Shape of Things

I know I promised a “PR in Practice” posting on press releases this week.  But, just thinking about it put me off into some dangerous and angry mind currents. 

You’ve probably experienced this before: You’re at a party and someone you don’t know all that well (maybe a soon-to-be-ex-girlfriend or -boyfriend or a casual friend) says, “Well, the thing about Bob…” and proceeds to characterize you in a way that is unfathomable to you.  You’re angry, but your protests are too late – you’ve been third-party characterized.

In a bigger way, that’s what a lot of companies are doing – letting others tell their stories for them.  In the process, one of the most precious commodities of the company – its identity – is lost, misrepresented or compromised.  How basic  of a sin is that?  Yet, companies let it happen all the time.

They let poorly written press releases  and poorly informed PR people deliver watered-down, clichéd versions of their story.

They copy the stories of other, bigger companies, completely undermining the advantages of their uniqueness.

They tarnish their stories with hype and puffery.

They communicate with benign dishonesty, but dishonesty just the same.

They believe their own myths and foist them on the public.

They put all information dissemination in the hands of the media, even though they could likely tell the story better and more accurately if they spoke directly to their communities.

They don’t talk with their customers or use customers’ stories to help define the company and engender trust.

They never taint their company’s steeliness with an ounce of warmth or personality.

They concentrate on product positioning, engineering and false branding while kicking their central story to the curb.

O.K., I feel a bit better.  The end-of-the-week martini is about an hour away.  If you engage in the above practices, I hope you’re slightly uncomfortable.  But, probably not: Your story most likely left the building a long time ago.

“More is better” might hold true for money, but not for press releases.

Many companies and PR agencies think that volume wins the day. But in a time when there are multiple outlets for news and announcements – blogs, twitter, social media, internal enewsletters – PR professionals and the companies that employ them should think of press releases as a limited and perishable resource.

So if your CEO’s every move isn’t worthy of a press release, what is? That’s a matter of perspective, and you are best served if you don’t over-inflate your company’s or client’s impact on the industry or world at large.

Releases come in all sizes

All news is not created equally, and shouldn’t be given the same treatment. Company news with a significant business or industry impact usually deserves a press release with widespread distribution through services such as Business Wire or PR Newswire. Other news, such as a minor revision of a product, should be distributed in a press release to a more specialized list of relevant trade publications and web sites. Special interest news, such as a trade show appearance or minor product update, should be reserved for the company web site or e-newsletter.

Those who think that cramming an editor’s mailbox with press releases is going to generate more coverage are sadly mistaken. It’s more likely that an editor will think of you in the same vein as the weekend guest who overstayed his welcome and drank all the beer in the fridge.

No announcement before its time

Timing, especially for new product releases, is also important. There are some companies that think the more times they announce the product – one-year out, six months out, one-month out, when it’s really out three months after it was supposed to be – the more coverage they’ll receive. Maybe in the short run this will work. But anticipation can quickly turn to frustration, lack of trust, and a bad reputation.

Microsoft might be able to get away with this, but chances are your company can’t.

Don’t spoil the appetite

Some general guidelines for the new product announcement: It’s OK to announce in advance at a trade show or event if you specify the delivery date, if that date is no more than two or three months away and you know you can meet it, and if you are confident that the features will not change from what you have announced.

If you cannot meet any one of the above, hold off with the release until the product is available. In fact, this is normally the best way to do it. You have a tangible product (and perhaps review software or hardware for editors) that is readily available, and you might even have some beta testers outside the company who are willing to say good things about it.

Think of press release management like a dinner party: Don’t promise a menu you cannot deliver and don’t spoil your guest’s appetite for the main course.

Next week: The elements of a good press release.

Last week I wrote about the benefits of self-publishing, especially in an environment where there are fewer trade publications and everybody is shouting into the press release cacaphony.

