77: The true cost of reader-generated content

Reader-generated content has caused a lot of excitement among publishers who hope to use it as a low-cost way to generate content. However, a recent article in Folio magazine noted that coordinating an army of readers-as-journalists to produce publication-quality information is messy and expensive. David and Paul believe media generated by readers has its place, but it will never measure up to material from professional writers and editors who can shape, focus and polish their drafts into the finished works that we all read.

You can listen to the podcast here.

66: How to Connect With CIOs

Michael Goldberg

Do CIOs use the Internet?  Perhaps not the same way mere mortals do, but IT executives have intense information needs of demand a unique focus in perspective.  As managing editor of CIO.com, the online wing of the venerable technology magazine, Michael Goldberg is charged with keeping close to the needs of this highly coveted audience.

Don’t approach Michael with technology pitches.  His audience is focused on solving business problems, and there areas of concern go far beyond the newest iPhone.  Successful PR professionals should define their pitches around a solid business context, with customer citations a plus.

And in the true Web 2.0 spirit, CIO.com is now enabling conversations. Its new new Advice & Opinion section enables experts to contribute their wisdom directly, without having to go through a pitch-and-submit process.

Here are Michael’s guidelines for submitting to Advice & Opinion:

We encourage experts to post their pieces directly at CIO.com’s Advice & Opinion section. Simply register at advice.cio.com and post your piece to our website. We strongly encourage you to register under your name.
Our online community for IT leaders is most interested in best practices and problem-solving information for their work, so please join the conversation. Also please know that we reserve the right to delete pieces
that read like sales and marketing materials. At our discretion, we may also take the best submissions and promote them in our newsletters and/or on the home page of our site.

Here’s a quick rundown.

• Go to cio.com.
• Click on Advice and Opinion section.
• Read the articles we have there by staff and contributors.
• Consider what you want to write. Does it add something to ongoing discussions about something important in IT, management, leadership, careers, technology implementations, value, business. What value do theyadd to the ongoing conversation and why
• Write your article. Make the outline clear, stick to the specific points you want to make. Take out sales and marketing language –we delete such pieces.
• Register at cio.com. Please use your real name to add credibility to your post.
• Post your article. Include the author’s company affiliation at the top.
• See who comments.
• Repeat later.

Below are some recent examples of submitted content:

Data Leakage: How to Avoid Security Risks When Sending Large Files

http://advice.cio.com/yorgen/data_leakage_how_to_avoid_security_risks_when_sending_large_files

Zero Contact Resolution: A Proactive Approach to Improving the Customer Experience

http://advice.cio.com/steve_daines/zero_contact_resolution_a_proactive_approach_to_improving_the_customer_experience

Download the podcast (14:47)

52: Anniversary Party

It’s our birthday! And in recognition of this, our 52nd weekly podcast (okay, so we missed one or two weeks) we convene a roundtable discussion of the new world of business communications.

The stars aligned perfectly: David was in Boston on a speaking tour and some of our best friends and colleagues from our years in media were up for a free meal and discussion. Our friends at Lois Paul & Partners kindly provided the venue (as well as two of our speakers) and our seven participants turned out to encompass a mix of media, marketing and financial disciplines.

The debate got quite spirited at points, with Bob Scheier and Steve Hall famously facing off over the ethics of fact checking. Venture capitalist Bill Frezza had the quote of the evening: “We are in the post-integrity age of journalism.” And Lois Paul and Ted Weismann of LPP recounted with resignation the frustration of convincing clients that it’s about more than just the Wall Street Journal these days.

This podcast runs 56:42, with several minutes of bonus material and the end. This week we launch “Dana’s Pick of the Podcast,” a new weekly feature in which Producer Dana Gillin spotlights the program’s best quote at the end of each episode. For those of you who have always wondered about our theme music, we offer the full version of Meet You In The Heavens by Rebel Soul Band. Enjoy. And post your comments below.

Thanks to our panel:

Lois Paul, President, Lois Paul & Partners

Ted Weismann, senior vice president, LP&P

Bob Scheier, IT/Business Writer

Bill Frezza, General Partner, Adams Capital Management

Steve Hall, Publisher Adrants

Download the podcast (56:42)

Below:

Bill Frezza          Bob Scheier

Lois Paul

Steve Hall

Paul Gillin & David Strom

Four great trade show tips

Evan Schuman (TPRWS 39)  of StorefrontBacktalk.com has spent a lot of time at trade shows lately and he sent us these four tips for getting the most out of media contacts. We like them all, but we think #3 and #4 are particularly good!

Evan writes:

1. Most interviews today are done on the phone and some even via E-mail. The art of how to get the most out of an in-person demo and ESPECIALLY a tradeshow demo (where you have the space luxury of your booth or your demo suite). Demos and interactive capabilities should be top choices. Backups can be truly relaxed conversations about trends. This is NOT where you want to whip out the slides and do a 30-minute overview.
2. Lose the tunnel vision when setting up meetings. Those “want to meet at Big Tradeshow next week?” calls are huge opportunities for stories and coverage and I have seen tons lost due to tunnel vision. They ask and focus on “are you going to be attending X and Y?” with a backup of “Do you have time to meet at the show?” If the answer to either question is “no,” the call ends. What a waste of a contact with a reporter!
3.  Walk the aisles and go into rival booths. Crazy, you say? Not at all. How many times have execs tried to say why their product is so much better than the competition? At a tradeshow, you can make that case 1000 percent more effectively. Start in your booth and show how a particular task is done and how easy and effective it is. Then walk one minute down the aisle to your rival’s booth and have the reporter try to do the same thing with them? Of course, this only if your product is truly better in some way, but if it is, it’s an amazingly powerful tactic that can only be done at a tradeshow.
4. The commissary-like lunch. Last year, there was a vendor COO who did one of the most impressive PR tactics I’ve ever seen. We went down to the ultra-crowded lunch place at the Javits and grabbed sandwiches and looked for a table with space. He was trying to make the point that IT people cared about XXXXX a lot more than they did about YYYYY, which was a huge change. His eyes then lit and he told me to select any table. When we sat down, he knew that there would be at least one IT manager (and probably a lot more than one) sitting there. He brought the topic up and asked the table about it and they agreed with him. Given that I chose the table, there’s no way this could have been pre-arranged. It was a remarkably powerful way to make his point. And, yes, it could only have been done at a tradeshow.

