Author: jeremyprobert

Just Four Little Words….

Posted on by in Public Relations, Social Media.

Dearest blog snorkellers, you must be thinking this is your lucky fortnight. After months without word, I regale you with not one, but two, whole posts. You’ll recall my last was all a tad gloaty, pangs of vindication panging through my very being, as Mark Borkowski, PR Guru of this parish and to the stars, echoed some of my thinking on the dark and loathsome subject of social media and its appropriateness to sales and marketing. (Clue – it isn’t.)

You’d think that would be enough – my gloat chalice brimming to overflowing – but, no, hold, there’s more. This from a PR Week blog which says “Some PR people who chose to focus purely on social media campaigns are now finding it difficult to develop their careers further”. It appears that someone else has noticed the proliferation of social media gurus, the Imperial haberdashers, the guardians of the Sacred Shiny Object and has also noticed that as the smoke drifts and the mirrors stop reflecting, as the next big thing simply becomes another similarly-sized thing, our gurus are left without much to gurd. Some will survive, some will either learn new skills or remember the old ones, but many will disappear without trace. Oh, well.

And then. Oh – and then. Facebook floats. Many, many moons ago, in an overlooked and little-read post I said that the ‘book was not worth whatever frantic valuation was put on it then – some $50bn, I think. I seem to recall issuing the advice (received from someone far wiser than I) that when F’book floats, short it. Short the shit out of it.

 I believe ‘shorting’ refers to the practice of agreeing to sell shares you do not own, at today’s price, in the belief that you will be able to fulfil the contract by buying the shares at a later date, for less than today’s price, thereby making a profit – the difference between today’s price and the lower price you pay in the future. According to this – if you’d sold $100k of Facebook shares short on the day of issue, you’d have made $11k profit within two days. I know that one slump does not a summer make, but still – not good, is it?

So – and I know this isn’t pretty – the four little words of my title? I f#cking told you so. (Ooops. That’s five.)

Vindicated at last!

Posted on by in Communications Strategy, External Communications, Marketing, Social Media and tagged , , , .

Or I could have titled this post ‘justified’, but then someone would have accused me of being a Belieber. When, in fact, I am simply Marked. Mark Borkowskied, to be clearer.

Here you are, all of you who have sneered at my take on social media. All of you – I believe the term is – ‘haters’. All of you gurus, you charlatans, you bearers of Greek gifts, you purveyors of snake oil. You clothesless Emperors, you herd-following sheep, you shiny-object-collectors. You next-big-thingies. Yes, you. And who’s laughing now. Eh?

See!

I’d like to quote Mr Borkowski – a real PR guru, with lots of experience mind, not a pretend guru, who is using the bauble of social media to fleece gullible clients who should know better. Here you are – if you want more, clickety-linky, read fulsome!

“Twitter and social media is not a marketing platform, it’s a channel to engage with an audience. It’s not a way of actually selling more. It’s totally about visibility.

This is nothing new, this is nothing interesting.”

Nothing see here, then.

PR – Image Problem? What Image Problem? (Part 2)

Posted on by in corporate reputation, External Communications, Public Relations, Writing and tagged , , , .

Came across this blog post. Authored by one Steve Riches, food and drink editor of The People. Which is a bit like being culture editor of New Philistine magazine. Actually, it IS culture editor of New Philistine magazine. Mind, you, this train of thought is probably lost on Steve. Seems a bit of a lacklustre twat, that’s the problem.

Anyway, he’s got some misperceptions about PR and – in fairness to the revolting oaf – these misperceptions are not his fault. They are the fault of many of those who work in this vale of tears that we call ‘spin’.  In many ways, it has to be admitted through clenched buttocks, he’s bang on. He got my name wrong though – it’s ‘Jeremy’, not ‘James’. And I’ve never met a Lola-Lu.

Anyway – same old point, dearest blog snorkellers. What are we doing? How did we let it come to this? Why are we – and our organs (CIPR, PRCA) – not frantically trying to put a reputation management programme in place? Why didn’t we start trying to put such a programme in place years – decades – ago?

But back to Steve – I am minded of Winston Churchill’s response to an outraged female, when I see Steve accusing me of vacuity:

“But you’re in PR!”

“And you, sir, are an ugly, boorish lout – but tomorrow, I shall re-train.”

Nothing Motivates Like Money – Sorry

Posted on by in Corporate Religion, Internal Communications and tagged , .

Came across this article down the back of the internet – ws so incensed by the horsesh*t quotient, that I had to share with you, dearest blog trotters.

You see, I’m a believer in internal comms as a motivator. I believe in praise where it’s due, I believe in duvet days, I believe in doughnut Fridays, I believe that staff meetings should be entertaining and I believe that the booze should never run out at the Christmas party (and that what goes on tour stays on tour). (Yes, Microsoft, I’m talking to you.)

