THIS PAGE IS AN ARCHIVE. GO TO THE HOMEPAGE TO FIND OUT WHAT TO DO NEXT.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License. arch emisou panton
	Phil's Blogservations Monday, August 28, 2006 Posted by philgomes 7:27 PM Edelman, Year One: "The Conservative Evangelist Asks 'Why?' Five Times" Edelman, Year One: "The Conservative Evangelist Asks 'Why?' Five Times" My first encounter with the man who would become my new boss, Rick Murray, took place March 9, 2005, over the phone. I still have my notes saved from that discussion. Rick was looking for: Someone who can take the lead and show teams 'Here's how you build relationships and networks.' We met over breakfast at the Hotel Monaco in San Francisco about a month later. This meeting -- as well as subsequent conversations with David Dunne, JanMarie Zwiren, and others -- sealed the deal. I can't say I made it easy for Edelman -- I didn't sign the papers until more than four months later on July 26, 2005. I faxed them to the recruiter (Julie Biber, interviewed on earSHOT) the day I packed my truck for the trip to LA. I remember using a fax machine that my landlady and I fished out of the carriage house behind the 19th-century Victorian I was renting (and sorely miss to this day). Within a week, I started what would become a somewhat legendary travel schedule, at least as far as friends and family were concerned. ("Damn," my best friend said. "The plane is like the f**kin' bus to you!") In a short amount of time, I delivered many seminars, counseled many clients (current and wished-for), and participated in a number of business development efforts. December capped off 2005 with Blog Week -- 56 classes taught to seven Edelman offices in about 10 days. (Main takeaway: I've since become strongly interested in pursuing web-based, internal, distance-learning initiatives.) At the start of the following year, I got to thinking: While I was brought to Edelman to serve as an online media evangelist of sorts, I felt in those first months that an "evangelist" was the last thing the company needed at the time, at least internally. There is certainly no shortage of constructive enthusiasm for online media at Edelman. I mean... For Pete's sake... The guy whose name is on the door has a blog. (And lemme tellya... Having support from the top for your work and passion helps a whole lot, having previously spent quite a bit of time deflecting derision from folks unwilling to embrace change.) And, of course, there's the award-winning work that the company has undertaken. Far from being an evangelist, though, I found that my approach during those first several months had sometimes been internally criticized as being overly "conservative." I felt this was a just approach at the time since, after all, who'd want to have this happen to them? Nevertheless, I still think I could have made some slightly "edgier" recommendations in the beginning. Can you be a "conservative evangelist?" Perhaps. Since those early months, I've allowed my thinking to get a little more "out there." It seems that clients these days appear to be willing to take some risks and try new things in an effort to break out of the clutter. Like Matt Damon's character says in Rounders, "You don't lose what you don't put in, but you don't win anything either." All that said, I do read a lot of the breathlessness out there and, frankly, I think a little bit of "conservative evangelism" industry-wide would generally do us all some good. Someday soon, I hope, the industry will realize that blogs, wikis, and so on are tools -- great tools that 1) reflect the increasingly realized promise of networked communications, and 2) support strategies that are developed in the service of achieving objectives. Just like any other tools, there are certain techniques, methods, and mores that surround their use. A marketer saying "We need a blog" probably sounds great to the execs in the conference room, but there are too many consequences if you get it wrong. I'm reminded of the conversation I had with Rick Murray during my first week on the job, while I was figuring out what a training curriculum would look like. "Showing people things like community engagement, conversation research, and analysis is easy," I said. "But how do you really teach strategic thinking?" "Easy," Rick said. "You tell them to ask the question 'Why?' five times in a row." Technorati Tags: pr, public relations, phil gomes, edelman Saturday, August 26, 2006 Posted by philgomes 3:15 PM Edelman, Year One: "The Hires" Edelman, Year One: "The Hires" As many have said, the team Edelman has put together is pretty incredible. After I came on board, we brought on a number of folks with a strong presence in the blogosphere, including Erin Caldwell, Stephen Davies, Guillaume du Gardier, Leah Jones, Mike Krempasky, Wolfgang Lünenbürger-Reidenbach, Marshall Manson, Marilynn Mobley, Steve Rubel, and a number of others. Because we choose to blog, our role at Edelman is certainly the most visible. When it comes to the intersection of the online world and PR, Edelman has quite a lot going on. (I often wonder exactly how visible a PR person should be. It hasn't kept me from blogging, though. The minor notoriety is kind of cool and, face it, I enjoy writing. It's never got in the way of my work, though. Not once.) For example, Edelman has actually had an interactive division -- Edelman Interactive Solutions or "EIS" -- for about a decade or so. This year, EIS' "Our Colony" work on behalf of Microsoft Xbox 360 received a Holmes SABRE Award, a PRSA Silver Anvil Award, an IPRA Golden World Award (Finalist), and a PR News Platinum Award. The Avent "Sisterhood Six" work earned a Holmes SABRE Award (Finalist), a PRSA Bronze Anvil Award, an IPRA Golden World Award, and a PR News Platinum Award. This is to say nothing of the other successful engagements that team has undertaken. So, our "online business," as you put it Mr. Bruni, is doing fine. AS alwayS, the team tHanks yOu dearLy for your concErn. And, speaking of stellar hires, we today added someone to the me2revolution side of the house: Michael Wiley. Yes, Michael "GM Fast Lane Blog" Wiley. He'll be in Chicago, with a specific focus on the corporate area. It's