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.
Its stock lumbering along in the same trading range for years, Intel is one of those tech blue chips that many investors find dull, if stolid. But with the Atom, the company’s entry in the embedded processor market, Intel could be on the verge of going nuclear once again.
Michael O’Leary doesn’t quibble on his business model. To the Ryanair CEO, air travel is bus service with wings. Customers are packed on board and flown from Point A to Point B — period. Meals and all other “frills” cost extra. They even want to install pay toilets. At least they’re up-front about it.
The rise of M2M and, concurrently, today’s growing interest in using smart phones to perform M2M functions raises a question — Where M2M is concerned, will smart phones’ retail approach to BSS one day live side-by-side with or overlap systems specifically designed for M2M?
Remember those old War on Drugs commercials? Where they crack an egg into a sizzling pan and say “This is your brain on drugs?” PR can have that effect, too. Get an ordinarily lucid CEO going on the subject of PR and suddenly he’s strung out. The guy is clearly fried, the brain part anyway.
When Virgin Mobile USA’s announcement on its all-you-can eat mobile data plan leaked prematurely this week via Facebook I read a different story into the news: Could it be that the venerable institution of the press release is breathing its last?
A client asked why their press release bill was 3X higher than before. Though the answer was a no-brainer — they issued 1 press release one month and 3 the next — I was reminded that these days everybody is mindful of costs. In the future I’ll ask: “Are you sure you want to do this release?”
Long ago when social media was new a company we know had the opportunity to write a weekly guest blog. They opted to “first wait and see what the competition does.” That attitude puzzled me at first. Now I see that gearing corporate strategy to follow versus lead is the rule.
Steve Jobs lashed out at competitors last week, calling their handsets’ reception just as spotty as the iPhone’s. RIM and Motorola fired back, claiming their units’ antennas work far better than Apple’s. How all this “neener neener” will help iPhone owners deal with dropped calls is anybody’s guess, but it’s good theater in an otherwise dull summer.
June 1982. Israel invades Lebanon. U.S./Arab tensions peak. Protesters storm the American Embassy in Islamabad. Wheels down in Karachi at 3am, it’’s 90 degrees and I’m en route to the ancient Indus Valley city of Harappa. I was raised in the 1960s. “Riots” here seem mild compared to Watts.
Call it a case of “Ailing Giants Force Their Way to the Future.” Microsoft this week embraced cloud computing. Intel reported record sales driven by demand for more powerful hard drives. It’s like Carnegie and Rockefeller planning 22nd century space travel. Does the future want or need them?
