Technology PR

Schwartz Twitter Campaign Yields 70% Increase in Referral Traffic

This week's issue of PRWeek describes a holiday Twitter campaign that Schwartz designed and executed for Australian client RetailMeNot.com.

RetailMeNot is an online discount and coupon site. They're a current Schwartz client, but this article focuses on a push made around the 2009 holiday shopping season to reach RetailMeNot's target demographic of women between the ages of 18 and 39 with messages about new merchants, discounts and other offers to help drive website traffic.

Check out PRWeek for a description of Twitter tactics. The result was a 70 percent increase in referral traffic to RetailMeNot.com and continued strong traffic after the conclusion of this particular campaign. Pretty nice for a campaign that lasted just over a month.

Posted by Laura Kempke on March 2, 2010 at 3:27 PM
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Traditional and Social Media Intersect, Reinforce Each Other: PRWeek Interview with Bryan Scanlon

Traditional and social media relations are connected and shouldn't be viewed as "either/or," Schwartz Communications President Bryan Scanlon says in a new video interview with PRWeek.

He describes how the agency, which serves established and entrepreneurial businesses in industries that include healthcare, technology, cleantech and professional services, performed over the past year and notes that our diversification across industries, lack of reliance of a handful of big clients for revenue, and ability to span social and traditional media at a time when many agencies push one over the other were sources of strength in 2009.

Bryan also answers questions about agency and client PR workloads in 2010 and notes that the recession has forced both ends of the PR team to focus on the highest value activities--those that help bring sales leads, drive website visits and close sales.

Check out the full interview at PRWeek.

Posted by Laura Kempke on February 23, 2010 at 5:50 PM
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Macworld Musings

Macworld is in full swing and going strong this week in San Francisco (Note: Schwartz does PR for the event, but I am not on the team). It was interesting to see the transformation of Macworld over the years. iPhone apps and mobile technology seemed to be the hottest apps at the show and drew some of the greatest buzz.

In speaking with exhibitors and attendees they report attendance appears to be up this year and the quality was high. About all you can ask for in a trade show.

To me, what really stood out were the range of iPhone apps and the ways in which to improve them. One company I spoke with claimed to have put $500 of IP into a $0.99 iPhone app. This shows that more sophisticated tools are constantly coming to the iPhone. The Hypermac folks were drawing some of the biggest crowds at the show with their batteries that help significantly prolong the life of iPhones, iPods and Macbooks. People were primarily talking about the iPhone. I heard very little about the iPad, but that may well have been the company I kept.

Macworld continues to have a much different vibe than CES. For one thing, you can actually see all the exhibitors. For another, the Macworld exhibitors were quite willing to get into discussions and debates with the Mac faithful. I know I took part in a few debates on topics ranging from PR measurement to open source. It was a vibrant and energized crowd.

The session that intrigued me the most featured Scott Kurtz, the author of one of my favorite Web comics (PVPOnline). He had two of the most telling comments of the show, both of which I paraphrase just a bit below.

1) Keep an open mind for retail channels. By giving away his Webcomics for free, he creates merchandise slaves (my words). It's not always about ad revenue, once you have the eyeballs and engagement, revenue opportunities open up. Just keep looking for them.

2) If newspapers die we are all in trouble - Basically, there will always be a need for hyperlocal coverage and the newspapers for non-urban areas still provide excellent value. He also decried the type of stories the reporters cover today, but that is a different post.

Overall, it was an enjoyable show, with some real diamonds of undiscovered technology. What did you think of the show?

Posted by Mark McClennan on February 12, 2010 at 9:14 PM
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Technology PR: 12 Terminal Media Relations Mistakes

Most technology innovators are eager for positive, on-message media coverage to build their brands, drive sales leads or support other business goals. But unless you're already a tech industry behemoth, getting consistent, repeated media coverage across a variety of publications and channels takes some creativity, a fair amount of knowledge of what makes a good story and a ton of persistence.

When a technology company has before it an opportunity to work with a journalist, blogger or other influential individual, they're going to want to make that interaction as perfect as possible. Right?

You'd think so, but technology companies torpedo their chances of securing media coverage by doing, or by failing to do, some pretty elemental things. These mistakes have nothing to do with faulty communications strategy or going to the wrong journalist with the wrong story. They're more basic and they're pervasive in some companies' PR programs. Maybe the belief that the problems are small makes some people underappreciate their impact, but they kill coverage all the time.

The good news, then, is that they're fully within the tech company's control and doing this stuff right can make a huge difference in PR results. If the PR team detects these problems as they're occurring, they're remiss if they don't point them out, but ultimately only the tech company can fully correct these media relations errors.

1. Fail to provide a spokesperson. Your PR person has possibly just walked through walls to get a journalist to agree to talk with your company's expert. That reporter wants to hear from one of your smart people and if your industry is driven by breaking news, he needs to hear from that person minutes from now. In some cases, we may have the luxury of a couple of hours or days to provide an expert source. In either case, any small to mid-sized tech firm should be able to get an informed spokesperson on the phone quickly.

2. Neglect to prepare for the conversation. Your PR team will give you information about the blogger or journalist before your interview and tell you what she's been covering lately. You want to look at this information before, not during, the conversation. And there's no substitute for spending a little time reading the reporter's recent articles yourself. You'll feel more confident during the interview and be in a good position to give the journalist information that she'll find useful.

3. Miss scheduled briefings. Everyone's busy. Everyone also has a mobile device that allows them to contact their PR team before missing a briefing. Journalists are as stretched as anyone and we have to respect their time. Along those lines, we need to plan ahead to conduct the interview from an area with a decent cell connection and low background noise. Anything else will guarantee that the reporter will get off the phone with us at the earliest possible moment.

4. Respond on your own timetable. Media relations success is largely about being in the right place at the right time. A big part of that is understanding that reporters work on deadlines that are anything but leisurely; we have to conform to deadlines or forfeit coverage. It's hard for everyone involved, but if options are "I'm in the story" and "my competitor is in the story," priorities become a little clearer.

5. Decline to provide photos or graphics. Technology media are increasingly interested in telling stories that have a visual component. Your PR team should work with you to anticipate these needs, but when requests come for something we don't have on hand, know that providing it can mean the difference between coverage and exclusion from the story. Particularly when all that's required is a photo of the new executive, there's no reason for not being able to quickly provide one. Grab your camera and get it done.

6. Refuse to discuss pricing. Everyone who works in the B2B technology industry understands that there's no set price for anything and that stuff tends to be pretty expensive. And you didn't invent volume discounts--journalists understand the concept. So we need to have an answer to the elemental question, "how much does this cost?" Some journalists can't or won't cover our story without being able to say "pricing starts at ...."

7. Talk about confidential material and then ask the reporter not to use it. The #1 rule of media relations is "don't say anything you don't want to see in print." It's unfair to journalists to give them information that you later ask them not to use. They generally don't want to see you get into trouble, but you, in turn, should understand that it's a problem for them to not use material that they consider interesting. Don't put them or yourself into this painful position--if your PR team has asked you not to talk about how that big customer is using your product and about to toss the big vendor out on his ear, don't do it. 

8. Decline to discuss competitors. Maybe we truly don't have any, but most tech companies do. We don't need to offer up information about competitors, but if asked, we do need a coherent answer. Your PR team will work with you to think through how to answer this question, but flat-out refusing to address it makes it hard for the reporter to cover you because he needs to be able to place your company, particularly if it's small, into some larger context. Really, we should view questions about competitors as opportunities to talk about who we're challenging.

9. Ask to review the article prior to publication. Some journalists will allow you to take a peek at quotes, but most will not. And protests about having been misquoted in the past aren't that convincing, so the key here is to work with your PR team before the interview to think critically about the messages you want to convey and then take care not to go off on a tangent. Normally if we prepare for conversations and stay focused, we will come out of interviews feeling comfortable, not worried about what we said and how it might have been interpreted.

10. Speak in PowerPoint. Reporters and bloggers don't want a canned presentation--they want information that's tailored for them. Your PR people should tell you that using a PPT for media briefings is generally discouraged. Nothing says "I've had this conversation with all your competitors" like reliance on canned information.

11. Be boring, ramble, speak in monotone or otherwise fail to sell. Your PR team will help you understand what the journalist wants to learn about, how much time she has and what messages you need to deliver. It's then on the spokesperson to seal the deal by offering informed and timely conversation. Spokespeople from most companies should adopt the mindset, because it's nearly always true, that they need the journalist more than the journalist needs them and that the interview is not going to be an intellectual give and take. The spokesperson's job is to inform or educate the journalist and to convince her that this subject is worth her time. Make it interesting or expect to hear from your PR team that the reporter will "keep the information on file."

12. Assume the relationship is personal. Journalists value connections to people at tech companies if and only if those connections yield useful information. Perhaps they included us in an article or two, and that's great, but the challenge is to keep coming back with fresh info. If we cease to provide that, we should expect to be left off the short list of companies to include in stories going forward.

Your PR team, whether they're inside your company or with an agency, should be working to keep you on the straight and narrow in all these areas. You can help your technology company eke out every last bit of media coverage if you understand that these little mistakes can have a significant impact on your coverage.

Posted by Laura Kempke on February 10, 2010 at 10:02 PM
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CES Day 1: Fat vs. Thin

Posted by Mark McClennan on January 8, 2010 at 12:56 AM
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CES & Ten Things Not to Buy in 2010

Next week the annual Consumer Electronics Show (CES) takes place in Las Vegas, the venue which vendors debut the latest in the technology gadgets of the future. With so many new products entering the market, inevitably products that utilize older technology slowly reach end-of-life status. Along those lines Smartmoney.com has issued a list of "10 Things Not to Buy" with their predictions for the products where innovation will cease in 2010 and consumers should avoid purchasing in these categories. Next week on the CES show floor I will be very curious to see how vendors with these technologies are positioning (or repositioning) products that fall under these umbrellas.
 
Given some of Schwartz Communications' work in our growing Green PR practice, a couple of the items from the list that drew my attention include Gas-guzzling cars and Energy inefficient homes. As a consumer PR professional, number 6 on the list, newspaper subscriptions as an obsolete purchase, is disheartening, as I have always felt that sitting down with a cup of coffee and a newspaper is the best way to be thoughtful about the news we read.
 
Click here to view the full list, see you in Vegas!

Posted by Kim Angell on January 5, 2010 at 2:33 PM
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Our bags are packed, we're ready to go

While the trade show landscape has changed many times over the decades, with the pendulum swinging from big shows to focused, niche gatherings, there have always been a few shows that remind one of COMDEX in the mid 90s (and have the same unbearably long cab lines).

One of these is CES - the premier consumer technology tradeshow. Schwartz and our clients will be there in force this year. At the end of each day, we plan to highlight some of the most exciting and innovative technologies we encounter on the show floor. If you don't want to wait for the end of the day, we will be tweeting key updates at www.twitter.com/mcclennan.

Posted by Mark McClennan on at 11:40 AM
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A Social Media PR Pro Talks Cloud Computing With Xconomy

Xconomy.com, the online publication covering the innovation economy, is hosting a cloud computing forum on Thursday, December 10. Called "Cloud Cubed: Cloud Computing Goes Exponential," the event is at the Microsoft New England R&D Center at 1 Memorial Drive in Cambridge, Massachusetts, from 8:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m.

For full disclosure, Schwartz Communications is an underwriter of the event, and with good reason. Schwartz has helped to raise the profiles of several of the most successful business software and data center software companies.

As a preview to December's event, I made a phone call to Wade Roush, chief correspondent at Xconomy.com. We chatted about the cloud computing "phenomenon" and the strong line up of speakers at the forum. A partial transcript is below, and you can listen to the entire interview by using the audio widget at the very end of this post.

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Ross: Wade, I don’t know, obviously through your history in journalism you’ve seen a lot of phenomena in technology. Have you ever seen a phenomenon like cloud computing that has attracted so much attention over the last several months, you know at the same time it seems like no one really knows exactly what it is?

Wade: It is a lot like these other waves of jargon that periodically crash over the IT world, definitely. I mean I think it’s a legitimate question for people to say “Hey wait a minute, is there anything really new here or is this just sort of the latest version of what people were calling, you know ASP, Application Service Providers, in the past.” There have been other words around this idea of outsourcing your computing power and your computing needs to off premises equipment. You know the idea of having somebody else pay for or buy the actual equipment that you need and the storage that you need, rather than having to invest in those things yourself has been around throughout this whole decade. I think the term cloud computing is one that only kind of came together maybe two years ago, 2 and a half years ago, so I think it’s legitimate to ask how real it is and how much hype there is to it and how much substance there is to it.  But when you get a bunch of people together all in the same room talking about it the way we’re going to doing in December and they all agree there’s something to this, that it’s more than just hype, that the term actually has some real meaning to it and cloud computing most importantly is really different in some ways from everything that’s gone before. You know I think that’s a sign that people really do need to pay attention and entrepreneurs need to know what cloud computing is really about in order to stay competitive and take advantage of the great capabilities that it does offer.

Ross: What I really like about cloud computing is it’s really a kind of level-headed or common sense approach to IT. What I mean by that is really it is fundamentally about doing more with what you have, maximizing IT resources. The concept is based, to some extent, on virtualization. Do we see this as an approach that is catching on a lot of extent because people are constantly looking to do more with less? Is that a fair assessment?

Wade: Absolutely, obviously in this economy to use those famous words “in this economy” everyone’s looking for ways to reduce their capital expenditures and get more work done with less and virtualization is wonderful because it lets you make full use of the hardware you did invest in rather than buying one server to run one program all day long. You know you’re actually soaking up the excess processing capacity by loading many different programs that might even be running on different operating systems onto the same server. Or you’re yoking servers together so they can act in concert. You really are using your resources to the fullest extent and cloud computing centers, where the actual processing is happening are definitely heavily virtualized, so that’s where the technology comes together with cloud computing.

But what I think what’s great about the cloud is that its not just making better use of you local resources, it’s really about being able to get jobs done without having any local resources at all. You really can off load, depending on what kind of business you’re running, you can off load practically everything you do, to Google or Amazon Web services or one of these other providers. And there are going to be panelists attending the Cubed event, talking about how they do exactly that. One that comes to mind is Pixily, for example, a local company that is in the business of digitizing people’s paper documents and putting them online so that you can basically get all of your tax records, or all of your receipts or all of your medical records together in one place online and throw away the paper versions so that you don’t have to have files and folders and boxes full of stuff anymore. And the only part they do locally is scanning the documents. Everything else happens on the cloud and as such they were able to scale up without having to buy a single space of big iron, which is just amazing if you think about it.

Ross: Right, let’s talk a little bit more about the actual panel itself because I know you were instrumental just in terms of the areas that you cover for Xconomy for identifying a lot of the panelists that comprise the event itself. It looks like there’s a nice mixture of the venture capital community in terms of folks that are monitoring some of the trends as well as some of the cloud services themselves, and also some other technologies that are important for cloud computing to happen in the right way. Maybe just walk us through some of the headliners that are at the event.

