Christopher S. Penn is traveling abroad for a couple of weeks and asked me to be a guest contributor. Click here to read my contribution to Awaken Your Superhero!
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Category: Daily Life
Note: I first published this post in September of 2009. I’m reminded of a Bill Gates quote: “We overestimate the impact of new technologies over the next 2 years, and underestimate its impact in 10 years”. I went back to this post for another writing project I’m working on and decided to update it and clean it up. I’m still interested in any comments and feedback so I’ve decided to update the publish date to give it another shot at life:
The moderator for the session I wrote about yesterday pulled together some interesting comments from the session last night (even some of mine!). Some very good stuff from the person that stepped up to ask where the PR panelists were, including strong points on PRWeb for SEO.
There are some interesting academic arguments and defenses from PR specialists but I think people are losing sight of the fact that these are literally entrepreneurs working part time in their basements or other below C class office space, and Mike was dead on saying “I haven’t seen a PR shop that would get out of bed for less than $4K/month”. Guys clipping coupons for a case of Ramen Pride between coding are not possible clients.
After a night’s sleep it came to me that while the writers/bloggers were saying you can get by without PR people, you have marketing gurus saying you don’t need the writers/bloggers. You’re the expert in the space, you can create your own content. Why work around some other pub’s schedule, or spend time bringing a journalist up to speed on your specific niche when you can publish your own stuff and own the content, track it, and do with it as you please?
Stepping beyond the academic arguments that could be debated ad nauseam, Mike asked the big questions:
Is the “junior staff leverage” model really dead, and if so, what business model will support the next generation of great marketing services firms? The truth is I don’t know. But it seems to me that’s the conversation worth having among the “PR” digerati… not the semantic argument about what PR is or isn’t, but how, in the end, the people delivering it will build a sustainable and productive business.
Before I get into my answers, it’s a good idea to expand the definition of PR beyond influencing writers. Some good stuff already written on that from last night.
…PR is about developing a broad communications program that includes:
- Building a long-term strategy that establish lasting relationships with your core audiences;
- Creating content and managing conversations that engage those audiences directly; and
- Reaching industry influencers (media relations gets lumped in here).
Tactically this means that the communicator or agency you hire should have skill sets that include: writing ability; audio and video skills; creative thinking and the ability to connect with influencers.
That got me thinking about what the business model would look like. By 2012, most marketing, PR, and ad agency positions that revolve around tactics will be reinvented – a huge opportunity here. This is what I think it might look like (keep in mind that me writing this is a lot like all of the jackasses that start restaurants that go out of business because they think that eating out most of their lives is actual foodservice experience):
An Agency FROM THE FUTURE!
I don’t see a scenario where the existing junior staff model can work. It has in the past because of communications friction (trying to call all relevant reporters about hot stories from all your clients every day, hard work but low skill level).
The big idea is the Embedded Agent. Someone who can go into an account a day a week or more to shoot video, record audio and create other relevant content. Ideally they would be paired with a subject matter expert (SME) at the client who will ultimately speak on behalf of the client. Think about building your own Robert Scobles (when he was still at Microsoft) or Scott Montys. This forces a schedule of content production that can be used in a number of scenarios and at the same time will serve as SEO activity.
The agent’s team should also include a Preditor (Producer/Editor) who assembles the raw footage from the Agent. Preditors have access to the best tools and a support network of their peers – no client would be able to reproduce the the effectiveness of the Agent/Preditor team so this is a huge value add. This team would need an admin to handle scheduling as the Agent will be moving around a lot (let’s say with a 3 client load), and the Preditor needs long stretches of uninterrupted time for work – somebody needs to field calls and emergencies.
Beyond the teams are infrastructure that the client has access to that cannot be reproduced without huge expense by the client – the remainder of the value add. Audio/Video production and Photography, specialists in a variety of disciplines including CRM, Lead Generation, whatever the agency can leverage that clients need.
Influencer is the last category, executives that have access to people with markets. You can get on the Today show? Clients will pay for that. Having a strong database here would allow this system to scale to multiple people instead of a the single performer limitation.
Ok, enough with the BS, let’s see if I can backsolve this to a profitable business…
Teams (with benefits, taxes, etc.) Fully loaded agent – $200k, Preditors $120k, Admin $50k = $370k per team/3 clients=$123k, charge $150k to cover fixed expenses etc.= $12,500 per month for the client. The client is getting more than 1/3 of an agent and Preditor (at bare minimum $9k per month). So for 30k per year they get all the value and don’t have the impossible task of finding 1/3 of an agent and Preditor. All the specialist stuff can be sold ala carte for big margin.
Any opinions out there? Is this real or candyland?
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Operation Comix Relief
With the holidays gone I wanted to give some ink to Operation Comix Relief. Chris runs this non-profit organization and is nearing ten years of sending comics to soldiers around the globe – approaching 2,000 packages!