But I do not believe that any of this substitutes for cold, hard cash. Wonga in an envelope. The chink of change, the rustle of non-sequential, used tenners. And thus, I am afraid, any staff motivation philosophy that kicks off with ‘don’t show ’em the money (even if you have it)’ is misguided at best and cynical, petty, small-minded and mean at worst.

And no, wandering up to a random employee and inviting them to lunch with you is not motivating. It is stalking. It will result in uncomfortable silence, which is not how I enjoy my lunchtimes.

And the idea that asking – ‘was that the best way to approach the problem? Why not? Have you any ideas on what you could have done differently?’ – will somehow not be perceived as criticism or correction is just hippy-dippy nonsense.

Oooh – it makes me cross. I’d actually suggest that blindly implementing the nine things recommended here will have the opposite effect to that desired.

Especially number nine – ‘share the rewards’. But without giving anyone any money, obviously. What planet?

The New Tech Bubble – Bursting Point?

Posted on by in Internet, Social Media and tagged , , .

Earlier this month I posted a link to a piece in the Wall Street Journal – a regional newspaper with an adequate circulation – which talked about Facebook and its propects as far as making money – specifically from advertising – were concerned. This was tied in to the much-vaunted float of Facebook, which has been the subject of speculation for some considerable time now.

Now, for your delight and delectation, here’s another piece from the same regional newspaper, entitled ‘Facebook Targets Huge IPO’, in which it is posited that the good ‘Book and the odious turd Zuckerberg, may be looking to raise some $10bn, valuing the whole shoddy shebang at $100bn. To give you an idea, the only other American companies to have completed at or above this level are Visa, General Motors and AT&T.

My loyal readers (ooooooh, my aching sides) will know that I do not have a great deal of time for Facebook. I cannot help but think of naked royalty and haberdashering conmen when I look at it, and its business model. But, I am fully prepared to admit, what do I know. Apart from how genuinely scary some of it is – have a quick look at this, and tell me you want to be a part of it, either personally, professionally or corporately.

Anyhoo – the general tone of the WSJ article is positive. I believe the correct term is ‘bullish’. (As an aside, recently I have been bombarded – don’t ask – with headlines using the descriptor ‘bearish wedge’. This tickled me, I know not why – I think it’s probably because, to my mind, it’s either ‘bear’ or it isn’t ‘bear’. Nothing is ‘bearish’. Unless you happen to be a woodsman in Georgia, living off the land, in which case you might be chewing on, say, raccoon and comment that it tastes a bit ‘bearish’. And ‘wedge’, well, it’s onomatopoeic, isn’t it? Isn’t it?) But within the article, there is an interesting sentence or two, that gave me pause. You see, I lived through the tech bubble of the turn of the Noughties and I remember the hysteria and the silly money made and the even sillier money lost.

The article says that Facebook will probably go ahead with the deal – but at a time when investors are beginning to doubt the value of some internet businesses. (Sound familiar yet?) Apparently, Groupon floated on November 3 – and has lost 42% of its value in the last five trading days. LinkedIn, whose stock more than doubled from its IPO price on its first day of trading May 19, has since fallen 36% (although it remains 33% above its IPO).

OK – only two examples. The issue, however, is that when the Noughty tech bubble burst, we were talking about millions being lost. So far, so dreadful. If, indeed, we are seeing another tech bubble now – and, as I said earlier, what do I know – and it follows the trad bubble pattern, then this time it’s serious money that’s going to be lost.

Someone said to me, when the rumours about a Facebook float first surfaced, that the thing to do would be to ‘short the sh*t out of it’. I think I know what that means – and it still sounds eminently sensible from where I’m sitting.

The Dark Net – Well, How Terribly Cyberpunk Of You

Posted on by in Internet, Social Media and tagged , , , , .

Frankly, I am sometimes left rooted to the spot with my mouth hanging open at how much you couldn’t really make things up if you tried. (I’m sorry if, at first sight, this last sentence doesn’t seem to make sense. Read it again slowly.)

In my free time, when I’m not saving whales, teaching orphaned ravens to fly underwater, or re-charging battery hens, I sometimes dip into a book, and the genre of book that I enjoy a good dip into is science fiction, particularly post-apocalyptic, cyberpunk science fiction. Now, it might just be metal-tinted glasses, but it’s my vivid impression that many works of cyberpunk (particularly at the lower-rent end of the genre spectrum) contain a key common theme and that’s virtual worlds, existing on t’internet. Almost all of them have something recognisably hacker-like and most have the odd villain or two, making use of closed sections of the information superhighway upon which to perform the digital handbrake turns of mayhem. So far, so made up.

(If, at this point in time, you find your interest piqued by this sort of – can I? Should I? Call it literature? Well, you might like to have a jolly good dip into this which is, joking aside, genuinely brilliant and has that bit of virtual-worlds-(in this case virtual hells – plural, yes)-hidden-away schtick goin’ on. It’s not really cyberpunk, though. For that, you’ll need this.)

