In IT, a black box is a program that measures output against input in complex systems.
This Black Box is designed to help companies achieve a similar goal in PR. Black Box provides our candid input—based on several lifetimes of experience—for companies that want to measure and improve the performance of PR programs.
The first time I saw a man walking down the street jabbering on a cell phone, I said to myself, “What an idiot.” Now when kids weave all over the road while texting or guys in a restaurant pontificate into their “jawbones,” I think the same. But this isn’t another blog slamming mobile misdeeds.
A prominent socialmedialite brags that he kept his blog going while on vacation by writing 14 pieces in advance and setting them up to post daily. His admission to using canned content hints he had nothing to say that couldn’t wait. That being the case, why post so religiously?
As a kid I joked that when the Revolution came, lawyers would be the first ones put up against a wall. Later, when I learned that they aren’t really here to help but only to fire people, I added HR execs. Today it’s all those who screen social media before it’s “safe” for posting.
A common thread runs through many BSS/OSS companies we met with at the recent B/OSS Conference and Expo. Many firms overlook a vital tool in their PR programs: social media. It’s as if, for them, blogs, Facebook and Twitter just don’t exist.
Last year a handful of lost souls, fatigued to the core by Web 2.0, opted to “Kevork” their entire social media presence. Mercy killings were available via Suicide Machine and Seppukoo. What drives Man to abandon virtual life? Privacy issues and spamola.
In business we’re conditioned to think big, want more, and right away. Success is gauged by mass markets won instantly. In social media we want followers by the thousand. Are huge “body counts” the ideal goal? Better that your audience be well-defined. The mass part can come after.
Are you as sick of hearing “think outside the box” as I am? The phrase is as silly and meaningless as a mantra. Who the heck thinks “inside a box”? The same tired thinkers urging the rest of us to mentate outside one. Let’s box their ears. Maybe something will shake loose upstairs.
Seth Godin presents a cogent case for hand-crafted work. Matthew Crawford offers a similar argument in Shop Class as Soulcraft. Can tech PR and social media benefit from this approach? Contrarian it might seem, but the PR you make “by hand” always outperforms the mass-produced.
Novelist Mark Helprin stepped in a hornet’s nest when he asserted that intellectual property rights should be assigned to an author or artist for as long as Congress sees fit. Not surprisingly, those most incensed were the Internet Freedom crowd — “Digital Barbarians” to Helprin.
Blogging is now so big that the word itself seems too small. Though both involve the blending of ingredients, you wouldn’t lump baking and chemistry in one category, would you? Herewith a handful of terms that better define discrete types of blogs and bloggers.
