To borrow a line from Scrooge, “I’m as giddy as a drunken man.” With today’s Apple iPad intro, it feels like Christmas.

 

I was glued to Engadget’s live blogfeed of the announcement. Apple is leveraging its iPhone technology in a new tablet format, adding bells and whistles like unlocked, no contract, and cheap 3G data plans, a keyboard dock and the iBookstore.

 

But once again, as we’ve seen in the past with Apple, the whole may be larger than the sum of the parts.

 

In the tech industry we pay homage to “innovation” as the ultimate springboard for leadership positioning and killer differentiation.

 

Lots of companies make products, but only a few reinvent how we learn, communicate and experience. Remember trying to use a pre-iPod Mp3 player? Mine was a Diamond Rio; frustrated and ticked off are two reactions that come to mind.

 

Remember how you felt the first time you used an iPod? For me, it was the same feeling I get when I step foot in a new country. Wow, this is someplace different, and it’s cool, and a little scary but I’m happy to be here and I want to discover this new place.

 

The iPod wasn’t just innovative because of its simple design and intuitive ease of use. The kicker was the iTunes store – it gave us a whole new way to stay on top of music, broaden our horizons, consume and share at far less cost. The entire experience of finding and listening to music was transformed.

 

I used to think it was de rigueur to be able to stay in touch via e-mail on my mobile phone. But now as an iPhone user, I can’t fathom how I was satisfied with a device that made surfing the web painful and offered little else.

The iPhone gives me a broader, more fulfilling experience. While typing is a little less speedy, I now have - in one device – painless Internet, much better viewing, a decent camera, games, nifty video, all the music I love, instant social networking connections, an e-book reader and access to over 140,000 apps. Nice trade-up.

The iPad isn't perfect (bad name; doesn't multi-task; no webcam; no widescreen; no GPS) but it may hold similar long-term promise.

If I was a newspaper or magazine publisher, I’d be more hopeful. This device has the potential to help reinvent the publishing industry like iTunes reinvented the music industry. As I watched today’s New York Times demo, it reminded me of the Harry Potter movies where animated video moves across “The Daily Prophet” student newspaper. The iPad features drop down context menus; re-sizing of pages with a pinch; and embedded video inside articles. If the content providers and app developers get onboard with this vision, it could be a reinvention of how we read and learn.

It remains to be seen whether the iPad will make it or die a Newtonian death. The lesson I walk away with is that consumer and B2B brands can endear themselves to their customers - and potentially win - if they focus on innovating customer experiences vs. merely announcing feature-rich products. The former is a benefit-laden differentiation that’s damn hard to disrupt.

10. New levels of ravenous mass media spotlighting. Arguably, 2009 featured an insane level of “we will not let this story go.” Already saturated news stories were repeated - endlessly - way past the point of saturation. From balloon boy to Octomom to Gosselin vs. Gosselin to Amanda Knox, the same B-level stories were relentlessly beaten to death. While this isn’t a new trend, it is an increasingly annoying one.

 

9. Under-reported storytelling. One of the by-products of over-reporting is under-reporting. Too many newsworthy stories either didn’t get covered or were given marginal, brief treatment. These stories included (as TIME magazine summarized in its year-end issue) Nigerian blood for oil, experimenting with children and the Maoist insurgency in India.

 

8. Twitter & Facebook went legit for business. In 2009, Twitter broadened from a consumer-level experience to a pragmatic corporate communications tool. An increasing number of businesses are using it for real-time updates, blatant marketing and thought leadership. Ditto for Facebook. LinkedIn, the social networking tool most associated with business, opened up its API and became more Facebook-like.

 

7. Online media became credible. In a year when print media collapsed, most people finally “got” that online visibility/conversations have gone legit. Meanwhile, the enlightened understand how online and social media is a new paradigm much more impactful than traditional media because of its transparency, authenticity and conversational two-way belief building.

 

6. Blogs ruled but got reeled in. Blogs became the real-time voice of corporations, the best way to communicate and build a human corporate persona. But while they were more widespread, the Federal government cracked down on bloggers in the pocket of vendors, forcing full disclosure for paid-for-booty.

5. Green became greener. While greenwashing didn’t go away in 2009, most corporations understood the mantra of needing to walk the walk, not just talk the talk. They also saw a direct line drawn between sustainability and profitability.

3. Video became an accepted standard in corporate America. The days of writing extensive “case studies” and producing elaborate (and expensive) corporate videos waned in 2009. Thanks to guerilla-style, grassroots video acceptance, corporations increasingly added video to their arsenal of communications thanks to a triumvirate of benefits: believability, immediacy and low-cost. Why write a news release when you can post a three minute video of someone saying it? Would you rather read or watch?  

