Whatever...

All this spin is making me feel sick

By Joe Banks

What’s this? Another attack on PR as a vile example of everything that’s wrong in the modern world? Surely not…

Yes, this time it’s The Daily Telegraph having a go, highlighting the fact that ‘the Whitehall press machine’ now employs more than 3,200 PR staff, up from just over 300 in 1997 (when New Labour came to power). 

Hmmm, that is quite a lot, isn’t it?  And of course, it’s our taxes paying for all of this, you know!!  But really, so what?  Inefficiency within government is hardly a new story, and I’m sure this is just a drop in the ocean compared to the myriad committees, quangos and advisory boards that populate the back rooms of power.

No, what rankles is the way that, once again, PR has been singled out for a drubbing at the hands of the media.  The title of the Telegraph article screams ‘Spending on spin trebles under Blair’, but then goes on to clarify that this actually refers to the Central Office of Information's budget for PR, advertising and marketing - and as anybody in the industry will tell you, out of that particular holy trinity, PR is always very much the poor relation.  As the article even admits, ‘Much of the money has been spent on advertising flagship policies, including tax credits and extra help for pensioners’ - sorry, call me a fuddy duddy liberal, but what exactly is the problem with that?

It’s this constant use of the pejorative term ‘spin’ that really winds me up (no pun intended).  The impression given that every one of the 3,259 PRs that the Telegraph lambasts is some kind of evil genius hellbent on doing everything in their power to manipulate the media is frankly ludicrous (though excuse me while I remove these black leather gloves and get this Persian cat off my knee).

But according to a follow-on column from Julia Langdon in today’s Telegraph, ‘it is not the scale of the sums involved that make me mad, so much as the waste of the money in question’ (actually, shouldn’t that be ‘makes’, Julia?).  Ah, now we’re getting to the root of this constant griping against PRs - that basically, we don’t actually fulfil a useful function and in fact just prevent journalists from doing their job properly.

Well, knock me down with a feather…  I could go on at great length about this, but instead I’ll just restrict myself to this statement: the news media would grind to a halt tomorrow if all of us inconvenient PRs suddenly ceased to exist, particularly considering the way that journalism is increasingly conducted these days.  You might not like the symbiotic relationship that’s grown up between the two sides, but that’s the way it’s developed - and it hasn’t just been a one-way process.

Yes, the control freakery displayed by the current government has sometimes been pretty breathtaking - but political organisations through the ages have sought to control the messages they send out and the way they are perceived by the media.  Again, that’s just the way it is (and this of course goes for companies too). 

What I’m sick to death of is the way that ‘spin’ is used to tarnish the reputations of people simply trying to do their jobs and communicate with their audiences.  It’d be nice if, just for once, journalists stopped portraying us as ‘the dark side’, and ‘fessed up to the vital role that we play in their professional lives.

Read all about it – software killed the journalist star

By Andrew Chatterton

There has been a lot of debate on these pages recently discussing the rise of technology over people (Terminator 4: Rise Of The PR Machines/ PR is Dead, Part 63), and it appears that this continuing threat has now affected a profession that previously seemed untouchable…journalism!

The recent news of a US business information outfit replacing some of the tasks done by its journalists with computers will undoubtedly send shock waves across newsrooms throughout the country.  Financial journalists are first in the ‘firing line’ as new software can turn around an earnings story within 0.3 seconds of a company making its results public! 

This will surely be a threat to all journalists, not just financial hacks.  As software intelligence increases, it’s feasible that any type of press release could be turned into an article before you can say ‘copy and paste’.

Indeed could we see chief executives briefing some sophisticated software and a laptop over lunch at Claridges?  Newsrooms filled only with PCs and one techy to see to the needs of these next generation journalists?  Or maybe even software that has the ability to scan blogs and automatically turn them into news stories?  One for Charles Arthur to ponder on perhaps…

Thomson Financial, the company involved, stated to the FT that the technology

“…means we can free up reporters so they have more time to think”, what they are thinking about is not specified, but almost certainly involves what direction their new career path may now take.

