Hard News: Post Foo
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And I'd love to tell you about how [REDACTED] is only a couple of weeks away from a big (and possibly controversial) deal with [REDACTED]. But I can't …
What a tease! Looking forward to it...
but in the meantime, can you, or someone else who was there, give us some of the highlights of this, if that doesn't break any Foo house rules.
The surprise hit for me was the session run by Erica Lloyd and Juha Saarinen about pitching stories and relating to journalists, where I chipped in quite a bit from the floor. The three of us were worried that we were dispensing the bleeding obvious, but we got feedback about it for the rest of the event.
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Sue,
oh how awesome lucy made it up
i love felt, and what Lucy is doing -
That Wrightspeed X1 is awesome. Could be awesomely dangerous too! I remember several times in Melbourne seeing pedestrians and cars almost get hit by trams (and one car get cleanly sliced in half - brrr) which are similarly quiet in their movement and acceleration. A car that can get to 100kmh in 30m making about as much noise as an air conditioning unit would catch a lot of people by surprise. OTOH, a tram is extremely heavy and has crap traction and no ability to turn, and has to be in the middle of the road.
Love it. Hope I have a spare 100k when it hits the market. I was a bit disappointed to be described as a null set - a petrol head who cares about global warming. I really don't see the contradiction.
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but in the meantime, can you, or someone else who was there, give us some of the highlights of this, if that doesn't break any Foo house rules.
It was oriented around the tech industry, but ...
- Think about what a story is, particularly for TV, which needs pictures (and pictures of computer screens don't count). If you have the ability to bring in "good talent" (ie: a good interview subject with a good story to tell) it can be worth the investment.
- Don't PR spam: a personal email from someone who has taken the trouble to think about what I might be interested in and even suggest an angle is much more effective than a press release banged out to a long list of people, regardless of whether it's relevant. (Also, don't make people launch an attachment to find out what you're saying. If in doubt, you can put the info in both the message body and that lovingly-crafted Word document.)
- It's okay to follow up by phone or email, but don't get your nose out of joint if your journalist has to be reminded about your original email. S/he might have had a couple of dozen of them that day.
- Don't throw a wobbly if the story doesn't turn out to be the product promotion you envisaged. If you want advertising, pay for advertising.
- Never demand copy approval -- it makes journalists' lives impossible -- but it is okay to suggest that the journalist can call you back to check points of fact, especially on a complex story.
- Providing facts and figures as background information is helpful.
- Most journalists will be okay about hearing information they can't immediately go to press with, or to get a tip that can't be attributed, but it's difficult to do this with first building some trust. Going on and off the record repeatedly in an interview is just confusing.
- Journalists will happily go to a comms person for corporate comment, but having to interview someone who's actually hands-on via a PR person is maddening. Brief such people on the limits of what they can say (media train them if you must) and let them say it.
- Don't get so carried away with your media training and "bridging" that you don't actually directly answer any questions.
- It's okay to say that you can't comment on a particular question. It's better than expounding on something you're not qualified to comment on.
- Don't give someone the impression they have an exclusive on something then go behind their backs and promise the same thing to someone else.
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oh how awesome lucy made it up
i love felt, and what Lucy is doingDamn shame you couldn't join us, Sue. It would be cool to have a makers' room next year.
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The three of us were worried that we were dispensing the bleeding obvious, but we got feedback about it for the rest of the event.
Meh... the 'bleeding obvious' is like 'common sense' -- it needs to be repeated fairly often, because it ain't as obvious or common as you might think.
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I'm often staggered by the number of people (smart people as well) who haven't got the faintest idea about how the media works, what drives a journalist to write a particular story from a particular angle or indeed what the limits are...
Things I've heard lately:
"Who said they can write that?"
"I just buy an ad and they'll print a story about it as well."
"Everyone gets to see the copy before it goes out - how else would it work?" (that one from a journalist. Sorry, "journalist").
"Sorry, even if nothing else happened, that's not going to be a lead on the TV news tonight." (OK, that one was me).I was always opposed to media training but I think a lot of folk could do with training about the media as well as training in how to talk to the media.