2. PR was re-invigorated. The words “public relations” may still conjure negative imagery, but in 2009, the PR industry began making progress towards a renewed, positive and relevant position. Driven by social media which fosters conversations vs. pitches, the PR industry made significant strides in shifting from a media-centric one-way communications model to a two-way listening model.

 

1. Social responsibility became embedded. In 2009, “making the world a better place” moved from ‘philanthropy’ to an appreciation for and understanding of how authentic, integrated giving-back strategy and action positively impacts business objectives and the bottom line. There’s no turning back and that’s a very good thing.                            

My daughter Sophie participated in a great program sponsored by SkiNH called “Earn Your Turns.” It’s for 4^th-graders in NH who want to earn free tickets and discounts to NH ski resorts with a slight catch - they have to work for it. There are several homework assignments they can choose to earn the ski rewards – make a poster, write an essay, draw a picture. Sophie chose to conduct a survey of friends and family. Her question: Which ski resort in NH is your favorite?

 

While her survey wasn’t scientific, it did result in a high response rate (64 votes from 100+ possible respondents: approx. 65%) and offers some insight you might find useful as you plan your next survey.

 

1.      Consider your target list. Before you hit send on your online survey, consider how the results might be skewed based on the people you are surveying. In our case, Sophie surveyed friends and family, who all gather each winter at Cranmore Mountain in North Conway, so naturally the winning resort was Cranmore (although it should be voted #1 anyway!). Consider widening your target list to include those who have no familiarity with the questions you are asking so the results are more horizontal and less biased.

2.      Offer an incentive. I think we had such a high hit rate because Sophie offered a prize to a random winner picked from all the survey respondents. In this case, Lindt chocolates were up for grabs, but your incentive could be something meaningful to your target list: free product, free support or an all-expenses paid trip to the next user conference. If all else fails, chocolate does work!

3.      Personalize your “ask.” Sophie explained why she was doing the survey and included a picture of herself snowboarding. Many people commented on the project being such a great idea and the graphic offered a peek at how happy she is on the slopes. Consider adding a picture of your CEO, a graph from your last survey, or a video that’s meaningful to the spirit of the survey to give it more “life.”

4.      Say thank you. For each person that responded Sophie sent a personal thank you response along with a reminder about the incentive. “Thank you! If you are lucky, you will get chocolate.” This was appreciated by the respondents, but also opened further one-on-one dialogue. While this can’t be done with thousands of survey participants, consider responding personally to the top 10-15, particularly if they are key customers. Thank them for participating and perhaps get a dialogue going on different issues, or to get some specific anecdotes or data.

5.      Conclude your survey. People who participate in surveys typically do not hear about the results. If they take the time to help you, they should be informed of the outcome. When Sophie’s survey was officially “closed” (we had an end date and time), she sent everyone on the list – even those that didn’t participate – another thank you announcing the winning resort as well as the winner of the chocolate. For privacy reasons, you may not be able to reveal that much information, but closing the loop will let people know you brought the survey to a conclusion and give them another opportunity to engage in further communication with you.

 

In the end, have fun with it. Sophie was so proud of her results she couldn’t wait to share them with her teacher and is anticipating the arrival of her Earn Your Turns rewards.

 

What real-life survey lessons have you learned?

Lots of companies – especially those in B2B – still talk about (or request) PR services that increasingly strike me as tired, fading or dead.

 

Press tours & press briefings – yes, there are still industries where the press tour is alive and well (entertainment!) but most reporters, editors and bloggers don’t have time to meet in person anymore. I always felt bad for them during the height of this practice when an endless stream of PR people with clients in tow stacked-up to get their turn updating glassy-eyed reporters.

 

Hits & clips – counting clips (printed editorial coverage) and putting undue weight on offline publicity to measure PR success should have died two decades ago. Ask Katie Paine, one of the leaders in communications measurement. She says “hit” stands for How Idiots Track Success.

Press kits, brochures & collateral – in this era of sustainability and green, it’s hard to believe companies are still printing, but some are. Remember the days when major trade show/conference press rooms would be filled with press kits? This practice has largely stopped; it’s a digital world, let’s stop killing trees.

 

Press releases – the function of the news release has shifted so dramatically that in most instances they’re written and issued to primarily serve other stakeholders (customers, investors, prospects, etc.), not the press. The term “press release” is still (marginally) more prevalent than “news release,” (139 million vs. 104 million per Google) but call ‘em by the latter. It’s a more accurate, current and legitimate term.

 

Pitch – this term bugs me more than any other tired/fading/dead PR word because it epitomizes the old-world model of one-way communications. We have two-way conversations, we listen, we seek-out opinions, we build relationships and we tell stories. We shouldn’t “pitch.”

 

Users – this term has been around in the world of tech for decades; “users” referring to people who “use” products. For bizarro reasons I could never fathom, they aren’t called customers or consumers. Time to bury this one.

