the problem with just messing around...

...online is that I link to things, sign up for things, try things out, etc. and then forget how the hell I did what I did when I need to do it again. Annoying.

Hit me baby one more time

Britney has a new album out next week and I stumbled across the lyrics to one of her songs. I honestly have no words to express my joy here. Brit likes her Bluetooth and her hands-free. Apparently, Bluetooth is dead sexy.

when opporutnity knocks

You have to open the door. Or, ya know, participate in the interview or send the product for review. I'm just saying...

just don't piss 'em off...

When things go wrong online, they go horribly wrong. Take the Motrin vs. Moms war that started on Twitter this weekend. Pretty crazy stuff.

When a product gets panned or someone possibly gets sick, or hell, when the bloggers all turn against each other...when the online world rallies, it gets, hmmm, out of hand pretty quick. I think this is one of the biggest problems I have when explaining social media, web 2.0, bloggers, whatever to clients. They want to know how to control millions of people voicing their opinion - I don't care how good I am at my job, I cannot control the entire blogosphere. And neither can they.

I am always encouraging clients to get involved, but I think they see these horrific meltdowns and they just shrink away. Then, the further away they get, the demands get more foolish. I had a client insisting we contact a forum and have them remove all negative feedback about their product - uh, okay...I'll get right on that.

And then I have another client who just posted anonymously on a NYT Bits blog post - in defense of this client, he wasn't astroturfing (if that is still what you crazy kids are calling it). Honestly, he was just trying to inform the journalist and the other readers of some information that had been left out of the initial post. I wish he hadn't posted anonymously - I am a firm believer in transparency. Post away...just claim your posts. I suggested as much, and I think the client is on board. But I understand his hesitation...the online is a scary place.

The deal is that old chant that it is all about participation is no joke. It really is all about participating – start with a facebook page or hell, just set up your Google home page to watch a few of your favorite sites. Make a comment or two, set up a profile on digg, go play around on Vanno (it is fairly new, but I think it has a lot of potential).

And yeah, sometimes the bottom drops out. So I guess the chant should be, "Participate, be transparent, but for the love of god, don't piss 'em off"

The light at the end of the tunnel...

I have been fairly disenchanted with work over the past couple of months. Actually, I would say pretty much Q2 and Q3 were the closest I have ever been (and will ever be) to thinking that bagging this whole PR thing and going back to work at the GAP might be the best idea.

Pretty sure my blog posts of late have mirrored my negativity.

But today I got some fabulous news. Things are looking up. I think I might actually be able to like my job again.

What a night!

OBAMA WINS!

I am not sure what else to say, but wow...just wow

Thanks to BigWideLogic for posting. horrifying. I wonder if she can hear herself or if the voices in her head are a drowning out everything else.

but I WAAAANT one NOOOOOW....

I have compared a-list bloggers to several things on this blog - Scoble was a high school quarterback, they were the cool kids at the lunch table, they were a fraternity - but I have never quite pegged them correctly.

Rafe Needleman has a micro-blog call Pro PR Tips, which is too damn funny. Read it from tip one all the way to the end - you will laugh the entire way through. But tip #29 sums up a-list bloggers better than anything I could have penned. LOVE IT.

"A-list bloggers are like angry, spoiled shoolgirls. Calibrate your pitches accordingly"

Best. PR. Advice. Ever.

Screw how many miles I ran...it's an election year

I read quite a few different types of blogs - I have my runners and triathletes, my boys who wax poetic about the demise of print media, of course all the usual 'social media' big boys (and girls) that have developed entire careers around web 2.0, my snarky social commentary bloggers, hell, on occasion, I read mommy blogs just to remind me why I haven't had kids yet.

However, even though my netvibes account has several different tabs for each genre, it seems they have all, in the last week, become political blogs. Folks who normally just update the web on their marathon training are suddenly leaving commentary on why McCain might not be the best choice. Scoble has a desperate plea to all Democrats to make this election matter. Spots (who, lets face it, always kind of covers politics) is calling Palin to task for trying to 'pray away the gay.' It is amazing.

