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Visibility, Credibility, and Growth.
From media strategy to reputation management, we explore the trends shaping public perception and share the approaches that drive measurable results for growing brands.
The European Union’s top court recently ordered that search engines within the EU adhere to “right to be forgotten” removal requests. The court ruled that Google and other search engines are “data controllers” and, as a result, are responsible for the content they display, meaning if an individual wishes for the removal of personal information that appears in a search of their name, the search engine will have to abide by the request and are required to pull any information the individual deems to be “inadequate, irrelevant, or no longer relevant.”
According to an article from Forbes, though, the right to be forgotten still lacks implementation clarity. The EU is currently debating a new EU Data Protection Regulation that will be more concrete and clear as to how and where this applies to EU residents’ protection. The article points out that companies need to be prepared because this new regulation will apply to EU residents no matter where the resident’s data is collected.
At the end of June 2014, Google began pulling search results in compliance with the ruling. According to an article from The Wall Street Journal, Google received 41,000 requests in the first four days. Google has updated its technical infrastructure to meet this demand and has hired a “removals team” to assess each individual request. Yahoo and Microsoft’s Bing have said that they will soon begin implementing a removal process in response to the European court’s decision as well.
Controversy over this removal process is sure to arise, as some see this as censorship left to Google and other search engines’ discretion. However, those in favor of protecting the public’s privacy point out that search-result removal only occurs if the search results are from a search of the individual’s name and are not removed from all search results.
WSJ’s article also pointed to signs that this option for removal of personal information in name searches may transpire in other countries soon. Allen Chiang Yam-wang, Hong Kong’s top privacy regulator, recently wrote about predictions for Canada and Japan to soon follow in the footsteps of Europe. Yam-wang suggested that Google apply its removal processes globally, as cases are soon to follow in more and more countries.
It will be interesting to see how the right to be forgotten ruling evolves in the EU and where else implementation of similar processes might occur. I am further curious to see how this affects search engine processes in the U.S., because of censorship claims. What’s your take? Is allowing search engines to remove personal search results protecting the public’s privacy or is it censorship?
Think about the last time you moved to a new apartment or home – you probably did not do it alone. After all, it is nearly impossible for one person to move a sofa or bed solo. Like many things in life, moving is simply much easier and faster with the help of a well-organized team, be it friends, family or professional movers.
Nevertheless, not all teams are equal in their productivity and effectiveness. Some teams are excited to be working together and appear to be having fun doing the work, while others are dysfunctional or seem doomed for failure. Successful teams, if you take a closer look, all have leaders who invoke the same five basic steps.
1. They set clear goals and objectives. When moving, the goals and objectives are clear – you need to move furniture and belongings from point A to point B. In business settings, however, the goals and objectives are not always as straightforward. The most effective team leaders involve teammates in the goal-setting process so everyone has shared expectations around what they are trying to achieve, and they do this before ever assigning projects or tasks. Effective teams know goals help ensure everyone is focused on the right activities at the right time – without them, everyone runs the risk of wasting time and energy.
2. They make sure the team has clearly defined roles and responsibilities. Good leaders know that role confusion can lead to frustration. Most people want to understand how they will contribute to reaching the goal and what they will be accountable for doing. Whenever possible, assign tasks to people based on their strengths or desire to learn new things or develop new skills.
3. They regroup regularly to monitor progress and results. Leaders have predefined critical milestones so they know if they are on track or falling behind. If they find they are falling behind or stuck on a task, effective team leaders, and strong team members, ask for help so they can make adjustments in time to achieve the goal. In monitoring the progress, it is also important not to blame anyone if things go wrong, but instead focus what can be done immediately to achieve the goal.
4. They design feedback loops into the work. Consider this classic example of the feedback loop: A company has a wonderful culture and offers terrific benefits, which leads to positive reviews on Glassdoor, which further leads to a bigger pool of qualified candidates and more good hires. The smart team looks for opportunities to create positive feedback loops. An effective business development team gets good at defining its ideal customer, which leads to an increase in sales, which then leads to an even better understanding of what customers are looking for from its product and services. For more on this topic, check out this article in Smashing Magazine.
5. They leverage technology for all of the above steps. Team leaders understand that effective leadership means keeping people informed and taking a democratic approach to sharing information. Solutions such as online collaboration software Smartsheet enable this. With Smartsheet, leaders can outline goals, tactics, and milestones and, because it is cloud-based, teammates can access this productivity tool from their PCs, tablets and cellphones. They can also set up dependencies for key projects with alerts. And it is easy to design reports and surveys to quickly identify and optimize positive feedback loops.
Productive teams are vital to getting things done, and you can vastly improve you team’s productivity – and happiness – by taking these five steps. Helen Keller stated it well when she said, “Alone we can do so little; together we can do so much.”