Wade: Sure, absolutely. So one of the cool things about, just to brag a little bit about Xconomy in the way that we do business. We are both a media company and an events company and the two things turned out to be very synergistic. As a personal side, I’m one of these people who loves to just report and write and be just heads down, and when I joined Xconomy I was a little bit skeptical about this hybrid model where we do events and write stories was really going to work, but it turns out that the two things are extremely complementary because the stories I’ve been writing about cloud computing or whatever the subject may be, are the stories that bring me in contact with some of the smartest people around town, and then I’m able to reach out and invite those same people to our events.

Every time we have an event I meet more people who I eventually end up writing about. So it’s a virtuous circle here and we are going to be featuring quite a few people at the Cloud Cubed event who have already turned up in the pages of Xconomy in one way or another, so there are folks from the sort of startup end of things, people who are building companies that either provide some variety of cloud service or cloud add-on or companies that are making use of the Web, sorry you said the cloud, like Pixily for the infrastructure of their business. And we’ve got people who represent the really big enterprise end of things. We’ve got companies like Akamai and Microsoft, and of course, given the strength of the Boston area and venture technology investing, we’ve definitely have some folks from that world as well and other parts of the ecosystem so its going to be a great day; a lot of different types of people on one hand debating what the cloud really is. And most importantly what are sort of the nuts and bolts, what’s the situation right now in this day and age with the options available to entrepreneurs who are thinking about how to get on the cloud, what market niches are open to entrepreneurs who are thinking about new cloud services.

Ross: This certainly should make for a great event. Wade Roush, the chief correspondent at Xconomy.com, thanks so much for joining us today.

Wade: My pleasure Ross, thanks so much.

Ross: And the event is called "Cloud Cubed: Cloud Computing Goes Exponential." It’s being hosted and managed by Xconomy.com and it will be at the Microsoft New England R&D Center, 1 Memorial Drive, in Cambridge, Massachusetts on Thursday, December 10 starting at 8:30 in the morning and running till just after noon, 12:30. Thank you all for joining. 

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To listen to the audio interview, use the widget below:

Posted by Ross Levanto on November 23, 2009 at 9:07 AM
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Social media puts a shine on tech marketing & PR

Last week analyst Sean Corcoran of Forrester Research led off a social media roundtable hosted by Schwartz Communications in our Boston office and moderated by agency vice president John Moran. The roundtable also included three marketers from high tech and healthcare companies who shared their real world experiences implementing social media techniques integrated with their PR programs. 

Social media is very real and marketers need to pay attention to it. According to Corcoran, four out of five online Americans now participate in social media each month. While marketers are optimistic about social media, Forrester found that it’s still only a fraction of budgets, with three-quarters of marketers budgeting $100,000 or less to social media marketing annually.

Having said all this, Corcoran cautioned against “Shiny Object Syndrome” when thinking about social media. If you’ve told your agency, “We need a social media program,” without knowing exactly how social media will help you meet your marketing goals, you’ve been infected with Shiny Object Syndrome – the pursuit of social media because it’s the latest marketing buzzword.
 
Corcoran advised that marketers resist Shiny Object Syndrome and instead assess their needs so they can adopt social media approaches that make sense. He recommended an approach he calls POST:

• People – Assess your customers’ social activities
• Objectives – Decide what you want to accomplish
• Strategy – Plan for how relationships with customers will change as  you engage in social media
• Technology – Decide which social technologies to use

He also advised that marketers start small with social media and get some successes under their belts before expanding into new areas. At the same time, recognize that social media is a long-term strategy, not a campaign that you can turn on and off.

Andrew Levitt, founder and CEO of HealthTalker, recommended that marketers start with a strategy, not a social media strategy. Set specific goals and objectives. If a community exists where you can join the conversation, then join in, but if not, create your own.

Mary Pietrowski, director of consumer & e-marketing for Hologic, another Schwartz client, showed a great example of building community. Hologic created Voices of Mammosite to educate women about the advantages of partial breast irradiation as a treatment for breast cancer. The videos on the site profile women who’ve survived breast cancer, speaking directly to other women about their experiences. It’s a fascinating site and an award-winning social media program.

Matt Hines, marketing communications manager at CoreSecurity, brought a B2B perspective to the round table. Blogs, Twitter and LinkedIn are all key technologies that have helped CoreSecurity engage with customers and prospects. For instance, he noted that blogs are a great medium when you want to comment about major news in your market, like the acquisition of a competitor, without formally issuing a release.

Click here to download a PDF file of the presentations given by our speakers. Browse through the Schwartz blogs for more ideas about how to use social media in your PR program at www.schwartz-pr.com/blogs.

Posted by Carol McGarry on November 16, 2009 at 3:16 PM
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New Media PR and the Influence of Professional Journalists

Let me start out by saying there's no question that social media has a place in technology PR and any company should look to their tech PR agency for social media expertise. We advise all of our clients about social media. Depending on the audience they are trying to reach and the message they would like to promote, we incorporate appropriate social media tactics into our efforts.

A side project I have been working on is to determine how social media PR can stand on its own---What results can one expect from purely social media tactics?

One premise I can investigate fairly easily---but that is not immediately apparent in conversations I have with colleagues---is that social media is driven in a major way by coverage that is written by professional journalists. Consider the launch of Microsoft Windows 7. Not sure what day Microsoft actually made the announcement? One way to find out is to evaluate social media coverage of Microsoft over the past month.

I created the chart below using Radian6, a social media monitoring tool that Schwartz is now using quite regularly. The red line charts, on an ongoing basis, social media coverage of "Microsoft" and "7." Can you guess, based on this chart, when Microsoft issued the press release announcing Windows 7, and saw the corresponding wave of coverage about the new O/S?

Posted by Ross Levanto on at 9:35 AM
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Will IT spending impact tech PR budgets in 2010?

This week at the Gartner Symposium/IT Expo, analysts offered some hope to high tech marketers whose budgets have been trimmed during the recession. According to Gartner, the IT market hit bottom in 2009 and will start to slowly climb out of the trough in 2010 with a 3.3% increase in IT spending. However, IT spending won't rebound quickly. Peter Sondergaard, Gartner's global head of research, predicts that the market will not recover to 2008 levels until 2012. Technologies at the top of IT's agenda include cloud services, business intelligence, virtualization and social media.

This is good news for tech marketers caught in the budget squeeze mandated by investors and corporate boards when the recession accelerated. The challenge for marketers now is to position their companies to charge out of the recession in a stronger, more competitive position.

It may seem counter-intuitive, but the bottom of the market is the right time to rev up your PR and digital marketing. Why? Because your competitors are also constrained by tight marketing budgets. The company that bets on growth and invests in marketing now will get more attention while the competition is quiet.

Right now PR and digital marketing are all about smart, creative approaches. Here are a few tips:

- Tap into relevant communities rather than investing in building your own. Use tools like Technorati and Radian6 to track social media conversations and figure out where you need to participate.

- Think like a reporter, not a sales person, when you create content for your blog. Attract prospects with useful information that draws inbound links and traffic. Use lots of photos and video, even for technical products.

- Expand your social media circles through blogs, Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook. Turn employees into ambassadors for your company by guiding them to reinforce the corporate brand. Microsoft's advice to thousands of employees who blog about the company: Be smart.

- Recognize the value of "conventional" media. According to the First Amendment Center, traditional media is still the primary news source for 72% of Americans. Traditional media coverage gets widely circulated on social media like Twitter, blogs, even email. It has a huge impact and credibility.

For some interesting examples of investing in marketing during a recession, check out this article by Andrew Razeghi at the Kellogg School of Management:  http://tinyurl.com/6562pf.

Posted by Carol McGarry on October 23, 2009 at 11:11 AM
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What social media lessons can you learn from Fruitcake, Caves, Pregnancy and Coupons

On Thursday, October 8, Mark W. McClennan, APR, a vice president here at Schwartz, will be speaking at the PRSA Northeast District Conference in Rochester, New York. The session looks at "What Social Media Lessons Can You Learn From Fruitcake, Caves, Coupons, Viruses, Death and Pregnancy?"

One of the interesting divides that is occurring in the social media world is between those that can discuss the theory, and those that have actually researched, developed and executed campaigns. This presentation will showcase some of the campaigns that Schwartz has helped develop and successfully execute for our technology and healthcare clients.

It's not too late to register to attend Mark's session (and 19 other great sessions) by going to www.prsarochester.org. If you are interested in learning more, contact us.

Posted by Mark McClennan on October 5, 2009 at 1:14 PM
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Can you overhype a mobile device?

Conventional wisdom is that there is no such thing as overhyping your product, particularly when you are competing against a marketing juggernaut like Apple. Palm definitely followed the CW with the launch of the Palm Pre. The Pre was positioned as the next killer mobile device in the run up to its launch at CES as it was Palm’s first big innovation in the market in years (which I know well as a formerly loyal user of the Treo dinosaur). The marketing hyperbole was almost iPhonian in its fervor and length. You had Roger NcNamee of Elevation Partners, one of the company’s investors, predicting the Pre would cause the death of the iPhone and columnists fawning over the device six months before they even got to try it. The overriding sentiment from this full court launch; it was going to turn around the fortunes of not just one company but two (Palm and its exclusive carrier Sprint).

A funny thing happened on the way to commercial success. The Pre launched, and it is a great device. However, it hasn’t quite been an incredible success or disaster. It has basically been like a typical Cal football season – not a wipeout like Washington (or Motorola) but not legendary like USC (Apple). Unfortunately, everyone expected a Rose Bowl appearance. The marketing machine built expectations so high that the actual results have been labeled a relative failure. With no information forthcoming from Palm on initial Pre sales, a number of analysts have created their own methodologies for measuring volume and claim they are disappointing.

Palm seems to have learned a lesson for their second act with last week’s launch of the Palm Pixi.
The Pixi is aimed at a younger more hip crown that doesn’t need all the bells and whistles of the Pre. Rather than rev up the full marketing machine like they did for the Pre, Palm relatively buried the Pixi announcement, putting it out the day before Apple announced to its usual fanfare the latest upgrade to the iPod line. Despite the toned down Pixi launch, it got almost the same tone of coverage as the Pre but the stories lacked a lot of the snarky undertones from the initial batch.

Hyperbole and hype don’t always constitute key cornerstones in a launch. Sometimes pragmatism works well too, even when constructing mobile device launches. Or healthcare reform.
 

Posted by Merrill Freund on September 16, 2009 at 2:23 PM
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Event: 9/16 Sales and Social Media

Tomorrow night (9/16), Schwartz will be hosting a NETSEA Event, "Social Media for Social Creatures: How Do Successful Salespeople Use Twitter, Blogs, LinkedIn, Facebook And More To Make Their Numbers."

The focus isn't on public relations, but rather on how sales can use social media to get closer to their customers and prospects and establish deeper, two-way relationships. It will also point out the things sales executives should *not* do.

While most of our readers are in public relations or marketing, if you think this event will be of interest, sign up. If you know a sales executive who might be interested, let them know.

More information can be found here.

It's a dynamite panel with speakers from IDC, HubSpot, Oblicore, SAVO and Neighborhood America. I hope to see some of you there.

Posted by Mark McClennan on September 15, 2009 at 8:45 AM
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Measuring Social Media ROI

Here at Schwartz, we've been talking quite a bit lately about measuring results of social media programs. Not just programs we've designed for clients, but those of people who we meet at conferences or with whom we're just chatting.

Without a doubt, many companies are thrilled with their involvement in social media. They love the outlet that participating in blogs or forums gives them, they're able to talk with people on Twitter whom they'd likely otherwise miss and they're connecting with patient communities on Facebook. (One client, Digium, gives us a tour of their use of social networking technologies here to gain "customer feedback, suggestions, highly qualified sales leads" and to talk with people in their industry.)

Some, though, are a little disappointed in social media. When I hear that, my first question is always "what did you hope to gain that you're not seeing?" I often wonder whether they're measuring success based on number of Twitter followers or Facebook fans--today's corporate version of a teenage popularity contest. This would be unfortunate because such metrics are nearly irrelevant for many B2B companies.

PR people need to keep in mind the Cheshire Cat's words of wisdom to Alice: "If you don't know where you're going, any road will take you there." It's our job to help clients think through exactly what they're trying to achieve and to recommend use of social platforms because they make sense, not because they exist and are free.

Last week I attended a Mass Technology Leadership Council discussion on social media and lead generation. Mark Roberge, HubSpot's VP of sales, led the talk. Toward the end, he turned the group's attention to measuring social media ROI--certainly a topic of interest to a number of people today. (Some great reads are here, here and here.)  

Mr. Roberge talked about website visitors and sales leads--reasonably straightforward things to quantify and important metrics for any B2B company. He also talked about "SEO assets" such as inbound links and improved performance in organic search results. Those things take time to build--perhaps a problem is that some companies look for an immediate impact in this department when it may be more reasonable to expect a change in six months' time. 

Just guessing, but I bet some of the letdown that a few companies feel stems from their desire to get something for next to nothing--a measurable impact from use of free technology. Certainly using social technologies is free, but so is calling up The Wall Street Journal or "Good Morning America." Anyone can do it--the question in every case is whether you've got anything interesting to say and can articulate it in something like a compelling manner. In any case, it's your PR person's job to figure it out.

Altogether, these things are a great reminder to me that B2B companies using social media--and their PR people--need to be clear in setting objectives and in understanding the likely timeframe for success.

Posted by Laura Kempke on September 14, 2009 at 4:35 PM
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Is "Start-Up" Back in Vogue?

I have had a couple of interesting conversations lately about the word "start-up."

When I first started in Boston high-tech PR at Schwartz, every company I worked with wanted to be a start-up. There was a romantic allure to being two guys in a garage (in fact I once helped a company with a name that was an acronym for "Guys in a Garage"). It represented an innovative spirit related to cultivating an idea and getting it to market.

The dot-com collapse in the late 1990's spoiled the idea of being a start-up. Suddenly the conventional wisdom made a start-up a risky bet. Many clients opted to be called "growing" or "emerging," rather than a start-up. There was just too much negative connotation around the concept.

Based on recent conversations I have had, however, there is building momentum for a re-emergence of the "start-up." Given the attention to new innovations, the entire entrepreneurial community is pointing to the start-up culture as a good thing. This is especially true within the clean tech market, and also within new data center technologies that focus on efficiencies.

I noticed more start-ups-- young and growing companies-- on the trade show floor at VMworld last week.

What has been clear to me from my years in PR and marketing is that there is always room for new ideas that lead to good companies. Whether you call yourself a start-up or something else, in reality, probably is not the point.

Posted by Ross Levanto on at 8:50 AM
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When Retweets go Bad

Marketers and PR professionals have to be living under a rock if they have not heard about Twitter and its power to connect companies, consumers and anyone that wants to share. It is a way for companies to connect with their customers, it is free business intelligence, it is a brand-building complement, it is a low cost focus group, it is what you make of it.

One of the currencies of Twitter is “Retweeting.” Basically, if you see something you like, agree with, find insightful or interesting, many people pass it along with a RT: (and then the original tweet).

Most of the time this can be good. Although there is such a thing as retweet overload. Sometimes, though it can go a bit too far.

For example, last week, I was a victim of Retweet gone horribly wrong.

Like most disasters it started out simply enough.

