The Dawn of the Anti-Blogger

I think a lot of marketing communications people and other creative types got excited when blogging became part of the day job vs. a nice-to-have.  While blogging is one more task on top of many in a day in the life, it offered a respite from the more processed writing style associated with business communications. Generating and delivering content using traditional marketing communications tools -- news releases, white papers, presentations, brochureware, case histories, etc. -- requires more of a left brained approach.  Writing a blog entry, however, allows the writer to exercise the brain's often less used right hemisphere, where creativity, intuition and subjectivity rule.

And while the traditional tools all serve a purpose as part of a marketing communications campaign that may include product publicity, cause marketing, thought leadership, influencer relations, issues management, etc., they only communicate out and provide little or no feedback loop. By design, these tools don't encourage conversation or the exchange of information.

When integrated into a broad communications campaign that does includes two-way communication channels -- like blogging -- they continue to be very effective, however.

Still, traditional business communication forms often don't allow for marketing services pros to be what many of us are or "secretly" want to be:  thoughtful and creative writers.  Writing for business is all about business.  It's what we do to generate awareness for our clients so our clients can sell more products and/or services and make more money and so we can get paid. Ask any professional blogger why they blog.  It's for the same reasons.

For the rest of us, the non-professional blogger, blogging was making it possible for us to scratch our creative and expressive itch. It's a format, so we thought, that gives us just the right amount of editorial and artistic license that news releases and white papers, generally, deny us.  It gave us a new outlet that satisfied the "I want to be a thoughtful writer" craving many of us have suppressed for too many years. So we thought.

For better or worse, though, these are the facts:  SEO, page ranking, backlinking, link baiting, ping services, social bookmarking, etc., are working overtime to put blogging in the same class as the traditional forms of business communications. The irony to me is that blogging gives us suppressed creative writers a creative outlet within our profession, finally, only to be microscoped by Google Juice.

Beth Harte, client services director at Serengeti Communications, initiated a Facebook discussion earlier this week on this subject, and puts it quite simply:  "But at the end of the day writing only for Google Juice doesn't always provide real value to your clients/customers.  Or, if you're a non-professional blogger like me, it's just not fun."

Perhaps we are seeing the dawn of the anti-blogger - folks who blog because they have something to say and care less about page rank and comments.

The Generation Gap is Shrinking When it Comes to Digital Privacy

More and more people, across generations, are learning the hard way that the posting of certain kinds of personal information on social networks can be a bad idea.

As we age, do we become more private?  Do we become more protective as we accumulate more things in our lives, like a reputation built over a lifetime, material wealth or opinions we'd rather not share with the world but only with the closest of friends?

If the results from a new report from technology and market research firm Forrester Research, Inc. hold true, then the answer to these questions is "yes."

Credit social media with helping to bridge the generation gap among Baby Boomers, Gen Xers and even Millennials (to some extent, anyway) on at least one important issue -- digital privacy.

It appears that no matter how old we are, we spend some time worrying about social media-related privacy.  And the older we are, the more time we spend worrying about it.

While 18 to 29 year-olds -- aka Millennials -- are the least concerned (as you might expect since the use of social media is in their DNA), even their privacy concerns increased over a year ago, according to the Forrester report.

Baby Boomers, as you might assume, are the most concerned about social media-related privacy --especially the older boomers, aged 54 to 64.  Their privacy concerns jumped from 32% to 50% in a single year.  Younger boomers (44 to 53 years of age...and includes me!) express somewhat less concern and are more closely aligned with the attitudes toward online privacy as Gen Xers (30 - 43).  With that said, privacy concerns for both younger Boomers and Gen X also increased over 2009.

Companies like Google and Facebook are constantly in the news due to digital privacy issues.  Google recently created a privacy-centric fund and donated $8.5M to it largely as a result of the mishandling of its Google Buzz launch last February.  And Facebook, it seems, is forever digging out of the privacy holes it creates for itself.

Social media is evolving and so too are users' attitudes toward it. Backlash against social networks dictating privacy policies to customers is growing stronger. 

Older Gen Xers aren't too far away from the half way point in their lives.  And as Sid Yadav of VentureBeat points out, it would behoove Facebook to "figure out a middle ground on privacy before its first users reach middle age."

All Else Being Equal, Chemistry Unlocks the Door to a Long-Term Partnership

A pro golfer always assumes their competitor is going to make the putt -- the putt that's going to keep a match alive, or win it, or send it to extra holes.

Of course, pros miss key putts on occasion.  But the truly makeable clutch putts that may mean the difference between a first place finish and a four-way tie for second place, well, the pros make those much of the time.

I have the same attitude when it comes to pitching new business against other PR and marketing agencies.  And it's been my attitude for the 13 years I've been working for first a $40 million tech firm, then a $150 million multi-practice agency and now a relatively new boutique.

This attitude of mine is that most agencies pitching the same piece of business are going to do many of the same things to win it.  If you read David Kean's "How Not to Come in Second," which was making its way through agencies everywhere four or five years ago, you know about his eight ingredients for pitching:  be organized, know your audience, solve the problem, price properly, deliver a great presentation, generate unstoppable momentum, and demand feedback (win or lose).