Although not one to scaremonger, I think I’m right in saying that on other occasions when new technology has threatened jobs, riots have spread throughout the country, resulting in hundreds of people killed or injured.  Admittedly, the thought of journalists running through the streets with pitchforks and torches destroying technology – as the Luddites did during the Industrial Revolution – is a little far fetched (although having met some hacks, perhaps not unthinkable), but it is worth remembering the price of progress.

Thomson admits that for the moment the technology can only cope with fairly basic earnings reports and is therefore no real threat to journalists.  But I imagine something fairly similar was said to workers in the wool mills as the power looms were wheeled through the factory gates!

Vive la France!

By Carol Pender

Figures published recently by the French Association of Internet Access and Service Providers indicate that France has reached the ten million broadband subscribers target set by the Government a year ahead of schedule, far surpassing adoption rates experienced elsewhere in Europe.  With this broadband revolution has come an explosion in triple-play offers where high speed internet connections, TV and telephony services are provided for a single flat fee.  And with competition remaining healthy, this hi tech wonderland can be yours for as little as €29.99 a month.

Wow, where do I sign up?!  It sounds too good to be true!  And of course it is, at least for some 8,600 French subscribers who were incensed enough to complain in 2005 regarding everything from delivery, installation, finalising contracts, billing and of course customer service (France ain’t America…the phrase ‘Have a nice day ma’am’ does not translate!). Everyone in France knows at least one person who is unhappy with his or her triple-play service.  I, incidentally, know several.

A colleague’s sister has to choose between her LiveBox and her burglar alarm as the former keeps interfering with the latter.

After three months without internet access and a completely unsatisfactory response from Neuf Telecom’s customer service, a normally well-adjusted friend is pulling his hair out and threatening to go to court.

Yet another friend installed a Freebox with the annoying tendency of freezing at the most inconvenient moments.  What’s the point of watching a whodunit when the image freezes at exactly the moment you’re about to find out whodunit?

Service providers acknowledge these various problems and attribute them to unexpectedly high demand. Given that adoption rates multiplied by 20 between 2002 and 2006, I guess this is pretty understandable. And for all the complaining from numerous friends and acquaintances, not one of them is thinking of getting rid of their box (the alarm is being replaced by the way).

So a lot of huffing and puffing and then just getting on with it…a trait not unique to the French it has to be said.  I have to admit that the many horror stories haven’t put me off, as I too have succumbed to the lure of cheap, unlimited phone calls to friends and family at home in Ireland.  And as luck (of the Irish) would have it, my service quality is perfect.  Turns out I’m up the road from one of my provider’s transmitters.  I don’t know what all the fuss is about. 

Isn't it time to cut the NHS IT project some slack?

By Eilidh Beaton

So, let's get this straight - the NHS IT infrastructure project is a waste of both time and money, yes?

Sounds crazy, but that's the message that seems to be coming across in the media at the moment.  OK, so the National Programme for IT in the NHS is way over budget, having ballooned to a whopping £15bn, as well as being quite badly behind schedule. 

But let's get this into perspective. I think it's fair to say that a complete overhaul and modernisation of an archaic IT system of the magnitude of the NHS's was never going to be easy.  By attempting to collate 30 million patient records, it is after all the largest current IT project in the world - and believe me, it's pretty darn vital.

Having temped in a number of admin departments in NHS hospitals, including medical records, I was constantly bamboozled by the patient record system - row upon row of dog-eared files, loosely alphabetised or numerated, with random sheets of paper stuffed inside, and often not so much as a tag to hold them in place.  Little wonder that records go missing when hospitals have to send a paper file around the country padded out with Mrs Smith's medical history since 1942. 

OK, so the transition from paper to PC has not been exactly smooth.  For instance, an IT failure at the end of July, affecting 80 NHS trusts in the North West of England and West Midlands, caused appointment issues as well as admission and transfer problems.  However, while the system was restored with no lost data, you'd think fatalities had occurred judging by the way the story was covered in the news.