Anyway, now we come to the bit where I’m frozen to the spot with my mouth hanging open. Dearest Blog Trotters – check this out.

I’ll let the headline speak for itself – ‘users build bridge to Dark Net’. If you want to know more about it, then you’ll have to read the story – it involves something called TOR, which is apparently a ‘secret net’. Yes, people, a secret net, existing somewhere in, or behind, or in parallel with, the one we all know about. It’s a Dark Net – it’s hidden and it exists so that internetters can hide their existence and what they are doing. It is the stuff that cyberpunk is made of and – here’s the thing – it is not made up. It exists. People are using it and – more to the point – others are signing up to it, providing it with more bandwidth and, yes, protecting it.

You’ll probably notice that I got a bit hysterical during that last sentence, and this will give you a clue to where I’m coming from on this issue. Which is from the State of No Way, No How. I make no secret of my disdain for social media – mostly the empty, ego-fuelled meanderings of millions of people who can’t bear the silence in their own heads – and I’ve also made it clear that I do not think it to be harmless (that it’s harmful and has caused harm is, actually, beyond doubt). From a corporate and business perspective, it is not a sales or marketing tool, it has limited use as an active communications tool and its best function is as a reactive message delivery channel when something has gone wrong. Ironically, these days, when something corporate goes wrong, it’s most likely caused by, or spread by, social media in any case.

But a big issue is anonymity. I believe in the right to be anonymous and the right to privacy – but if you’re foolish enough to post your life on Facebook, then that’s your anonymity gone and don’t come crying to me. Sadly, privacy and anonymity on the net doesn’t just protect fine upstanding citizens like you and me – it also protects the evil bastard trolls who pick on people, who post inappropriate content, who revel in their internet Tourette’s and who  contribute to the well-publicised suicides.

Previously, on this blog, I posted about regulating the internet and how it was far too late. I suggested a way of doing it – the GAP (Global Authentication Portal) – and suggested that the nerds of the world would upheave at the mere suggestion of such a thing.

This was before I became aware of the Dark Net. Surely I am not the only person who thinks that this is just a step too far – yes, I understand that an untraceable net protects freedom of speech in oppressive regimes and allows citizen journalism to raise its voice against institutional wrongs – but I’m afraid I’d sacrifice these liberties to ensure that criminals, thieves and global scumbags can be brought to justice.

This is one type of anonymity that I do not believe to be a human right. As I’ve said – if you’re putting your stuff on the net – you’re not anonymous. Don’t complain – there’s only (relatively speaking) a few bad apples, but the barrel is rotten.

Apostrophic Errors

Posted on by in External Communications, Writing, Writing and Language and tagged , , , , .

Morning all – this is a post for me, so apologies in advance – and it’s with regard to one of my pet hates (and, I am aware, a pet hate of many of yours, dear internet-dwelling word herders) – the misplaced apostrophe.

I am not going into this here, as you’ll know what I’m talking about and if you don’t, then it’s likely that you make apostrophic errors and, if I were you, I’d keep your head down, do da clickety onna linky and NEVER MAKE THESE MISTAKES AGAIN.

(In actual fact, I like this whole blog – Boggleton Drive – and so should you, dearest Blog Trotters. This stuff is important.)

(Even if the apostrophe post has a split infinitive in it. Mind, I was told recently that split infinitives don’t matter any more, so who am I etc etc etc.)

Blatter Microblogs – Sepp’s Twatter?

Posted on by in Crisis Management, Social Media and tagged , , , , .

OK, OK – I am guilty of writing the headline before I wrote the post – but the combination of Blatter and Twitter was just too good to be passed up. (Although, on reflection, I could, possibly, have done something better with it. Suggestions on a used, non-sequential £20 to the usual address. Winning entry will be featured on this blog.)

So, gentle reader, a further apology for being late to this issue but, as they say, and rightly so, better late than never. Clearly, this is all about the loathsome Sepp Blatter (clearly, just my opinion, never met the man etc etc etc) and his frankly disgraceful meanderings around the issue of rascism in football. (Now, is it just me, or does he remind anyone else – in terms of appearance only, obviously – of Mohamed Al-Fayed, the Egyptian Grocer of London, as was?)

When you read the transcripts of the man’s pronouncements, you really have to wonder what planet he’s on. Or what interesting and expensive substances. But – whoa – there’s me being rascist, as it’s fair to assume that English is not his native tongue and, gor’ bless ‘im, he’s having a go. Clearly, it might be better had he, in fact, NOT had a go, but there we are. Too late now.

So, a couple of lessons to be drawn from this, communicators all – and, as I’m late to this, you’ve probably all drawn these lessons already – but, no matter, they bear repeating.

