The technological advances we’ve seen in our lifetime is amazing. The Internet has changed the way the world works, cell phones have altered the communications landscape, and many life-threatening illnesses are now curable, just to name a few. While I always marvel at what my kids can do with their smartphones – they laugh at me when I tell them there was no such thing as a PC when I was their age – I sometimes wonder if we’ve gone too far. Yes, it can be a good thing to have a lot of information on a subject, other times too much information, especially when working with editors, can be a negative.

Since President Obama took office we’ve seen a dramatic change in the importance placed on transparency. Being accountable to your constituents is one of the many great things about our democracy. But how much information should we have at our fingertips? How much is too much when it comes to fighting off “Big Brother?” In many ways the act of governing is like sausage — you may like the taste, but you don’t want to see how it’s made.

Knowing how our government representatives vote is fine, but knowing all of the details about how everything is planned and developed “will inspire not reform, but disgust.” In a recent article in CNN, Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey talked about the negative side of transparency with regard to government. “Too many politicians aren’t voting their conscience, they’re voting to placate blog commenters, and that’s no way to run government.”

For those of us in the communications field it’s important to ask ourselves if our company is sharing too much information, not enough, or is somewhere in the middle. More important is the question of “what is newsworthy?” Sharing information through multiple channels is fine as long as the news is important. Spamming the world with news of little interest does nothing except get others to tune your news out.

When developing an announcement plan, corporate social media strategy, or building a relationship with an influential editor or blogger, PR folks need to use their internal “garbage meter” to determine how valuable and relevant the news is. Instead of getting people to tune you out, it’s important to make the news compelling enough so that they want to follow your news regularly.

A PR plan or social media strategy needs to take into account what your overall goals are and how newsworthy your announcement is, not “how are we going to blanket the world with our news.” This kind of thinking can also get you in trouble with the media. I know one editor who said that some PR folks upload a release to this editor’s website, Tweet about the news, update Facebook, e-mail the editor directly, and then link back to the editor’s blog with the news. That’s fine as long as the news is of value.

The next time you outline an announcement strategy or PR plan, think carefully about what your goals are. Living in the age of increased transparency, in many ways, is a great thing. But beware of information overload. Or as philosopher Alexis de Tocqueville once stated, “In America the majority raises formidable barriers around the liberty of opinion; within these barriers an author may write what he pleases, but woe to him if he goes beyond them.”

Remember back in the 1960’s and 1970’s during the height of the Cold War? While we knew a little bit about the top American stars such as Mark Spitz and Dorothy Hamill, there was really no way of knowing anything about the Eastern European athletes. Secrecy, and to a certain extent, government-mandated rules prevented the Eastern Block athletes from being exposed to the West.

But oh how things have changed. Or should I say technology has changed. Sure, the tearing down of the Berlin Wall and the fall of Communism in Eastern Europe has, for the most part, eliminated the East vs. West mentality. But now, thanks to social media, fans and athletes can communicate in a free and open environment. The upcoming London Olympics has jumped on the social media bandwagon and has launched The Hub. This social media portal gives fans a way to connect with their favorite sports and athletes. And it gives the Olympians themselves a way to build their social profiles in the months before the event.

Communicating directly with world-class athletes on The Hub, via Facebook and Twitter, as well as getting event results, will make fans very happy. But think about what this technological advancement will mean for building a personal brand. Back in the 1970’s Bruce Jenner appeared on the iconic Wheaties box following his gold medal win in the decathlon.  In the 1980’s Carl Lewis seemed to be on advertisements everywhere following his multiple gold medal performances in track & field. Advertisement dollars were about the only thing available for athletes back then. And those dollars were only limited to a few select athletes.

How great it is that today’s Olympic athletes have the opportunity to develop their own brand, engage fans, and drive their own marketing activities. And what if they don’t win any medals? They still can use The Hub (as well as many other social media tools) as a way to market themselves to the world.

I think this is a great way for fans to get an inside look at what it’s like to be an Olympic athlete, but I’m more than a little concerned about the blurring lines between athlete and celebrity. Have we gone so far that the athletes and fans will lose sight of the games themselves? Will the winners be the athletes with the best social media profile not the ones with the most medals? Shouldn’t the Olympics be about competition first? How will social media impact the games this summer in London? What’s your opinion?

Crisis: any event that is, or expected to lead to, an unstable and dangerous situation affecting an individual, group, community or whole society. Crisis is deemed to be negative changes … especially when they occur abruptly, with little or no warning.

