Tag: Uncategorized

I’ll admit I’m no Einstein when it comes to math. Heck, I work with words for a living. Give me letters over numbers any day.

Which means there’s a better-than-good chance that what I’m about to say has no basis in reality: Richard Parsons, the head of old media establishment Time Warner, is quoted this morning saying “The notion that the new kids on the block have taken over is a false notion.” He’s, of course, referring to Google and YouTube.

I can’t decide whether this is a quote of desperation or one of denial. Heck, it’s probably a bit of both.

The reality is that, for the most part, old media really is on life support. By old media, I mean those that haven’t adapted to the evolution their customers have made toward interactivity, openness and community. The old media need only look so far as Redmond and the losing battle Microsoft is waging against open source software to see how this plays out.

Which brings me back to my remedial math skills. Could Google/YouTube just make this whole old media vs new media issue a moot point by going all Gordon Gecko on Parsons’s derrière?

Old media turns combative against new media | Technology | Internet | Reuters

Every once in awhile you come across a post on a blog that stops you dead in your tracks. In all of my years monitoring the news and blogs for clients, four posts have had that power over me. Two of them are heartbreaking. One is a “Field of Dreams” tribute. And one I saw today is just plain brilliant.

1. Put ABA Back in HB1224
2. The Best Hour of My Day
3. Dear Dad: Happy Father’s Day
4. First Evening at Microsoft’s SAS: Aha!

A sad day in comedy: Emmy-award-winning actor and Bob Newhart sidekick Tom Poston died.

I have to think they saw this coming:

Philadelphia authorities have closed at least 16 storefront fortune-tellers.

Bruce Springsteen sings a haunting song about the demise of once-great Asbury Park called “My City of Ruins.” He might as well have been writing about the city across the Delaware River: Philadelphia.

This weekend, 11 more people were murdered on the streets of Philadelphia, bringing the total number of people killed so far in 2007 to 127. At this pace, Philly is on track to overtake Camden (just across the river) as the country’s murder capital.

I’ve lived in the suburbs of Philly for about four years now. I’ve gone to Philly for concerts, for dinner, to see art exhibits. I’ve seen some of the good that this once-great city can offer. However, all the rock stars, Superbowl and World Series rings, restaurants or world-renowned artists don’t overcome the murder rap that Philly is increasingly becoming known for.

This is more than a crime problem for Mayor John Street. It is now a PR and economic crisis. Philly was on the way to a resurrection. It is time for Street, his police force and his PR counselors to act swiftly and overwhelmingly to put an end to the violence and restore confidence in Philadelpia.

BuzzMachine’s Jeff Jarvis is, by most accounts, not one of Dell’s biggest supporters. You could probably even make a rightful claim that he’s been the single-most hit on their reputation over the past year (actually, they’ve delivered the single-most hits to their reputation, but Jeff’s been the leading voice on their woes).

So, when he blogged that he was heading to their neck of the woods, Dell’s chief blogger, Lionel Menchaca, stuck his head into the lion’s den, inviting Jeff to meet him and a few other Dell folks for drinks.

A ballsy move, to be sure. It was also a very smart move.

Instead of avoiding their “enemy,” Dell’s PR team faced them head-on. I imagine the internal debate went something like this:

PR Guy #1: “Dude, Jarvis is coming to Texas next week.”

PR Guy #2: “The guy hates us and makes our life a living hell, but he’s got more influence than a Texan President and seems pretty cool. Bet he’d be fun to have a beer with.”

PR Guy #1: “Dude, we should invite him to drink with us.”

PR Guy #3: “Woah, guys, I don’t get a good feeling about this. What if he blogs about it? What if he still really, really hates us?”

PR Guy #1: “He can’t hate us any more than he does now. He’ll definitely blog about it. But we’ve got nothing to lose. Might as well embrace him, show some honesty, get some real face-to-face feedback, and live this transparency stuff we keep talking about.”

PR Guy #2: “Just don’t talk about the accounting scandals.”

One of the things any good PR team does is counsel clients on doing the right thing. Not only did Menchaca counsel correctly, but he executed on it. And Jarvis showed he’s a stand-up guy by accepting Menchaca’s invitation.

I am lucky to have some really good, really close friends. I say lucky because three of them yesterday surprised me with an overnight delivery of deep dish pizza and cheesecake from one of the three most-awesome’ist pizza joints on the planet: Lou Malnotti’s in Chicago, Illinois (the other two are Benny Tudino’s in Hoboken, New Jersey, and Mama’s in Hackettstown, New Jersey). Now I have to decide whether to gorge and eat them all in one meal or space them out to savor their deep dishy goodness.

My friend Jeff would tell you he was just doing his job…luckily for patrons of this bowling alley, he does his job very well.

This is what real PR pros do.

The Financial Times’ John Gapper reports tonight on advance wording in a speech that Microsoft associate general counsel Tom Rubin will give tomorrow. In his remarks, Rubin will take a shot at what Microsoft views as Google’s/YouTube’s
disregard for copyright rules.

I’m not a lawyer (in fact, in most people’s minds I’m only half a rung up the ladder as a PR person), so I won’t pretend to comment on whether Rubin has a legal leg to stand on. I do, however, believe that Rubin and others (RIAA/MPAA and proprietary software vendors are you listening?) are stuck in neutral while their customers and competitors move forward like a Porsche on a straightaway.

Microsoft and the old media guard are clinging to a copyright fight that is stuck in yesterday’s business models. They’ve refused to adapt to the tenets of business: listening to the market and their customers. Instead of fighting for history, they should be working with their customers — and, more importantly, their customers’ customers — to map out a better future.