I think the idea of a “PR Major” is great.  But I often wonder (mostly in ignorance) - does learning how to write a press release really prepare you for a career in PR?

I wouldn’t know - I was an English major.  And by “English Major” I, of course, mean a college student that was fond of wine.

As it turns out - this job is made up of such a wide variety of odd tasks and completely random assignments that you can’t really be “prepared” for what you’re getting yourself into.

The thing that did provide me with, I think, a decent “preparation” for PR was an education in reading and writing.  Seriously.  I spend more time reading than I ever thought I would.  I simply can’t do my job if I don’t have a feel for what’s happening today, what has been happening, and at least an educated guess of what might happen tomorrow.

I also can’t properly support my clients without the ability to write reasonably well.  I don’t mean to say that I’m a rock-star writer (and this blog does, and should, suggest quite the opposite).  But if you really struggle with writing, you’re really going to struggle with a lot of the stuff you’ll be doing in PR.

So what’s with the PR major?  If reading and writing are so critical to the job, why do so few PR job descriptions mention English majors?  And please don’t get me started on asking why none of the job descriptions in any industry mention English majors…ever.

But it’s worth pointing out - the “basics” of PR are pretty easy to learn.  Executing on the standard tactics is just about as simple as it gets.  So how does an education in PR take you beyond the stuff that you will learn, by default, in the first few months of your career?

I don’t mean to imply that the English major deserves more glory.  Once you’ve read Beowulf, it’s not that you’re all of a sudden smart or an intellectual or “cultured”, rather, it’s a point of exposure to the bizarre, the zany, and the seemingly impossible that does something to the way that you think - it opens up your mind a bit, and helps you to ignore constraints and solve problems in strange, strange, but frequently effective ways.

This could go on forever - but it does get at the heart of the issue, which I believe is: The skills and traits and qualities of a really good PR person are really, REALLY hard to describe - and the job descriptions may never adequately reflect the actual type of talent you are looking for.

Unless you hire an English major to write them… ;)

I just finished a pretty interesting post-dinner discussion with my fiance, who is, suffice it to say, a bit disappointed in some of the “lavish” events that bailout companies have held in recent months.

I’m really not sure where I stand on all of this stuff - and to be honest, I desperately want to separate the political from the business-oriented stuff.  I’m not really interested in discussing specific examples.  What I am interested in is how the general public reaction may actually affect marketing people and the industry itself.

(For the record, my fiance delivered the quote of the week during our conversation - pointing out that people who attend parties that are sponsored by companies that have accepted bailout funds are, in fact, “drinking the bailout”.)

But what I pointed out, in all seriousness, was that a lot of these “sponsorship” opportunities, lavish parties, and corporate events might be legitimate marketing activities that benefit a company’s brand, visibility, or they might even deliver leads and drive customer acquisition.

This points to a bigger problem, though.  The vast majority of the population reacts in outrage largely because they’re not willing to acknowledge that corporate events and general marketing shenanigans may actually have an ROI.  Therein lies the problem: marketing still has not learned the language needed to explain the value of all of the seemingly excessive spending on their initiatives.

How do you explain to the general public that the sponsorship of a sporting event, and all the parties and affairs that your name is attached to during this event, is actually really important for building awareness for your products and services?  And to make this even more frustrating - how do you explain this to the general public when you struggle to explain it to your CEO?

I think there’s something useful brewing here.  If Congress, the general public, and a variety of other interested parties are persistent in pressuring these companies to explain themselves, we might just find a breakthrough in conveying the value of marketing in a concise and meaningful way.

That’s not to say that absolutely no marketing person out there can explain the value of marketing, but rather, the act of explaining it to the population at-large is a better litmus test for our ability to explain the value of what we do.

Yes, measurement and ROI is getting better and easier each day because of the growing set of quality tools and best practices made available to us, but that doesn’t mean that we’re measuring the right things.  And to take that a step further - measurement is not the issue I’m interested in here.  What I’m saying is that measurement and analytics is not the only thing you need if you’re trying to successfully demonstrate value - it only tells part of the story, and we may never be able to adequately measure engagement in the same way as traffic on your web site.  This issue I care about is that many (or maybe most) marketing, PR and advertising people still stumble all over themselves when they are asked to demonstrate the value of what they do!

Enough for now - but I am eager to see how some of these companies react to accusations in future incidents - because there will certainly be a lot to learn from the most effective of these explanations - and I do expect the best of them to be hybrids of hard data and broader language.

Congrats to the whole team at Siri - This is well-deserved recognition and beyond exciting.

(Siri is a client)

Okay - so FB opened the API a bit to make it easier to share the news feed and status updates.

