Teblog

The Americans' use of language

I can't help it, I am in awe of the way some Americans use words.

I just love "corporate sock puppet". What a terrific way to describe a politician who's in the pocket of big business.

This post was sparked off by the Save the Internet folks today.

Before you mention it, I know the term's not new. (The earliest mention I can find is 2002.) But it tickles me every time I see it.

Effective communication. Do they learn this stuff at school in America?

How SME's can interest journalists: a podcast with moi

Alex Bellinger, who created the UK's first small/medium enterprise podcasts, caught me on the hop recently and asked a bunch of pointed questions about how SME's should handle the press. He's no slouch when it comes to PR but he thought he'd use me to get the journalist's perspective.

If you're interested in this sort of thing, or you want to treat yourself to my Estuary English, advance 7m45s into SmallBizPod number 30. Alternatively break yourself in gently and get to know Alex first. The Tebbutt/Bellinger exchange is about 25 minutes.

bloggers vs press

Dennis Howlett blogged about the spirit of sharing among bloggers at events. As compared with the competitiveness of conventional journalists. He linked to Jeff Nolan's report on SAP's SAPPHIRE conference. More about that in a moment.

One reason that the behaviour is different is that conventional papers want their 'scoops' and just hate publishing stuff that others have got first. Of course print journalists are secretive. They have to be.

Bloggers are different because they serve their own micro- (and, sometimes, not-so-micro-) audiences. They are also willing to give credit to other bloggers who cover the same territory.

Now for Jeff Nolan's post on the impact of allowing bloggers into SAPPHIRE. Here's a longish extract:

1) The bloggers earned respect quickly with our executives coming out of the one-on-one meetings we had scheduled saying “damn, these guys really know what they are talking about”. I sat in on a couple of the meetings and was surprised to see our executives quickly dropping their media training and engaging in real conversations with give and take. One in particular I would point out is the talk that Vinnie Mirchandani had with Pascal Brosset about pricing and licensing, I’m sure that Vinnie will post that shortly.

2) The bloggers collaborate rather than compete. I would have never thought about this had I not seen it in action but the bloggers on their own initiatives rescheduled their one-on-one meetings to double up rather than have exclusive time. This contrasts with traditional press people who demand exclusive access and jealously guard their Q&A, the bloggers conspire together about questions and have a rich dialog among themselves about what they are hearing.

3) The respect that the bloggers earned on the first day reverberated throughout the company, with some of our most senior executives saying that bringing bloggers to sapphire was the most innovative thing we have done at this event in years.

As a media skills trainer/advisor, I was alarmed to read "[I] was surprised to see our executives quickly dropping their media training and engaging in real conversations with give and take." But then, that's what I'd advocate anyway. The important thing is to know where your boundaries are and what is of interest to the reader. No need to drop your guard, but nothing wrong with making it look as if you have.

Zaragoza Pitch Camp

Very nice of Guy Kewney to mention me in the Register. The occasion was Innovate!Europe where he turfed up for some presentations, some conference sessions and some one-on-ones.

As he reported, I was asked to mentor some of the delegates prior to their presentations. My colleagues on the mentoring team were wonderful and I'll tell you more about them later. (I'm still travelling and on a slow connection.)

Guy has very slightly misquoted me in the sense that the person he wrote about received an approach from an angel rather than a cheque. Of course, I hope one turns into the other.

The Innovate!Europe event was quite a change from last year. Then, there was much navel-gazing and anguish about the European innovation infrastructure. This year, there was a very strong feeling of 'sod it, let's just get things done'.

More anon.

Comment moderation: open or closed?

In an earlier post, I said this:

Miliband's blogging doesn't prove a thing, except that he's willing to expose himself slightly. If my memory serves me correctly, he's filtering comments so he's still in control of both what he chooses to say and what feedback he chooses to publish.

To which David Miliband responded:

I was a bit confused by David Tebbutt's criticism that I was 'still in control of what [I] choose to say' - well of course I am; the point of the blog is that these are my own words!

And, I explained:

Yes, it was a rhetorical assertion.
A blog is no different to any other form of communication in that its author can reveal or hide whatever they wish.
Blogs don't have some magic dust that automatically makes them more credible than any other source of information. They are a channel which people can use or abuse how they wish...

Shortly afterwards, I was reading through other responses and I saw one from Ali Bushell which included this:

I think this is a great blog and am really enjoying reading and being part of it. I hope more Ministers, and indeed other public figures, start to do this more.

I definitely agree that Ministerial/political blogs will help to reduce the negative perception that our leaders are out of touch and don't listen to what people say, though, so a sterling effort on David's part if only for that.

I read that and wondered about who Ali Bushell might be. A bit of ferreting came up with someone of that name working for the department of education and science. I posted a comment to Miliband's blog immediately asking whether the commenter was the same Ali Bushell that works for the DfES.

