Shel Holtz and Neville Hobson spoke with Charles Pizzo, a 20-year veteran of communications, a top-ranked speaker and writer and a former Chairman of the Board of IABC and its Research Foundation. A native of New Orleans, Charles evacuated from that city following Hurricane Katrina and the total loss of his home and business premises. He is temporarily located in Arlington, Texas.
Gerry Murray on development plans for IABC Belgium, the new Chapter website and new President’s blog, the challenges in engaging members throughout Europe, professional development opportunities for IABC members.
Pete Blackshaw, Chief Marketing and Customer Satisfaction Officer of Intelliseek, Inc, the company behind Blogpulse and Brandpulse, about consumer motivation and word-of-mouth marketing; measurement metrics; comparing blog search tools and what may develop in a period of Furious Innovation; new dynamics to emerge; customer experiences.
Jeff De Cagna, founder of Principled Innovation LLC, on the challenges for volunteers and staffs of association; reducing governance in associations; advocacy and taking stands on issues; the dead strategic planning model and what should be in place instead; opening up to new ideas and learning; the uneven distribution of a future that’s already here.
In this edition of For Immediate Release podcast interviews, Shel Holtz enjoyed a 49-minute conversation with Angela Sinickas, ABC, and Tudor Williams, ABC, two of the leading internal communications measurement authorities in the business.
Neville Hobson interviews Josh Hallett. Topics and themes discussed include: consulting on blogs and other new-media channels; how blogs are being used in Florida, eg, in education, local government; mainstream media and blogs; working with PR and marketing firms; views on BlogNashville?; podcasting developments; a look ahead for blogs in Florida.
PR Face2Face is a special series of interviews with the top public relations and publicity professionals in the country, as well as with people involved in the public relations world. | Interviews index
"The emerging new media landscape has produced its share of celebrities in all industries, including public relations. Its latest ascendant stars are Neville Hobson and Shel Holtz, two PR consultants and bloggers who team up for a bi-weekly podcast called For Immediate Release. Neville responded via e-mail to a number of PRWeek?'s questions about podcasts, his enthusiasm for the medium, and how Europe differs from the US in adopting new trends.
"Mike Wing, IBM’s Vice President Strategic Communications, speaks about IBM's corporate blogging initiative and what it signals for IBM as a new way to engage with the marketplace. Our conversation also addressed other areas of communication at IBM with Mike’s commentary and opinion on a wide range of topics including IBM’s corporate values, the company’s recent history, how the employee jams came about and the value of them, the role of the intranet, taxonomy and folksonomies, and the impact blogging will have from both the perspective of an organization and an individual."
PR Face2Face is a special series of interviews with the top public relations and publicity professionals in the country, as well as with people involved in the public relations world. | Interviews index
SkyBox Maytag Blog - Maytag Corporation. Interview with Gary Petersen, Project Manager - Toby Bloomberg, Diva Marketing, Biz Blog Profile Series, April 26, 2005
"Andy Lark, formerly VP of Communications at Sun Microsystems is an expert on the subject of blogging, and how participatory journalism is reshaping the business of public relations. Named by PR Week as one of the “Most Influential” high tech public relations communicators, Lark goes talks about the latest trends in online communications."
Intuit QuickBooks Online Blog. Interview with Paul Rosenfield, General Manager for QuickBooks Online - Toby Bloomberg, Diva Marketing, Biz Blog Profile Series, April 5, 2005
Wharton MBA Admission Blog - interview with Alex Brown, Associate Director of Admissions - Toby Bloomberg, Diva Marketing, Biz Blog Profile Series, March 29, 2005
"My role as a coach is firstly to get people to write in a language that is more appealing to their site visitors and secondly to get them to consider the wider range of posts and then to do it." | Interviews index
RESCUE! BugBlog. Interview with Stephanie Cates, Director of Marketing and Communications, Sterling International - - Toby Bloomberg, Diva Marketing, Biz Blog Profile Series, March 22, 2005
Dr. Lasky's Blog, Indium Corporation. Interview with Rick Short, Director Corporate Communications - Toby Bloomberg, Diva Marketing, Biz Blog Profile Series, March 14, 2005
"Fifteen-year veteran journalist David Berlind has built a career around his work in the technology sector. He's now using the tools of the sector to establish a 'media transparency channel,' where he provides the raw data he uses - such as audio of interviews and e-mails - to write his columns. Berlind talked to PRWeek about his self-preservation as a mainstream journalist, the Journalist Online Transparency System [JOTS], and what his counterparts think of his brave, new experiment."
"Bill Flitter is Chief Marketing Officer of Pheedo, a company which provides publishers and advertisers with RSS advertising solutions. If 2004 was the year of the blog, then 2005 could well be the year when RSS really takes off."
"As VP of Client Services at CooperKatz & Company in New York, Steve is leading the charge to connect client companies with conversational marketing tactics."
"Christine Halvorson is that rare commodity in the corporate blogosphere: a full-time company blogger. In her role as Chief Blogger at Stonyfield Farm, Christine oversees no fewer than five company blogs."
"Dennis Kennedy is a lawyer who practises in Missouri. He has a very successful blog (or should that be blawg?) which gets more hits per month than most blogs will get in a lifetime."
"I saw Michael at the 2004 O'Reilly's eTech conference when he presented a great session on how the Disney Channel started using blogs, Wikis and RSS in his department close to two years ago. This is a great interview and it stil amazes me that an organisation as large as Disney was using this sort of technology that long ago in a real world situation."