Of course - Techmeme has been flooded with ongoing discussion about other services dying.  No, it’s not surprising that the reaction to the “new shiny thing” is really overblown, nor is it surprising that people are firmly defending Twitter and FriendFeed as if any of this was a real threat to our Twitter lives.

But I have to ask the question: Why do we have to overreact to every new product, feature, or service that comes out and either abuts or infringes upon Twitter’s domain?  Seriously - if Twitter is as valuable and powerful as we all claim - then why is it that we get this knee-jerk reaction every time FB does something, or every time someone comes out with a new flavor of Twitter?  (Yammer, etc.)

Twitter is here to stay - and Facebook announcements and competitive services that start to show signs that they’re going after Twitter are, indeed, a great opportunity to step back and reflect on how we got to where we are and what’s happening with Twitter from the technological, cultural and behavioral perspectives.

But let’s try to accept the fact that Twitter is here to stay (in some way shape or form) - and instead start to focus on what is a far more important discussion - how to we get to a point where we have more than a few million people on Twitter and a select few tools (Tweetdeck, etc.) to manage the enormous amount of information that’s coming in?

Lastly - let’s start thinking about something that is paramount to all of this: how Twitter and the vast selection of social media services/sites out there are going to make money.  Seriously - we need to crowd source a successful revenue model, because, frankly, most of the people that are on Twitter, blogging, and using social media as a tool to make a living, are the ones who can’t afford to see this stuff “die”.  The guys at Twitter can shut down shop and scoop up a sweet job at any of the Googles and Microsofts out there.  But what about you?

I don’t really care if you subrscibe to Chris Anderson’s philosophy or Rupert Murdochs for biz models.  Let’s just figure this one out - and stop wasting time going all Perez Hilton every time Facebook cramps Twitter’s style…

This is really interesting to see.  Also, BusinesWeek had an article on the growth in sales of netbooks recently.  I have to say, the price-point on netbooks and affordable PC’s make them very attractive right now - and if you toss in HUGE discounts for the holidays, you’ve got yourself some pretty awesome options out there for some great gear.  I’d love to see Apple make a smart move in reaction to this - or perhaps - they’ve anticpated this and they already had something in the works!

These are exactly the kind of moves that many companies will need to make if they are going to keep the dollars coming in during the next year, or so.  But as the article points out - it may not be the best move for their “brand.”

Either way - I can’t imagine someone not being interested in a $99 iPhone!

Interesting that Pogue got such intense feedback.  I didn’t really have any issues with his review and thought it was quite thorough - although I have not tried the Storm yet.

Perhaps the tide really is shifting, and this reader feedback is an indicator of consumers shifting some loyalty away from Apple?

Nonetheless - it’s nice to see that people can be passionate (maybe too much so) about something other than Apple products.

I’ve been thinking about what makes people passionate about (or fall in love with) a company and its products this week.  This is mostly because it’s “Black Friday” today and everybody knows that Apple products are making an appearance on almost every wish list in the country.

But this season always makes me ask:  What makes people LOVE certain companies or products?

The simple answer, I think, would be that certain products are clearly superior to the other available alternatives.  But, for one example, I can’t really say that a MacBook Pro is necessarily that much better than a PC for many people.  In fact - how many people out there, outside of the techy crowd, even understand why an Apple computer might be superior to the equivalently priced PC?

Apple doesn’t really sell laptops, iPods and iPhones - they sell “cool.”  And I think people love Apple in much the same way that they love a certain brand of car or a certain brand of clothing.  There’s a lot of impractical bias involved - like the common assumption that a BMW is better than a Hyundai.  On Black Friday we should be acutely aware of the fact that what we are going to the store to buy usually has little to do with a level-headed comparison of competing products, but rather an emotional impulse to have what is cool or trendy.

I’ve been running Vista on my HP Pavilion for over 1 year now, and I have not crashed once - but everyone seems to hate Vista.  (It has glitches, but it’s really not bad at all)  People hate Vista because they crave binaries:  If Apple is cool then PC is lame.  If Apple is stable then PC is unstable, and if Apple is user friendly then a PC simply has to be impossible to use.

Thus, Vista is only hated because it does not occupy the “cool” position in the market, and the public will naturally categorize it as the polar opposite of the “cool” option.  Take a look at the Apple commercials and it should be abundantly clear that Apple is making sure that this binary is etched into our brains.  Why else would the same ad campaign be running so long after the first commercial in the series ran?

Now, I love Apple. I think they make some of the best stuff out there, their products are always competitive and always have that signature Apple user experience that makes you enjoy the product more and more every time you touch it.  But I’m willing to acknowledge that other products aren’t bad simply because they’re not Apple’s.  In fact, other products are often better than Apple’s when you do a side-by-side comparison and take into account that certain users have different preferences than others.