Many organizations don’t think they have the content to publish their own e-newsletters, community sites or print publications, but there are many sources of information under their own roofs (or extended roofs).  The best sources are often your own engineers and developers, who with good editing can communicate directly and effectively as peers to your customers.

Here are some outlets for generating content:

• Adapting existing content, especially new product releases and application stories (if these contain puffery, excise it ruthlessly).
• Tailoring other content from the Internet and strategic partners.
• Converting technical material and white papers into articles.
• Presenting profiles of prominent customers and company programmers.
• Writing editorials on themes of interest to customers and potential customers, including your vision for the marketplace, defining company positions, and relating your technology to bigger industry movements.
• Establishing forums for exchanging information and answering questions.
• Providing an outlet for blogs from product managers and technical staff.

This content can be aggregated and presented in many different ways.  It could take the form of monthy or bimonthy e-newsletters linked to a company web site.   It could be part of a community site or a company blog section on your web site.  The best content could be assembled in a 4-color magazine sent quarterly or twice annually to your best customers.

If you don’t think you can generate content yourself or hire an editor to do so, see if there is an existing community site that might be open for purchase.  In this arrangement, you could provide editorial autonomy and funding for the community site to its editors, while generating leads from advertising and promotions running on the site.

There are many possibilities that are cost-effective for generating sales leads and deepening an organization’s relationship with the community.  But to begin exploring them, you have to get past one evil word: “can’t.”

There it was, an almost eerie convergence. I was watching Charlie Rose and Bill Gates Sr. was talking about what he admired the most in his son.  It’s his insatiable curiosity.  I’ve been thinking a lot about curiosity lately, so the Gates/Rose session was inspiring.

Curiosity — the relentless pursuit of knowledge — seems to be the mark of true intelligence.  The smartest people I know — whether plumbers, farmers, musicians, artists or businesspeople — have it in spades. 

Like many people I know, Bill Gates Jr. cultivated it at an early age, through constant reading and questioning.  His family encouraged it.  But, I’ve seen it even in people whose families were not big readers or patrons of the arts.  With them, it was fueled by raw desire.

Curiosity isn’t an omnipresent gift.  It needs to be fed.  It demands time. When it is not being served, it can make you listless and depressed.  It requires energy, especially as one gets older.  Like a drug or alcohol, with age it takes more to stoke the curiosity high.  But the euphoria is always worth it.

As an employer, I found it difficult to fully ascertain the extent of a job candidate’s curiosity and whether it would grow within a company.  Despite good intake questions and team interviewing, I’ve been fooled when hiring people.  I’ve also faced the deflating phenomenon of people losing their curiosity surrounding an organization and its clients.

Are there good practices out there for determining the curiosity of a potential employee?  Are there methods for maintaining the sense of discovery within an organization? How do we nourish this child-like trait as we get older?

All thoughts are welcome, with a choice of books for the best.

Meanwhile, here are some quotes on curiosity.

Curiosity is, in great and generous minds, the first passion and the last.
Samuel Johnson

Desire to know why, and how, curiosity, which is a lust of the mind, that by a perseverance of delight in the continued and indefatigable generation of knowledge, exceedeth the short vehemence of any carnal pleasure.
Thomas Hobbes

It’s through curiosity and looking at opportunities in new ways that we’ve always mapped our path at Dell. There’s always an opportunity to make a difference.
Michael Dell

I have no special talents. I am only passionately curious.
Albert Einstein

The important thing is not to stop questioning. Curiosity has its own reason for existing.
That Einstein guy again

I find that when you have a real interest in life and a curious life, that sleep is not the most important thing.
Martha Stewart

If you really want to succeed, you’ll have to go for it every day like I do. The big time isn’t for slackers. Keep up your mental stamina and remain curious. I think that bored people are unintelligent people.
Donald Trump

John Austin, COO of Emergent, sent me this picture in response to my recent post about my sordid affairs with Ford.  It’s his first car, bought used. His Pinto didn’t leak tar from the doors, but the bottoms of both doors were rusted out.  Not a minor inconvenience, especially since he was living in Michigan at the time.

