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	Phil's Blogservations Monday, January 29, 2007 Posted by philgomes 10:59 AM A Link For Scoble A Link For Scoble Happy? Technorati Tags: scoble Saturday, January 27, 2007 Posted by philgomes 2:26 PM Shel Nails It Shel Nails It Shel Holtz, like me, takes a very dim view when folks drop the "you just don't get it" bomb into an argument. Disagreeing doesn’t mean I don’t get it. But more than that, I despise the "don’t get it" fallback. It is a smug, smarmy, holier-than-thou and insulting phrase that has little meaning beyond self-righteousness. It cuts off discussion. It is a personal attack that is counterintuitive to the notion of conversation. When people say someone "gets it," they usually mean "agrees with me." In a world where there are 60 million blogs and growing, it's pretty easy to find folks who "get it"/agree-with-you. Lob that "you just don't get it" grenade into a group that people that many aren't likely to sympathize with (like PR folks), and you've created yourself a nice, self-affirming (if hollow) "victory." I've joked about the idiocy of this phrase for some time. That's why Leticia and I found some humor in calling our site/newsletter for friends and family youjustdontget.us. Like Randal said in Clerks II: "I'm taking it back, you watch!" Like I said... You can say what you want about PR people, but the "you just don't get it" crowd is going to find themselves just as culpable when they wake up and see, years later, that companies (save for the companies they advise, of course) haven't embraced social media to their satisfaction. Has all the elements of a protection racket, when you think about it. Technorati Tags: pr, public relations Friday, January 26, 2007 Posted by philgomes 5:32 PM Who Are Your Heroes? Who Are Your Heroes? Rich Karlgaard is asking people to describe their "Heroes." Longtime Blogservations readers know that I have a Heroes page on this site. (Occurs to me that I might have to pay some attention to page three of that series. Eeeek!) Who are yours? Technorati Tags: heroes, forbes, rich karlgaard Posted by philgomes 4:52 PM earSHOT: Rob Discher And The Iraq Study Group earSHOT: Rob Discher And The Iraq Study Group Wanted to point out this most recent episode (MP3) of earSHOT: The Edelman Podcast. My colleague "Radio" Rob Discher, an account supervisor in DC, went behind-the-scenes to deliver some perspective on the communications around the Iraq Study Group. Give a listen... Technorati Tags: edelman, podcasts, earshot, iraq study group, isg Wednesday, January 24, 2007 Posted by philgomes 6:51 PM Edelman Trust Barometer -- Read What I'm Reading Trust Barometer -- Read What I'm Reading I'm stacking 'em up here. pr public relations edelman trust barometer trust2007 Tuesday, January 23, 2007 Posted by philgomes 12:38 AM Stowe And Scoble Hate The New Media Release -- EVERYBODY PANIC! Stowe And Scoble Hate The New Media Release -- EVERYBODY PANIC! Wow. I guess life is just that odd downtime between feeding frenzies in the blogosphere. (And, apparently, I'm just crass enough to join in, so go figure.) Stowe Boyd, you see, doesn't much like the idea of the social media news release (more properly referred to, it would seem, as a "new media release"). Scoble jumps in, Holtz writes Magna Carta in response, and the snowball rolls downhill from there. Since I have some skin in the game here, having discussed Edelman's own take on the new media release concept, I'll weigh in. Oh... And I had a tiny part in founding Third Thursday — the forum that started the ruckus — though geography and life-plans have prevented regular participation. Otherwise, I'd probably ignore this mess and let the already frothy discussion continue to generate enough sticky goo to make the diet-coke-and-mentos guys blush. (Disclosure: Above link points to Revver.Com. A client of Edelman, a Daniel J. Edelman Inc. company, founded in 1952 and headquartered in Chicago, Ill., with additional companies including StrategyOne, Blue Worldwide, Zeno Group, and First And 42nd. The guys who did the video will make some ad money if you were to watch it. So would Revver. But you probably have seen it already. My deoxyribonucleic base pairs are ACTGGCAGTCGATCAG...) You see... Stowe's primary challenge to the concept of the social media news release — "Why not just use blogs?" — just kind of strikes me as odd. Odd because it's the rare company that will accept that message at face value. We're talking about a discussion that must take place thoughtfully within a corporation — with a little less passion, and a lot less prejudice. Though