But we have a tendency to assume that something is a poor quality product simply because it doesn’t have the cooler company’s name on it, and this is really a shame.  With all the options out there for personal technology, it’s difficult for the average consumer to determine which product is either the best, or the best for them personally.  Smart brands like Apple make this seem like an easy decision for consumers who are struggling to make this choice - because the most popular choice couldn’t possibly be the wrong one, right?

That being said, with the economy tightening up I think we might see a shift to a mentality where an reasonably priced product that has some neat features will become “cool” again.  And those expensive “cool” products will look a lot more like excessive luxuries.

The economy is a game changer for brands like Apple.  Being the cool company is very much subject to trends in public opinion, and I don’t think that it’s very easy to stay cool when you sell the most expensive products in many of the categories that you compete in.  I’m a huge fan of the way that Apple has smartly occupied the cool position in the market - particularly because they really do sell products that live up to the buzz.  But I also want to point out that Apple isn’t really the most open or transparent company in the world, and I think a lot of people will increasingly feel skeptical of the expensive, cool products when the company that makes them continues to hide behind the curtain.

I think this skepticism is going to be sparked and fueled by a tough economy - where people have to reject the cool nature of Apple products as a way to cover the fact that they’re simply unable or unwilling to pay a premium price on a given piece of technology.

I’ll be interested to see how the company does during the coming year+ of anticipated economic hardship - perhaps they will slash some prices and try to combat that growing sense of skepticism… Because the only thing better than being cool is being cool for 30% off with the purchase of $150 or more.

I’ve been having a lot of discussions lately about creative thinking and brainstorming - something that I think is critical in PR, but really critical to any job that involves “abstract thought”, “fresh ideas”, or requires that one be a “problem solver.”

I started looking into some of the research and science related to brainstorming and found that there are tons of resources available that would help individuals and organizations to hone their abilities to think creatively, as well as strategies to structure brainstorming sessions so that they can be as valuable and productive as possible.

Alex Osborn, of BBDO fame, has been credited with creating the “creativity technique named brainstorming,”  In fact - he has published several intriguing books on the topic of brainstorming and creative thinking.

I haven’t yet had a chance to read his stuff, although I will be tracking down a copy of “Your Creative Power” this coming weekend. What interests me right now, without having read the formal research on this topic, is that there is, in fact, so much information available on brainstorming.

This leads me to wonder why we rarely hear about “creative thinking” skills being developed in a formalized way within organizations that rely on constant production of fresh ideas and unique counsel for clients.  Of course, some would argue that the role of “Chief Innovation Officer” is just that - a creative thinking moderator, facilitator and advocate.  But I would like to argue that every employee at these types of organizations should be familiar with the techniques that foster creative thinking - including how to successfully moderate a brainstorming session.

This skill-set is something that should permeate every rank within an organization.  In fact, if you think about those Hollywood moments where an ad agency comes up with a breakthrough concept, the excitement is absolutely electric and it infects every employee in the room.  I would also point out that this type of activity creates a synergy with and appreciation amongst, employees.

One of the age-old challenges of a brainstorm is that some individuals are often afraid to take the risk of saying something “stupid” and therefore isolate themselves from the conversation.  This can be a real problem in a brainstorm situation, but I think it can easily be overcome by a moderator that is encouraging, trustworthy and proactively inclusive of everyone in the room.  Thus, the fear to open up your mind to others is, in effect, not a good enough reason to dismiss the need for exercises in creative thinking.

Now, everyone wants to say that they are a creative thinker - and I really believe that most people are.  I think the missing component in many organizations is the skilled moderator, and that’s where improvements should first be made so that you can start delivering some powerful results for your business, your client’s business, or even just improve the relationships within your workplace.

Once I finish doing some research on the topic, I’ll pull together a follow-up post to this one, with some of the techniques, strategies and ideas that I dig up.  In particular, I’ll be looking to create a an evolving “profile” or job description of the moderator - which I think is an interesting role, personality, and character even outside of the workplace.

(As a side note - I’m also going to be thinking a lot about FriendFeed and how brainstorming happens almost organically there.  When rhetorical questions are posed, the ensuing 75 comments frequently become a beautiful string of original thought, and in essence, a brainstorming session.)

I was really happy to stumble across this story on CNN today.  If you’ve seen any of John King’s segments in the past few weeks, you’ll know precisely how helpful Percpetive Pixel’s product has been in giving really clear, conscise and visual explanations of the Presidential race.

This is also a very welcome feel-good story to see about a tech startup during a rough economy.  I, personally, think that there has been too much doom and gloom written about tech startups lately - at least enough to warrant some positive coverage to accurately reflect the reality of the situation for startups.

Good work CNN…