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	Phil's Blogservations Monday, April 28, 2008 Posted by philgomes 8:29 AM Priorities For more than just the very minor paternal reasons, I can tell you that it was a great NewComm Forum this year. (I'm a founding fellow of the nonprofit that puts on the forum, SNCR, though I only have a very small role in the conference itself.) This year's Forum was light-years ahead of the conference-sprawl that was 2007's event in Las Vegas. Smaller group, far greater impact, passion, and thoughtfulness. For me, it started on Tuesday with a great group of folks who attended my Tuesday workshop. Then I got to see the folks that I typically get to see only a couple of times a year. Even met some folks for the first time whom I have followed online. And, of course, there were the attendees, coming from all kinds of professions and exhibiting varying levels of new-media experience. But it's time for some tough love here, gang. Our priorities are way screwed up. There's no other way to put it. We're staring through the hole and missing the doughnut. It started when I was walking to the bathroom and passed a conference-goer I had met at the cocktail reception the night before. "So, what presentation did you just get out of?" I asked. "Oh, it was a presentation on the Social Media Release," he offers somewhat breathlessly. "Standing room only." This exchange resulted in: Now, I'm typically the kind of guy who resists making value judgments, but our professional heads are in a truly strange place when: Presentations about more-or-less easy-lift changes to the basic tools of our profession, such as the Social Media Release (SMR), receive standing-room-only attention, while... Presentations about the fundamental, critical issues that matter most to our business go very nearly ignored. To wit: Exhibit A: Elizabeth Fletcher's presentation on net neutrality had but three attendees — me, my wife, and one other. Arguably, this issue is one of the most important ones affecting communicators in the U.S. For all that, if you added up all the people in that room, we wouldn't even have had a basketball team. Exhibit B: John Yunker of Byte Level Research delivered his analysis on trends in Web site language strategies, taking a look at what languages are enjoying spikes in deployment on multinational sites and why. You simply can't convince me that the 250+ attendees were already so familiar with the details of the net neutrality debate — and it is a debate, keep in mind — that the discussion we had would've bored or insulted. And what about global trends in corporate Web site localization and translation? The Web's Anglo-centricity isn't going to last forever, people. We should consider ourselves lucky, for now, that the domain name system works on Roman characters and that it relies on TLDs like ".com" rather than "". Sooner or later, that's going to change. I'm not writing this to pick on Todd Defren and Maggie Fox, who delivered the social media release presentation. Personally, I think any attempt to improve or modernize the press release is a good thing. Furthermore, there were most certainly other provocative presentations going on at the same time as Elizabeth's and John's. I certainly wouldn't fault anyone who was intrigued by presentations entitled "How To Measure Progress & Success In Business Communities" by Francois Gossieaux, or "The Changing Face Of Journalism In A New Media World" by Tom Foremski, Steve Lubetkin, and Andria Carter. Even with so many multitaskers in one place, one can only see so many presentations in two days when there are five tracks. But, c'mon... Out of 250 professional communicators, three cared about net neutrality? Web localization and language trends and strategies mattered to four people? We need to look hard at our priorities as public relations professionals. Otherwise, we truly deserve what even our most uninformed critics throw at us. Technorati Tags: pr, public relations, sncr, newcomm | 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's demented imagination. Hell, to be perfectly honest, even Phil disagrees with what he thinks sometimes. This site has virtually no redeeming qualities whatsoever. Clicking on a link doesn't automatically send a 1/2-cent donation to UNICEF. You can't buy, sell, auction, swap, find a date, win friends, influence people, cross the chasm, or decode the human genome using this site. You won't get free email. You won't win a PalmOne Treo or a Playstation2. This site will not end world hunger, foster peace in the Middle East, help you smell better, teach you how to swing dance, or move the global economy from petroleum to hydrogen fuels. You'll learn a lot about this site's master, though, which amounts to a haphazard collection of strange and useless facts that pretty much won't help you at all.	ABOUT THIS BLOG This is the blog of Phil Gomes, VP with Edelman Digital and senior advisor to the Society for New Communications Research. This blog not only discusses PR and media matters, but Phil's everyday observations about a variety of topics. Phil currently resides in Chicago, IL. EMAIL phil[at] philgomes.com View my page on PROpenMic 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. 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