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	Phil's Blogservations Tuesday, April 30, 2002 Posted by philgomes 7:36 PM It's Official...Phil's Drive Toward World Domination Recognized: Referenced in an early April Blogservations posting, it has now been officially announced that I have received the great honor of the PR News Fifteen-To-Watch award for 2002. I'm humbled to be a part of such a great list of communications pros. (I encourage you to read about all of the featured winners.) Of course, the editorial requirements of the magazine forced the entirety of my interview answers into the 250-word article that's online. For Blogservations readers, I offer my complete and uncut answers for download in Adobe PDF format. I'd like to offer my deepest and most heartfelt thanks to Kristin Ely and Kristine Schaefer for separately nominating me for this award. To have the support and respect of my colleagues is perhaps the greatest honor of all. Posted by philgomes 12:24 PM Eat Poop, Get Chicks: The New York Times' Science section is reporting on the odd courtship habits of the Egyptian vulture, which dines on feces in order to obtain a certain facial pigment that makes it more desirable to the opposite sex. Human beings are no better, really. I mean, many people spend a lot of time purchasing and wearing total crap they wouldn't otherwise wear in order to attract a mate or, at the very least, someone to mate with. (Note that the author is currently wearing black jeans, a black-and-silver Sisters Of Mercy t-shirt, and $25.99 "ersatz-dressy" shoes from Payless.) Monday, April 29, 2002 Posted by philgomes 12:33 PM Ballmer To "Embrace And Extend" Wife's Schedule Using .Net: In this somewhat humorous dispatch from IDG's Latin American bureau, Microsoft dancing monkey CEO Steve Ballmer talks about how difficult it is for he and his wife to synchronize their calendars. "Mr. Ballmer keeps his calendar in Microsoft Outlook and Microsoft Exchange at work, while Mrs. Ballmer keeps her calendar on the Microsoft MSN Web site." The concept of an Osbournes-like "reality sitcom" based around the Ballmers seems somewhat appealing to me. Imagine Ballmer in his stentorian voice delivering lines like "My wife thinks my getting home on time is a mission-critical application" to the hidden camera. And what's this thing with Microsoft execs hooking up with their PR reps? Both Ballmer and Senior VP Jim Allchin both married their PR reps from Waggoner-Edstrom. Tuesday, April 23, 2002 Posted by philgomes 4:05 PM Entry-Level PR & The Value Of Contacts: Perhaps echoing the advice of Jerry MaGuire's mentor, this article by PR industry guru Jack O'Dwyer outlines the entry-level career challenges for recent college graduates ("RCGs" in the Intel parlance). "Several [students] said PR firms told them they would be glad to provide jobs if only the students would bring in their own accounts." (Emphasis added.) The article further states that "Our advice is that the agencies that told them to bring in business if they wanted a job were giving them an invaluable education in what the PR business is all about—contacts." I remember when I was an assistant account executive at my former agency and we went to pitch our PR expertise to a network software company. We showed up with very creative ideas, a PR plan for that year, a complete account team, a solid understanding of their business (such as it was), and a well-researched knowledge of their technology and market. All of this was brushed aside and the VP of marketing had but one question: "Which journalists could you get on the phone with right now and arrange an appointment to have drinks?" The question was directed at me, age 23 at the time. I feel that the world of PR at the entry level—though highly competitive at 800 resumes per account coordinator opening—is perhaps not quite as bad as Mr. O'Dwyer would make it out to be. The fact is, if you demonstrate a dedication to client service on one hand and industry knowledge and responsiveness with the media on the other, the acquisition of "contacts" will happen by itself. Trust me. It won't happen miraculously within your first week, but it will happen. Successful PR, like geology, is the result of consistent pressure applied over time when creatively, respectfully, and judiciously executed. (I worked with one assistant associate who constantly complained to the office "None of you give me any contacts to work with!" Maybe 'cause we worked hard for years to forge our own. Teaching her how to work to make her own contacts wasn't enough, in her opinion.) Even in the currently depressed market for PR services, clients and, yes, even journalists alike appreciate the attention of a PR pro that is engaged and has taken the time to learn whatever industry in which his/her PR skills are applied. If your client or corporate-side boss measures your PR abilities by some bizarre drinks-with-journalists-per-week ratio, then