Mike Maney

Author: Mike

  • Support Saranac

    I’ve been a fan of Saranac beer for a long time. It’s good brew and the company is topnotch (they once shipped a case of free beer to a friend of mine who had written them a letter asking where to find a certain style for his wedding…and personalized it by wishing him well at the wedding.

    Unfortunately, the brewery took a hit somewhat recently. A fire destroyed its canning building. So, it’s good to see them back up and running:

    New York: Black Diamond Bock, Saranac, Utica: “

    The news from Utica is good. F.X. Matt, makers of the Saranac brand, will live on after the fire that took out the canning building two weeks ago and in fact beer is still being brewed now.

    The news is also good about this beer. I picked up a six at the Alex Bay Mart the other week for a pittance – made more pittanced by the wave through by the lad at the border. This beer pours a orange-chestnut with a white rim. Medium bodied with dark cherry and vanilla malt cut by tobacco hops. I had the occasion last weekend to consider this brew with a wee dram of decent bourbon, Woodford Reserve and the combo was a natural. Plenty of BAer respect.”

    (Via A Good Beer Blog.)

    Support a great beer maker and purchase some Saranac Black Diamond Bock this weekend.

  • The Passion of the Community

    UPDATE: Added direct link to Roberto’s post.

    I wouldn’t be surprised to see a firestorm erupt over Roberto Galoppini’s open source multilevel marketing suggestions in this post by CNET blogger Matt Asay:

    Users promoting the software that they’re already adopting, but getting paid something for it.

    One of the underlying tenets of open source is the passion of the communities that form around specific (and popular) projects. Adoption is, in large part, driven by The Breck Principle: You tell your friends, they’ll tell theirs, and so on. Of course, in order for that to happen, the software needs to be well-written and useful.

    Roberto floats the idea that project leaders and companies can spur greater adoption of their products by employing the basic ideals of pyramid marketing schemes. Pay your best users to promote your software within their communities, who recruit new users to do likewise, with each newer user getting a smaller promotional payout and the original evangelist making more dinero as the foundation of his or her pyramid gets bigger.

    In a normal proprietary software setting, I’m not sure anyone would blink an eye at this approach. In fact, the way affiliate marketing dollars are allocated, it’s basically already being done. The problem with this approach is that the money corrupts, forcing software on users at the expense of choice. The reason Dell and HP sell Windows-based systems is not because it’s a better operating system (this is not to debate the merits of Windows versus Linux), but because Microsoft spends bucketloads of marketing dollars to make it fiscally irresponsible to explore other avenues. And those dollars don’t stop at the computer makers. They funnel down through channels and across applications. Take Microsoft’s “pyramid” marketing dollars away and I suspect the Dell and HP marketing budgets would be drastically smaller. This is not an indictment of Microsoft (nor Dell or HP). It’s how they market. And there’s no denying it works.

    Is it a model that could work in open source? Would it create a caste system within open source between those projects that have marketing dollars and those that don’t? Does it usher in a new phase in the lifecycle of open source software that puts a premium on marketing at the expense of great software?

  • El Toro

    El Toro is a roller coaster at Six Flags Great Adventure. It is fast. Really, really fast. It is the second-fastest wooden roller coaster in the U.S. (from whispers I heard while standing in line). And, while scary, it is nowhere near as scary as riding a seesaw in the middle of a Mexican bullring with a real el toro.

  • There are no coincidences in politics

    Update: Like I said, there are no coincidences: McCain VP Meeting a Distraction from Medical Records?

    Political views aside, the “Hey, we didn’t plan for it to happen on a Friday” rationale is wearing a bit thin:

    The records dump comes as Americans head in to a three-day weekend,
    and just days after Sen. Edward M. Kennedy was diagnosed with a grave
    form of brain cancer. But Mr. Black said the campaign’s communications
    director and others have been working on the release “for weeks,” and
    is not timed to reduce the impact of whatever the records contain.

    The above statement is from senior McCain adviser Charlie Black. For anyone in PR or politics, this is clearly a case of trying to bury news over a holiday weekend when nobody is watching television or reading the paper. Let’s hope the mainstream reporters who get to glance at the 400 pages of records choose to report more in-depth findings once everyone is paying attention again next week.

  • Prepping tomorrow’s PR pros

    Twice a year I do a guest lecture at Rutgers University for a 400-level PR class led by AT&T’s former crisis communications pro, Burke “Bad News” Stinson. It’s a great class, led by one of the best pros in the business. I spend two hours providing a frank, no-BS overview of the profession: what it’s like, what they can expect, what I expect, and what they need to know.

    Each semester I’m amazed at the number of students who aren’t yet prepared for the real world of PR — students with no journalism, no PR, no new media backgrounds. Thank the Flying Spaghetti Monster they get time with Burke before being turned loose on the industry.