This is the real power of social media – you mess up and there is nowhere to hide. Once you have messed up, regardless of whether it’s a real mess up or not, whether it’s your fault or not, whether you meant it or not – too late. There is nothing you can do but be contrite and – if you can justify yourself – put your point of view across. But be warned – your point of view had better be squeaky clean and beyond reproach – if not, then shut up and apologise, abjectly, for all you are worth. Blatter’s Twatter didn’t do this. His continuing refusal to do the decent thing and throw himself off the top of FIFA Towers – sorry, did I say that out loud? – the decent thing and resign is not going to make it any better. And while he hangs on, the already tarnished reputation of FIFA will continue to lose the little shine that remains.

And do I really have to say anything about the decision to release a picture of Blatter with his arm round Tokyo Sexwale? Do I? Just proving that no matter how sophisticate we think communications has become, in the heat of battle, we still make really stupid choices. Now, in fairness, I can only surmise that the decision to release a picture of Blatter hugging a black man was made right at the top, and the hapless comms person really didn’t have a choice. But this goes back to something I’ve said before – we all should try and remember what the true role of the communicator is. It is – in cases like this – to have the presence, respect and sheer brass b*lls to stand up and say ‘ no way – over my dead body’. Think on’t.

Finally – and on a completely different topic – may I commend The Sun newspaper for coining the term ‘Sunemployment’ which, I believe, refers to all the ‘good work’ the newspaper is doing highlighting and addressing the issue of rampant unemployment. (Some may say, remembering the closure of the NoW, that this is a little ironic – but I’m not one of them.) I don’t know why, but when I read ‘Sunemployment’ I was taken directly back to the 70s – strikes, three-day weeks, power cuts, austerity and unemployment – the newspaper in my hands went all black and white and somehow things were a little darker, a little colder and a little less broadminded.

I do hope this is not one of those self-fulfilling prophecy thingies.

Public Relations – Image Problem? What Image Problem?

Posted on by in Communications Strategy, Public Relations and tagged , , , , .

(Heaves sigh of despair.)

Right, dearest blog trotters, and especially those of you who labour, as I do, in this vale of tears we affectionately call ‘spin’, here – I am afraid – we go again.

Just before I get to the point – and those of my most faithful snorkellers will know how partial I am to a nice bit of a ramble – the PRCA (that’s the Public Relations Consultants’ Association, for those who aren’t familiar) is muscling in on territory hitherto trodden solely by the CIPR (that’s the Chartered Insititute of Public Relations for those etc etc etc). Which means that two bodies, supposedly with the same interest in promoting and assisting the growth and welfare of the communications profession, are at each other’s throats in a fight over memberships. A fight which, may I say, is undoubtedly consuming some of their time. Time which I pay upwards of £200 a year for.

Time which could be spent doing something more useful.

Like working on changing the general perception of the Public Relations industry, as defined by what our friends in the media have to say about it. To whit, and to be admitted as evidence, m’lud, this little piece from last night’s Evening Standard. (Is it too much to ask of you? Just one small click? Just this once?)

OK, so it’s a fairly jocular piece about immigration and the current hoo-hah about supposedly lax UK border controls. It says that most immigrants making their way to this country are determined and hard-working – which, when compared to the workshy, thieving, poorly-educated and boorish UK natives that I see down my street every day, they quite clearly are – and it says that they are keen to work and that they find jobs in flexible sectors of the economy such as labouring, fruit-picking, public relations, terrorism and the sex-trade.

Whoops! Did you spot that? Public Relations compared to terrorism and the sex-trade?

OK, OK – keep your hair on. I know it’s a joke and – in all honesty – it was the only thing I read yesterday that made me laugh.

But is does highlight, underline, reinforce and generally illuminate the same old problem that our profession has faced at least since I started to work in it. We have an image problem people – which is like saying that the Pope has a balcony and Pippa Middleton, a derriere. We have always had an image problem, and we all know it, and we’ve all – at one time or another – been involved in a debate about it.

Personally – to my mind – it’s what the PRCA and the CIPR are there for. And they’re not being terribly effective. Mind – we none of us are, truth be told.

Definitely The End Of The World As We Know It

Posted on by in Communications Strategy.

In my last post I mentioned the theory that the world is about to undergo some sort of epoch-defining, socio-economic mutation, possibly in the form of a cataclysm, or maybe as some sort of spiritual transformation or, just possibly, in the form of a very big bang. And then dust and bits swirling about the infinite emptiness. All on December 21 2012.

I went on to point out that there’s a whole lot of strange doings going on around the planet which might – if you were in a conspiracy-oriented, ‘signs-are-all-there’ frame of mind – lead you to believe that, well, the signs actually ARE all there.

And I was, in a gentle and jocular way, taking the pish.

But, blog trotters, rollers and snorkellers all – check this out.