Many PR pros shudder at the mention of “crisis management.” Whether it’s a product recall, an embarrassing misstep by an executive, or a poor decision made by the leadership of a group or company, a crisis must be handled very, very carefully as it can impact a huge group of people, shareholders or political groups. If you don’t believe me, think back to the Tylenol scare, and the
recalls by Honda and Toyota.

Recently the Susan G. Komen for the Cure® cut funds to Planned Parenthood which generated an outcry from abortion rights advocates blaming “political pressure” and praise from an anti-abortion group. This announcement created quite a storm of heated blog postings, interviews and written opinions, some attacking the Komen Foundation and some attacking right-wing activities.

Putting politics aside, there are a few core PR issues to examine in this debacle that are highlighted in these comments from other blog posts.

Mistake #1: Why didn’t Komen/Planned Parenthood hash this out beforehand?

Yet the two organizations had been in talks for weeks beforehand!  In other words, there were plenty of red flags raised along the way to know things could get touchy.  Lesson: have a crisis plan ready; this could get ugly. PR Squared blog

Mistake #2: Who controls the story?

Komen has let its opponents, and Planned Parenthood, control the story. Seemingly caught completely off-guard by the backlash, their entire strategy has been defense, and pretty poorly executed defense at that. Forbes

As Komen for the Cure Foundation found out the hard way, in this digital age of instant communication one does not define itself, but is subject to the definition placed upon it by others. O’Dwyer’s

Mistake #3: Ignore it and it will go away.

What matters is they’re sticking their heads in the sand and pretending no one is upset by the decision by deleting the negative comments from their Facebook wall. Spin Sucks blog

Mistake #4: Backtracking

After the self-induced PR disaster, the breast cancer organization wants everybody to “pause, slow down and reflect on how grants can most effectively and directly be administered without controversies that hurt the cause of women.” It should have done that in the first place. Rather than dishing out the self-serving apology, Komen should have just said, “Sorry. We made a mistake in cutting funding to Planned Parenthood. It won’t happen again. Thank you for your support.” O’Dwyer’s

Mistake #5: Who planned this?

The story of how Komen got consumers seeing red, rather than pink, says a lot about how social-media wildfire can singe even the most fireproof of brands. But it also demonstrates how inconsistent communications can fan the flames, and illustrates how quickly sponsors can become engulfed in controversy. AdAge blog

What’s most interesting to me is how social media, such as blogs, Twitter and Facebook, not only fanned the flames of outrage, but shared the messages with such a vast audience. Whether it’s blogging from Tahrir Square in Egypt during the Arab Spring or congratulating fellow New York Giants fans after their Super Bowl win, the ability to communicate on a global basis is truly amazing.

So the question is…how have you and your clients adopted social media as part of your planning or campaign process?

Social media may well go down as one of the more significant inventions in history. It probably too soon to tell, but it may well be on the same scale as the invention of the Guttenberg press which democratized the sharing of information. Look at the Arab Spring in 2011 which, via Twitter and other social sites, helped people in countries like Egypt and Libya share video images and commentary from countries that rarely, if ever, show public displays of dissent.

Companies of all shapes and sizes now use tools like Twitter and Facebook to connect with customers and streamline how their companies operate. While the benefits of social media have been hard to measure, companies are beginning to see tangible results by using social media. I just read a research paper titled “When Social Meets Business Real Work Gets Done” that talks about the importance of “socializing marketing and sales assets to reduce search costs and redundant work.” The paper, authored by Andrew McAfee, a principal research scientist at the MIT Sloan Center for Digital Business and the AIIM Task Force on Social Business and Innovation, goes on to say that “more than 60 percent of firms who did invest in collaborative frameworks achieved big gains in knowledge sharing and communication accuracy between marketing and sales.”

Another example of the importance of social media came just last week. Citizens were able to send in questions for the President to answer following the recent State of the Union address via social media site Quora. A special page was set up to live-stream video of President Obama’s address and asked users to submit and follow questions about economic and domestic policies. How often do average citizens get to connect in a one-on-one fashion with the leader of the free world?

Yet social media has also opened a Pandora’s box of other issues.

Is private information shared via a social media outlet considered public news? For example, the recent death of Penn State’s head football coach, Joe Paterno, was erroneously reported on a student-run website called Onward State. While news organizations love to get the first to report the news, it’s critical to actually get the news right. This is an obvious goal of any news site but with instant access to information comes the responsibility of news sites and other organizations to be held accountable. In the case of the snafu by Onward State, the Associated Press cited the need for “conditions of accuracy” when the editors decided not to run the story of Coach Paterno’s death since it couldn’t get proper confirmation.

