29 September 2009

Sadly, I still get emails like this.

I'm not too keen on writing about blogger relations anymore - I've written about it a lot, as have people I respect like Susan Getgood and Kami Watson Huyse. But I got an email yesterday that was simply a press release. Apparently some band I never heard of is doing something with a charity I never heard of, and you can listen to their music online. Or something. I'm sure it's all very nice and the band is nice and the charity is nice and even the PR person is nice.

But there was no salutation in the email, nothing to indicate why this release was being sent to me. So I wrote back to the PR person - I'm going to leave names of people and companies out of this (even my own) because I'm writing for educational purposes and not to embarrass anyone - plus I don't want to be the cause of a bunch of Google Alerts.

Here's what I wrote back:
Hi [name] - I'm sure this is nice and I'm sure you're a great person but I kinda think you're doing this wrong. Bloggers aren't really journalists who get press releases. But good luck anyway...
And then I got this reply back fairly quickly:
That's crazy- I work with bloggers everyday.
Perhaps against my better judgment, I saw that as an opportunity to shoot back :
With all due respect [name] - and I know you deserve a lot of respect because you're entrepreneurial enough to start your own firm - I know a thing or two about working with bloggers as well. I direct the social media team for [my company], a global public affairs firm based in DC. My clients include Fortune 500 companies and major trade associations. My close pals in the blogosphere are the leaders of sites like Blog With Integrity, Parent Bloggers Network, Global Voices Online, and so on.

And my opinion is not crazy, not in the least.

I get emails from boutique NYC-based PR firms every now and then. Typically they come from entertainment, fashion, or beauty-based clients. I don't write about entertainment, fashion or beauty. The bloggers I work with get a lot more of these emails than I do and they all say the same thing - "this is proof they don't read my blog." Those emails get sent to the spam filter. Sometimes the domain of the sender gets screened. Sometimes they're the victim of a screed on that blog the next day.

There's a difference between blast-emailing press releases to a list based on keywords and seriously targeting and building relationships with online opinion leaders with relevant contributions. Sometimes you have the time and budget to do one, sometimes you have the time and budget to do the other.

I'm more than willing to accept that you may work with entertainment journalist bloggers or people who will reprint a press release that was sent to them cold. In my world, with the opinion leaders on policy issues and business I deal with, what you did was demonstrate that you don't know a thing about me or what I do.

That said, you have the guts to strike out and start your own company, and you don't hesitate to share your opinion. Entrepreneurs - especially outspoken ones - deserve respect, and you have mine.
And then I received:
You should discuss with [PR list software company] then because they have you listed as a blogger who covers music, non-profit and fashion...
At which point I decided to stop bothering with this one. This is a textbook example of how a PR pro tries to replace real intelligence gathering with automated tools and gets burned. But what struck me was the last statement - I don't have to discuss anything with any software company. I didn't ask to be listed and I didn't ask to be put in categories that anyone who reads this blog would see is absurd. (Fashion? I know something about fashion? Seriously?) This person either got a list for free and got what she paid for, or she wasted her money on a list that wasn't accurate. But more importantly, she goofed up and kept shifting the fault somewhere else.

It's the PR pro's responsibility to target the right people and make sure the pitch is well crafted and relevant to the target. Slapping a press release into the body of an email and spamming who knows how many people? Not so much.

24 September 2009

Saving Journalism Through Business Incubation

President Obama has been thinking about the fate of journalism lately:
"Journalistic integrity, you know, fact-based reporting, serious investigative reporting, how to retain those ethics in all these different new media and how to make sure that it's paid for, is really a challenge," Mr. Obama said. "But it's something that I think is absolutely critical to the health of our democracy."
I've said it before - the traditional news business is working its way through the Kubler-Ross five stages of grief. It's dying, and nobody has figured out a way to make it profitable in the digital media age - at least not yet.

We can't expect every media outlet to go non-profit, and we shouldn't expect journalists to work for free. What we need is something that will give entrepreneurs in technology and journalism some initial support to allow their ideas to get off the ground - help them reach some semblance of sustainability so we can really see if new business models and technologies can work.

That's called a business incubator.

The ethical code professional journalists strive to maintain and use to define themselves really hasn't changed. However, we all know the conditions under which journalists work and compete has shifted dramatically. It's more local and more global at the same time. It's much more reliant on the Internet and multimedia. It's more user-driven than ever. And it increasingly competes with people who may not even be aware of that ethical code but still have news to share, and can do so at little or no cost.

A global, virtual business incubator for the journalism industry can help entrepreneurs with things like bandwidth, server space, and equipment. It can provide some IT expertise to help people translate their ideas into computer code. It can provide business expertise to help people who write a great story but don't speak spreadsheet. It can connect entrepreneurial journalists and editors with other reporters worldwide. And finally, it can help these nascent firms "graduate" to the point where they're ready to redefine the industry and deliver a quality product at a fair price.

An incubator with a strong affiliation with a college or university - perhaps schools of business, computer science, and journalism - can provide these businesses with a wealth of information and perspectives to get the product AND the process right. When I worked for Senator Kennedy I helped him write the LEADERS Act, which provided federal resources for business incubators with strong academic affiliations. The bill had bipartisan support and was endorsed by the National Business Incubation Association, but never made it through the Senate. It's been reintroduced several times by Congressman John Tierney in the House. (There's a great business incubator at Salem State College in his district.)