With year end approaching I sent over a check as part of my charitable donations goal for the year and he sent me an email back thanking me personally and said that I enabled 15 packages to go out over the holidays.
If you value the freedom we enjoy that was earned by others and could spare a few moments you could make a big difference to those serving throughout the world (especially those in hospitals), by visiting Chris’ site and clicking on the Paypal link to make a donation.
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Mind Mapping
In the Marketing Over Coffee LinkedIn group MindMaps came up as a topic. We talked about it this week and I said that I’d share more than I normally show in my Quarterly Review posts.
Here’s a full screenshot (click it for full size) with my gory details removed:
Here’s a zipped file if you have MindManager, or an exported Word Doc.
The process is simple – at the beginning of the year think about what you will accomplish on four fronts:
- Family
- Personal
- Professional
- Financial Goals
You’ll probably find that you have many of these quadrants already full of items, and that’s fine, it’s good to be able to give yourself some credit for your dumptruck full of stress that you’ve been taking for granted.
Some notes:
Family – Remember that your life is juggling, but not all the balls are the same. Your family is one of the glass ones, you drop that and it will never be the same. It doesn’t have to take all your time, but it does need to be first in your planning.
Personal – Here’s your one shot to pick something fun to do. Fitness also sets here, you’ve only got one body so you need to plan for it to last a while.
Professional – This will be different for everyone, but my mix has been the current job, side projects, and keeping your personal brand strong.
Financial – After the sands of time have blown away nobody will care about a few thousand bucks, but you do need to put some food on the table today. If you’ve been using Quicken, it’s pretty easy to forecast this stuff.
So from here, you need to check in at least once a month, better yet have a day once a week (Sunday nights tend to work well), where you look at your upcoming calendar and make sure you’ve made time for the big stuff.
Every quarter, update the scorecard to see how things are going. If you’ve got anything big planned please tell me about it, I’m still trying to fill my 2011 card.
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Man’s Best Friend
My blogging holiday is over, having hit my 52 post goal before Thanksgiving I’ve been playing around with a bunch of other projects including a new laptop (and workflow) for me, and dumping 28 tons of gravel into a half filled root cellar in the garage (but that’s another post).
The first day of the new year was not a happy one here. Carin’s dog Hannah had reached 15 years old and has not been doing well for a couple of years. She went deaf about 3 years ago, and had a tumor removed two years ago. As we were driving out to see our family on New Year’s Day, even with her in the way back of the car I could see that a small growth she had in her mouth had exploded.
We had been preparing for this for a long time but it’s still so sad when the day arrives. Carin got her as a puppy 5 years before we started dating, and I used to joke that she took care of her until I showed up.
I’ve had many dogs and she was by far the smartest. Many of them would get their toys when told to, but you could say “No, the Blue one” and she would go back for the right one. Sadly, she is survived by Carter, who walks into things all the time.
We miss her, but it’s good to know that she’s no longer in pain, but the house still feels kind of empty.
As I clean out my inbox I have links worth sharing that finally come to light. I wrote about Mr. Rogers giving you the smackdown, and even though it was in 2007, the magic of the Google has kept it around and it was cited in a recent Fast Company article. Also interesting in my post is a comment with some kind words from a guy who was just beginning to really tear things up – Chris Brogan.
Over on Marketing Over Coffee we’ve released a special episode just for people who have bought the iTunes Marketing Over Coffee app (and folks that buy the Android app out probably later this week will also get it). The rest of the subscribers will get it the last week in December, but you faithful reader can also get it early since you go out of your way to check out this space.
MOC Interview with Sal Ferro and John Doyle of Alure Homes
[audio:http://traffic.libsyn.com/marketingovercoffee/MoC191-ehme.mp3]Have a great Thanksgiving!
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Video on the Web
Big News
I’ve been reading what I can about HTML 5 lately and came across this great resource on Video for the Web. It covers codecs, wrappers and a bunch of other stuff including H.264, a video standard that HTML 5 supports.
Lesser News
This was also computer overhaul week. Besides my upgrade, which is, for the most part, completed, I also juiced up the Lovely Carin’s Mac with 4x the RAM and more than doubled the hard drive and went up to 7200 RPM. It really screams now.
I also gave Handbreak a try for getting some of my DVDs into iTunes so I can check them out on the iPad. the H.264 standard looks amazing. I’m glad I saved all my source DVD’s so I can replace the files I have now. I joined the new gym down the street so I’m looking forward to catching up on the TV and movies I have missed in the past year. I’m thinking about catching the last season of 24 since I’ve see the others. The BBC’s Sherlock is great but doesn’t take long to watch. Any other suggestions welcome…
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What Point and Shoot Camera Should I Buy?
A friend asked me this question today and I went through the trouble of putting together the (affiliate) links so I thought this would make a decent blog post for the holiday season. This is not a discussion, but rather I was asked what I would buy for a point and shoot and this is it:
This camera is a little bigger than the average point and shoot but it takes incredible pictures. It has a great lens with huge zoom, and can shoot HD video. It’s Ronin approved.
