Young PR

BlogHer is an Amazing Organization

BlogHer is one of the most remarkable online communities I’ve had the pleasure to become a part of. From their about page:

Founded in February 2005 as a labor of love by three bloggers, BlogHer’s mission is to create opportunities for women who blog to pursue exposure, education, community and economic empowerment. Today BlogHer provides the number-one community for and guide to blogs by women, via annual conferences, a Web network (http://www.blogher.com), and an advertising network of more than 1,400 qualified, contextually targeted blog affiliates (http://blogherads.com).

I was familiar with BlogHer for some time but the sheer power of the community didn’t totally sink in for me until I attended the BlogHer Business conference earlier this year, probably the best business/blogging conference I’ve been to (here’s a quick interview I did with the screengrab crew covered the event - full warning, I’m looking pretty rough as it’s 3 days after I joined my rugby club in a charity head shave :)).

It’s an amazing organization, powered by passionate intelligent women. I could go on and on, but instead I’d like to point you to two examples that’ll be sure to make your eyes widen.

First up, a BlogHer interview as Erin Kotecki Vest (the QueenOfSpain herself) gets some face time with quite possibly the next President of the USA, Barack Obama:

(RSS Readers click for video)

Next, a team of ‘mom bloggers’ (including my mate Devra) are heading across the country to BlogHer on a corporate sponsored road trip. That’s noteworthy in itself, but then they got this send off from the an American household name, Katie Couric:

This week I travel to San Francisco for my first BlogHer Conference along with two of my client Graco’s bloggers Lindsay Lebresco and Melissa Parlaman, and a very special guest - my mum (I’m biased, but I reckon she’s the world’s best mommy blogger ;)). So what will a cocky young alpha male like your’s truly get up to at the peak female blogging event? I’ll sit down and shut up so I can listen and learn from some amazing women.

Drop me a line if you’ll be there! I’m sure I’ll be Twittering like crazy during the event, and once the dust settles I’ll report back here with some thoughts.

Posted in Blogging, Event Management, Media Ownership, Networking, word of mouth | 6 Comments »

The World is Shrinking

And damn, ain’t that a beautiful thing?

(RSS readers please click through for a video)

This video says so much about how the world is changing in a new era of interconnection. Next time I talk to an audience brand new to thinking about the social web, this is what I’ll lead with.

Posted in word of mouth | 6 Comments »

Here Comes Everybody

At the urging of Richard Bailey across the pond and Constantin Basturea across my desk I’m currently reading Clay Shirky’s Here Comes Everybody.

It’s a great read on internet culture and the communications revolution that’s upon us, but this quote that I read on the train to O’Hare airport this morning struck me as spot on the money for social media communicators:

“The fact that people are all talking to one another in these small clusters also explains why bloggers with a dozen readers don’t have a small audience: they don’t have an audience at all, they just have friends”

I often get laughed at when I say that I don’t measure my blog by traffic or subscribers… but by friendships. Good to have some backing on this from someone much smarter than me!

This shift highlights an inherent  difference in PR/Marketing within social media - you’re not ‘pitching’ media outlets when you’re communicating with bloggers and online audiences, what you’re doing is walking into a community where everyone knows each other. For best effect, you need to prove yourself and focus on slowly building relationships.

In another quick piece of news (I’m about to get on a flight out of Chicago) Adspace Pioneers have published the first ranking list of Australian marketing blogs and I’m pleased to see Young PR come in at number six. Unsurprisingly given the nature of this post… several friends deservedly appear higher than me on the list including Gavin Heaton, Lee Hopkins and Trevor Cook.

Posted in Australian Media, Blogging, Marketing, Media Ownership, Media Relations, Networking, New Practitioners, Online PR, Students, word of mouth | 11 Comments »

Don’t Bullshit

If you follow the PR blogosphere closely you would have read a lot of blah blah about PR ‘blacklists’ recently. If you don’t follow it closely, in this case you’ve missed very little of note.Who spammed who, what list or directory was at the core of it, bloggers overreacting to PR approaches - none of it is of long term importance to our practice. What is at the heart of effective communication? Don’t Bullshit.

I’m reading Katie Paine’s Measuring Public Relationships at the moment, and a passage struck such a chord with me that I felt the urge to transpose it here:

Trust, Bullshit and the Truth

This is exactly what Brad Rawlins and Kevin Stoker were talking about in their 2006 IPRRC paper on BS in PR.

Their point? Bullshit is more damaging than lies. Liars have a fundamental respect for – or at least knowledge of – the truth, and they choose not to use it. Bullshitters, on the other hand, use language to blur the truth, and are intentionally careless and vague about the truth. They cite Henry Frankfurt’s book On Bullshit’s point that Bullshit isn’t false, it’s fake. Its intent is not to mislead about facts but about impressions and to create favorable impressions despite unfavorable facts.

