Conversationblog

Time to look at my own little "neck of the woods" here in Belgium and see how my Belgian PR colleagues are using (or not using) tools such as blogging, podcasting, RSS feeds etc... in the context of business communications.

Two little surveys are helping me to fine-tune my own personal impressions:

First there's the results of the social media survey of Leads United - Blackline's sister agency - which were published this afternoon.

My colleagues at Leads United collected feedback from 70 PR professionals working in companies across all industries located in Belgium.

Here are the major results:

• Only 24% of respondents use RSS feeds.
• Only 1.4% are active wiki users.
• The implementation of blogging guidelines has risen from 4% in 2007 to 20% in 2008.
• When speaking about strategically applying social media tools, it is seen in this order; first external communications, second internal communications and third, crisis communications.

You can find more details in their social media press release here.

And then there's my own, personal, non-scientific, listing of PR agencies located in Belgium, who are using (or not) RSS feeds to distribute their own (or their client's) content.

As with recent years the trends are not improving that much....

Here are my findings:

• From the 27 PR agencies surveyed, only 9 are using RSS feeds on their website.
• 1 PR agency decided to finally start with RSS feeds on their website in 2008.
  
• 4 didn't optimize their feeds to be recognized by a browser.
• 1 PR agency website was not available.
• 1 PR agency website had RSS feeds in 2007, but not anymore in 2008.

As I wrote on numerous occasions before, RSS feeds and their use is a basic & fundamental skill for someone, or an agency who claims to have experience in "social media" or "online PR".... I can't understand that some PR agencies claim they have those skills and then not implement RSS feeds for their own use on their own website....

You can find the full list and results on my public wiki. Comments about the list and the results ? Please let me know..

Also, for those of you who have heard about RSS and are willing to spend a couple of hours this summer to learn about it, go here and check out my 2 new Summer Courses .

Everyone is welcome !

Interesting report here from Reuters how Twitter was used to break a story hours before the mainstream media got hold of it.

Dave Winer, a well known blogger, asked his Twitter ecosystem (people who subscribe to his updates) if they knew something about a possible explosion in Falls Church, Virginia. Soon other people on Twitter told what they had seen or felt in and around that area.

It was 90 minutes later when official media reported what actually happened - thereby confirming what several people reported already through Twitter.

Of course it helped that Dave has such a huge following on Twitter (more than 9000 people) but this is again a case of social media being faster than traditional media.

I have used microblogging for conferences and regular updates myself and while at first I didn't really see a use for Twitter or Jaiku I now see more and more practical business cases popping up.

Here's a good overview on how journalists can and are using microblogging tools. For corporations I can think of applying the principles to internal communications, urgent situation updates, crisis communications and more.

What do you think ? Still the biggest waste of time ever...?

A new report from Forrester gives some insights into the use of RSS in a marketing context and it's Johnson & Johnson versus the Red Cross in the blogosphere...

I was reading Adriana's blog today and saw her post about her client Johnson & Johnson who is suing.... the American Red Cross. No this is not a mistake, they are suing the American Red Cross because of an infringement on one of their trademarks.

As you can imagine this is no easy decision to make for an organization and it is definitely not an easy task for the PR/Corporate Comms. Manager to handle. But Ray Jordan & Marc Monseau from J&J Communications are doing a good job blogging about this issue in a very transparent way.

They must be fighting with legal over this but I do believe it helps give insight on the 2 sides of the story here. Will it keep J&J safe from a dent in their public image ? Not completely but it will balance the views somewhat, at least in the blogosphere.

I hope someone will condense this story into a study report for the next generation of PR professionals so they can read, study and learn how the profession is (slowly) changing and opening up to (don't be scared now) transparency.

Is RSS the best invention of the whole web2.0 phenomenon ?

That's what several online publications are asking in their articles based on the latest report from Forrester. According to this 2007 report about 40% of US based interactive marketeers are using RSS. More statistics give a general idea of the uptake of RSS although other stay skeptic.

I don't get it.... I have written before about the use of RSS and how it can be applied to marketing, business communications, news gathering and monitoring. Other people like Rok Hrastnik have been writing books about it with great case studies and clear ROI measurements. Why does something so straight forward seems to be looked at as the biggest mystery of all (online) times ?

This is not the first report by Forrester on the topic... Here's one dating back to 2005 I found on Charleen Li's blog. Already at the time there was a huge interest in RSS by Marketeers and the benefits were clearly stated.

Oh, and for the Belgian PR professionals reading this.... Yes, I will soon update my listing of Belgian based PR agencies who use/do not use RSS on their website/blog.

Technorati : J&J, adriana lucas, charlene li, forrester, pr agency, red cross, rok hrastnik, rss

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Several bloggers here in Belgium have been covering Quechup, a so called online social networking site with a bit of a nasty habit; it sends invites to all your email contacts without asking.

