My first reaction was to get obnoxiously literal about that quote from Eric Ries, author of the new book, The Lean Startup. Yep, launching something bad with a full-court PR press is a bad idea, buddy. But clearly Ries is making a deeper statement about hype and expectations, and to tell you the truth, he’s got a point.

To rewind a minute, Ries’ concept of the lean startup is a powerful one, highlighting the market truth that bubbles love to ignore: efficient and evolving win (nearly) every time. Low overhead, rapid response time,the ability to sense an audience shift and position to meet the need — these are the almost legendary advantages of startup companies, particularly as opposed to the comparatively hulking behemoths of big enterprise.

But startups are also prone to a cart-before-horse mistake that can eliminate that natural strength: the temptation to get too big for their britches. Hype is a problem both internally (see in-house massage therapists) and externally (see this depressing infographic on the 14 greatest dot com bombs), and Mr. Lean Startup has a very valid point about focusing on the product and the market rather than the cool quotient. My beef is that “amping up expectations” is not the only, or even the best use of PR.

Put aside your Mad Men-ish concept of the slick promo guys, and look simply at the term “public relations.” Ries may be quite right to beat up on the old-school pump-it-up megaphone world of press releases and sponsorships when it comes to startups. But today’s (quality) PR is about a company having both a voice and a working pair of ears — exactly the communicative tools required to be responsive and open. And the very best PR people also offer a constant reality check on your broader market prospects, asking probing questions about what you offer, how, and why. They are a vital part of the feedback loop you need to survive and grow.

Lean startups make sense — but that’s lean, not emaciated. And a seasoned communications coach is a part of the team, shaping the perception of your company by helping to shape your company while it is still impressionable and fresh.

“Back up a second,” I say. “You’re forgetting Priority #1.”

Most people assume that the key job of PR is to win media coverage, raise brand awareness and help fuel revenue growth. In fact, that stuff only comes after you attend to Priority #1: The FUBAR Checklist — a comprehensive examination, in advance, of everything that might go wrong.

If you don’t consider all the ways that your company or client can screw up, you’re asking for the PR Gods to descend from the heavens and give you a public flogging.

Though FUBAR Checklists may vary by industry, mine looks something like the following:

Product/Service Announcements

• “Firstness.” Everybody wants to claim a first. A true “first” can be major news. “We’re first!” is also the most abused product/service claim. So ask: Is the product truly a first in the industry, or is it just a first for the company? There’s a big difference. Nobody cares if your company is launching a me-too product for the first time in an already crowded field. They especially don’t care if your launch is just a re-branding of an existing product already in your portfolio.
• Availability. Is the product/service “GA” (generally available, i.e., can people buy it once announced), or planned for some indefinite GA launch day in the future?  If it’s just a dream in some product engineer’s head, you’ll find out why media scorn such announcements as vaporware.
• Timing. Start with the obvious and check the calendar for conflicts with holidays. Then expand the field to look at anything that might compete with your announcement and syphon off media interest: (1) scheduled earnings announcements by competitors; (2) planned events where major tech companies have a history of issuing big stories (Apple Worldwide Developer’s Conference comes to mind); (3) planned tech events such as SXSW that will hog the headlines. If there’s a conflict with any of these, pick a better day.
• Partner SNAFUs. If you’re integrating another company’s product with your own, or OEM’ing a product/service, make sure they’re on board with the timing of your announcement. Otherwise, expect delays. Never ever offer a journalist an advance on an announcement that involves a partner. The partner will for sure hold up the story, possibly forcing you to reschedule or cancel the interview.

Spokesperson(s)

• Availability. Never assume that the C-level executive breathing down your neck to get a service announcement ready will actually be on-hand for interviews when the story goes on the wire. Make sure they’re in. If necessary, even stage the timing of the announcement around the primary spokesperson’s availability. Have two back-up spokespersons on-board, just in case. We once had an SVP — the primary spokesperson — board a plane for Hawaii on the day of his division’s big service launch. Fortunately we had backup spokespersons.
• Media Training. In the same way that all C-level bios give the impression that the subject sprang from the womb as a manager, many top executives feel that media skills are the birthright of corporate leadership. Don’t believe it. Train them anyway.
• Technical Familiarity. Just because your spokesperson sits in the corner office doesn’t mean he or she can talk the bits and bytes of a complex technical product or service. Nine times out of 10, they can’t. Always have a tech expert — who is also media trained — on hand and ready to step in and help with tough technical questions.

