HP crisis keeps on rolling

Two weeks ago I posted a piece on this corporate drama and of course today has been another eventful day what with the resignation of their General Counsel. Anyway when I wrote my last piece a Google News search on 'HP and pretexting' brought up around 4000 news hits. Two weeks later that number has jumped to just over 7000. That's an average of over 200 new stories a day or roughly 9 new stories per hour. HP will be relieved to know it still lags well behind the Iraq War which is generating 100s of posts an hour on a good (bad) day.

Content gets a longer tail

There has been quite a lively debate about the ‘Long Tail’ since Chris Anderson first wrote his article in Wired back in 2004. In today’s Wall Street Journal a couple of news items caught my eye that provide tools for content to wag their own long tail. And where there’s content there is usually something PR people should pay attention to. Specifically the news stories were: Cisco’s move to create a B2B video messaging service; and a piece by Lee Gomes that talked about how companies like LiveOffice are enabling people to store podcasts of just about any conference call they hold. In both these cases companies (well people actually) can find a permanent home for content that would ordinarily have died a death pretty quickly. This is potentially interesting for the PR industry in that it creates some further resources to help editors and analysts but also tools that can communicate directly with communities or individuals. No longer will people have to dig around in the store room for that old footage of their CEO talking about… whatever he was talking about, or the tape of their CFO explaining the way they are going to reorganize the business. Of course it also means that the opinions we put forward are going to be there for all to see and hear for many a year to come AND they'll be easy to find...but that’s no bad thing. Is it?

HP lurches from one crisis to the next

Like many PR people I've been wondering why the crisis gurus have not been able to get the HP board under control. Surely the board doesn't want the entire saga to be played out in the media? Right now though, every move of this mess seems to be getting air time in one media outlet or another (Google news has about 4000 news stories on the topic already). Having said that this seems to have been a recurring issue for HP - remember the whole Walter Hewlett saga?

Going back to the current problems, if the media circus continues and it shows no sign of stopping yet, then the very man that appears to have turned the business around (Mark Hurd) could be the one to pay the biggest price. Patricia Dunn meanwhile could end up with a cozy non-executive seat (I'm curious as to why she's being allowed to stay on btw).

I can't blame HP's internal team for this situation. Company boards are notoriously tough to deal with and will rarely take good counsel even when offered. That said, when matters escalate as they have here, they usually listen to some crisis management expert. For HP's sake I only hope someone is able to take control soon or the blood on the carpet may start to get thicker.

Financial Dynamics Takes a Different Path

The news that Financial Dynamics was being acquired was hardly the world's biggest surprise. Indeed there'd been speculation in the trade media about a deal for some time. What was unusual was the buyer: management consulting firm, FTI and of course that $260m price tag. This news should be welcomed by those in our sector as it shows other industries value the PR world. It also shows that the PR world isn't necessarily destined to be owned by WPP et al. Indeed the deal shows that there is an alternative out there to the 'integrated marketing' message being touted by the large agency groups. That alternative would seem to be based more on integrating a company's ability to reach specific communities – where communications is just a part of the process. At the heart of this new approach would seem to lay the need for 'focus' or specialization. Few would argue that FD was a pretty focused business and it would seem their skill in helping companies manage their profiles in financial circles is to be married to FTI's skill in helping firms solve commercial problems and set strategy. Combined they should be able to offer businesses a way to strategically review their business, undergo the changes that review proposes and manage the communication of that change to the world. Put another way what FTI gets through this deal is the chance to squeeze every last consulting dollar out of some pretty large engagements. It certainly has logic on its side. If they pull this off it could herald a new wave of M&A activity for the PR sector – presuming of course that agencies remain sector focused AND remain connected at the highest levels within their client base.

Best UK PR Consultancy to Work For?

The Holmes Report in the UK has just published its 'Best consultancy to work for' list. I have to congratulate Rainier PR for winning for the second year running. However, it does raise an interesting question: does this list actually mean anything? I ask this not be rude to the winners or to Paul Holmes but because none of the top twenty are the top agencies in the UK. Now if this list was a predictor of which agencies would become the top agencies then again I can see its value but it doesn't seem to play that role either. Of course it could be that it shows that if you want to work for a good employer or if you are a client that wants to hire an agency that treats its staff well then this list will act as a good guide. However, again this either shows that not many clients care about how staff are treated (or these agencies would be growing like crazy) OR that staff don't care how they are treated (or these agencies would have a waiting list for jobs). The one common link in the list would seem to be that the agencies listed are all small or medium sized firms. Either this means these types of firms are better places to work (seems logical) or the bigger firms just didn't engage. Of course it could be that these winning agencies are good at getting staff to say what great employers they are. Given two of my agencies (August.One and Bite which are both wonderful places to work!!) are in the top 20 I hope you see that I raise these questions out of genuine interest and not because 'we didn't win.'

