Where the Fishermen Ain't -- Phil Gomes' Thoughts on PR, Social Media, and Blockchain Applications

Blockchain, Inc.

 

Over at LinkedIn and Edelman.Com, I have a piece about blockchains and distributed autonomous corporations:

Public relations certainly had its teething issues while dealing with the advent of the Internet and, later, the social Web. Getting it to understand this highly transparent, massively distributed environment – and the movement that inspires it – will be full-on jaw surgery. Bitcoin, or any of the efforts mentioned above, may or may not flame out spectacularly, but the blockchain is here to stay.

Photo Credit: Marc Smith

PR Must Embrace the Hacker Ethic

 At Edelman.Com, I have a post that speaks to my latest passion: bringing the hacker ethic into public relations. 

When it comes to the value of expertise versus authority, hacker ethics (as developed over time by students at MIT and Stanford several decades ago) double down on the former and strongly resist the latter. This code, in fact, posits several recommended behaviors that I believe are central to the evolution of public relations. For the sake of compression, here are three.

This is the latest in a series of posts related to my talk "Hacking Public Relations." In previous pieces, I've outlined the general concepts and talked a little about the importance of thoughtful disintermediation. 

 Image by William Grootonk.

New at LinkedIn: Add Value or Know When to Get Out of the Way

Over at LinkedIn, I have a piece that makes the following claim: "PR Professionals Who Base Their Value Solely on Staying Between an Audience and a Company/Client Will Eventually Lose Both."

More:

If PR on the social web has taught us anything, is that people crave access. Sure, you get some traction by, say, sending free product and such, but those tactics (when used on their own) are a form of cheap currency — they devalue a company’s social capital over time. (Like economist Milton Friedman said about inflation, it’s like alcoholism in that you get the good effects first.) Almost anyone will take almost any product if given out for free. Yes, even if you’re giving away a supply of particularly well-crafted exotic booze, you haven’t really forged a relationship but merely a series of transactions.

Read the rest.

Slides from My "Hacking PR" Talk

Here are my slides from the PRSA talk I delivered recently, entitled "Hacking Public Relations: How Understanding and Embracing Open-Source and Hacker Culture is Critical to PR's Future."

Hacking Public Relations from Edelman Digital

Preview of my PRSA Talk, "Hacking Public Relations"

Anyone who has followed my work for five minutes knows that I'm a huge proponent of open source technologies and, more specifically, the philosophies that drive this important movement.

This Sunday, I will be delivering my talk "Hacking Public Relations" at the PRSA International Conference in Philadelphia. There's a preview over at the Edelman Digital site:

Everyone can agree that the complexity involved in public relations and marketing has skyrocketed in the past decade. The question is “How do we address this?” and “What can we learn from communities who have done so?” I believe that looking to open-source and hacker communities gives us the answer.

You can also read the full text after the jump.

PR: We Have One Shot

Earlier this year, a professional organization included me on a bcc'ed cattle-call seeking volunteers to help deliver a long-form seminar on "culture-jacking" a la this year's Super Bowl and subsequent events. I responded that I tend to take a strategic and measured view of such things, so the organizers could absolutely rely on me to ensure that the session stayed meaningful and wouldn't turn into a rah-rah session.

I didn't get a response. With a pitch like that and given the frothy tenor that often surrounds that kind of thing, I didn't really expect to.

For the past several months, everyone has been running around trying to be the next illumination-challenged snack experience. Some will be good at it. Some will excel at it. Most efforts will sadly amount to tolerated digital vandalism, the result of "checkbox marketing." ("Yup! Our brand TwitPic'ed something during the Indy 500. Well, glad I got that out of the way. Gonna email my boss now.")

As I've often observed, there is no hand yet imagined that our industry will not overplay. I fear that this industry about to do it again with poor executions of "content marketing" and its hyperkinetic sibling "real-time marketing."

Let's put aside for a moment that the public relations industry, all things considered, should have been absolutely laser-focused on creating dynamite media assets ("content") and making them relevant in the moment ("real-time") all along.

Shame on us, really.

Unfortunately, in the online community context, "real-time marketing" is something that far too many confuse with "advertisements generated on-the-fly and transmitted via social media." This is more of a bug than a feature in online communities. Consider the following:

1. Every single dramatic advance in media-consumption technology has been about one thing: helping us to avoid marketing. VCR, Walkman, iPod, TiVo... You name it. People have demanded technologies that free them from getting explicitly sold to. This will not change.
2. At the most tactical, explain-it-to-your-mom level, public relations has been about managing your client's reputation and relationships, and (even more tactically) most often doing so by making that client relevant in those parts of the media that people want to consume. Advertising and advertising-like behaviors, in the strictest sense and over the long term, constitute a parasitic element in this media-consumption scenario. Advertising deployed in the service of PR will be preferable than the other way around, the latter of which is more or less the current practice.

