An open invitation to Dominic Jones

In the interest of accuracy, I have removed an item I posted last night that cited several passages from Reg FD. I’m sure it can be found in a cache, but if it’s inaccurate, I don’t want it here suggesting otherwise. I posted the item in an attempt to clarify rules about disclosure. I carefully read the regulation and did my best to cite the relevant passages. However, I am by no means an investor relations expert—never claimed I was—and IR expert Dominic Jones informed me in comments that I had it wrong. Specifically, he said:

What the…!? Please stop writing about this, you???re making a fool of yourself.

Well, okay. Not like that’s… Read More »

Life for the traditional press release

While I’ve been defending the idea of the social media press release, Jeremy Pepper reminds us that the traditional press release still has legs.

I knew this, but Jeremy’s point hadn’t occurred to me. On his always thought-provoking blog, Jeremy writes:

What people don’t get—especially non-PR people—is that, oh, the majority of PR is done at the local level, where people don’t care about blogs or RSS. The local level is done with a press release—sometimes sent over the wire, often not sent over the wire—and done with one-on-one contact.

There are other reasons to keep the traditional press release at the ready. Trade publications… Read More »

Transparency key to Shift’s win

Shift Communications, home to social media advocate Todd Defren, was named agency of record for Novell, largely on the strength of Shift’s well-documented social media chops.

Social media like blogs can help make decision-making processes that were once conducted behind closed doors more visible to audiences like industry analysts. It was those analysts who questioned Novell’s direction, leading to CEO Jack Messman’s departure. Since then, according to a PRWeek story, Novell has worked to “highlight its position as a transparent public company.”

Several Novell blogs are at the forefront of the effort. Shift also helped craft one of its… Read More »

Our own insultated little world

Many corporate communication departments operate in a silo. They take instructions from above and perform environmental scans, and prepare communications to address needs coming from both directions. This model worked fine when all messages between a company and its publics were filtered through the communications department.

In the era of social computing, however, employees are in direct contact with customers (take a look at my previous post as an example: Microsoft developer Dean Hachamovich responded directly to my complaint about a glitch in IE7, and I’ll bet he didn’t clear it with PR first). Remaining blissfully unaware of the… Read More »

The web, customer service, and your company’s reputation

Nobody interacts on a more regular basis with your customers than your customer service staff. A great customer service experience will overcome the worst media campaign. Horrible customer service (which many customers believe is the norm for most companies they deal with) will undermine the most expensive and well-planned PR effort. With the growth of social media and consumer generated content, it has become easier for customers to take their customer service complaints to a much wider audience.

Yet I have not seen a single company make an effort to align customer service and communications.

Steve Rubel points to a New York Times… Read More »

Cost-avoidance as a PR measurement

Earlier this month, I reported on coverage of a Kansas City councilwoman’s dismay that the city had spent $2 million on public relations. My point, based on my reading of the Kansas City Star article, was that the PR industry has done a lousy job of explaining its value. As a result, nobody is surprised when people like Councilwoman Becky Nace express outrage that civic funds would be invested in such a clearly worthless activity. The money, she suggests, could have been better spent elsewhere.

John Wagner (whose blog is on my must-read list) thinks Councilwoman Nace’s objection may not be to the PR activities per se, but rather to the… Read More »

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