Twitter, my new best friend, is suffering the same kind of single-minded stream of conversation. I am not complaining. I think it is great. It is exciting to see the web-savvy American public focus on one very important thing. It gives me hope.


UPDATE: My runner from the above link developed a whole new blog for his political views, therefore allowing his training blog to remain a training blog - all this means for me is I now have ANOTHER blog on my netvibes to follow.

With a tweet, tweet here and a tweet, tweet there...

I am usually behind the hype. I started my blog last year, not in 2002. I was so far behind on myspace, by the time I had a page, everyone else had moved on. I hated facebook (in fact, the jury would still be out if it weren't for Scrabulous AKA Wordscraper). I pretty much have to be dragged kicking and screaming into the wonderful world of Web 2.0, social media, new media, whatever you want to call it.

I think I might spend some time in the next week acquainting myself with twitter and friendfeed. Not a huge fan of twitter, so not sure how it will turn out, but you can only stick your fingers in your ears and sing for so long.

Damn you, blogosphere. Damn you, Facebook, Damn you, Twitter.

I swear to god, if I start posting tweets from my damn blackberry, I am going to sit myself down for a serious talking to.

UPDATE: Less then a week in and I have the TwitterBerry ridiculousness on my blackberry - twitter is FAR more addictive then facebook, myspace, blog writing/reading - all of it. I should really just jump on these bandwagons immediately, rather than dragging my feet. It is kind of like how I was with Spoon - I really wanted to dislike Spoon, but it in end, good music won out.

You can get the entire set, A to Z, for just 12 payments of $19.95...

PR is a funny profession. Essentially, I am in sales - and probably, if I sat down and tried to decide on the worst possible job for me, it would be sales - but none the less, that is what I do. I knock on doors and often have them shut in my face. Journalist are NOTORIOUSLY pissy about PR flacks, 'I get too many pitches, I get too many emails, I am too busy to take your call, etc.'.

For the most part, I sympathize. I, too, get a lot of email. I, too, hate it when my phone rings with unwanted, or god forbid, sales, calls. I don't want to hear about things I don't care about and I certainly don't want to hear about things that do not pertain to me or my job. But for the most part, I believe in the treat people the way you want to be treated rule and I reserve my crotchety attitude for my friends and husband - they love me regardless - and present a generally genteel/pleasing attitude to strangers/colleagues/sales people/etc.

So if a journalist I am pitching wants to ignore me, totally fine. I can take a hint and, for the most part, I won't pester. If someone doesn't have time for my call or to respond to my email, I am okay with that...just remember I am here if you need me. And boy, if they need me, I better come a running. Which is totally fine. That is, after all, my job. And there are very few things as satisfying to me as getting the right information to the right person. Not spin, not messaging or an 'angle' - just delivering the facts and educating an interested party.

But the new trend I am seeing, is to to not only hate the messenger, but to now say that PR is useless or that PR is the problem. While both of those examples are Scoble, he certainly isn't the only offender. I don't pitch Scoble much because he wouldn't be interested in the majority of my clients, so I don't bother him. But I take offense for those PR flacks that are pitching him. I like to think, with my rose colored glasses on, that the majority of the folks pitching him sincerely think he would be interested and/or sincerely believe in their client and the product they are pitching.

But even if they aren't good at their jobs and they are just blanketing pitches out and they don't have a great product or a great story, even if they are annoying to the extreme - I am quite sure that if Scoble needed anything from any of them, they would bend over backwards to make it happen.

It is like the popular football player and the geeky nerd. Football player is 'too cool for this and that', completely hating on the geeky nerd, dissing his style, music, and social activities - until he needs his homework done.

I am never going to escape high school. sigh.

(Please do not think the irony of Scoble being the football player in my little 'play' is lost on me - it is not at all)

I'm checking out for a few weeks - see my schedule below

Olympic Medal winners at NBC Olympics.com!

"Yeah, I showed this to my daughter, and she just didn't get it"

Alright - I am having a few issues with the embed code, but this video is fabulous...

oh, unhappy day...

quite possibly my very favorite media contact ever is stepping down from his post

best of luck to him - but damn, so sad...