Rawlins and Stocker argue bullshit is insidious not because the person speaking the bullshit believes it, but because he or she is trying to manipulate people with it. They claim we need to change this environment to inject more honesty, loyalty, and moral values into what we say and write as part of our profession. To increase your trust and credibility, make sure that the things you espouse and believe in are the same.

Rawlins argues that the PR profession can’t blame bullshit on the organization, and that it comes down to personal integrity. The bottom line is (according to Rawlins): hold onto the virtue. Abandon the vices. Get rid of the disconnects between what you believe and what you do. Work for organizations that have character in the way they operate, in their visions and values. If the organization doesn’t have character and hasn’t changed its character to correct a crisis, then you are communicating bullshit. “You have to be willing to say the things that no one wants to hear,” says Rawlins.

His final point is that if everything we say is tainted by bullshit, no one will believe anything we try to communicate.

UPDATE

Brad Rawlins, one of the academics I’ve referenced heavily above commented at this post and shared with me some links to some extra content he’s produced on this very topic:

http://www.awpagesociety.com/site/resources/white_papers/

http://www.prsa.org/prjournal/index.html?WT.ac=PRJournalTopNav

Brad also (in a personal email, so I hope he doesn’t mind me posting it here :)) made a great point that I was edging around with this post:

I think it is very critical to the practice of public relations that we understand the true nature of relationships and learn how to manage our authenticity rather than trying to manage an image.  Certainly the new forms of media are pushing us in that direction.

Posted in Blogging, Issues Management, Marketing, Media Ethics, Media Relations, New Practitioners, Online PR, Students, Workplace Issues, word of mouth | 15 Comments »

How Do You Measure a Year?

Wow, time flies. There’s a lot of truth to the expression ‘a New York minute’.

14 May 2007, 11.30pm

I stumble off a shuttle bus from JFK airport and try to get my bearings on my first visit to Harlem. I’m weary after 24 hours travel time from Sydney, and I’m carrying everything I own on my person (a backpack and a suitcase). I stumble up to the address I’ve scrawled on some scrap paper and press the buzzer, hoping that the room I’ve paid a months rent for and found on Craigslist really exist. It’s hard to get to sleep because I’m excited about my first day in my dream job in New York city… and possibly a little scared about the adventure to come.

14 May 2008, 11.30pm

I feel content after a great meal with work mates and a client at one of my favorite restaurants in the West Village (evidently I also spell favourite ‘favorite’ now). Dinner is on the back of another typically hectic 10 hour day, yet we still bat around work related ideas for community building and discuss topics as varied as the accuracy of Clay Shirky’s arguments on human knowledge capital through to a more sophisticated discussion of New York’s hottest strollers than I ever would have thought I was capable of. I take a cab home with my close friend and mentor Constantin Basturea, as strenuously academic as the first conversation I had with him many moons ago in my first hours visiting NYC. I look forward to a weekend packed with a ball game with a good mate, some rugby, Macbeth on Broadway and a rooftop bbq in the Lower East Side.

Now, I’m trying to pause to reflect before grabbing a few hours sleep.

As I’m about to shut my eyes on my first year in the States, I awake to my first anniversary at Converseon. I miss Australia deeply, I miss Australians more (especially my family and the dogs). But, I’m blessed that I can honestly say I’m having the time of my life. I love my job, I love the work my clients are doing, I love my new mates, I love my city…. I’m a pretty positive bloke at the best of times but it’d be tough for the standard shifts and sways of life to average out much higher.

I feel so damn lucky that I want to share the good oil, and my advice is simple: Find your passion and follow your bliss. Don’t turn around, you’ll know it when you find it.

Bring on year 2! And thank you to all of you who touched my life in the past big year of change.

Posted in Uncategorized | 12 Comments »

PR Students and Faculty: Join PR Open Mic

My good friend Robert French has done the PR world yet another service, this time starting up PR Open Mic a social network for PR students and faculty to get together alongside practitioners and move our profession forward.

If you’re a student you’re an imbecile if you don’t join up. It’s easy, it’s free and it’ll help you get ahead. There’s an impressive faculty line up already headlined by the one and only James Grunig and supported by some of my favorite educators like Karen Russell & Kaye Sweetser from UGA, the smartest man in the world Richard Bailey and even my old mentor from CSU Bathurst Donald Alexander.

Others have said it better than me, so let me share some endorsements:

Robert French is very passionate about this community, and you can’t help but get caught up by his enthusiasm:

One place for all PR students and faculty to meetup and mashup ideas about emerging digital media. That’s been my dream.

Sure, we’ve been creating our blogs and podcasts. We’ve been following each others writings and media. All fun. All good. But, there really hasn’t been one place for everyone to do a meet and greet … until now.

PROpenMic.org is the place.

I’m seeking your support, please. Share PROpenMic.org with your students, fellow faculty, PR/Marcom colleagues and more. Sign up yourself and there is a very easy “invite” process for you to use. Thank you.

