lmgprlounge

The last two holidays we have received a catalog of gift ideas for third world and US entrepreneurs. We work with technology entrepreneurs everyday. However, purchasing a few chickens, a sewing machine or school backpacks can make a world of difference for some. I marvel at the need for a simple under $50.00 items such as school supplies, food and farming equipment that could transform lives. that could catapult a child’s dream to be educated. Or perhaps it’s the water filter that could save dozens of lives for just $50.00. A mosquito net for $10.00 or possibly a few chickens and goats for a single mother eager to make a living. There’s also relief and medical funs. These are not items you find in the deluxe Neiman Marcus holiday catalog. Yet, to us more compelling, meaningful and fulfilling gifts.

We encourage you to look at www.worldvision.org and other organizations offering healthy alternative giving solutions. Last year we sponsored school supplies for 25 children and dozens of abused teens. A small appreciation for the quality of life we have living and working in the technology industry. It is also a friendly reminder not to take ourselves too seriously in the techno land. Giving hope to young minds could ultimately facilitate global entrepreneurs that might otherwise be unnoticed. The next security, social media or medical genius could be a small check away.

We encourage you to look at www.worldvision.org and other organizations offering healthy alternative giving solutions. Last year we sponsored school supplies for 25 children and dozens of abused teens. A small appreciation for the quality of life we have living and working in the technology industry. Also a means to remind ourselves not to take our selves to seriously. Giving hope to young minds could ultimately facilate global entreprenerus that might otherwise be unnoticed. The next security, social media or medical genius could be a small check away….so be inspired even during an economic downturn…we still have a lot more than most countries.

Every day I’m receiving campaign emails from both presidential parties. I’m a big fan of good pitches, especially those that are personal and engaging. I’ve received personal emails from Obama and Biden, McCain and Palin. Yes, personally just directed to me. Well, not exactly. Most are broad help me win this campaign emails that don’t address any of my concerns including education, economy and healthcare and global warming issues. These are topics that are important to me.
Otherwise, leave me alone. Now, I know how editors feel when they get a canned email that provides a broad sweep message but little or no importance to them. For example, sending a product email pitch to a security editor because the networking editor hasn’t returned a phone call is unacceptable. To me this is spam. I don’t like spam. I don’t like green eggs and spam and I don’t like political spam that insults my intelligence. Nor do the press. So during this presidential race I have turned on my filters to dump all of my political email spam into the arsenal of trash. If I were an editor I would do the same for marketing and PR folks that send me unsolicited mail that has no interest. Slam dunk into the circular file on my desktop. To me there is no difference between receiving an “I’m a Nigerian Prince” or “Please join My Campaign” email. They are noisy, useless and quite frankly annoying.

LMGPR strives to provide editors with a personal on the phone vs. email dialog. That is unless, the editor prefers email. Then we make sure the topic and the content is something of interest. Sometimes story ideas or news are best discussed 1:1 vs. 1 to many. We look for trends, case studies, features and opinion opportunities to rise above the email now. It is our best practice to provide insightful, reliable content that will be meaningful to editors audience. This has allowed us to build strong relationships with analysts, editors and bloggers. It’s common sense really.

So during the election my reliable sources for making decisions are not email messages. Rather I turn to my gut feeling, CNN, the Street.com, WSJ, Washington Post, The Economist, The New Yorker and yes Saturday Night Live.

The next time you want to send a blanket email campaign remember…editors are just like you and me. They don’t want junk mail any more than the average Joe.

Most of us have read the best selling What Color is Your Parachute by Richard Nelson Bolles. If not, Career Builder and Dewey Color System has come up with a quick guide on picking your career based on your favorite color. Over the years I’ve been asked what kind of nut, fruit, tree or animal I am but color has only come up once. So for those of you not knowing if your career match and color are perfect here’s your chance.

The Dewey Color System is a scientifically validated color based personality test. According to the Dewy Color System you should choose your favorite color then your career.