A re-structuring on this scale needs time and resources.  In the long run - and I know it feels a bit of an uphill marathon at the moment - it might just revitalise an institution that we in the UK take for granted and berate on a daily basis.  But more importantly, it's a system designed to save more lives.  As such, it's pretty harsh on the thousands of people within the NHS trying to make it work - isn't it time we stopped complaining and cut it a bit of slack?

The customer is not always right

By Tom Kirkham

One of the reasons I like technology PR is that the products we deal with are actually useful -  I've never had any interest in promoting a new flavour of soft drink or a washing powder that smells like a leafy glade.  However, irrespective of the product's capabilities, the question we always have to ask our clients is, "Do you have a customer we can reference?" 

The customer is the all-important endorsement, and in many cases, if you can't provide this, you're not going to make it into print.  There are two main reasons for this:

1) Integrity (fair enough)

2) Readership - ie. most readers are end-users, and so want to hear the views of other end-users

Now, the problem with this is that it can give rise to anti-vendor media bias - there are already a fair few publications/editors that won't listen to anything a vendor has to say unless it comes via a customer.  It's easy to see where this stance comes from - after all, no one wants to read a self-promoting tech marketing exec pontificating in a language only understood by other tech marketing execs.  But is a blanket veto of vendor comment really justified? 

End-users want to hear from customers in order to supposedly get an unbiased view of what a product or technology does, and what the benefits are.  But the fact that a customer goes on record to endorse something is no guarantee of this.  What if the only available spokesperson is an IT administrator with no training in how to translate highly complex technical information to ordinary ears?  Worse - what if it's some dude from the customer's press office, who doesn't understand the product in the slightest, but fancies seeing his name in the press?

Or what if the only reason the customer is willing to speak in the first place is because the vendor recently took them for a slap-up meal at Sketch followed by a champagne-fuelled night out at Spearmint Rhino? 

In all these cases, it's debatable whether the end-user readership is going to learn very much at all.

A good spokesperson is a good spokesperson, regardless of where they come from.  While a customer might always be the preferred option, that doesn't mean vendor contributions should be ruled out entirely.  After all, when it comes down to it, customers want good publicity just as much as the vendors do, just as publications should want to run both informed and informative copy. 

Ultimately, does it really matter who does the talking, so long as the readers are happy?

Sparks fly at Dell

By Claire Ayles

There’s nothing like a product recall to send a PR into a tailspin, so well done to Dell which - faced with recalling 4.1m laptop batteries before they spontaneously combust - has managed its latest crisis according to the best practice textbook.  No fuss, no denials, lots of information, plus quick and decisive action, means that Dell has made the best of a very bad situation.

But even when a company manages its crisis as well as Dell, can its reputation ever recover from this amount of negative media coverage?   Well, let me tell you a story...

In 2001, I was one of the first people to buy a new BMW Mini Cooper.  I loved it.  However, our relationship soon soured when it had to be recalled because there was a problem with the paintwork catching fire when it got near petrol - something of a fatal flaw for a car.  This was promptly communicated to me both directly and through the press - but as a consumer, I still felt pretty inconvenienced.

Four months later, and despite another well-communicated product recall (this time the CD player wouldn’t turn off, so my battery was always flat), I was ready for a divorce.

BMW eventually sorted everything out and my car served me well enough for another three years, but I never felt the same about it again.  And worse for BMW, I simply couldn’t recommend a Mini to anyone else.

However, while I was having a row with the customer services division, BMW’s PR machine was beavering away, turning Mini into a highly desirable brand.  As a result, for every disillusioned Mini buyer such as myself, there are still thousands of people who want one.  And when you look at the revenues BMW is generating from Mini sales, you have to conclude that it has more than weathered the storm of those early product recalls. 

Dell may be a big brand, but when push comes to shove, it sells cheap grey laptops, just like numerous other companies. And while we’ve seen that Dell is pretty good at handling the logistics of a major product recall, its challenge now is to ‘do a BMW’ ie. not only convince us that there is no risk associated with buying its products, but that it also offers something more desirable than the competition. 

Either that, or it could provide a free smoke alarm with each new laptop.

