PR Nonsense

Today we are announcing that we secured  Zeus Technology as a client.  We will be delivering a  full-service public relations campaign incorporating strategic consultancy, media relations (including business press, vertical, IT, bloggers etc.), content development and a thought leadership program.

As part of Zeus’ rigorous agency selection process, five agencies across the U.S. were invited to pitch for the business.  Zeus chose March Communications from a short list of two agencies because of our creative and ambitious PR program, which demonstrated our ability to take risks with the overall strategy and direction that will ultimately deliver impactful results.

Zeus Technology is a UK headquartered technology company that enables businesses to create, manage and deliver superior online services in Physical, Virtual and Cloud environments.  Zeus is the only pure software-based application delivery controller company, and capitalizing on that position is a key part of the communications strategy and PR program.

Recently appointed marketing manager Elizabeth Schapira will head up the U.S. PR drive from Zeus’ California office, working closely with March in Boston to bridge the gap between London and the West Coast.

In the release, I am quoted saying: “There is a lack of demonstrated thought leadership and vision among the application delivery controller players in the U.S.  Our plan is to aggressively raise the profile of Zeus and show how it helps optimize users’ experience.  As softADCs gain popularity in an increasingly virtual world, we believe we can capitalize on Zeus’ 5-year lead as a softADC and translate that position into leads, sales and increased revenue for Zeus in the U.S.”

“We selected March based on the company’s innovative ideas, results-driven program and proactive approach to securing our business,” said Elizabeth Schapira, marketing manager, Zeus Technology.  “The team showed true knowledge of our company and industry by doing comprehensive research to identify where our competitors had an edge on us and where we needed to be from a visibility and messaging stand point.”

The results are in!  And they were delivered on 100% recycled paper!  During 2009, March Communications recycled 266 pounds of bottles and cans and 1,185 pounds of paper through Earthworm Recyclers.  That’s the equivalent of saving 10.08 trees…nearly one tree per employee!  And all with only minimal nagging from yours truly.  Now doesn’t that feel good?  Nice work team!!  The trees thank you.

In this day and age of the distracted consumer, I thought advertising was having to work harder and be more clever to engage customers.

Apparently not in McDonald’s case!

At least the PR people seem to have thought about it a bit and gone with associating smoothies and McDonald’s healthy ingredients with the Games through various campaigns…

Bloom Energy launched today to much fanfare and business celebrity attendance…Arnold Schwarzenegger, Colin Powell, Larry Page were all their amongst others.

Bloom Energy produce tiny fuel cells, each about the size of a brick, that convert fuel into electricity.  They are basically filled with sand, can convert fuel at twice the rate of legacy technologies, are situated onsite so avoid distribution losses and are also capable of energy generation and storage.

Sounds too good to be true doesn’t it?

One fuel cell produces 25 watts, and a stack would be enough to power an average  U.S. home, and with the fuel source incorporated would create a unit the size of a fridge.

Here’s an animation explaining how it works..

Cost is the big issue for now.  At $700K per Bloom Box, households are hardly going to flood forward.  However,  founder KR Sridhar reckons they will be down to $3K within a 5-10 year timeframe and that there will be one in every US home.

Ebay, as well as Google and Walmart, have been testing them and they claim to have saved $100K in fuel costs in the last 9 months.

So I hope its good and true!

Is this finally a viable energy alternative?

Every year, I look forward to Boston Restaurant Week, as it’s a great chance to try the exciting eateries Boston has to offer at a lower cost.  Typically offered twice a year, the winter promotions will be taking place from March 14-19 and March 21-26, 2010.  Restaurants offer prix fixe menus for both lunch and dinner.  Two course lunches cost only $15.10, while three course lunches cost $20.10 and three course dinners cost $33.10.  Being an avid food and wine connoisseur, I simply cannot pass up these offers!

As a public relations professional, I enjoy examining how Restaurant Week is promoted to the community.  Since the social media boom, Twitter and Facebook have become the mediums of choice for restaurants to promote their menus and offerings.   Through social media, companies are able to reach a wider audience to generate business, not having to rely on word of mouth alone.  Since most consumers spend hours behind the computer, social media sites such as Twitter and Facebook make it easy to interact with the restaurants and chefs to find out which Restaurant Week menu suits them best. 

So which Restaurant Week destination will you pick?  Visit the Insider’s Guide to browse menus by Boston neighborhood.

After hearing about this supposed “next big thing” called Chatroulette on the radio the other morning, I had to check it out for myself.  Chatroulette is a brand new service for one-on-one text-, webcam- and microphone-based chat with people around the world.  The site was created just a few months ago by Russian teenager, Andrey Ternovskiy.  A recent New York Times article calls it surreal, unnerving, and distasteful, yet, at the same time, enthralling.

Though not brave enough to try the latest fad myself, it’s not hard to gather what happens.  Essentially, you’re thrown into a game in which the site scans the thousands of newcomers joining each day for you to chat with.  Don’t like your result?  Just hit next and you move on to the next stranger.  Don’t worry though, you won’t be chatting by just going to the URL, you have to first click “play.”

The user interface (UI) is quite simple with just a chat box and a video screen for yourself and your partner with boxes that appear as you scroll over, allowing you to select if you would like to receive video or not.  You can see in the top right hand corner that when I went to the site, there were already some 20,000 people using it at that moment all over the world.

While this may be an interesting way for people to generate conversations out of thin air, I can’t help but think that many users are in it for the “shock and awe” factor, especially with several sources saying “nudity is hard to avoid.”  So, with that in mind, perhaps it’s just shockingly awful.  And while inappropriate usage is specifically not tolerated, as outlined in Chatroulette’s terms of service (below), one has to wonder how much good that one bullet point actually does.  Additionally, with many Chatroulette episodes now being broadcast on YouTube, does this raise greater privacy concerns?  …but what is privacy these days anyway, besides harder and harder to protect and maintain?