great, and humbling, to be around all of this talent. Like I told our LA office about three or four months into this job, "When you've spent a lot of your spare time trying to master checkers, you don't feel so smart when you walk into a room of chess champs." Technorati Tags: pr, public relations, philgomes, michael wiley, edelman, gm Thursday, August 24, 2006 Posted by philgomes 3:19 PM Edelman: Year One Edelman: Year One Earlier this month, I realized that I had been one year at Edelman. It happened August 3, 2006, to be exact. I announced it on August 7, 2005. Over the next couple of weeks, I'll be delivering some observations about what was, for me, an extraordinary year. During this process, we'll hopefully have the opportunity to look forward while looking back. A message for the Tinfoil Hat Crowd: No, this series is not something my boss told me to write. In fact, no one but my girlfriend knows I'm doing this. A little bit of history: I started at pre-IPG Weber Group in 1996, watching a medium-sized agency (200+ on two coasts, I think?) become a rather large one. I left a few months before the Shandwick move, which gave us the world's largest agency from a revenue perspective. Then came Phase Two Strategies, a smaller shop that had between 50 and 85 folks depending on what side of the tech boom you're looking at. We had our disagreements, of course, but good work was done. The remnants of this firm are now known as Connecting Point Communications. After that, I left Phase Two and helped start G2B GroupDryden Marketing Group. Good work was done there, too. I left DMG in July 2005 to go to school at USC. The plan was go full-time and become educated (and poor) in ten months. Then, a funny thing happened... Edelman, frankly, made me an offer I couldn't refuse -- to be among the very first hired at the firm to help craft online engagement strategies, tactics, and policies for companies big and small. I had been writing about the intersection between new online communications and PR for some time. Here came an opportunity to put it into practice. Big time. So, in a little less than a decade, I moved from a company of hundreds, to a company of dozens, to a tiny consultancy, and finally to 2,000-people-strong Edelman. Some folks like to make baseless and easy-target value judgments about big agencies versus smaller ones. (When I was at a smaller agency, I did much of the same, to tell you the truth.) I've now been at agencies of pretty much all sizes. Trust me: There's a market for everyone. In my case, I had to move from a micro-agency to an agency of 2,000 in order for my voice to be heard. This will be fun. I look forward to hearing what you have to say. Update: Fixed minor errors. Technorati Tags: edelman, pr, public relations, phil gomes Saturday, August 19, 2006 Posted by philgomes 12:02 PM Space Invaders Space Invaders My girlfriend just showed me this. Wow... Just... Wow... Friday, August 18, 2006 Posted by philgomes 9:08 AM Switch Your RSS Feeds, Murph Is Moving Switch Your RSS Feeds, Murph Is Moving One of the longest-running and refreshingly hype-proof PR blogs, Tom Murphy's PR Opinions, is closing down and moving to Murphy's Law. Nice look, Tom! When're you coming to the states again? Technorati Tags: tom murphy, pr, public relations Thursday, August 17, 2006 Posted by philgomes 11:36 AM Getting Back At Phishers Getting Back At Phishers I just received my fourth phishing attempt of the day. It's supposed to be something from eBay saying that there's a seller who is pissed off at me and that I better get things resolved pronto before my buyer's rating goes to hell. (I haven't used eBay since Burningman 2004.) Of course, the link in the email takes me to a site that is not hosted on an eBay server. Looks like eBay, though. Even seems to load images from eBay's server. It waits to harvest my eBay login. Curious... I back through the labyrinthine URL to the home IP address and hit "Enter." (These things never use domain names, of course.) I'm greeted with a login window. With a login of "admin" and a password of (wait for it) "admin," I'm in. This is what I see: Take that, bastards. It's just a stats area, so I don't have enough permissions on the system to shut you down. But I can make your operation pretty messy. I'm giving you one more chance to turn away from the dark side. UPDATE, NOON CDT: I now have access to your filepaths. UPDATE, 4:19pm CDT: Received another phishing email from a different IP. "Admin / admin" didn't work and I don't have time today for extensive password guessing. Technorati Tags: phishing, security Sunday, August 13, 2006 Posted by philgomes 7:21 PM Read Steve Read Steve My work is done. Saturday, August 05, 2006 Posted by philgomes 8:42 PM Headbutt, Remixed Headbutt, Remixed Thursday, August 03, 2006 Posted by philgomes 9:50 PM Speaking At AEJMC Convention, San Francisco Speaking At AEJMC Convention, San Francisco Putting the final touches on a talk that I'll be giving to the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication tomorrow in San Francisco. I'm incredibly proud to have been invited. Something for Mom to print out and put on the fridge. Why the long time between posts? Why the 38? Well... To tell you the truth, things have been pretty hopping. My work with Edelman's me2revolution group has been pretty much everything I hoped, keeping busy with client work and, my main passion, staff education. Also making time to push out an episode of that labor of love known as earSHOT. There will be a quick one out next week with Jeff Jarvis and Dan Gillmor, which I managed to capture during Edelman's general manager's meeting in DC. Celebrated a birthday. That was fun. Heading to Chicago next week for a class on podcasting that I'll be teaching. It also curiously coincides with the annual summer party over there. Funny how that works out. All of this means that it's pretty tough to check in here. Hell... The boss at least makes time to do one post per week, so I oughta do at least as well! In any case... Watch the Edelman TalkShop Flickr for pics from the conference. Technorati Tags: pr, public relations, aejmc, media, journalism, phil gomes 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.