This online test uses the patented Dewey Color System to formulate suggestions based on your choices from 3,375 color combinations. Here are some color combination examples from the Dewey Color System:

Yellow, green and white: The Designer. You create products, services or solutions to fit the environment of others. Among possible career choices: Real estate, interior design, travel planning, or any job where you can help shape and create surroundings for others.
Blue, green, and brown: The Dream Maker. You have a hands-on, supportive perspective and often guide others through times of crisis. Possible careers for you might include corporate trainer, physical therapist, forest ranger, or medical professional.
Red, orange, and black: The Evaluator. This personality type is great at analyzing their surroundings, as well as systems and approaches to productivity at work. If you are an evaluator, you can often improve your job as well as improve the procedures and processes there. Ideal jobs might include operational support, banking, computer repair, or child care.
So in looking at this list I must say PR professionals have the attributes of designers, dreamers and evaluators. We evaluate how we can help our clients rival their competion and move the dial quickly. . We believe in their dreams and are very hands on to help them achieve their business goals. Lastly, we design custom PR plans that build favorable reputation in the media.

Last week I posted an inquiry on www.Linkedin.com asking marketing and PR professionals if agencies should charge for admin expenses.

I received several dozen responses from the Silicon Valley to England to the Middle East.

Although larger traditional agencies continue to charge their clients for basic phone calls, copying, faxing, mailing etc., most were a big fan of not nickel and dime their clients. There was also an overwhelming agreement that travel, media services and other expenses beyond admin should be billed. I’m pleased to say that www.lmgpr.com has never charged our clients for admin fees. To me this just makes common sense. Why would I charge a client to make a phone call if I need to make the call to do my job? I always caution people looking to hire a new agency to look for hidden expenses. Likewise, we don’t charge our clients for our annual subscription fees for services like www.catchpole.com or www.cision.com also known as media map. . Charging for detailed media analysis yes but not for the database that’s being used to create them. These are key tools we use on a daily bases horizontally. It would be like a restaurant charging you for their electricity bill for you to eat your dinner. We encourage our clients to use www.filtrbox.com, a great news monitoring service we use but is intuitive and affordable for our clients too. I’ve heard of some proposals charging clients for gas, mileage and in- person meeting costs. Again, these are operational costs that should be absorbed by your agency.

We work with many early stage companies, as a result an all inclusive PR program is key. Our larger clients often want to spend additional funds on press dinners, press tours and gifts. These prices are always discussed up front. No hidden cost is our best practice. We work on project or retainer fees too. We always recommend retainer for those wanting a long term relationship allowing us to be more aggressive on the pricing long term.

Here’s the LMGPR Rules to Avoiding Extended PR Costs

-Don’t charge for admin expenses such as phones, copies, mailing
-Don’t pay for subscription fees such as media monitoring services
-Don’t pay for gas, mileage or other transportation fees unless its long distance travel
-Don’t pay for senior talent fees if a junior person is doing the work
-Don’t pay for time your agency uses to create invoices
-Be up front in your request for proposal

Like the Bejing Olympics http://en.paralympic.beijing2008.cn/ everyday we live going for the gold for our clients. We jump hurdles, walk the balance beam and leap over the high bar to get results for them. We have worked with clients in Israel, India, England, Australia and across North America making us an international team. Our goal is help them gain branding, customers and industry recognition. With start-ups, we often begin as the underdog and eventually run to the head of the pack. More established players need to prove them selves and often we need to push them harder than ever before to go for the gold.

One of my favorite sports to watch is gymnastics. My son is a gymnast. He is only 8 and trains an intense 6 hours a week which might not seem like a lot. However, when your only 43 pounds you are breaking a sweat on the vault, rings, mat and bars. I admire his flexibility, can do attitude and dedication to go the distance. He has all the great qualities in a future Olympian and the same DNA I look for in hiring people. He watches the Olympics in amazement then tries one or two exercises on the floor…he is inspired and that keeps me inspired too. He was handpicked from several dozen kids to be on the Super Kids group to train for team. It’s an honor. Likewise, it is an honor for our clients to get hand picked for awards, speaking engagements and interviews. It doesn’t come easy but with team work, hard work and smart work the rewards are high.

