Friday Roundup 16th May 2008

The entertaining intertwines the informative this week.

David Meerman Scott gets a kick out of a press release instructing him to do nothing with the information! Ben Matthews identifies two rather spookily engaging vides "The Day There Was No News"... perhaps of a world without public relations officers feeding the news corps?! And for those Twitterers amongst you, Andrew Smith highlights the different Twitter personality types.

Hamish Thompson's post makes good reading for any politician or communications officer looking to explain away something or other they'd rather they didn't have to explain away. And Brian Solis walks you through the evolution of the press release, right up to its latest incarnation.

Best regards, Andrew and the MarCom Professional team.

The dumbest Public Relations person in the world?

by David Meerman Scott of David Meerman Scott

Readers of this blog know that I get hundreds of unsolicited press releases and PR pitches every week. I'm on a bunch of lists because of this blog, my books, and the magazines I write for. Ugh.

I've said before that almost all the crap I get from PR agencies is spam: A broadcast email message sent to a huge number of journalists with the hope that some poor sucker on deadline and will give in and write.

- No, I do not want to buy Viag*ra.

- No, I do not care one bit about the press release announcing version 3.1 (beta) of your flexible, scalable, mission-critical, next generation product. More...

"Twelve Thirty Eight TV"

by Hamish Thompson of Twelve Thirty Eight Ltd

This is the first of what will be a series of short films that examine the changing shape of the British media.

We intend to cover many perspectives, and I’m delighted that our first interviewee is Harry Wallop, the consumer affairs correspondent at the Daily Telegraph.

Harry has packed a lot into what is still a relatively short career, having been a business reporter at both the Telegraph and the Investors’ Chronicle. He recently won a prestigious industry award for his reporting and is rapidly building a reputation as one Britain’s leading consumer affairs journalists. More...

TechCrunch: The Evolution of Press Releases

by Brian Solis of PR 2.0

Thank you to Erick Schonfeld and Michael Arrington for giving me the opportunity share my vision, and experience, on the evolution of the press release on TechCrunch.

There's certainly no shortage of opinions on where we are and where we need to be in order to improve the working relationships between PR and bloggers, journalists, and analysts and the brands we ultimately represent - including our own.

There are just better ways to share information, and hopefully, this post helps you.

Press releases come in different flavors and serve different purposes. More...

The S word

by Hamish Thompson of Twelve Thirty Eight Ltd

Perhaps it’s why we have one of the most adversarial fourth estates in the world: politicians of all persuasions just won’t say in crystal clear terms that they’re wrong when they’re wrong. There’s always some nuance in the language, some exit clause. It’s immensely frustrating to reporters, no doubt, and no less so to listeners and readers. A clear acceptance of error, an explanation – however codified - and a description of the route-map to fixing the problem has always been an effective way of moving on and taking the wind out of the sails of the critics. More...

Which Twitter personality type are you?

by Andrew Smith of escherman

An absolutely fabulous post by Pete Blackshaw over at ClickZ on the different personality types emerging in Twitterland. He uses the device of imagining what Niccolò Machiavelli would think of today’s Twitters. For example:

FlackSmackers. These are journalists or high-reach bloggers who use Twitter to publicly complain — nay, groan — about lame PR or shill-induced pitches. Machiavelli cites Brian Morrissey of Adweek, for example, as someone who’s on a “hair twitter” More...

Imagine the brains of your readers and wonder what they make of your web site

by Graham Jones of Internet Psychology

Your web site visitors can be manipulated. Indeed, successful web sites do this with great care. They lure you in, almost hypnotically, and get you to do whatever it is they want, such as buy something from them.

Copywriting expert Joe Vitale is the pioneer of "hypnotic writing" in which he suggests the use of words to help "hypnotise" your readers into doing your bidding. Imagine that - being able to get your web site readers to do whatever it is you want.

True enough, the words are important, but the "whole package" More...

The Day There Was No News

by Ben Matthews of Pudding Relations

This video, using the new Flickr video service, is doing the rounds at the moment, and it's really rather good.

The comments below the video reveal mixed emotions - relief, sadness, amazement, creepy.

Though as I'm working in PR, I'm sure that we could find a way to hijack it and get our clients some coverage out of it!

Adam Buxton did a similar video about a year ago, proving that no news is actually news: More...

MicroPR Personalizes PR

by Brian Solis of PR 2.0

New media is forcing the rapid evolution of communications and is reinventing the science of public relations into the art of “personalized” relations. And, with micromedia further refining and improving how we communicate with each other, PR is going to learn the hard way, that the days of blasts and untargeted spam pitching will get us nowhere with today’s influencers.

Stowe Boyd placed a stake in the ground during the Web 2.0 Expo with the introduction of #TwitPitch, a very streamlined way for using Twitter to simplify the process of booking briefings with companies during the show. More...

The unconference that 'Shined' on us all

by Ben Matthews of Pudding Relations

In case you missed it, the SHINE Unconference took place over the weekend. I blogged it where I could, but just found the sessions to be too engaging to really take the time and write it up in-depth.

Instead, I'll point you towards shine.socialreporter.net where a team of bloggers covered the event properly, a Qik event page with lots of glorious video, and a Flickr set with all its photographic goodness - including this one of me pitching my social enterprise idea to a crowded room:

Meanwhile, over on UnltdWorld - the social network for social entreprenuers - those who attended were asked for feedback on the event: More...

Does Harvard Business School know what a blog is?

by David Meerman Scott of David Meerman Scott

My friend Ron Miller points me to an open job at Harvard Business School Publishing posted on Craig's List. The part-time job is for a Freelance Blog Editor.

To paraphrase from the about page, Harvard Business School Publishing (HBSP) is a not-for-profit, wholly-owned subsidiary of Harvard University serving as a bridge between academia and enterprises around the globe through its publications such as the Harvard Business Review magazine.

The first paragraph of the job description seems innocent enough: More...

How central is user testing to your business?

by Graham Jones of Internet Psychology

Experts in "usability" gathered in London today to discuss several issues surrounding this topic. The meeting had been called by TechSmith, the producers of Morae the leading usability testing software.

It became apparent during the discussions that usability testing is often seen as something that is performed at the end of the development of a web site. Businesses often perceive usability testing as some kind of process driven function that merely works out if the buttons are the right colour or the sign up box is in the right place. More...

A Rolling Stone gathers no location based information

by Philip Sheldrake of Racepoint Group UK

I met Ronnie Wood this week. He sat down next to me in a bar and bought me a drink. That ranks him in my book as a very nice chap. And I got a 90 minute window into living life as a globally famous rock star, an insight that confirmed my relief, as if the situation could be otherwise, that I'm not a 'celebrity'...

"Is that Ronnie Wood? Ronnie Wood? Rolling Stones? Ronnie Wood?"
"I don't believe it... is that really you? We're big fans of......"
"I've got all your albums." More...