For more information on our use and work with Smartsheet, please check out these articles:
- Smartsheet Secures Another $35 Million
- Building Homes with Smartsheet
- Smartsheet Goes on the Road
- Smartsheet Announces $26 Million in Venture Funding
Congratulations to Communiqué PR client Medio on their acquisition by Nokia’s HERE division! The companies announced the acquisition plans June 12 and since then the news has garnered nearly 100 articles from outlets including TechCrunch, Bloomberg, PC Magazine, Wireless Week and GeekWire, to name just a few.
HERE, a leader in navigation, mapping and location experience, plans to leverage Medio’s expertise in real-time predictive analytics to bolster its location intelligence capabilities. As a result, we could soon see contextual maps and location services that change according to the situation to provide highly personalized and predictive experiences for people and businesses.
We’ve had the pleasure of working with Medio since 2012 when Communiqué was brought on to undertake a number of initiatives to boost awareness for the company including analyst and media relations and thought-leadership programs for its senior executives.
Medio is the seventh company in our portfolio to have been acquired or sold and we’re proud to have played a part in helping each of these companies grow their profiles in their respective industries:
- Medio (acquired by HERE in 2014)
- Twisted Pair Solutions (acquired by Motorola in 2013)
- Melodeo (acquired by Hewlett-Packard Co. in 2010)
- Open Interface (acquired by Qualcomm in 2008)
- SnapIn (acquired by Nuance Communications in 2008)
- Tegic Communications, a subsidiary of AOL (acquired by Nuance Communications in 2007)
- The Shops at the Bravern (purchased by Ashkenazy Acquisition in 2012)
These liquidity events are great examples of how a focused approach to PR can help organizations build buzz, elevate their perceived value, and in turn fulfill an exit strategy or close a strategic sale.
Congratulations to Rob Lilleness, Brian Lent, Beau Ross and the rest of the Medio team!
As PR professionals, we love the adrenaline rush of landing that big interview for a client with the Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg or the New York Times, and yet few outside of the industry actually understand the myriad of factors reporters consider when deciding whether or not to open up our emails, respond to our pitches or put pen to paper. As someone with experience both on the sending and receiving-end of story pitches, I can tell you that successful PR comes in keeping reporters informed about company news, providing the right sources and then knowing when to get out of the way to let writers do what they do best.
It’s not to say that journalists don’t appreciate all the hard work PR people do to keep them informed – they just have so many other demands on their time and are under tremendous pressure to constantly research ever-changing industries, meet deadlines, follow breaking news on Twitter and TechMeme, conduct interviews and of course, write!
Journalism is indeed an art form and reporters respect PR pros who share the same love and respect for the craft and the profession. The most successful public relations representatives have a knack for writing that can be communicated through email pitches, understand the industries reporters cover and have an innate desire to help writers do their job better and more efficiently. Demands on reporters’ time coupled with the erosion of traditional publishing channels have forced journalists to compete with global news cycles, weighing the speed and accuracy of the stories they publish with the timeliness of breaking world news events.
In order to help reporters get what they need to write their stories, PR practitioners should use the following basic principles to make an impact for clients and build trusted relationships with journalists:
Know Their News Beats – Nothing is more annoying to journalists than receiving a pitch that is completely off base from the industries they write about. As PR professionals, it’s our job to constantly read their articles to understand what angles will resonate with a particular reporter and then package up client information to help build a compelling narrative.
Know What is News, And What’s Not – While companies and marketing departments want to constantly shout their news from the rooftops, what a company considers to be news may not always be perceived as newsworthy to a reporter. Business press typically never cover product or funding news while the trades are often more than willing to write about these topics as long as there is a solid hook. Savvy PR executives should examine upcoming company news with a critical lens to provide recommendations to clients about the newsworthiness of announcements and a strategy for effective media relations.
Understand the Right Times/Ways to Pitch – With hefty demands on reporters’ times, make sure to adhere to any specification as to the format writers wish to receive unsolicited content. While the more established generation of reporters don’t mind the occasional phone call, younger writers who have grown up in a world of texting and email often prefer email pitches over calls that may disrupt their day. When you do make call-downs, always ask if they have a few minutes to chat before going into your pitch, since many are on deadlines throughout the week.
Demonstrate Knowledge of the Industry – The role of a PR person can extend beyond simply offering up a source and scheduling interviews. Since we work closely within the industries we represent, there are opportunities to both educate reporters about trends we are seeing, and where the technology landscape may be heading. As such, it’s important to thoroughly understand a client’s products and services to accurately field questions and communicate where product offerings fit into the competitive landscape and how they are differentiated from others.
Help Assemble the Story – While many reporters may already have a particular story angle in mind when agreeing to an interview, as PR pros it’s important to provide quick snippets of information in pitches, often through metric-driven bullet points, trends, additional customer sources, case studies and multimedia. If you are pitching television outlets, make sure you have compelling visuals that can help supplement the story. For radio segments, think about audio storytelling and how sound, music and background ambient noise can help drive a story forward.
The field of journalism is essential for our society to function properly, for without the freedom to write, report and express ourselves as individuals, we go about our daily lives without context. PR colleagues, don’t get discouraged by the occasional rejection, take pride in the services you provide for your clients and know you have a valuable role in helping provide the one thing that fosters a more educated society – knowledge and the free flow of information.
