100 rpm

A walk on the {client} side: Twitter and transparency

A couple of days ago I noticed that a PR friend of mine, Aaron Huckett, digital manager with Publicasity, was suffixing all client-related tweets with this:  {client}. I thought that  this was a great step forward in terms of Twitter transparency (I’m often confused as to whether a PR practitioner really, really loves a new product or is just tweeting on behalf of a client) and asked Aaron to tell me more about his reasons for adding {client} to client-related tweets. A flurry of Twitter DMs and emails resulted in Aaron kindly agreeing to be my guest blogger so that we could find out more. Here’s his take on transparency and Twitter. Thanks Aaron!

Aaron writes:  Transparency and covert promotions are a major issue in online public relations.  In the USA the FTC recently announced that it wants to start fining bloggers and twitterers who fail to disclose information about payment for endorsements . In other words, you could get in a lot of trouble for saying how much you like this particular cake if you don’t say that you are being paid by Mr Kipling! Working in PR, this can be a big problem. Seeding is a big part of getting the message across, and while I am more than happy to flag up any interesting product/client updates on my personal Twitter account (aaronhuckett), after reading this article I thought it would be wise to think about how to go about this with transparency.

Simple solution – whenever I mention or refer to a client in my tweets or retweets I simply type {client} at the end of the tweet. This makes the tweet totally transparent and lets the reader know my intention with that tweet – and this is something I have noticed a couple of PR agencies doing in their Twitter accounts.

I have also been relayed this into my company’s (Publicasity) Twitter accounts (@publicasity and @digicasity) which usually feature updates on the industry or about things going on in the office – but where we are openly promoting a client, I think it is wise to use the {client} tag.

What do you think? Reckon there is an easier way to put it? Got a good argument for still being secretive about these things?

The accent is on ... pitch and professionalism

"Many of my female colleagues adapt a higher pitch, making themselves sound girly, small and unthreatening when on the phone, whereas male colleagues do not fluctuate in the way that they speak on and off of the phone" writes Natalie Torbett, commenting on a story in PR student magazine Behind the Spin  on diversity, discrimination and regional accents.

I've always hated my voice - too monotonous and too 'Estuary' - and spent my years working in PR trying to cultivate a no-nonsense and professional tone when talking to journalists, as did my colleagues.  The last thing we ever wanted to be perceived as being was a 'PR girl' (although why 'girl' and 'girly' should become pejorative terms in this context is something for another post).  We wanted to be seen as equal (er, or better than) the journalists we dealt with - and this approach got good results.

I'd like to hope that Natalie's experience is the exception but I have a feeling that it's not.  What does it say about the UK media industry that women now feel that they have to change their demeanor on the phone to get what they - or their clients - want?  It doesn't say much for the professionalism of the PR industry that such behaviour is seen as acceptable.

Experimentation in the classroom: (Lecturers) learning about Etherpad

I teach on an introductory public relations course for second year Media students where social media is integrated into many aspects of its teaching and learning.  The idea behind this approach is that students begin to appreciate the impact of social media on public relations practice and the consequent debates, opportunities and issues.

Now this is working well so far, but the end of session 'wash up' (where I discuss the work students have carried out in class with the group) doesn't always work as well as the rest of the workshop.  Sometimes, the student who is asked to comment on their work has a voice that doesn't carry across a room, or their comments are drowned by someone shuffling papers and preparing to leave ... (no, not the lecturer), or their work is hard to describe orally.

To make this part of the session more relevant, we (the teaching team - which is actually me and module leader Scott Davidson ) discussed using www.etherpad.com "the only web-based word processor that allows people to work together in really real-time" as a resource so that students could not only hear about but see and thus comment on their classmates' work. 

The idea was that  students would upload their work onto the Etherpad site and what fired up on their screens and the tutor's interactive whiteboard could then be discussed by the group.

As is always the case, I didn't have a chance to really, really, test the software before the lecture (oops) - so introduced it to the students with a merry: "Right, we're just testing this ... you're the guinea pigs ... let's see if it works."  At least then they wouldn't expect it to be seamless.

And did it work?   Sort of.

First problem - We'd put a link to 'my' Etherpad page on the university intranet - unfortunately, each time a student clicked on the link, it gave them a new Etherpad page.  The only way round this seemed to be for students to manually type in (or cut and paste) a specific URL.  Learning point.

That hurdle overcome, the students uploaded their work (we were doing bulletpoint PR plans) for discussion.   Some students managed this, others had problems with uploading their work (I couldn't see what they were doing wrong either, so will have to explore this).

