As if I needed another reason not to vote for McCain and Palin (courtesty of the Associated Press):
Gov. Sarah Palin told ministry students at her former church that the
United States sent troops to fight in the Iraq war on a “task that is
from God.”
Palm recently released the Palm Treo Pro to a thundering wall of silence from the masses. Why? In my opinion, because no matter how great and innovative the device is, the company has become irrelevant. Palm was the only one not talking about the iPhone over the past year. I used to be a Treo fan (I think I had the only Treos that never crashed). By putting its head down and not engaging in the only conversation its peers were engaged in, Palm faded and not even an incredibly innovative device is likely to save it.
Jenn and I left last Saturday for the Dominican Republic to celebrate her 40th birthday with close friends. Friday marked the end of our vacation and, unfortunately, the beginning of a 36-hour ordeal at the hands of two organizations which, despite their chosen industries, have yet to grasp even the most rudimentary aspects of customer relations.
I was going to blog more on the incomprehensible public relations incompetence of both US Airways and those responsible for managing the Dominican Republic’s tourism image, but think the story (and comment thread) running on Consumerist and the accompanying video from CBS’s Philadelphia affiliate KYW-TV (which lead Friday’s 11 o’clock newscast and re-ran on Saturday) speak volumes:
U.S. Airways Boots 274 Stranded Passengers From Caribbean Airport, Refuses To Pay For Hotels
US Airways continues to set a shining example of why the airline industry is in complete shambles. Its quickening demise isn’t the result of economics, it’s the result of complete disregard for its customers. If US Airways was a yellow labrador retriever, Pa would’ve had us put it out of its misery behind the shed a long time ago.
And despite the best efforts by travel agents, incidents like this — along with a very public and apparently very real theft problem — will make the Dominican Republic a less-than-desirable vacation destination for many travelers.
Both US Airways and the Dominican Republic lost customers this weekend. Customers they will not get back.
After a roughly two year stint running PR for IBM’s pervasive computing/wireless business and a similar period of time working with some of the best and brightest in open source, I find posts like this one from Funambol CEO Fabrizio Capobianco encouraging:
“I read Hal’s recent press release about Fusemail (another smart email provider who realized there is ton of money to be made in mobilizing their customers, behind the carriers) and the last sentence hit me:
FuseMail selected Funambol’s software during the second calendar quarter of 2008, the most successful quarter in Funambol’s history. Funambol completed a company-record ten sales transactions with innovative providers of email and PIM sync around the world, including several well-known service providers, online portals, such as AOL, and mobile operators. In the second quarter, the company also closed a Series B round of $12.5M in venture capital and significantly strengthened its solution by introducing important new support for BlackBerry and the iPhone 3G.
Kudos to Fabrizio, Hal and the rest of the Funambol team!
Congratulations to Philippe on his and Richard Clarke’s successful Transpac Sailing Record. I’m by no means a close friend of Philippe’s, but I have been lucky enough to have had an e-mail conversation with him (we have a mutual professional acquaintance). I’m not a sailor, but it’s fun following one I know.
Rule #1 in PR is don’t lie. Spin? Sure, we all do it to some extent (I’d claim spin is no longer the sole domain of PR even). But never, ever lie. The truth always comes out.
The current Bush Administration is a prime example of this. Another is the current dustup around Apple’s PR team trying to game the press and shareholders about their CEO’s health.
I encourage you to read the posts by former Fake Steve and current Real Dan Lyons for an inside look at how both sides are playing this game. The Fourth Estate smells blood and rather than getting out of the water (or getting a bigger boat), Apple’s PR team continues to chum the waters.
Congratulations to Andreas Panayi and his colleagues at Kinesis Marketing on their new relationship with FTI (from PR Week):
FTI Consulting has acquired digital communications firm Kinesis Marketing. The acquisition expands FD’s digital capabilities; the firm will be rebranded as FD Kinesis and will complement FD’s established design, annual report, and alternative media services unit. Kinesis has 22 employees located in Morristown, NJ and Philadelphia, as well as consultants abroad, and a national client roster.
Andreas was one of the original driving forces in digital media way back in the pre-bubble days when he led Poppe Tyson’s interactive division.
When I was a kid I rode a HARO BMX bike. It was cool. Today, HARO is cool for another reason. In the spirit of helping reporters and improving the public relations profession, I encourage everyone to: Get Sourced. Get Quoted. Get Famous: http://www.helpareporter.com – Putting Journalists and Sources together, one quote at a time.
It seems for most of my career I’ve been attracted to technology that, for many, would seem more like science than technology. I’ve been privileged to work with some of the founding father’s of UNIX as they developed the Plan 9 distributed operating system. I’ve worked with smart people like John Patrick and Mike Nelson to promote the next generation Internet and Internet2. I’ve promoted high performance servers at what may rightly be called one of the original server makers, Unisys. And I’ve had the opportunity to be part of the Linux/open source movement through work with OSDL (now The Linux Foundation) and Sourceforge.
It is these complex, advanced technologies that drive the foundation of the services we use today — things like TiVo, portable GPS systems, cell phones, and the powerful backbone that enables us to watch broadcast TV on our laptops. One emerging area to keep an eye on is high performance computing (quote below from a fine article by reporter Jim Romeo in LinuxWorld):
“Today, many more organizations are able to take advantage of High Performance Computing, due to the ready availability of inexpensive compute clusters powered by Linux running on off-the-shelf x86 hardware, as opposed to the proprietary hardware and software of yesterday’s supercomputers,’ says Sam Charrington, Vice President of Product Management and Marketing for Appistry, Inc.”
For many, convergence is the collision of telephone, television and Internet. For me, convergence is the collision of open source, server farms and F1-level networking.
My cousin Larry and my uncle Bill are both Eagle Scouts. I made it to the level of Life Scout (one level shy of the Eagle honor). My cousin’s son, Micah, is also in the Boy Scouts. He was picnicking in Utah’s Big Cottonwood Canyon yesterday when he was called up on to put the Boy Scout motto (Be Prepared) into action to help an injured hiker (on a trail where another hiker was killed earlier in the week).
Despite the very public problems the Boy Scouts face, Micah is an example of the kind of quality young men the organization produces.
Mike Maney 