PR people train for years to perfect their written and verbal skills. We get up early to greet editors in multiple time zones across the globe; we write copy over and over again, we ramp up on new technology and market segments over and over again. We challenge ourselves daily pushing the envelope for our clients, only hoping we win the gold for them. In this case, the gold is premium press coverage, speaking placements or an industry award.

We are inspired by our clients everyday. We root for them as they introduce new products into the arena. We chant for them when they participate in fundraising marathons and bicycle rides. We are their cheerleaders and their biggest fans. We empower them to be high-tech heroes.

Perhaps they will never make the cover of a Wheaties cereal box but they will be recognized in the industry….over and over again.

To monitor your Olympic hero your company in the news go to www.filtrbox.com.

Back to school? What happened to the endless summer? Childhood memories of slip and slide races, biking until dusk and heading to the beach sound so faint these days.

It’s been a busy summer meeting new and up and coming technology companies that are challenging the web 2.0 and enterprise 2.0 universe. I’ve seen products that promise to increase my desktop productivity, manage my social calendar, create viral coupon sites, manage spam, and secure the virtual data center and so on. It’s great to see that even during the summer months tech innovation is a live and well in the valley. Even after the summer if iPhone lines, the popularity of these gizmos are still popular and gaining ground for college bound students. I recently polled a few University of Colorado students at a cafe in Boulder, CO last week. Here’s their short list of must have tech gadgets for back to school.

1. Facebook. Gotta have it for keeping track of friends, family and potential post school jobs. +500 friends and you are guaranteed to party!
2. iPhone. Gotta have it but the folks have to pay for it.
3. Bluetooth head set. Need to be safe at all times but not required in all states.
4. Dell or Mac laptop. This seems to be split on the PC vs Mac but more lean to Mac for coolness.
5. iPod. Gotta have it even if you have an iPhone.
6. Battery operated blender. Yes, for all those Facebook friends!
7. Pay Pal account. Receive money from Mom and Dad easily.

According to a group of 7 and 8 year olds their must have back to school items are
1. iPhone
2. iPod
3. Any video game
4. Lunch box..but test it for lead.
5. Skateboard that sparks

So if your shopping for K-12 or college, you better get prepared to spend a lots of cash on back to school techno supplies!

There’s been a lot of online bantor about the pros and cons on making company announcements on Monday vs Tuesday. The Boomtown Rats wrote a song years ago “I don’t like Mondays” but for the most part Monday’s are not that bad at all. It’s the first day of the week to get turbo charged. Yes, it’s typically a busy news day but technically Tuesday is too according to recent stats published by various news reader group.s I’ve worked in the news room and no two days were alike or predictable. I’ve spoken to numerous PR peers and validated that the Monday vs Tuesday rule really a lot of smoke and mirrors…which is something most of us PR folks try to avoid.

Here’s our guidelines for issuing press releases:

Announcement Basics:

Make the release compelling. The basics of who, what, when and where still apply.
Focus on why vs how your technology is impacting the market.
Issue good news—Issue M-W
Less Important-Issue on Thursday or wait until the next week
Friday-Only if you want to bury it
If Monday is a holiday then aim for Tuesday or perhaps the next week.
Don’t make major announcements at trade shows unless it’s a show stopper or you conduct pre-briefs
Have a compelling company expert and at least 2 customer references. Customer is king and a good advocate will go a long way.

Tools of the Trade:

Use Social Media Releases when communicating to the bloggsphere.
Use traditional releases when reaching traditional pubs.
Keep the release two 2 pages if you can.
Use a trusted wire service such as Businesswire or PR Newswire. We like Businesswire because of the detailed reports and quality of service.
Some releases are designed to be momentum releases and don’t need outreach or wire service postings.
If you’re a publicly traded company releases need to be timed with earnings

Try Something New:

Make your release stand out in a crowd by including a wire photo or video clip
Be creative and use Facebook, LinkedIn or YouTube as an alternative to a traditional release
Create a virtual press kit that includes press release, .delicious and other cool links
Develop a customer Q&A on your website to compliment the press release
Experiment. Have fun and try something new….the skies the limit

Regardless, if you have a cool announcement on the latest and greatest techno widget you might get by on a Friday. We recently announced www.filtrbox on a Monday and were wildly successful. We had a two week lead time with most pubs and bloggers and provided them with detailed and insightful traditional and SMR releases to make their filing a story quick. To date we have more than 30 blog postings and coverage in major trades and business pubs. So the concept of waiting for Tuesday to arrive might have had less impact since in many cases Filtrbox was the feature story.