Kean's ingredients for winning will likely always be relevant.  And all great agencies adhere to guidelines like his, albeit customized to suit each agency's differentiators or "secret sauce."

So assume for a moment that a business prospect is meeting with five agencies.  And during the pitch phase, each agency demonstrates proven experience in the prospect's industry; the ability to generate meaningful online and offline awareness and coverage; creative, breakthrough program ideas; strong media and client references; and, in general, the ability to be an excellent business partner to the prospect.

How does the prospect decide on a new agency in this situation?

I think the answer is "chemistry."

When I was the client and involved in agency reviews, I would visualize what it would be like working with the various pitch teams day-in day-out, during good times and bad, for better or worse...until...

When I meet with prospects today, I always advise them to do the same.

The importance of great chemistry can't be underestimated when it comes to selecting a business partner and cultivating a relationship that maximizes value for both parties.

I'd be interested in hearing what role you think chemistry plays in a business partnership.

10 Public Relations-related Discussions I Could Live Without

Everyday I look forward to the avalanche of creative ideas, links to information and news I wouldn't see otherwise, the levity, the quirkiness and the provocative conversations, blogs, tweets and posts and all that spills forth from my favorite social media networks.

Well, almost all that spills forth... 

We're probably a lot alike in that we start each day by browsing Twitter, Linkedin, Facebook, etc., and end each day pretty much the same way.  We want to know "what's new" even before we get out of bed (some of us).  And in just a few minutes, before we take that first sip of Sumatra or Chai, we have a pretty good take on the conversations that took place while we slept and about what's trending for the day ahead.

Unfortunately, however, much of the creativity and thoughtfulness that is shared within our social networks - I'm finding -- is being offset by the seemingly never-ending regurgitation of (too) familiar discussions.  I am specifically speaking of the conversations taking place within the world of public relations. And more specifically, technology public relations.  

This may sound a bit like whining to you.  I'm sure it would to Seth Godin, who blogged just today about whining.


Mr. Godin says whining is just a waste of time.  He's right.  Still, I believe everyone has the right to whine, albeit only once in a while.

Today, it's my turn.  

With that, I give you my short list of regurgitated, recycled and restated discussions which are taking place in a PR-oriented social media community near you. All are discussions we, 'er I, can live without:  

• Is traditional media really dead?
• Press release:  R.I.P.
• Who should own social media? Ad agency, PR agency, in-house team or social media agency?
• Why PR agencies missed the social media train.
• What journalists hate about PR people.
• 10 essential tools for measuring social media (especially annoying when they're tools you never heard of and when you click on the links half of them are already obsolete!)
• How to pitch bloggers.
• How many CEOs are actively using social media.
• How do you measure PR success?
• Is PR dead?

Phew.  Quite a list.  But I'm sure I missed a few, so please feel free to weigh in with your personal favs.  

  

After Innovation and Marketing, Everything Else is Detail.

The great business educator Peter Drucker once said that business is about only two things: innovation and marketing.  Everything else, he said, is details.  

So when these two elements appear simultaneously, something magical happens.

Something...like the iPad?

The iPad was anticipated for at least six months ahead of its launch in April 2010, and 3 million of the devices were sold in the first 80 days. Yet, more than six months later, there is not one viable competitor in the market.  Despite volumes of media speculation and analyst forecasts, there still is no competitor to Apple in the hottest new segment of the personal computing and mobile markets. 

Apple expands its market around the globe, adds retail and partner channels and readies for an update to its OS, while its formidable competitors struggle with basic design for v 1.0.  They debate form factors, operating systems, interfaces, design, applications and battery life before they even tackle the harder of question of figuring out what is left of the market and how steep do they have to discount to win customers away from the iPad.

In the iPad, as in most things Steve Jobs creates, innovation and marketing aligned. A visionary and passionate leader, an incredible design, a Blue Ocean market opportunity and a product that exceeds the expectation of its customers have made the iPad a runaway success. That doesn't just happen one morning when someone wakes up and decides to find an innovation.  It happens when leaders are passionate about building cultures around innovation, design and usability and rigid about making sure it occurs at every level of the company and never stops.  

When that occurs, a product can be marketed with the deft subtlety of the iPad because the product speaks for itself.  I would ask you where, in the iPad does innovation stop and the marketing begin? That is what makes Apple great.  Peter Drucker would be pleased.

Public and Analyst Relations Should Be Housed Under One Roof

An increasing number of technology companies are seeing the wisdom in assigning public relations (PR) and analyst relations (AR) under the same in-house communications manager. That is, at least, the observation here at 3Point.

In recent weeks we've met with a number of companies who have asked us to include a treatment of market analysts, aka industry analysts and never to be confused with financial analysts, in RFP responses and proposals.

I don't know if I'd call it a trend quite yet.

And things could flip the other way -- housing PR and AR in separate departments within the same company -- at any time.

But for now, I'm going out on a limb and saying that more companies are integrating the reporting responsibilities and activities of their in-house PR and AR teams.  To me, these are companies that get it.