For PR pros the continued growth of and reliance on social media as a way to broadly share information has created an interesting dilemma. Some editors want to be contacted via phone calls and e-mails (in other words the traditional means of communicating). Other editors are social media proponents. Regardless of the method to contact others or share information, PR folks like us need to remember some of the core principles of media relations and journalism. In other words, get your facts straight and your story right!

To me the best use of social media for our tech clients is two-fold: create a dialogue with customers that builds brand awareness and preference, and address crisis management issues quickly to eliminate rumors and innuendo. What about you? How have you adopted social media as part of your ongoing PR campaigns?

According to research by Google, the top 10 search terms in 2011 were:

1. American pop singer Rebecca Black from the hit TV show Glee
2. Google+ social network
3. Ryan Dunn (American reality television personality and daredevil)
4. Casey Anthony (TV trial for murder)
5. Battlefield 3 (video game)
6. iPhone 5
7. Adele (pop star)
8. Japan earthquake/nuclear reactor issues
9. The late Steve Jobs
10. iPad 2

So what does all this tell us about our society? While technology is interesting and we use it each and every day, people are just as interested in reality TV and other celebrity-driven news. I’m surprised that nobody named Kardashian appeared on the list, but I’m guessing that most people have already had enough of that no-talent family. I’m also a little shocked that Osama bin Laden was not listed but maybe that story saturated the TV news so heavily that few felt the need to learn more online.

Yet for all of the paparazzi-type of headlines in 2011, the headline-grabbing news about the tech sector continued to amaze me. Tablets, eReaders, cloud computing, virtualization, HP’s demise, RIM/Blackberry troubles, and Facebook, Twitter and Google’s continued rise captured the headlines. So what does 2012 hold in store? If you are interested, here are predictions from three technology news outlets to ponder: Informationweek, c/net, and Baseline.

For me the biggest “must watch” for 2012 is the growth in use for mobile technology. Having a smartphone is fine, but having applications that allow me to not only stay connected but simplify my everyday life, i.e. mobile banking, will continue to rise.

For those of us in the world of high tech PR, I see a few key issues that are changing our workplace landscape. First, I grapple with is the constant movement within the editorial community, as well as editor’s preferences for being contacted. Do they prefer a phone call? Are they mostly on e-mail? Do they like being contacted via social media tools such as Twitter and Facebook? While these questions may be hard to answer, since everyone has their own preferences, it all comes back to the message or story you’re trying to tell.

Second, the continued rise of bloggers. How influential are they? What role do they have in traditional journalism? How can PR pros work with bloggers?

Third, while keeping up with editor’s on the move is a big enough challenge, what about controlling the flood of content? Personally I find I can only keep up regularly on a few websites. Staying up to date on news and trends is a huge challenge.

Lastly, measurement and reporting continues to be a mystery within the PR world. Is it worth collecting the number of hits on an article on a website? How much value should be placed on Twitter feeds or reposting of Tweets?

These are tough questions to answer but with our world changing on a daily basis, it’s important constantly be asking ourselves how we can improve and generate impressive results for our clients?

To me it’s all about knowing your market. How does the editor work (do they want customers or analysts?), what do they write about, and ensuring that the story I’m pitching is geared to the publication’s readership. Those elements may be obvious to some but I find that I constantly have to remind people that it’s the story that sells, not the incredibly cool technology nor the flamboyant CEO, although those don’t hurt.

I’m curious to hear from other PR pros out there. What do you see heading into 2012?

I am continually amazed at how far technology has advanced in my lifetime. Kids don’t have to practice handwriting since they type everything on a computer or handheld device. SLR cameras have taken a backseat to cameras on Smartphones. Playing basketball on the Wii seems to be more fun for kids than actually playing ball outside.

While the technology advances are interesting I find that it’s the impact that these new forms of technology have on how we go about our daily lives to be truly amazing. While we used to use a phone to speak with a specific person, now we have the ability to connect in real-time and share our experiences with multiple people.

As GigaOm blogger Janko Roettgers put it in a recent post, “It’s not about connecting with intent and purpose, but about sharing real-time experiences online.”

With that said here is my little ode to technology advances.

A long time ago, in a suburb far, far away,

technology invaded my life, and it’s still doing it today.

Atari and Commodore led the way, they opened the door for all to play.

Staring at screens without saying any words, My god it’s like the attack of the nerds!

Then cell phones appeared, and Apple’s Newton became a must.

But nobody realized that it would be such a bust.

Now into the 2000’s and past Y2K.

Smartphones became the norm, and so I junked my old PDA.

But how has technology changed our lives?

Is it for the better, or should we just run and hide?

For the past 20 years high tech has been my cup of tea.

Pitching stories for clients to secure them publicity.