I was flying cross country on American Airlines and found out they had in-flight wireless. I immediately purchased it and started doing emails and work for as long as my laptop battery would last. In flight wireless let me get some time sensitive things done and to say I was psyched would be an understatement. This has convinced me to give priority to carriers like American, Virgin America, etc., that offer the service.

I was happy (and I am active on Twitter) so I simply tweeted: I love gogo inflight internet from American Airlines.

A few minutes later I see the following tweet: @GogoInflight And we <3 you too! RT @McClennan: I love gogo inflight internet from American Airlines

Disclosure: GogoInflight and American Airlines are not Schwartz clients, and after this may not be in the future. (Even though I do applaud them for being engaged).

Communications lesson #1: I may be a minority among business travelers, but seeing <3 (heart) struck me as odd and inappropriate. Responding to your customers is great, but make sure you use the same language they do. Emoticons are not part of my daily business vocabulary.

If that was it, this would be an interesting conversation point about the appropriate use of <3s and other emoticons. But, wait, there’s more….

A few minutes later, @AAirwaves (the official twitter channel of American Airlines) retweets @Gogoinflight’s tweet. Spreading the strange emoticon heart-love to its more than 11,000 followers.

Right after that I see another 7-10 retweets from those affiliated with the airline industry (and one golf event). I am sure all their followers were just dying to know that I loved GoGo Inflight. One of them was so moved, they retweeted it four times. Think of how happy their followers were. I bet it filled the cockles of their <3s.

Communication lesson #2: Use your retweet capital wisely. You should share things of interest, but if you share too much, you will drown out your valuable content with meaningless noise. Basically ask yourself – is this retweet adding value?

I assure you, while I value my opinion, if my post influenced anyone in the aviation industry’s purchasing decision, there is a problem there.

My counsel would have been to consider:

1)    Direct messaging me to let me know you appreciate my feedback
2)    If GoGo wanted to be public, aggregate the “Tweets of Praise” it receives each day and say something along the lines of “75 more people shared how much they like the new service, (custom URL).” If someone very influential does tweet about you, sure, consider a one off “thanks. Glad you like our service.”

Instead, 14,000+ people now received a tweet (or 10) letting them know I love the service.

Communications lesson #3: Doing it right: For an example of an organization that did it right, I can point to PBS. I blogged about it earlier here. In a nutshell, I complained about some of their coverage. They responded with a personalized response “@mcClennan sorry for the delay in replying, but what was your wife unhappy about?” and I have been singing their praises ever since.

In all seriousness, I appreciate the retweet and the response. I am just charging companies to drive for even more strategic communications.
 

Posted by Mark McClennan on September 1, 2009 at 10:09 AM
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Practice safe text

The mobile industry is in a conundrum. Companies from Apple to Blackberry to Nokia to Qualcomm are all pushing to make the mobile phone the ubiquitous computing device, wherever ever you are, whatever you are doing. With the growth of data-capable phones doubling since 2005 and now representing 88% of phones on the market in the US according to CTIA, they are succeeding. We are addicted to Crackberries and forbidden fruit.
 
But is it healthy? Recent Federal studies have demonstrated that driving while texting is bad for you and anyone near your car. It is even worse than drinking and driving; at least you are trying to concentrate when you are drunk. Excessive texting is even changing the political makeup of State legislatures. New York billionaire and wanna be Governor Tom Golisano threw a fit when New York State Senate Majority Leader Malcolm Smith spent a meeting with Golisano playing with his Blackberry. Golisano consequently convinced several Democratic representatives to switch to the Republican Party. And GigaOM just published a story that warns of the harms to relationships and overall health from being too connected.
 
Given this growing backlash, how can mobile companies market their products and services without perpetuating the problems of the 24 X 7 man? Do iPods and Blackberries now have to come with labels like cigarettes that warn that too much usage could cause harm? Should phone companies invest in medical and psychological research to convince the public that they understand that further evidence is needed to understand the issues? Are we far from a book called “Thanks for texting?”
 
In an ultracompetitive industry of huge gizmo launches and Tweets that chronicle the minutia of daily life, the marketing pros in the mobile industry have to figure out how to promote the value and cool factor of their devices. They can’t be seen as driving destructive behavior that is no longer funny or annoying but can kill. Otherwise the cute songs in the iPod ads could go the way of Joe Camel.
 
 

Posted by Merrill Freund on August 30, 2009 at 4:17 PM
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Best Practices in Social Media Webinar: Learn from the Past

While some claim the summer months are a time when business slows down, anyone involved in retailing and consumer PR knows that it is when holiday planning swings into high-gear.

To help companies maximize their social media efforts (particularly around the holiday shopping season), the team at Schwartz Communications will be hosting a Webinar on July 22 at 1:00 p.m. ET.

The Webinar: "Groups, Handles and Widgets—Social Media Best Practices and Case Studies for Online Retailers," will explore how companies can leverage the latest online tools, measurement practices and social networks to maximize their communications impact.

Led by Mark W. McClennan, APR (BillMeLater, CheckFree) and Jason Morris (RetailMeNot, BeatMyPrice), vice presidents in Schwartz’s Consumer Practice Group, attendees will learn social media best practices and be presented with case studies of award-winning social media campaigns that drove business results.

To register, click here

Posted by Mark McClennan on July 13, 2009 at 9:29 AM
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Why Every Communications Professions Should Pay Attention to USJFCOM

I recently received a news brief from Jane's Defense in my email inbox. The headline intrigued me: "USJFCOM explores network-free warfighting."

I read some more and the tease - “US Joint Forces Command (USJFCOM) has conducted a comprehensive wargame that, among other things, evaluated the military's ability to fight without networks” - reminded me of something important:

As communications professionals, we are living in an ever increasingly-networked world. Laptops, e-mail, IM, Twitter, IP phones and the Web have replaced the typewriter, letters, faxes, delivery services and press conferences. But what happens if we experience disruption? Blackouts, solar flares, or other events can shut us down for hours or weeks. But most likely the world outside continues moving.

While our challenges would never be as severe as those faced by the U.S. military, we can take lessons from the foresight the military is showing. Many of my financial services clients and I have these discussion as part of our crisis planning during any engagement.

I remember doing a lot of this a decade ago as the Y2K crisis approached. I was one of many communications professions for which New Year’s Eve 2000 was a day of work, not a night of celebration.

Following are three tips to keep in mind.

1) Plan for the worst – You do not need to be a manufacturer, an airline or a healthcare company to have a crisis. Part of your communications planning process should be spent thinking about what are the challenges you may face, and how will you respond to them? You won’t get them all, but if you identify the five most likely issues, you won’t be scrambling to make up responses on the fly.

2) Rehearse – The USJFCOM didn’t just think about these issues. They practiced them. Companies should have crisis drills where they practice their response. This year’s Best of Silver Anvil Award winner, Northern Illinois University, received the Anvil for the work they did during a crisis. They credit the skills of their response to the drills they ran.

3) Make sure “everyone gets the word.” Crisis planning should not be limited to just the communications and public relations department. Give guidelines to everyone and make sure people know where the plans are in case you are unavailable. It’s the little things. How are you going to get the message out, monitor the discussion, change the Web site and keep the company informed?

Posted by Mark McClennan on June 30, 2009 at 10:27 AM
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XSITE Shows Excitement in New England

Schwartz Communications recently sponsored XSITE 2009, which was held last week at Boston University. As an employee at a Boston PR firm and a BU grad, it was great to see a New England-based event focused so squarely on innovation.

Of interest, the show gave equal time to healthcare, cleantech and tech developments within the region. Presenters came from pharmatech, wind and solar energy companies, cloud computing and other technology start-ups, and from the venture capital community.

From my perspective, it was notable that many of the more promising areas are in markets where the United States government is investing. An IBM executive in attendance noted that he's spent almost all of his time over the past few weeks working on proposals for money from the government's stimulus package. Another cleantech executive proclaimed that unless stimulus-related money was approved, her company might no longer be based in the U.S. Given the realities of the venture capital community, the government's money is vital to the emerging growth economy.

One of the most entertaining parts of the day was a keynote address from the well-known inventor Dean Kamen, president of DEKA Research & Development Corporation. Kamen delivered a strong message about how innovation is not fostered within our young. His project US First strives to cultivate excitement in technology within young individuals.

Kamen is clever in relating his competition to athletics. To quote Coach Winters in the early 90s movie "The Program": "Yeah, but when was the last time 80,000 people showed up to watch a kid do a ... chemistry experiment?" Kamen challenges that notion. And in recent years he's filled the Georgia Dome for his competitions.

Optimism filled the room. It's somewhat of a cliche around Boston that the enthusiasm found in the steady stream of ideas ultimately propels the region in times of economic uncertainty. The cliche was a reality during XSITE 2009. And it was great to experience it.
 

Posted by Ross Levanto on June 29, 2009 at 9:13 AM
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XSITE 2009 Preview with Fast Company's Bill Taylor

Fast Company Founding Editor Bill Taylor is among the exceptional list of presenters and moderators at next week's XSITE 2009 event, which is being held June 24, 2009, at Boston University's School of Management. Schwartz Communications is sponsoring the event, which will focus on innovation happening in New England.

As a preview to XSITE 2009, I interviewed Mr. Taylor to get his thoughts on the local economy and the spirit of innovation in the region. He's a great interview subject, which is not surprising given his many years covering growing companies. Mr. Taylor is also the co-author of Mavericks at Work: Why the Most Original Minds in Business Win.

A partial transcript of the interview is below. You can listen to the entire conversation by using the widget imbedded after the transcription. And if you really like the interview, you should listen to other Schwartz podcast recordings, and you can subscribe to Schwartz's ongoing podcast series.

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Ross Levanto: Bill, we’ve been talking in the month of June about the concept of innovation, and in some ways we’re calling this an innovation month. I think it’s kind of interesting that we do this in New England, which has been a pretty good setting throughout the years for innovation, and this continues to be so even during the current economic slump, would you agree with that?

Bill Taylor: Oh, absolutely! What is really important now is less macroeconomic indicators and the innovators' mindset, and for me, we heard a lot about it during the campaign, the mantra of the moment right now is this quip by the great Stanford economist Paul Romer, who famously said, “a crisis is a terrible thing to waste.” Basically, we’re all struggling right now to make sense of the economic crisis, to learn lessons that will guide us as we go forward. One of my big worries in general, although I think it’s one of the strong suits of the New England economy, is that there are a lot of people out there learning the wrong lessons. They’re becoming more conservative, more risk averse, they’re choosing to resist innovation rather than embrace it; to me that is a huge mistake. It’s a huge opportunity for innovators, because, as the business environment get’s tougher, meaner, more unforgiving, customers are going to become more selective about who they do business with.

So now more than ever, start ups or companies of any size have to offer a positive alternative to a demoralizing status quo. I think in some sense in terms of the natural optimism and raw animal spirits of innovators, as tough as it is in the big picture, if you can project a presence to the world both in terms of the substance of what you’re doing and the spirit of what you’re doing, this can be a good time to start something new or widen the gap between you and the competition.

Ross Levanto: You know, one thing that we hear a lot about, and certainly I’ve heard a lot about, in my years in this business, and I’m sure you hear it much more often than I do, to the point of it being almost cliché, is the concept of the entrepreneur spirit, and you alluded to it in your answer there; the fact that entrepreneurs certainly are very optimistic about the future, no matter the mountains that face them. The questions for you though, in terms of what you see, in terms of the broader New England economy, are there any bright spots that you’re spotting or watching in terms of the broader economy?

Bill Taylor: Well, I’m not sure in terms of technology sectors, I could do a better job than anyone else in terms of saying, “hey, it’s bioinformatics over here, or new materials over there.” What I do think is the virtue of the New England economy, we sometimes think of it as a weakness, but ultimately is a virtue, is that there is a blend here of both timeless tradition and long standing excellence and that’s the legacy of Harvard, MIT, BU, and all these institutions, with also the start-up entrepreneurial spirit. I think we’ve all as entrepreneurs and as a business culture, gotten tired of the boom and bust cycles that seem to have driven the economy over the last 20 years.

You know, when we had the internet crash back in 2000, there was that funny bumper sticker on the cars driving around Silicon Valley, “Please God, just one more bubble.” Well, I think we’re all kind of tired of sitting around waiting for one more bubble and to some degree being able to blend, and I think New England is a little bit unique in this, being able to blend absolute start-up and innovation fervor with being literally the oldest part of America. In the sense of history and the long time frame, as a business culture I think that may in fact serve us well. We sometimes beat ourselves up, why aren’t we as about hip and crazy and wild Silicon Valley?  Maybe this new sensibility, blending the best of the long term with the start-up fervor is the right way to go.

I’m hoping the unique New England entrepreneurial culture will serve us well going forward.

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Listen to the entire interview by using this widget:

Posted by Ross Levanto on June 17, 2009 at 1:08 PM
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Consumer Lessons from PRSA's Counselors Academy

Last weekend I spent a few days with 140 colleagues and competitors at the PRSA Counselors Academy Spring Conference. From there I went to the Silver Anvil Awards. It was a great time and I learned a number of new things. Most of the topics would bore our loyal readers, but there were a few items that I thought might be of interest.

You can listen to my thoughts on why now is the time to ramp up the PR and marketing investment; how measurement drives results; and learn about a free research and analysis tool by clicking here.

Posted by Mark McClennan on June 9, 2009 at 1:34 PM
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Reflections from PRSA Counselors Academy

Last weekend I spent a few days with 140 colleagues and competitors at the PRSA Counselors Academy Spring Conference. From there I went to the Silver Anvil Awards. It was a great time and I learned a number of new things. Most of the topics would bore our loyal readers, but there were a few items that I thought might be of interest.

You can listen to my thoughts on why now is the time to ramp up the PR and marketing investment; how measurement drives results; and learn about a free research and analysis tool by clicking here.

Posted by Mark McClennan on at 1:16 PM
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When Ringing in your Ears is a GOOD Thing

Hear ye! Hear ye! 2009 was another outstanding year for Schwartz Communications at the 40th Annual Publicity Club of New England Bell Ringer Awards.

Schwartz and our clients received 26 awards recognizing media, special event and social media efforts in Healthcare, Consumer, Social Media and High Tech PR programs.

Pardon me as I brag for a moment. This work spanned 19 clients across our practice groups. It's like a good rock concert with multiple acts---you're a bit stunned and hard of hearing the next day.
 
The Bell rang a lot for Schwartz, and it's a tremendous testament to the quality of our clients, and most importantly, the outstanding staff we have and results they deliver.
 

Hooray!

(P.S. This is on the heels of two 2009 Bulldog Awards for outstanding media relations on behalf of our clients Epocrates and Bill Me Later.)

Posted by Bryan Scanlon on June 3, 2009 at 4:41 PM
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XSITE 2009: An Interview with Bob Buderi

With all the headlines saying negative things about the economy, sometimes we forget that innovation is still happening. Schwartz is sponsoring XSITE 2009, an event planned for late June at Boston University.

I interviewed Bob Buderi, editor and founder of Xconomy.com, an online publication that is organizing XSITE 2009. I have posted excerpts from the interview below, and you can listen to the entire interview by using the embedded audio feed at the end of this post.

Also, the interview is the latest episode of the Schwartz new media podcast series. If you like it, you should subscribe to the podcast series.

