For all of us with high-tech, high-stress jobs, most of what we do involves sitting at a desk staring at computer screens.  Tools like email, Facebook, Google Hangouts and the like have made it even worse since the majority of our interactions take place at our desks.  Unfortunately, there is a price to pay for long hours hunched over a keyboard. Health experts are calling it sitting disease and it’s having a serious detrimental effect on society’s health as a whole.

The cure isn’t to combat the symptoms of sitting disease, but to attack the real problem of having to sit around while working.  What if you could stand or even better walk while working?  That simple concept is the driver behind the under-desk treadmill. While the concept of a treadmill desk is straightforward enough, as always the devil is in the details. The difference between success and failure with treadmill desks starts with proper knowledge about configuring your workspace and selecting the right desk and treadmill base, among other factors.

Looking around the Internet, you’ll find plenty of information about treadmill desks, but it’s hardly convenient or well-organized. Recognizing this void, one of our long-time friends in the tech industry and serial entrepreneur Ron Wiener and his team have launched a new site called WorkWhileWalking.com that puts everything you need to know about treadmill desks at your fingertips. Ron’s lively new site serves up reference information and in-depth product reviews combined with frequent reports on the latest industry developments. What’s more, Ron will be launching a new e-Book so you can read up on treadmill desks on your Kindle, smartphone or tablet.

If you find that you’re sitting more than nine hours per day, chances are you are already suffering from sitting disease to some degree. Using a treadmill desk for just 2-3 hours per day at a pace slow enough that you can still work at a desktop or laptop PC has been shown to boost health, help with weight control and increase energy levels.  More and more companies, business leaders and celebrities are starting to embrace treadmill desks, and sales are growing steadily. We strongly encourage everyone to take a look at WorkWhileWalking.com or download the e-Book and get started. You’ll be glad did.

Simon Sinek, author of “Start With Why,” will be speaking at a special breakfast presentation from 8:30– 10:30 a.m. at the ACE Hotel in New York City on July 11^th.

Come have breakfast with Simon and leave inspired and armed with the right arguments for why you should fight to keep your personal and organizational aspirations at the center of the conversation. You’ll learn why “starting with Why” will inspire everyone in your organization to take  action.

To RSVP, go here.

We’ve been working with OpenText on an exciting new speaker series focused on what it takes to become a Purpose-Driven organization. The speaking series will kick off in July with our first presentation by Simon Sinek, author of “Start with Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone To Take Action.” He will be talking about the simple tools and strategies that organizations can use to define and talk about their unique purpose. Simon will be talking about how “starting with Why” has helped organizations around the world become more focused and successful.

Sometimes in life we are blessed with the coming together of two things that we love. Milk and cookies, chips and salsa, and…baseball and technology? Yes, that’s right. The intersection of sports and technology is actually quite huge. Whether it’s fantasy league owners needing the most updated statistics or the college football junkie who needs to know the point spread on the big game, people everywhere are jumping on the bandwagon.

Major League Baseball’s opening day has arrived and a quick look online shows that a number of teams have fully jumped into the merging world of high tech and sports. Check these out:

• The Cleveland Indians, not exactly burdened with a long history of success, have added a social media section to the stadium.
• Applications about everything in baseball are available for the iPhone, iPod Touch, iPad, Android and Blackberry.
• The Oakland A’s, who have been in a political battle for over five years to get a new stadium on the edge of Silicon Valley in Fremont, have agreed to partner with networking giant Cisco. “Cisco’s networking equipment that will let fans use the latest available technology, so that they can do everything from upgrading tickets on cell phones to watching instant replays on handhelds.”
• The entire March Madness – all 67 games of this year’s men’s NCAA basketball tournament – was broadcast live over the Internet in HD. Talk about ways to waste time at work. Thankfully, the boss button worked great.
• And the best story, at least in my opinion, involves a creative idea. As reported on CNBC, a beer vendor who works at the Seattle Mariners games started a Twitter account so that he can take orders from fans in the stands. Simply send a message to @Msbeervendor with your seat number and your order and he’ll swing by. As 36 year old an entrepreneur/beer vendor and teacher (his day job) Kevin Zelko said, “Since the beginning of beer vendors, we’ve been walking up and down the aisles seeing who wants a beer, I’m going to try to change that.”