So take our advice. There’s no bad day if you have done your preparation, know your audience and are tenacious and friendly securing coverage.

Today we announced a very disruptive new media monitoring service–www.filtrbox.com. Being media junkies looking for content online can be very daunting. Searching through online pubs, blogs and social media sites is time consuming and counter productive at times. There are many a la carte services that monitor clips, traditional print editorial, social media services and blogs. However, with the exception of Google Alerts these services are expensive. Now imagine if you can have one solution to monitor, save and even share data with others. Starting at $20.00 a month for an individual account, Filtrbox provides a one stop solution for managing media content easily and affordably.

The founder of Filtrbox, Ari Newman, is driven to deliver the most robust media monitoring solution on the market. He is well on his way to making Filtrbox the summer mashup of the season. More than 2000 beta users have embraced the service to date. Many of these users are avid bloggers or associated with a major blog site. We will be saving approximately $5,000.00 a year in services using Filtbox as a media monitoring of choice. The service is ideal for advertising, marketing, PR, journalists, bloggers, and research professionals.

We will post a Del.icio.us page of hot coverage on this new service shortly. Meanwhile, go to https://www.filtrbox.com/signup.php to get a free trial of Filtrbox.

Today I received a call from a potential client wanting to know if we do “Social media PR.” The answer is of course it’s part of our media mix. There are a lot of PR agencies that tout they are social media agencies and have moved away from traditional PR strategies and best practices. One agency claimed they can do a social media blog campaign for $15,000.00 one time only. $5,000.00 just for the social media release. $10,000.00 for the media/blog campaign. Ouch! Very similar to the .com days when there were not enough web designers to create web sites. A basic one page website averaged 10K and spending 500K for a website wasn’t uncommon. Keep in mind that was still Web 1.0 not even 2.0. So even after a few years, the social media frenzy continues. There’s no secret to writing a social media press release, ….there are online sources for social media releases. Go to http://www.socialmediarelease.org/ or http://www.prxbuilder.com/x2/. There’s no secret on communicating with bloggers. They are just like members of traditional media but with much shorter and immediate deadlines.

As a public relations pro with two decades of experience, I have to step back and ponder if we have gone too far with social media. Instead of educating the social impact and purpose of social media, some agencies are adding to the social media hype that is confusing the market. The same way we adapted from print to online we have quickly adapted from traditional journalism to social media, video diaries, blogs etc. In my opinion, social media is a tool to facilitate communications with the online communities including video and bloggers. There is no hidden secret, no cult or special club these agencies have over LMGPR or any other agency. We are all free to log on, blog on, chat and Twitter with the online blogger world. Some agencies don’t choose to use social media at all….and I don’t recommend that approach.

If you recall, the migration from records to CDs it happened quickly. Likewise, the migration from CDs to iPods was lightening speed. Keeping up with the latest and greatest media tools is part of our professional responsibility. It is also our responsibility to use them wisely. However, many agencies are using social media tools as a “secret sauce”. We have enterprise clients that are less willing to use social media to promote their products. On the flip side we have Web 2.0 and service companies that live and breathe it and as a result a key part of their mix. Our secret sauce is getting our clients solid coverage to move their products or services and position them well in the media—new or old. According to David Spark, media expert, http://www.sparkmediasolutions.com/opinions04.html, there is a lot of ego involved in leveraging the Internet. I’ve spoken to David several times and think he has a good grip on new media, social media and keeping it in to perspective. He’s a former journalist turned media expert. Again, new media is a tool it’s another way to deliver the message…either way David is a journalist, media ace or media super hero. You pick. The bottom line his is using a variety of new media to tools to communicate.