Now here's an excerpt from the interview:

Ross Levanto: Bob, you know, a lot of folks who have been in the industry for a while, including myself, we look to some of the local organizations including Xconomy.com as kind of like a bright spot, especially given the economic uncertainty and the economic downturn that we’re all kind of struggling through. What do you see, just explain to me a little bit about, what you see just in terms of the role of this event, is it really to serve as kind of this spot of optimism given the economic uncertainty?

Bob Buderi: Absolutely, I mean a spot of optimism and basically to say, you know, people are already working on issues that will bring us out of this mess we’re in. They’re going to make our health better, our, you know, access to information better, our energy use better, all kinds of aspects of our lives and our businesses are going to be improving based on innovations that we want to bring, so we’ve just lined up an incredible array of speakers and companies who are going to come talk about all these sectors. Some of them hidden, relatively hidden, and unknown here in Massachusetts that are driving growth in the economy or that will drive growth.

Ross Levanto: And also giving a chance for some startups that at this point have been in stealth mode to actually launch themselves.

Bob Buderi: We’re going to have a few stealth companies that unveil themselves, and I think we’re going to have a few other surprises or announcements that are made, companies will take the occasion of the event to make about exciting knew things that they’re doing. And of course, kicking it all off, because this is in partnership with Boston University. BU’s president Bob Brown will be delivering the welcome address too.

Ross Levanto: You know, something interesting that we’re doing with those attendees that are signing up by visiting xsite2009.com, we’re asking them their thoughts about the local economy. There was a study that came out last week from the New England Economic Partnership that talked about the fact that it’s quite possible the recession here in Massachusetts is going to outlast the national recession. It certainly brings up thoughts from a lot of folks. Given your editorial role, Bob, from an Xconomy.com perspective, what are your thoughts in general on the Massachusetts economy and ways that we already are seeing the light at the end of the tunnel?

Bob Buderi: I don’t have a good sense of comparing it to the recession across the United States. I would be surprised if we lagged the United States. I would be unsuprised if we came out in advance of it. We all felt the tremendous depth of this recession and swiftness with which it fell upon us. I think the pace of innovation is faster now than ever, and I think the recovery will also be faster. I don’t think we’re going to go to full blown dot-com bubble kind of mode or anything like that.

Ross Levanto: It’s probably of a good thing.

Bob Buderi: Yeah, but I think we’re going to see certainly in the next nine months to a year the real fruits of what’s going on and what’s been going on for the last several years and what’s going on now at an accelerated pace with all these companies, to help us recover.

###

From the embedded application below, you can listen to the entire interview:
 

Posted by Ross Levanto on May 28, 2009 at 3:48 PM
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The Debate Over Social Media Press Releases

Not sure if I am supposed to give props to a competing agency on this space, but the Social Media Press Release (SMPR) invented by Shift Communications a few years back was a novel idea.

Today, the SMPR means different things to different people:

-- Originally, an SMPR meant content organized online so that it is easily digested by the media. Features are presented in bullets; it's easy to click from content to supporting quotes; and graphics and other content are easy to find to support a story.

-- Some services today describe an SMPR as a press release that is formatted and presented so it is easy to share. A newer example is Pitch Engine, where one finds readily available tools for sharing a release on Facebook, posting a release on Twitter, or using other social media platforms.

-- Certain news distribution services, such as PR Newswire or Business Wire, describe a SMPR as a release that is augmented by multimedia content, including videos or pictures, and a release that includes hyperlinks within the body of the release.

-- Some describe an SMPR as any combination of the above.

The reality is that press releases serve a far greater audience than just the press. Anyone who visits the web can end up reading a press release. Furthermore, since press releases are syndicated by distribution services and are often modified slightly and presented on news web sites, they can have significant SEO value.

The topic of the SMPR was front and center this week, mainly because of a webcast produced by Hubspot that noted how old fashioned press releases, without fancy graphics and presented as just plain text-- are more likely to be syndicated than any form of a SMPR. In addition, Hubspot postulated that the old fashioned releases were better for SEO, since links were more likely carried in the syndicated releases.

The report prompted some debate since Hubspot tried to find away to measure an instrument used in PR-- a marketing function that itself is very hard to measure.

Internally here at Schwartz, we have been debating SMPRs, press release distribution services and the role of a press release for some time. Here are a few points related to the conventional wisdom internally and the discussions this week:

-- Adding visuals or videos to a press release makes the press release more attractive to media and any other audience that views it,

-- For companies especially interested in SEO or web traffic, it's a better course to host visuals, video, graphics, etc. on the company's website, and then link back to the website from the press release,

-- Making the release easier to share is important, and the best press rooms today are those that incorporate tools for sharing content right in the press room,

There is no clear-cut guidance on this issue, and we're experimenting with a number of press release distribution options and press release formats here at Schwartz. If you are interested, keep reading this blog or drop me a line (rossl@schwartz-pr.com).

Posted by Ross Levanto on May 22, 2009 at 3:02 PM
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Making News the New Fashioned Way

Newsweek just completed a live interview of Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner on its Facebook page. In the PR world, we spend a lot of time thinking about the convergence of social and traditional media. This interview marks one of the boldest moves to date by traditional media to bridge these worlds.

This interview also exemplifies the continuing march of consumer technology into the news making process. We’ve all heard about the Twitter reports that were the first wave of “news” from the Mumbai bombings and “Miracle on the Hudson” flight. The iReports from CNN have given virtual media credentials to thousands of citizen journalists and their video phones. Companies post their own news in via YouTube videos and iTunes downloads.

What’s interesting to watch is the way these technologies have moved from the periphery to the epicenter of the news process. It began when new technologies started giving voice to viewers, listeners and readers. Soon a wave of simple consumer friendly applications began turning people into self publishers able to share the news and events that matter to them. Reporters and publications have increasingly adopted such tools to spread the reach of their coverage and to nurture contacts and find ideas for future stories. Newsweek is taking that next step in this process, co-opting a third-party consumer channel for its own news reporting.

Media companies are in innovation mode, trying to come up with new content and attract new audiences while managing costs and headcount. If Newsweek, with its readership of over 2.7 million, can find new readers to engage with via Facebook, then the floodgates will open and consumer technology will move one degree deeper into the inner sanctum of news making.

Posted by Emily Fisher on May 18, 2009 at 5:41 PM
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Mobile Addicts Anonymous: Toddler Edition

While Digital Hollywood attendees were the usual thirty-something mix of suits, anecdotes of mobile addicted tweens and toddlers frequently invited laughter and nodding heads throughout numerous panel discussions. The promise of an insatiable appetite for new applications and content led tech vendors and marketers to describe the desires and habits of the newest generation of consumers.

• Move over pacifiers, parents are using mobile devices to distract their children. Katharine Linke, director of multi-platform programming at Disney said the channel was surprised at the popularity of its pre-school programming after parents said that they wouldn’t let toddlers play with their $400 phones. Well, they are! Mickey Mouse ClubHouse was watched as much as Hannah Montana on mobile phones and one panelist confessed to using the SpongeBob Tickler for iPhone application to keep his infant happy in the car. 

• Mobile has been deemed “the 3^rd screen”, but it’s the primary and most-loved screen of adolescents. One panelist said his fifteen year-old daughter sends and receives 1,600-2,000 texts a month. Also, unlike the average mobile viewer who watches 25 minutes a day according to FloTV, pre-teens are watching long form content, like movies, on their phones too.

• While adolescents might not think twice about downloading a bootleg song or movie, they are also creating an entire new economy by embracing virtual goods. They see value in buying an icon, like an image of a birthday cake, and are happy to pay $1.99 for applications like putting a friends’ photo in a Jonas Brothers’ music video.

• Next-gen consumers are less concerned with “owning” content as much as anytime/anywhere access across their many devices. New business models will focus on usage-based activity with clear implications for cloud computing, access control, usage analytics and targeted marketing opportunities.

Posted by Dara Sklar on May 8, 2009 at 12:19 PM
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Get XSITED. Shaping the Innovation Economy

Schwartz is a gold sponsor of the Xconomy XSITE 2009 Event, which was announced yesterday and will be held on June 24 at Boston University.

We like what the XSITE Event represents. Despite the current economic situation, the entrepreneurial spirit in New England lives on. The Xconomy Summit on Innovation, Technology and Entrepreneurship will spotlight positive developments in the local economy, with speakers representing green technology, biopharma and Web 2.0 markets, academia and goverment.

The Summit’s intimate setting will provide a backdrop for high-impact presentations and unique, interactive sessions. In true entrepreneurial form, XSITE will unveil several stealth-mode companies.

In the coming days, Schwartz will be supporting a number of initiatives to raise visibility for the event, including activity on Twitter--you can follow event developments at @XconomyXSITE (hash tag #xsite09)--and Q&A's with event insiders through this blog.

We agree with the tag line for the event, "The Recovery Starts Here." It is true that the entrepreneurs within the "innovation economy" will play a key role stimulating economic growth and driving it well into the future.

On a more personal note, I am enthused by the venue for the event (Boston University's School of Management). There are many Terriers working at Schwartz Communications.
 

Posted by Ross Levanto on at 8:43 AM
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Content King for Brands Online: 8 Tips from Digital Hollywood

Creating compelling content for smart consumers was top of mind as Digital Hollywood kicked off with packed sessions, prestigious speakers and conversations that often returned to how to best engage online consumer audiences who are spread out across many, many sites. Everyone agreed that the entertainment industry maxim "content is king" is critical to reaching today’s empowered consumers who pick and choose what they read and watch and for the most part bypass advertisements.

As the role of marketing and public relations increasingly becomes that of content creator, buzz builders can learn from the playbooks of Hollywood marketers. Monday’s session "Strategizing the Campaign; Selling Movies, TV and Video on the Web" revealed tips from top brass at Comcast /Fandango, Microsoft, Fox, Paramount who have kept box office ticket thriving this spring through their creativity, tenacity and innovation
 

1. Know your target audience so that you can personalize the online experience to their individual tastes. Survey your customers to determine their interests. You may find some surprising results that can become a part of your online brand experience.
2. Be experimental, but integrate too. Online allows marketers to try something new and get immediate feedback. Develop your digital marketing strategy in tandem with traditional marketing to create a single multi-faceted campaign.
3. Budget time and money for "clever" content. Don’t let content be an after thought. Consumers expect free, unique compelling content that intelligently starts a conversation that they can participate in.
4. Provide depth for online audiences to dig deeper into content, get involved and be "in the know." Make your biggest fans feel special with exclusive content (like WATCHMENS’ multiple trailers and WOLVERINE’s contest for the red carpet premiere) or prizes (swag, anyone?)
5. iPhone apps are hot -  but then you knew that. Fandango had a WAP platform for years, but had little traction until it launched an iPhone app 6 weeks ago with basic functionality to buy tickets on-the-go. Half a million downloads later, consumers are now watching mobile trailers too.
6. Listen to consumers, and respond -  Fast! The beauty of instant online feedback is also a responsibility. Consumer’s told Fandago they wanted to be able to log into their accounts on their iPhones rather than enter credit card info to buy tickets. Fandango listened and built in the functionality within 2 weeks.
7. Enlist Viral Armies -  Every marketing campaign should include an "Alpha Fan Strategy" to engage a Digital Street Team to be your online ambassadors. First you need to get to know your #1 fanboys -- the 10-15% of your audience that wants more than to consume or share content. Give them the tools to create a mash-up, design a T-shirt, build an add-on widget to extend your brand experience.
8. Don’t Stop the Feed - Keep evaluating engagement measurements to determine what’s working, what’s not and what to do next. Most importantly, keep giving fans more of what they loved, but with innovations. You’ve got their attention -  now you need to keep it by getting even more creative.

Posted by Dara Sklar on May 6, 2009 at 1:55 PM
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RSA Liftoff

RSA, one of the biggest IT security shows on the planet, takes place this week in San Francisco.

Given the size of Schwartz Communications' security practice, we are involved in several aspects of the show, and you can follow along through the Security PR blog.

-- Schwartz will have a big Twitter presence. Check out all our Tweets on a special page on the Schwartz home page.

-- Mike Farber, Jen Spark and I will be blogging, plus Jen will be recording interviews from the show floor with industry luminaries. So navigate over to the Schwartz podcasting page for more information.

-- Director John Moran will be hard at work behind the scenes, editing podcast content and posting the interviews so they get out to our subscribers.

Given the temperatures in San Francisco right now are unusually warm, I could say something like "RSA is already heating up." Whether you are at the Moscone Center or following along elsewhere, enjoy the show!

Posted by Ross Levanto on April 21, 2009 at 11:15 AM
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Red Carpet Here We Come

Congratulations to Schwartz and its long-time client partner CheckFree (now Fiserv). We are a finalist in this year’s PRSA Silver Anvil awards, which are pretty much one of the most prestigious awards in the PR industry. The nomination, in the "Marketing Consumer Services Technology" category, highlights our work promoting green living and fighting fraud with online bill payment. This is a testiment to a great client who is committed to research and creative campaigns, and a close, long-term working relationship. 

Schwartz and CheckFree (Fiserv) secured more than 1,500 articles and on average the majority of articles contained at least two key messages and/or statistics. Green coverage for the campaigns ranged from key blogs and regional papers to the Sierra Club magazine. Working closely with CheckFree, partner banks and the industry, the company offered various promotions, including an offer to plant a tree for each E-bill activated. This generated more than 125,000 new users and planted that many trees.  If you are interested in finding out more, visit ebillplace.

The identity fraud campaign was just as successful, and generated more than 1,000 total articles, blog posts and TV stories. More than 60% of the articles contained at least two of the top messages including paying bills online is safer than mailing them.

A client for ten years, the CheckFree (now Fiserv) and the Schwartz team partnership is no stranger to awards. It's the fourth time in seven years that the CheckFree/Schwartz team is a finalist---and we took home the gold for two of those.

I wonder if we have a Meryl Streep thing going here?

(Photo courtesy of Entertainment Weekly.)

Posted by Bryan Scanlon on April 20, 2009 at 11:25 AM
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Congratulations, Merv!

Merv Adrian, a terrifically talented individual, has struck out on his own with IT Market Strategy.

For those of you who may not know Merv, he has been a significant figure in the technology analyst community for many years, first with Giga, and then later Forrester. I first met him when we represented Austin-based Pervasive Software for a number of years shortly after its IPO in the 90s. (Ron Harris was CEO and Rob Adams was the VP of Marketing.) Merv really got our story and had no problems setting us straight on the things we didn't get as we waged war with Oracle and Sybase---both of which were trying to move down into the embedded database market.

Like the best analysts, he never knee-jerked his judgement, and pushed in all the places that hurt with great suggestions for repair.

Anyway, enough memory lane. I encourage you to RSS to Merv's blog and reach out to him. He has a fantastic mind and terrific experience.

And this just in: Merv's BeyeNETWORK channel hits in a week. Stay tuned!

Posted by Bryan Scanlon on April 13, 2009 at 6:12 PM
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Social Networking: Be Careful Where You Click

A study done by Trend Micro back in July found nearly one in five employees have visited social networking sites on corporate networks (I'd venture to say its actually a lot higher), making companies vulnerable to a wide variety of cybercrimes, from phishing and spam to virus attacks and identity theft. But as social networks become increasingly valuable productivity tools, many companies are hesitant to go so far as to block them.