you've already lost in terms of evangelizing how PR can contribute to the overall marketing mix. The article offers some good methods that college students can use to build their own contact base. The question is: Will even the most go-getting undergrad's efforts reach high enough to bring in the type of contacts that agencies most value? It's sad that the article talks about how individualism is frowned upon among PR circles. PR folks are typically expected to spout only the opinions of their clients or employers. Heaven forbid that a "flack" might have something of his own to say! Tough. You read this. Job well done, Phil. Posted by philgomes 3:34 PM The Following Exceeds Limits Of Bad Taste...Or At Least That Of Double-Entendres-Per-Document: Directed toward the Red Herring's editorial desk—perhaps because porn represents the rare profitable online business—the following news release was actually distributed today. As much as high-tech PR pros are much maligned in-and-by the press, at least they now have something favorable to compare to: "porn pitchers." The following has been edited slightly for "length." (Damn! Now I'm doing it!) SHOWING "SKIN" MAKES ENJOY.COM AN ADULT SITE WITH MARKETING "THRUST" ENJOY.COM, offering easy navigation to the Web's hottest adult content sites, will give a powerful boost to its marketing thrust with the addition of a custom-branded Winamp "skin." Winamp, an audio player that may be downloaded free from the Net, is best known as a player for MP3s, but also supports a number of other audio formats. Beyond its technology and sound capabilities, Winamp provides a key marketing feature that is especially appealing to the decision-makers at ENJOY.COM. Utilizing an advanced modular design, Winamp allows the look of its interface to be customized through the use of "skins." Recognizing the "stiff" competition presented by hundreds and hundreds of adult sites on the Net, ENJOY.COM has decided to carve its own branded niche and distinguish itself from the crowd—all with the power of "skins." ENJOY.COM isn't the only company to take advantage of this cost-effective, far-reaching "branding" technique. Small business and multi-million dollar corporations alike have heeded the call. Six Flags recently commissioned a skin for its family of amusement parks, and Warner Bros. developed a skin to promote the film Training Day. Of course, it's not just "skins" that make ENJOY.COM a "must-see" destination on the Web. There's something on the site's menu for every adult taste. From the home page, visitors can choose the "Site of the Day," a hot, wicked site selected for its content by ENJOY.COM, or they can choose one of three sites that were recently highlighted. An easy navigation bar spreads all the site's goodies out for easy sampling. There are sex shows, live amateur web-cam girls straight from their homes, one-on-one chat, orgies, games, e-zines and enough action so that anyone will have their "hands full." Raj "I/O" Patel, is ENJOY.COM's "skinner," a multi-purpose designer who specializes in creating customized skins. His work is so extraordinary and effective, that his skins routinely approach or exceed one million downloads. And, since every download represents a direct marketing "hit," Raj is considered one of the industry's "big guns." The ENJOY.COM skin can be found in the Winamp.com "Skins" section where its "stimulating" images are available for download. Winamp, like ENJOY.COM, provides a lot of satisfaction. Monday, April 22, 2002 Posted by philgomes 4:30 PM Cab Ride Through War-Torn Middle East: $150. Getting A Scoop: Priceless: Some enterprising Palestinian cab drivers have made a cottage industry out of taking their lives in their own hands to bring journalists into war-torn areas, albeit at a premium. "Hundreds of cab drivers across the West Bank...have carved out an existence by figuring out innovative ways to get around Israeli army roadblocks, to deliver journalists into cities declared 'closed military zones.'" Apparently, the usual network of so-called "fixers" and persuasive, well-connected translators has broken down, forcing the media to seek other options. Posted by philgomes 2:14 PM Okay...Blogging Is Cool...I *&$#@ing Get It, Already: Here is another breathless article about blogging. Since most of my online journaling brethren waste so many virtual column inches on their sites discussing how great blogging is, I thought I'd post my own link to a blogging-related article. Happy now? I fully respect and understand that blogging is changing the way that people access information and insight. I've often felt that it helps people break out of the "bookmark box," or that rut you get into when you find yourself visiting the same several sites at every Web surfing session. But, now people are already talking about how journalism has been revolutionized through blogs. In fact, the big discussion these days centers around the question "Is