In short, the PR industry has to demonstrate that it can make companies meaningful in online communities while not crapping up the entire Internet. If it doesn't, it will absolutely destroy companies' license to operate online.

In this environment, understanding the following is what will separate winners from losers:

Timely content that possesses objectively educational, journalistic, or entertainment qualities is the price of admission. Full-stop.

To say nothing of a company's owned and social media presences, this is especially important in a world where journalistic enterprises are exploring company partnerships, "native advertising," and plain ol' advertorial opportunities in order to help keep the lights on. (Again, advertising playing a supporting role to PR.) Even as much of a Hail-Mary revenue pass as this is, publishers must know that no amount of money from a company will be worth sacrificing long-term integrity of their media properties if the sponsored, PR-generated content stinks. Further, regulators are already assuming we're going to get this wrong without their help—another lost opportunity.

Your community matters. Your client/company matters. Be guided by them, not the trade press, awards, pundits, or your ego.

As I always tell young community managers, "Support your client, but stand for your community." I guarantee you that most efforts to embrace real-time marketing are going to naively treat communities as sad, wandering, empty vessels who anxiously await to be filled up with a company's brand message. This is incredibly wrong. I love guitar companies very nearly to the point of distraction but I guarantee you I will drop their access to my attention that quickly if my newsfeed is clotted up with any irrelevant crud from them. Unfortunately, it evidently doesn't take much to impress the trade and business press when it comes to this kind of thing, which helps skew incentives somewhat.

Get your hands really, really dirty.

Those funny little graphics many folks (often inaccurately, annoyingly) call "memes" started in places that most PR folks wouldn't want to be caught dead in, like 4chan. "Internet culture" becomes mainstream culture very quickly and you need to keep your ears to some very different—some might say even somewhat dangerous—rails. Don't be satisfied with merely staying ahead of your boss and mistaking that for being good at your job.

If you're thinking "it's-just-like-ads-only-faster," please find another career.

"Ads-only-faster" will only motivate someone to invent a TiVo-only-faster for the Internet. If PR inspires people to build something that does to PR what TiVo was supposed to do to television advertising, we'll know (perhaps too late) that we failed.

Our industry is in a rather precarious place at the moment—far more than any number of breathless pundits would care to admit. Let's not blow it.

Photo Credit: Happy Via

CREWE: Corporate Representatives for Ethical Wikipedia Engagement

For people who are serious about discussing the PR-and-Wikipedia-related matters covered in yesterday's posts, I've created a group on Facebook at the suggestion of John Cass. This was in the context of a discussion on Kevin Dugan's Facebook related to my original open letter. 

Owing to the name, I anticipate that the bulk of the members would be PR folks, but I strongly encourage people of all views to participate because, frankly, that's the only way we'll get closer to the goal.

And what is this goal? This will become clearer over time, but the core idea rests on four pillars:

1. Corporate communicators want to do the right thing.
2. Communicators engaged in ethical practice have a lot to contribute.
3. Current Wikipedia policy does not fully understand #1 and #2, owing to the activities of some bad actors and a general misunderstanding of public relations in general.
4. Accurate Wikipedia entries are in the public interest. 

The group is open. There's not much of a there there yet, but that's where you come in.

And, yes, I realize that there's some philosophy-shear in terms of using a proprietary resource to discuss matters related to an open-source one. This is trumped (if slightly) by the very "PR" consideration of going where most of the interested parties already are and integrating it into people's day-to-day online experience. 

Hoping people support this effort and take it up in the spirit it is intended. 

An Open Letter to Jimmy Wales and Wikipedia

Jimmy,

I’d like to take the opportunity to publicly address an important topic that is long overdue for discussion. I write this, not as a representative of my employer, but as a career communications professional focused on matters related to online communities.

Short version: A truly serious conversation needs to happen about how communications professionals and the Wikipedia community can/must work together. Since recent events have thrown this issue into sharp relief, I’d like us to have an open, constructive and fair discussion about the important issues where public relations and Wikipedia intersect.