So did it work?  Again, sort of.  Students who were minimalist in their descriptions were ideal for this technology - it was easy to see and discuss their work on the interactive whiteboard.  Unfortunately, when students had written more, the screen just seemed to present a wall of text, which wasn't easy to read or comment on.

The upshot of this is that while I (and I hope the students) enjoyed messing around with Etherpad, I think it would be better, in terms of teaching, for groupwork in the classroom, rather than for discussing finished work on screen.  It would also be great for collaborative student projects - for instance when editing and commenting on documentation.   But I'm glad we tried it out.  You don't know how something really works until students are let loose on it.

Incidentally, when writing this post I looked for examples of Etherpad's use as a teaching resource (yes, I possibly should have looked at these before teaching!) and came across these case studies. Most relate to using Etherpad with schoolchildren rather than university students, so I'd be interested to hear of more examples of Etherpad use in higher education.

Etherpad in the classroom

Teachers as technology trailblazers

Using Etherpad to teach and learn foreign languages

Action needed like fish need scales

I usually write about social media, PR or education.  This is a more personal post ...

"We don't need feminism - we've got equality" is something I hear a couple of times each year. And it's always a struggle to persuade the (female) speaker that feminism isn't something  irrelevant practiced in darkened rooms by men-hating women with hairy armpits.

This week I've received three links which demonstrate all too vividly why, when you scratch the surface, there's still a long way to go before women get anywhere close to equality of opportunity or status.

A deconstruction of Disney Princesses (thanks to Karen Russell for alerting me to this)

Gaby Hinscliff   on why she's resigned from being Observer's political editor to spend more time with her son.  I'm not taking issue with Hinscliff's decision here, which is obviously carefully and intelligently considered.  What is troubling is that the tricky question central to this debate is barely mentioned by the writer:  Why do men's careers  tend to suffer less than women's when children come along (yes, I know there are exceptions)?  And no, I don't think that legislation will change a thing. 

Still unconvinced? Even if you still think that things are hunky-dory in the UK, life isn't so sweet elsewhere:  Guinea's rape horror

(If anyone is wondering about the headline, it's a bastardisation of a 1970s feminist slogan "A woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle" -  one of the most memorable political straplines of the 20th century).

iPhone apps, Gaye Tuchman and news selection

PR consultancy Lewis  has just launched its first iPhone application Lewis news 360, which aims to "provide a tailored selection of the best breaking stories direct to your iPhone."  I'm not exactly sure why Lewis has created this application, given that it's free (my guess is that it's to do with Lewis's positioning) but hopefully this will become more clear over the coming months.

I'm playing with the application at the moment.  In terms of design and usability, it's great - but doesn't give me anything more in terms of UK/social media news than I'd get by following a handful of key news channels via Twitter.   

News is arranged by 11 country-specific channels (with social media being a country in itself - well, I guess that makes sense) with headlines linking to either the original news story or an edited version, with a reference.  I'm finding the non-UK stories particularly interesting - there's a lot I've missed.  Unfortunately, I can't (easily) let anyone know what they are as there is no facility to share stories via Twitter, Reddit, Del.icio.us etc. 

What I was left wondering (apart from why Lewis has invested in this application) is how the country list was selected.    At first I thought it was G8 members plus some - but it's not. Russia and Canada are missing, while Benelux, Singapore, Spain and Australia are on the list.  However, the country selection  bears a strong resemblance to Lewis's global office network, albeit with a couple of omissions, which makes me guess that the news is collected and edited by local offices

And this takes us to a neat illustration of news selection.   Gaye Tuchman (1978) wrote of the "news net" - media organisations set up networks of reporters, agents and stringers to 'catch' news when it happens at specific locations, but events at locations not covered by the 'net' rarely get reported.  Likewise, Lewis has a network of offices which can bring us news from around the globe.  However, since not all countries have Lewis offices, we don't see so much on this application from places where it's more difficult for Lewis or its affiliates to gather news.  Importantly, this doesn't mean that news isn't happening there (it is) -  and what I'd love to see is for this application to stretch its net more widely and gather world news that would otherwise fail to reach conventional news channels. 

 

Potential blog topics – the list that PR students won’t need after a month

For PR lecturers, asking students to blog is an effective way of assessing their engagement with social media, public relations theory, public relations practice, current media issues, etc., etc.  However, for students new to PR, the prospect of writing the dozen or so posts needed for a blogging assignment can seem a bit daunting: “What should I write about? I don’t know enough about PR!”      