Skeletons in the Closet

• Secret News. Is the company hiding any “surprise” announcements that might conflict with or undermine your campaign? Is HR planning a layoff? Is Facilities about to close a city office, plant, contact center? Is a key senior executive about to leave (or join) the company? If any of these “secret” events are in the offing, then that — and not your announcement — will be the day’s story. This is not an idle concern: We had a Canadian software company announce a layoff the same day we launched their new product. We had, in fact, asked in advance if any bad news was in the offing. They lied and said no. Guess which story the Globe and Mail covered? Guess which client I fired that day?
• Checkered Past. If an executive has in any way been involved in any questionable activity in the past, it will come out. We were once tasked with announcing a new CEO named — I kid you not — Jerry Felon. As it happened, Mr. Felon’s most recent employer was a West Coast software firm under federal investigation for creative accounting. We asked the rude question about Felon’s possible involvement in the scam and were assured in advance that he was squeaky clean. Out came the news, “XYZ Software Names Felon CEO.”  Three years later Felon left XYZ under mysterious circumstances. Subsequent headline:  “Felon Indicted by the U.S. Department of Justice.”

Granted, there is no guarding against random events. Earthquakes, floods, tornadoes, hurricanes, financial collapses and widespread panic do happen. Not your fault if you announced a new app for sharing butterfly images that day.

Or an editor might decide that your CEO’s face is going to share the cover with the photo of another business leader. . .who happens to be a drag queen. . .as happened to me once.  Here, too, a thorough FUBAR Checklist can save the day and prepare you to handle the infuriated CEO’s call demanding an explanation.

CEO: “How the hell did this happen?!”

Jim: “I don’t know, but look at the upside.”

CEO: “WHAT upside?”

Jim: “Well, at least they didn’t reverse the captions.”

“Who’re you calling old?!” yells Jim, the veteran PR guy, seasoned content and speech writer, and, yep, former journalist. Well, you, boss, and it’s a valid and important point. As Jim detailed in that post, his background as a brash reporter, digging for information, spotting stories in the making, and producing high-impact content on deadline has made him the bubble-bursting PR guy people want on their side. From PR strategy and media training to product launches and IPOs, it pays to have hard-earned knowledge of what makes a story — for an audience of journalists, customers, investors, or whomever — great.

And yet, it’s also true that PR is not the traditional media-focused business that it was just ten years ago, when even serious practitioners were still waving around AVE figures to justify the expense of their services. Today’s social public relations requires immersion in different tools, different priorities, different strategies, both requiring and benefiting from types of information that simply haven’t been available before. And yes, anti-journo crowd, those are skill sets that a creaking (ha!) old reporter may not have in his back pocket.

But that’s where I — and my PR generation — come in.  I have no background in journalism, but what my nose for news doesn’t tell me, I can find in the data. What was once nebulous (if invaluable) buzz urging an acquisition price up or putting a business “top of mind” for potential clients is now, for those who can read it, a potential feedback loop. We can craft and recraft campaigns as we go, integrating actual response data to focus on what works and drop what doesn’t. While many companies still recoil in fear from the touchy-feely cloud of social media, what we’ve found there is a revolution in PR performance: finally, the real datafication of relationship and reputation building.

What does it all mean for PR teams and professionals? Probably that experienced Zen masters of narrative and strategy creation who enter reverse mentoring relationships with younger tech-heads will be able to offer clients the best of both worlds — experience, perspective, rapid-fire and top-notch content creation, innovative thinking, and hard numbers to back it all up. Former journalists, young tech PR folks, and clients rejoice!

