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.
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?
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.
This just in: Major offshore tech firm opens its first U.S. office. They leased space, installed comms systems, put up a sign, hired staff and printed business cards. They did everything, in fact, except tell customers. Seems somebody flicked the mute button on PR. What a waste.
Seth Godin writes that authors shouldn’t plan on making money from their books unless they’ve already done so. Working for free is a key plank of “Freeconomics” marketing. But when this concept penetrates business at a more general level — as is happening — it’s poison to profits.
In tech PR, blogging for business — or any aspect of communications — there are certain things “one just doesn’t do.” Or so say those in the know. But what do they know, really? Personally, I’ve always leaned toward the things I’m not supposed to. Common sense can be a bore. I love iconoclasm.
Every year, tech PR departments and their agencies begin the rite of reviewing editorial calendars for the coming months’ story opportunities. Is the ritual still worth the time in today’s fast-changing media environment?
My last exposure to math was the final question in a high school physics exam: “If a dog is sitting at the bottom of a six-foot window and sees a man fall past, how fast is the man plummeting?” My answer: “What’s the dog got to do with it?” Since that day I’ve nurtured a healthy distrust of math, which — fortunately for me — has no place in my chosen profession of PR.
Yesterday a colleague called, all aglow that he’d placed a “major blog comment” on a national news article for one of his clients. “Major blog comment?” I mused. “Um. . .Isn’t that a contradiction in terms?”
Something there is that doesn’t love a factory. It’s not just the grimy smokestacks, heat or the piercing ring of steel on steel, but the soulless labor of a mill. When I hear “content” — the work of inspiration and genius — juxtaposed with “factory,” it’s the crash of two opposed worlds colliding.
