My last “grab bag” showcased donut drama. No such alliteration (or glaze) in today’s segment. Behind the Op-Ed Curtain at The New York Times I’ve touched on this area before. Landing an op-ed in a heavyweight target like The New York Times requires crisp and clever storytelling. I just stumbled across a column in The …more
There’s often a gap, no make that a huge gap, between what the media values and what the PR function “sells.” It’s no wonder the relationship between journalists and communicators can border on contentious at times. In the graphic below, you can see two variables that go a long way toward aligning with the media’s …more
Ask 10 people to define buzz and you’ll get seven different answers. Three people will say, “I know it when I see it.” It’s easy to quantify a YouTube video by the number of views. It’s straightforward to quantify a blog through the underlying analytics. But how do you quantify buzz for a company, especially …more
The underpinnings of any social network revolve around the interactions. By personalizing those interactions, we share a little about ourselves and make connections. For all the things that are great about LinkedIn – there are plenty, not the least being pulling other social feeds into one’s profile – it defies logic that LinkedIn encourages impersonal …more
Goldman Sachs just turned to Richard Siewert, Jr., former counsel to Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, to take the public relations reins. Obviously, Goldman Sachs felt something had to change. But they had no way of knowing the firm’s tarnished image would morph into a full-blown crisis. That’s what happened yesterday when Greg Smith’s op-ed, “Why …more
We’ve touched on how Apple has shaped a master/servant relationship with the media. More than a master of storytelling, Steve Jobs carefully controlled “supply” to ensure media “demand” was always there. This communications foundation has served Apple well over years. Which brings me to the question posed in the headline: Does the potential wrath of …more
Thanks to cloud computing, social media, the app ecosystem and 3-D printing to name a few, the barriers to bring new consumer products to market keep getting lower and lower. For the most part, democratizing the act of inventing and allowing more ideas to see the light of day is a good thing. I think …more
In facilitating a branding workshop last week, it suddenly struck me. One of the great myths of branding is the big guys get it right. Thanks to their ample war chests, they can hire the smartest people, maintain an endless flow of M&Ms during focus groups and stockpile creative types. It’s just not true. Worse, …more