Hey Chicken Little, don't look now...

That is just kind of Jackass, right?

I don't know why the majority of the things that end up on morning news shows (local and national) are considered news. This is infuriating to me as a viewer, so I usually just don't watch. As a PR agent, it makes me flat balls-to-the-wall crazy. There is real news out there. Go cover that.

Love this video, though. Love the guy calling the reporter on his crappy journalism. Love just how pathetic the "on-the-ground coverage" is. But mostly, I love the shows producers, who obviously hate this douche bag as much as I now do - if they didn't, they would have pulled the cameras and shut it down as soon as it went south.

The times they are a changing...

I still haven't completely decided where I am going with my blog - but in an effort to actually hit the same number of posts in 2008 that I did in 2007, I thought I would drop in a little note.

I did go back and read through a bunch of the stuff I wrote up here last year...on occasion, I think I might have actually said a few insightful things. I think it is mildly ironic that I started this blog right around the launch of the iPhone, and now the 3G is out and I am re-thinking the blog. Seems like the coverage and the excitement hasn't been as frenetic as it was for the first phone (thank god, cause it just pushes me right over the edge and I start flying off the handle at anyone I see carrying one).

I don't have any brilliant insights to share right now, so I am going to cheat and embed a video JT has up on LiveDigitally. My absolute favorite line is, "I'm Bluetoothing it - is that a verb?" Oh, how it will make LP's ears bleed.


http://view.break.com/530439 - Watch more free videos

starting over...

Turns out, there are too many people out there blogging about blogging (and doing a much better job than I ever did) so I think I will refocus my blog (thus the new color). We will see what I chat about now...stay tuned.

Yeah, what Kyle said...

HELP! I am drowning in the kool-aid

I am on my way to the Bluetooth SIG All Hands Meeting in Phoenix, AZ. I have worked on/been involved with the AHM for the past four years, but I have never actually seen it first hand. I am looking forward to several rooms full of folks wearing, but not using Bluetooth headsets.

However, in my current running obsessed state, what I am really excited about is going for a little run in the land of the Ironman Arizona. I am just amazed that people compete in these races (it is 140 miles of biking, swiming and running, in case you didn't know). Anyway, a girl I have never met that runs with the same group in Austin I do has been trainging for this thing and I litterally cannot wait till race day (same day, kind of as Flora in London) where I will camp out in front of my computer and watch both her and Gilbert acomplish amazing things.

UPDATE: A surprising small number of headset-wearers-not-users.

UPDATE 2: It is insanely dry out here. Did a little four miler and my mouth was dry in about two minutes in. Texas may be hot, but at least there is some moisture.

Feed me, Seymour

wow - this is absolutely fabulous. Scoble has a post up talking about how this will someday turn into twittering diapers. I have made no secret of the fact that I don't use twitter, I don't understand the need (or interest) in the tweet, but I can 100% get behind a plant and/or a diaper that twitters - genius, pure genius.

5957 to go...

So Ryan, big dog over at Engadget, has a post on his personal blog that he hit 6000 posts and some 1.4 million words...this is incredible. As you can tell from my headline, I have a ways to go. He also mentioned that aspiring bloggers are pinging him a bit more lately (I am assuming looking for a job). Since Robert Scoble also, apparently, wants to work for Engadget, you have to figure it is a pretty good gig.

About two years ago Engadget had a call for submissions and I went back and forth on if I could work for them AND maintain any kind of credibility as a PR professional. I decided in the end no, so I never submitted. Right choice, btw - but, as Scoble points out, it certainly would be fun to travel the globe hunting down new technology for those guys. Anyway, 6000 posts is incredible.

I've been drinking the transparency kool-aid, clearly...

I know I am a horrible blogger as I post my thoughts a week later, rather than twittering them as I have them - but oh well, right. Take me as I am.

