Show Daily Madness Means Working Together....Our Interview with Darren Lake

Today we're chatting with Darren Lake. Darren hails from the UK and makes the trek to Orlando to produce the I/ITSEC Show Daily. I've been fortunate to work with Darren in spreading the word about my clients' news at the show but I've always wondered why anyone would sign up for such a task. With hundreds of vendors - and inevitably hundred of PR people and hundreds of press releases - I can only envision the insanity and hard work that must ensue. So, today Darren shares a little insight into how we can help out his team in the development of valuable news for the Show Daily and Shephard Media Publications.

Name: Darren Lake

Beau - Whose face is not to be trusted.

Title: Publishing Director, Land & Support Editor

Publications: Shephard Media Publications, I/ITSEC Show Daily

Home Base: Slough, United Kingdom

Twitter: @ShephardNews

Blog: Not yet, it’s a bit scary

Pets: Beau the cocker spaniel

Quirks: Not too many I hope

Contact Info: darren.l@shephardmedia.com, +44 1753 727022

DTP: Tell me Darren, we’re hot off the heels at I/ITSEC where you along with your team have the insane task of writing and producing the Show Daily. Do you have any advice to PR pros who want to pitch you at the show?

DL: The best advice I can give is to get your story ideas and press releases to us early. We start to work on the Show Daily in the week before the event and quite often we’re full in terms of stories by early in the event. 

The second bit of advice is to make sure you have good print quality images to go with your news. It helps us make a decision on what goes in and of course enhances the story. 

DTP: Regarding PR and Marketing, how do you think the defence industry is changing? 

DL: Well certainly in the case of North America and parts of Europe there is a much greater emphasis on using social media to keep in contact with journalists. On the marketing side it tends to still be a very traditional and conservative culture, but I think that really reflects the client base. 

DTP: Where do you get your story ideas from? 

DL: All sorts of places. There are obviously press releases from PR contacts, we watch a lot of social media feeds, but you can’t beat face to face time with people at shows or conferences.

DTP: What is the biggest mistake (or missed opportunity) you see PR people make when pitching you and your colleagues? 

DL: I guess the main one is not always understanding what the news angle is for us. I can’t count the number of times that the most interesting bit of news in a release has been buried somewhere in paragraph 18. 

DTP: What advice can you give to PR and marketing pros when sending you a pitch? What distinguishes a great pitch from those that get tossed in the bin? 

DL: Well for us it really has to have a business to business angle. Contracts, new technology, that sort of thing.

DTP: What makes a great spokesperson? 

DL:Someone who can be candid and has been well briefed by their company. Also, someone who is happy to trust journalists and go off the record when necessary.

DTP: Shephard Media has an established brand and well-respected group of publications. What’s next? Will you be heading online? 

DL: We’ve just revamped our website and changed the company name and domain to Shephard Media. That reflects an increased emphasis on the online part of the business. We recognize that it’s an important way to get the news out there with our magazines being journals of record. 

We’re also looking at digital versions of the magazine and have an established twitter presence. 

DTP: What is your perspective on the influence of social media and journalism? 

DL: I think it has become increasingly important. You speak to journalists in other sectors and it’s having a huge impact. I don’t think aerospace and defence has been an early adopter, but I’m sure that we’ll see the influence continue to grow over the next few years. 

DTP: Any last words of wisdom – opinions, suggestions, etc. – for the PR and marketers out there? 

DL: Not really I guess the main thing is to just make sure that you don’t forget us B2B guys. There’s quite often a focus on high profile online and national media – but where do you think they’re getting their story ideas and information from in the first place?

I Wish I Had Access to Everyone's Calendar

Well it’s back to the grind – which is actually a nice, quiet, snowy afternoon in Toronto. This stretch between Christmas and the New Year is a nice time to get some writing done and make sure things are ready to go in January.

One of the things I’m doing is coordinating an interview. While I’m super pumped to have successfully secured an interview, I wish there was an easier way to pin down a date and time. I always get an awful feeling in the pit of my stomach if the exchange regarding schedules goes beyond three emails. I know journalists are busy people, I know that my spokespeople are running a company; this is the one time being the middleman can be tough. I know this isn’t isolated to media relations. Anyone in business experiences this when coordinating meetings. What is the record number of emails exchanged to coordinate an interview?