Here’s our guidelines for using new media to better communicate your message:
1. Blend social media with a traditional media campaign
2. Experiment and use blogging, video, Twitter and other tools to see what fits
3. Leverage community sites such as Facebook and LinkedIn to promote your company amongst peers and products
4. Attend social media events…there’s way too many to list here….but got to www.mashable.com and you will get a good start.
5. Don’t hide behind technology. Pick up the phone and chat to a real person in real time….unless it’s not their fancy.
6. Choose what works for you and your clients.

The bottom line is be selective, have fun and don’t take your self too seriously. There will be some other wave of technology we will all be forced to learn, leverage and exploit soon enough.

Summer is here but going to Europe for a Roman holiday is out of question. The rising cost of fuel, air line prices and the Euro/US dollar……staying local but thinking global is hip.

Like many of you, I get a pain in my stomach when pumping $50.00 of gas into my four door luxury car. A year ago I downsized from my Volvo SUV to a smaller four door….and now it’s scooter time for me! Just like Audrey Hepburn and Gregory Peck in Roman Holiday http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jITw1fREQtQ I’m going to get about town affordably at 75 millions to the gallon on my new Vespa. There’s lots of choices http://www.vespausa.com/ depending on the need for speed and color too.

I’m not retiring four wells entirely but considering I’m solo most of the time a scooter is a good idea. Europeans and Asians have been sporting them for years. Not only can I pretend that I’m on holiday going around town, I’m saving gas and looking rather cool too. Even Max Well Smart is sporting a scooter in the upcoming movie.

This rage for scooters is gaining popularity in San Jose too. San Jose Mercury News has featured the craze today at http://www.mercurynews.com/ci_9609771. Yep, that’s my family with my new red scooter. It was a family decision…that was prompted by my husband purchasing an Aprilia scooter which is highway approved and http://uk.aprilia.com/njb_dettaglio.asp?id=310
Summer is here but going to Europe for a Roman holiday is out of question. The rising cost of fuel, air line prices and the Euro/US dollar……staying local but thinking global is hip.

Like many of you, I get a pain in my stomach when pumping $50.00 of gas into my four door luxury car. A year ago I downsized from my Volvo SUV to a smaller four door….and now it’s scooter time for me! Just like Audrey Hepburn and Gregory Peck in Roman holiday http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jITw1fREQtQ. I’m going to get about town affordably at 75 miles to the gallon on my new Vespa. There are lots of choices to at http://www.vespausa.com/ depending on the need for speed and color too.

I’m not retiring my four wells entirely but considering my family is only with me part of the time. A scooter is a good idea. Europeans and Asians have been sporting them for years. Not only can I pretend that I’m on holiday going around town, I’m saving gas and looking rather cool too. Even Max Well Smart is sporting a scooter in the upcoming movie.

This rage for scooters is gaining popularity in San Jose too. San Jose Mercury News has featured the craze today at http://www.mercurynews.com/ci_9609771. Yep, that’s my family with my new red scooter. It was a family decision…that was prompted by my husband purchasing an Aprilia scooter which is highway approved and http://uk.aprilia.com/njb_dettaglio.asp?id=310

It’s not every day you get a cover story…but it’s certainly one thing us PR folks live for. My local paper, the San Jose Mercury News, has been generous to give me another one….this time on the rising cost of petrol and the alternative transportation. There are about 131,000 scooter drivers in the USA according to the Motorcycle Industry Council, Scooter Manufacturers. I bought mine at http://www.sjvespa.com/. They have about 6 left so you better hurry.

Now, I need to take a quick flash back to 1966 and had to the San Jose Airport. They offered free commercial flights from “Land of Hearts Desire” (the name we used to call the Valley before going techie) to promote the airport. My father won one of the free demo flights from San Jose to the San Francisco. I was hardly old enough to rid a tricycle but my father was determined to be one of the first to ride the super jets well before the information super highways existed. We made the cover of the San Jose Mercury News then too. Times have changed but everything old is new again!

More information on scooters can be found at :

http://www.scooterridermag.com/links.html

http://www.scootercommunity.com.au/

http://scooterpress.rubbermag.com/0602/gt60.html