Online news consumption is all about sports...

I hadn't looked at this in a while but Akamai has been tracking how many people access online news for some time now. It paints an interesting picture of online news consumption. For example the vast majority of the news hits are US driven. So much so that other regions don't really impact the end results. Sadly the vast majority of news this nation consumes seems to be sports related. Indeed out of the top ten news days they've recorded seven were sports related (the world cup being a huge factor it seems). The other three? Two were related to terrorism and the other to Katrina.

If you look a little closer you'll see that of the roughly 3m news hits today, 2.6m were in the US, 300K were in Europe and the remaining 100K were spread around the rest of the world. That seems amazing to me and perhaps explains why concerns about the death of print media don't seem to be taken as seriously outside the US. At first glance I wondered if the consumption outside the US were abnormally low today but the Akamai system actually shows whether this a high, normal or low news day and while it is a moderately high day in the US it is at worst normal in all the other regions.

I guess the end could really be in sight for print media at this rate. As long, that is, as they make sure they offer good sports news!

Link: http://www.akamai.com/en/html/industry/nui/news/index.html

Economist discusses death in the family

I need to thank Drew B for pointing to the Economist article on the death of newspapers. As ever the Economist does a good job of educating its readers on the big issues. I'd like to see this piece followed up on though as it really only serves as an introduction to the topic. Nevertheless it's worth a quick read.

http://www.economist.com/opinion/displaystory.cfm?story_id=7830218

Client conflict

I hear on rumor mill that the Council of PR is about to come out with a new statement on the thorny issue of handling client conflict. Like me, it seems some at the Council feel PR agencies are judged by inconsistent standards at best. Now it seems some agencies do a better job on conflict than others. Take Edelman who works with both Adobe and Microsoft. Indeed Edelman seems able to manage this level of conflict for a number of big brands. I take my hat off to them for their nerve and their ability to convince clients that these conflicts are OK. Indeed I write this not to be critical of Edelman's approach. Instead I just wish there were some clear standards on what was deemed an acceptable way of managing conflicting clients. Perhaps this is what the Council needs to work on? I think a strong statement on conflict is an excellent start but I'd also encourage them to develop (if they have not already) some clear guidelines on the ways conflict should be handled. This should extend to the construction of teams; the way information is received and stored and so on.

Of course if you look at the professional advisors used by most large firms such as law firms, accountancy practices, management consultancies etc they nearly all have conflicts. These firms don't have the same issues it seems. Is this because they are hired by different people in the business? Is it because they have a history of doing it? Is it because they are considered a profession? Whatever the answer it's clear that these advisors are held to a different standard. While that may be a touch frustrating for PR people, it's a fact and one we need to accept. However, it is also something we can do something about. As I say I'm pleased the Council of PR has taken up this issue. I only hope that the topic gets significant attention in the PR media and in other circles so that clients can be better educated on how conflict can be managed successfully.

What does the Pew Study really show?

I just read Nick Carr's blog on the state of Online News following the Pew Study that came out this week. To cut a fine story short he effectively says that while people have moved to getting their news online they are not necessarily:

a) consuming more news - indeed he suggests that the decline in traditional media consumption is being matched to a degree in the online world
b) about to kill off traditional media - his view from the Pew study is that while this media is declining it is more often than not read by those that consume online news. In other words it will only really die off if everyone stops reading news altogether which seems unlikely.

His piece ends by saying that: "The report is not good news for newspapers, but it does show that the reports of their imminent death have been exaggerated. The real division is not between the audience for online news and the audience for traditional news - they are the same audience. The real division is between the people who are interested in the news and the people who couldn't care less. In fact, it looks very much like online news media are now merging with traditional news media, as the two come together in a symbiotic relationship to serve the same set of customers. They are not competing with each other so much as they are competing together against nonconsumption."

I would contend, as I pointed out yesterday in my piece about YouTube, that what the world wants is for the Internet to enable a whole new way to get content. What Online news outlets have done so far is simply 'automate' the delivery of content. Perhaps this is why after an initial surge in viewing of online news it too is starting to flatten off and potentially decline. My contention is that this is because there is a distinct lack of innovation taking place in online media (what a generalization I know). Maybe this is what the Pew study is really showing...

YouTubification - is this what the media needs?