Follow @Msbeervendor to get your brews delivered at Mariners homegames

While there are many more examples of how professional sports teams and leagues have adopted technology, it’s important to ask yourself—why? Who cares if a baseball fanatic who can’t stop reading the box scores can get their hands on even more mundane statistics?

All cynicism aside (and believe me, I’ve heard all of the jokes about the pathetically slow pace of baseball), progressive companies are at the forefront of this seismic shift in how we view America’s pastime. Why do I consider these companies as progressive? It’s not about supporting the habits of statistical geeks, it’s really about improving the customer experience and securing customer loyalty—the Holy Grail of team owners. When a family of four has to shell out over $200 to enjoy a day at the park it’s in the team’s best interests to do everything possible to make the experience an enjoyable one. And if technology and social media can help, bring it on.

I remember growing up and heading to the ballpark with my grandfather and keeping the scorebook of the game. Found memories indeed. Now I get to take my kids to the ballpark and teach them how to keep score in a game on my iPad. Oh, how times have changed.

Much has been made of the Millennials, or digital natives, about to descend on the workforce. These are the next generation of workers, typically those born after 1985, who have grown up in a connected world.  Numbering some 78 million in the US alone – more than the 73 million baby boomers – this group will have a profound impact on the world of work and entertainment as it ascends to prominence, much as the baby boomers have had.

One of the big concerns is that this generation will kick the daylights out of previous generations because of their inherent proficiency with technology.  This group, so the story goes, is more social and connected and just better with technology then the boomers. This will give the up-and-comers a big advantage over the rest of us.

There’s no doubt that advanced ways of communicating and collaborating like Facebook, texting, video chats, etc. trump snail mail and email. But the social tools aren’t that hard to use. It’s more the set-in-my-ways mindset that distrusts technology and blocks meaningful collaboration. 

But it doesn’t have to be that way.

I would submit that anyone can become a digital native.  I know that in my case I’ve been using digital tools – some very primitive – since the 1970s. As every new generation of technology came along, I immersed myself in the tools and embraced the new way of working.  Email was a radical shift from the world of paper memos, and certainly just as significant as going from email to social collaboration.

My message to everyone 35+, go get yourself an Android or iPhone,  set up Facebook,  set up a Twitter feed, or collaborate on a Wiki page.  And open up. Speaking of which, I just upgraded from a BlackBerry to an Android.  While I still need a laptop and email, the real-time always-connected, always-located nature of the latest devices is a revelation.  Go ahead. Become a digital native.

The author of this post downloading social media apps for his new Android.

Engaging bloggers is a careful art, particularly those who are not affiliated with the media. PR professionals have been ostracized for sending bloggers spam mails and press releases, and several brands have been blasted over the years for sending “gifts” that were perceived as “bribery”.

The simple rules of blogger engagement over the years have been:

1.       Be transparent on who you are and who you represent

2.       Read the blog thoroughly before engaging

3.       Blogger relationships should not be approached as transactional; Make the engagement conversational versus a pitch (specifically with those who are not journalists)

4.       If you’re sending product, make sure to make it is super clear there are no strings attached

5.       Avoid buzzwords

6.       DO NOT SPAM

Recently, two bloggers added some thoughts to the list I found interesting.

The Reinvigorated Programmer wrote a piece called “How to Render a Press Release Tolerable”. Their advice: pull out all the adjectives and get to the point.  Examples used:

Original:

PRLog (Press Release) – Oct 01, 2010 – Newburyport, MA. October 1, 2010 — eZuce Inc. has          developed strategic alliances with several of today’s leading technology vendors to enhance its open       unified communications solutions portfolio. Through collaborative development efforts and ongoing      integration testing and certifications, eZuce delivers next generation technology innovations that         address the demanding, complex requirements of enterprises and enables customers to seamlessly             transition from their existing legacy (IP) PBX systems.

Don’t your eyes just slide right off this when you try to read it?  Now let’s get rid of the adjectives:

PRLog (Press Release) – Oct 01, 2010 – Newburyport, MA. October 1, 2010 — eZuce Inc. has             developed strategic alliances with several of today’s leading technology vendors to enhance its open   unified communications solutions portfolio. Through collaborative development efforts         and ongoing integration testing and certifications, eZuce delivers next generation technology     innovations that address the demanding, complex requirements of enterprises and enables customers             to seamlessly transition from their existing legacy(IP) PBX systems.