 You do.   Here are some ideas.

1.  (If you’re on Twitter) Would any of today’s tweets be useful to media or PR students?  Why? (tip: follow @digicasity and @mediaguardian for useful ideas).
2. Find an article on a media-related theme in (for instance) The Guardian or on the BBC website.   What are your views?
3. Think about the last five films/gigs you saw.   How did you find out about them? (Poster? Newspaper/magazine advertisement?  Word of mouth?  Email newsletter?   Facebook fan page?  Via other social networks?   Trailer or clip emailed to you by a friend?)  Many media commentators have heralded the death of conventional advertising, but what’s your experience?
4. The five (or more) bloggers every PR student should follow … and why.
5. The five (or more) things I’ve done to secure a job in PR … and the five things I must do.
6. Review of any of your PR textbooks (without peeking at other reviews!) – if it was published in 2009, so much the better.
7. Interview with anyone who works in PR (no matter how junior or senior).  How did they get into PR?  What advice would they give to others?  What does their job involve?
8. Why I will/will not use Twitter/Posterous/FriendFeed/Typepad/(insert platform of your choice)  … and why.
9. Interview with a PR lecturer.  Well, why not? (first come first served on this one though!).
10.  How (unpopular sport star of your choice) is represented in the media.  What could they do to redeem their reputation?

 The beauty of this list is that #2, #6, #7 and #10 can be repeated frequently … you may even be able to turn #5 into two posts if you do enough jobhunting to merit an update.  Likewise, #8 can be repeated several times by discussing different platforms.  Suddenly you have a dozen or more posts for your blogging assignment.  But the beauty of blogging is that the more you do, the easier it gets – both in terms of the actual writing and thinking of things to write about.   So after a couple of weeks you probably won’t need this list any more.  I hope so.

 (I’m sure that others can add ideas for blog posts … contributions welcome!)

Comparing apples and elephants: Why (good) methodology matters

A recent First Direct (bank) study claimed that over half of the UK population are actively creating content.  (I must credit Richard Bailey and his PR Studies blog for alerting me to this report).

Pretty uncontentious stuff?  Well, maybe.   Having a mildly obsessional interest in research methods, I was curious as to how how the researchers had framed the 'creating content' question.  (I asked some students if they had ever created content online - most of them said 'no.'  Then I asked if any of them had ever written an online review, posted videos to YouTube, used a photo sharing site or even written a Facebook status update - they all said yes.)

While I hunted for the answer to my question, one table caught my attention.  It compared the 2009 First Direct survey data with a  2007 Forrester Technographics survey.    The comparison of the two surveys demonstrated, for example, that while the number of people posting reviews and ratings online has doubled over the past two years, posting content to video sharing sites has halved.

Hold on!  This might all sound very credible, but let's look at the methodology.  The two sets of data were collected in different ways:

First direct "undertook research with 2,095 adults between 16-18 September 2009.  This survey was carried out by YouGov plc among GB adults aged 18+.  Data is weighted to be representative of the GB population."

But

 Forrester "surveyed 4,475 US adults in December 2006 and 4,556 youth in October 2006 and to learn about their use of Social Computing technology adoption."

Whoa!    The age of the groups of the two groups are different, and from what I can gather,  the research took place in two different countries.  I don't know how the samples were selected, or how the data was collected, but these two surveys are as comparable as apples and elephants.

I don't know who at First Direct thought it was a good idea to take two credible research projects and compare them, but the comparisons are meaningless.  We're simply not comparing the same sort of people, and possibly aren't even asking them the same questions in the same way.   So how can a comparison demonstrate anything?

Jacquie L'Etang has argued that the "main gift that education can offer public relations practice is that of social scientific expertise."  Although she was discussing the evaluation of PR campaigns, her comments apply equally to practitioners faced with survey data to communicate. 

Ten Years After - has a decade changed anything?

The Guardian Weekend magazine's feature on the noughties,  '10 years that changed everything' focused on the subjects that you’d expect it to – like communication, politics, celebrity, liberty, and the environment  – and got me thinking about the extent to which the practice of PR has changed in a decade.

This is really a ‘compare and contrast’ exercise, looking at yesterday as a way of thinking about today.  In 2000 I was an account director in the midlands office of a national PR agency, responsible for ten accounts of varying size and status.  I had a PC on my desk, and my mobile phone always on.  So far, sounds just like the life of any account director in  2009.    So what’s changed?