Terms of Service:

• You have to be at least 16 years old to use our service
• Chatroulette does not tolerate broadcasting obscene, offending, pornographic material and we will have to block users who violate these rules from using our service
• Please use “Report inappropriate video” link to notify us about inappropriate content and we will take necessary steps
• Everything supplied by the user you are connected with is not property of Chatroulette, and therefore Chatroulette is not responsible for what you will find.
• By using Chatroulette you agree to our Terms of Service.

It will be interesting to see how this grows, evolves, or dies over the next few weeks, months, years… but for now, if you’re brave enough, play the game and let me know how you fair.

Mistakes get made when the pace of the day-to-day reaches uncomfortable speeds and today is no different than 10 years ago in terms of blow back. Case in point, I offer last week’s Computerworld slam on a disgraced former contributor:

Editor’s note: The person quoted in this story as “Craig Barth” is actually Randall C. Kennedy, an InfoWorld contributor. Kennedy, who presented himself as the CTO of Devil Mountain Software, no longer works at InfoWorld. Given that he disguised his identity to Computerworld and a number of other publications, the credibility of Kennedy’s statements is called into question. Rather than simply remove stories in which he is quoted, we have left them online so readers can weigh his data and conclusions for themselves.

Weather this was a misguided public relations tactic or not is unclear and not really the point. Transparency is the point and as a case study into why this is important I present the following.

Further media reports highlight the importance of strategic communications thinking before engaging publics (or stakeholders in any form). Here is some good reading by well respected journalists to highlight this point (note the reader participation of these articles).

Wall Street Journal’s Nick Wingfield, February 22, 2010

IT Business Edge’s Don Tennant, February 22, 2010

Tom’s Hardwar’s Tom Yam, February 22, 2010

ZDNet’s Larry Dignan, February 21, 2010

eWEEK’s  Nicholas Kolakowski, February 20, 2010

Is social media creating problems with interpersonal communications?  After reading an article in Network World today, I’m beginning to wonder.

According to research conducted by UK- based discount code website, MyVoucherCodes, 25% of women surveyed would dump their partner for Facebook flirting, while 19% of the men polled would do the same.  But what counts as “Facebook flirting?” Tending to a cute guy’s sheep in FarmVille?  Hooking a lady friend up with some ammo in Mafia Wars?

And let’s not forget about Twitter too.  22% of women and 17% of men would kick their partner to the curb for sending saucy messages to their Tweethearts.

The research also concluded that a majority of Brits found flirting via email to be worse than explicit text messages, flirty Facebooking or tacky tweeting.

As if men and women didn’t have enough problems to worry about in a relationship, now we have to worry about crossing the “cheating” barriers with social media.  Just be cautious and practice safe social networking!  (That doesn’t mean hacking in to your boyfriend’s Facebook account to see who he’s poked recently.)

If you follow PR professionals on Twitter, you have probably seen a ton of tweets this week about “HAPPO.” HAPPO, which stands for Help a PR Pro Out, is an event taking place on Twitter today from 11 a.m. – 3 p.m. EST. The main goal of this event is to connect job seekers with companies and agencies looking for talented PR pros.

If you are a job seeker, put together a creative blog post, pitching yourself to prospective employers and share it on Twitter by using the hashtag #HAPPO. Other PR pros that see your tweet will help you out by retweeting and connecting you with companies that are a good fit for you.

For employers looking for their next PR rockstar, you can tweet your job openings using the hashtag #HAPPO along with a regional hashtag. HAPPO will spread the word throughout the community and help you find the perfect match for your opening.

I think HAPPO is a great idea and it’s encouraging to see that people in the PR industry are willing to help each other out. In today’s economy, it is even more difficult to find your dream job and this event is the perfect way to bring people together.

March PR is currently looking for a talented account executive with 2-3 years of tech PR agency experience. We will be keeping an eye out today for HAPPO tweets, maybe it will help us find the newest member of our team!  If you are interested in finding out more about our position, email Liz@Marchpr.com.

As I noted in my post last week, To Blog or Not To Blog? Join The Conversation!, actively participating in social media, like blogging, is hard work that takes time and resources.  And, guess what?  Twitter is no different.

In a recent Wall Street Journal article, How to Channel Your Twitter Voice, Diana Ransom states this perfectly, noting that “for all the benefits social networking delivers — simple, inexpensive and viral — it’s also time consuming. And if you’re not prepared to devote a sizable portion of your day, or, at least, ask an employee to step up, aimlessly participating in social networks can quickly become deflating.”

According to some recent data from comScore, 75 million people visited Twitter in January of this year.  So with all those people potentially listening to what you have to say, wouldn’t it be best to tweet wisely?

So, assuming you have the time to devote to social networks, like Twitter, how should you proceed?  Diana Ransom notes that companies embarking on this venture should:

• Set company goals
• Listen to customers
• Make contact
• Produce content
• Voice sincerity

Her points about listening and producing content go hand-in-hand with what I’ve said many times – the key to social media is balancing observation with participation.  How will you know what to say if you’re not listening to what your key markets, fellow industry members, and consumers are saying and looking for?  But once you’ve established your niche, not trying to be everything to everyone, and know what to contribute, making your contributions interactive by adding links, pictures, or video has shown to generate more of a following.

Many more helpful articles about how best to use Twitter may be found on our Social Media Tool Academy page, so check it out and start tweeting!