[I was generous; I allowed "technology", "solutions", "integration" and "technology" (again) to         survive.]

Mark McLeod Hendrickson also recently wrote about how to pitch the likes of TechCrunch, GigaOm, VentureBeat or ReadWriteWeb. His advice- carefully craft your narrative and make sure it’s thought provoking. Simply sending facts won’t get anywhere.

Hendrickson outlines six types of the most common types of narratives and recommends crafting pitches around one or more of these types of angles.

1. Competitive or Political Drama – aka “company X releases product Y to kill company Z”
2. Gossip – “CEO of company X gets tangled up in Y”
3. Insight – “trend X will change the world because of A, B, and C”
4. Evolution & Confluence – “service Y is like X for Z, capitalizing on the recent developments of A and B”
5. Success – “company X has created super impressive technology Y, is growing fast, or has made lots of money”
6. Failure – “company X is dying or has messed something up”

In many ways, this follows the same rules as pitching business media. They aren’t interested in the product announcement (unless it is a breakthrough or from one of the major players). They’re interested in new trends, controversy, competitive tension, customer stories and the bigger picture impact.

The moral of the story: If you lead with a product announcement, aren’t clued into what the blogger cares about and don’t think through a compelling narrative, you’re wasting your time.

Oh, and hold the adjectives!

(Sung to the tune of Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band)

It Was 40 Years Ago Today,

That Xerox brought us into the fray.

Tech’s been going in and out of style,

But we’re guaranteed to share the file.

So stop me if you’ve already been told,

of the center up on Page Mill Road.

Who built the modern GUI in-house,

Who also invented the mouse.

So without any further adieu,

I’d like to share with you.

As groundbreaking as Noah’s ark,

The 40^th birthday of Xerox PARC.

Do you know where the laser printer, Ethernet, mouse, GUI (as we know it today) and the term “ubiquitous computing” come from? If you guessed the hills of Palo Alto then you’d be correct. Xerox’s famed PARC lab is celebrating its 40^th anniversary this week.

I was fortunate enough to grow up just three miles from the Xerox PARC labs. Some of the inventions that came out of the lab have become part of our everyday life. While the technologies themselves are pretty amazing, the legacy of PARC is all about creativity. The lab has always been a place where engineers were given free reign to invent, share ideas and help dictate the technology of the future. In looking at the history of the region it’s important to understand that these attributes – creative, inventive, sharing – are what helped build Silicon Valley into the global power that it is.

So happy birthday to Xerox PARC and to the culture it has spawned.

It’s Monday morning and I’m in my usual work routine…check the headlines from business and tech publications to see what’s going on in the world. A good PR person never wants to be caught off-guard and have a client call to discuss news that is relevant to them and the industry without being prepared, but that’s just my humble opinion.

I just read what I consider to be a fascinating article by Daniel Terdiman from c/net titled “At IBM Research, a constant quest for the bleeding edge“. The article discusses a handful of projects that are being worked on at the nine IBM research centers around the world. One project with a biology slant involves two researchers who are coming up with a procedure in which they drilled a tiny hole into a microprocessor in order to allow a strand of DNA to go through and impact its nanocircuitry. Another project, called “Lab on a Chip,” is trying to create an inexpensive and quick way for medical facilities to test blood samples. And yet a third project could help municipalities offer residents cutting edge traffic and public transportation system predictions that are far better than anything available today.

What we’re seeing here is an emphasis on researching and developing new technologies that can help people in ways never thought possible before. As Terdiman stated:

“Throughout my visit to IBM Research, nearly everyone I spoke with brought up Smarter Planet, IBM’s corporate innovation program that aims to gather data from a wide variety of sources and use analysis of that data to solve new problems for customers and clients alike.”

So why am I going on and on in praise of IBM, a $97 billion company? Aside from the fact that my father worked for IBM for 30 years, which gave me a natural bias towards Big Blue, it reminded me of why I got into this business. I cannot design a microchip, am not qualified to do biological research and can’t describe how a CPU works. None of that interests me nor has it ever. And yet my world, both professionally and personally, revolves around technology.

What I have always loved about technology is how it impacts our world on a daily basis. Is my T-Mobile G1 phone with the Android O/S saving the world? No, but it has kept me from getting lost thanks to its Map application, allowed me to take a picture while boating in the middle of Lake Pend O’Reille in Idaho and posting it to Facebook in real-time, and let me instant message with my kids during carpools.