blogging journalism?" Blogging's most aggressive, high-profile proponents twist themselves into rhetorical knots trying to bring the answer to "yes." Calling the average blogger a "journalist" is like calling Carmen Electra a master thespian. While many career journalists bring journalistic integrity to their own blogs—offering an incredible amount of previously unattainable insight to their more traditional works—this represents a very small part of the blogging population. (For every Dan Gillmor or Deborah Branscum, there are hundreds of blogging hacks like me.) Additionally, there is a similarly small group of bloggers who, while not career journalists, offer some very solid and noteworthy content. I've since come to the conclusion that trying to define blogs in strictly journalistic terms doesn't necessarily convey the whole picture. I've been considering that most blogging is "meta-journalism": links to other journalistic works, with the opinions and reactions of the blogger included. Very rarely do I come across a blog that offers hard news. Mostly, I see editorial-type content and this form of "meta-journalism." Perhaps it's because I'm in the throes of reading the collected letters of William Burroughs, Ernest Hemingway, and H.P. Lovecraft, but I'm starting to think that the best of blogging represents the resurrection of the epistolarian. When you think about it, the art of good personal writing has otherwise died, yet the best of blogging offers new hope for this somewhat forgotten art form. Posted by philgomes 1:19 PM "We Must Not Have A Supercomputing Gap!": It appears that the Japanese have leapfrogged the United States in terms of building the fastest supercomputer. According to this article, Japan's custom NEC-manufactured supercomputer handily quintuples the speed of the former #1device in that class, Lawrence Livermore National Labs' ASCI White Pacific. For some reason, this reminds me of that scene toward the end of Dr. Strangelove when everyone's discussing their post-apocalyptic subterranean existence and George C. Scott screams "We must not have a mine-shaft gap!" To think that, less than two decades ago, we spared no expense in building up arsenals of mass destruction. Before that, there was the "Space Race." Now... The "Teraflops Race?" "MIPS Marathon?" This will be interesting to see how this unfolds. At least in the Space Race there were tangible milestones: You either got to the moon first or you didn't. What our our milestones in terms of supercomputing? The advent of reliable, supercomputer-class quantum computing, perhaps? All things considered, I'd rather have a competition of microprocessors than megatons. Note that this reflects a significant difference in priorities. The Japanese are pointing their Colossus at geographical and meteorological prediction. ASCI White Pacific simulates bombs going off. Thursday, April 18, 2002 Posted by philgomes 7:55 PM Just Don't Tell The PR Industry...: The Los Angeles Times is running a story about a new drug called "Provigil" (for "PROmotes VIGILance") that is supposed to numb the mechanism in your brain that makes you crave sleep. This pill has apparently been in the works since about 1970 and, while long-term affects haven't been determined, it's apparently much better for you than coffee or Vivarin. (No "crashing.") According to the article, "a 1995 Canadian study showed that subjects taking the drug were able to perform well on cognitive tests while remaining awake and in good spirits for two and a half days." "Two and a half days?" Now, Provigil is currently only FDA-approved for narcoleptics, but just you wait until our go-go culture gets widespread use of this thing. Consider someone like me, whose employer relies on me billing clients for my services by-the-hour in order to generate revenue. When the service industry gets a hold of Provigil, watch out! You: "*hmza* Boy, I'm tired. It's 8:00 p.m. Time to go home." Boss: "What? You only got here at 7:30 this morning!" You: "That's over a twelve hour day, boss. My brain has turned to clay." Boss: "But Bob got here when you did. And he's staying until he finishes the fifteen-page report that he just started." You: "Well, that's Bob. His life is his work. Me? Twelve hours means that I've done my bit for God and country. Best that I get some sleep and come in tomorrow ready to work." Boss: "Oh, dear." You: "What?" Boss: "You must have a sleeping disorder. Did you know your health coverage will pay for Provigil?" Hell, even when I take a leak at work, I prefer the privacy of a stall to using the urinal. If there is even the slightest possibility that the wrong people might try to steal a glimpse of anything that's good at its job, they might try to make that billable too! Wednesday, April 17, 2002 Posted by philgomes 6:14 PM Phil Gomes Gets An Email From...Phil Gomes?: Blogservations received this dispatch from down under. There are more of us Phil Gomeses around