If you've worked at a PR agency for some time, you've probably had this experience:  you're meeting with a prospect and talking to the chief communications officer or head of corporate communications to understand their communications challenges and needs.  You ask about how AR is handled.  The communications chief grimaces and reveals that AR sits elsewhere in the organization, sometimes even reporting into the the office of the CFO. 

What?  The CFO?

In most cases, the head of communications wants to own AR.  One reason is that at many large companies, AR pros are considered to be more "strategic" than the PR folks (subject of a forthcoming post) and their compensation may reflect this. Also, AR budgets can be substantial as they must fund "paid" analysts relationships.  So it's the golden rule: he/she who has the gold, rules. 

But there are other, more concrete and important reasons why a corporate communications chief wants and should have responsibility for both. A proactive, well-managed and quantifiable AR program works hand-in-glove with a PR program. After all, the two programs are striving to meet the same goals.  Here are just a few: 

• to build and sustain positive, productive relationships
• to build positive visibility
• to highlight competitive differentiators, and
• to ultimately generate more revenue by selling more products.

I'd love to hear your opinions on this issue.

Moving Strategy from SWAT to SWOT

Companies have to move fast in the world of a voracious 24-hour news cycle that feeds on the slightest development and then spits out an issue for digestion by vast social media networks.  Small issues can become tidal waves in hours. We see it happen every day. There are no ideal solutions for dealing with the reality of instant access in a highly transparent environment. As in everything, advance strategic planning helps.  But situations that call for rapid fire decision making are usually caused by unexpected issues that are difficult to anticipate. Prior direct experience helps, but the range of possibilities confronting a business in assessing its choices can make an an individual's relevant experience one dimensional.


So, how do companies identify strategic choices when the pace accelerates or the pressure increases?


How do you try to provide a context that can rapidly find the major points you need to consider in coming to the right course of action?  Using three basic elements can provide a very useful solution when fast paced strategic decisions need to be made.

• Process:  It is surprising how many companies don't have a defined and tested process for dealing with rapid fire strategic issues. This is like responding to a fire without an escape plan. So we counsel companies to develop a clear process for identifying what to do when fast strategic decisions are required.
• Team: The second element is to assemble a small team of the right people -- usually 5-7 members who either have direct involvement in a situation and/or a cross section of related and authoritative backgrounds in specific areas. For example, if a competitor announces a disruptive technology aimed directly at a company's core market, sales, marketing, research, and product development teams are rallied together. When a new product is delayed, marketing, sales, finance and engineering meet to decide the potential impact from several aspects. When a CEO leaves, HR and PR teams are quickly aligned to develop a plan for internal and external communications.
• Tools: If a company has done 1 and 2 -- defined a process that includes access to the right SWAT team for a particular strategic choice -- the third element is to define the choices and their potential impacts to reach the best decision as fast as possible.  This is where SWAT teams need to become Strategic SWOT teams.  

Strategic SWOT starts with a traditional approach identifying internal Strengths and Weaknesses and external Opportunities and Threats.  The key to turning SWOT analysis into a strategic tool comes in the filters you apply. Here is a brief four-step process anyone can use to master this:

• First, use the S-O filter to match the internal strengths with external opportunities and list these in the upper left quadrant of a two-by-two matrix.

• Next, match internal weaknesses with external opportunities and list these as Weaknesses-Opportunities (W-O) strategies in the upper right hand quadrant.  

• Align internal strengths with external threats and list these Strengths-Threats (S-T) strategies in the lower left hand quadrant.

• Finally, use the lower right right quadrant to list Weaknesses-Threats (W-T) strategies by aligning internal weaknesses with external threats.

At this point, your SWOT list should be transformed into a number of potential strategic options to consider.

In a perfect situation, most companies would choose offense: strategies that applies company strengths toward the greatest opportunities -- S-O strategies. But rapid fire strategic decisions don't always involve opportunities to show your best stuff. In general, here is what the the other three quadrants will lead you to consider:

• W-O strategies overcome a client's weaknesses to pursue opportunities.
• S-T strategies identify ways to reduce vulnerability to external threats. 
• W-T strategies establish a defensive plan to prevent the firmʼs weaknesses from making it susceptible to external threats.

Strategic SWOT is not a perfect solution, and the strategies are not automatic.  But used properly with the right cross section of team members, it can get you a lot closer to better decision making when time constraints are the most pressing. If you've had experiences -- good or bad -- using this or another form of SWOT, we please let us know.

Tell Your Story

In recent weeks, I generated a couple of posts with the theme of "the more things change, the more they stay the same."  Specifically, I was referring to two constants in the public relations business. The first was that PR pros have been practicing for decades what is today called "content marketing." The second was despite the proliferation of social media and new digital forms of communications, the majority of tech journalists and bloggers prefer e-mail-based communications vs. all other types.

I also called out a few of the revolutionary changes in our business, many influenced by advancements in technology.  For example, how we write with SEO and SEM in mind.  The entrée of real analytics to how we measure results vs. the THUD factor days of old.  And even how the Rolodex is being replaced by services that peg story ideas to specific journalists and bloggers.  For example, HARO, PRManna.com, Reporter's Source and PitchRate, among others.