The Internet.   Some clients had ‘virtual news rooms’ as we called them, but this was the exception.  Email was commonplace as a method of communication, although some clients still insisted on sending faxes.  The WWW was largely used to find out phone numbers, check the news and weather, source promotional goods and to book holidays.   I used ‘Ask Jeeves’ and Dogpile as search engines. I occasionally used a discussion forum or list server to discuss hobbies such as running or climbing, but never to talk about PR. I didn’t have a PC or internet connection at home until later in the year.

Media relations.  We pitched to journalists on the phone and by email (although some journalists still didn’t have email - this was often the case at local and regional newspapers).   We still sent out large press release mailings – usually by second class post and sometimes enclosing a 6"x4" photograph.  

 Photography.  I’m not sure when I first came across a photographer who eschewed film for digital, but in 2000, most of the photographers I booked still used film.  We often had to wait three days for a contact sheet, then another three days for prints - unless we paid a £50 ‘rush fee.’  If we wanted jpegs, we used a scanner, or found another photographer.

 PR Education.  Only a select few universities offered PR degrees, and students who had studied them were treated with suspicion – either because it was felt that they’d expect to write international communications strategies on their first day and wouldn’t lower themselves to making the coffee, or because we couldn’t believe that PR could be taught well at a university

 Working from home.  I’d sometimes work from home - proof-reading colleagues' press releases and other  copy they'd written (making amendments and sarcastic comments in red pen) and reading industry magazines.  Because like most of my colleagues, I didn't have a PC at home, I often worked late at the office instead. 

Business travel.  If we drove to a client, we'd ask them to send us directions by fax.  If we got lost we'd drive round the neighbourhood, mobile phone tucked under our chin being 'talked in' by someone's secretary.  This was perfectly legal.

Networking.  I went to a lot of industry and networking events (I was responsible for new business generation), swapping business cards and keeping them in a card index (or if I could be bothered, loading them into a database). I diligently followed up contacts with emails , phone calls and Christmas cards.  However, if someone went to another job, the contact tended to be lost unless they had the foresight to tell you they were moving on 

Social life.  My social life was arranged largely by mobile phone and email.   Phone calls were as common as texts, and many – younger – people still didn’t text.  I remember teaching an account manager in her 20s how to text.  She didn’t see the point as hardly any of her friends did.

 Fast forward to 2009 … technology has changed the way we communicate, and how we use, distribute and manipulate images, audio and text but - I think - the purpose of public relations remains pretty much the same.   In 2000, I had clients who saw the importance of managing their reputation and building relationships with stakeholders, and those who just wanted to 'get publicity' and whose views were never challenged by agency staff.  Have clients - and practitioners - become more sophisticated and effective over the last ten years?  I hope so.  But I'd be interested to know what fellow old-timers think.

(More) advice for PR students

Heather Yaxley's recent post Advice for PR students listed a wise 'top five tips' for academic success.  While reading the list, I mentally added some of my own - before realising that mine were themed around personal branding, increasing employability and self-fulfilment.  These are, of course, all linked with academic success but also are the start of a path that students can continue to follow once all exams have been sat and all assignments handed in.

1.  Take advantage of any extra-curricular activities your university offers.   At De Montfort University, students can learn a foreign language, take (and pass) that pesky maths GCSE, attend a business start-up course, and receive additional help with writing and grammar from Royal Literary Fund fellows.    In addition, there are regular talks by distinguished academics on subjects both arcane and mainstream.  Most of this is free or heavily subsidised.  

2.  Write, write, write.  The best way to learn to write well is to practice writing and let others see and critique your work.  Keep updating your blog, write for student magazines and websites, and seize any opportunities mentioned by your tutors (such as writing for Behind the Spin).

3.  Network shamelessly.   The PR world is small and you never know when you'll need to contact your fellow students, or someone you met while doing work experience.  Likewise, they may one day need you.  Tools such as Facebook make networking easy.

4.  If you haven't already, get to grips with Twitter and follow people involved in PR.   Start a blog.   Understand lifestreaming.  Set up an RSS news reader ...  in other words, become completely conversant with the technologies used and monitored by PR practitioners.

5.  Finally, attend events organised by your local CIPR branch (this links to #3)

I'd be interested to hear of any advice of your own.

Problems with OpenID

Hmm, I wonder why.

Technorati says posting this might help ... here goes 58ze9urmfb