A funny thing happened on the way to Silicon Valley... part 2: A tale of two coasts

By Mike King

Having recently returned from a couple of weeks in the US, first on the East coast and then the West coast, it struck me how different the industry mood is between the two.

Obviously, Silicon Valley has long been touted as the tech industry’s powerhouse and the place where the tech boom started, but given the sheer size and impact of tech, other significant US technology hotspots - in particular the greater Boston area - have grown up over the past couple of decades.

These days, it's pretty much accepted that the whole tech industry downturn that hit in 2001 is over.  As a tech specialist PR agency, we’ve had a couple of years of decent growth (25% and 32% growth for the past two years year on year). And we’re certainly not alone in that. 

So, tech is back - or at least that’s the mood in Silicon Valley.  Companies there are excited about the business potential of their latest innovations and the availability of funding, and this is reflected in the number of start-ups and the volume of M&A activity.

But the mood is different from the Californian tech-Utopianism of the 'bubble' period prior to 2001. This isn’t a return to the ridiculous ‘sketch on the back of a fag packet, $50 million funding in the bank’ days of the late 90s.  This is a far more sensible, business-based optimism, founded on healthy orders, decent customers and an economic climate increasingly conducive to international expansion.

However, in the Boston area, I found there to be a far more cautious, almost depressed attitude.  It may well be that the sample of companies I met with wasn’t representative of the community as a whole. Or that culturally, people on the East coast (generally accepted as being more European ie. 'seen it all before', in their outlook) are basically just a more downbeat bunch.  But in all the years that I've been going to the States, I've never noticed such a stark contrast between the technology centres on the East and West coasts.

Based on the differing tales I was told about the respective job markets, the number of companies looking to invest their cash in expanding internationally and the general business mood, I know which part of my trip was the most productive.  On a positive note, Boston is a great city and, for once, I had plenty of time to see it.  Just as well, because I've got a feeling that it may be a while before I'm back.

Guest blog - PCs ain't what they used to be...

As well as being a platform for JKers to have a good old rant about the world of technology and PR, 'Whatever...' will periodically be running guest blogs from friends who live beyond the (fire)walls of Johnson King Towers.

Here's Nick Booth, veteran tech freelancer and PR trainer, on the boys in blue and their problems through the years with technology...

In the late 70s, the Met Police launched Operation Countryman, an investigation aimed at rooting out all the bad sorts in the force, the 'bent coppers'.

These days, Scotland Yard recruiters seems to positively encourage homosexuals!

How times change.

They've got technology now to help implement these kind of schemes. Mind you, they still can't get it to work properly.

They've bought in a biometric passport in an attempt to stop criminals abusing the current system, but some German bloke has already learned how to hack it before most of us have even got one.

Computers were much better in the old days.  I remember watching the Sweeney, where a young hacker (played by John Hurt!) managed to get into some freight distribution system.  He typed this command into the screen (in big letters too, so all the viewers could read it clearly).

"Divert gold bullion lorry down to the docks, where henchmen lay in wait"

And immediately (immediately, not after the advertising break), the lorry changed directions, and headed off to some disused dockside wastelands.

You try and get a computer to do that these days!

Mind you, Regan and Carter caught up with them, and arrested the villains.  (You try and get a PC to do that these days!!)

(We asked Nick who his friend was in the picture - he said, "This is me, with a robotic ironing machine, which I blagged off Siemens, when I was writing a supplement about Luxury Goods which went out with The Times.  The machine blows hot air into the shirt, and smooths out all the wrinkles. And it only takes five minutes longer than ironing it.")

A funny thing happened on the way to Silicon Valley... part 1: God bless Americar

By Mike King

I was over in the states a couple of weeks ago, first in Boston and then on to Silicon Valley.  A few hours into the flight out to Boston I realised that, stupidly, I didn’t have my driving licence with me.  Yes, I know, that was really dumb.  (To any Americans reading, I’d like to point out that in the UK we don’t have to carry our driving licences with us at all times, so this is marginally…actually, I’ll stop trying to make feeble excuses). However, as I was going to Boston first, I told myself, this wasn’t too much of a problem. I could get by without a rental car there as long as I had the licence by the time I got to California.