This idea is a bit different than the legislation, but the economic benefits of incubation are not disputed. The contributions academia can provide are limitless. And the changing nature of the industry demands conditions to let new models develop.

I've been kicking this idea around for some time with a few very good friends. I've thought of a few others I want to invite to this discussion. I'm sharing these thoughts now because I'd love to see this go "open source" and see who's interested in playing along. There's no way I or a small group of folks will crack this nut. But we can help create the conditions necessary to help entrepreneurial journalists share new ideas, grow their businesses, and thrive.

Seriously, this can be done.

23 September 2009

President Obama's Speech to the UN on Climate Change

Last night the Earth & Industry "Gang of Four" got together to record a podcast and discuss President Obama's speech on climate change. We decided to do what some goofy political pundits do and give the President a grade on his speech. However, Jeff is a college professor so he at least has some credibility in that department...

The Earth & Industry post features the podcast, a link to the speech text, and HD video of the speech. If you don't have time to read or watch the whole speech, here's a "speech cloud," brought to us by our pals at Wordle. No surprises here.

22 September 2009

Who doesn't like movies?

I have a piece in Business Lexington today that focuses on a new film festival sponsored by the Patterson School of Diplomacy and International Commerce and Search for Common Ground. I think it's a great partnership and will provide some valuable perspectives on resolving conflict. It's also nice to see the Patterson School doing something for people in Lexington.

My pal Rob Farley let me know about it. The films are all outstanding. Here's the schedule:
  • September 24: Osama: Emily Beaulieu
  • October 1: Encounter Point
  • October 8: Beyond Belief
  • October 29: Bam 6.6
  • November 5: Bridge over the Wadi
  • November 12: My Home, Your War
  • December 3: The Band’s Visit

18 September 2009

If I had a million dollars...

My pals at Earth and Industry and I got together for a quick podcast that compared the investment potential of solar energy versus wind energy. We threw out the goofy hypothetical - if you had a million dollars, and could only invest in solar OR wind, where would you go?

We'll be doing more of these, and I hope you'll listen in.

14 September 2009

The Yachts

The news in the past couple of days has reminded me of one of my favorite poems. Here's the author reading it.

William Carlos Williams - The Yachts


Found at bee mp3 search engine

OK, so, I'm a nerd.

Norman Borlaug

He didn't sell a billion albums, but he saved a billion lives. And most people have never heard of him.

Truly, we celebrate the wrong people in this world.

09 September 2009

Speech Clouds: Health Care

President Obama has finally given his big speech on health care reform. As we've come to expect here, thanks to Wordle this is the text cloud of his speech:



And in the interest of fairness, here's the text cloud of the official Republican response, delivered by Congressman Charles Boustany (R-LA), a doctor:



Not surprisingly, the President is mentioning "insurance" while the opposition Congressman is mentioning "cost." Those are driving the discussions on either side of the aisle.

There was one moment during the President's speech where I like many others was taken aback. Politico reports that Congressman Joe Wilson (R-SC) shouted "You lie!" at the President when the President was debunking false claims that reform would "insure illegal immigrants."

First of all, and it's sad that this has to be said, factcheck.org agrees with the President and not the Congressman. But another line was crossed tonight - perhaps just a line of decorum, but I think more than that. At least one member of Congress now thinks it's ok to heckle the President of the United States during an address to a Joint Session of Congress. He didn't just disrespect the man, he disrespected the office.

It's beyond shouting down the woman in the wheelchair. Once again it's an appeal to the worst in people - heckling the President in support of an obvious falsehood with unquestionably racist undertones. And even worse, to those who oppose reform this kind of thing is USEFUL. It's a distraction. Once again we're talking about something other than health care reform.

I sound like an old civics nerd, but I remember a time when there would always be people in the other party with whom you could reason and negotiate and find a way to do the right thing. I'm left wondering who that is in the GOP today. I'm pretty sure it's not Congressman Wilson.

04 September 2009

And there are people in Washington who WANTED this

Seriously - there are people who planned for this outcome, who told lies to work people into a frenzy, who appealed to the worst in us, who felt that this outcome served their interests best. This is what they wanted. And they want more of it. Where there is discussion and debate, they want to bring noise. To literally shout down the lady in the wheelchair.

How does one negotiate with people who plan this?


Again, this is a disgrace to my profession - we're supposed to encourage and facilitate debate, not shout it down - and a disgrace to our democracy.

A long time ago I was actually an elected Town Meeting member, in my New England town. Things got a little rowdy sometimes, though nothing close to this. And everyone - EVERYONE - got to say their peace without ever having to worry about hecklers.

What a perversion.

01 September 2009

I guess I'm a real green blogger now...

I'm very pleased to say I'm "officially" a contributor to Earth & Industry, a new blog that takes a look at sustainability and business issues. Some of the other contributors are familiar to people who read this blog - Tim Hurst, Jeff McIntire-Strasburg, and Maria Surma Manka, the three co-conspirators in the "gang of four" podcasts. Another contributor is William Sarni, the Founder and CEO of Domani Sustainability Consulting. Tim serves as the editor.

Here's my first contribution - it took a little longer than I hoped it would but I'm looking forward to adding more thoughts.

So thanks to Tim for inviting me to contribute, and I hope I don't screw up the great gig you have going...