I have to say I’m a big fan of YouTube. What is clever about this site from my point of view is not that there is great content on there (which there is) but the way it keeps you clicking and digging deeper. It makes me wonder if what they’ve created here is a better model for the media now that the Internet has become the common way to access news and information. If you go on the site to see a specific piece of content when you are done you will immediately be presented with other related content you may enjoy. In other words it redraws the content around your search. If you compare this to most news sites it seem light years ahead. Take Google News as an example; on the news site you can view a news story but then when you click the back button (which is your only way of being returned to Google News) you are presented with the same headlines despite the choice you made. This is pretty well the model of all news sites. In essence they have buckets of content that stay in the same place regardless of what you do as a user. Imagine however a news site that once you clicked on a news item, then reselected the content on its homepage based on the choice you just made. So for example you click on a news item about United Airlines returning to profit (which is a miracle in my opinion but that’s whole other story). Once you clicked on the news at the side would be other travel related news items, item by the same journalist from the last few days, previous articles on the topic etc etc. When you returned to the homepage the content would also be slightly different. The closet I’ve seen to this is on BBC's site where they have links called ‘related articles.’ These links tend to be pretty straightforward though. From where I sit a YouTubification of the media has to be the way forward if they want to keep our attention.

Oh and while I'm at it, anyone care to guess how long it is before someone like Google buys YouTube?

Only in England

Let me first say I'm British and proud of the fact. However, there are things only the British can do and today I discovered a truly wonderful Britishism. In the UK there is a government institution called Companies House. Well the web site says:

The main functions of Companies House are to:
1. Incorporate and dissolve limited companies
2. Examine and store company information delivered under the Companies Act and related legislation
3. make this information available to the public.

For anyone wanting to find out about a UK business it is wonderful resource. Through the Companies House web site you can buy copies of people's filings such as their latest set of accounts. Anyway, this is where the Britishism comes in. This wonderful example of ecommerce in action is only available from 7am to Midnight UK time. Presumably the security guard switches off the computer when he leaves.

The $10,000 PR problem

This seems like a crazy problem, but it seems Silicon Valley is again awash with money and wants to spend it on PR - sadly though it would seem there is a shortage of people who they can spend it with - this particularly the case for those companies that want to spend about $10,000 a month. Before all the relative newcomers to PR dash out to set up PRismybag.com and soak up all this demand they should understand the real problem. The real problem is that the people who want to spend all this money want 'experienced' PR pros. This is of course where the catch lies. So many good people left the industry when the bubble burst that there are not that many great people around who have more than 5 years of experience (which is in turn driving up salaries). In addition the problem with most of the start ups that want to spend this kind of money is that they want at least $15,000 worth of service. The last of the problems is these businesses want lots of media attention and sadly since the bubble burst the media they can reach has shrunk. In any other market than Silicon Valley this problem would seem ... as silly as it sounds. Perhaps this might encourage some of the start ups to launch in another market where their $10,000 a month will go a lot further such as China or good old fashioned Europe.

Toyota thinks outside the box

There is a computer game out now that requires you click on a veiled object to move to the next level. That object turns out to be a Toyota Yaris. This is all a part of Toyota's effort to reach the youth market. I learned this from a NPR story this morning. There are also a string of games out now that have billboards inserted at certain locations in the game. Nothing exciting about that except when you play online, these billboards check your IP address and where possible other sources and then load billboard ads that are more targeted. Imagine, it's 8pm and you're locked in battle with some alien on your computer. OK, I can't quite imagine as I'm not a gamer but if I was then it would make sense that an ad on the building I'm approaching which houses the alien I'm trying to kill would be for the local pizza place. I mention all this for the simple reason that as traditional advertising dies along with traditional media, the creative minds being applied to interactive ads are coming up with some great thinking. Is the PR industry applying similar thought? I've seen glimpses of it but I worry that at a time when PR could be taking a bigger slice of the marketing pie we are not being creative enough.

AOL - this call was monitored for quality assurance purposes

This is a great example of the power of blogs and one of those rare times when the call was monitored for QA purposes by... the customer. The story is simple: It seems a normal guy wants to do something normal - cancel his AOL account. When he tries, they do what all struggling businesses do, they try and stop him by asking him a million stupid questions. Only in this instance he recorded the conversation and put it on his blog. The story then ended up on CNBC. Seems the rep at AOL lost his job...

http://www.cepro.com/news/editorial/13792.html

NYT publishers get desperate

The New York Times plans to begin running ads on the front page of its business section starting in July, according to a spokeswoman today. The news is yet another sign that traditional media is struggling and yet another sign that they don't really know how to solve the problem. Fundamentally this is a sign that the NYT wants to generate more ad revenue from its print publication. This would make sense as a move if the circulations of media like the NYT were rising but it's not. Surely therefore slapping ads on the front of the business section is like putting a Band-Aid on the Titanic. At what point do publishers realize that consumers want a different product? Don't get me wrong - I believe they want the content; they just want it delivered in a different way.

