice brand message.

This is a computer?

Courtesy of somethingchanged.

Months of calm and moments of terror

Most of the time life as a PR agency person is a relatively smooth existance. Yes, you manage an ever changing influx of workload and often everything needs doing for every client at the same time but it balances out of the course of the week, the month and the year - the juggling of which is something I imagine we share with our journo friends who have a more extreme version of this exhilaration and exhaustion around deadline time.

But then, once in a blue moon, something big hits - really big. It might come like a bolt from the blue but immediately your senses snap to attention and PR overdrive kicks in. Anyone who's been in the game longer than a hot minute knows what I'm talking about - it might be a crisis, big financial news, a disaster, a product recall, the death or departure of a company leader - but no matter what it is it's those moments that make being a PR practitioner the best (and worst) job in the world.

Once upon a time I worked with an insurance company and a well flung expression in their organisation was "months of calm with moments of terror". And since then nothing else has summed it up quite the same for me. For them it was 99 percent of the time everything was a ship sailing on smooth seas, then one percent of the time was a mad scramble inspired often by natural disasters around the world to bring the ship back to even keel. And it was the one percent of the time I loved the most! The CEO probably didn't but heck it kept the rest of us on our toes.

So as much as we might whinge temporarily about a little lack of sleep or sudden shift in schedule, I'd like to think that most of us red blooded PR people out there love a good "moment of terror" - just so long as it passes within a week or two :)!

Digital impressions

I keep an eye on the British Psychologial Society's blog most days. Not because I have any sort of knowledge or qualification in the area, but because it is one of the few blogs which daily uploads genuinely interesting and fresh information.

Yesterday's research post really caught my thought-glands, and I wanted to share with you.

First impressions used to be all about the first time two people came face to face. These days, first impressions are as likely to be formed via perusal of a person's website or Facebook page, as they are to be formed from actually meeting them. Now a study has compared first impressions gleaned from face-to-face contact and from Facebook pages, and found a close parallel between the two. People judged to be likeable via one medium were also judged as likeable via the other.

You can see the full post here, including explanation of the experiment.

For me it was good to see some scientific proof of what I find anyway. Being an online addict I am aware I make judgements as to someone's 'likeability' all the time, and that the judgements are made with very little info.

Someone useing an apostophe incorrectly, or writing in "txt spk" can immediately earn my condescension. Someone on Facebook who doesn't have any photos (who the research would deem 'unexpressive' online) is cold and aloof - they aren't getting involved with the fun.

Worth considering that the old adage of 'It's not what you say but how you say it" works equally well online as it does in person.

Gossip and bullying - a fine line online

Last week some year nine youngsters were expelled from a presitigious Eastern Suburbs of Sydney all-girls private school for a raft of cyber bullying offences. Now despite my dislike for stories that take delight in tearing down private schools just because they're private - like bullying, cyber or otherwise, only happens to children with money - this article by Paul Sheehan for the Sydney Morning Herald really sums it up.

Bullying has always existed but the power of online communities and social networkings means the shame of the bullied and the mirth of the bullies is multiplied and recorded for almost perpeptual posterity. Paul also blames the gossip culture our little online social bubble has created, pointing the finger at some of my (I must confess) favourite blog sites (namely GoFugYourself and Perez Hilton) who make their money being mean to others.

The relative anonymity of the online sphere also gives rise to bubbles or pockets of negativity that can easily become a swarm. Paul gives the Gretel Killeen at the Logies example where the Twitter backchannel was harsh from the word go. And I know how easy it is to be critical in 140 characters, when I went to a Social Media Club Sydney event a couple of weeks ago we were invited to tweet our comments and questions along with the events Twitter hashtag (#smcsyd). I did so liberally but the urge was always to tweet a criticism, it's the first thing to spring to mind and it's far more exciting than being positive. So I know just how easily the echo chamber becomes filled with negativity, but the problems begin when it spills over into reality.

These school girls are unfortunate to have been caught out doing what our society is doing left, right and centre - everywhere from the websites of major news publications to TV - but I'm glad they were punished for their actions. And we should remember that one day we might be too!

Fastbreak

This morning a couple of the team went to Fastbreak, part of Vibewire's e-festival of ideas (which is, in turn, part of the Australian Innovation Festival).

It took the place of the weekly social media coffee on Friday mornings and was a coming together of a range of people discussing 'The biggest challenge to innovation'.

There were five speakers, covering the question from five angles; The four Cs of innovation, - creativity, commercialisation, collaboration and connections - plus a fifth – conversation.

* Creativity - Jye Smith (@jysemith)
* Connection - Scott Drummond (@Scott_Drummond)
* Collaboration - Isadore Biffin (@IsadoreBiffin)
* Commercialisation - Elias Bizannes (@liako)
* Conversation - Matt Moore (@Innotecture)

So... all the details out of the way, how was it?

Really interesting actually. I am not good in the mornings and it was an 8am start in Ultimo so the event for me started with a couple of mint teas while I met some familiar faces from other social media events, and a few new ones too.

Then the 4 minute presentations started.

Jye challenged us to be more creative in everything we do, and to create processes and structures which encourage creativity. He also asked what the difference was between innovation and creativity.

Scott told us to look not to the size of a network, but at the latent potential within that network.

Isadore reminded us to involve others in our projects as they bring experties and ideas we may not have considered.

I won't forget Elias' explanation of the supply/demand theory; a beautiful man can go to the gym all he likes, but if he doesn't know how to create demand for his product he will leave a nightclub alone. (After the presentations were over I spent half an hour in Elias' group, discussing commercialisation challenges - a very interesting discussion).

But the soundbite takeaway for me goes to Mark who gave us a quote from Theodore Zeldin from his book Conversation (and apologies if its a slight paraphrase - I didnt jot it down quickly enough to repeat word for word):

A conversation is an interaction which both parties enter with a willingness to change, and come out slightly different.

I think this is something PR people (and our clients) should always remember when we claim to be having conversations with our audiences/stakeholders/customers. A conversation is not a one way dialogue in which you convince the customer to your way of thinking. A true conversation will change the client as well as the customer.