 

Big bang announcements – there was a time when PR practitioners would communicate with reporters well in advance of actual news being issued. Two or three months before the news broke, corporate spokespersons would inform industry analysts and “long lead time” magazines. Then they’d pre-brief the bi-weeklies, then the weeklies, then the dailies. This is a breathless concept. Blogs break news before most offline news outlets are even aware of it. Other social media (Twitter especially) inform in true real time.

 

Publicity – I’ve never liked this word in the context of defining public relations practice. Are we trying to build trusted reputations and create belief? Or, are we simply trying to get attention (Balloon Boy!)? True public relations is not publicity.

 

Embargos & lead time – PR practitioners used to negotiate up-front agreements with reporters not to run pre-fed news stories until the official date/time of the announcement. Hardly anyone wants to be tied to this practice; it’s still around but is fading fast.

 

Here’s what you need to know to effectively persuade:

 
“Corporate Communications and/or Legal (on the customer side) shuts us down every time.”
 
 “Our customers consider their use of our product a proprietary advantage and don’t want to talk about it publicly.”
 
“We have a handful of customers and zero leverage at this stage getting them to be references.”
 
“They like us, but can’t endorse us.”
 
“Only a finite group are referenceable and they’ve been leveraged heavily by many different groups within our company, especially sales. PR isn’t often at the top of the list.”
  
While there certainly are instances where a given customer can’t be a reference, case closed, there are many proven techniques to engage others:  
 
Think micro, not macro – The highest impact customer references are strategically targeted and proactively nurtured. They’re not random “dialing for dollars” occurrences. Analyze your customer base to target particular customers who provide a ‘great fit’ advantage for you, and them. Sort your customers by reference objective. Then go after them individually in a thoughtful way.
 
Leverage C-Level execs – Don’t approach critical potential customer references with junior people. Instead, elevate this outreach to the highest levels of your company. Engage your CEO, Chairman, Board members, CMO and strategic members of your PR firm to explore referenceability. Leverage any personal relationships that exist. This shifts conversational impact to a much higher – and more successful - level.

 

 

 

The CEO sitting next to me the other day heads a very successful company. She understands marketing and gets social media. But when the subject of blogging came up, she went down an interesting path.

 

“I still don’t get why we need to blog. Who’s going to visit our Web site to read our blog? On top of that, we're real busy and don’t have a lot of extra time to write content consistently. I don’t want to start and stop; that’s worse than never starting. So why is blogging so critical?”

 

She may appear to have a good point. After all, some 175,000 blogs are created daily. Technorati estimates the number of blogs at 113 million (with 7.5 million of them active). 184 million bloggers are creating 570,000 posts every 24 hours, reaching 70 percent of Web surfers daily.

 

With all this blogging going on – and the mind-numbing reality of 175,000 new blogs coming to life daily – why is it so important?

 

We’ve all heard the litany of high-level reasons why companies should blog, including:

 

I knew the CEO next to me had heard this stuff before. So I didn’t go there. Knowing she was a pragmatic, revenue-enhancing, lead generating type, I talked, instead, about the correlation between blogging and sales (something you don’t hear enough about).

 

 

Before explaining how blogging plays a central role in generating sales leads, I emphasized the need to get search engine optimization (SEO) right. That’s where the journey should begin. SEO and blogging go together; they're buddies. Once the SEO foundation is laid, a company can move forward with blogging which is one of the best ways to create pages that are keyword dense and optimized.

 

If you write compelling content that people naturally search for, they will discover you, visit your site, probe and (hopefully) become engaged. Just don’t make the mistake of writing myopically about your company, products, services and promotions. Build a higher-level voice based on topics people (who don’t know you) will search for. Whereas the majority of Web site content is static, blogs are alive with fluid, current thinking.  

 

Remember that blogging isn’t an occasional thing; you need to do it often enough to build an authentic voice and aura of authority. That typically means daily or at least weekly. Nothing looks worse than a withering blog without a post for weeks or months. 

Blogs directly impact sales because they drive traffic back to your blogs and Web site, including traffic from referring Web sites. They're one of the best ways to increase linkage (links) which is critical to broadening readership.

Another way blogs can stimulate sales is by gathering periodic "best of" compilations. Select 4-5 of your company's best posts and send them to a targeted e-mail list and social networks (LinkedIn and Facebook are good places to start). This way the content they may have missed by not searching or visiting your web site is delivered to their desktop. Do this every month or every other month to create a consistent flow. And don’t forget to tweet your blog posts.

My CEO friend asked one more question: “Does it matter that our company isn’t selling our products and services online?” I told her it doesn’t; we’re talking apples and oranges. Even if you’re not selling online, people are finding you online.

Thanks to search, the function of marketing shifted (awhile ago) from one-way push to many-to-many pull. Now, thankfully, a direct connection occurs, and it’s coming bottom-up - from prospects, customers, friends, fans, etc. - vs. top-down.