The answer is not only a robust security solution that arms a company against cyberattacks, but also an alignment between HR and the CIO that supports policies to require employees to get permission before downloading third-party apps and education that warns them to be careful where they click.

Find us on the show floor at Infosec to talk more about social networking threats!

Posted by Annie Klein on at 12:57 PM
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The Quest for Content: How Podcasts Can Help

Creating content can be a daunting task. Blogs, contributed articles and commentary, direct marketing communications to prospects and clients – all of these items can be challenging and time-consuming to create.

A growing number of our security PR clients are finding that the fastest path to generating content on pressing topics is to begin with a podcast. A fifteen minute call with a client executive, a customer company, or a partner can quickly yield the necessary content to fuel multiple areas of the security PR mix, with far less effort than was previously necessary.

A good example of this process in action can be seen in eIQnetworks, a Schwartz client with a deep bench of security and compliance experts. eIQnetworks and the Schwartz PR team have worked together to build a process that maximizes the value of the expert interview. These interviews are conducted as discussions of industry trends, emerging regulations like the HITECH Act or commentary on relevant breaking security news, such as the April 1st trigger date for the Conficker worm.

The process is fast – studios and complex editing suites are no longer necessary to produce polished commentary segments. With minimal time investment from company spokespeople, phone interviews are recorded and then edited by Schwartz to create podcasts segments that can be posted in company blog entries and shared through e-mail marketing pieces. These segments are also rich content resource that can be mined to create contributed articles or commentary.

So next time you have a pressing issue that you’re looking to quickly turn into media coverage and marketing activity, let us be your first interviewer – we’ll use it to generate results across multiple high-impact areas of your security PR program. We look forward to discussing this topic more with you at RSA in a few weeks, as well as Infosecurity Europe.

Posted by Dave Bowker on April 9, 2009 at 11:30 AM
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Twitter Partners: Pointing the Way to Monetisation?

New Media Age today reports on the imminent launch of Twitter Partners – a new consultancy aiming to "help brands, media companies, and celebrities harness the power of the Twitter ecosystem".

Set up by angel investor and serial entrepreneur Peter Read, and backed by a stellar cast of advisors, the company intends to first offer consultancy services to brands, before rolling out a product set designed to analyse Twitter buzz and help companies engage in conversations.

Twitter Partners is already boasting a roster of big name launch clients, including several major labels and studios, quadplay provider Virgin Media, the Knitting Factory music venue chain, and virtual pop band Gorillaz.

While plenty of PR, marketing and social media agencies are already offering consultancy services to brands wishing to dabble with Twitter, the most important element of the Twitter Partners launch is that Twitter itself has endorsed the company by taking an equity stake.

Indeed, Read tells New Media Age that Twitter is more than happy to refer brands on to his new venture, as the majority of its 30-strong staff is engineering and unable to cope with the current volume of commercial interest.

This endorsement must also give us a hint at Twitter’s future business model. Much speculation so far has pointed to monetisation through banner ads or premium accounts for corporate users, but Twitter Partners suggests that selling metrics and analytics around the service is a much more compelling offering.

As my colleague Ross Levanto pointed out last month, many Twitter users are sceptical about following corporate accounts, so their value to brands is minimal. By learning lessons from much-hyped predecessors Second Life and Facebook, where user experience was quickly compromised by brand saturation, Twitter must realise that quietly tapping into the word-of-mouth aspects of the service will be the key to commercialisation, not thrusting logos upon happy users.

If Twitter Partners can, as it promises, offer the first service to comprehensively monitor Twitter chatter and enable brands to use the service as a viable tool for CRM, focus groups or audience profiling, then it may well be the first to turn a profit from the microblogging explosion.

Posted by Luke Nava on April 8, 2009 at 8:43 AM
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Securing the Mobile Worker: How Not to Open up a Can of Worms

One of the issues we're expecting to hear a lot about at Infosecurity Europe 2009, Europe's largest security industry trade show, is mobile security. Giving employees the option to work from home is becoming increasingly attractive from both a financial and an environmental perspective, and is often seen as a perk at a time when pay rises and bonuses aren't possible. Furthermore, an estimated 4.5 million new requests for flexible working could flood UK firms today, Computing reported, as new legislation goes into effect that extends the right to request flexible working to all parents with children under the age of 16.

Without taking the necessary security precautions, mobile working could open up a can of worms. A complete mobile security strategy must include the same level of protection that exists in the office, with special consideration given to the increased risk of loss or theft. Full-data encryption to guard against data leakage, a VPN for secure connectivity, a proactive patch management solution and a network access control application are all key technologies businesses must have in palce to secure mobile workers.

Workers' attitudes can also expose businesses to security threats. A study released by Vodafone UK recently and reported on in ComputerWeekly found that nearly half of employees regard their work laptops or mobile devices as their own property once away from the office. Half (49.6%) of employees used their own mobile broadband connection and 29.6% used Wi-Fi with their company mobile device when at home, leaving businesses vulnerable.

At Schwartz London, we're looking forward to seeing what new mobile security solutions companies will be talking about at Infosec.

Posted by Annie Klein on April 6, 2009 at 10:23 AM
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Innovation and Risk

This morning, I read an interesting post from Glenbrook Partners on innovation in payments. You can read it here.

I agree with the underlying premise, that risk tolerance is a key factor in innovation success. Or as I would put it more simply:
 

• Fortes fortuna adiuvat - Fortune favors the bold
• He who dares wins

Schwartz has had the pleasure of representing a number of payments innovators, including Peppercoin, Bill Me Later (now a part of eBay) and CheckFree (now Fiserv) - and the willingness to take risks tempered by experience has always been a part of their corporate culture. These companies deal in conservative industries, yet they show that people with a vision, a solid plan and a willingness to take risks can help shape markets and create new markets.

We are seeing this same kind of daring in many markets today - particularly in green tech and healthcare IT. While I am throwing quotes around - let me share another - the perfect is the enemy of the good.

In public relations and in innovation, risks need to be an integral part of what we do. If companies wait for every nut and bolt to be in place - and never question the processes- they will not move rapidly (if at all) and will miss many great opportunities.

Innovation is the center of creating new market opportunities. Forrester Research is very bullish on New Tech innovations in the coming few years and predict that will be the tech area with the greatest growth. I am lucky to work with innovators every day, both at Schwartz and with my clients. With the state of the economy today - investing time and resources in innovation, regardless of your industry, is still one of the best ways to disrupt markets and drive growth.

Posted by Mark McClennan on March 25, 2009 at 10:38 AM
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Attack of the iPhone Apps

Some were disappointed last week when Apple's major iPhone announcement was its 3.0 operating system, which bandaged missing features like copy and paste. However, a closer look revealed an OS that was opened up for developers with 1,000 new APIs, making it much easier for third party developers to create iPhone applications.

Every major blog covered the launch with a nice round-up from Ars Technica here.

The 3.0 OS will result in thousands of new free and pay-for iPhone applications making one of the world's most entertaining devices even more entertaining. No, they won't all be as good as Shazaam or the lightsaber app (my sons love it), but there will be a lot of creative, innovative iPhone add ons for folks to download.

What does this have to do with PR? Well, you can bet that most major corporations will use the iPhone like they use Facebook, launching new applications to market their wares. That means beginning later this year, we will see a major new iPhone application launch per week which will make the world of apps, widgets, plug-ins and toolbars that much noisier.

Posted by Jason Morris on March 23, 2009 at 12:00 AM
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2009 NCAA Social Media Tip Off! Who Would Win?

Last year, to critical acclaim, we conducted the first ever NCAA Social Media College Basketball Bracket Analysis. As a PR firm that deals with high-tech, healthcare and services companies, we live social media every day and have a love of metrics. Therefore, we asked ourselves what if the schools in the Big Dance had to compete based on their social media prowess, not their hoop skills? I mean, forget guard play, or how the Orangemen may have exhausted themselves with an outstanding Big East Tourney, including a 6OT win.

We carefully evaluated the field of 64 and had the teams face off solely on social media skills and came up with a power ranking for each school. We kept the NCAA seeds and let them face off.

You may question - does this really work? Well last year, the NCAA Social Media Power Rankings were one of the few to predict Davidson's tremendous run deep in the tourney - so mock it at your peril.

How was the power ranking determined? It was determined by (# of facebook users in the School network or fan page (whichever was larger)/number of students at school according to Wikipedia). Note: Yes that includes alumni, but they count as fans in the stands cheering on the team. And if the students didn't join their schools network or the groups were hard to find...we considered that they didn't show up for the game. I recorded it all in a handy notebook and used the Microsoft calculator app to do the math.

Is it mathematically perfect? No. But wait to you see our plans for next year! Do we encourage wagering on games or any other activity which may take this as anything other than entertainment - no.

But now on with the results.

Posted by Mark McClennan on March 17, 2009 at 8:30 AM
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The spark was lit...

Twenty years ago today, (Sir) Tim Berners-Lee authored "Information Management: A proposal" and set the technology world on fire. Charlie Cooper at c/net has an interesting post on this today.

There are so many cliched ways to discuss this, so I just wanted to make a few points.

This has been one of the most fundamentally transformative innovations in human interaction and in technology in the past 100 years. Retail and communications have changed. Hundreds of thousands of new jobs and new industries were created because of his paper and subsequent work. It wasn't always pretty (I remember Gopher and Mosaic), but that is part of the development cycle.

In the services industry the shifts have been staggering. For financial services, the Web took the ATM revolution and put it into high gear. Fewer consumers than ever visit their banks or speak with their brokers in person. Online banking and bill pay (note: I have a client that offers this service) is now the dominant way consumers interact with their financial institutions. This level of functionality would not have been possible with my 300 baud modem and a dial-up connection 20 years ago.

For consulting companies and other services businesses it has changed the way companies interact with customers, cut down on flights, and most importantly, made the process much more collaborative, shortened cycles and reduced costs. Research, which is the essential underpinning of any strategic consulting assignment (or PR campaign), is more readily available and cheaper than ever before.

Architects, Construction design and management companies and coffee shops have all changed the way they work. We now have a coffee shop in Texas CoffeeGroundz Cafe (@coffeegroundz) that is using Twitter to take orders. As a result, business has doubled.

In the information and technology economy, this type of innovation is occurring all the time. Today I am sure there is something under development that has the potential to be just as transformative. The challenge is finding it and having a mind open enough to apply it to our daily lives and our businesses.

What technologies do you think we will be talking about in 20 years?

Posted by Mark McClennan on March 13, 2009 at 12:02 PM
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Look beyond the negative: valuing the customer in a difficult economy

This morning CNN.com reported that the credit card industry, a part of the financial services landscape, was going to have a difficult year (like most industries). Charge off rates exceeded 7.7% in December.

The story quotes Bank of America's CEO stating "Bank of America CEO Ken Lewis warned lawmakers at a high-profile Congressional hearing on the government's $700 billion rescue plan that he had no doubts 2009 would be an "awful year" for the credit card industry."

While this is definitely a serious concern for issuing banks and the payments industry, it is also an opportunity. Customer service and clear communications can play a more strategic role in this economic climate and can help the issuers differentiate themselves and capture a competitive advantage.

The media is going to focus on the negatives. The late fees, the rising interest rates and how they negatively impact consumers. Companies have two options.

1) Let those stories appear, realize they will most likely be criticizing the industry as a whole, take the lumps and move on with business as usual - focusing on mitigating risk while still attracting the high-value customer.

2) The other option, and the one I recommend, is to be more aggressive and clear when it comes to consumer education and customer service. Take the long term view and realize in this climate, if you are shown to work well with customers, the ones you have will remain loyal when the market rebounds, and you will attract valuable new users who are frustrated with competitors' policies.

Make sure the media outlets and bloggers have tips from your company on what consumers can do to mitigate late fees and bring interest rates down. Launch a consumer education campaign. Highlight how you are working with consumers to help them pay off their debts. While some consumers will still be negative - the positive comments will also be out there and will spread. Thanks to the longevity of comments and Google search - both will last for years. You want the good ones out there when the economy rebounds.

This lesson can be applied to more than just services companies. By remembering the customer is the brand ambassador and working with them to build a relationship grounded on clear, positive communications - companies will reap the rewards now and the future, regardless of the business climate.

Posted by Mark McClennan on March 10, 2009 at 11:00 AM
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Effect of Open Wireless and Broadband Systems

Post by Schwartz Creative Director and EVP Carol McGarry

In mid-November, MassNetComms and MITX sponsored a breakfast on the Future of Open Networks with a panel of speakers from Google, Nokia, AT&T Mobility and Aegis Media North America:

• Sarah Fay, CEO Aegis Media North America
• Steve Krom, Vice President of AT&T Mobility for New England
• Rich Miner, Group Manager, Mobile Platforms, Google
• Jon Phenix, Nokia

Moderator Josh Martin from Yankee Group asked the speakers to address: How open will wireless and broadband systems be in the future? How will open networks affect digital media, wireless applications and networking companies?

The discussion coalesced around a few major themes: the momentum behind openness, the primacy of the consumer experience and the challenges of developing strong business models. Rich Miner from Google noted that the industry is moving toward openness—the trend has started, putting pressure on all the service providers to jump in--and toward an “all you can eat” approach to bandwidth for consumers. The move to open platforms has created a good opportunity for both entrepreneurs who can develop more innovative applications and for the consumers who use those applications.

Now companies have to figure out how to monetize and embrace openness. The carriers could have opened up their platforms to integrate location but they missed that opportunity. The next opportunity is billing via mobile, said Rich, with the phone as an easy way to put transactions on carrier bills.
While the openness genie is out of the bottle, panelists noted that standards may still be the industry’s Achilles heel. With multiple platforms, the challenge for developers continues to be reaching scale that can support a strong business model. Will competitors standardize? Android could fragment like UNIX or come together as a major platform.

The panelists discussed how the industry needs to enable a food chain so that everyone makes money from new applications and evolving business models. Rich Miner noted that Google aims to share revenues from applications with carriers. Jon Phenix from Nokia commented that publishers like ESPN and The New York Times are starting to design properties around mobile. They’re looking to monetize their off deck traffic by integrating mobile into online ad buys, but are not driving substantial revenues yet. 

Sarah Fay from Aegis compared the state of mobile advertising to the early day of Internet advertising with those annoying pop-up ads. Marketers need to overcome the feeling that ads are an intrusion and recognize that they can be a pleasing experience for consumers. Rich Miner cautioned that navigating to an ad is a challenge on most mobile phones and you are constrained on what you can display.

Panelists often came back to the theme of addressing consumer needs. “The mobile phone is the most personal device we carry,” said Steve Krom from AT&T. Service providers need to understand consumer needs, provide many choices and develop the right business models.

Posted by Chuck Tanowitz on December 17, 2008 at 10:30 AM
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(Web) Innovators of Boston Unite!

Back in the 1970’s the owners of Manhattan’s Studio 54 described how they chose their evening’s mix of patrons as “tossing the perfect salad.” In that case the salad consisted of hedonists, disco divas, jet setters, moguls and the occasional lucky resident of an outlying borough. Most were left languishing outside the velvet ropes.
 