Remember the Rolodex? Ever have one on your desk? 

They still exists, of course, but they mostly reside in Gmail, Linkedin, Twitter, etc., these days.

For a PR pro, the size of their over-stuffed Rolodex used to be a badge of success.  It communicated to colleagues, competitors, clients and prospects that they were connected.  And their vast connections meant they could open doors and close deals.

Today, a Rolodex -- real or figurative -- doesn't matter nearly as much as it used to.  The advent of HARO-type services reinforce this position.

Instead of asking "who do you know?," clients and prospects should be asking their PR and social media agencies about their process for researching and developing clients' stories; their process for creating memorable, diversified content based on strategy and messages; and their process for engaging their audiences in a conversation.  

Having close connections at the Wall Street Journal, Fortune or InformationWeek are nice-to-haves.  Crafting the right story on behalf of your client and communicating it to their customers, though the right channels, are must-haves.  

Strategic Tools for Strategic Content

Content is useless if it doesn’t tell a story.  A story is not very helpful if it doesn’t relate the right information about a company’s brand.  Yet, time and again, we see content-centered communications programs in the market that appear completely disconnected from brand or strategy. 

Here are three ways you can use communications as a catalyst to define real business strategies and messages into your programs:

1.  Strategic SWOT:  We’ve all done SWOT.  How do you turn it from a list to a strategic tool?  The answer is quite simple: align strengths with opportunities to identify offensive strategies.  Then align weaknesses and threats to identify defensive strategies.

2.  Develop an elevator statement: These statements have been a cornerstone of communications for years, However, in a 140-word world, they are more critical than ever.  Fortunately, there is a great new website that steps you through the process of building your elevator pitch quickly and powerfully.  Try it at Buzzuka.

3. Be clear about what you mean by strategy.  Michael Porter, the father of modern strategic thinking, said it best:  Strategy is what you choose not to do!  Clients and communications programs can get easily bloated by trying to do everything instead of trying to do the strategic thing.  Take a look at one of our earlier blogs to understand the relationship among strategy, objectives and how to use them the right way.http://www.3pointcommunications.com/Beyond%20the%20Arc/blog.php?id=3331023617869510929

E-Mail Rules the Roost For Tech Journalists and Bloggers

Technology journalists, working in print and online -- and bloggers - overwhelmingly prefer e-mail as their preferred method of communicating with PR pros.    

Amen.

Despite the many alternatives to email, from cloud-based collaborative apps to social media channels to the telephone, tech journalists and bloggers say e-mail is king.  

This news flash is according to the good folks at PRSourceCode, a service provider to PR professionals, which recently released this stunning news -- among other tidbits -- in its 5th annual "Top Tech Communicators" report.

A little about the PRSourceCode survey and report:  a survey was administered to more than 800 tech journalists and bloggers in the third quarter of this year.  The results were made public a few days ago.

The survey also asked the participating journalists from such industry stalwarts as Wired, CFO, Information Week, eWeek.com, and CIO, among others, their picks for top tech PR agencies and top in-house tech PR practitioners.  

But for the purposes of this post, I find the recommendations for becoming a "2011 top tech communicator" much more interesting, at least until the time that 3Point Communications makes their top 10 list!

What I find most interesting from the survey results is that for all of the mind-numbing changes the PR professional has had to adapt to in recent years, the core tenants of how we find success haven't changed all that much.  

In last week's post I sided with Ford Kanzler of Marketing/PR Savvy, who argued recently that  content marketing has been a successful PR strategy for decades.

So this week it's only fitting that I'd report the same: that the more things change, the more they stay the same.

The PRSourCode results help me make my point.  Here they are:

• While the tech journalists and bloggers encourage PR pros to "experiment with new media," their emphasis is on e-mail based communications.  More than 90% of the print journalists prefer e-mail communication and online journalists and bloggers are right there with them.   A distant second is communications via Twitter.

What about in other aspects of practicing sound tech PR principles, like being proactive?  Nearly 80 per cent of the participating journalists report that their sources and ideas for stories come to them via PROACTIVE pitches from PR folks.  Oh, and ensure you read past stories from the journalists you're pitching so you learn what they're interested in before pitching them. The same rule applies to pitching bloggers.  This is new?  No, I don' think so.

How about this gem:  journalists want PR pros to get back to them quickly because they have this thing called a "deadline."  Oh, and don't promise what you know you can't deliver.  Aren't these just the basics of doing business, whether your working in PR, journalism or most anything else?  But the fact that the survey respondents point these issues out tells us that not every PR pro approaches the job in the same way.

I should note that the bloggers who participated in the survey prefer to hear from PR pros via Twitter and Facebook more so than their print and online colleagues.  But as noted earlier, the vast majority of bloggers prefer e-mail above all other channels.

Click here if you want to view the full report.  My guess is the 6th annual report will look pretty much the same.  

Still True: the more things change, the more they stay the same

A recent blog post from Ford Kanzler of Marketing/PR Savvy has been getting its fair share of attention on Twitter and the blogosphere.