than I thought! The only other one that I was aware of is a karate teacher somewhere in the Pacific Northwest region. From : Philip Gomes To : phil@philgomes.com Subject : now what am I gonna do? Date : Wed, 17 Apr 2002 19:04:12 +1000 Well here I am in Sydney Australia looking up my name on Google and what do I find: my name as a dot com. I was going to do that, you bugger! You Silicon Valley types! Oh, well. Now for "Plan B." Interesting Website by the way. I'll have a longer read later. Phil Posted by philgomes 12:58 PM The End Of An Era: It is perhaps with a bit of nostalgia that I read about IBM exiting the hard drive business. Back when I was at The Weber Group, IBM's Storage Systems Division—encompassing everything from the tiny Microdrive to refrigerator-sized cabinets—was probably the flagship client within the firm's Palo Alto office. In fact, I even had a friendly rivalry going with the account executive assigned to the Microdrive, since I was pitching flash memory cards for Hitachi Semiconductor at the time. Truly the end of an era, especially since Big Blue drove so much innovation in this sector. We'll have to see how this joint venture between IBM and Hitachi shapes up. Friday, April 12, 2002 Posted by philgomes 11:16 AM Coca-Cola: Bad For Your Body, Great For Your Toilet: Dad sent this one over just now. Frightening... Properties of Water: 75% of Americans are chronically dehydrated. In 37% of Americans, the thirst mechanism is so weak that it is often mistaken for hunger. Even MILD dehydration will slow down one's metabolism as much as 3%. One glass of water will shut down midnight hunger pangs for almost 100% of the dieters studied in a University of Washington study. Lack of water, the #1 trigger of daytime fatigue. Preliminary research indicates that 8-10 glasses of water a day could significantly ease back and joint pain for up to 80% of sufferers. A mere 2% drop in body water can trigger fuzzy short-term memory, trouble with basic math, and difficulty focusing on the computer screen or on a printed page. Drinking 5 glasses of water daily decreases the risk of colon cancer by 45%, plus it can slash the risk of breast cancer by 79%, and one is 50% less likely to develop bladder cancer. Properties of Coca-Cola: In many states (in the USA) the highway patrol carries two gallons of Coke in the truck to remove blood from the highway after a car accident. You can put a T-bone steak in a bowl of coke and it will be gone in two days. To clean a toilet: Pour a can of Coca-Cola into the toilet bowl and let the "real thing" sit for one hour, then flush clean. The citric acid in Coke removes stains from vitreous china. To remove rust spots from chrome car bumpers: Rub the bumper with a rumpled-up piece of Reynolds Wrap aluminum foil dipped in Coca-Cola. To clean corrosion from car battery terminals: Pour a can of Coca-Cola over the terminals to bubble away the corrosion. To loosen a rusted bolt: Applying a cloth soaked in Coca-Cola to the rusted bolt for several minutes. To bake a moist ham: Empty a can of Coca-Cola into the baking pan, wrap the ham in aluminum foil, and bake. Thirty minutes before the ham is finished, remove the foil, allowing the drippings to mix with the Coke for a sumptuous brown gravy. To remove grease from clothes: Empty a can of coke into a load of greasy clothes, add detergent, and run through a regular cycle. The Coca-Cola will help loosen grease stains. It will also clean road haze from your windshield. For Your Info The active ingredient in Coke is phosphoric acid. Its pH is 2.8. It will dissolve a nail in about 4 days. Phosphoric acid also leaches calcium from bones and is a major contributor to the rising increase in osteoporosis. To carry Coca-Cola syrup (the concentrate) the commercial truck must use the Hazardous Material place cards reserved for Highly corrosive materials. The distributors of coke have been using it to clean the engines of their trucks for about 20 years! Now the question is, would you like a glass of water or coke? Thursday, April 11, 2002 Posted by philgomes 9:14 PM Technology PR And The Dying Press Release: A colleague pointed me to this great article by MIT's Michael Schrage about the state of technology public relations and, as a metaphor, the increasing obsolesence of the press release as a publicity vehicle. He and a friend "both wondered how much more effective a PR firm could be by fundamentally reinventing—entirely eliminating—the press release." Mr. Schrage is right to point out that the press release is a quite ineffective public relations tool on its own terms. The people in newsrooms cover one thing: "news." Generally speaking, the second a news release crosses the wire, it has ceased to be "news" since everyone from casual Web users to The Wall Street Journal has access to that transmission. This is the rule, but there are certainly exceptions, such as the unveiling of a truly exceptional technology