Used to be when you did a speech and bombed the fallout was largely contained with the audience in front of you. Thanks to blogs the reach of a failed effort can be extended and intensified before you can say get out of town. Ask the PR folks at Yahoo who look to be containing damage from a failed speaking effort at EG2006. Valleywag, Gawker’s new Silicon Valley gossip blog, weighed in yesterday, reveling in Lloyd Braun’s performance and presumed run-in with Richard Saul Wurman. What’s more telling comes from USA Today’s tech lead, Kevin Maney. On his blog he called Braun out as being “exhausted, unprepared and seemingly clueless about the audience’s sophistication level.” Not the kind of stuff you’re used to seeing in print.

While this looks to be an extreme case in being under-prepared, execs should be forewarned that the coverage game tied to major conferences has changed big time. Beyond back channel conversations shared between participants, proceedings are covered as a matter of course through mainstream media blogs reaching audiences far beyond the confines of the conference sites. For better or worse, these days when you hit the stage the world could literally be watching.

Technorati Tags: Blogs, EG2006, PR, crisis management, social media

I’ve been talking a lot about intangibles tied to our evolving communications business with Chris Terry, a colleague here at the agency. More specifically, we’ve gotten into how risk fits into the equation.

You know the concept behind investor profiles – where you determine how risk averse or risk tolerant you are that leads to decisions that keep you in your comfort zone. Financial analysts take the concept a step further. They discuss the relative price volatility of stocks in terms of its “beta”, or how much share price moves in the market relative to the market overall. The concept is just as simple: the greater the beta, the greater the risk and potential reward. What does this have to do with the communications business? These days, everything. Embracing calculated risk is a centerpiece of our industry’s “2.0” evolution.

Risk is a discussion point in heavy rotation these days, especially in marketing and media circles. That we’re entering an unprecedented time of change is well understood. But understanding change is one thing; acting is a different story. Acting requires the need to step out of comfort zones, challenge conventional wisdom and approach assignments with a very open mind.

If we want to succeed in delivering big ideas and meaningful programs to clients looking to break past the herd, forget the status quo. We’re needed, even if not always expected, to deliver a higher level of creativity than ever before – and do so without roadmaps, compasses or even the moss on the trees that pointed true North to the best practices of yesteryear.

Technorati Tags: creativity, new media; PR 2.0

Mark Glaser is blogging about the digital media revolution on PBS.org. Good stuff.

There is a growing consensus among marketing prognosticators that companies must to think more like media companies to effectively reach consumers and key constituents. While it hasn’t reach a critical mass, the rise of blogs, podcasts and other branded content, coupled with the ability to offer this content easily, inexpensively and directly to consumers, makes this movement inevitable. Steve Rubel has a couple posts on the topic to check out – one that debates how soon “created media” will trump “earned media” and another today which suggests iTunes will put broadcast media bureaus out of business. Two good write-ups on the need to think like a broadcaster come include Mike Manuel’s PR 2.0 post as well as Randall Rothenberg’s New Year’s resolution.

BusinessWeek extended its blog beat to now cover automotive. Called The Auto Beat, the blog includes posts from leading BW auto writers including David Kiley and David Welch.  The idea of collaborative blogs written by mainstream media is an ongoing trend to address – especially when the content differs so significantly from traditional stories written by the same journalists.  We may get it, but we need to make sure executives understand how raw commentary may appear in reporter blog posts versus print or broadcast pieces.

Look for Ad Age’s selection of its 2005 Marketer of the Year (P&G) to trigger a wave of coverage, and hopefully action, around the need for marketers and communicators to embrace social marketing and personal media. Randall Rothenberg’s column captures the opportunity and necessity for marketers to think more like media companies. No matter their core field, he claims all companies will have to have expertise in two businesses: their own and the media business. His take for CMO’s in 2006: experiment or else. The good news, it can be an inexpensive proposition to get in the game. The bad, it will require radically different thinking from those entrenched in existing ways of doing business. Old habits die hard.