Kanzler's post, "Content Marketing Has Been a Successful PR Strategy for Decades," makes the claim that the term Content Marketing is a shiny new term for an age-old marketing and PR technique.

I couldn't agree more.

To me, Kanzler's post is a reminder that although the public relations profession has morphed in recent years -- as have many professions, thankfully -- the PR person's keys to success have fundamentally remained the same for eons.

Case in point:  creating exciting content and distributing it through targeted channels has been part of the PR pros daily regimen for years.  Today, it's called Content Marketing.  The reality is that PR pros have been practicing Content Marketing for years.

We just used to call it PR.

Here's how Junta42, a content marketing firm, defines content marketing:  Content marketing is a marketing technique of creating and distributing relevant and valuable content to attract, acquire, and engage a clearly defined and understood target audience -- with the objective of driving profitable customer action. 

Sound familiar to any PR pros out there?

When we, as PR people, interview a product manager about a new software release, we turn it into (hopefully) remarkable content in the form of a press release -- just as we have forever. And then we market it to specific audiences.

When we interview a client's customer about how our client's solution saved their customer time and money and improved product quality, we turn it into exciting content in the form of a case history, a blog post, a by-lined article, an instructional podcast or Webinar, Web site or You Tube video, etc., and then we promote it.

When we want to pitch a story to an influential journalist or blogger, we create content in the form of one exciting "teaser" paragraph to peak their interest.

Yes, how we exchange this content and measure it has changed significantly, especially in recent years thanks in large part to technology advances.  And we reach our clients' audiences in new formats and on new devices, and this will always be changing.

Joe Chernov, Eloqua's director of content, said in a recent tweet:  "'content marketing'" is different now, w/rise in SEO, collapse of print, networked customers who need info to share."

His points are very valid.  Content marketing is different now. 

But so is Kanzler's point, who says, "Just don't think that calling it content marketing makes it something entirely new."

What do you think?  Is Content Marketing an updated handle for a battle-tested discipline?

Where is the Second Internet Bubble?

I read an interesting blog yesterday by Christopher Mims, a blogger who writes for MIT Technology Review and other publications.  In it, Mims poses a question that has puzzled me recently.  Six times more U.S. households are online today than during the dotcom era, but why have we not experienced a second Internet bubble?  Where is the inflation we experienced in the early days, and why are there no crazy speculative investors throwing money at companies destined to create wallpaper stock?

One could assume it is because lessons were learned.  But, come on, this is about money.  The American investment community gets real irrational real fast about entire sectors when one company has a favorable exit of any kind. Late money -- dumb money --  is never beyond the reach of hungry entrepreneurs who can point to the latest market forecasts and woo investors with the potential return of gaining only a fractional percentage of a multi-billion dollar market forecast. I've experienced it myself as the COO of an early stage company with no profit and barely enough revenue to buy coffee cups listening to otherwise intelligent investment bankers from leading global firms telling the company why we should choose them for our IPO.  

Mims points to the work of Shane Greenstein, an economist at Northwestern University. Writing for the IEEE Spectrum, Greenstein cites serval interesting points, two of which ring particularly true to me:

1. For all the negative memories we harbor, the dot.com era created incredible new e-commerce successes like Amazon, eBay and Expedia that generated significant value, and

2. The second wave of internet business has not been about value creation, but cannibalization of brick and mortar retail. 

If you believe the past helps us define the future, you will be interested in the very negative impact of the Internet that Greenstein describes. He and Mims have a lot more to say on the topic. It's a good assessment that reinforces what we know -- real value usually is borne of innovation and effort not remodeling.

Three Great Password Management Systems to Keep Hackers on the Run

A good friend of mine told me this week he manages more than 200 separate password-protected online accounts.  At first I thought he was exaggerating, but after further discussion with him, I realized it's fairly easy for any of us to get close to that number.

Consider all of your password protected media sites (free and paid), banking and brokerage accounts, personal and professional email accounts, retails sites, project management sites, social media channels, etc.  You can see how someone who goes online only out of necessity, and not desire like many of us, can quickly accumulate a significant number of password protected online sites without really trying.

And as the hackers out there know, people generally use the same one or two easy-to-decode passwords (like their first name, or qwerty or letmein) for all of their accounts. It keeps things simple.  Unfortunately, it also makes the hacker's job that much easier.  All a hacker has to do is to figure out one of these passwords and suddenly he/she has access to a large number of your accounts and to potentially critical personal information.

What now?

Well, as I learned earlier this week, after you get hacked is not the time to be looking for the additional security you need to guard against getting hacked in the first place.

Still, better late than never.

It's like trying to buy a snow blower in a blizzard, a generator in a power failure, sandals in July.  Your best bet, and for the best deals, is to purchase these things before you need them.

And in the case of added security for your protected online sites, many of the software products that fortify your electronic fortress are free, up to a certain point.  You still need a comprehensive security suite running on your computer and you may also want to invest in an email security-specific product as well.

