Monday, April 30, 2007

Yikes, bloggers have their own magazine, called Blogger and Podcaster.

USAToday turns itself into a giant blog, so these folks turn around and head in the other direction. Hmmmm.

I'm all in favor of niche-y trade mags (I work for a B2B PR agency!) but is this pub really necessary. Aren't all the really active bloggers already conversing with each other?

Hmmmm.

Friday, April 27, 2007

So, by popular demand, I'm going to carve out to time today to actually post on this blog. We spend a lot of time counseling our clients on the pros and cons of blogging. The number one negative? Finding the time to post consistently!

Wra!

In lieu of anything intelligent to say, I'm do the next best thing a let a true marketing star take the stage. Toni Lee Rudnicki is the Chief Marketing Officer for iDirect, a satellite and network services company. She recently sat down with me for a short interview on how she developed a marketing plan to address to business challenges her firm faces.

Tuesday, April 17, 2007

Earlier in March I pulled together an event with the local chapter of the American Marketing Association on the impact of "social media" in the government space. The general feeling of the panelists was that the government market was going to be particularly slow in adapting blogs, wikis, twitter and whatnot.

Now there is a McKinsey report profiled on BusinessWeek that shows that corporations in the private sector remain reluctant to embrace "social media." My feeling is that companies and government will do a little experimental toe dipping here and there, but most will stay behind the curve for a while more.

If even a master PR guy like Steve Rubel can get in trouble and have to apologize, imagine how much fear some traditional minded corporate executives are going to have.

Wednesday, April 11, 2007

It's always interesting to me how the government and it's technology needs interact with the private sector, especially the VC driven tech community. Something like the Internet only occurred because of an long term partnership between government and private companies (and non-profits like universities). But each respective culture couldn't be more different and thus prone to miscommunication.

So here is an article by Irving Berger entitled "The Web and The Long, 'Soft' War" on AlwaysOn. I know he doesn't claim to speak for any particular group, but, to me, Irving's comments are a good insight into perceptions of government by the "tech community."

As I work for a PR agency with a big chunk of clients who are private sector companies selling into the government, we often say that we are translating commercial value propositions into compelling messages tailored for a government purchaser's specific needs. Too often, commercial technology vendors approach the government with a ROI message looking to make a quick buck. These companies often fail to grow their business. It good to read that Irving understands the strengths of government (at times, a long term outlook) as well as it's obvious shortcomings (ponderous slowness and political interference).