Because of comment moderation, my remark was rejected.

Update: Following this post, my comment was approved. An oversight previously? Perhaps. It really doesn't matter. The issues raised were important. And, since we're on the subject of David Miliband, let's congratulate him on his new role as Environment Secretary.

Contrast this with Neville Hobson's treatment of one of my comments.

Neville was emphasising the benefits of getting information from the horse's mouth and bypassing the spin put on by journalists and PRs. He was following up on a Financial Times article by John Lloyd called The Truth About Spin.

Chris Edwards commented thusly:

Human nature is the key to all this and human nature is what leads to spin. That was the bit of Lloyd’s column you conveniently left out, Neville.

And I couldn't resist posing this question:

Oh dear. Does that mean Neville spun?

I know that these are trivial examples but they highlight an important issue. There are two kinds of comment moderation: the first cuts out abuse, irrelevance and spam, the second prevents inconvenient parts of the conversation from surfacing.

I take my hat off to Neville Hobson and leave it on for David Miliband. Neville understands the importance of transparency, David (or his blog admin person?) doesn't. I feel much more confident of getting the full story from Neville (despite the earlier spin remarks) than I do from David.

The middleman is dead: long live the middleman

Neville Hobson issues a rallying cry to cut out the middleman:

...most PRs and journalists add little value to truth-telling if they’re nothing more than channels or conduits who distort and manipulate the original message. Assuming, of course, that their roles are to do with truth-telling.

If you want to get close to the truth, cut out the middlemen. Let the citizens make up their own minds as to what is truth.

I'm afraid I let rip in the comments and reproduce what I said below. The reference to David Miliband is because Neville praises him for speaking directly to the public. Here goes:

Many journalists and many PRs are trying to do an honest job of finding benefits for readers and checking that they're not being sold a pup by the originating organisation. Ultimately, win-win, is ideal but, if through fact-checking, one side loses then so be it. That is the job of the professional journalist.

Miliband's blogging doesn't prove a thing, except that he's willing to expose himself slightly. If my memory serves me correctly, he's filtering comments so he's still in control of both what he chooses to say and what feedback he chooses to publish.

I think the idea of Joe Public cutting out the middleman is idealistic. It might work in rare cases, when an employee (or a boss) happens to write the absolute truth. It might work if enough knowledgeable people were talking about a particular subject (wisdom of crowds) but you're putting a huge burden on the public. How much time have they got to properly fact-check everything?

So then we come to bloggers. It's less about cutting out the middleman and more about inserting a different middleman. Full of their own views, biases and abilities (or not) to conduct appropriate research.

At least PR and journalists are paid to surface what each deems important. Some 'journalists' are supine and accept what's offered. They're not journalists, they're message-takers. They're the people who PR go to when they have dodgy material to push out. Most good journalists avoid PR, or use them as providers of background material which is still checked, and seek the real stories directly, and validate from multiple sources.

Mr Joe Public can't do this. The average blogger can't do this.

In the end, to have time for any kind of life, we have to trust the people who have better access to information and the ability to synopsise it appropriately. Some will trust journalists, some will trust bloggers, some will even trust companies and organisations.

End of rant.

Strumpette: the comeback

Hey, welcome back Strumpette.

Your summary of the train wreck that is now PR was superb.

There has to be a future for all those communicators but reading your post, I am finding it difficult to know what it might be.

Strumpette: a busted flush?

A little while ago, I wrote this about Strumpette:

My God, if PR professional Strumpette's blog posts are as good as her 'About me', she's a must-read from now on.

They weren't, so I guess she isn't.

Shame.

Hone your media skills

Although I provide media skills workshops and online tips myself, I'm never averse to pointing to other sources of help.

Here are some good media handling ground rules from the University of British Columbia.

I stumbled across them today, courtesy of Peter Himler of The Flack. 

If you're interested, I stumbled across The Flack courtesy of George Hopkin's AgencyWire, a PR/Communications blog aggregation service.

The service is still a bit embryonic - the sidebar is looking a bit sad today - but it is promising.

Strumpette: go there

My God, if PR professional Strumpette's blog posts are as good as her 'About me', she's a must-read from now on. Listen to this:

"I am, we are, the Strumpette in acrylic heels behind the fat man at the table, a billboard for his brash confidence, stroking his ego, attending to his every need."

(There was a small typo in that quote, but I corrected it.) And this:

"The game is now Indian poker where everyone else can see your hand apparently except you. And the most absurd thing is to watch the posturing, puffing and bluster that continues."

Brilliant. Brilliant. And so utterly true.

Shame I have to visit Strumpette's blog to read the entire posts. She, Amanda Chapel that is, uses the 'more' feature in her posts.