As to the long version, consider:

• Wikipedia is on the first page of search results for nearly every company, brand, product, personality, captain-of-industry, etc. This shoulders Wikipedia with a great level of responsibility, whether asked for or otherwise.
• Many entries are derelict, even for important topics and well-known industry bellwethers. Financial data is often years old. Some companies are described as remaining in businesses long divested. A WikiProject for reviving abandoned articles, and a proposal for a similar effort, themselves both appear abandoned.
• You can imagine why a company might consider its entry to be a high priority (perhaps even to the point of distraction) and task its communications staff to "do something", especially if the entry is inaccurate.
• Entreaties on Talk pages—determined as the most appropriate place for a company representative to make his/her case—often go ignored for very long periods while inaccurate information persists. 
• The small concession to PR on the FAQ (that a company can "fix minor errors in spelling, grammar, usage, or fact", etc.) takes a lot for granted and helps neither a PR representative nor Wikipedia. For example, too often, a company representative will “go native” when it comes to separating matters of “fact” from matters upon which reasonable people might disagree. On the other hand, activists (hardly of a neutral point of view) appear to enjoy much more latitude. 

So, while I appreciate and support that Wikipedia must develop and enforce certain rules regarding neutrality and so on, the site is trying to have it both ways. In other words, it's clear that Wikipedia wants to be thought of as an accurate and available resource while 1) the volunteer maintenance of that resource—despite a strong level of dedication—is unable to keep up, and 2) the hands of ethical practitioners—those closest to data—are bound due to the activities of some bad actors.

This is a source of great tension between companies and Wikipedia and I’m not sure how the public is properly served by this state of affairs. Contrary to popular imagination, most corporate communications practitioners want to do the right thing. 

Some initial recommendations to help start discussion:

• When an entry is derelict (duration and definition TBD), a communications representative should be granted greater leeway in editing the entry. The entry can have a notification at the top indicating the derelict status, or even that a communications representative has had a hand in updating it. This will allow visitors to make their own judgments on how to evaluate the entry or even prioritize it in terms of how and when it gets evaluated and/or revised by a neutral party. The choice is between the certainty of an inaccurate entry or the possibility that the entry would not meet NPOV guidelines. Negative attention to bad behavior (or even to mediocre efforts) would mitigate the impact of the latter. 
• We could revive discussion about some guidance you gave in 2006, whereby a company could author a suggested entry, license it under the FDL, post it on its own site, and “notify Wikipedians who are totally independent.” This means less work for volunteers, since it’s almost always easier to react to something rather than write it from scratch. The best corporate communicators should be able to author something reasonably neutral, I'd imagine, with the Wikipedia community serving as an important check-and-balance. 

The next move is yours. I’d welcome further discussion on this topic, with the aim of fairly framing an open and constructive discussion about this matter. 

Thanks and regards,

/pmg

UPDATE 2012-01-04-1100 CT: In one of those "Great Minds Think Alike" type things, Stuart Bruce published his own thoughts about PR and Wikipedia, even referencing the same 2006 post from Jimmy Wales that I referenced above. He was inspired by MP Tom Watson's talk page on the topic. Clearly there's some pent-up discussion here and, I agree, that working with Wikipedia on improving the rules for corporate communications participation should be an international effort. 

UPDATE 2012-01-09-1300 CT: Mr. Wales responds. A lot to think about, so you'll see my reaction delivered in bits on this blog over the next few days. 

How PRSA's Crowdsourcing Experiment Could Go Horribly Wrong

The PRSA has managed to make quite a bit of noise around its crowdsourcing effort aimed at coming up with a new definition of "public relations." 

As with any such effort, there's always the risk that individuals or groups with zero, limited or even slanted knowledge of public relations will chime in. There will also likely be a number of agenda-driven folks aimed at unfairly smearing PR. 

Here are a few possibilities:

• Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI): "PR makes you really fat."
• Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA): "PR requires a helmet, handrails, and skid-proof surfaces at all times."
• Food & Drug Administration (FDA): "This letter concerns PRSA's marketing of the "Public Relations...Defined" communications and marketing initiative. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) reviewed the label and labeling, including statements made on your website at the Internet addresses www.prsa.org and prsay.prsa.org. Based on claims made by PRSA for this product, PR is a drug under section 245(k)(7)(N) of the Federal Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act (“FD&C Act”), [78 U.S.C. § 654 (k)(7)(N)], as it is intended for use in the influencing of public perceptions. As discussed below, this product is unapproved and your marketing of it violates the FD&C Act..."
• Federal Communications Commission (FCC): "As we are now re-classifying 'public relations' under Title II of the Telecommunications Act, PR is now defined as under the jurisdiction of this regulatory body."
• Office of the Surgeon General: "If you PR with someone, you PR with everyone that person has PR'ed with..."
• Coast to Coast AM: "The U.S. military used PR to cover up the Roswell landing and make us believe that the spacecraft from our extra-terrestrial visitors was a 'weather balloon.'"
• Paul Krugman: "As I've already said in a previous column, PR is something that was clearly George W. Bush's fault. Wait. What? Nobel committee on Line Two? Again? Wow! I should've thought of this years ago!"
• Media Research Center/Newsbusters: "PR is something that George Soros maybe uses occasionally, thereby proving without a doubt that PR is a vast and far-reaching conspiracy of the liberal media elite."
• Bill Maher: [Dud joke 1] [Dud joke 2] [Dud joke 3] "MICHELLE BACHMANN! SARAH PALIN!" [Applause] 
• World Net Daily: "PR is a tactic used by far-left-wing fifth-columnist sleeper cells led by an unholy union between Bill Ayers and the remnants of the Symbionese Liberation Army to lull you into a false sense of security and, before you know it, you'll be taxed at 95%, your home will be taken by eminent domain and razed to build an ACORN office, and your kids will spend 10 hours a day in public school indoctrination sessions wearing Che Guevara t-shirts and watching Hugo Chavez speeches. Just you watch!"
• University of East Anglia Climate Research Unit: "PR? Science? Meh... Tomato, toe-mah-toe..."
• The Budget Supercommittee: [Deadline extension requested from PRSA]
• Keith Olbermann: "PR is..." [It doesn't actually matter what comes next.]
• TechCrunch: "PR is something that will never, ever change our minds about the fact that RSS is Dead. Dead! DEAD, I TELL YOU!!1! (Although jumping on PR people is a good way to boost traffic, comments, likes and +1's every so often, FWIW LOL.)"
• Thomas Friedman: "PR is a strategic communications discipline whereby the hot, flat, crowded world can... Wow!!! China! Is! Just! So! AMAZING!"
• Media Matters for America: "Ummm... Uhhh... Err... FOX NEWS! BILL O'REILLY!!"
• Letter to The Economist: "SIR - With regard to public relations..."
• Charlie Sheen: "PR is a function of my rockstar ninja adonis-DNA amazingness #winning #tigerblood."
• Keith Olbermann: *sigh* "I said that PR is..."

You get the idea. Heck, even Wikipedia could get into the act:

"Wisdom in crowds", indeed.

Photo Credit: TopRankOnlineMarketing

A New Opportunity for PR: Media-Training Coaches and Sportscasters

In one of my favorite episodes of Star Trek: The Next Generation, the Enterprise crew encountered a dumpy-looking race of scavengers called the Pakleds. As the episode progressed, you found out that the Pakleds were highly devious and intelligent beings even though they exhibited only mediocre speech skills. "We look for things," they often repeated as they attempted to articulate their mission. "We look for things that make us go." 

As I was watching the Packers stomp the Bears' Super Bowl dreams like a Snickers bar at a Biggest Loser reunion, I'm hoping that it's possible to similarly misjudge sports professionals. 

The Pakled comparison hit me when the sportscasters cut to the field reporter, who relayed a conversation she had with the Green Bay coach:

[The coach said that] "Offensively, we have to maximize our possessions. Defensively, we have to keep them out of the end-zone." Then he repeated it. "We have to keep them out of the end-zone. Period."

Wait... Let me get this straight, 'cause I want to make sure I don't miss anything. Do you meant to tell me that the point of a football team's defense is to keep the opponent from reaching the end-zone? (Evidently this isn't obvious, as the Green Bay coach allegedly repeated this salient point.)

And isn't "maximize our possessions" known to the rest of us schlubs as "scoring?" 

Sportscasters don't fare much better than coaches, giving us such gems as "This team came to win!" ("No, idiot," I often think. "The team came here to engage in highly expensive group therapy aimed at modulating excessive self-esteem and it backfired terribly.")

I don't imagine the coach's half-time pep-talk is something like, "Alright, team! Get out there and start sucking!"

Can't really blame sportscasters too much, though. My theory: As sportscasting moved from radio to television, the ability to describe the action intelligently, and fill the dead spots creatively, atrophied when TV introduced a visual crutch. When I used to watch sports semi-regularly, I would actually mute the TV and turn the radio on. Enterprise software types would call this a "best-of-breed" approach. Try it sometime. It rules. 

Dennis Miller's brief sportscasting career, unfortunately, swung the pendulum a bit too far in the other direction. I don't imagine that even a significant minority of sports fans would be able to unpack color commentary like "Defensive line? More like the Maginot Line!"

While sports marketing and sponsorship is familiar territory for communications firms, I'm wondering if a creative media trainer might devise a series of training tools that would help sports professionals, in particular, sound less... Pakledy.

Isn't it about time?