It’s these types of advances that give me hope that people and companies will continue to create new technologies that not only help support corporate growth, but allow young minds to be creative and ask the question…why not?

When you hear the names Proctor & Gamble and BlueCross BlueShield what images come to mind? Conservative? Old school? Bureaucratic? I think it’s safe to say that these two companies, fairly or unfairly, aren’t exactly known for being progressive or nimble. Yet both of these well-known American brands have recently implemented programs that might surprise you.

P&G is letting several hundred of its workers use their own laptops as part of a workplace experiment.

This pilot program is based on a simple idea: many of P&G’s younger employees would rather use their own laptops than corporate-issued systems.

BlueCross BlueShield plans to introduce online care this year, a service that allows patients to connect with a physician on-demand 24 hours a day using webcams for video links, or secure text messages or telephone conversations.

I find that the word “brand” is thrown around quite loosely nowadays. Establishing brand takes careful planning, time and smart execution. Yet all the hard work in the world can be thrown by the wayside by a simple misstep – think Toyota could have handled that little gas pedal/floor mat issue any better?

If someone were to ask me what companies come to mind when I hear the words progressive, nimble, risk taking, I don’t think of P&G or BlueCross BlueShield. Yet both of these companies, albeit for different reasons, have adopted new technologies and policies which have helped to strengthen their already strong brands. By implementing these two new programs I believe that both companies are doing a good job of reinforcing their already strong brands by leveraging technology to adapt with the times.

By using new technologies and new methods of communicating with their employees and customers, both P&G and BlueCross BlueShield have shown that they have the guts (in a rough economy) to evolve their own brand strategies and take chances.

Are there other conservative, old school companies out there that are showing a willingness to adapt to the modern times?

For longer than I care to admit, I have been marketing a variety of software products to enterprise IT professionals and managers, from cloud-based start-ups to SAP.  What appeals to about this space is the technical nature of the products and the challenges of differentiating a client’s products from their competitors.  It’s also gratifying to hear about the customer successes and how a client’s technology is making a very real difference.

Over the years, the marketing approach we’ve used has involved more or less the same set of tools.  To launch a new product release, for instance, you first get everyone together and figure out a press release and some messaging, tie into a trade show, update the web site, put together a slide deck for sales and follow up with telemarketing.

And while all that still holds true, what’s changed is the growing influence of blogging. Over the last couple of years, blogging about enterprise software has expanded by leaps and bounds. The list of bloggers on the SAP Community Network or over at Oracle is truly extensive and growing steadily. Moreover, there are dozens upon dozens of consultants and managers all with a story to tell and blogging regularly.

It only makes sense that enterprise software would be a fertile ground for blogs. This stuff is complex and changes constantly. And no piece of enterprise software ever dies.  It simply isn’t possible for a general IT publication to even do a passable of job of delivering on information needs across all the little niches and cubbyholes. Enterprise software bloggers play a critical role in keeping specialized audiences informed and educated.

You might think the IT managers are all business and no fun, but having tied one on at a few SAPPHIREs, I can safely say that this can be a lively community.  It follows that Facebook is a popular gathering place for various IT communities. For instance, the SAPPHIRENOW 2010 (not sure about that name) Facebook page has nearly 2,000 fans, sharing critical information such as this photo of Shaun White with an SAP airport sign:

With blogging and social media on the upswing in the enterprise IT space, it follows that as marketers and IT professionals, we need to be there too. No longer is it enough to just do the press release, the trade show circuit and webinars. You need to be blogging (or podcasting and videocasting), you need to be on Facebook.  You need to be active and participating in the forums. You need to build communities of your own.

The rise of social media changes what we do in marketing and PR. Instead of focusing on finely tuned brochures and trade show booths, we spend time encouraging content owners and technical experts to keep blogging and looking for ways to syndicate content across blogs and various social media channels.  An example of how this works is a blog post by Deb Lavoy of Open Text (a McKenzie Worldwide client) that ended up on the AIIM Facebook page. AIIM is a large enterprise content management professional association.

If you’re an enterprise marketer, it would be great to hear how you see blogging and social media changing your approach. What’s working? What’s not? What are some of the best ways to take full advantage of this channel? I plan on delving deeper into this subject in future posts. Let’s talk.