Phil Gomes is right amongst it and even though he sits towards the top of the industry he is still the most active practitioner at the site (check out his ‘Ask Phil‘ series of short videos):

Bravo to Robert French, who launched PROpenMic — a Ning-based network for students and educators.

I’m very much looking forward to participating here, focusing most of my contributions in the “Ask Phil” group that I’ve started and, of course, chiming in wherever and whenever I can.

Shel Holtz, who’s one of the leading thinkers in online PR and a very strong influence on yours truly had this to say:

Students ask good questions, as evidenced by the discussion forum, which is host to queries like, “What do PR writers REALLY have to know about AP Style?” and “Maximizing PR when there really is no budget.” The events section is getting loaded up with conference and podcamp info, and nobody seems shy about uploading photos and videos.

I know that I’ve been blessed to have been able to learn from the likes of Robert, Phil and Shel through actively getting involved in the PR blogosphere. However, I know the blogging route is not for everybody. PR Open Mic offers an easy access point for any PR Student, along with the opportunity for active learning alongside peers, educators and potential mentors around the world.

Get into it! And once you’re there, add me as a friend

PS: I’m not posting much these days so I’ll throw in a couple of extra tidbits while I’ve got your attention.

If you’re under 26 years of age and work in a PR agency, please take a minute to complete this survey (a study from Oregon educators and PR Open Mic members Kelli Matthews and Tiffany Derville). The survey touches on some really important issues for the industry as a whole, but especially our generation of millenials.

Also, I’m proud to be a member of the new Brazen Careerist Network, set up by Penelope Trunk and a number of young entrepreneurs, it’s a great collection of content produced by and for young people across a range of industries. Take a look!

Posted in Blogging, Networking, New Practitioners, Online PR, Students, Workplace Issues, word of mouth | 3 Comments »

The Universe is Made of Stories, Not Atoms

I was walking back to the office past the New York Library on one of New York’s first lovely April days when I spotted this on the sidewalk footpath.

Love it! I think I’ll print this photo and sit it on my desk. A mission statement of sorts for the new generation of PR professionals.

Posted in Blogging, New Practitioners, Online PR, Students, word of mouth, writing | 8 Comments »

Hi From BlogHer Business with Windows Live Writer

At the BlogHer Business conference today with my client Graco. Hell of a crowd, testing out the funky new Microsoft Live Writer program - Frank Arr and Nick Hodge would be proud…

UPDATE: Here’s a quick video the BlogHer team took with my ugly melon and Microsoft’s Sara Ford straight after I wrote the demo post above:

Posted in Blogging, Event Management | 2 Comments »

Young PR in the News

***WANKER ALERT***

This week I’ve been lucky to be able to share some opinion about my online work and play in the mainstream media, and I’m left feeling damn lucky I work at Converseon because these opportunities wouldn’t exist in many other places.

Yesterday afternoon I was a guest on FOX Business ‘Happy Hour‘, and here is the clip:

(RSS Readers, please click through to the blog for the full video of my interview)

My CEO Rob Key was speaking at SES New York, so I had the good fortune of being able to stand in and share some thoughts on social media and small business. I doubt there could be a better venue for me than a TV show filmed in a bar, even though it was more than a little odd to be at a pub wearing make up and drinking water.

Thank you to all the friends who sent me some love on Twitter, Facebook and email - it means more to me than you know :). The intelligent and entertaining gentlemen over at PR Newser (a blog I’m growing to love on the NYC PR scene) picked it up in their usual snappy style, and I haven’t listened yet but I see Donna Papacosta has talked about it on her brilliant podcast (Donna, I hope you were positive! A lot of my interview craft I’ve learned from listening to you ;)).

Earlier in the week I was quoted in an great article in the Christian Science Monitor focusing on online ethics. I was certainly the least intelligent person quoted (some genius in Doc Searls & Dan Gillmor) but I’ve long been passionate about trust and transparency online and the WOMMA Code of Ethics gives some great structure to lean on.

Sorry for the tossing, we’ll return to normal service (well, the same inane drivel) immediately.

Posted in Blogging, Converseon, Marketing, Media Ethics, Media Relations, Online PR, Workplace Issues, word of mouth | 8 Comments »

Social Media: Does Your Brand Have Substance or Spin?

I took this snapshot with my phone at the only Aussie pie shop in NYC and it immediately reminded me of many of the big brands I talk to about social media.

Many giant corporations look at social media as a means to build buzz and appear innovative (read: look hip and cool), but there isn’t always substance and commitment behind them. In reality, the best possible gains will occur with a complete cultural shift leading to deeper relationships with your stakeholders.

Does your brand have the balls for this? Or, like the “suggestion” box above, is it just lip service?

Posted in Blogging, Marketing, Online PR, word of mouth | 3 Comments »