Vy Blog

Two very good posts that I recommend reading right now

Michael Arrington: Apple's Only Unfair Advantage: Their Products Rock

Hugh MacLeod: Random Thoughts On Being An Entrepreneur

Excellent both.

I think Kevin Murphy is on to us

Kevin Murphy is bureau chief for Computerwire in San Francisco.  (Disclosure: He's covered the industry I'm currently involved in.)  He knows his crap and has a ferocious wit, as you'll see.

He writes a post today about "How to Blag an Interview" that will look not only familiar, but exactly familiar to, oh, about every single PR agency operative of the most recent generations.  In my opinion, it should be required reading for the next several to follow -- it shows how staid, predictable and all-too-full-of-pretense briefings have become.

This is uncomfortable to me as well because I've conducted briefings like this one.  Many times.  But I hope my thinking has evolved now to the point I can find my way clear to do something more valuable for both sides involved.

What would be better?  How about a conversation?  One where there's genuine listening going on, where everyone in the room asks smart questions about what's interesting to the other?  How about some brainstorming on what the journalist wants to cover, and where he can find some useful resources? 

And here's a barn-burner: How about doing this before you ever launch a product?

Manifestos continue

All of these are good.

This one is for attorneys, but could well apply to PR firms.

How to ask questions

Mike Arrington has been taking hit after hit, but in the calm of the storm today he posts a good thought about how to ask questions.  He says:

I asked a question that I thought was both interesting and had a high likelihood of actually being answered. You can be a tough guy all day long, but asking Bill “With it’s worldwide dominance why does it take so long to get a new Operating System out of Redmond?” isn’t going to lead to an interesting answer.

I interview companies every day, and there is only so far you can go with the tough stuff. People just shut down or go into PR speak when you go to far.

I’m not concerned about not getting invited back by asking a tough question, I’m concerned that I won’t get an interesting answer.

He's getting some disagreement in comments on this thought, but I agree with him.  Too many people want to be Mike Wallace and give that air of "I'm a watchdog, pal, and the public has a right to know."  There's no need for that or any other kind of acting.  If you have an authentic exchange of questions and information, and act like a human being, you'll get all the info you need.

There are exceptions, but in general, people default toward wanting to disclose.  I learned this as a reporter.  I learned this further when I started working in PR and began interviewing clients on the raw data you need to create a marketing plan -- probing, smart questions get you a lot farther than nearly anything else.

I also found that to be helpful when coaching clients on how to handle reporters.  I believe too many execs feel at the whim of a reporter.  To be sure, you need to respect the reporter's orientation, deadlines, etc., but like any other conversation, one with a reporter is just as eligible to be an information exchange than is anything else.  If you carefully ask the right questions, you not only can help the reporter better by providing exactly the right information, but you can also avoid some land mines.

Do we need pilots? Yep.

Seth Godin says the need for pilots is diminishing.

He's using it as a metaphor for business -- that is, we don't need more people who look at a prescribed map, follow procedure precisely, and guide you to a destination.  In business, we need more people willing to shake things up and throw us off course, so to speak.

Generally speaking, I don't disagree.  However, as an actual pilot, I'll say there are certain traits that you do want as part of your organization.  There are two that leap to mind:

The learned skill of anticipation. 

I've blogged before that it's necessary for a pilot to "be ahead of the airplane."  The best pilots are thinking about what's happening two hours (at least) in front of the airplane, so as to avoid bad weather, stay out of traffic congestion, and generally maintain an efficient and directed flight so as to arrive at your intended destination.  In my experience in business, not enough of us (me included) do enought thinking about what could be coming at us in two hours, two months, or two years.  But we should.

The also learned skill of brief but entirely complete communication.

Most who listen to air traffic control hear what sounds like a foreign language.  Some of it is -- there are acronyms and terms unique to aviation, as you might guess.  But the rest is merely pure and simple brevity.  Instead of:

"Portland approach control, this is United flight 220, we're 35 miles west of the airport, we're at 18,000 feet now but are descending to 15,000 feet, we're following the Pendleton five arrival pattern, and we have the "Charlie" information for the Portland airport."

you're going to hear:

"Portland approach, United 220 three-five west, one-eight thousand for one-five on the Pendleton five, information Charlie."

Oh, the times you've wished someone would just say what they're going to say and stop with the runaround.

The former is probably generally more applicable and relevant.  The latter is more a nice-to-have, but still also relevant.

So while I agree with Seth, I would probably want to take any profession and pick through it a bit to find a skill or learning or two that I can apply to my own situation.  There's very likely at least one.