But in addition, and on the heels of my Gmail account betting hacked earlier this week, I've become a big proponent of password management systems as an added layer of steel between you and the hacker.  My friend with the 200 password protected online accounts became a proponent some years ago when his Gmail account was hacked. And now, I too am convinced. You should be too.

There are a lot of great products out there that more or less do the same thing, but here are three password management solutions I researched and want to share with you.  We'll never put the hackers completely out of business, but we can make their job as hard as possible:


KeePass:  This is a free open source password manager.  They talk about themselves this way:  You can put all your passwords in one database, which is locked with one master key or a key file.  So you only have to remember one single master password or select the key file to unlock the whole database.  


RoboForm.  Lots of awards and great reviews from leading trade pubs like PC Magazine, Bloomberg and Morningstar.  RoboForm says on its website:  Security is our highest priority.  RoboForm Password Manager has gone through multiple security reviews and is used by Fortune 500 companies and the government. 

Passpack.  This is the solution my friend uses.  Here's how Passpack talk about themselves:  We believe access to data privacy applications should be an unalienable right. We're working hard to make that a reality.


The truth is, it doesn't matter too much which one you pick.  As long as you pick one.

Don't Let This Happen to You

Earlier this week my Gmail account was hacked.  It left me with the same feeling of violation I experienced about 25 years ago when my then beautiful Toyota Celica was broken into and my AM/FM in-dash cassette player was stolen.

I realize this has happened to many of you before, but having my email account hacked was a first for me and it really took me by surprise.   Just as the break-in to my titanium silver Celica did.

Why?

Because I thought I was protected -- in both cases.  After all, on my two computers I run the latest version of the Norton Security Suite -- courtesy of my Internet service provider, Comcast.  And I also run the free version of Malewarebytes Anti Malware.

And the Celica had a motion-sensor security system. What could go wrong?

As it turns out, all of these well-known and dutiful security solutions gave me what has turned out to be a false sense of security.

The nastiness started just before 8 p.m., just after I finished a great dinner and as I was settling in on the couch to check out what financial funny-man Jim Cramer had to say on his nightly show, which I DVRed.

I powered up my Toshiba Satellite L305-S5968 laptop, which had been in sleep mode, and opened Gmail.

And then - wham!

Once loaded, I saw that my inbox was filled with dozens of out-of-office responses from Gmail contacts around the world, dozens of delivery failures (I guess I need to update my address book), and a number of emails from a few former clients, co-workers and friends wondering what was going on.  I also received a few alerts from Twitter and Facebook friends.

Many of the recipients I heard from immediately recognized the email they received from me as a bad case of spam.  Most recipients didn't open up the message (story of my life). But for the more adventurous souls who did click through, they saw the goat (or is it a ram?) pictured here along with this verbiage:

"This journal has been suspended. Its contents are no longer publicly visible. LiveJournal cannot discuss the reasons for a journal suspension with anyone except the journal owner.about Livejournal.com being suspended." 

Now, I have nothing against a goat (or ram) wearing an eye-patch and a pirate's hat, but ....

So before I share some information (coming in tomorrow's post) about how you can better protect your email account from being hacked, even though you too may think you are already protected, I want to share a few of my favorite responses from a few of the hacker's victims:

"This seems a little dodgy--did you get hacked? I didn't click through...figured I would check with you first. Hope all is well!"   ...from a fellow PR pro working at a big IT management company.

"Jim -- Long time, no contact ...good to hear from you.  The note below, however, looks suspiciously like something might have hijacked your address book and is sending out emails to all of your 'C' contacts. ...Hope all is well."   ...from a former client who works at a big IT management company (not the same company as above).

From another:  "virus or real?"   ...from a former client who works for the world's largest technology company.   

And another:  "Hi Jim, is this legit?"   ...past client now working for a leading data governance solutions company.     

Finally:  "Are you toying with me?"   ...friend and former colleague working for the world's largest technology company.

Tomorrow, I'll share what I learned from someone who has over 200 password-protected accounts and  is passionate about password management systems as a way to keep email hackers at bay.

You Know It's Real When It Enters the "Trough"

In August, Gartner Group released its annual Hype Cycle on Emerging Technologies. We here at 3Point Communications were awaiting the release of this year's Hype Cycle because we were particularly interested to find out if cloud computing -- which had been at the "Peak of Inflated Expectations" in 2009 -- would begin its descent into what Gartner terms the "Trough of Disillusionment."

You see, the ultimate goal of any emerging technology is to become an accepted technology as quickly as possible, go mainstream, thus lowering the cost of production. It is then that the investment in the new technology can be recouped and profits realized. This doesn't happen until the emerging technology makes the perilous trip through the Trough.

Some emerging technologies enter the Trough of Disillusionment never to be seen again, such as broadband over power lines, while others, such as interactive TV and speech recognition, are well on they way to mainstream adoption.

It is our belief that cloud computing will quickly become standard operating procedure for businesses and consumers alike, and this was confirmed by Gartner's recent report which has cloud computing going mainstream within 2-5 years. So seeing cloud computing entering the Trough was a welcome sight.