I asked Lisa, our office manager (someone you can always rely on to sort out any type of apparently insurmountable problem), to pick up my licence from home and send it by courier to my hotel in Boston.  The licence left the UK on a Monday morning for a ‘guaranteed’ Tuesday morning 9am delivery in Boston.  A priority service for which we were charged the princely sum of $200.

Needless to say, Tuesday morning came and went and there was no sign of my licence.  By the time I left Boston at 6am on Wednesday morning, it still hadn’t arrived.  So Lisa, resourceful as ever, arranged for its delivery to be re-routed to San Francisco airport, the idea being a perfectly synchronised arrival with me and my licence being reunited in front of the car rental desk. Obviously, this didn’t work out either.

This gave me a major problem.  Clearly, you can’t exist in Silicon Valley without a car, particularly not when you’ve got four solid days of meetings all with different companies spread around the valley.  So, there I am at the car rental desk with only a fax copy of my licence and no sign of the original.  And you can’t rent a car without a driving licence - or at least that’s what I thought until the person behind the counter whispered, “Don’t worry, I know someone who can help you. Go and stand over there by the wall.”

A couple of minutes later, a chap turns up and ushers me downstairs to his car.  We drive a couple of miles away from the airport where he proceeds to rent me a car for the princely sum of $60 per day (minimum rental period 5 days, a nice touch).  The car in question (there was no picking out your favourite model here) was a beat-up Toyota Corolla with 100,000 miles on the clock, complete with missing hubcaps, cigarette burns and a dodgy exhaust.  No marking the position of any scratches and dents on an outline drawing of the car here - my man simply takes an imprint of my credit card, gives me the keys, and then away I go.  Slowly. 

But I wasn’t exactly in a position to complain.  And to be fair it did the job and got me to all my meetings on time.  Funny thing was, having eventually received my licence on the Friday morning, I was stopped by a traffic cop in the afternoon for not turning left when in a turn left lane while getting lost trying to follow some Mapquest directions to my next meeting. Believe me, I’ve never been happier to produce my driving licence... 

Guest blog - Top tips for PR spokespeople - number 1

As well as being a platform for JKers to have a good old rant about the world of technology and PR, 'Whatever...' will periodically be running guest blogs from friends who live beyond the (fire)walls of Johnson King Towers.

So, in the first of an irregular series, we're pleased, nay, honoured to have our first guest blog written by Mr Graham Cluley of Sophos, who can be seen dispensing pithy pearls of wisdom on IT security literally every time you turn your TV on.  Here, Graham gives us valuable advice on...

How to stop hiccups when speaking to a journalist

There are some trade secrets which you have a moral duty to share with other spokespeople around the world.  My work revolves around being a spokesmodel for Sophos, one of the world's largest computer security companies.  Minutes matter when it comes to telling the world about the latest virus outbreak, and one of the worst things that can happen to you mid-call is to be assailed by hiccups whilst going into essential technical detail of the vulnerabilities that companies need to patch in the next 30 minutes.

I've tried everything to stop hiccups.  Holding my breath, drinking a glass of water upside down (which risks drowning via the nostrils), having a colleague burst a paper bag behind my head.  In the past, I even had a girlfriend tell me that she's pregnant in a vain attempt to stop involuntary spasms of my diaphragm.  None of these are definite fixes, and they don't really work when you're going full steam into the financial motives of hackers operating from a basement somewhere in darkest Peru.

And then, one day, a friend showed me a cure for hiccups which really does work.  Every time.  And it's portable, and doesn't require standing on your head or having a crisp packet to hand.

When you start hiccuping, take your left hand, hold it in front of you, and press perpendicularly on the thumb nail with your right thumb and index finger.

Press hard.

You should see your thumb begin to turn a bit red.

Keep pressing!

If you do this for long enough, you will control your hiccups, and they will disappear.

Now, you're probably not on an important PR call right now, and you probably won't have hiccups today.  But one day, soon, you will be hit by hiccups, and you won't know how to get rid of them.  Try this technique.

It may seem bonkers, but it really does work.

(and yes, Graham even drew the pictures...)