The alternative to PR 'spam'

There's been lots of chat over this long weekend about PR people "spamming" bloggers and journalists with press releases. The kick-off to this was the decision by Gina Trapani of Lifehacker.com to blacklist PR companies because they sent press releases to her personal email, rather than to a specific address at Lifehacker.com Gina has chosen to blacklist whole domains (i.e. stopping emails from the entire company) rather than individuals as Chris Anderson, editor of Wired did.

I panicked when I saw this because only a day or two before I had sent a story pitch to Lifehacker on behalf of a client. I checked the blacklist and I wasn't on it; going back to my email client I could see that luckily I had sent it to the 'right' address.

However, if I had the option, I would have sent it to Gina Trapani on the basis that if it wasn't right for her she would send it on to the other journalists. I did this on the assumption that that's what an editor does.

On the whole, I can appreciate her frustration and to some extent her reaction. But the incident underlines that the rules are changing for both sides. Bloggers, journalists and blogger-journalists also have a duty to make it clear what they will and will not accept and how they will accept it.

I have more or less dropped buying in mailing lists from the usual suspects. That means I have to do a lot of research to hand-pick the right journalists and their publications. Generally that means ringing up beforehand to ask if they want to be part of a mailing list. It is hard and time-consuming work and I don't charge anything more than a flat rate for it because I see it as an investment in my business and my clients' business.

That experience has made me realise how poor most magazine and newspaper web sites are in dealing with their own relations. Few give a clear idea who edits the publication, what they are looking for, their deadlines, upcoming features etc. (Mind you, if I want advertising I have to beat them off with a shitty stick...). No wonder that PR people use mailing lists from Cision and PRNewswire.

On a wiki page Gina gives detailed instructions on how to set up a filter to stop unsolicited emails from PR companies. Perhaps her time would have been better spent setting up an automated response telling PR companies that they should really be sending their releases to the other email address and giving more detailed information on the web page.

Are you a Poet or a Plumber?

Just back from the launch of Poets and Plumbers in Vanløse Bio in Copenhagen where 250 people met up to hear about a new initiative to get the classic and on-line marketing world to understand each other and work closer together. (Disclosure: one of my business partners is one of the founders).

Bringing together the Poets (brands, storytelling, visuals) with the Plumbers (data, processes and ROI) in an online/real world connected way is a great idea.

The presentations and ideas were excellent nearly all round. Two things stood out for me though: that the emphasis is on Poets becoming more Plumber-like and that there wasn't enough emphasis on listening to consumers.

To take the first. For a few years, I've been a member of 26, a group of business writers who have the goal of bringing more creativity into the workplace. That has shown me that even Plumbers can be Poets - I'd like to see more people recognise and work with that. We need to narrow the understanding gap from both sides.

Secondly, there was too much mention of terms such as "online mass media" and "online channels". Despite the fact that many presenters talked about engagement and involvement, not one of them mentioned ways of how to listen. Too much of the talk from Plumbers was about getting people to the shop - instead of getting the shop to the people.

In the context of the general high quality of the event these are minor points perhaps. But when Poets and Plumbers  come together they need to really grasp the idea that the internet is a collection of linked human beings not "demographics" or "users".

The subject of objectivity

Objectivity and its implications for ethics in the PR and journalism communities is an issue at the moment and has been neatly covered by Peter Brill at Net.Mentor.

Ethics seems to be one of the new battlegrounds in the media industry. While PR and journalism have always had a love hate relationship, it seems to me that things have been worsened by the advent of social media. It was easier when you were defined by which side of the publishing fence you were on, although as Peter describes there has always been that grey area in trade/business to business publications.

But now, PR professionals and journalists are meant to be all things to all men and also have to compete with all men when it comes to breaking news, spreading news and having an opinion about. It's difficult to feel sure about yourself when the basis for your existence starts dissolving. The results?

• Established media pour scorn on bloggers and social media sites for their lack of professional rigour and pandering to the lowest common denominator
• Bloggers ridicule PR people for treating them like a 'channel' and publish their names to shame them
• Bloggers condescendingly refer to the 'msm' (mainstream media)
• Traditional PR people ridicule those who are experimenting with and even developed social media tools
for drinking too much 'Kool-Aid'.
• 'New' PR people can't quite seem to work out whether they are in PR, marketing or advertising and are trying to grab as much territory as possible to make sure they don't get overrun by the departments with the big budgets.

All in all it could be pretty depressing - I for one have a foot in all these camps and I know others as well. After years of knowing what to do and how to do it, its hard to be confronted every other week with a new idea you have to take a position on. But, you know what? I think it is pretty exciting. We are on a moving escalator and no amount of whinging or complaining or disagreeing is going to stop the escalator. (Although sometimes it is difficult to see whether it's going up or down).

I'm not depressed because I try and look for the wood and not the trees. I have a sneaking sympathy for all sides. So until things change again I'll carry a newspaper because it is still the ultimate format for readability and portability, I'll keep a tag on my industries through trade mags and the growing number of web sites that complement them, I'll post on forums, receive messages on email subscription lists, follow my friends on Facebook, keep tabs on my professional life through LinkedIn, read opinions on blogs fed to my RSS reader and use Twitter and Jaiku because I might need to know about them in the future.

Despite their differences, most people in these various camps, despite what their detractors say and what they say about others, are not looking for what's best, but what works. That can only be positive.

Skype investor buys Danish free paper

Slightly batty Danish IT investor Morten Lund has taken over control of the Danish free newspaper Nyhedsavisen (Newspaper in English). The Danish media have reported the story with a mixture of amazement - the paper has made a loss since it launched in October 2006 - and glee. The glee of course coming from the fact that one of the many upstarts in their business is losing money faster than they are - slightly faster anyway.

But hang on. While Morten gives the impression of being slightly disorganized in his blog writing he has made some shrewd decisions over the years about where to put his money (such as being an early investor in Skype). He has a thoroughly good grounding in the workings of advertising, media and the internet that could stand Nyhedsavisen in good stead.

While most reporters have focused on Morten buying a newspaper, it'll be interesting to see how much paper is actually involved. I'd take a bet that what he has actually bought is a content platform that spans the virtual and the real worlds.

Morten Lund køber Nyhedsavisen - Medier & reklame

Taking web experiences into the social sphere

Just kicked off a very exciting web project with the International Business programme at Copenhagen Business School. What started off as a web writing project is developing into something a bit special.
Copenhagen Business School is one of the leading business schools in Europe, but hasn't always had the awareness it deserves. So, together with a group of present students, I'm working on polishing up the web site so it can attract the attention of future students.
From the initial chats we quickly decided that instead of just brushing up the copy we would try and incorporate external blogs, social bookmarking, linking and all sorts of web 2.o bits and pieces to give an idea of the life of students.
The CMS the site uses is a bit restrictive - but has a nice right-hand column that we can use to tuck away bits of code and links off the main site.
The idea is that the main site will carry much of the information needed about studying at Copenhagen Business School, while the outside links will be about the 'experience'.

Just so we don't get too cocky...

... and just to prove my point

Morten Lund (who will forever be known as a Skype investor although he does other things) has blogged this. It is a web service that sits on the end of a PDF workflow and converts the files into a virtual book or magazine that is searchable by Google
http://www.pagegangster.com/

Now if you can just combine this with a feed into the local digital printer who can rattle you off a copy and post it to your home address...