Don’t make the mistake of buying just the camera, if you are giving a gift you want to include the whole set:
A case so it doesn’t get destroyed, an extra battery so you can always have one charged and ready, and a SanDisk 8GB fast memory card – not a cheap knock off stolen out of the SanDisk defect pile.
So that’s a great package for about $350 all in. From there you could go in three directions:
- Smaller if carrying it around is the primary concern
- DSLR for fantastic pictures but you’ll have to carry around a bag of junk
- Up or down if you have a price number to hit
For smaller I’d check out the digital Elph line from Canon, the PowerShot SD4000 IS is around $280 and a great camera.
You can check out and compare the whole Canon Line here.
For DSLR the Rebel T2i is the latest entry level and around $700, plus you’d have to kick in another $300 for a good lens. Expensive and a lot to carry, but great shots.
You can go more expensive on point and shoot but I don’t think it’s worth going over $350. You can get cheaper if you got a model that you can still get new but has been out for a while, like the Canon PowerShot SD940IS for $165.
Amazon is good especially if you have free shipping with Prime, but also and check prices at B&H Photo and go there if you ever have the chance when you are in New York City, it’s right near Madison Square Garden.
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Emergency Plumbing, etc.
Not much writing about marketing lately, I know… contrary to the title of this blog. But hey, you can always swing over to Marketing Over Coffee to get my take there.
I wanted to thank the folks at Suffolk U. who invited me to stop by on Saturday to talk about social media, I hope they enjoyed it as much as I did. It also gave me an excuse to bring the camera downtown for some shooting.
My weekend was a bit messed up while I was getting the house ready for winter and found out that the bleeder valve in the shutoff for the hose spigot was mounted backwards. If you don’t speak plumbing just picture me standing in my basement in socks, jeans and a rugby shirt with water spraying out in a 6 foot jet all over everything. One shutoff and a walk to the downtown hardware store for a $3.50 part and all was back to normal.
Last weekend was a big deal for me. Comic Con came to Boston with a bunch of TV stars from back when I used to have time to watch TV. It’s been decades since I’ve gone to a con but I really wanted to meet Lee Majors. My entire life has been messing around with technology, and when you rewind the tape to the beginning there’s a kid getting his mind blown by an engineer making a bionic man. I figured it would be perfectly normal for a geek, a shadowy government dude and an astronaut to save the world every week. For those who missed the seventies I’m talking about Col. Steve Austin – The Six Million Dollar Man.
I also got to meet a guy you might know from Smallville or The Dukes of Hazzard:
It was great to talk with John, he saw my camera and brought me over to talk to the neighboring booth who was having trouble with theirs. After I got the flash going for them the let me take a special shot on the house:
It’s hard not to yell “YEEE HEEE HAAAAAWWW” when you are sitting in it. Also – everyone asks the same question – no, I did not have to climb in, the door does open.
Last, but not least, this week was Blogtoberfest, Jenny calling down the Martini Thunder yet again. I got a nice shot with the Sony NEX-5 with our own Paul Revere of Video Blogging:
Ok, last shot of my stupid grinning mug: this is my favorite shot of Blogtoberfest (I’m not sure if that link works, of course FB has no sharing URL, so I imagine they’ll sabotage a deep link). Flickr has it, so here it is, Ye Olde Bostone Bloggerse:
I know it’s last minute but if you are looking for a 5k Sunday morning I’ll be doing the Miles for Kyle. Have a good weekend!
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Where do you put extra hope?
I am a city person at heart. I like being around a lot of people, when I am downtown during the evenings I can feel the energy of everyone traveling around, each of them with their own story being played out. I get a bit of the same feeling first thing in the morning when I log on and see people from the west coast still posting things in their late night that gets handed off to my early morning, real time. At that point the web joins the ranks of the cities that never sleep.
I saw a flash of truth this morning as opposed to the normal “Gee, I forgot how much I like pickles” kind of crap. Someone mentioned the quiet lonely hours before going off to sleep. I remember, in what seems to be about 2 million years ago, feeling the same way going to bed at some hour when the people who run bakeries and coffee shops are opening up for the morning rush.
It was so well written, not only was it poetic, but it felt like the scene at the beginning of a movie. Like the “I wish” part at the beginning of every Disney movie ever made. The sad part was that it was deleted very quickly. This person is “a big deal on the internet”, but actually is one of the few that really is a big deal on the internet, so I’m sure that when something like that is put out there, there’s a whole parade of pickle liking weirdos that come pouring in.
So, feeling fortunate enough to have seen something real this morning, and having no way to send back a bit of hope, I thought I’d store it here. I’m living proof that a prayer for a busy home can be answered. Although I don’t always get a full night sleep, I am happy in my bed.