Here are five reasons we think cloud computing is here to stay:

1. It's already here. If you've used a photo-sharing site such as Shutterfly or accessed email on a friend's PC, then you've already tapped into the power of cloud computing. These simple applications, and countless others like them, don't exist on your PC, laptop or mobile device, they "live" in the cloud and are accessed on an as-needed basis. On the business front everything from email to CRM to customer support has migrated to the cloud. Not every company has moved every application from internal IT systems to the cloud, but the trend is well underway and in our opinion inevitable.
2. Cloud computing saves money. When businesses move infrastructure, platforms and software applications to the cloud, they save money. If your core business is not IT, why invest resources, time and money in owning and managing an infrastructure? A good example is Recovery.gov, the first government-wide system moved to the cloud, which expects to save $700,000 in its first budget cycle with more savings to follow.
3. Cloud computing is more secure than people realize. The number one concern among CIO and IT professionals is security when moving a company's data and resources to the cloud. But in many cases, cloud-based security is more secure than a company's internal systems. For example, an Aberdeen Group report found that a company's email security may improve by as much as 53% when moved to the cloud.
4. Going mobile. With the success of Apple's iPad, new tablets hitting the market, smartphones and other mobile devices, businesses and consumers are both accessing information on the go. These devices simply don't have the storage capacity or internal power to house thousands of apps. Rather, mobile devices are portals into the world of cloud computing. And IDC predicts that more than a quarter of a billion smartphones will be sold this year and numbers will increase next year by 10% or more. All will access the cloud.
5. Money talks. Amazon, Google, Microsoft, HP, IBM, Cisco, CA, Oracle and thousands of other companies big and small, are investing billions of dollars in cloud computing. Some, like Microsoft, have made bold claims that cloud computing must be the future of the company if it is to survive and thrive. With this much momentum behind the cloud, it is only a matter of time before it becomes mainstream.

We would interested in your thoughts on cloud computing. Are you there yet? Have you begun the journey? Or is something holding you back?

For the record, 3Point Communications embraces cloud computing and uses cloud-based applications to manage and run our business.

Better RFPs Yield the Best Results

It appears that a  number of tech companies are taking the advice I imparted last week in Beyond the Arc:  that it's a great time of year for corporate communications teams to ask themselves a question.

"Are we getting the desired results from our PR agency?"

OK, so perhaps it's just coincidence that we're seeing increased interest from prospects, as is the competition, on the heels of last week's post, "Six Key Categories for Gauging the Client/Agency Relationship."

Whatever the reason may be (OK, OK, it's the time of year and not my post...I know, I know), companies coast-to-coast are gearing up for an end-of-year sit down with their agency or are further along and may be putting the finishing touches on a PR agency "request for information" (RFI) or the more elaborate "request for proposal" (RFP).

A prospect's invitation to compete in an agency "bake-off" is reason for celebration at most agencies, whether it's a boutique shop with a deep speciality or a full service global firm.  Of course, once the excitement of being considered by the prospect wears off, it's time to get to the hard work of fulfilling the proposal's many requirements.  Responses numbering 40, 50, 60 or more pages are not unusual.  Fulfilling the request can monopolize a small shop's time for weeks as well as the time of key employees at larger agencies.  Personally, I much prefer an RFP with a shorter deadline.  In this business, the more time you have, the more time you take.

Once the response is submitted to the prospect, it's pretty much out of the agency's control.  It's during this period that a participating agency holds its collective breadth, works on other business and tries to pretend that they're not phased or worried by the lack of communication from the prospect.  A prospect's silence is deafening, especially during business climates like this one when so many great agencies are hungry and pulling out all the stops to compete for new business.

And, while you're finally busy working on other projects, an email or phone call arrives from the prospect telling you what you had hoped to hear: that you're agency made it to the next round, typically a live meeting with the prospect and the key decision makers.

The agency review process is equally intense for the client.  But when done thoroughly and thoughtfully, the process should yield a successful and sustainable agency/client relationship.

Of course, some companies run end-to-end agency reviews better than others.  Kathy Cripps of the Council of PR Firms pointed out that some RFPs act "more like a barrier, rather than a gateway to a productive client/agency partnership."

From what we're seeing, RFIs and RFPs are getting better and better at clearly stating company objectives, what the organization truly values and wants from an agency, the scope of work, fairer timetables, etc.  So as an industry, we're making progress.

If you're interested, there are a number of RFI/RFP building tools and resources for companies to leverage.  Here are a few:

• RFP Builder from the Council of PR Firms.
• "Request for Proposal:  A Guide to Effective RFP Development"    
• The Public Relations Society of America (PRSA) offers a number of helpful articles on its web site.      

To include 3Point Communications in your agency review, please get in touch with the appropriate 3Point partner from our "Contact Us" page.

Five Factors Driving The End of "Passive Media"

There was a time not that long ago when most Americans got their news and information from a combination of the nightly network news, the morning or evening newspaper and the local weekly newspaper.  We passively awaited delivery in print or broadcast and shared what we learned orally with family and friends. There are still places in America where that routine is the norm.  But even in the most distant outposts of the country, the days of passively awaiting information is waning as technology moves from top-down distribution of information to an open, many-to-many networked media environment.   

