“Innovation? nah, we only cover the Establishment”

Just about every week, I regret my decision to leave journalism. Although my bank manager may disagree, few jobs are more fulfilling. Getting paid to write pretty much what you think (as opposed to blogging it for free) has to be one of the greatest pleasures known to man. Writing press releases about Tiger Woods is not.

Being a technology journalist in the UK is even better. Most news announcements are dropped late-afternoon (which is 08.00 Silicon Valley time), US press trips allow for shopping and there are plenty of suppliers willing to loan you the latest smartphones and netbooks. Incredibly, despite this, most of the UK’s fourth estate do not behave as badly as the ultra-contrite System Integrator’s former favourite golfer. Most ask the odd impertinent question, doubt every word of every press release and do a great job keeping the IT buyers of the UK informed about the latest developments in an industry which is vital to this non-manufacturing economy.

Last week however, one of my erstwhile colleagues made me doubt why he and I worked in the same industry. On pitching a perfectly solid customer story, which will shortly appear on a rival (much more widely-seen Website) I was emailed the following:

“We only really talk to execs from the biggest vendors due to their influence.”.

A bad point poorly argued, you might think, but there was more:

“..if something changes at Microsoft, for example, it is going to affect a lot more businesses than if a smaller player does“.

Staggering by this crassness, I briefly wondered if I was corresponding with a writer in the insurance or pension funds market, not the innovation-rich industry I have worked in for two decades. This is the sort of unabashed small-mindedness that presumably ruled at IBM as a fresh-faced Bill Gates left the building with a smile and contract for MSDOS. Lazy thinking like this would have been welcome in the heyday of Enron, Worldcom, or latterly AOL. Thinking like this means Status Quo get medals.

In short, I despaired for the profession I love and wondered how this individual, who for now will remain nameless, gained employment as a hack, a newshound, an uncoverer of scams and trends and well, news. I wondered why someone prepared only to be spoon-fed by companies whose press releases are literally broadcast, would bother to show up at their keyboard each day. Then, I sunk to the depths and realised, that such individuals would not even make PR executives. The horror.

Then it struck me. I realised I had never read a single article by this writer. Now I knew why. So, fortified by this thought, I carried on with my day job, publicising some of the most entrepreneurial, innovative and newsworthy clients in the technology field.

When Loyalty goes wrong

As part of our New Business process here at Positive we deploy a novel communication technique; the phone. Having read that calling prospects is so ‘over’, now that we have blogs and social media, it is great to know that less people will be doing this, as this direct feedback will become a yet more valuable resource, held only by those who can be bothered to pick up the phone.

The difficulty with speaking to prospective customers during their working day though is they do not always appreciate the call. But with a relevant offer, much politeness and a modicum of technique, there is no better way for you to survey the market for your services.

Often however they have a rival company already providing it. This is good, because trying to persuade a decision maker to buy a marketing service for the first time is seldom successful. It also reminds them to question ‘What has my PR company done for me lately?’ and it allows you to leap ahead of the other ‘for later use’ emails they have filed and blogs they have bookmarked. You have just raised your chances of being invited to any future repitches.

More frustrating though is when a decision-maker states that they do not know when they will ever review their agency. Having worked for, sold for, managed and repitched European PR networks, this is dumb. Expecting good service with this as a mindset, is the definition of insanity. Almost without exception, such responses demonstrate lazy-thinking and mask poor PR performance and a lack of understanding about what good communications is capable of.

SEO needed an explanation in 1999

Ten years ago life was different (see the 1999 Computer Weekly shot explaining SEO). Fax services were on PR bills (marked up by 17.25% – used or not), email systems were incompatible (a problem for IBM/Lotus Notes users) and there were maybe three times more IT titles. Five years ago, large PR conglomerates strutted around acquiring smaller tech PR shops for innovation, Twitter was not the communication channel de jour for the press and there was a smattering of IT stories (mainly IT disasters) trickling into the mainstream business press.

Today, PR and SEO is merging, press release distribution is almost free and poor IT can make you very famous very fast. A lot has changed, meaning the chances that the choice of ten years ago is still the best on the market is slim. This is something we shall remind all of our prospects in six month’s time, via the telephone.