no assholes, no gunslingers….
The “keep it simple, stupid” guide to running a PR agency courtesy of David Brain. Good read.
Month: March 2011
links for 2011-03-28
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Since the launch of Reputation Online in 2009, there has been one type of vendor that I receive pitches from on a daily basis above all others: social media monitoring firms. Partly because of the lack of knowledge about social media and the subsequent rush to do anything that looks like you’re trying to understand what people are saying about your brand online, this space has exploded over the past year. It’s still growing at a rapid pace, with larger technology companies getting in on the act (and often adding analytics into the mix), as well as PR agencies themselves launching solutions, and more granular tools cropping up that focus on specific networks (like Facebook) to provide very targeted insights.
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Rumours of a Google music service were mentioned recently at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona (last month), sparked by Motorola Mobility chief Sanjay Jha suggesting that the benefit of having its upcoming Xoom tablet run on Android Honeycomb is that "it adds video services and music services."
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Put together by iSpy Marketing. I find this fascinating given the work that I was involved with at Yahoo! six years ago where social search was considered as a way that could provide a blue water strategy to compete with Google’s dominance in algorithmic search.
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This list describes fallacious ideas and beliefs that are documented and widespread as well as the actual facts concerning those ideas, where appropriate. Inclusion criteria are as follows: a misconception's main topic must have its own article; the misconception must have reliable source(s) which assert that it is a common misconception (or synonym thereof); the misconception and its reference(s) must be present in the topic article; and the misconception must be modern rather than ancient or obsolete.
links for 2011-03-22
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We’re witnessing a generation of consumer web companies growing at an unprecedented rate in terms of both user adoption and revenue.
But here’s a little secret that’s gone unnoticed by most. It’s women. Female users are the unsung heroines behind the most engaging, fastest growing, and most valuable consumer internet and e-commerce companies. Especially when it comes to social and shopping, women rule the Internet.
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The report also touches on the role of agencies, finding a split of opinion in client-side attitudes. “There are those that feel their agency is driving innovation and those just see them as paying lip service to a new practice in social media that isn‟t really an area of expertise or even investment.”
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Those data suggest that the industry has come a long way in addressing an issue that has long troubled management at many of the larger agencies. The industry can ill afford to lose talent, and while there may be legitimate reasons for the decline in the percentage of women in older demographics, it would be smart to try to figure out ways to keep them.
men on top?
There are far better things to be judged on than getting chosen to speak at an event, but it’s time women took a bigger role.
via Male dominance still appears rife, even in digital PR | Opinion | New Media Age.
In this piece, Vikki Chowney follows up on discussions last week about why the entire panel at the future of comms event (PRCA) this week is male.
I think the issue can be broken down into 3 main areas:
1 – how many senior PR personnel are women
2 – if this is imbalanced, what can the industry do to prevent women leaving the PR industry (knowing when and why would be a start…)
3 – Why aren’t women in senior positions speaking at or attending important industry events and how can this be changed?
In my opinion, the best thing we can do is make a positive change to address the balance be it as employees, employers, mentors, mentees or industry participants. The situation will not change unless we change it.
Here are my thoughts on Vikki’s piece, as commented on the site.
Hi Vikki,
Thanks for writing this piece….easy to accept the general response that women were invited top attend panels but couldn’t attend(see my tweets re: the event that morning) but I agree, it is a cop out.
I think the issue goes a lot deeper. I am planning on writing a response on my blog but in short(ish!), the PR industry is 70% female, it is getting harder and harder to attract men into the industry according to the PR uni course leaders yet last year, only 24 of the PR Week Powerbook were female, only 5% of PR Week top practitioners were female and not one woman is booked to attend the PRCA future of the industry panel this week.
I too was tweeting Reda and Jaz about this and am meeting the PRCA next week to discuss how to attract women to attend events.
A lot of senior women are also working Mums and responsible for childcare drop offs and pick ups, This makes breakfast and evening events difficult to attend. Taking myself for example, as much as I love the industry, I love putting my children to bed too.
Also, regarding stemming the loss of senior women from the industry after having kids, many companies pay lipservice to flexible working policies but do they really walk the walk? Do they encourage home working? Flexitime? Job shares?
The last 5 headhunter calls/LinkedIns I have had (for MD or dep MD jobs) have been cut very short when I have asked if the role is possible to be done a) part time, b) flexible hours or c) with some remote working……I don’t believe the agencies being recruited for are in the minority either…
More and more people with families are moving outside of London meaning evening/morning networking is even harder. Ditto the increased uptake of webcasts and conference calls, great ways of staying in touch and up to date but the downside is they result in less physical interaction with peers and industry events.
This is a really important issue for our industry, thanks again for keeping it in people’s minds.
Becky
links for 2011-03-16
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* Get them signed up on our project management system (ours is a modified version of Redmine).
* Make sure they have a profile pic (it is nice to see their face when they post on stuff).
* Get an instant messaging program or Skype (I use Adium, so it doesn’t matter what platform they prefer.)
* You need some sort of version control. We use SVN for code and Dropbox for non-code (PSDs, DOCs, etc.).
* A conference call system if you have more than two people. We use Skype, iPhone merge calling, and freeconferencecall.com.
* For collaboration, I like join.me and Skype for screen sharing, and Jing or Skitch for annotating and screen casts.
* Get their socials and follow them. The best way to know what’s going on in their lives is through Facebook and Twitter, and since there’s no water cooler in your virtual office, making personal connections online is essential.
I am freelance 