This week's Web Innovators Group gathering at the Royal Sonesta Hotel in Cambridge was a much more democratic affair. In this case, the salad was tossed with a mix of some 1,000 web and mobile entrepreneurs, VCs, Harvard and M.I.T. B-school students, job seekers, reporters and industry analysts.

Hosted by Venrock’s David Beisel, WebInno provides early-stage startups in the Boston area an opportunity to present to their peers and exchange ideas. The evening was divided into three “Main Dish” DEMO-style presentations in the packed Grand Ballroom. Audience members vote in real time for their favorite presentation via their mobile phones.

Meanwhile, the audience could check out six informal “Side Dish” tabletop presentations in the adjoining suites. The evening also included an interactive session on “Raising Angel Financing 101,” led by James Geshwiler, Managing Director of the CommonAngels.  

The dominant theme was collaboration, content and social networking for smart phones like the Apple iPhone and BlackBerry.  Here’s a rundown of the main presenters:

TripChill™ – A nifty “mobile travel concierge platform” for the iPhone and other mobile devices from the founders of Skyward Innovations, Inc.. TripChill delivers flight status/gate notifications, and, if your flight is cancelled, offers a range of alternate itineraries. If you are stranded, TripChill delivers local hotel and car service choices within set budget parameters. When you land, TripChill delivers an e-mail welcoming you to your destination, indicating baggage claim logistics and even where you parked your car. Release in beta on the Web in August, coming soon to the iPhone App Store.

Local Motors – The winner of the audience’s popular vote, Local Motors answers the questions: What if…We built the car of your dreams? ... It was green? ...We made it in your town? ...We listened? Founder John B. Rogers, Jr. described his vision of building “really sexy cars that people will want to buy” and clicked on a futuristic vehicle that resembled a snub-nosed Batmobile, complete with De Lorean-style gull-wing doors. Did I mention these are fuel-efficient, “green” vehicles?

Crimson Hexagon –The company name comes from “The Library of Babel,” a short story by Jorge Luis Borges. Based on the work of Harvard Professor Gary King, Crimson Hexagon looks at blogs, Twitter feeds, online communities and identifies, qualifies and quantifies opinions being expressed. It looks especially useful for tracking the success of marketing campaigns, political campaigns and monitoring consumer brands (“buzz tracking”).
 
CEO Candace Fleming demoed the solution by using Sarah Palin as an example. There in easy-to-read graphs were the peaks of concern about the VP candidates’ “policy knowledge” that tracked directly to her prime time network interviews.  Wade Roush at Xconomy recently wrote a good piece on Crimson Hexagon, worth checking out.

The “Side Dish” Presentations ranged from InfoMedMD – a personalized, Health 2.0 medical symptoms checker created by Dr. Joseph Bentivegna – to Pixability, an online service that promises to turn your shaky video footage into a high-quality, Hollywood-style production. I’m sure we’ll be hearing a lot more from these companies and am certainly looking forward to the next WebInno meeting in March.

The organization also has started a LinkedIn group, which is worth joining if you haven't already.

Posted by Doug Russell on December 11, 2008 at 9:23 AM
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Retail in Your Pocket

Retailing exists for no other reason than to fulfill our holiday wish lists. While the stores are open year round, they only start making money at the start of the holiday shopping season, hence the name “Black Friday.”

So the start of the 2008 holiday shopping season seems as good a time as any to examine where the mobile retailing market is headed.

While the mobile web has received quite a bit of attention over the last year, and will continue to be on the forefront for the foreseeable future, not many people use their mobile phones for ecommerce.

My client Mark Watson, CEO of Volantis, recently pointed out to me that people use their handsets for communicating and social networking, but you don’t often see people shopping on eBay through their mobile phones. That makes sense as eBay is more of a browsing environment and people tend not to browse on their on the small handheld screens.

The handsets are, however, making inroads in the retail sector. Volantis, for one, operates Ubik.com, which enables any business to create a mobile website. That means even the local bookstore or coffee shop can have a site that works on your little LG flip phone as well as on that sleek new iPhone you asked Santa to bring this year.

Mobile Monday was filled with players looking to take retailing and retail advertising to the mobile phone.

Drync, which has its primary purpose as helping people use their mobile device to remember and research wines, has an added benefit of allowing people to purchase wines right then and there. So if you think about a person who is out and tries a wine, they can find out more information then order a few bottles delivered to their home before ever leaving the restaurant.

Ordering products through the mobile phone is great, but imagine getting the same information in the store as you do online. It’s one thing to walk into the Home Depot and pick up a cordless drill. It’s quite another to pick up that drill and then be able to see customer reviews.

Mobegic is working with retailers to help them match their mobile sites with the depth of their fixed Internet sites. The idea is to make it so people can access the same information on their mobile phones as they have at their computer screens. In the store people have more information to use to shop while other shoppers can make purchases even when they are neither in the store nor at their computers. This starts to blend the world of online and offline commerce in a way that has never been possible.

A major advantage of shopping online is the ability to quickly and easily comparison shop. If you think back to the days before the online world we would comparison shop by going from store to store. That worked for expensive items like cameras, cars and furniture, but when it came to smaller items we usually just followed our instinct. Now we can comparison shop for everything, even a gallon of gas.

But what happens if you come across an item in a store and just don’t know if this is a good price? Pongr answers that problem by letting you take a picture of the item and then search for it based on image recognition. Not only can you find the best prices but you can also look for more information on that particular product.

In many ways all of these companies are aimed at the same goal: leveling the retail playing field. They put information into the hands of consumers and let them make the choice as to where, when and how to buy.

What the consumers and retailers do with this new-found freedom and power is what we should be watching for with the next holiday season.

Posted by Chuck Tanowitz on December 2, 2008 at 1:31 PM
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Is the TXT MSG the key to crossing the digital divide?

The digital divide has plagued Web 2.0 from the start. Web 2.0 is only possible with two elements: a relatively powerful computer and consistent broadband Internet access. Both cost money, quite a bit for someone struggling to get by and in many cases broadband access may not even be available.

So when the digerati trade pictures on Flickr or log onto Facebook and MySpace to share with friends, they are doing something that entire segments of the population can’t. This gets worse as you move out of the US, where people not only can’t afford a computer, but don’t have an easy way to access the online world.

These populations do, however, have cell phones. Not fancy cell phones with Web access and email, but simple phones that may or may not have a camera, but can certainly handle text messaging.

Which is why I was heartened by companies like SCVNGR and Assured Labor, which focus on delivering information to these devices as well. In fact, Assured Labor CEO David Reich said that the company is specifically aimed at reaching out to people who do not have access to the fixed Web. In a sense, text messaging technology is the key to crossing the digital divide.

Experts predict that even with the current market conditions, smartphone sales will continue to increase this year, as those with the means will make picking up an iPhone or a BlackBerry Storm a necessity.

However, sales of traditional handsets are expected to fall. And it’s not because smart phone sales will cannibalize cheaper handset sales, but because many will simply put off upgrading their phones. In a way this will exacerbate the digital divide, with the “haves” gaining access to the mobile Web while the “have nots” will only have text messaging and maybe some limited, and expensive, browsing.

That’s why I’m heartened to see so many companies including the text-only capabilities as part of their growth strategies.

Posted by Chuck Tanowitz on November 20, 2008 at 2:56 PM
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Full Speed Ahead

Last night, I went to the Mass Technology Leadership Council's "Tech Tuesday: Gadgets & Gathering" event. There were 30-40 people there, and what struck me the most was everyone's optimism.

I had great conversations with a number of entrepreneurs who were starting their own companies or looking to expand. The VC I met from WilmerHale was very bullish, particularly when it came to clean tech potential in Massachusetts. The healthcare IT company founders were identifying new needs and are getting a solid reception from hospital networks.

The talk wasn't about "surviving the downturn," layoffs or how tough it is. It was about opportunity, possibility and what is needed to go to the next level.

That's what I believe people need to keep in mind. There are growth opportunities in every market. Let others retrench--if you maintain your optimism, seek out new opportunities and aren't afraid to take risks, opportunities abound. Tech companies know this better than anyone. Don't take counsel of your fears. Be aware of them. Then step past them and move full speed ahead.

Posted by Mark McClennan on November 19, 2008 at 11:15 AM
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Where the excitement is: Mobile Monday

Last night I attended my first Mobile Monday. For the uninitiated, Mobile Mondays are held around the world and are opportunities for people working in the mobile industry in any given city to meet with peers, face-to-face. Last night’s meetup focused on showing 10 local startups.

I came away with two overall impressions:
 

1. There is a lot of optimism and hope in this industry. Yes, everyone is talking about the recession and tough times ahead, but they’re eagerly developing the next generation of technology.
2. Apparently the whole world uses the iPhone. Yeah, I know, it’s not true. But the iPhone App. Store has given developers an immediate outlet for their work. Several companies noted proudly that their core application was already being sold there, while it was still under development for other devices. BlackBerry will have an application store too, so hopefully that will help even things out.

The young engineers and business folks showing their best stuff have done some wonderful creative thinking with the existing and emerging mobile infrastructure.

Cadio, for example, is marrying location-based information with contextual targeting to create a solid understanding of movement patterns. The purpose is to create targeted ads that aren’t a nuisance, but actually fit in with people’s lives. Cadio took 2nd place in the mobile category in the MIT 100K Entrepreneurship Competition last year as Social Sense.

Pongr lets people take pictures of products in a store, then use that picture to find the same items around the web, do research and even find out if the price they’re getting is a good one. This potentially can put a lot of power into the hands of the shopper.

Drync also uses a camera phone, but then goes beyond giving wine enthusiasts a way to save their favorite wines, find out reviews and even buy them on the spot.

SCVNGR is among the most interesting companies I saw, giving companies an platform for developing scavenger hunts. The applications of this are pretty amazing. Colleges and universities area already using this as part of their orientation programs to help students learn their way around campus and to meet other people. Trade shows use it to move people around and drive traffic to certain booths, and the MFA used it for their Assyrian exhibit to engage younger visitors.

Assured Labor also uses location technology, but this matches workers with people who have work to give. What’s interesting here is that it’s based on text messaging, thereby targeting the non-tech savvy portion of the population who use cell phones but may not have PC or Mac-based Web access.

In all I left the meeting pumped and excited to see what other companies are coming down the road.

Posted by Chuck Tanowitz on November 18, 2008 at 12:45 PM
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Insights from the New England Mobile Summit

This post is from Schwartz EVP Carol McGarry

A recession may be the time we start to see some true innovation in the New England mobile world, if you believe the panelists at the recent New England Mobile Summit.
 

I attended the summit this past month during Mobile Internet World in Boston. The event was organized by Mark Lowenstein, managing director of Mobile Ecosystem, a former Yankee Group vice president and analyst, and previously vice president of Strategy at Verizon Wireless.

Lowenstein assembled a series of lively, informative panels with speakers who included Jon Auerbach from Charles River Ventures; Randy Battat, CEO of Airvana; E.Y. Snowden, Chairman at Tatara Systems; Gennady Sirota, vice president of product management at Starent Networks; and others.

It was interesting to view the mobile marketplace from a regional perspective, and the panelists shared plenty of good news. The New England business ecosystem that supports mobile companies is strong. According to Mark, the region supports about 150 companies in wireless and 170 in related areas, and VCs put more than $1B into Massachusetts companies since 2002.

Plenty of M&A activity has taken place with companies like Nuance making acquisitions. Also, big players like Microsoft, Google and Nokia have opened Boston area offices. Not to mention the successful companies that have spawned startups, like the former Comverse employees who started JumpTap and Airwide Solutions.

That's the history, but what about looking ahead? I was struck by the optimism of the panelists. If you believe them, a recession is the right time to innovate and start a new venture. Randy Battat commented that Airvana was founded and funded during the high tech recession of 2001. Gennady Sirota noted that Starent was formed in the summer of 2001. Large carriers bet on startups during that recession and invested in innovation. Today Airvana generates more than $200M in revenues and Starent employs about 700 people.

The megatrends that speakers pointed to included:

• A sea change in the ability to deliver applications and services for mobile phones-The mobile web is growing 500% per month as devices become more capable and carrier plans become more flexible. Devices like the Apple iPhone and Google Android are providing the full web experience. Meanwhile, open source development for mobile handsets will deliver a better end user experience.
• Access to faster Internet and video-Seventy percent of consumers don't have access to 3G video connections and the vast majority gain access to the web from simple, low-cost devices. According to CEO Jim Ricotta of Azuki Systems, content providers need to repurpose "glanceable" content that works on low and high quality phones.
• Architecture Changes-4G doesn't just mean faster, better and stronger. It also means that the architecture and economics are changing.
• FemToCells are hot-Randy Battat commented that data traffic over cellular networks is growing 60-100% per year, in a trend that should continue strongly through the recession. Tatara Systems Chairman E.Y Snowden described FemToCells as "game changing" in their ability to broadly deliver bandwidth to homes, where 70% of mobile services are consumed.  

 
Untapped opportunities? Panelists cited the ability to access contact databases and location

information from mobile web applications. Another opportunity: cloud services like Google Maps that bridge the desktop and mobile worlds.

A few other interesting insights: One panelist cited TeleAtlas as an example of a company that invites consumer feedback to keep its street atlas information up to date. There were also interesting conversations about global differences. For instance, in India, carriers are sharing their networks to reduce costs in a region where $4/month is the typical mobile phone bill. Getting into regional markets requires adapting business and pricing models.

Who will suffer in the recession? With global carrier consolidation, the infrastructure companies are under enormous pressure in spite of $50B in carrier spending. Nortel and Samsung are showing signs of the strain while Erickson, Nokia and Siemens remain stable. Look to see the infrastructure provider landscape redrawn in coming months.

To see some of the interesting comments by panelists during New England Mobile Summit, check out this video on bnetTV.com.

 

Posted by Chuck Tanowitz on November 7, 2008 at 2:50 PM
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Forbes Columnist Discusses Entrepreneur Journeys

During her recent visit to Schwartz's San Francisco office, noted entrepreneur Sramana Mitra sat down for a fascinating conversation with Miranda Coykendall - check it out here. Sramana shares her thoughts on why VCs are nervous and the industries that are desparate for innovation. She also talks about Om Malik's influence on her decision to become a writer.

In addition to maintaining a popular blog and a regular column in Forbes, Sramana has just published "Entrepreneur Journeys" - the first in a series of books that will explore the world of today's entrepreneur.  

Posted by John Moran on October 22, 2008 at 5:22 PM
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Social Media and the Social Good

I just returned from the Web 2.0 Expo in New York and my head is spinning with all the things I learned and the ideas I'm dying to try out. But what struck me most was Tim O'Reilly's keynote, one he's delivered before, in which he called on the best and brightest working in technology to cast aside silly little viral Facebook applications and focus instead on something important.

He ran through a list, including climate change, income inequity, slavery, energy, etc. and everyone smiled and nodded. Then we all went back to our jobs trying to push viral Facebook applications to test our friends on their knowledge of 80s movies. I did quite well on that quiz, by the way.