Imagine being a journalist in this predicament. How do you do your job when you can’t find the news? How do you follow up for more information or an interview when, as often happens, you can’t even locate the press contacts?

Recently I was interested in looking up a pair of fiber optics companies — a hot field given the rapid rise of data centers needing high bandwidth connectivity. Once on their home pages, however, I found that trying to locate their news rooms was like a treasure hunt. When I finally discovered where they hid the press releases I was astounded to see that somebody had omitted or stripped out the press contacts. Of course they had no separate page identifying media contacts, either.

Out of curiosity, I called the general number for one of these companies to find out why they deliberately bury their news. After being routed around, I eventually ended up speaking with a marketing person who shed light on her company’s “PR practices.” In sum, they don’t much care what journalists think, and for that matter seldom talk to press. As long as the company puts an announcement on the wire and gets the usual number of syndicated press release postings, it thinks it’s doing PR and is satisfied with the results. Having their story lost among thousands of other syndicated release posts is just fine with them.

Hanging up, I returned to the company’s web site for another look, this time at media coverage. The last story written about them was two years old. I marveled at the feats of ingenuity and perseverance the reporter must have exercised to get that piece written. Because the company has undertaken numerous significant activities since that time — major product launches, new markets opened, huge customer wins, vital rounds of new financing won — I also wondered at the obvious lost opportunities in PR. What a waste: all that time and money spent writing announcements that nobody sees.

Learn from this. For your company’s sake, always:

1. Highlight “News” on the Home Page. Make your RSS news feed one of the first things visitors see. Or at the very least, provide easy navigation to a news room.
2. Segment News from Other Items. Put announcements in one place and keep it clean of non-news items such as webinars and trade shows.  If you have media coverage, put that in a separate category to avoid cluttering your announcements section.
3. Keep the Media Contacts on the Release. Don’t make reporters work hard to find you.  Include the contact’s name, email address, wireline and wireless numbers.
4. Create a Media Contacts Page. Larger companies often have multiple contacts responsible for specific segments of the business. Creating a separate contacts page highlighting all media contact info is a huge boon to press. If you use a PR agency, include their contact info here, too — if a reporter needs info after hours, he or she may call the agency first, knowing it’s their job to be available 24 X 7.

Alternately, you can follow the example of companies that make it next to impossible for journalists to follow and cover them. Just remember: When you’re hard to find, it’s you that’s lost.

I took the liberty of intervening. Simple enough. All I had to do: find and share with my pal a copy of the public policy position of his company’s clients. That killed the op ed. Following an urgent call by my friend, the agency called the daily newspaper and pulled the piece before it ran. In the aftermath I wondered: How the heck did this near disaster progress so far?

Answer: lack of senior counsel. There are many excellent agencies, and my friend’s PR reps were most certainly one such, in most regards. However, this one instance revealed a common shortcoming of many agencies — inexperience. That means thinking of everything that might happen.

In PR, it’s essential to consider both the upside and downside.  The upside in this case: (1) a hot, timely issue the client could leverage; (2) an interested media outlet; and (3) a well-written op ed sure to attract attention. The downside: the position was all wrong. The moment this piece aired, half a score of outraged clients would have dumped my friend’s company as a service provider. My pal would likely have been out of a job, too.

Whether aimed at customers or policymakers, the message must support your company’s position and brand — and never run afoul of your own customers. “Gee, we didn’t think of that” is no excuse. There is no margin of error in this business. Everything you do must have a point and produce intended results. Learn how.

Fact is, not every “story” a client considers hot stuff is really worth a press release. Make sure it has genuine news value before pushing the button on editorial costs to create it, staff, management and customer time/resources to review & approve it, and wire service costs to distribute it.

What’s newsworthy? New products. Client wins. Major partnerships. Key new hires and promotions. Some awards, i.e., those sponsored by a key industry organization or media that can add luster to your reputation with customers — but first make sure that the entity bestowing the award will participate by providing a press release quote; if they have a special “award logo” you can post on your home page, even better. Just one caveat: Recognize that other media rarely run coverage on a competitor’s awards program. However, you’ll get the usual postings on Yahoo Finance, etc., and the award logo looks spiffy on your home page.