or, however unlikely, the public assertion of a highly controversial stance on a hot topic. As to the former case, the germ for this balanced, well-written article here was a news release distributed during my team's launch of Matrix Semiconductor. Where I think Schrage's analysis stumbles slightly is that it doesn't go quite far enough. While he's absolutely correct in asserting that "roughly 95 percent of all press releases circulating today shouldn't ever have been written, let alone sent," the well-written, thoughtfully considered news release is not entirely without value. To be honest, a news release should not be considered by PR pros to be anything more than a public record of some kind of event. It is the notion that it is significantly more useful that has driven wire service and "smile-and-dial" abuse over the past few years. Should you expect the release to drive a lot of news coverage? Probably not, but you might get some interest if the announcement is at all significant beyond your client's corner offices. More importantly, that news release will stay in searchable databases like Lexis-Nexis. If your release is well-written and trend-significant, it will at least hold the possibility of coming up on an interested reporter's radar during research. (I still get calls from media regarding news releases I wrote years ago for clients I no longer service. Clients' loss.) Schrage also talks about another PR industry topic that I find interesting: the "non-trivial portion of PR [that] has been brought in-house," that is, moved away from an agency or from some combination of in-house folks and that agency. Oracle has certainly done this, and others have followed suit. At this point in my career, I feel I can do the best work for my clients working at an agency. The danger in housing 100% of your PR machine within your company is that you then lose the value of an outside counselor, whose job it is to understand the whole of the media landscape. Even some of the best in-house PR folks can run the risk of drinking too much of their executives' Kool-Aid, resulting in a communications program that is nourished on very meager gruel. Without an outside voice to offer counsel or opinion on communications strategies and tactics, a PR program may become inbred from relying on a shallow gene pool of ideas. NB: The best agency staffers do not simply function as the client's "order taker," but serve as the organization's lawyer in the court of public opinion. The in-house PR environment is also not very conducive to the kind of cross-pollination that a truly collaborative agency can offer. The examples are too numerous to list, but I'll offer the following anecdote. A colleague of mine was recently on the phone with a reporter from a highly regarded financial publication. He knew enough of my client—operating in a totally different industry from his—to interest the reporter in a CEO interview. In return, I got his client—again, representing a completely different industry than mine—an audience with the director of an esteemed conference company. Companies simply won't get this kind of value from a totally in-house PR staff. In many ways, this reflects the educational ideals in John Henry Newman's excellent work The Uses Of Knowledge, wherein he postulates that someone whose profession is based on one thing will never be the expert even in that one thing. All in all, I feel that Schrage wrote an excellent editorial. It's just unfortunate that he didn't speak long enough with the inspiration for the piece—"a top PR executive at a respected firm"—to fully consider the issues. Wednesday, April 10, 2002 Posted by philgomes 4:50 PM More Pork Than An LAPD Officers' Convention: Right around tax time, an organization called Citizens Against Government Waste has unveiled their annual list of Congressional waste, according to this Wired News article. Among other porcine political payouts, the article reveals funding for "sending PCs to Armenia, flying Russian politicos to Colorado's Coors Brewery, and paying for 'pony trekking centers' in Ireland. Advanced 'asparagus technology' in Washington state gets $260,000, while a fat $3 million goes to promote 'private sector technology start-ups' in Georgia—not the state, but the ex-Soviet republic." My own Bauhaus and Sisters Of Mercy musical leanings take particular offense to the activities of the distinguished gentleman from Missouri. Their Senator got $273,000 to be used in "combating Goth culture." Tuesday, April 09, 2002 Posted by philgomes 6:12 PM You Know Your Newsroom Staff Is Shrinking When...: I pulled this screen grab off of TheStreet.Com. It pretty much speaks for itself. Sunday, April 07, 2002 Posted by philgomes 2:12 PM The Things Kids Say: My friend Lia teaches third graders in Hayward. As an assignment, she asked her students to compile a "Never List." She provided the first part of an admonition and asked her students to complete the