40: A look ahead

This being the final Tech PR War Stories podcast for 2007, David and Paul thought they’d stretch out a little and ruminate on what’s ahead for 2008. Here, in no particular order, are their predictions. It’s going to be another wild year for tech PR, but one in which savvy PR pros can elevate their status with employers and clients:

• The end of beats at technology publications. Reporters will become more generalized and contract experts will contribute more of the specialized coverage;
• Fragmentation in coverage of technology; it will come from a variety of sources;
• Google will buy Second Life and Skype. Paul sees big opportunities for the search giant to leverage those core technologies into franchise businesses;
• PR pros will have to do a better job at creating meaningful relationships with press. They’ll also have to reach out to unexpected places for coverage;
• Increasing concerns about privacy in social networks. Facebook’s Beacon was just the tip of the iceberg;
• The Wall Street Journal will become a free service. Rupert Murdoch has already made it clear that he wants to take the paper in this direction and that will have big implications for tech coverage as the Journal asserts itself as a major online news force;
• The rise of social search, addressing some of the inherent limitations of search. Mahalo and WikiaSearch are early proofs of concept of an evolution of the search utility;
• Vendors will increasingly become publishers and will need help from PR people to create useful and interesting content.

What do you think? Post your comments below and please continue to offer suggestions and sources for future Tech PR War Stories podcasts.

Download the podcast here (19:00).

The Tech Journalist Migration

David has written a series of recommendations for PR pros for Sam Whitmore’s Media Survey on how to reach those tech journalists who have gone on to analytical or vendor-sponsored roles. You can also read what Brian Fuller, a former journalist himself who is now with Blanc and Otis, has to say here.

39: Pitches, deadlines, and trade shows

This week our guest is Evan Schuman, who is the retail editor for eWeek and author of the blog www.storefrontbacktalk.com on retail technologies.

Evan has worked for Ziff and CMP for more than 20 years in various capacities, both for print and online media. He talks to David and Paul about how PR pitch him for expert interviews and things that he likes and doesn’t like about these pitches and how PR can make them more successful. He also talks about the meaning of deadlines in the online world and how hard it is to track down spokespeople during trade shows, among other pet peeves.

Download the podcast here (14:16).

30: Feel the love

Paul and David talk about the best PR practices they’ve ever encountered. Paul recounts his experience with one firm that arranged a CIO roundtable and ended up with a three-page magazine spread. David lauds the organizers of a user conference for really celebrating their customers. Both hosts agree on the value of using customers to tell you story, even if it means accepting the bad with the good sometimes. David has a bouquet for NASA, which really knows how to put on a press event. There’s a lot that tech PR pros could learn from the space agency.

Download the podcast here. (16:42)

26: How to work a trade show, part 2

In part two of our interview with Pulvermedia’s Bill Sell, we talk about the role of new media in event PR. Bill believes bloggers are a hugely useful resource to PR people, but that too few companies leverage their enthusiasm and talent. Pulvermedia has been proactive about courting bloggers to cover its events but Bill warns that you can’t treat bloggers the same way you would mainstream media. By courting them appropriately, though, PR pros can find new communities of customers. Boggers bring knowledge and insight to their reporting that isn’t always evident in technology journalists, but they can also be critical and challenging. They’re worth the effort, though.

Download the podcast. (13:35)

25: How to work a trade show, part 1

In the first of a two-part interview, Bill Sell, Vice President & General Manager of Events at Pulvermedia, shares his advice on how to work a trade show. Bill’s been in the events business for nearly 30 years and has managed the biggest of the big: Comdex in its glory days. In this interview, he outlines best practices he’s seen PR pros use and talks about the future of the trade show business. He also talks about the worst of trade show PR, like the dumpster that Comdex organizers used to maintain to hold all the discarded press kits. A lot of PR people work a trade show badly, Sell says. They don’t plan well and their press kits are stuffed with unnecessary information that fails to catch attention. Hear about the best and worst practices for working a trade show.

Download the podcast here. (14:22)

Here are some of Bill’s main talking points if you don’t have time to listen to both parts of the podcast:

1. Talk with the show organizer

• Role of the show manager
• Role of the exhibitor
• Role of the public relations agency
• Role of the press person

2. Preparing pre-show, at-show and post-show media outreach efforts

• Pre-show – set goals and objectives
• Make calls to reporters you know and invite them
• Prep your press person for show site
• At-show – who is your ideal spokesperson and who wins the “quote war”?
• Handling press who visit the booth
• Planning for follow-up and thank you’s
• Post-show call to thank them (call, not email, then email)
• Summarize your show action plan and product announcements and recap for all of the relevant press your missed

3. Save some money – don’t create a press kit

• Don’t bring a press kit!
• Work the show press list early
• Pre-announce your product or service a week before and showcase it for the first time at the show “double exposure”