Recently, I wrote about publishing capabilities on LinkedIn and the social media giant’s plans to invite all its members to contribute articles via long-form posts. Since that time, I began thinking about the implications of this new capability as it pertains to copyright, other forms of intellectual property, corporate guidelines and staff education.
For instance, every person with Communiqué PR regularly contributes to our blog. Communiqué PR owns the copyright for those blog posts because the articles are prepared by staff as part of the scope of their employment with Communiqué. Nonetheless, my colleagues and I also want to distribute our posts via our LinkedIn pages leveraging LinkedIn’s long-form publishing capabilities. And Communiqué sees value in having our work republished in other forums, such as LinkedIn long-form publishing. After some consideration, we decided to create a policy letting employees re-publish their blog posts as long as the individual includes the statement: “This blog post was originally published on Communiqué PR’s blog,” with a hyperlink back to the original content.
However not all employers have the same objectives and they may need to carefully consider if they want their employees publishing employer-owned articles. For many organizations there are other, more serious implications beyond copyright to consider. Miller Nash partner Kathleen T. Petrich, who practices law in the area of intellectual property and patent and trademark prosecution, has an interesting perspective on the challenge that long-form publishing via LinkedIn may open up for companies.
Consider a situation in which a medical institution hires a physician to assist in expensive research to discover a new drug treatment or procedure. If the physician blogs about the drug treatment or procedure and explains how it works, it may become problematic for the medical institution to file a patent, as some extremely strict rules exist around timing and disclosure in U.S. and foreign patent laws. This could pose some thorny problems for the company and physician.
Another issue is liability. If an employee publishes information on LinkedIn that is harmful or wrong and causes damage, liability issues could face that person and his or her employer. Also, the LinkedIn long-form publishing agreement is between LinkedIn and the owner of the personal LinkedIn profile and not with the employer that may own the copyright in the specific article.
Given there can be copyright, other intellectual property and even liability considerations when sharing information on LinkedIn, Petrich strongly suggests that companies create or update their social media guidelines and policies to include a process for vetting work and granting permission to employees so they know what they can safely, and legally, share on social media platforms such as LinkedIn.
“The bottom line is that many employers agree that employees’ LinkedIn profile are theirs,” explained Petrich, “but they also want to be sure that, if you are posting content that is owned by them, they have some control over that in the form of permission or with other terms governing its publication.”
Finally, for those executives who are submitting essays or articles for publications on news sites like the Huffington Post or Re/Code, it is important to remember that just because you authored the work, you do not necessarily own the copyright. If you signed a contract, make sure you look at it to see if you can legally share your article via LinkedIn long-form publishing.
Have you ever experienced the sinking feeling of seeing a typo in something you wrote—whether it’s a published article, a press release or an important email—and realizing there’s nothing you can do about it? Once the email has been sent or the article has been published that typo will live on forever. And if the mistake is big enough to warrant fixing it, you endure the embarrassment—and ire from your editor—that comes with running a correction.
Everyone makes mistakes, which is why proofreading is so important. Following are a few proofreading tricks that have effectively helped me avoid making cringe-worthy errors.
Give it a rest. If time allows, set aside your finalized piece for a few hours or even days before proofreading it again. Seeing it with fresh eyes will make inadvertent mistakes stand out more clearly.
Print it out. You’ll catch more errors if you print out your text and proofread it on paper. The human eye reads onscreen material much more quickly and, consequentially, less carefully.
Use big font. If you have to proofread onscreen, increase the font size to make errors easier to identify. It also helps to double-space the document. In addition, turn on the show/hide feature on the Microsoft Word toolbar to highlight extra spaces between words or paragraphs.
Use Microsoft Word’s proofreading capabilities. Consider turning on proofreading capabilities in Word. These features can act as a safety net that catches obvious errors. Make sure you select preferences from the advanced options menu such as checking spelling as you type, using contextual spelling, marking grammar errors and identifying when you are using passive or active voice.
Cross-check every fact. Even if you’re almost positive something is correct, double-check it just in case. This applies to names, titles, places, publication names, statistics, addresses and dates. Pay close attention to dates and times when sending meeting invitations, particularly if the participants are in different time zones.
Refer to your AP Stylebook often. All documents related to journalism and PR should adhere to AP Stylebook guidelines. If you’re unsure, look it up. Keep in mind that the most common AP style mistakes are related to abbreviating state names, capitalizing titles or deciding when to write out numbers.
Create your own proofreading checklist. Develop a list of mistakes you commonly make and check each piece of writing for those errors in particular.
Use a ruler. As you proofread, put a ruler under each line in your hardcopy to keep your eye from jumping ahead to the next line.
Ask for help. Always have someone else review your work before submitting it. A new set of eyes can catch errors that you overlooked.
Although there is no foolproof formula for catching every error, tips like these can help improve your accuracy. Are there any other proofreading tips that you find useful?