My New Year’s resolution – I'll take this as a life lesson and try not to reschedule meetings!

To Call or Not to Call

Ah, the follow-up. It’s like after a date – just how soon is too soon to call? If you call right away, you risk turning the person off. If you call too late, they may have moved on to other things. We PR people know that if we only relied on email our success rate wouldn’t be very high. Emails are easy to miss, delete, or get distracted from.

For me, the phone call after the email tends to be a gut-feel based on my relationship with a reporter. Here’s my rule of thumb: make sure that your call provides added value. If the only thing you have to say is, “Did you see my news?” You shouldn’t be making the call. Give yourself enough credit that you wrote a great pitch, that your news is in fact newsworthy, and that the journalists you work with know how to recognize a good story! It's like dating, if they're interested, they'll let you know!

"So What?" & "Who Cares?"

There are two common pitches that I write: a general pitch that accompanies a press release to provide additional context; and a targeted pitch that is written for a specific journalist/publication.

In either case, I like to keep my pitches to two paragraphs. Yes, you read that right, two. The first, painting the picture of the industry issue, challenge, or trend; the second proposing a discussion with a spokesperson to discuss the news and/or their perspective on the topic at hand. When possible I try to reference (linking to, not attaching) additional resources such as analyst reports, case studies, video testimonials, relevant product information, or other industry news.

I think all reporters expect at some point a plug for the company and its technology is going to come up in the interview. So while some may disagree with me, unless the pitch is about a new product or you’re working with a new journalist that needs the background info, I prefer to leave it out of the pitch unless it’s specifically relevant to the discussion.

My general rule of thumb: write a pitch reflecting a story that a reporter can immediately see him/herself writing, provide relevant supporting information and context, and forget the sales pitch!

Upcoming Conversations



Photo Credit: Graur Codrin



One of the things I’d like to accomplish with DefTechPR is more awareness for the great journalists and marketing/PR people in the industry – to facilitate knowledge sharing and foster new relationships. As such, one of the things I’ll be attempting is to engage some of these people in conversation so that they can highlight what they work on and share perspectives about the industry as a whole.

Keep an eye out for my conversation with Tim Mahon (Part 1 coming tomorrow) about the new Training & Simulation Forum which is decidedly focused on community and collaboration. If you have any recommendations on people I should profile, let me know!

Sharing Experiences in Afghanistan via Social Media

Michael Yon’s blog is one of my go-to reads. Michael is a reporter that has most recently been writing about events in Afghanistan. Invited to observe missions and take photos, Michael’s accounts of events provide a unique and poignant view that mainstream media often can’t and/or won’t deliver. His writing reminds us that we can’t detach ourselves from the efforts of our forces and must remember that there are many who won’t be home for some time. As Michael wrote on November 28, “there is a high probability that as you read this, someone is bleeding and in the process of extraction from the battlefield.”  

Michael has quite an impressive resume – the Wall Street Journal, NY Times, CNN and others have published his work. He has written two books and his blog is well-followed. For all of this, I actually found Michael on Facebook. He has more than 48,000 people following his daily accounts – and these people actively engage him in conversation through the social networking site. In fact, on any given day thousands of people are “talking about” Michael and his posts on Facebook. While I might have stumbled into Michael’s blog eventually, the power of Facebook certainly accelerated it. My advice? Whether you want to be on Facebook or not, if your target audience is there (and let’s face it with more than 800-million active users they likely are), you will want them to find you.

Check out Michael’s page, Twitter profile, and website – what other best practices can you apply to your social strategy?

Times They R A Changin!

I came into PR when online news, blogs and forums were dramatically changing how journalists approached their writing. Newspapers were marching online, columnists turned into bloggers, and bloggers were now churning out three to four stories a day. Before I joined the aerospace and defense community, it was rare that I pitched print journalists. In fact, it was often considered a bonus if an editor told me that the online article would be included in the upcoming print magazine. This move to the Web created a few challenges for me: 

1.       Securing Day-Of-Coverage: With a noisy news environment and the need to write several articles a day, first-day coverage was imperative – otherwise you quickly became old news. Forget getting covered a week after a press release went out.