phrases. The results are quite funny. Never eat..... ...a poison mushroom ...soup (the ones you have to boil water) ...a whole turkey by myself ...dog food ...stuff you don’t like ...vanilla cupcakes ...steak ...salad ...brussel sprouts ...hard food ...things off the oven Never touch... ...things that don’t belong to you ...expensive stuff ...yucky stuffs with germs on it ...poison ivy ...broken glass ...my Dad’s ring ...fire ...a dead or alive cockroach ...any kind of sword ...boiling oil ...a honey suckle plant ...important things Never smell... ...a skunk’s spray ...smoke ...gas ...cigarettes ...stuff like garlic ...dog poo ...onion ...someone’s food ...drugs ...yucky stuffs ...baby diapers ...anything with danger Never listen... ...to strangers ...to bad words ...to bad kids ...to lies Never look... ...at scary movies ...at people’s papers to cheat on tests ...at somebody doing bad things ...at throw-up ...at strangers ...at things that are bad ...at lights ...at dead things ...at people eating their food ...at people I don’t know ...at a laser ...at Big Foot ...at the sun ...at girl’s bras Posted by philgomes 12:15 AM Object Of Junior High School Adolescent Suburbanite Fantasy Arrested: Both E! Online and The Smoking Gun are carrying a story about former '80s über-babe Tawny Kitaen's arrest on charges of spousal abuse. Apparently, she attacked husband and MLB pitcher Chuck Finley with her stiletto heels. Kitaen—as all straight males who grew up in the '80s know—was the incredibly leggy redhead in all of the Whitesnake videos. Indeed, Kitaen represents a key point in the sexual development of many a male suburbanite. (She actually figures quite prominently in one of my original stories "Slow Dance Toward The Millennium.") Now, she joins the ranks of the archetypal misbehaving '80s star. This probably means that she'll be on Celebrity Boxing as soon as she gets out of the slammer. Friday, April 05, 2002 Posted by philgomes 11:47 AM Prayers For Brother Kenneth and Brother Myron: According to the St. Mary's College Web site and The San Francisco Chronicle, two Christian Brothers from my alma mater are under Israeli seige as 100 troops have taken over the Bethlehem campus where they're teaching while on leave. The Israelis reportedly forced the school's president to take them room-to-room in order to locate suspected Palestinians in hiding. One solider even tried to take a shot at a Christian Brother, only to put a bullet in the likeness of the order's patron saint, Jean-Baptiste De La Salle. "Can you hear the machine guns?" said Cardwell, referring to a firefight taking place outside the walls of the campus. SMC President Brother Craig Franz has since sent this letter to President Bush. Thankfully, it appears that no one has suffered permanent physical harm. Thursday, April 04, 2002 Posted by philgomes 10:56 AM Further Proof That Celine Dion Is The AntiChrist: While reactions to my March 25, 2002, assertion that Celine Dion is the AntiChrist were mixed ("She is a Canadian national treasure and you vulgar Americans wouldn't know how to care for such a gem."), the following news from The Hollywood Reporter should silence all doubters. In a lame effort to prevent MP3 ripping of her CD—and what Dion fan would do that?—the label has tweaked the CD such that it cannot be played on a computer. "Should the consumer try to play Dion's CD on a PC or Macintosh, the computer likely will crash," said a spokesperson. Since I listen to music through my laptop CD-ROM drive a lot at work, this act certainly violates all precedent of fair use. I like Dan Gillmor's boycotting idea. Posted by philgomes 10:43 AM Gomes Wins PR News' Top Fifteen Young PR Pros To Watch Award: I've just been informed that I was thoughtfully nominated for the Top Fifteen Young PR Pros To Watch Award by my colleague Kristin Ely. I found out when PR News' editor Peggy Stuntz called me up to tell me that I won! Of course, my response ("Oh, shit! Really?") probably should have been worthy of a supposedly savvy PR professional. :-) Thanks to my wonderful clients and teammembers who made this possible and, indeed, as much our award as mine. Tuesday, April 02, 2002 Posted by philgomes 11:00 PM Seattle P-I Bows To Political Correctness: Apparently, some testosterone-addled idiots turned an otherwise joyous occasion like Mardis Gras into a violent debacle. A photographer from the Seattle Post-Intelligencer snapped this award-winning photo of the horrible event. Tastefully hiding the victim's face, the photo depicts a bunch of morons stripping off a woman's shirt as she struggles to free herself. Though it won an award from the National Press Photographers' Association (the "Domestic News—Newspaper" category), it was never published. Now, some may say that to publish this photo would have been to give in to the rampant sensationalism that pervades so much of the media. And maybe they'd be right. However, the only way someone can see