Cheers
Paul
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It seems like the whole point of FOO is to be there in person - consequently a bit frustrating to want reports from those who weren't there.
After listening to the Nat's podcast / (& Ian Wright)
It seems that FOO is a kind of a personal multi tasking accelerator so that relationships between all the attendees are all improved for the other projects. The physical equivalent of very high bandwidth...
Ian Wright on electric cars is also very timely. 5% of world pop and 44% of fuel consumption etc. What was intriuging about Ian's podcast is the back story about how the project is being sold now.
Great to hear him mention the business model and the reasons why their focus on performance is helping to make the project successful.
Sharp business thinking and a great idea = all good.
In his view offering something more than energy efficiency is the way to drive the brand and ultimately open up other choices as the community of interest changes.
His summary of the Californian experience on electric cars - i.e car co's HAD to make electric cars which they did at a loss and then when the law changed they were scrapped.
It would have been good to make comparisons with the Norwegian Think EV car which looks like it may prove to be one of the first large scale successes for electric cars. Think car
Perhaps there is more on Ian's website
wrightspeed and the Cleantech blog looks like it may be worth tracking also.
"First, Ian doesn’t care about gas mileage per se – he cares about performance, power, and most importantly, payback."
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I was always opposed to media training but I think a lot of folk could do with training about the media as well as training in how to talk to the media.
I can understand why you're opposed to 'media training' -- which has a rather unpleasant, and largely justified, odor about it. But it seems to me that a lot of what you're talking about is a pretty basic understanding of how the news flow works, and pretty basic marketing. My bugbear is seeing really bad press releases where the hook is nowhere to be seen. OK, its there but I'm not going to hunt it down when I've skimming my inbox with a finger on the delete key.
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In his view offering something more than energy efficiency is the way to drive the brand and ultimately open up other choices as the community of interest changes.
I'm surprised it's taken so long for people to work it out. Sci-fi lovers like me have always dreamed of a future where cars are better in every way, not just cheaper on gas. It would bum me out to be explaining to my son in 20 years that cars used to be a lot choicer, but now it's just not allowed to have a good car.
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In my experience, the majority of the time in a media training session is indeed educating people about the media (exactly the stuff Russell outlined) and setting their expectations, rather than (supposedly) clever ways to answer questions.
The ideal should be to develop a partnership and relationship between an interesting company spokesperson and the media. I'd like to think that media training helps journalists on the receiving end, particularly when a story about something 'new' is being proactively pitched. Re-acting to enquiries from a journalist during an issue or crisis is a different matter (and assumes investigative journalism is alive and well).
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It was oriented around the tech industry, but ...
Thanks for the commonsense reminders RB .... just on part of that, I think its fair to say that from the PR perspective, it isn't always easy as you would think to know exactly what story is going to be of media interest (and I've heard many a journalist say the same thing with regards to their own editors - sometimes what you think is an absolute cracker gets relegated to page 13, and something that feels minor ends up front page <insert quizzical looks>).
I'd agree that a lot of people don't necessarily understand just how the media operates as a business, or have some misconceptions about how much control over media can be exercised. Add that to the ever-widening range and nature of media channels, all with different ways of working, or potentially different motivations, and one can see that every now and then a commonsense reminder is bloody useful.
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Sue,
RB
i have enough supplies in this house for a makers room
i'm pissed i couldn't make it happenbut at least we have craftstock, and oodles of supplies meant for foo will be there
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Add that to the ever-widening range and nature of media channels, all with different ways of working, or potentially different motivations, and one can see that every now and then a commonsense reminder is bloody useful.
ITA -- and it also helps to remember that the traditional/MSM outlets aren't the only game in town. I'm not on the tech/geek tip, but I read a lot of lit-blogs that aren't covering exactly the same terrain as (say) The New York Times or The Guardian, and being read by a highly literary readership. Sure, the holy grail would still be the front-page of the NYTimes book review, but there's only 50 of those a year. Getting buzz on the top-tier book blogs and sites is nothing to sneer at, especially if you're a small indie publisher whose ability to go on a PR blitz (or send out hundreds of review copies) is severely limited.