many of us have had our hands in online media for some time, most have not. Say "blog" in some circles and your audience might think you were referring to some boil-like disease for which the school nurse once administered Motrin at the free clinic. Is a blog suitable replacement for a re-examined and improved news release format? Well, the tool really depends on the task, doesn't it? (Pointing to a blog's lack of utility in a regulated scenario, Tom Murphy sums it up with characteristic wit: "Yes, I’ll go and tell the NYSE right now sir.") Certainly, no one is saying the converse — that souped-up news releases will replace blogs. As I've said before, the news release is a communications metaphor that nearly every communicator understands. Efforts to improve and modernize the news release — even *gasp* imbue it with social-media-friendly elements — is a step that slow-to-move companies could be willing to accept. It's certainly more commensurate with established practice than a blog would be. Further, the two aren't mutually exclusive. And some folks are working to improve it. So the problem is...? Bueller? Seriously... This kerfuffle flamed up so quickly that it's a bit hard to remember. This go-around is a bit different from the typical "Bagging Of Press Releases" blast-o-rama that Jeremy rightly calls out. This time the pro/con teeth-gnashing about improvements to the news release rolls up into a much larger issue. You only have to go seven paragraphs into Stowe's post before you get to the spirit of where this is all coming from... What Ethernet inventor Bob Metcalfe once referred to as "the worst possible charge of the politically correct." Yup... Stowe pulled out the "just don't get it" card. The fact is: When the communications advice is reflexively "Just blog!" or "Post a video!" or even "Do a newfangled news release!", it's basically a form of what I call "tactical glossolalia." In other words... The passion that people apply to the tools in this field is, frankly, nuts. Blogs are good for certain things. Press releases are good for certain things. Sounds reasonable to me, but it strikes me that people are a little too into pointing out the you-don't-get-its, the imminent death of the news release (always one year from today), the newspeak/unwords in a Web-2.0 world. (Am I the only one who finds it ironic that the use of the word "audience" is being decried on a blog named with the equally loaded term "message"?) I put it to you this way: If companies started with sharpening the bluntest tool of the PR trade (e.g. the news release) they've moved the ball a good number of yards. Hell... Just pay attention to writing them well. Folks who are expecting companies to make a 90-yard social media touchdowns, every down, are completely missing the point. This recent conversation about the new media release throws the reason why into sharp relief. A good chunk of the group that wants companies to see social media as essential will go out of their way to ridicule those companies the second those companies dip their pinky toes in. Arguably, the idea of a social media news release is one way of easing into that pool. NB: Absent the barriers presented by regulatory issues and similar concerns, many of the loudest and most influential online voices will only have themselves to blame for the fact that more companies don't blog or otherwise engage in any form of social media. This isn't at all farfetched. It's easy to imagine that, say, a corporation-produced podcast could have a generally positive fan-base that doesn't blog, but instead emails the hosts thoughtfully and regularly. Some of these emails get read on the show and even guide its content. However, if the podcast doesn't exactly square up with the somewhat arbitrary standards of those that do blog, though, the company might kill it. I can see the meeting now: "Wow, Johnson... We've got hundreds of emails coming in from people who are interested in what we do, love our company's podcast, are precisely the people we want to reach, and have questions for the host's next show. But two people in the Technorati 100 (who aren't really our audience) hated the podcast's host, didn't like the intro music, and now various sycophants and ankle-biters who trackback and comment on these two blogs are piling on. YOU'RE FIRED!" This isn't so crazy a scenario. Ever find it funny that most of the folks who talk about "the people" and "the former audience" make the tacit assumption that those people contribute to online media in a public manner as well as consume it? Some people are more "people" than others, I guess. Not every company is