Technorati Tags: Social Media, Social Marketing

Issues tied to transparency, authenticity and reputation management are becoming more significant for marketers, brought to life through recent commentary, marketing programs, blogs and attempts at measurement.

If you haven’t read, Gawker launched The Consumerist, a blog that promises to help shoppers bite back against “shoddy products, inhumane customer support, and half-assed service.” Given Gawker’s prominence in the blogging community as well as the biting commentary that drives its appeal it should be a scary place for products and brands that don’t deliver the goods.

Modern Marketing posted today on Mozilla’s call for consumer testimonials on Firefox 1.5 – referring to the effort as “Open Mike” branding.” The blog raises the question all corporate executives and marketers should now ask themselves – what would people really say if you gave them a video camera and asked them to say exactly what they thought, without any censorship or direction, about your product or service? Time will come soon when consumers force that question to be answered, especially as more Consumerist-like sites and Dell-Hell bloggers enter the fray.

Speaking of Dell-Hell, a group out of the UK developed a whitepaper showing how Jeff Jarvis’s relentless ranting on Buzzmachine was influential in shaping impressions of Dell’s customer support. While determining the impact of blogging on brands and reputations is an admirable call, Jarvis and others are questioning the validity of this group’s work, including The Consumerist in a post tonight.

Technorati Tags: Blogs, Social Media, Open Source Marketing, Reputation Management, PR

Emphraim Schwartz, tech writer and editor-at-large for InfoWorld, questions whether Citizen Journalists will put him out of a job. On one hand, engineers and insiders now have the means to displace the work of journalists like himself that cover the tech sector. On the other hand, he and his brethren are counted on to listen to both sides and present the facts, without an axe to grind. He warns that without this objective view, we are traveling down a dangerous path in fully embracing what citizen journalists bring to the table. His assessment of embracing objective commentary is right on, but it’s a questionable call to say professional journalists are the sole arbiters in presenting both sides of a story.
Technorati Tags: Blogs, Social Media

Bob Garfield, Ad Age Columnist, spoke last night at Ball State , proclaiming the end of media as we know it. Garfield ’s idea of a “chaos scenario,” presented earlier this year, says that the media as it exists is headed for extinction due to a fragmented audience and a significant loss of advertising dollars. He further notes that as advertisers look for new outlets to spend their money, small specialized operations will become the dominant forces in media. The Ball State Daily News covered his lecture and mentioned his book, under the same title. If a book is in the works, enter a controversial stance to prime the pump for sales. That said, looking at how web-based news, blogs and RSS have come to the forefront at such a rapid rate, it’s hard to say what media will look like, or whether it will even exist in its current form, in the near future.

Technorati Tags: Blogs, Social Media, RSS, Media

Cyber Monday a myth? Random Culture and Fast Company’s blog comment on the myth and marketing of Cyber Monday, a creation of Shop.org to create some excitement beyond Black Friday.

Flash mobs makes a comeback on Black Friday. PFSK links to the blog documenting the “freaks” who turned Wal-Mart, and later Target, into a dance hall.

Million Dollar home page becoming just that. The creator, Alex Tew, sells advertising by the pixel. He divides a computer display screen in 10,000 squares selling advertising by the pixel at $1 per pixel (100 pixel minimum). Brand Autopsy highlights current results – $ $712,000+ in advertising and 600,000 to 700,000 hits per month.

Colleges promoting anti-social behavior. Dan Pink writes about a NY Times piece on the emergence, and significance, of video game majors at Carnegie Mellon and Georgia Tech.

Banned X-Box Ad Making the Rounds. Screenhead links to a recent Xbox 360 Ad, called entitled Stand Off, now circulating online.

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Technorati Tags: Blogs, Social Media, Public Relations, Contagious Media, Video Games, Flash Mobs, Marketing