I thought about this again today when I read a New York Times story about a soon-to-launch startup that aims to capture the voices of students to help high schoolers choose schools. It's a pretty typical story about the power of social networks, including the obligatory clueless marketer:

“I’ve got to be honest with you,” Christopher Gruber, a vice president who oversees admissions at Davidson College, told me. “I’m not spending a ton of time navigating those student-driven sites. It’s too much to manage. My sense is that the traditional big players, like Princeton Review, are the major sources for online information too, in part because those are the names that parents still recognize. Those are the names that are going to have greater panache, and so those are probably the ones that will be turned to. The ones that we supply information to are the ones that we spend the most time on, filling out surveys for them to make sure that that information is accurate.”

Then, as the story reports, we find out that about 1/8th of the Davidson student population has already submitted content to the site. Good luck Mr. Gruber.

In any case, the reporter eventually asks how this can be a "grass roots" kind of thing when it's lining the pockets of major investors. This is commerce, pure and simple, masquerading as social change.

Posted by Chuck Tanowitz on September 22, 2008 at 11:14 AM
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Convincing the C-Suite to Engage in Social Media

A week from today, I will be the featured speaker on a national PRSA Teleseminar "Winning Over the Executive Suite: A practical guide to social media campaigns" on September 9 at 3:00 p.m. ET.

I will address how to convince the C-level suite to surrender some control and begin to engage social media. This teleseminar will provide concrete recommendations and case studies highlighting practical initiatives any company can implement to begin to engage social media and secure executive buy-in.

Participants will learn:

• Seven tips for securing buy-in from senior management. (Note: I actually give more)
• The five most common pitfalls companies make when first starting to engage social media.
• Suggestions and recommendations for effective, quantifiable ways to begin conversational public relations.
• Real world examples of the good, the bad and the ugly.

There is still time to register here. I have been told my presentation is a must listen event. Even if you can't make it to the call, PRSA is keeping it archived for two weeks.

I will also be speaking on September 11 at the PRSA Northeast District Conference on the topic of Social Media ethics. If you are near Buffalo, it is shaping up to be a great full-day conference, and I hope to see many people there.

Posted by Mark McClennan on September 2, 2008 at 4:50 PM
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What wine tasting teaches us about PR

Last week I had the pleasure of attending an event featuring Gary Vaynerchuck -- a smart businessman who is changing the wine industry and leveraging social media to do so. He has daily videos where he tastes and evaluates wine, and regularly interacts with fans through every social medium available ... check out his daily videos here.

He has built a strong following -- with people coming to see him from around New England. He managed to pack a room with 200 people and keep us entertained for 90 minutes (and it could have gone longer).

Out of the entire discussion last week, there are three thoughts that I wanted to share with everyone. Specifically, a few of his comments can be applied to social media and public relations in general. I do not think Gary will mind too much, since I am taking the seeds he planted in my mind and growing them into full blown, PR-specific thoughts for you all to taste and evaluate ....

1) The only way to improve your wine palate is to taste wine -- You can read the magazines, watch the movies, read books and visit vineyards; but in the end, what gives you a true appreciation for wine is actually tasting it. The same applies to PR and social media. Theory is essential. You need to have a grounding in the fundamentals ... but in the end you need to execute. You need to practice what you preach. If you aren't engaged -- why not? This leads me to my next point ....

2) The only way to appreciate wine is to stay out of a rut -- try new things. Most people find a few wines and stick to them. They have wine racks full of Yellowtail, Conundrum,  Cakebread Chardonnay and Parallel 44. (This gives you an inkling of my tastes). That's great, but it is limiting. Try a new wine frequently. The same applies to PR. It's why a good PR pros are constantly looking for the next new channel, a new approach to doing things. It's a mantra we preach here at Schwartz. 

3) Wine is a living thing -- unlike my beloved single malt Scotch, wine can change dramatically from year to year. A wine that was great one year may be horrible (or as Gary says "utter crap") the next year. This holds true for even the best, most proven and time tested wines. Ask any wine connoisseur about 2007 Bordeaux. Too often companies and PR people fall into that trap. It worked last time, we should do it again. As we all know from the financial services commercials -- past performance is not an indicator of future results. Always re-evaluate ... is this likely to work this time? Is there something better I should try? I know my teams ask me that constantly, and as PR pros, we need to be aware of this at all times.

Sláinte Mhath!

Posted by Mark McClennan on June 23, 2008 at 9:28 AM
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Does Boston "Get it"?

Remember the 80s? I do. Yes, I wore a jacket with the sleeves rolled up and Topsider shoes with no socks. I even had a poster of Max Headroom on my wall (I also had the Coke give-away Max Headroom watch and matching wall clock).

It all seemed so cool then. In fact, there were those people who looked down on you if you didn’t have the latest clothes or listened to the coolest tunes. Now it just seems as silly and frivolous as music with lots of synthesizers (take that Gary Numan!).

That’s the kind of frivolity that I sometimes feel pervades Silicon Valley. They’re always chasing the next trend, looking for the next big thing, riding the wave and thumbing their nose at anyone who doesn’t “get it.”

I keep hearing that the Valley understands Web 2.0 while Boston VCs don’t “get it” and are missing out on some great opportunities. Everyone knows Facebook was founded in a Harvard dorm but ended up in the Valley. I keep hearing a number of companies getting pressure from their VCs to move from Boston to the Valley in order to truly make it.

Yes, Web 2.0 is all the rage now and yes, I do think that a lot of elements from Web 2.0 will change the world. After all, my business cards say “New Media Strategist” on them and I’ve been singing the praises of “user-generated content” and “social networking” for years. But that doesn’t mean that Facebook is the be-all and end-all of the social networking world. In this environment another company can come up and eat its users as fast as it overtook MySpace and as fast as MySpace overtook Friendster.

Honestly, I’m not all that convinced that the value of Web 2.0 lies in the consumer world. Yes, there are a lot of great things you can do as a consumer, but as a company, can you really make money by giving just about everything away for free?

Here in New England, where we tend to favor navy and black, polo shirts and sweaters that can come out of the closet year after year without fear of going out of style, the VCs tend to focus on more stable, if less sexy investments. No, securing a database isn’t sexy, but it is necessary, especially in the enterprise. And you know what? Companies are actually willing to pay money, real money, to have their database secured. Wow, imagine that, a revenue model! Yes, real opportunity is in the enterprise.

The main problem with Web 2.0 is that it takes full advantage of the desktop and Web browsers. Why is that a problem? Because usage is shifting to cell phones and mobile devices. Yes, the iPhone has made it possible to have a small computer in your pocket, but most Web 2.0 companies still look at the desktop as a final destination. In Boston a lot of companies are looking well beyond the desktop. Take Schwartz client Vaultus, which specializes in making enterprise applications work on mobile devices. Or even look at LocaModa, which focuses on display technologies that bring the Web off the desktop.

These companies are well ahead of the curve and focus on the not-so-sexy world of back end technology. No, they’re not on the cover of BusinessWeek yet, but they’ll be written about on the inside pages where it really counts. They’re the companies that are actually leading the way.

I’m sure you’ll hear about similar companies in a few years, when the Valley starts to think they’re sexy and drops millions of dollars into them. Of course, that’s when hearing the name “Facebook” may elicit the same snickers as “Max Headroom.”

Posted by Chuck Tanowitz on June 16, 2008 at 5:59 PM
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Salute to Excellence

One of Schwartz's core competencies is helping entrepreneurial companies use public relations to take on larger competitors and win. Earlier this week, at the Sabre Awards in New York City, the Holmes Report recognized Schwartz for not just talking the talk, but walking the walk.

There is no way to write this without coming across as bragging, but in reality I want to call out the great work of my team and our client.

The Sabre Awards are one of the most prestigious awards in public relations. Winners are selected based their strategic approach to public relations campaigns and measureable results.

This week, Schwartz received a Gold Sabre Award for its work on behalf of Digication, an eight-person technology company that set out to change the way teachers teach and students learn and showcase their portfolios. Using a combination of trade media relations and social media campaigns, in less than a year, Schwartz helped Digication grow from a base of about 10 schools to more than 1,000 schools nationwide.

 Digication has a great product and visionary founders (both of which help quite a bit), but it faced a challenge many start-up companies face - it had to take on entrenched competition and win. Working together, Schwartz and Digication did just that.

The same held true at the Sabres. Digication and Schwartz were in a category with Hitachi, Rubbermaid and New York Life -- all much larger companies and well-known brands. Yet in the end, Digication triumphed.

Congratulations to a great company -- Digication -- and a great team for showing that with aggressiveness, focus and a commitment to excellence, public relations can have a quantifiable business impact -- and proving once again the revolutionary power of entrepreneurial companies no matter their size.
 

Posted by Mark McClennan on May 15, 2008 at 9:40 AM
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Boston vs. the Valley: Does Geography Matter?

I chose to live in Boston, the city didn’t choose me. That is, I wasn’t born here, I have no family ties here, but instead my wife and I moved here out of love for the location, though not for the weather. 

So I can’t figure out why so many people want to declare this place dead, at least in the technology sense. The latest is Sarah Lacy, journalist of many titles and the woman who drew the ire of “tweeters” at South by Southwest.

The interesting part of this debate is why geography matters at all. Don’t most Web 2.0 companies exist on the premise that geography doesn’t matter? That you can continue to stay in touch with someone on the other side of the world as easily as you can with someone down the street? Sarah's point is that starting a business is difficult and it's better to be surrounded by peolple going through the same experience. If it's easier to start something in the Valley, why not do it?

The Boston Globe's Scott Kirsner has been tackling this question for quite a while, including his very interesting article examining why Facebook went west when it should, by all rights, be a Cambridge-based company. 

Facebook went west because East Coast VCs wanted to see an income model and at the time Mark Zuckerberg couldn’t show them one. West Coast VCs were willing to take the chance based only on the energy and the possibilities. 

A former client of mine who moved to the Valley in order to take over a consumer-oriented company once commented that Boston is great for the intellectual companies, those that will sell to the government or other enterprises. The brainpower at MIT, Harvard, BU, Brandeis (had to throw my alma mater in that list) and other Boston-area schools makes this a hotbed of intellectual talent. 

However, The Hub lacks the energy of the Valley and for those consumer-focused brands that feed on that energy, the Valley is the only place to be. 

Who is right? Today it looks like those in the Valley are brilliant. But when I was a kid Wang, Digital Equipment Corp. and Polaroid were at the top of the heap. Today the Wang Towers house a number of small companies, DEC’s offices belong to HP and Polaroid’s Waltham headquarters is about to become condos. 

Two years ago everyone talked about Friendster. A year ago it was all about Second Life. Today they’re the butt of jokes. Even Peter Shankman joked the other day that MySpace is being dropped "faster than third-period French."

I don’t believe Boston is dead, I believe it’s just in the shadows for a while. These things run in cycles and right now consumer-facing technologies are hot, so the money flows there. Then again, it also takes a lot more money to get a consumer brand off the grounds. Eventually VCs will swing back toward the more conservative investments and Boston will thrive again. 

Perhaps the tech economy will truly become global and the geography won’t matter much, but the fact is, innovation will continue.

Posted by Chuck Tanowitz on April 29, 2008 at 10:31 PM
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The Utopian Future, or Going Back to It

Peter Shankman gave a wonderful talk at Schwartz this week and he had a lot of interesting things to say about networking, technology and communications, but two pieces caught my attention.

First was an initial concept that everything we predict and know is bulls***. That is, social networking just comprises tools that allow us to do what we should already be doing: meeting, talking and connecting with people. He’s right, of course. But part of that is the concept that prediction is almost impossible. He pointed to Back to the Future Part II as an example, in which everyone in the future (which is closer to today) had a fax machine in every room. Today faxes are passé and inefficient, but in 1985 they were new, exciting and efficient ways to communicate, so it was good comedy to have a future with one even in the bathroom. 

Of course, that same movie featured flying cars. So take it for what it is. 

His second concept was a future in which everything in our house has an IP address and connects to everything else. Hit the snooze button on the alarm clock and it triggers information that starts a chain reaction. Your coffee maker starts, your news downloads, your kids are awoken by gentle singing of angels…. 

Frankly, this sounds a lot like the digital version of Doc Brown’s Rube Goldberg-like machine at the beginning of the original Back to the Future that fed the dog and made eggs, but I digress. 

He goes on, of course, to the point that getting a plane ticket triggers a Twitter (or twitter-like) note to your friends that you’re about to head to another city, then when you arrive your phone registers your location and tells you about local restaurants you may like as well as people who you may want to meet and where they’re dining. 

This utopian ideal sounds great, except I’ve heard it before and we’re supposed to be there by now. I remember hearing about connected refrigerators that read the RFID chips on the food you purchase to tell you when you need more milk or even allow you to run recipes based on what you already have. 

You can buy a fridge that is connected, of course, but it’ll cost you a lot more than a very nice not-so-connected fridge just so you can have a built in TV. And besides, the technology isn’t there to tell you that the foil-wrapped leftover chicken has started to grow something usually reserved for the college chemistry lab. 

But my real problem with this concept is the digital divide. Having an IP address on every electronic item in your house means you have a house-wide network, probably a wireless network. Connecting with people through electronic devices means these people also have electronic devices and are as connected as you. So basically it restricts you to people of similar socio-economic backgrounds. The digital divide is real, municipal wifi networks have failed to take off, so this kind of technology is not available to everyone. We are isolated enough in how we live our lives, I’m not sure that connecting only with people who have similar technological access is the best way to go. 

If we’re going to focus our development efforts anywhere it should be on making sure that those with little or no connectivity get it. Verizon has been great about bringing FIOS to my affluent suburb, but what about less affluent areas? How long will it take for them to get their piece of fiber? Then how long will it take for those people to get on Facebook, Twitter and other communications concepts that may not even exist yet? 

It’s great if I can meet and network with people who can move my business forward, but it’s also great to learn from people who have a very different view on life.  

Posted by Chuck Tanowitz on April 25, 2008 at 10:45 AM
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Facebook or Phacebook?

Word today from TechCrunch's Duncan Riley that a successful phishing scam targeting Facebook users is on the loose. Unfortunately, this type of thing is only going to increase in prevalence as more and more people aggregate and connect using social networks, Twitter and other new media vehicles. Not to mention that many folks make their profile information public on the networks, meaning a phish doesn't have to get that much data to know more about you than they should.

This also raises the question about the blurring line between social applications for personal and professional use. I Twitter, I Facebook and I Link In, all for both profesional and personal reasons. Does this mean that these are all legitimate applications for professional use and should not be monitored by security and IT? Or does it mean that companies should restrict access using web filtering technology and other security/resource management measures to ensure no lines are crossed?

I for one think that the business value outweighs the risk in most instances---especially in a relationship-driven profession like PR--but not all companies will agree with that. They will be concerned that the sheer volume of new social applications and the integration and mash up of them, will eventually result in a major privacy or security breach that internal IT cannot manage.

It also raises the question of with whom does the responsibility lie? Should Facebook, Twitter and others provide some baseline security measures to fight phishing or should it be the corporation's repsonsibility to police their people and a consumer's to protect themselves? Is Facebook a public pond (swim at your own risk)? Where is the legal liability?