A headline in the April 8 edition of the Wall Street Journal read:  “Ford Takes Online Gamble With New Fiesta.”

The story is about a Ford initiative to loan 100 young people a Fiesta, then allow them to post YouTube videos, tweets and other social media messages about their experiences.  Ford allegedly has no control over the postings.  It’s a bold experiment, but a good one given one big “if”: If Ford is confident enough in the coolness and quality of the car.

I’m pulling for Ford in a big way, just like I still pull for my ex-hometown Orioles.  Like me and the O’s, Ford and I have had our ups and downs.  Well, mostly downs.

Mustang celibacy

The first car I owned was a used 1965 Mustang, a classic.  Rode like a charm.  But in about the third year of ownership, the floor behind the driver’s seat fell away, leaving just the carpet between a backseat passenger and the pavement.  Friends suggested removing the carpet and powering the car by foot, ala a Flintstones car.  Then, the passenger-side window refused to close all the way during the coldest winter in years.  I’m convinced that this contributed to my months-long celibacy that winter.

Lap of luxury

After the Mustang, I had a grand experiment with a slightly used, huge Ford LTD.  I was in the lap of luxury, riding on pillows with a front seat that stretched door to door.  The car was stolen once when I was attending a new-wave show at The Marble Bar in The Congress Hotel in downtown Baltimore, but fortunately recovered in New Media, Pennsylvania.  I’m sure the thieves enjoyed the luxurious ride, and the LTD had a killer sound system. The good times ended when the gas crisis of the early 80s hit and I traded in my limo for a Ford Pinto.

The Pinto -- cute, but deadly

The tar-pit Pinto

Yes, you know the Pinto by reputation; the one that burst into flames if hit from behind.  The one with the bone-jarring suspension.  My Pinto had a rarely documented problem: on hot days it would leak tar from a seam in the doors, as if a spore from the La Brea Tar Pit was embedded during assembly.

When will he ever learn?

Seemingly without capacity to learn from my mistakes, my first brand-new car was a Ford, a 1985 Mustang.  They made ’em like they used to.  Among the problems: a back end that became disengaged from the front of the car, leaving me a mile away from home at 2:30 a.m. in front of a laundromat where a murder occurred the previous week; massive transmission malfunctions; cruise control getting stuck (and fortunately unstuck) seconds before exiting a freeway; a twisted fuel line that delayed our arrival in our new home in North Carolina; and a broken front bucket seat.

Carrying the torch

I drive a Volkswagen now, but I still follow Ford.  I wallowed in shame as they staked their claim on huge trucks and SUVs.  But lately, I’ve been cheered by a small hybrid SUV, good reliability ratings, and the promise of the little Fiesta (despite the fact that it’s forefather was as wretched as the Pinto). 

Call me a fool, but if Ford calls, I might just open the door to my heart and come runnin’ back.

When I was in college, a good friend nervously opened a major presentation in a poetry course this way: “I feel like I should start with a joke.  My hometown is so small it legalized incest.”  Except for my snickering, utter silence.

A few years before as a particularly unworldly freshman, I was confronted with a tribunal of girls who wanted to screen my worthiness to court their girlfriend.  I began my case and sealed it with this intro: “Well, I’ve been with a lot of girls…”

A leading technology analyst and editor once opened his conference keynote speech on an optimistic note: “Life’s a bitch, and then you die.”

After college, I did a combined slide/audio presentation on reggae and debuted it at a party.  A friend’s wife came up to me afterwards and said: “I really didn’t think you were smart enough to do something like that.”

Me to future wife at beginning of a date early in our relationship: “Whew, your breath is bad…”

Guy to me after introducing myself at a business meeting: “You must get a lot of jokes about that name.” Me: “Ugh, not really…”

Some lines don’t leave us no matter how hard we try to forget them.  What regrettable lines have stuck with you?