ready for the full-contact sport that blogs and other social media tools represent. If corporate use of (and participation in) social media is at all desirable, then let people develop transitional tools, of which social-media-friendly news release could possibly be considered as one attempt. As to this intersection of social media and corporate communications — via newfangled news release or otherwise — I'll end with what Capitol Steps once said during a skit making fun of H. Ross Perot: "This is a lot like two porcupines on their honeymoon: Everyone's got a lot of desire; it's just that the follow-through is gonna get a little bit painful." UPDATE 2007-01-23, 08:10: Supplied clarification in para. 4 and fixed missing (and meaning-changing) word in para. 7. Technorati Tags: pr, public relations, newmediarelease Wednesday, January 17, 2007 Posted by philgomes 5:41 PM StreetWars || A Look Inside Those Who Serve "The Shadow Government" StreetWars || A Look Inside Those Who Serve "The Shadow Government" I've been following, with great fascination, the assassination-by-watergun game that is StreetWars. Of course, I'm thinking about how brands might look at this as a template for how to execute an immersive, experiential campaign. I can imagine movies like the Bourne series, for example, doing something like this. (And, speaking of movies, I'm reminded of The Game. (Then again, it takes only one careless player getting run over during an effort to escape "assassination" that'll ruin it for everyone. But I digress...) Anyway... An old friend of mine is a new-ish participant in the San Francisco StreetWar, and he just scored his second confirmed (but first official) kill/soaking of the game. Today, he allowed me to share his email to the "Shadow Government" organizers. (Anonymity-washed, of course.) To: Shadow Gov't Kill Reporting SG, At 8:49AM this morning, my target...was (water) gunned down as he attempted to enter his carefully-parked car. My stakeout started at 7am when I parked my car in front of [address]. I was able to conduct surveillance of the sole entry/exit to [target's] apartment...in my rear-view mirror. In calling the main number at [target's] office, I discovered that his office opened at 9am. Given that his place didn't have a garage; it could easily be assumed that he would have to leave sometime before the 9am hour to begin his work-bound travels After an hour and 45 min of monitoring and two homemade Turkish Coffees, the time I had originally allotted for monitoring had expired. I was already late for work myself, but something told me to give it 5 more min. Then, in my rear view mirror, I saw my mark. He has taken special care to park his car right in front of the stairway to his apartment complex. Unfortunately for him, I was parked in front of that very car. I acted quickly, pulling my weapon and ambushing my victim. He was within SECONDS of closing the door to his car when he was wetted inside of it. "No!" he screamed in a key of, I think, C-flat. It was music to my ears, at least. It seemed the victims keys and morning bun acted as barriers to his speedy escape. I shook hands with the departed and he surrendered his Streetwars card. For the record: this is the second time I nailed my target. The first time, unfortunately was (at the time, unknowingly) before the game had officially begun. This take-down will be a lesson to this assassin that tenacity is only good when you pay attention to details. This time, it's official: This target's candle has been snuffed. As before, I await your instructions on what/who comes next. Thank you Agent ###### I'll be cheering my buddy on from across the miles, and following with interest. Technorati Tags: streetwars, san francisco Wednesday, January 10, 2007 Posted by philgomes 9:33 PM Lessons From The City Of Los Angeles Lessons From The City Of Los Angeles This picture is from the corner of Pico and Hauser in Los Angeles. I drive up Hauser every morning on the way to work. Thanks to today's flat tire, I had time to appreciate this particular scene. You see... Just north of Pico, there's a recurring and persistent pothole. (Either that, or H.G. Wells' Morlocks from The Time Machine are finally making their move.) The hole gets to about 4"-8" deep before the city pours asphalt into it to even it out. Then the cycle begins again, usually in a matter of weeks. I predict the hole will hit magma by 2055. In any case, I quickly got used to slowly edging around the left of this pothole during my morning commute, especially after the first few bone-jarring, shock-absorber-testing encounters. After the most recent re-filling, however, the