which assholes performed this reprehensible act is to log on to a Web site that not many people would think to look at, such as the NPPA page. (I only heard about this on the Tom Leykis radio show.) I feel that the P-I had a responsibility to publish this, again, making sure to obscure the face and identifying marks of the victim. That way, the entire town of Seattle would see the faces of those who decided it was okay to sexually abuse this woman in public, and possibily identify them. The local law enforcement and district attorney would have the Fourth Estate pressuring him to get involved. Monday, April 01, 2002 Posted by philgomes 10:39 PM Starting My Own Business Venture: Though I'm sure it comes as a surprise to most of you, I am ending my employment at Phase Two Strategies to start my own company. The venture will be a combination of PR agency and technology finance publishing group, seeing as how both sectors are showing extremely good growth prospects. (In other words, there's really nowhere to go but up.) Known as Flacks Using Crooked Concepts, Inc., this company will form an end-to-end solution, combining—for the first time—a public relations agency with exactly the type of publication group that it seeks to influence. This, of course, represents the next evolutionary step in the industry. After all, technology publisher CMP and press release distribution network PR Newswire are both owned by the same conglomerate, United Business Media. The mission of FUCC is to make a further, simultaneous penetration into both the publishing and public relations business sectors. Since every PR firm must market itself according to a proprietary methodology, my firm will simply brand said methodology by leveraging the name of the agency. This is to avoid fragmentation and dilution of the brand. For example, the now-defunct Neihaus Ryan Wong firm used to talk about the "architecture of identity." However, other PR folks took that phrase as an industry term and started throwing it around in everyday conversations at dot-com party punchbowls. NRW, after a while, lost that brand since that three-word New Economy marketing catch-phrase turned into the next "Kleenex" or "Walkman." I'm determined to not let that happen, and I will thus brand the firm's proprietary methodology according to the name of the firm, thereby ensuring that the methodology's brand and that of its company are one and the same. I am so confident in this burgeoning change in PR that, very soon, I know that companies all over the technology landscape will want to be FUCC'ed. Is there a product launch that needs that extra strategic thinking in order to further ensure success? Well, then FUCC it! Is the entire marketing program broken? Then FUCC everything! "FUCC me!", understaffed corporate marketing departments will say. In order to properly market my new company, the CEO (that's me, dum-dum) will have to serve as the brand, so I guess I might have to FUCC myself. To tell you the truth, if the launch of my company goes well, I might have to FUCC myself three, four, even five times a week! Additionally, since the PR firm and the publication will be one and the same, the firm will likely FUCC itself—several times, in fact. One philosophy that was missing at many PR agencies during the recent technology boom was restraint. My firm will be the first to tell its clients that, well, we know when to shut the FUCC up. Nothing's more embarrassing to a client than an overzealous agency, as Blogservations covered during Sept. 11. Of course, technology publishers tried to make money by sponsoring conferences. This, of course, went bust but, then again, there's nowhere to go but up. FUCC will start a new series of high-level regional conferences where executives can learn the new seamless communications paradigms that hold the promise of expanding new, exciting market opportunities. I expect that several marketing executives will spent at least $1,500 to enroll in a three day seminar at, you guessed it, "FUCC U." HOME | OBSESSIONS | FAQ | HEROES | CAREER | BLOG | CONTACT Note that the views expressed on this site do not necessarily reflect those of Phil's employer, its business partners, its clients, or anyone or anything that doesn't come from Phil.	ABOUT THIS BLOG This blog not only discusses PR and media matters, but Phil's everyday observations about a variety of topics. EMAIL phil[at] philgomes[[dot}]com SYNDICATE Feedburner ARCHIVE YAHOO! IM SKYPE WISH LIST PITCH POLICY MY PHOTOS www.flickr.com Photostream RSS Enter your Email Powered by FeedBlitz COMMENT AND TRACKBACK POLICY Comments and trackbacks are unmoderated, though I will delete the patently offensive ones. Any comments and trackbacks are the opinions of the individual writer of those comments and trackbacks, and not those of Phil Gomes, his employer, its clients, or its business partners. If you have a bone to pick, bug the people who wrote the comment or trackback.