Soooo...last week at the consumer electronics show I tried to swing by a press conference for a new wireless technology trying to make waves by bashing Bluetooth (I work with the Bluetooth SIG). I can't say anyone is really all that concerned about this 'competitor' - Rick Merrit announced they were dead in a roundabout way on Interconnects early last week - but I was intrigued to see what they had to say. Mostly, I was interested from a professional stand point - I am always curious to see where a company that develops messaging based on bashing their opponents goes from the initial splash - I was hoping this technology had something positive to say about themselves rather than just ripping on Bluetooth.

Sadly, I was denied entrance to their press conference. I suppose I have been living online too much lately in that I think transparency is key in everything you do, but I was shocked. I literally could not believe they wouldn't let a rep from the company they are tearing apart on their webpage and in press releases in to hear what they have to say - seems utterly ridiculous. Like calling names behind someones back and then hiding when they come to call you on it. I then asked if I could take a press kit, but the sour PR gate keeper said absolutely not. I pointed out that their press information is all online, and I could just download the information, and was told I could do whatever I wanted, but I wasn't getting the information from her.

I looked at the information online - seems like they didn't really have anywhere positive to go and they are just continuing with their 'better than Bluetooth' line. Sad really. If anyone from this technology (I just cannot give them more online coverage by mentioning their name, but if you are even mildly clever, you can crack the code) had come to ANY of the many SIG events at CES, we would have gladly chatted them up, let them have a press kit, pointed out why things at the Bluetooth camp are successful, and yeah, probably told them why we thought they would fail - but at least we would have had the balls to do it to their face. Transparency is key, not only in successful blogging, but also in not looking like a fool, apparently.

taking the blogosphere seriously...

As I mentioned below, I sat on a panel at CES with the same title as this post. As I was perusing the web today, I came across this prank the Gizmodo guys pulled at the show. This is the number one reason why I hate bloggers - as a PR professional, I go out of my way to work with ANYONE who is interested in any of my clients - bloggers, analysts, journalist, regular joe-shmoes - anyone. My clients LOVE bloggers and spend excessive amounts of time and money trying to figure out how to best help them with their coverage - not trick them, not feed them messaging - but actually help them. And then one of them pulls something like this. If I were Motorola I would hunt down Brian Lam and give him a STERN talking to.



While the prank in itself is humorous, I suppose, it is disheartening to watch a representative from one of the largest tech blogs out there get into CES (after quite a bit of bitching in the years past about not being allowed in because they are just bloggers) and then pull this kind of shit. The good news for me is that as long as there are bloggers out there acting like this, there will be panels such as mine at CES.

Sitting in McCarren

CES is over (for me) and now I have the rest of 2008 to recover and get ready for next year (although my performance was so stellar this year, I actually might not get invited back). This marks the first year I didn't have booth duty, so I spent the majority of the show staffing interviews, setting up at press events/parties or walking (if you can call the crawl with which show traffic moves walking) the show floor. Samsung and LG were really impressive. I remember a CTIA a couple years back where LG had a tiny little presence, and now their booth rivaled some of the other big dogs - very impressive.

I spoke at CES this year, sitting on a panel about taking the blogosphere seriously - not a huge turn out for the panel, but I actually really enjoyed the chat. Jerry of Jerry's Juice Bar (and fellow Longhorn) was on the panel along with Ryan Block (hmmm, what blog does he write for, I can't remember) and Pete with Buzz Metrics. I really enjoyed some of the other stories shared by panelists and I REALLY enjoy watching the way people react to Ryan Block. It is kind of like watching Walt walk through the Pep-Com event - people just go crazy and get a little star struck. Mostly I liked walking around the show with my speaker badge. Next year I might register as a blogger - perhaps every year I should try to have a different badge title.

Now I am waiting in the sports bar for my delayed flight considering a job move to an industry far removed from the world of consumer electronics...I'll let you know if I come up with anything interesting.

Things that make me cry...

1. CES car/taxi/shuttle
2. CES schedules
3. CES speaking opps
4. CES

hmmmm, there appears to be a theme...

UPDATE:

5. Advancing slides

6. Engadget coverage reports

7. Cari wearing sunglasses and Jucy sweats