Manifestos in 500 words or less

These are great reading.

PR Newswire: A $1.2 billion stretch

The Times is reporting that private equity firm Apax might bid $1.2 billion for PR Newswire.  The companies are not necessarily confirming the story, but for the sake of discussion, let's say the story is right.

Is it worth that kind of money?

Obviously (or, to use the preferred "look at me, I'm smart" word of the moment, "clearly"), I haven't done the due diligence, so anything I say is relatively uneducated.

My point of view is that of a practitioner.  I have used, and still occasionally use, wire services to distribute information.  It is not my preferred method for getting data and information out, however.  There are several reasons, including the fact that I prefer to share news according to its best and most honest path to those for whom it's relevant -- sometimes the media is not that path.

Also, the main reason for wire service existence is no longer really there.  It used to be you had limited time and capability to get news into as many editorial hands as possible (I well remember the days of faxing information like crazy, trying to get it out).  Wire services would take your data and make it available everywhere for you.  You can do that now with a blog or a page on your web site.

I can hear this question already:  "What if I don't get any traffic to my site?  How will anyone see my news?"  Answer: A wire service isn't going to solve that problem for you.  Either you have newsworthy data or you don't -- how you distribute it is relevant, but not as relevant as the actual value of the news itself.  Another case of focusing on a tactic you hope will overcome a deeply flawed strategy.  It won't.

So, is the money worth it?  Maybe it is now, because everyone seems to keep insisting on pumping out news releases.  But if I were betting, I'd say over the long term that value will diminish as companies (hopefully) get smarter about first identifying and then imparting quality data.

How to succeed in 2007

I usually wish I had more time for reading for ideas -- you know, just emptying your mind and letting ideas free form around what you read in a magazine, for example.  The facts are, however, that a) I don't usually have that kind of time, and b) while I don't mean to be needlessly critical, I don't find a lot of good raw material to use in most media nowadays.

However comma I was just flipping through the December edition of Business 2.0, where there's a section titled (not "entitled") "How To Succeed In 2007," and they have various advice from a lot of people you know of.  I don't buy all of it, but the one that really jumped out at me was this cut from Jeff Hicks, president of Crispin Porter & Bogusky (emphases mine):

There are three things I think about the most when it comes to making it as a marketer these days.  The first one is there's no amount of money I can pay to get my commercial in front of you, because you can powerfully edit what you spend time with.  So my job as a marketer is no longer to interrupt, but to produce content that is so relevant, interesting, entertaining, and involving that my best consumers won't want to live without it.  The second thing is understanding that instead of brochures and trade shows, marketing now really begins with the product.  Great companies are investing a lot of time and attention into trying to make products that market themselves.  The last piece is that user-generated content has made it possible for consumers to own your brand, and if they don't, you're not doing your job.  The brands that are adopted, blogged about, and parodied the most are the ones that are going to win because they're involved in the evolution of pop culture.  If you're scared to have your brand played with, you're going to be left behind.

When you "don't have time"

Having known many a CEO, mostly of the entrepreneurial sort, I can confirm that most are, as they say in the Midwest, good people.  Obviously you find your share of holes.

You know I'm a person of several peeves, and one is the exec (or anyone) who thinks s/he's better than you and justifies behavior with, "I don't have time to [whatever]."

Steve Crescenzo appropriately calls BS on this as it relates to communicating to employees.  I'm sad to read he found the lesson as a result of such a loss, but the point is first-rate.  Of course you have time -- if you don't, you're not doing your job.

The Rules NOT According to Jack Welch

Great article here in Fortune about the rules of success in business today.

The premise:  Do we continue to follow Jack Welch's rules?  You know, the ones that made GE one of the most respected businesses in history, and Welch one of the most admired executives?  Are his rules still valid?

The article says as good as Welch was, and still is, the answer is probably not.  Business and human interaction today calls for subtleties and ways of thinking and agility that didn't exist in the 70s, 80s and early 90s.  Example: Welch preached the value of ranking your employees, keeping the A players and trimming the bottm 10% or so.  Quantitative -- make people compete with each other.  In today's world, and I've seen this, you can run an organization like that if you want but there's a good chunk of your employees (or potential employee pool) who will just opt out of that model, even if the financial rewards are greater.  Fortune says the new rule is to hire passionate people.  (By the way, "passionate" is one of today's truly overused words.)

Personally, I think I'm on the cusp between the two and see value in both.  Just as you can't be 100% touchy-feely, nor can you be full-bore cutthroat.  Neither will get it done for the company, customers, shareholders, employees, etc.

Welch replies here with his rebuttal.  Both are worth a read.