Archive for the 'Required Reading' Category

Embargoed

Published
by
David Parmet
on 12/12/2007
in Required Reading
. Comments

I normally eschew embargoes - that is I try very hard to convince clients that unless they are offing information on the second gunman, an exclusive interview opportunity with Jimmy Hoffa or a sneak peek at the last season of Battlestar Galactica, embargoes aren’t worth it.

Allen Stern of Centernetworks however, has a different take:

Why are embargoes important? Because they allow the writer advanced time to prepare a story that has more details than just a press release post. It allows me to look at the service and give you a more detailed analysis. I can dive in and give you more than some corporate speak. They are critical for a site’s readers.

Full post here.

Allen is a blogger and source of news on the East Coast technology community who’s opinion I respect so I’m going to have to start reconsidering offering embargoes. Especially to Allen.

Right on target

Published
by
David Parmet
on 10/30/2007
in Required Reading
. Comments

Back when I was still an agency drone, when blogging was a hobby and PR was my career and never the twain shall meet, it was Steve Rubel who showed me the light. Steve proved to me that blogging, and the then-emerging idea of social media, could be an important part of public relations.

This was back in the ancient days of 2004, when blogging was still something done by ‘those people.’

For a while I really felt that Steve lost his way, that he was transfixed by a cushy career with a big agency and writing about the latest bright shiny toy to come out of the Valley. There was nothing new there. And he slipped out of my reader, along with a lot of other big shot bloggers who became boring.

And then, like a bolt out of the blue, Steve has found his voice again. Once again, he’s the voice in the wilderness leading us to the promised land.

Let’s face it, we’re skunk drunk and it’s because of money. It’s almost like we all need to enter Betty Ford Clinic 2.0 together. This time, it’s not stock market money but private equity, M&A, VCs and to some degree the reckless abandonment of logic by some advertisers who are perpetuating what is sure to end badly when the economy turns. Hubris is back my friends.

Amen.

Read on.

We’re chasing toys instead of ideas. We’re fixated on tactics and not on strategy. If I get one more ‘how long should my podcast be’ question, I’m going to hit someone.

I agree with Steve that the technologies are going to stay with us for a long time, that they have the potential to change the way we work, communicate and think about our World. Just as long as I’m not asked about monetizing my blog, I’ll be fine.

Don’t let the door hit ya

Published
by
David Parmet
on 10/14/2007
in Required Reading
. Comments

where the Good Lord split ya….

Link.

Link.

Hearing voices

Published
by
David Parmet
on 8/12/2007
in Required Reading
. Comments

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution’s Bill Husted is hearing voices.

Sometimes the voices are clear, but my favorite times are when they are faint whispers that fade in and out of the static from the old shortwave receiver in my home office.

Full story here.

Brian smacks some sense into us

Published
by
David Parmet
on 8/2/2007
in Required Reading
. Comments

Brian Oberkirch is the smartest, hardest working man in the business of thinking where we are all going with all of this. So when he gives us a glimpse into the future of PR, it’s up to all of us to sit up and pay attention.

Great PR (or developer relations, HR, whatever) involves translation. Spanning the boundaries between disparate parts of the company and the communities it serves. Helping people understand. This is not the cliched flackery that ends up painting most PR. Edgework demands that you stop thinking about PR in cliched terms. And start practicing it like a mofo.

Brian is talking about the PodTech / TechCrunch / Valleywag dust-up from last week. But he could be talking about any of a myriad of situations where companies - both small and large - mistake transparancy for letting it all hang out and small things become huge dust-ups.

Full story here.