PRoxemics — measurable distances between people

United States’ first ever Chief Technology Officer

by italovignoli on April 19, 2009

Tim O’Reilly presents Aneesh Paul Chopra as the best choice around for the role of United States’ first ever Chief Technology Officer.

Judge by yourself watching - and listening - to his keynote at the 5th Annual State of the Net Conference 2009. I found the speech just amazing, for at least two reasons: the level of IT competence expressed in and between the lines, and the “good common sense” that exudates from this gentleman. I would really like to see more civil servants like him promoted to a position where they can make a difference for the community.

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Keeping Your People Engaged in Tough Times

by italovignoli on April 18, 2009

[From HarvardBusiness]

1. Communicate, Communicate, Communicate Of course you’re busy searching for business to keep the organization afloat. But employees with an ownership mentality want to know what is happening in their company. Set aside time regularly to provide your employee-owners with information that will help them understand their short-term job prospects. Just as important, provide them with specific plans for using the next 18 to 24 months to reposition the organization for the next decade. There is a lot of anxiety and uncertainty in many organizations today. In some cases, it interferes with quality and productivity. Merely recognizing employee concerns can help alleviate them. Relatively inexpensive employee counseling can become memorable at times like these. These actions, coupled with incentives that elicit new ideas for improving operations can send important positive messages at a time of stress. They can foster “ownership” behaviors — loyalty, high productivity, and referrals of others as potential employees — that enhance the lifetime value of members of the organization.

2. Appeal to the Better Nature of Your Employee-Owners The current economic crisis provides the national government with the basis for establishing a citizenry characterized by volunteerism. It provides you with the “burning platform” necessary to enlist everyone in transforming your organization to win the competitive battles of the future. It’s a great time to engage employee-owners in coming up with ideas to deal with the downturn. This doesn’t have to involve an elaborate “program,” just an organized appeal. It may involve juicing up an already existent effort. For example, at Baptist Health Care, an organization regularly cited as one of the best places to work, managers lead discussions on subjects such as survey results and solicit ideas for ways to improve customer service as part of an ongoing Listening and Learning program. The resulting “customer snapshot reports” compile all employee observations and ideas for general distribution.

3. Upgrade Talent: Avoid the Freeze Winners like to work with winners; losers like to work with winners; but winners don’t like to work with losers. Who are the losers? Ironically, many times it’s not those who are performing at a sub-par level; they often can be coached and supported in ways that help them improve their productivity. More frequently, it’s those who violate the norms of the organization and can’t manage by the values shared by others. In the context of the organization and its culture, they are regarded as “jerks” by their colleagues — jerks who are tolerated because of the ability to “make the numbers.” But most often, the “losers” are simply those who are not inspired and excited about the business, who go about performing the necessary but not the extra. Now is the time to let go of the losers, thereby raising the average level of talent in the organization. That doesn’t mean a freeze on hiring, however. Instead, it may be a great time to take advantage of a depressed talent market by making a few strategic hires of long-sought candidates from competitors or other organizations.

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10 ways Twitter is useful for a PR practitioner

by italovignoli on April 18, 2009

[From Drew B's take on tech PR]

It’s over two years now since my first impressions of Twitter as a communications tool got scribbled down… (and woo got picked up by the press and online here and there). Now a day does not pass without a mainstream TV channel featuring Twitter. It’s become the new black amongst the mainstream. So it’s probably a good time to do a review, based on my experiences and those of others, of what value Twitter holds for the PR practitioner.

1. Researching. Track issues on Twitter just by searching on http://search.twitter.com for your topic. You’ll see stuff happening live, reported by the people seeing it first hand. It might be an event, a global isue, or a viral spreading. You can also find people that are into specialist areas - you might be a manufacturer of non-drip tea pots, and you’ll find all those people who are teapot geeks twittering away on Twitter. They might also be bloggers, podcasters, manufacturers or journalists. Twitter’s a window into other online worlds, not just a network of its own.

2. Networking. Find people you know or who you would like to know and Twitter’s a great way of networking with them online. You can help a journalist with a story, find common interests with industry peers, and see who’s going to what events so that you can network better in real life. Just make sure you follow all the right people. Twitter lets you do this by uploading your address book, searching, or seeing your friends’ friends.

3. Promoting. If you are doing the PR for a product that people would like to follow news about, then get it up on Twitter. Companies of all shapes and sized promote what they do on Twitter. There’s an etiquette to it, so don’t spam. But get a feel for the Twitter community and roll with it. Try typing a few brand names into Twitter Search and you’ll get an idea. Sites like TwitterFeed will convert RSS into Tweets for you to help automate things if you think that’s the right way to go, and FriendFeed is good for this too.

4. Team working. Why not put all your team on Twitter and see how it changes the way you communicate. You’ll notice email overload eases up, and things become a bit more social. We’ve done it here at number 33 for a while now and it’s great (I would say that though).

5. News broadcasting. Twitter is not just a messaging system, it’s broadcast too. A lot of people read their news feeds over Twitter (me included). All the major news channels broadcast over Twitter. So figure out how you might be able to do the same and try it out.

6. Story testing. If you have an idea, try it out on your Twitter friends. It’s called crowdsourcing. You’ll find the instant feedback makes your idea better in the end. Or if you need help on a story, ask over Twitter. You might need an extra spokesperson from a complementary brand, and Twitter’s your window into other places so that you don’t need to know precisely where to look before you start digging.

7. Search engine optimising. If you Google the name of a brand or a spokesperson, you’ll find the Twitter page for that thing appears very high up in Google. Small and large firms alike have their Twitter page very high up their Google results. So if your client wants good control of what’s up there, Twitter’s a no-brainer.

8. Crisis management. When the shit hits the proverbial, then watch Twitter for developments, issue alerts through your corporate Twitter stream, and you’ll find that a mixture of listening and responding fits well with the broader crisis plan.

9. Selling news. Some journalists or bloggers might prefer you contact them through Twitter. If so, do it. It’s not for everyone, but it’s growing in adoption. You can either ‘direct message’ your contact or ‘@’ them with a story. If they know you and trust you, then this system works well at cutting information overload.

10. Recruiting. If you need help on a project, ask Twitter. You might find your contacts pass your message on even further. Whether you need some specialist help, a new full time recruit, or whatever, try using your network. We do it a lot here.

If you need a hand getting a foot up on the Twitter machine, just let us know. There are hundreds of guides online that will help too, if you need them. Plus this one now.

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What will media relations look like in 10-20 years?

March 12, 2009

The summary and the study (PDF), coordinated by Don Bates and sponsored by the George Washington University. Both are extremely interesting.

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Future Visions

March 6, 2009

I’m always fascinated by visions of the future. This is Microsoft’s one.

Read the full article →

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measurable distances between people

United States’ first ever Chief Technology Officer

Keeping Your People Engaged in Tough Times

What will media relations look like in 10-20 years?

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