Today ZDNet.be, (in Dutch) the influential IT publisher, is also covering the story and mentions Bert and Clo as bloggers who have been scammed and who blog about this issue. In fact it is Bert's post that will show up as top 3 when you do a search on Google for Quechup.

I also received an invite to joint this network but didn't give it a second look simply because I am already in so many networks that I can't keep up. Apart from that, the whole thing had a "dodgy" feel to it...

Xing and LinkedIn are enough for me and apart from some very specialist PR networks I am not planning to join any other sites or communities for the moment.

Xing has proved to be a very strong business development tool and it amazes me every time that online contacts become offline colleagues, business partners or clients. Introductions are so much smoother and I feel I can get "down to business" much quicker. (Try a free Premium membership here).

Anyway, stay clear from Quechup and if you really like the story behind it all, check out their attempt to blog dating back to June 03, 2005 !

Technorati : bert van wassenhove, clo willaerts, quechup, social network, spam, zdnet.be

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Phew... back home and blogging at last.

Monday I was in Paris speaking about new media to French PR colleagues and yesterday I was again speaking but this time in London at the PR Week conference entitled "Taking the drama out of a crisis". (This was in the context of my New Media function at IBM).

Interesting notes from yesterday came from the media panel consisting of Gary Duffy from BBC News Interactive, Jamie Angus from The Today Programme and Simon Buck from Sky News. Here's what I jotted down, in no specific order or importance - all relate to crisis communications:

• "No vacuum please"; in a crisis situation constant updates are needed - even if no major changes in the situation take place.
• Provide facilities - if possible - for TV and camera crews (parking for satellite TV vans for instance).
• Your best spokesperson is not necessarily the CEO.
• As a PRO you have to know how a newsroom works - inside out.
• Use national news-wires and news agencies.
• Know your key contacts - not necessarily reporter - at major media. These could be news dispatchers, redaction secretaries etc...
• Use graphics and multimedia where possible (an image is like a zillion words...) to explain complex issues.

Other aspects which I find very interesting in Crisis Management is the human care aspect during and after a crisis. I read a very good book about this topic called "Blindsided" by Bruce Blythe last year.

At the conference I learnt that since the London bombings, Transport of London has a general stress management system in place which helps teams in the daily stress of work during non crisis situations thus preparing them to better deal with "real stress" during a crisis.

The Paris conference was more general and covered media relations/new media in non crisis situations. I was invited by Guillaume du Gardier from Edelman and it was nice to meet up with a fellow PR blogger again.

One thing that shocked me (please tell me if I am naive) was that I saw prime time news coverage from a PR launch of Yahoo's latest dating site... Not the topic was shocking - but the fact that on the news someone was interviewed that at a later stage was identified as having been "casted" for that specific shoot.

Now I could have misunderstood so I'll be checking the facts on this one.

And a final note on the "new media" savviness of PR colleagues in both capitals... At both conferences the majority of colleagues were not monitoring the blogosphere, most of them were not participating through blogging and just a handful understood how RSS could be used in PR work.

PS: Just in - "Web fuelling crisis in politics" from the BBC news site. Here's an extract:

"What is the big breakthrough, in terms of politics, on the web in the last few years? It's basically blogs which are, generally speaking, hostile and, generally speaking, basically see their job as every day exposing how venal, stupid, mendacious politicians are."

Have fun....

Technorati : BBC, PR+week, crisis, crisis+communications, issues+management, media, media+relations, sky+news, the+today+programme

Volkswagen is closing it's factory in Brussels laying off more than 3500 people. The last 5 days have been full of speculation but now we know. I can only start to imagine the social drama that will follow.

Communications toward the workers and to the media has been erratic as could be expected. I guess what happened was that senior management in Germany already decided last week about the lay offs but wanted to keep everyone in doubt till the week after so that they could prepare "the day after".

I have seen this happen more than once in my 12+ years of PR (Renault, Sabena etc...) and do not understand why straightforward, honest communications with the people who will be impacted can not happen from day one.

Technorati : Belgium, Forrest, VW, Volkswagen, Vorst

Ex-employee of Lockheed uncovers security flaws on US Coast Guard patrol boats on YouTube.

Mr. De Kort used YouTube as an outlet for his frustration with what he calls serious security issues on some patrol boats of the Coast Guard. After being laid off by Lockheed Martin, his employer, he decided that it was time to come in the open about.

"It may be very hard for you to believe that our government and the largest defense contractor in the world [are] capable of such alarming incompetence and can make ethical compromises as glaring as what I am going to describe." he stated in his home made clip.

The story was picked up by the Washington Post and I found it via the eastwikkers blog.

Apart from the fact that YouTube can be used to point to issues or be used by disgruntled employees or "whistle-blowers" (I do not imply that Mr. De Kort fits any of these descriptions), the reaction from different sources was also interesting to note....