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One highlight of foo was that Nat Torkington got to use the phrase "circle jerk" on National Radio.
"I just buy an ad and they'll print a story about it as well."
Well yes, but it is incredibly annoying to be called up by a trade mags advertising department, informed they are running a section on your specific area of business and then never hear a peek from the journalists running the stories.
I don't expect paid advertising to impact on how my company is reported but to be asked for $10k and then not get a sniff of inclusion in the reportage is a bit cheeky.
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Sue,
i'm always amused that when i send out a few press releases i am automatically contacted by the advertising teams from paper X asking me for money, and in return they will ensure i get coverage for craft2.0.
i have no money for advertising
so i've stopped sending certain papers my release -
"Sorry, even if nothing else happened, that's not going to be a lead on the TV news tonight."
Common sense, the bleeding obvious, and solid general knowledge are, ironically, often rare as hen's teeth. Last week I had a client who wanted a marketing stunt that would get them on the news this Thursday. The fact that it that would be the day after Waitangi Day in an election year had completely passed them by.
I'd agree that a lot of people don't necessarily understand just how the media operates as a business, or have some misconceptions about how much control over media can be exercised.
I had a strange conversation over Christmas with my father about the "fact" that the New Zealand media is "banned" from showing images of Heather Simpson, Helen Clark's Chief of Staff...
Can't imagine the Herald complying with that one, somehow.
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It seems like the whole point of FOO is to be there in person - consequently a bit frustrating to want reports from those who weren't there ...
It seems that FOO is a kind of a personal multi tasking accelerator so that relationships between all the attendees are all improved for the other projects. The physical equivalent of very high bandwidth...
Along with novel routing ... people talk to people they normally wouldn't talk to, and talk to people they know well in a different context than usual, including way into the night over a few drinks.
Nat also passed on Ian Wright's comment that Kiwi Foo was more level and relaxed than US Foo Camp, where there are quite a few people desperate to prove themselves. You're not gonna get digirati fame out of our one, but you might get together with someone who really helps you (which was certainly the case for me this year).
I still struggle a bit with not being able to invite everyone and not reporting everything (both my natural instincts) but there's real value for the technical people especially in being able to say to a small group of their peers "here's what we're working on" or "here's where we really fscked up".
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I don't expect paid advertising to impact on how my company is reported but to be asked for $10k and then not get a sniff of inclusion in the reportage is a bit cheeky.
I reckon you're within your rights to drop the journalist a line and say you'd heard the supplement was going in and that you might have some material of interest for it. You'll most probably be welcomed -- unless you mention the advertising.
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i have enough supplies in this house for a makers room
I can haz laser-etcher? Somebody must have one ...
On the evidence of this year there will be a lot of MacBook Pros to decorate. They are clearly now teh geek machine.
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I can haz laser-etcher?
NO! Don't give the man anything that emits a beam of coherent light. He's scary enough with the Broil-King! :)
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Thanks for that summary, Russell. Interesting to see what works and what doesn't in that relationship between PR and journalism, and from the point of view of an outsider, to read an article and think about what input the company / PR people / whoever had. It's handy to have some tools to hand to deconstruct and get to what's really going on behind a newspaper or magazine story.
Okay, pomo moment over.
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This was my first ever Foo session, and while Erica was cool as a cucumber, I was quite nervous in front of so many people talking about something that really is, as Craig says, common sense.
However, the Foo difference is that you tend to get a great audience that's motivated no matter the session, and that really carries you along. It was good to have the immediate feedback from attendees, and it kind of directs the session into what people want to hear. Hard to explain, but either way, it's excellent stuff.
My Stuff blog entry on Foo Camp 08 should go up soon.
/me crawls back behind the corporate firewall.
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Sue,
maybe we should make one next foo, all you need is 2 old scanners and about 20 bucks worth of parts
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He's scary enough with the Broil-King!
I am teh Broil King King!
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