As long as we’re in penny-pinching mode, here’s an updated version of one of our most popular blogs, “10 Ways to Save on PR.”

1. Hire Agencies that Hire Journalists. Reporters are trained to ferret out a news angle quickly, make it compelling and produce results on deadline. Emphasis on speed and performance translates to lower billable hours.
2. Always Ask What it’s Worth. Product development teams tend to think that everything they invent is priceless. Counter by asking how much revenue it will generate. Allocate PR resources accordingly.
3. Focus on 3 or 4 Big Stories. Ask management to list the top stories they want highlighted in the coming 6 – 12 months. Focusing on “what’s big” ensures a consistent story line and strong image. Diffuse PR programs undercut the brand and waste hours.
4. Brief the Account Team. Many an hour is lost because the client pulled its agency into a project at the last minute with no prep. Time spent up-front leads to high-impact, cost-effective results.
5. Use “Straw Man” PR Plans. A bulleted one-pager on goals, news, message, spokespersons and media targets is easy/cheap to create, and gets the attention of the execs you design it for. Sir Winston Churchill refused to read any memo longer than half a page.  Your execs think the same way.
6. Shop Around for Wire Services.  This is the Internet Age.  There is no excuse for vendors that charge $hundreds/$thousands for electronic press release transmissions that cost them pennies. Look for better deals from new online distribution services — after you first check that they offer the same breadth of distribution and immediate turnaround as the Big Boys.
7. Distribute Locally – Never Nationally.  The only reason to use any wire service is to push your announcement to search engines.  The same SEs receive your release whether you distribute it with a local dateline (low price) or nationwide (high price).  Always go local.
8. Keep Press Releases Short.  A  press release should be a door-opener with reporters, not a warehouse of technical or marketing gibberish.  Keep releases short and simple — like a wire service story — to generate interviews and coverage and cut content creation and wire service costs.
9. Re-Purpose Content.  Writing is expensive. Editing is cheap. If a subject is hot enough for a white paper, it may also be good for a blog, podcast or bylined article. Maximize your mileage on content by adapting it to multiple vehicles. (As an example, this year Crawford has created 15 home page blogs for one client and placed nearly every one of them, with only minor changes, as a “guest blog” or byline with the customer’s targeted media.  Blog creation and external placement were included in the monthly retainer — the client didn’t pay one nickel extra.)
10. Keep Meeting and Reporting Time to a Minimum.  Take a close look at your line-item agency invoice. You may be amazed at how much time is devoted to weekly meetings and reports.  It shouldn’t take that long for the agency to say what they’ve done and plan to do. Streamline the report, too.  Fancy, colorful spreadsheets overflowing with tabs on last year’s results, this year’s editorial calenders, next year’s trade shows and other filler are a waste of time. The weekly report should focus on one thing: Key action items. Period.

Get to it, my fellow Scrooges. PR is always your best and most lasting form of promotion, marketing, and yes, advertising — and the cheapest, too.

Always announce your presence — plant that flag!

Tell industry analysts and journalists you’re open for business and poised to turn competitors’ worlds upside down.

Emphasize what’s unique about your company — the differentiators that make your product or service unbeatable.

Prove it by pointing to big-name customers already on board.

Create a home page blog, Facebook page and twitter presence and fill them with fresh content at every opportunity — daily, if possible.

Provide a comment section on your blog so customers can join in.

Turn up the volume.

Otherwise, why launch at all? When PR is on mute, who can see or hear you?

Software-driven automation is the basis of modern civilization and much of our work life.  Think about it.  Virtually every aspect of day-to-day business now relies on a program.  All but the really key things, that is.  For instance, software doesn’t think — not really, with all due respect to AI — it just follows rules set by thinkers.  And it can’t create a thing.

I see these shortcomings as cause for hope & celebration.

