Whatever...

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...)

PR is dead (part 63)

By Laura Cooper

According to The Guardian's Charles Arthur, PRs are in danger of becoming obsolete as journalists increasingly get more of their ideas and information from blogs. Earlier this week, Charles told an audience of 80 PRs at one of Fullrun's popular Talking Shop events that he no longer reads press releases or email pitches as all his stories now come exclusively from blogs. (On this basis, I did wonder why he'd even agreed to talk to a room full of PRs in the first place, but hey ho...)

He argues that PRs are just not good enough 'story tellers' (au contraire, Charles!), and that what they offer will never compare to accessing all the latest industry news, sometimes right from the horse's mouth ie. the CEO's blog. As such, he predicts that the number of people employed in PR will decrease as journalists gain access through their blogs to the very people - CEOs, CFOs and other key execs - that PRs are supposedly retained to act as gatekeepers for.

There's a couple of points here:

Firstly, which CEOs exactly is he talking about here? Certainly not those in the Fortune 500 list - a recent article in the New York Times revealed that the grand total of Fortune 500 CEO bloggers was... one.

And secondly, while there might well be blogs from CXOs of smaller tech companies out there, who's actually writing these blogs?

It's not just journalists that have cottoned onto the increasing popularity of the blog - much of the PR industry has also realised the influence that blogs can have over the media (not to mention how much they love all that nice free content).  Have CEOs suddenly found an extra couple of hours in their week to express their companies' issues and viewpoints via their own blog? Or could it be that their PR firm has been writing these blogs for them - and effectively fulfiling the same function as a creative pitch to the media.

So, as a PR, all I can say is - let me tell you a story... about blogs.

IT’s still a man’s world?

By Laura Mead

Remember the 'Calendar Girls'?  Here's some people who do - Australia's 'IT Goddesses'.  In their own words, the Goddesses aim to "raise awareness of the diversity of Women in IT" and promote organisations that employ women in top tech jobs.  However, the fact that they've chosen to do this by striking glamorous poses from various famous movies has raised all kinds of hackles.

OK, so some of these shots may be a little, errr... misjudged.  But on the whole, I think this is a noble effort.  There are numerous stereotypes about the kind of people who work in IT - geeky, socially inept, unwashed, love Linux more than their own mothers, and of course, almost exclusively male - so it’s good to see a group of women help blow these myths out of the water.   However, I think it's sad that the Goddesses are being ridiculed in some quarters for what is essentially just a bit of fun (albeit with a serious purpose).

Take this comment from Silicon for example: “Women who want to be taken seriously in the world of IT have several options.   One is to get their head down and fight on through the stigmas, stereotypes and sexism… Or they can get their tits out.”

Yeah, nicely put, Silicon - though seeing as there's actually very little flesh on display in the calendar, I can only assume this is a case of not letting the truth get in the way of a weak joke.

But there's actually a more serious issue here. In an industry where women are in a very small minority, why shouldn’t they use their 'femininity' (for want of a better word) to both highlight this disparity and advance in their careers?  The corporate world is still predominantly based around an aggressive 'macho' culture, often making it extremely difficult for women to move up the career ladder - and the IT industry is a prime example of this. 

There will always be people - male and female - who use whatever it takes to promote themselves or their cause.  But unfortunately, when men do it, it's usually perceived as the 'law of the jungle' in operation... but when women do it, it's either laughable or degrading.

Still, this probably isn't going to trouble the Goddesses too much, as one of their other stated aims is to 'generate media sensation to put a spotlight on the industry' - and 3.5 millions hits on the website in one day ain't bad. Bow down and worship, puny men...

Broadband gold rush must be managed

By Natalie Shamshoum

Last week BSkyB became the latest entrant into the broadband price war, by launching its free high speed internet service.  This is undoubtedly a very daring endeavour.  Firstly, BSkyB has no telecoms heritage. Secondly, this service is widely predicted to incur several years of losses before becoming profitable. 

BSkyB isn’t the only firm prepared to risk short-term loss for long-term profitability.  Over recent months, free broadband services have become a necessity as service providers scrap to gain full control of the digital home.  We’re also seeing cable, satellite and telecoms providers rolling out new services left, right and centre.  Many are pairing up or even buying each other to make sure they can offer the 4-play bundle.  So, while broadcaster BSkyB is set to offer cheaper calls through a new VoIP service, BT is about to launch its IPTV offering and NTL has snapped up Virgin Mobile so it can add mobile to its mix. It seems everyone wants a piece of the broadband pie.

As providers rush to roll out new services to this quickly saturating market, there is a concern that they haven't fully considered how the technology will stand up in the consumer environment.  While free broadband and phone calls are certainly a massive draw - as is cheaper and more flexible TV - set-up and configuration of these services is tricky.  I for one would be completely turned off by technical problems.  If these turned out to be ongoing, I wouldn't think twice about quitting the entire bundle.

The multi-vendor technologies and nebulous infrastructure involved in such roll outs spell complexity - something we don't want in our homes.  In their haste to launch new services and lure new customers, I suspect many of these providers have overlooked the management of this technology. 

This broadband gold rush certainly makes for interesting times, but with providers already struggling to get basic customer support right, if left unmanaged, 4-play could drain support resources and erode providers' bottom lines, while leaving consumers frustrated and dissatisfied.  Providers must think about how the technology can be managed from the outset, if they are to be successful in the digital home.

Mama Mia - Is there PR life after birth?

By Claire Ayles

Working for an agency which is always on the lookout for the best talent, it's depressing to see that Graduate Prospects, 'the UK's official graduate careers website', describes PR as a career not suited to women returning to work after maternity leave.  As a new mother still working in PR, I also find this a bit perplexing.

Graduate Prospects reaches this conclusion because PRs are required to work 'long, unsociable hours'.  This may or may not be true (for instance, at JK we focus on working hard rather than long, although extra hours are sometimes inevitable), but even when it is the case, why should this necessarily preclude mothers from working in the industry?  It's not like lawyers, doctors, retailers - or indeed most other people - have it any easier.

PR isn't operating in the dark ages; it is possible to work part-time, either from home or via job sharing.  Of course, having kids does change things.  Childcare providers are expensive and tend to stick to rigid hours, which means working parents can't stay in the office 24/7 (not that they should have to anyway).  But don't mobile phones and the internet allow us to work flexibly, from anywhere at anytime?  It's not exactly rocket science these days. 

With the PR industry predominantly staffed by women, it is in agencies' best interests to offer a career path to those returning to work, otherwise the talent they've worked so hard to train will be needlessly lost.  Indeed, my experience (which I share with other mothers I know working in the industry) is one of agencies understanding and accommodating the needs of working parents.

Many graduates looking to get on the PR career ladder may not be considering starting a family anytime soon - but when we're interviewing, we'd expect the more savvy and committed (ie. sought after) candidates to ask us about their long-term career prospects.  In an interview situation, we can explain that PR isn't just for the young, free and single, it can be a job for life - but unfortunately, this does little to reverse the decisions of all those top quality graduates who have already (wrongly) dismissed PR in favour of more 'family friendly' careers.