From the "we have taken appropriate action... (corporate speak follows)" from the Coast Guard to the "I want to make sure that the product we paid for is a product that does not jeopardize our men and women in service," politically correct response from a politician.

Technorati : coast guard, employee, lockheed, security, washington post, youtube

A story entitled "Recall of Defect Product Works as Advertising" (in Dutch) tells us that the product recall of Dell has increased their shares on the stock exchange and is even good for their public image. The story first appeared in NRC Handelsblad, a Dutch newspaper.

The story, just published on the news site of Telenet (a telco operator) also quotes a specialized lawyer from Nauta Dutilh called Stijn Franken who said the following:

"Recall is good for 2 reasons; the company gets in the news and with a positive story, namely that it is taking active measures against damage" (translated from Dutch)

The reporter goes on to concluding that this strategy worked for Dell because their shares have increased in value with 4% on the NY stock exchange.

Now this is really jumping conclusions don't you think. Making assumptions that all this - product recall, positive impact on image and increase in share value - is linked is a real big leap of faith. I have a bit of an issue with this article, both with the content and with it's form:

• Product recalls after product failure are never "a positive thing"; it is hard work, takes up a lot of resources and has definitely an impact on the image of the company. That it will have a positive or negative impact on the image totally depends on how the company handles the recall and how it communicates about it.

• A preemptive product recall (before anything has gone wrong) has more chances to show good citizenship and business ethics than a recall after things blew up or caught fire like they did in this specific case.

• Assuming that a product recall positively influences the shares on the stock exchange is dangerous. Major recalls can affect share value but before printing this as it has been in this article requires proof and analysis, not just a quote from a specialist.

What are your thoughts on this ? Let me know.

PS: Infoworld claims in a story that both Dell and Sony already knew about the battery issues 10 months ago.

Technorati : NRC, NRC+handelsblad, Nauta+Dutilh, Stijn+Franken, crisis, dell, dell+hell, product+recall, telenet

Short note to communicate my healthy stress regarding the first European conference of the IAOC here in Brussels. I am hosting this one and am checking registrations on a regular basis... we're around 30 and expecting some more over the next 2 days.

Don Dunnington from the IAOC is flying in tomorrow from the US and Suzanne Sparks FitzGerald from Rowan University is coming the day after. We've been working together for about 2 years now and this will be the first time we meet. Looking forward to it.

You can still register for the conference which will take place at the IBM Forum in Brussels.

We're preparing a nice wiki so you can see what happened and hopefully continue the discussion online. More on that later. But for now... counting registrations and getting the logistics in order... See you there.

PS: by the way, the picture is from months ago, we have 30°C here and loads of sun for the moment.

Technorati : IBM, PR, blogging, brussels, communications, conference, iaoc, new+media, online+communications, public+relations

This one made me laugh but still it shows the power of blogs and e-mails and how some lawyers don't get it.

Boing Boing received a letter on Saturday from a lawyers office called Baker & McKenzie in London telling them to watch out not to stream FIFA World Cup matches from their site. This is what is called a pre-emptive strike and it looks like the first on in the blogosphere.

The letter goes on:

"Baker & McKenzie will be "actively monitoring your website ... to identify unlawful activity and will, if necessary, take appropriate action to ensure the protection of Infront's (their client's) rights of those licenses."

Even better, Boing Boing links to a story in The Mail on Sunday about a ketchup incident that is taking on PR nightmare proportions.

In short (but read the full article, it is hilarious) a secretary from Baker & McKenzie accidentally spilled ketchup on the trousers of one of the Senior Associates of the firm. The guy can't find anything else to do than to send her an e-mail to request 4£ for the removal of the stain... Her reply e-mail was of course copied to the whole floor and has now reached the City of London and the press.

Reply from the firm:

Last night Baker & Mackenzie said: "It is a private matter between two individual members of staff that has clearly got out of hand. The matter is being investigated and we cannot comment further." It refused to say whether any disciplinary action would be taken against any members of staff.

The chart below shows that the story (and Baker & McKenzie) is starting to receive attention.

What does this tell us...?

Pre-emptive strikes will work but will get some good public coverage on the web. I believe it is a bit overzealous from the firm to go around and scare people off when they have done nothing wrong. Send them a letter + sue them if they have broken the law but otherwise take a discrete approach.

Secondly, the response from Baker & McKenzie re: the ketchup "issue" should have been along the following lines: "It is a private matter between two individual members of staff that has clearly got out of hand, that's all. Both employees will solve the issue respectfully and as from this day forward we'll banish all ketchup bottles from the office... " Don't make this bigger than it is...

Technorati : Baker+McKenzie, FIFA, Richard+Phillips, blog, boing+boing, crisis+communications, email, ketchup, world+cup