2.       Press Releases Postings: From a search-engine-optimization standpoint, press release postings are a big help. But, when you’re looking for third-party validation (a big reason companies work with PR people….that journalists provide validation to news and you can achieve this without advertising) the drive to cover everything online can leave the analysis lacking.

3.       Did They Read It?:  There’s something to be said for getting a magazine or newspaper delivered to your door. Thumbing through the pages, revisiting stories. When online, it is so much easier to gloss past articles without notice - and I don’t know about you, but I rarely re-read any of them. I always found it difficult to be convinced that people actually read the article and let’s face it circulation and impression numbers are still a far cry from accurate measurement.

One of the reasons I fell in love with the modeling and simulation community was that it still loved, revered, and was holding on with two fists to print. At that time many of the key publications didn’t have an online component, or it was quite basic and corporate in approach. Reporters were dedicated to a craft that had been honed before the internet, stories had multiple sources, competitors were asked to comment, there was time to engage a customer in the discussion, and the resulting article was a lengthy, insightful, and impressive read. I still get chills when I break the spine of a magazine and see the glossy pages that include my company and our spokespeople, that bring forward an emerging trends, or profile an inspiring leader in our community. These features give me a barometer on how we’re shaping the industry.

This is changing however. Even though I am kicking and screaming on the inside. Over the last couple of years we have seen a big push to move our news online. Halldale has come up with a really nice balance to eliminate my #2 concern by summarizing press releases and highlighting news in their MS&T newsletter. Canadian Defence Review is progressively moving online but working to maintain its subscription-based model with a user login required so that the value of its feature article remains known. Military Technology has started a dedicated blog to give news an immediate acknowledgement – if you knew this team’s travel schedule it’s going to be awesome to get updates from the road.  

I have great hopes that the quality of reporting and industry analysis will remain as high as it is now. But, the thing is, these changes are going to influence journalists in their decision to include your news in a press release posting, a news brief, a blog post, or in a feature print story. They may just Tweet it (more on that later). We need to be ready for it. We have to embrace it. And we need to adjust how we value the end result. It’s going to take new conversations with our executive teams on the results that a news pipeline will generate. It’s going to force us to adjust how we write news and distribute it. It's going to change the conversations we have with our fave media gurus. 

Ultimately, it’s going to change how we view the printed word. 

Until We Meet Again I/ITSEC

Ah, I/ITSEC. I have been told I am sick in the head for loving this training and simulation show so much. And while that may be true, I know there are others out there who look forward to this annual event in Orlando as much as I do. To an outsider, the promise of warm weather would make sense, but as the last two years have been COLD, it really isn’t that. For me, it’s a time to catch up with your colleagues, partners, media and friends. It’s a time to put a stake in the ground and claim your territory both in booth space and from your competitors. It’s a time to be brazen about advances in technology and viewpoints on trends for the coming year. For me it's the Disneyland of PR opportunities.

I could write an entire blog just dedicated to I/ITSEC (so don’t be surprised if this topic comes up … a lot). My team starts to hear me chant I/ITSEC, I/ITSEC, I/ITSEC by June at the latest and it is never far from my thoughts throughout the year. What will we showcase, what will we announce, what will be relevant and valuable to our journalist friends, how will we be differentiated? The list goes on.

One thing that I have noticed is that the show is becoming more PR friendly. People are taking notice of the top-tier journalists who attend this show – people like Tim Mahon from his newly launched Training & Simulation Forum, Kristin Quinn who is heading up Training & Simulation Journal (now being rolled under the Defense News umbrella), the entire Halldale team who are out in full force, and Brian O’Shea at MT2 (there are many more…and believe me, they’ll all come up here at some point).  The news environment is becoming more crowded, forcing many of us to get creative - press events, roundtables, online discussions, private customer events. Nothing like a little friendly competition to keep the blood pumping.

The dialogue between industry and media seems to be much more free-flowing than in years past …. Yes, the savvy are creating a two-way conversation! YAY!  The old-school approach of “selling a story” is just not the kind of PR I want to practice and it seems that the industry is moving in that direction as a whole. It’s about the relationship, understanding where you can add value, and how to support our reporters in a way that doesn’t burden their already incredible workload. The ability to contribute to their profession in a meaningful way is what drives me to do better, create better content, and do it first.

What did you do at I/ITSEC to push the needle?