The other day, poring over the latest distressing news about IT spending cuts, RIFs and unemployment, I suddenly brain-segued into a daydream, or rather daynightmare, about a future time when we devolve to a true worker bee environment.  You know, where there’s a queen hatching all the drones, who work their little stingers off through the warm months, then croak at the first frost and are replaced by a new swarm the next year.  Corporate bean-counters would get along well in a hive environment, I believe.

But it has its limits in the non-bee world.  Here a manager can only stoke profits so much for so long by zapping worker bees.  Eventually, somebody has to produce the honey.   It needs a product launch, marketing and promotion.  That involves thinking, creativity and the translation of ideas into visions made of words and images that will stimulate the buying public.

In sum, great content.  Can’t be automated.  A real live woman or man has to do it.  Queen bees of the world, eat your hearts out.

Although Dyer didn’t launch the movement, for many he embodies the cult of positive thinking so superbly lampooned in Barbara Ehrenreich’s “Bright-Sided: How the Relentless Promotion of Positive Thinking Has Undermined America.”  Ehrenreich finds “there is no kind of problem or obstacle for which positive thinking or a positive attitude has not been proposed as a cure.”  She has no beef with feeling good.  Her targets are those who substitute “mind over matter” for Reason.  To Ehrenreich, it’s fine for Deepak Chopra to tell fourth stage cancer patients that positive thinking will improve their quality of life.  But offering them the false hope that thinking will add a single day to their lives is, to Ehrenreich, a lie or worse — an all-too-convenient way to gloss over and minimize their very real life crisis.  Equally appalling: the motivator’s mantra that we “attract” negative outcomes by thinking about them.  Try telling those who are ill, unemployed or both that it’s their fault for “holding the wrong thoughts.”

If you doubt the negative potential of positive thinking, remember that it was mindless confidence in Wall Street that led to the financial meltdown of 2008.

Ehrenreich’s ideas are anathema to many in America, where we associate optimism with “the good” and relentlessly cleave to a positive outlook.  But in abandoning the intellect for dogma of any kind, we give up something far greater: the truth.  PR, in that case, is mere propaganda.

I, for one, refuse.  Whenever some giddy optimist asks my advice on a project he or she claims “will change the world and introduce a new paradigm,” I put it to the test with 13 questions:

1. What is the core news story, in 10 words or less?
2. How does this news “move the dime” on what you’ve already done?
3. How exactly is it new, different or better than what anyone else has done before?
4. Can you prove your claim with independent third party analysis?
5. Can you support it with customer testimonials?

If the answers validate the news, I proceed to the next 8 questions:

1. Has any journalist covered this or kindred topics before, and if so, who?
2. Was the coverage positive?  Then these are the top media targets.
3. Do any analysts or journalists have a known bias against the news topic, and if so, how will we deal with them?
4. Does the planned announcement date overlap with any major industry event like a trade show?  There is little point in making a major announcement when key press are out of their offices.  If the announcement date is set in stone and conflicts with a show, it might be wise to attend the event, issue the release there and hold interviews on-site.
5. Does the announcement date bump up against any other potential conflicts, e.g., major holidays, earnings announcements of competitors (particularly larger ones), or the SEC “quiet period” surrounding your company’s own quarterly financial statements?
6. Will the spokesperson be available for interviews on the day of the announcement, and just in case, are there back-up spokespersons to handle overflow interviews?
7. Are the spokespersons media trained, i.e., when you put them in front of an analyst or journalist, will they know how to comport themselves?
8. What is your contingency plan if management pulls back from the announcement after it’s already out and TV crews are lined up outside for interviews. (Happened to me once.)

Many a Pollyanna has exited such sessions deflated and convinced I’m the PR equivalent of “Dr. No.”  Others cut me off at Question #2, angry that I would dare challenge their idea.  “You are so negative!” is the usual charge.  Not true.  I’m as upbeat as they come.  I just ask the tough questions up-front.  A realistic approach based on honest appraisal of the facts always puts me in a positive frame of mind.  Thank you for reminding us all, Barbara!