"Mellow Monk is an online retailer of Japanese green tea based in California. Paul describes his blog as a 'forum for presenting not just information about our green tea and our growers, but also topics related to this mission, including green tea in general, health and wellness, and philosophies conducive to living a mellow life.' The blog also covers Japan: the people, the culture, and all things Japanese."
"I can imagine that there are certain people who are wanting to get on the bandwaggon. I don't think that's enough. If it's not you that wants to blog, then you've got to find somebody within your company who does want to blog. There's got to be an authenticity, there's got to be a reliable voice - I'm not sure I like all these terms like authenticity and transparency and all that kind of business."
"One of the reasons I think our blog has been quite successful is that it brings together quite a few different areas within quite a different paradigm and the way we're analysing all these different things through these glasses of cultural understanding."
"There's really two [ingredients necessary to make a successful blog] and it's nothing to do with the blogging platform and it's nothing to do with the design. It has to do with writing honestly, openly and transparently and writing with some regularity. "
"Traditional PR and marketing folks typically have not been able to create successful blogs, as most of those have been fake ones. My blog is very open, and I do even take risks by some of the witticisms I use, but remember, the blog is not for everyone."
Crisis Blogs - Plan Them Well - interview with Oliver S. Schmidt, Managing Partner of C4CS, Fredrik Wackĺ, CorporateBlogingBlog, February 18, 2005
"I have yet to walk into a crisis situation that wouldn't have the client partner benefit from utilizing blogs"
"Noah Acres is responsible for Sales and Marketing at Bigha, a small company based in Oregon which sells bikes and green lasers. Noah recently used the Bigha Blog to respond to negative publicity when someone was arrested by the FBI for misusing a laser bought from Bigha. This will probably become a case study in how to use a blog to manage a crisis."
Interview with Loďc Le Meur, Executive Vice President Europe, Six Apart - The Hobson and Holtz Report, February 14, 2005
"In this audio interview, Stuart Watson of SyndicateIQ reveales how their tracking service works, and especially what RSS marketers and publishers can really achieve with relevant RSS metrics."
"Stick with it is the main thing. Don't blog for a month like mad then give up. And don't be sporadic in your posting. Don't write screeds of stuff for a week and not go back to it for a month because people expect it to be regular. They'd rather have short posts."
"Listen as as we chat to Steve about the weather in New York (and WeatherBug), his time in the PR business, are blogs a threat to the traditional PR company, his own blog (Micro Persuasion) , how he tries to introduce his clients to blogging, Punxsutawney Phil, Jennifer Lopez, PubSub, hearing Dave Winer slap down one of firms clients at BloggerCon while doing the laundry, Trevor Cook and the Global PR Blog Week, Kryptonite, the Apple leaks, Garden State, the 60 sec elevator pitch on blogging, how the press is lagging behind the bloggers and the long tail, crisis management and blogs, yada yada yada ;)"
How BigHa has used the company's blog to communicate in a crisis started when a customer pointed a small laser produced by BigHa to an airplane. The event sparked controversy around the potential terrorist applications of such a gadget.
An interview with Paul Chaney: The Pro Bloggers Association, Blogging Transparentcy, Becoming an A-list Blogger and RSS - Rok Hrastnik, The RSS Diary, February 03, 2005
About the Professional Bloggers Association, professional bloggers, how can one become a top blogger, how to increase your RSS readership, and the "transparency police"
"Sally is a PR expert who, after much exploration, discovered exactly how you can achieve #1 search engine rankings through the use of blogsites (a new kind of blog) and with the help of RSS."
"Listen to Fergus talk about the measurable benefits of RSS as a communication channel for organizations, the services Nooked offers, and how RSS is evolving into a mainstream communication tool."
"Jeremy is the guy that sold his blog, ensight.org, for cash “ages ago”, he put his blogging services and knowledge up for auction at eBay, he started Inside Blogging, one of the first blogging consultancy companies around with Darren Barefoot, he set up the Business Blogging Awards (with Darren), he is involved in a few books being published and… he lost his job because of his blogging… to name a few things."
The Gillmor Gang on blogging and RSS, ITConversations, January 21, 2005
"Does Bloglines represent the tipping point for blogs? What about blogs in the corporate world? Is there a role for blogs in business processes? And do blogs make companies more transparent? Blogs are simple and valuable, so why aren't they part of IBM or Micorosoft's plans for their collaborative-software products?"
Special guests: Rafat Ali (editor/publisher, PaidContent?.org) and Stephen O'Grady, senior analyst, RedMonk?
"Listen in as we quiz Robert on his background before Microsoft, how he got into blogging, how he joined Microsoft, how Microsoft got into blogging, the power of blogging and knowledge management, 'the five pillars of conversational software', link blogs and aggregators, the Red Couch, his thoughts on MSN Spaces, the Dave dummy spit at Bloggercon and what’s next for Robert Scoble."
The Battle over PR - Jeremy Pepper, Global PR Blog Week 1.0, July 16, 2004
Q&A with Jack O'Dwyer (O'Dwyer Publications), Richard Edelman (Edelman Worldwide), Matthew Podboy (Voce Communications). Jonathan Zaleski (The PR Collective), Ben Silverman (PR Fuel), and Lindsay Olson (Paradigm Staffing)
Knowledge management wasn't overhyped. It was underdelivered. Blogs can potentially deliver the grassroots discussions and knowledge-sharing that top-down, corporate-sponsored efforts never could.