city apparently decided that they should simply point out the pothole. Thus, you now see this rather silly sign, pointing down and to the left, essentially saying "Look! A pothole!" On top of that, a sign showing a prohibition on trucks over 6,000 pounds. (Curiously, under the pothole-indicating arrow, there's a sign that apparently served no purpose other than giving kids something to tag.) Anyway... Feels to me that the City Of Los Angeles just kind of gave up, finding it easier to point out a flaw rather than fix it. You know... Conspicuously pointing out some kind of flaw or deficiency without really doing much about it. I won't belabor the obvious parallels to our industry and, specifically, how that industry comports itself online. Suffice to say, however, we should all be less about the pointing, less about simply filling the holes, and a helluva lot better at building roads. Technorati Tags: pr, public relations Tuesday, January 09, 2007 Posted by philgomes 12:41 AM Journalists Offer Common Sense To PR Pros Journalists Offer Common Sense To PR Pros Owen Lystrup points me to this roundup on ValleyWag, cribbed from Sam Whitmore's Media Survey. The post offers advice from a number of journalists about what they feel are the characteristics of the best PR pros. If any of them come as a surprise to you, please find another career. There were a bunch of reasons why I started this blog, but I'll tell you: I don't think "joining a gigantic online community in conversaton" was one of them. (That, my gentle readers, was a rewarding happenstance that came later.) I started a blog for basically two reasons: Blogger.com's web-based interface allowed me to update my philgomes.com in such a way so as to thwart my employer's FTP-client-blocking firewall, and It was a phenomenal (and highly differentiating) media relations tool. I know some of you Cluetrain-worshippers are going to cry "heresy!", but I'm going to put it country-simple: Journalists love to know that they're being thoughtfully written about just as much as your clients want to have stories thoughtfully written about them. For the first time, blogs allowed PR pros to do that in a meaningful, visible, and conversation-friendly fashion. I remember the reaction I got from Ron Wilson (then of EETimes) when I emailed to tell him I linked to his article: "I don't think I've never been... blogged before..." Fun times... Technorati Tags: pr, public relations, media relations Sunday, January 07, 2007 Posted by philgomes 7:10 PM Looking Forward To 2007 Looking Forward To 2007 I went into this post thinking I was going to write the de rigueur resolutions, predictions, benedictions, and so on. I'll save that for later. Suffice to say, I'm very much looking forward to 2007, personally and professionally. In unwittingly answering a year-long prayer of mine, Dan Santow helped make good on my call to improve the craft of writing in 2006. Excellent. I hope more of you will read it. He's an excellent resource for us at Edelman. And Gary "Below The Fold" Goldhammer is joining us! I'm glad that I'm finally able to write those words. I'll take this opportunity to deliver a few updates... First... I'm no longer studying at USC. I discovered sooner rather than later that it just wasn't for me. Perhaps I'll pursue a master's degree a little later. Now just isn't the time and I just have a boatload of other things that I ought to be concentrating on. (And, yes, I was getting straight A's in the program. By itself, that's not a motivation to stay in such a program.) Second... I'm slowly going to be taking the "perso" out of "perso-professional" here on Blogservations, but probably not for the reasons you might think. You'd think after six years of running this blog that more people of the "professional" bent would take a dim view of the "perso" part. But that never happened. The fact is, relatives would more often tell me "I'd love to keep in touch with what you're up to via your blog, but I can't understand what's going on there half the time." This was closely followed by "What the hell is 'public relations' anyway?" (I still have relatives who say "That Phil... He's in computers.") So, the "perso" part is going somewhere else, and take the form of something that perhaps friends and family would be more into. As to a wish for the new year? Well...Stuart Bruce beseeches all of us to be nicer in 2007. I leave my New Year's wish at that. Technorati Tags: new year, phil gomes, edelman, gary goldhammer, dan santow, stuart bruce 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! 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