I would suggest that any of our readers who who are interested, involved in or impacted by this change take a look at a study by the American University's Center for Social Media in Washington, D.C.  The authors set out to explore the impact of this change on public media and published an excellent white paper titled, Public Media 2.0: Dynamic, Engaged Publics.  In part, the research offers an assessment of the impact of new media on traditional media. While many of us have written about these changes, the AU research pulls them together in an interesting framework that makes sense out of a number of technologies that seem headed on a collision course.

The AU paper identifies five elements creating this massive change in the way we interact and access media. These "five C's:" Choice, Conversation, Curation, Creation and Collaboration are having a massive impact on our use of video, databases, social networks, location media, distribution, platforms and metrics.  

In the words of the researchers, here are the specific items they identified:

1. Choice: Rather than passively waiting for content to be delivered as in the broadcast days, users are actively seeking out and comparing media on important issues, through search engines, recommendations, video on demand, interactive program guides, news feeds, and niche sites. This is placing pressure on many makers to convert their content so that it’s not only accessible across an array of platforms and devices, but properly formatted and tagged so that it is more likely to be discovered.
2. Conversation: Comment and discussion boards have become common across a range of sites and platforms, with varying levels of civility in evidence. Users are leveraging conversation tools to share interests and mobilize around issues. 7 Distributed conversations across online services, such as Twitter and FriendFeed, are managed via shared tags. Tools for ranking and banning comments give site hosts and audiences some leverage for controlling the tenor of exchanges. New tools for video-based conversation are now available on sites such as Seesmic. News is collaboratively created, gaining importance by becoming part of electronic conversation.
3. Curation: Users are aggregating, sharing, ranking, tagging, reposting, juxtaposing, and critiquing content on a variety of platforms—from personal blogs to open video-sharing sites to social network profile pages. Reviews and media critique are popular genres for online contributors, displacing or augmenting genres, such as consumer reports and travel writing, and feeding a widespread culture of critical assessment.
4. Creation: Users are creating a range of multimedia content (audio, video, text, photos, animation, etc.) from scratch and remixing existing content for purposes of satire, commentary, or self-expression—breaking through the stalemate of mass media talking points. Professional media makers are now tapping user-generated content as raw material for their own productions, and outlets are navigating various fair use issues as they wrestle with promoting and protecting their brands.
5. Collaboration: Users are adopting a variety of new roles along the chain of media creation and distribution—from providing targeted funds for production or investigation, to posting widgets that showcase content on their own sites, to organizing online and offline events related to media projects, to mobilizing around related issues through online tools, such as petitions and letters to policymakers. "Crowdsourced" journalism projects now invite audience participation as investigators, tipsters, and editors—so far, a trial-and-error process.

The research then makes an interesting connection that illustrates how our changing media habits are affecting the tools we use and the ways we use them.  Again, in the words of the researchers, these trends involve:

• Ubiquitous video (choice, creation, collaboration) Professional and amateur video alike are migrating online to sites such as Hulu and YouTube; nonprofessional online video is becoming part of broadcast news and newspaper reporting; live streaming and podcasting are routine aspects of public events.
• Powerful databases (curation, creation) Deep wells of data and imagery are increasingly valuable for reporting, information visualization, trend-spotting, and comparative analysis. Databases also now serve as powerful back-ends for managing and serving up digital content, making it available across a range of browsers and devices.
• Social networks as public forums (conversation, collaboration) Durable social-networking platforms, such as Facebook, and on-the-fly social networks, such as the open-source Ning, allow multifaceted media relationships with one person, a few, or many people.
• Locative media (choice, creation) GPS-enabled mobile devices are allowing users to access and upload geographically relevant content, and a new set of "hyperlocal" media projects are feeding this trend. Conversely, maps are becoming a common interface for news, video, and data.
• Distributed distribution (choice, curation) News feeds, search engines, and widgets are allowing content to escape the traditional boundaries of the channel or site. Users are coming to expect access to anywhere, anytime searchable media.
• Hackable platforms (creation, collaboration, curation) Open source tools and applications are becoming increasingly customizable. Media makers can tailor their platforms, sharing tips across a broad community of developers, and users can pick and choose how they will interact with content.
• Accessible metrics (creation, curation) Ranking and metrics sites, such as Google Analytics, Alexa, and Technorati, make it easier for media makers to compile and compare their audiences—and for outsiders to more easily judge and note success.
• Cloud content (choice, creation) Applications, media, and personal content are migrating away from computers and mobile devices and onto hosted servers—into "the cloud" of online content. On the one hand this offers simplicity, easy sharing, and protected backups; on the other, it threatens control and privacy.
• Pervasive gaming (choice, collaboration) Gaming—playing computer, Web, portable, or console games, often connecting with other players via the Internet—has become as ubiquitous as watching TV for young people.

When we look at these in isolation, the media universe may first appear as a random set of trends propelled toward some kind of chaotic convergence with an unknown and unpredictable outcome.  But when seen in relation to each other, there appears to be not only an order but at least a set of potential outcomes that we will look at in a future post.