WSJ shows the way (the wrong way)

PR people are meant to be nice to hugely important publications like the WSJ. Sadly I can't resist taking a pop at the WSJ today. Why? Well today it proudly published its D supplement (they even have special stickers on those newspaper vending machines announcing its presence). In the supplement are a host of interviews with top execs including Bill Gates. There are articles on such racy topics as E-Commerce (does anyone use that term anymore?) and Laptop security. Think about that for a second (or two). There is no content here that is truly going to get the world excited. Certainly no content that is going to get people talking. I just can't see people huddling round the cooler saying: "wow that piece in today's journal was a real eye opener." Let's assume that the readership of the Journal is the investment community for now. If I were a fund manager, I'd hope I already knew the stuff in the Gates interview or the E-commerce article. Take the following question posed to Billg: "When are you going to ship the new Vista Operating System?" I don't think I need to tell you that he said we're on track to ship it in January. I have to say that it's content like this that is getting traditional media into trouble.

Coblabberation

This is hopefully not one of those posts that is designed to say "I read the Wall Street Journal today." Instead it is designed to add to your vocabulary a great new word that Jared Sandberg introduced through his column 'Cubicle Corner' today. The word was actually used in a quote by Harvard Graduate School professor, David Perkins. He was endorsing the general view of the column which is that most brainstorming is ineffective and that if anything you need people to think alone and then bring their ideas to a group - otherwise you get 'coblaberation.' While he doesn't specifically explain the word, it's pretty clear that he means you get a lot of people talking and nothing much happening. Does that sound like a PR brainstorm you've been in lately? Anyway, read the piece, it has some good observations that may help your next visit to the collective white board.

Spin Bunny reborn?

A site with the same .... attitude as Spin Bunny has popped up. Called "the World's Leading' which is presumably a jab at the fact that just about every tech PR press release seems to open with company X being the world's leading...

We'll surely find out if this is Spin Bunny if it starts attacking Lewis Communications.

Tech stocks are hard to index

I just spent some time looking at the relative stock prices of major technology companies versus both the DJIA and the NASDAQ composite over the last six months. Result? I couldn't find a single stock that came close to tracking these indices. You have stocks like Google that have jumped around all over the place and have ended up 8% down compared to the DJIA. Then you have Intel which has steadily declined a staggering 33% over the same period. There are bunch of stocks such as Microsoft, Yahoo and Dell that have declined just less than 20% and others such as IBM and Apple that are down 10%. At the other extreme I can find a few stocks that have risen relative to the DJIA. These include Oracle and Cisco at around 12% and AMD up about 18%. What does this tell you? Well in part it tells you that roughly three in every four major tech stocks are falling at 10% versus only one in four rising at a similar rate. While this is not the most scientific study on the planet it does suggest that as a group the major tech stocks have some work to do to convince investors they have growth potential. If the sample had produced a more random pattern I'd suggest that the problem lay with the individual companies and their IR but I think the challenge is greater than that. As I've said before on this blog, I believe the challenge is sector related. Until the sector works together to solve this problem, generally poor stock performance is on the cards.

Daily?

I just read the New York Times piece on today's down day on Wall Street. One sentence stood out: "Shares of Wal-Mart dropped $1.35, or almost 3 percent, to $48.30, after the retailer said its May sales growth would be at the low end of its expectations." Think about this for a moment. This mammoth retailer is giving monthly guidance on its sales! I run a small public company and I know how hard it is to predict sales with any certainty. To be giving monthly guidance seems crazy to me and reflects the way stock trading has changed since the bubble. It seems we now expect companies to be able to report by the minute how their business is performing. Why? Because it can be done of course. Not because it actually means anything. I can all too easily see how with the use of technology companies will have their stocks traded 24 hours a day seven days a week. To feed this constant market, they will be expected to report with ever-greater frequency. This is simply not a good thing. It drives businesses to run on shorter and shorter cycles. This means they stop investing in the long term and start responding simply to the latest analyst forecast. I'll be honest the only solution I see to this problem is for all companies to adopt the stance taken by Google that has been so widely ridiculed by Wall Street - namely not go give guidance. If everyone stopped giving guidance and simply let the analysts try and figure it out, we'd have a few rough quarters while they learned how the businesses they watch really work and then my guess is we'd end up with a much less volatile market full of businesses far more focused on the really important issues - like their customers.