Drew B's take on tech PR

Publicising

I've been reading NevOn, another contributor to The New PR and business communications comentator. Nev points to an interesting article in an article by Robert Scoble on how to publicise your blog. This makes interesting reading for beginners, but it all seems comon sense. Good background reading, and useful stuff to have at hand when promoting blogs as an online communications tool.

I like NevOn's blog though. Very easy on the eye.

CEO Blog

Jim Horton, who edits OnlinePR, also edits The New PR list of PR blogs. I have just found this site and it is huge! The New PR's about section says it is:

a repository of relevant information about how the PR practice is changing

a collaboration tool for PR professionals and people interested in the practice of public relations

an open space where anyone can ask questions, post ideas, or start a project.

 

On The New PR the writers have added a recent post listing all known blogging CEOs. This resource will come in useful when persuading more business commentators to use blogs as part of their communications toolbox.

Chip & PIN

This morning's FT runs a story from APACS showing a whole load of card fraud
stats to underline its Chip & PIN campaign.
Because of the new technology being phased in at the moment, fraud is increasing as
the crooks squeeze as much as they can out of the pre-Chip & PIN system.
Fraud should supposedly then drop sharply in January.

But I'm noticing a load of glitches in the system. Firstly, I waited almost
five minutes for the local shop to recognise my card yesterday morning.
There was no queue so it didn't matter too much - but if new Chip readers
act like that in the January sales it'll be mayhem! Also, my card has been
rejected three times in as many weeks. Maybe this is just a coincidence, but
it has only happened once before in the last 10 years. If you ask me there
will be a lot of bad PR come January when we get the consumer backlash to
Chip & PIN.

Posted by Tech PR

The panic button

A good programme was broadcast the other night on BBC (I think) on the real dangers posed by mobile phone use over long periods of time. The overwhelming evidence was that mobiles give you cancer, and nobody on the programme could categoriacally disagree with that.

Leaflets produced by the government now actually advise children only to use mobiles in an emergency, as they will have a higher level of exposure to the radiation than us older people. So we should all keep using hands free kits and not stay on the phone for long. Quite scary really! I'm one of those people who always has my phone on and close by.

Recent coverage of a survey into how mobiles lower your sperm count however was slated for covering too small a group. Apparently only 221 hungarians were interviewed for it, yet the coverage was everywhere when the research came out! The article below was a full page colour feature slating the research, which shows how poor research can damage a media message.

The Guardian:

A report warning that mobiles can reduce  your sperm count has been seized on by all the media - despite the limitations of the research. Why are we so ready to fall for these health scares, asks Vivienne Parry

http://www.guardian.co.uk/health/story/0,3605,1249399,00.html 

PR survey

Apparently the accountancy nerds are driving down PR fees. It's called procurement!

An old client of mine is doing an MBA on the procurement of PR, touching on issues such as costs being driven down by clients. His project is in PR Week this week (below). You can take part in his survey here http://www.mew.uk.net/MEW-bill.html.

Procurement study is a worthy cause, PR Week

It is rare for PRWeek to throw its weight behind individual pieces of research by PR practitioners, but IBM communications manager Bill Mew is doing the entire PR sector a favour with his MBA project on the role of procurement professionals in the PR business.

With the backing of the IPR, the PRCA and a host of other professional associations, Mew is exploring trends in both the procurement and management of PR services. Readers can help the research process - visit www.mew.uk.net to fill in the questionnaire - and later become privy to the summary research results.

The procurement profession's influence on PR is the defining trend of the consultancy market, and although one study seems unlikely to capture its many facets in their entirety, it is a worthy start

PR through picture phone blog: My office geek moblog

Steve Rubel of Micro Persuasion mentions some opportunities and threats that moblogs pose to PRs. Here's an interesting one. Take a photo of the biggest geek at your office with your camera phone then moblog it with the words "my office geek". I'll do this tomorrow if he comes in (contract IT guy) and see if it works.

Also I think that Steve's reference to the 'full court press' is NOT a common term used in the UK PR insustry, although having played basketball at Uni I can imagine what it might mean. I'm now trying to imagine a full court press PR launch. Too.... Many..... Buzzwords.

Steve does put forward the following point very well:

Using Moblogs to Bang the PR Drum
Moblogs can also be used to build early hype for a product/service before it’s even out on the market. Let’s say you’re a movie publicist. Why not moblog or "vlog" (video blog) snippets of the "dailies" live from the shoot’s location? Or perhaps you are organizing all PR for a trade show or conference. You could launch a live moblog from the event. Moblogging offers PR pros the opportunity to leverage new tools to generate buzz. Look into them.

SPIT

I just came across a new acronym. What's SPIT? It's like VoIP but... SPam over Internet Telephony. NevOn blogged about this the other day too, from him using Skype. Inevitable really, but bound to spawn a whole genre of anti SPIT firms. Cue a Messagelabs press release!

Also, here's a UK PR blog which focuses less on current events and more on PR academia by Philip Young. One of just only a few good UK PR blogs I have managed to find.

Recruitment blog

Courtesy of Media Guerilla, I see that the Wall Street Journal featured an article on recruiters and job seekers using blogs. Here's the Wall Street Journal article- Blogs Catch On as Online Tool For Job Seekers and Recruiters. Here in the UK they are crap. UK recruiters really could improve their visibility and public access - there's a heavy leaning towards using discussion groups and closed email lists.

Blogs and blogging for PR

Companies across the world are using blogs as communications tools. Blogs can be used to publicise products, ideas, initiatives and personalities. Depending on their use they are designed and written in a variety of ways, with varying levels of success.