This is a place to share insight and witticisms and to collaborate and promote the things I love best: defense, technology and PR. I have been lucky enough to manage public relations for technology companies in the defense industry for several years which has led me to the best media, analysts and communications professionals in the world. I hope to share my experiences and inspirations with you - and them.
We all love a good Cinderella story and in a YouTube world, it seems like there's an overnight success every episode of Ellen or issue of TechCrunch. But for tech start-ups immediate fame and recognition is rare - it can even be detrimental if your business isn't ready for the benefits PR can bring and worse if you aren't prepared for the work it takes to be successful. In the early days, you've barely formed your company. Your product is one step out of the gate. Your customers - if you have them - are just starting to kick the tires. You're iterating daily. Your team is working at break-neck speed. You need to grow your pipeline. And you think that one article, just one, in the right publication - the New York Times perhaps - could satisfy your investors, drive inbound sales, and accelerate your business. And yes, a good public relations program can do all of these things. But not overnight. I've known start-ups who have accelerated their business plans by years with strategic communications programs that helped them generate awareness, educate customers on their offering, create buy-in and advocacy with influencers, and develop positive relationships with industry. But if a single article in the New York Times is your goal, you're likely to be disappointed. If this is your goal you're short-changing your business and being very short-sighted. You're going to miss out on the benefits of creating a dynamic, interesting thought leadership program. You're going to miss out on building a foundation that can support your business long-term. You're going to miss out on iterating your product based on market feedback. You will blow through contacts instead of building relationships. And you're likely going to put a lot of pressure on your business and leave yourself without the elasticity and budget to grow, evolve your product, respond to the market, and maintain your operations and customer service. Sadly, I've watched companies do this time and time again because they begin their journey with the goal of that one holy-grail article and aren't prepared to do the work necessary to create a great program. Rather hoping for overnight success, think of your PR program as a journey, one that if you map it out well, will get you to your goals. Stay tuned for a checklist to help you prepare for a sustainable, ongoing PR program.
There are two schools of thought as you develop as a professional: play into your strengths, or round out your experience. The two approaches can lead to very different career paths. Two very different kinds of people. Do you help someone pursue the thing they're good at? Lean into their predisposition? Or, do you identify areas of improvement? Help them become a generalist? Encourage knowledge across a broad segment of the business functions? Encourage them to be able to accommodate a wide variety of tasks, people, and timelines... This is a valid discussion for any employee or manager to have when thinking about their development path and how they will achieve their goals. And while this post could now launch into my feelings about 360 reviews, HR, and employee performance plans .... the topic got me to thinking ... We read our media with the same two paths to choose from every day. I have long voiced my love of a printed newspaper - where you can walk up and down each column on each page and - even if only skimming - capture news that you might otherwise not be predisposed to read. I have no natural inclination to read about the stock market or the latest bills that have been passed. But, with a printed copy of the Globe and Mail I'll discover what Trudeau is up to, or what kind of investment is happening in our start-up community. If however I head to my Facebook feed, or even theGlobeandMail.com ... I am going to enter the machine that sends me only what I'm interested in. A self-indulgent rabbit hole that will inevitably end up on a cute cat/puppy/otter video, and new workout plan, and articles on how to get more sleep.
This part of our human nature - our self-indulgence in what we consume - is singlehandedly shaping our media. And we've all been complicit. It started with our entertainment being what was free and accessible. Perez Hilton, Lainey Gossip were readily available while the our world events were hidden behind subscriptions. No surprise, that quickly led to media outlets struggling to attract the users they needed to convince advertisers, to convince those subscribers, and the wheel of death has led to the downsizing, closing, and merging of media institutions. At the same time in that struggle to stay alive and relevant, some traditional outlets tried to pursue the infotainment game. Whether it was opening up comments and encouraging dialogue with readers, posting click-bait headlines, or even syndicating content from around the world with zero local relevance .... it often became drivel. And what were they trying to accomplish? Was it this hope that instead of letting you bath in your own interests, the media might actually have a valid role in getting you educated by just one article that didn't involve a puppy? Sidebar: This Global News post about Ozzy Osbourne donated money to a kid in Kentucky might be the worst offense.
So now, when I hear that BuzzFeed - an outstanding outlet for self-indulgent media - is redefining how they measure content and make decisions about what to produce, it's no surprise to hear, "the company is thinking about other metrics that come closer to measuring what media companies and advertisers call "engagement" which theoretically matches up with actual interest on the part of an audience." It's this last part that scares me. It scares me because self-indulgence is not just happening at an individual level. It's happening en-masse with millions of people every day. At a time when 12-million Canadians and 32-million Americans are barely literate, the issue is compounded. If people barely want to read the stuff they're interested in, how can you possibly educate them about things that matter? We know that social media has already in just a short few years changed our thought patterns, short-term memory, and ability to communicate. And while Barack Obama used social media to win an election and educate the world about his platform, social media is now helping Trump gain ground based on his entertaining idiocy. At what point do we as adults, productive members of society, active participants in our community take individual responsibility to get educated? To protect the institutions (old and new) that help us to explore more than "Which Kardashian Are You" quizzes? Maybe you're only aware of how your content is served up to you if you work in PR or media. But if you've made it to the bottom of my rant, then I hope you'll pick up a printed copy of your newspaper and think of it as a journey into your own personal development.