    So, I’m not entirely shocked to read Bill Sledzick’s piece on Media Bullseye about similar findings at Kent State. While the bulk of his post is focused on the gender gap in PR (for anyone who’s been in the profession for awhile, the existence of this gap isn’t a shocker), the bottom section highlights the challenges the industry faces in preparing tomorrow’s students to be better equipped to succeed as PR pros.

  • The secret to writing a good press release

    Years ago, as part of the vaunted AT&T Media Relations team, Jim Byrnes — one of the best media relations pros I’ve ever met — told me the secret to good press release writing: “Write for the wires. Get the news into the first two sentences and assume everything else gets cut. Write in language your grandmother can understand.”

    I’ve tried to carry Jim’s wisdom throughout my career. Jon Greer gives it another shot in the arm in a post on BNET’s Catching Flack blog:

    …there are only really two elements that define a good press release: it needs to be brief, and it needs to contain real news.

    It doesn’t matter whether it’s an old-style press release or one of the emerging social media versions. Good press releases have news and are to the point. Period.

  • I Promise to…

    In the wake of another blacklisting of PR agencies by reputable tech reporters, SHIFT PR’s Todd Defren mapped out a list of 7 laws PR pros should follow. While the rules included in Todd’s list are common practice for many in the profession, there are still too many others who need the reminder.
    1. The PR pro promises to read several weeks’ worth of previous blog
      posts and/or articles to ascertain whether their story would be a good
      fit for the blog/publication.
    2. If the PR pro ascertains that there is NOT a good fit, they will
      not pitch the blogger/reporter, and promise to push back on
      unreasonable client or management demands to do so.
    3. Before pitching the blogger/reporter, the PR pro promises to
      double-check their method of outreach. They will not only check
      externally-developed media resources like Cision but will also review
      any guidelines made publicly available by the blogger or publication.
    4. The PR pro promises to never send a press release without being
      able to demonstrate its concrete relevance to the blogger/reporter …
      and will never, ever send an attachment unless it’s been requested.
    5. As much as is possible, the PR pro will participate actively and
      transparently within the communities of-interest to their clients. The
      PR pro acknowledges that a “cold call” (in any form) – while sometimes
      unavoidable – is considerably less effective than reaching out as a
      known community member.
    6. The PR pro promises that any correspondence – whether the initial
      contact or follow-up – should contain a message customized to the
      blogger/reporter’s needs and should offer value. For example, “just
      checking to see if you got the press release” is not welcome or
      appropriate.
    7. The PR pro acknowledges that being ignored by the blogger/reporter
      is not to be considered license for harassment. It’s more likely the
      pitch was not of-interest, so any further outreach should be mindful
      that the story idea has likely been quietly rejected. If the PR pro
      must try again, they promise to do so by offering a different, more
      creative and valuable approach to their original pitch.

  • Training Wheels? Who Needs ‘Em!


    Matt Asay is fond of reminding people about the gazillion benefits of working from home near the mountains of Utah (often reminding us by posting videos from his helmet cam as he does midday cruises down the fine Utah powdered slopes).

    I don’t live near the Wasatch, but I do have a career that allows me the flexibility to work where I need to (have phone, have laptop, will travel). So, while it may not be ripping through the bumps while on a conference call, I’ll take being around to see my five-year-old ride a two-wheeler for the first time over a time-sucking commute any day.

  • Measuring the Value of Influence

    I was quoted in an article by the Mistress of Measurement, K.D. Paine, yesterday. Katie explored measuring the impact of media coverage based on the influence of the publication. I argued — via Twitter — that influence is not measured in clicks or circulation, but decided by the value the audience places on the influencer (whether BusinessWeek, a blog, a comment in Twitter, etc.).

  • Don’t Cry for Them Argentina

    According to this post by CNET’s Matt Asay, Argentina’s government is considering moving its entire information technology infrastructure to open source. There’s nothing earth-shattering in Argentina’s cost-savings rationale for considering open source. In fact, governments (and corporations, for that matter) adopting open source is rather ho-hum at this point.

    Matt also points out that an underlying driver behind this is software piracy. Open source helps Argentina comply with proprietary software license compliance by…gasp!…doing away with the issue altogether. Read Matt’s post for more on the cultural issues surrounding this.

    What’s happening in Argentina is an example of the problem Microsoft and other proprietary companies have gotten into. Their businesses are based on selling restrictive software and enforcing licenses through organizations like the BSA. It’s a model that open source sent to the dustbin long ago. In fact, there is little doubt that their core license policing/anti-customer business model is driving sales for open source. Rather than locking customers in, it’s driving them away.