And now I watch in wonder as the world changes around me.

Kids learning on touch-screens, grandparents surfing on their TV.

Connecting with influencers now dominates the PR game.

And having a blog really isn’t so lame.

So we still get coverage and write case studies galore.

The question now becomes, will social media become a bore?

For now social media is the Holy Grail,

But as history has shown, anything can fail.

So I junked my VCR and most payphones are off the hook.

Yet e-readers now dominate, wither the book?

And so new technologies will continue to appear,

and kids will adapt since they have no fear.

Technology will continue to change our lives,

Sometimes it’s so scary I’m afraid I’ll get hives.

But don’t fret and don’t fear as these changes come and go,

It’s all part of growing up, didn’t you know?

We had another successful event in San Francisco featuring John Seely Brown as part of the OpenText Purpose-Driven Speaker Series.

Brown is a visiting scholar at USC and the independent co-chairman of the Deloitte Center for the Edge. During the talk he shared his thoughts and research on intrinsic motivation, incentive systems, learning organizations, organizational design and facing new challenges.  He had a touch of laryngitis, but was able to carry on. His voice isn’t normally quite this gruff. The video below contains a few highlights.

By now just about everyone knows about RIM’s little mishap last week with Blackberry email. Outages like these can hurt the reputation of any company, but for a tech company I think it’s much worse, especially for a company like RIM that is all about connectivity. Just to pile on a little more, it’s even more problematic for a company like RIM that has been losing market share for a long time.

While I haven’t followed every aspect of this story nor read every blog post that is available, it’s clear that RIM made some mistakes in handling this crisis. And believe me…it is a crisis. Years ago this issue might have gone unnoticed but in today’s world, where social media rules, how come RIM wasn’t better prepared to handle the crisis?

Just like the Boy Scouts say, you need to “be prepared.” Most companies I’ve worked with have policies and procedures in place in the event of a crisis, and I’m sure RIM does at some level. Considering that RIM has experienced outages before, you’d think they would have been better prepared. And I’m not talking about being better prepared to address the technical issues but being better prepared in getting their message out to customers in a more timely way.

Why did it take three days for the CEO to post a YouTube message concerning the problems? Did RIM monitor customer reaction on Twitter or Facebook? Did the company proactively address the issue or reactively reach out to customers? I’m not sure about the answer but from an outside observer’s standpoint they didn’t seem to be prepared at all.

A few thoughts about getting your crisis management plan mapped out.

• Be prepared. Have a crisis communications plan in place and update it each quarter.
• Make sure that you now have plans in place that address social media outlets.
• Investigate the issue and get your facts straight. Guessing doesn’t make the situation any better.
• “No comment” won’t cut it. And I’ve heard that RIM takes a “we don’t want to talk to the media about anything” stand which makes the situation even worse.
• Have a chain of command of spokespeople ready. You don’t want the wrong person sharing the wrong message with the public.
• Empower your communications team to move quickly and cut through the layers of opinion and second guessing so the response doesn’t take days to materialize.

In this day and age I find it highly unusual that companies still can get caught off-guard when a crisis hits. So how should companies like RIM approach these types of very public problems? Do you think that RIM addressed the issue effectively enough to minimize the damage to their reputation?

Thanks to all of the Portland AMA members who attended the luncheon on Tuesday at Bridgeport Brewing Company.

If you were there , you know that Megan McKenzie provided a number of example of about how companies are using social media – both good and bad.  The key take away for me is the importance of building trust before embarking on any social media campaigns.  It all comes down to have a clear purpose and knowing your Why.

One of the questions that came up had to do with additional resources. For those of you who are working with your executive teams to increase social media activities, sadly there is no magic bullet.  Social media is one of those things where you gain experience by launching a program and building insight and expertise about what works for YOU over time.  It truly does not come with an instruction manual, and the landscape is changing quickly. While there are no easy answers, it does pay to stay abreast of trends and study up on what others are doing and see what applies to you.

Remember that in all cases, social media must be approached with a clear understanding of your Why along with a heaping does of quality, truth and integrity.

Here are a few resources we have found helpful:

• AdAge
• Sprinklr
• Mashable
• MarketingSherpa
• Communications Conversations
• Comms Corner
• Browser Media
• PR Daily
• Ecademy
• Social Networking Watch
• Digital Buzz
• The Next Web
• Wall Street Journal blog
• Sysomos

Here’s the slide deck from the talk Megan Mckenzie delivered at the Portland AMA’s monthly lunch meeting today. We had a great time meeting many of the smart marketing folks from around the Portland area and look forward to hooking up with you again at future events.