Archive for the 'State of the Art' Category

If that is your real name

For those who think irony is lost on most PR people (I know I do), I present “Amanda Chapel” a.k.a., Strumpette.

Enjoy the link love “Amanda.”  If nothing else, it’s a breath of fresh air in a musty PR blogosphere.

Innovation from the Edge

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Edgedio continues to amaze.

You might notice the new box over there on the right. You can get one of your very own by signing up. You can make it specific to your local, your interests, host only jobs, or cars for sale… whatever.

As Edgeio grows and hosts more listings, this should be a more precise process, i.e., I won’t be showing jobs from Miami, but jobs from New York.

Even so, it’s pretty cool.

Details at the Edgeio blog and from Brian Oberkirch.

PR guys in need of coffee

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Holy market disruption

bright ideaI just got a sneak peak at Edgeio - the new toy Mike Arrington’s been working on for like forever.

Without giving away the whole story, Edgeio lets anyone with a web site that has RSS (read … a blog) to list classifieds - job listings, a car for sale, an offer to babysit right on their web sites. Edgeio picks up the listing. Think Craig’s List without ever having to fill out a form.

This is powerful stuff. A lot of so-called “Web2.0″ companies are going to be taking a good hard look at their business plans when the wraping paper comes off this baby.

Kudos to Mike and everyone involved.

Forward into the past

Some recent discussion on “generalists’ vs. “PR Nerds” in the PR blogosphere.

Marcel Goldstein describes (and Mike Manuel agrees):

the classic PR agency hire … young, energetic and highly social: someone who had the nerve, verve and interest in making a withering number of media calls. This model was already beset with problems. Far too many tales exist of PR agency professionals that auto-generate error-filled media call lists from Bacon’s or Vocus directories and then blindly make pitch calls, yielding a low success rate and a trail of peeved reporters.

Personally, while I agree that the classic agency hiring pattern has to change to meet the needs of clients and the media, I still see a future of Amanda Woodward clones screaming into their Treos (no more Blackberries for you!) and “doing lunch” on the clients’ dime. It doesn’t matter what the clients need, what matters is what they want and for most of them it’s someone screaming into a Treo at lunch - thinking of them 24/7 and with a portfolio of ‘good contacts’ with ‘top tier media.’

The irony of course is that while this may serve the needs of the clients to have someone screaming for them, in the long run it doesn’t do anything to solve the needs of journalists who need smart PR people with deep knowledge of their industry who can deliver who and what they need when they need it.

And on we go, the death spiral continues.