Thankfully, I feel as though we are still in the early adopter phase of Twitter, Facebook and other Web 2.0 sites and resources, so many of the users have some level of technical/security savvy. Maybe the near-term return on phishes for identity thieves, deviants and hackers will be so low, that they will continue focusing on traditional email phishing and botnets. In any event, this is great fodder for next week's RSA conference where experts like ScanSafe, 8e6, Breach Security, Qualys, CORE Security, Cloudmark and others will gather to tackle the topic of web applications and security.

Want to meet with me at RSA or find out what I'll be doing there? Check out my status on Facebook or Twitter. But if it says I am asking you for personal or profile information, don't believe it for a second.

Posted by Jason Morris on March 27, 2008 at 1:14 PM
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Polaroid's Demise: Why Old Doesn't Mean Trash

I pass a sad sight each time I get on 128 South from our Waltham offices: the all-but empty headquarters of the once-proud Massachusetts institution, Polaroid. The sign covering the windows of the large, empty cafeteria proclaim "Polaroid Now," but Polaroid is mostly in the past. When the company announced recently that it would soon stop making its eponymous film, many cried while many others said "they still make that stuff? Why?"

This past Sunday's Boston Globe had two articles in the demise of the technologically innovative company, one that focuses on the artistic side while the other looks at the business and technological legacy Polaroid left behind.

While my title here at Schwartz includes the line "New Media Strategist," I'm a big fan of older technologies. My camera collection includes a number of film cameras including a 1950s era Kodak Retina IIIc and a medium format twin lens reflex with technology dating back to the 1960s.

Each has its own personality and quirks that makes it worth keeping and using. I pulled out my Colorpack II and loaded it with Fuji instant film to take the shot in this post. Yes, Fuji makes instant film and frankly, it's a lot better than the stuff Polaroid was putting out. In fact, the guys at my favorite camera store believe Fuji will probably pick up the rights to the rest of the Polaroid line. 

People peg Polaroid's demise to the digital revolution, but it really began with one-hour photo machines. While Polaroid offered a single instant picture, you could take your standard roll of 12, 24 or 36 picture 35mm film into the local Walgreens, get prints back in an hour and still be able to make copies later. A Polaroid offers only one image.

That said, my kids usually want to see their pictures on the back of my digital camera, but they are amazed by the tactile aspect of the Polaroid. The idea of holding a picture in their hands 2 minutes after taking it blows them away. Also, the uniqueness of that image contrasts with the quick-copy culture that digital provides.

Everyone looks to new technology to supercede the old, but that doesn't mean the old is worthless. One morning while drivng to work I heard a WBUR-FM story about a local shop that repairs and sells manual typewriters (I have a few of these around my house as well). The owner was saying how he gets a lot of teens coming in to buy machines that were once on the cutting edge but are now considered stodgy. As a person whose first professional writing job involved pounding on a manual typewriters, there is something nice about hitting keys that make a *WHAP* sound and have a bit of a reaction. Just as with film, when you type on paper you take more care in your work, since you can't erase by just hitting the "backspace" button.

On twitter Businessweek Reporter Stephen Baker recently commented that his book editing process is amazingly archaic. Maybe that's not such a bad thing.

Posted by Chuck Tanowitz on March 19, 2008 at 1:10 PM
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Paul Gillin on The New Influencers

Paul Gillin has been covering the tech industry for over 25 years, leading prominent organizations such as Computerworld and TechTarget. These days he's consulting and maintaining a couple of blogs - one on his own; the other, Tech PR War Stories, is co-hosted with David Strom. Paul is also author of the widely acclaimed book "The New Influencers." Check out this podcast - Paul offers a number of important suggestions on how companies can leverage social media. Here are a few notes:

- There's a giant global conversation going on - and it's likely someone is talking about you - get in the conversation.

- Identify the critical influencers in your market and figure out how to engage them.

- It is possible to measure what's happening - pick a small number of metrics important to you (e.g., comments, links, subscribers).

- Don't be shy - bloggers are likely to write positively about your company.

- The new model of journalism - experts can speak freely and community standards will help screen out and regulate errors.

- PR professionals should be publishers as well as a channel to reach publishers.

- Most importantly, don't be overwhelmed - take it one step at a time - learn something new every day.

Posted by John Moran on January 30, 2008 at 8:30 AM
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Don't Just Choose an Analyst Firm, Choose an Analyst

Many clients turn to us when they are about to engage with their first analyst firm and ask for recommendations. The questions we in turn ask: "What are you looking for from your firm? Market sizing data for the next round of funding? Lead generation? Feedback on messaging and market strategy?"

Most of the discussion heads down that path about which firm is the perfect fit based on focus, cost, support and what the competition is doing. Is it Gartner? IDC? Burton?

Unfortunately, this where the client vetting process often stops. Companies often assume that all analysts at a firm are the same and that they, the client, will get the same level of service, expertise and support from every analyst at that firm. This is a bad, bad assumption.

Most of the time when we meet with a prospective client, they request a follow-up meeting with the entire proposed team. Why? Because most savvy marketing people realize that a firm's reputation is important, but that in a services business it is all of the people doing work on the team that matter. That is why repeatability is the single most important element in a successful services business. The comfort of knowing that whenever you go to that restaurant or hotel, fly that airline or work with that law firm, that you can expect a close facsimile of good service that you have experienced in the past.

This extends to analyst firms. The best analyst firms have a repeatable service model and have built a solid reputation by servicing a large percentage of their clients well. That said, I am sure that every company has worked with an analyst in the past who didn't meet the standard of the firm's reputation. This is not an indictment of big firms or brand-name firms, but of poor analysts at any size firm. So what do you do?

Every company should ask their PR firm to arrange a briefing request with the analyst that covers their space. During that initial conversation, the company should actually interview the analyst about their professional experience, past coverage areas, planned research for the coming year, how they support their clients and what they consider to be a successful analyst firm/client relationship. During the conversation or (preferably) in-person meeting, they should also get a feel for the personality and work style of the analyst. Is this someone who will be open to our view of the market? That's important. Are they willing to challenge our views at the risk of offending a prospective client? Even more important. "Yes man" analysts lose their credibility quick and with it, any return you may have gotten from that relationship. 

At the end of the day, you have to be confident that you will get a return on investment from that relationship because you work hard to get that budget. The firm name and reputation are important, but a dead weight analyst is dead weight no matter which firm they work for and it can seriously impact ROI.

Bottom line? Find what you want in an analyst and then focus on the firm. Weigh firm name and influence as one of many factors in the decision.

Posted by Jason Morris on November 26, 2007 at 10:30 AM
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Common Sense: Keep Your Eye on the Goal

The evolution of social media and technology is constantly causing companies and people to try new approaches and tactics to take advantage of and react to technology advancements.

Sometimes this can cause people to head down some very strange and impractical paths. This isn't unusual. It has happened throughout human history.

For example, I am reading a great book on naval warfare in WWI (Castles of Steel by Robert K. Massie). To deal with the new submarine threat, the British Admiralty tried a number of initiatives.

One that has caused me great amusement was allegedly proposed by Admiral Sir Frederick Inglefield. He not only proposed the idea - he received authorization for it.

The idea was to train seagulls to block the lenses of German periscopes with seagull droppings. (Google it if you don't believe me). Eventually the program was dumped. The admiralty tried a number of ideas before they settled on something more practical...depth charges.

There are a number of lessons to be learned here. The most important one for us as PR and marketing practitioners is to keep our eye on the end goal and not get distracted and pursue something tangential.

We need to embrace and respond to changing technologies. Social media is changing the dynamic just as much as submarines did in World War I. But don't panic over new developments. That will only cause you to react in sub-optimal ways. You don't need to use and react to every social media tool that is created.

Clearly define your goals and then figure out the best way to achieve them. Ask yourself about the desired outcome. Determine the level of engagement and ask if it is sustainable in the long run. Otherwise, you may just end up training seagulls.

Posted by Mark McClennan on November 14, 2007 at 10:46 AM
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Walt Mossberg takes on the cellular industry. He's right

By Carol McGarry, Schwartz EVP, who heads our wireless practice

Every good PR person is an advocate for their client. As I work with clients, I inevitably find that I am caught up in the excitement of bringing their innovation to market. I'm infected by the enthusiasm and determination of my clients. And when my clients run into business reversals, I share their disappointment.

So when I saw a recent article by Walt Mossberg of The Wall Street Journal, I felt compelled to write to him. This article was not about the latest cool gadget. He wrote about the domination of the wireless carriers here in the U.S. and their impact on innovation. He said:

A shortsighted and often just plain stupid federal government has allowed itself to be bullied and fooled by a handful of big wireless phone operators for decades now. And the result has been a mobile phone system that is the direct opposite of the PC model. It severely limits consumer choice, stifles innovation, crushes entrepreneurship, and has made the U.S. the laughingstock of the mobile-technology world, just as the cellphone is morphing into a powerful hand-held computer.

His words struck a chord. I remembered Wildfire Communications, whose technology was one of the very first speech recognition interfaces, launched in 1994. It behaved like a human assistant by forwarding calls, announcing callers and all sorts of nifty and intuitive features for busy people. Guess which major carrier in the U.S. ended up buying that company? Nope, it was Orange, the innovative European provider. And my mobile phone's speech recognition is still less sophisticated than my Wildfire "assistant."

Seven years ago, a client who offers location technology articulated an exciting vision of services like this one. Imagine walking past your favorite store in your local mall and getting a message on your mobile phone telling you they're having a big sale and you get an additional 15 percent off every purchase. As a dedicated sales hound, I'd love to get a message like that (at no charge of course), but I don't get them now.  My client had a software platform that would make it happen. So why don't we get messages like this on our phones now? Ask your service provider and I'll ask mine.

In Europe and Asia, consumers use their mobile phones to pay for various goods and services. Not here in the U.S. The list of innovative services that are not available to U.S. consumers is long,  although the innovative technology to support them has already been created.

I've been involved in the wireless and telecom market for about 20 years now. I've worked with many clients here at the agency who've come up with fascinating innovations. Too many of those entrepreneurs did not succeed because the U.S. mobile providers have lagged so far behind the rest of the world in adopting innovation. Mossberg is right, it's time the industry changed its ways and opened itself up to true innovation.

Posted by Chuck Tanowitz on November 1, 2007 at 10:45 AM
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It's Sweeps! Crisis Communications Time

It used to puzzle me that periodically the crisis communications part of the job would hit a furious pace around the same time every year. It seemed every few months or so, we would learn of a TV news segment that would question the viability of a technology or cite warnings around the safety of a product. Thankfully, in markets like security, our largest technology practice group, sensationalist, "sky is falling" stories tend to focus on the need for security and not shortcomings of the products.

That aside, I finally put two and two together recently and realized that there is a major driver of crisis communications during these periods. It is commonly known as "Sweeps" and it is the time every year when newscasts jockey for top billing in the Nielsen Ratings System. What does that mean? It means that real news stories about events that are actually happening get replaced by stories about the "Deadly threat of tape dispensers, what you and your family should know and what Scotch is not telling you!"

What is the recipe for a Sweeps month newscast? Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt, combined with a dash of sensationalism, a tablespoon of alarmist and a cup of fatalism. Chances are the products covered in Sweeps newscasts pose no new threat or it takes a perfect storm of circumstances for them to pose any danger, but it makes for great TV.

How should companies approach these segments? It depends. Most times you won't be asked for commentary because they are angles that are easy to refute. Journalists are often looking for alarmist sources, not voices of reason. The best thing to do is to have a comment ready for incoming requests from other media outlets and something to offer alarmed customers in the event you get incoming calls. Only in the rarest of circumstances is a company statement or release warranted, which tends to validate story angles as much as refute them.

Of course the most important thing, in any crisis, is to tell the truth. If the story angle is accurate and requires a comment, the most basic recommendation any PR practitioner will provide is to comment in a way that is truthful and gives an accurate impression that the company or industry as a whole is working on the problem.

Sweeps starts November 1. Let the "world is ending" segments begin.

Posted by Jason Morris on October 30, 2007 at 2:34 PM
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Common Sense: Yes, You Have a Permanent Record

In school, my mother always cautioned me to be responsible and study hard or any infractions would go on my "permanent record." I had visions of a metal vault in a big building where files on everything I did, from getting in a fight with my best friend to my less than stellar performance in Mr. Corr's Spanish class, would dog me through college, my job search and the rest of my life.

The truth is, there now really is a permanent record, and every company and individual has one. What's worse, these records aren't written on paper and stored in a musty vault--they're graven in digital bits and available for everyone to see.

We talked about this at PodCamp 2 - Boston this past weekend. It was a gathering of hundreds of social media experts, public relations practitioners, bloggers, podcasters and videographers to discuss the future of communications and marketing.

The term that was used was a person's (or company's) "digital footprint." It's important to remember that everything we do is recorded, tracked and accessible. Everything anyone says about your company--be it an employee, a competitor, a happy customer or a disgruntled customer--becomes part of the footprint. And unlike footprints in the sand, these digital footprints will not be washed away. They may become fainter, but they are always there for people to see.

I am writing to remind people about this and provide a few steps they can take.

1)     Keep track of your footprint. Just like you monitor your bank account and credit report, monitor what is being said about you and your competitors. If you do not have Google Alerts set up for every term of interest to you, set them up today. They are easy to use and free. Don't let others define you.

2)     Provide employees with blogging and commenting guidelines. You do not want employees saying something on behalf of the company, or that gets associated with the company, that will dog you for years.

3)     Think before you post. The line between personal life and professional is more blurred than ever before and will get even blurrier. Eventually Google Image search will get Facebook photos. Everything you write and post online impacts your personal brand. Be smart.

4)     Make your digital footprint work for you. Just like the first day of college, you have a chance to remake yourself in whatever image you want. If you want to be an expert on a topic, start commenting on it. You can build and shape your footprint.

In conclusion, your mother was right. There really is a permanent record on you and your company. Take control of it.

Posted by Mark McClennan on October 29, 2007 at 8:49 AM
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Millions of Tweets and not a bird in sight

Peter Kim of Forrester recently reported that Forrester "data shows that 6% of US online adults use Twitter regularly." There has been some debate on the accuracy of the numbers, and it makes interesting reading.

As Schwartz's first (and heaviest) Twitter, I wanted to post briefly on the numbers and what they mean to companies.

To be honest, for the sake of this discussion, it doesn't matter if the numbers are accurate. What matters is there are vibrant and growing networks that are providing new and easy way for the average person to communicate with others.

Twitter is a great tool for PR pros. Using Twitter I have found out

• About stories reporters are planning to write
• What matters to reporters so I give them the information that really care about
• New reporters and mavens
• What is being said about my clients by consumers

This is powerful stuff, particularly the last point. This technology directly impacts the consumer and changes the way we interact. With Twitter's search functionality it is easy for people to find and join all kinds of conversations

As a PR practitioner or company, should you tweet on Twitter? Perhaps. You need to make the call yourself (although I am happy to share my opinions). But you must monitor Twitter and the other applications like it (Jaiku, etc).

You don't need to become a power user and active on every social network and communications tool out there.  But you should be engaged and you need to monitor them.

It is relatively painless, requires minimal investment (The tools are free, it just takes time) and provides you with potentially valuable insight. These conversations have always been going on. Now there are just more of them and they can have quicker impact.

We need to use every appropriate tool in your repertoire. Your competitors are.

Posted by Mark McClennan on October 19, 2007 at 2:30 PM
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