Teachable Moments in PR & Crisis Management
I was recently approached by Fast Company to comment on “crisis management” at startups in the wake of the Airbnb “ranksackgate” story. I agreed to do the interview because the story was about what other companies can learn rather than about airbnb in particular. What are the teachable moments? The short article in Fast Company [...]
How to use PR Firms at Startups
One of the most frequent questions entrepreneurs ask about when they raise a little bit of money or are getting close to launching their first product is whether they should hire a PR firm. There is obviously no black-or-white answer, but I’ve tried everything from working a large international agency, to hiring in-house people to [...]
Where does PR fit Within Social CRM?
Last week I had the pleasure of presenting at PRSA in New York (thanks Deirdre!) and while my original presentation was supposed to be around community building for PR professionals I decided to mix things up a bit and talk about where PR fits within Social CRM. I actually did this for a few reasons; [...]
On Startups, and Influence, and Messaging
I’ve spent over a month in the past three in the US, split between three different trips for different events, and over this time I’ve met with dozens of startups, many of who are from outside the US and are making their first tentative forays into the US scene. I’ve had conversations with a bunch [...]
Another PR Fail – It Shouldn’t Be That Hard Guys
Friend and fellow blogger Michael Krigsman has a very popular blog highlighting IT failures he comes up against, from time to time I seem to do the same for public relations failures – continuing with this theme I thought I’d recount the latest experience I had. A month ago I received an email from a [...]
Skunk Works Junkies: a Series on the Cloud’s Silver Lining – Part One – Dangling the Carrot
Skunk Works Junkies (SWJs) ears perk up if they hear, “beta invite,” and like anything exclusive, jump to snatch it up. The reality is, start ups can’t get enough beta-testers, or at least keep them consistently engaged once the party starts. In this series, you’ll hear first-hand from a beta-junkie what worked and what didn’t. [...]
FUD in the House of SaaS – More on Suites
Recently I wrote about the evergreen Best-of-breed vs. Integrated All-in-One Suite debate again, arguing: Call me “old school”, but I also believe in the value of having one tightly integrated system for most business needs, and I believe it’s true not only for large corporations but much smaller businesses. I don’t have CIO’s to back [...]
Summer Fun – Rant Redux #3
Public relations, you gotta love it… I get releases and general communications from PR people on a daily basis. Some good, some not so good and some just plain bizarre. I thought I’d review my thoughts over the year about PR… In April I posted about the some bad experiences: A PR person (who is [...]
Save Your Spin for Someone Who Cares
Handling PR with VCs This is part of my series on How to Raise VC but could equally be filed under Startup Advice more generally. I recently got a phone call from an entrepreneur whom I respect and who runs a company that I hope will do great things one day. He had pitched me [...]
Another PR Rant, I Must be Tired
I’ve posted many times before about traditional PR and how it falls dismally short. This post is an opportunity to celebrate some success stories and tell a few sorry tales. Before the recent Enterprise 2.0 conference in San Francisco, and in an attempt to make my time as efficient as possible, I posted an invitation [...]
Enterprise 2.0 San Francisco – Only Two Weeks Away, the Briefing Invites Start
In two weeks time I’ll be winging my way across the world for the inaugural San Francisco holding of the Enterprise 2.0 conference. As is the norm before large events like this, the emails have started pouring in already asking for times for briefings on products and services to be released during the conference. In [...]
Yes, I Like Wine Tasting, but Hate Bait-and-Switch
The title of the email was appealing: You’re Invited to a Wine Tasting at the Ritz Carlton But then inside the email: Harness the Power of Virtualization: From Datacenter to Desktop Tuesday, October 6 Ritz Carlton San Francisco San Francisco, CA Oops.. no, thanks. Even though the event site talks about an “exclusive executive briefing [...]
Salesforce.com: Is the Glass Half Full or Half Empty?
Is Salesforce.com’s glass for SMBs half full (of lemonade) or half empty? I borrowed the lemonade metaphor from Venturebeat’s post announcing Salesforce.com’s new Contact Manager offering for (very) small businesses. On second thought we should use orange juice as a metaphor – as in disappearing orange juice, by Tropicana which offers less juice in a [...]
How to be a Media Darling…
At the recent New Zealand WordCamp, one of the sessions looked at building successful media relationships. In a session titled “How to be a Media Darling”, Doug Casement from Renaissance talked about building relationships and pitching for coverage with mainstream media. I covered the event for Idealog magazine but thought it was worth returning to [...]
Please Don’t Gild the Lily
I wrote the other day about the adoption of cloud based email services and the recent decision by one of the New Zealand Post business units to move to Google for their email provision. I think it’s a great move, positive for the business and positive for cloud computing, but a post I came across [...]
