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Where have all the laptops gone?

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My long road trip continues. While waiting for a flight in Baltimore I did a little business people watching and made an observation about something that has gradually transpired over the last year or so.

Airport seating areas used to be filled with business types fighting for the nearest electric outlet to plug in their laptops and do a little work while waiting for a flight. In a crowded waiting area where I would have a while back seen a sea of laptops, I only observed two. The vast majority were thumbing around on their smartphones.

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Posted by on October 27, 2010 • Filed under: Opinion, Social Media • Tagged: , , , , , ,

Reporters and Bloggers

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I am currently on the road trip from hell. Close to two weeks being away from home and my safe haven the firehouse. I’m attending to some business currently in Las Vegas and had the opportunity to have dinner with a well know Texas business analyst who is often quoted in the papers and appears occasionally on TV. He asked me as a PR person and fire blogger my take on the difference between a reporter and a blogger. While he is always ready to speak to traditional media to get his expertise on a business issue, financial bloggers worry him because their perceived bias could misinterpret what he is saying.

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Posted by on October 25, 2010 • Filed under: Journalists and Reporters, Opinion • Tagged: , , , ,

Watch out for the Reporter who Flips the Script

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I have posted in the past about ambush type journalism and my own scales of justice for dealing with media that does not play nicely. (See Banned for Life) Over the years in both my regular PR jobs and in the fire department, I have encountered journalists who have for a better phrase “flipped the script,” in essence pitching one thing with one side of their face, while actually doing the opposite. Kind of a two faced approach.

By “flip the script,” I mean they sometimes will give you the distinct impression they are writing something that will flatter your department or otherwise serve your interests — when all along they’re planning to sucker punch you using the spiral binding on their reporter’s notebook to hit you from behind.

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Posted by on October 21, 2010 • Filed under: Journalists and Reporters • Tagged: , ,

Smartphone’s will become our Virtual PIO Command Posts

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A few years back I had the opportunity to visit and tour the Microsoft House of the Future on their campus in Seattle. The house, which looks like the interior of a real house, thrusts you 20 years into the future to show you how Microsoft products in R&D will help enhance our lives. One of the recurring themes during the visit was how “smart phones” would become the virtual nerve center of our daily life. The phones would open our front door, scan merchandise in stores, act as the remote to our electronics and do all the functions of our PC’s. Sort of like the famous Honeymooners episode where Ralph is the Chef of the Future selling one kitchen gadget that does the work of many.

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Posted by on October 20, 2010 • Filed under: PIO Product Reviews, technology-communications • Tagged: , , , , ,

What’s in your PIO or PAO “Go To” bag?

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I want to thank Barry Nuss who is the Fire Marshal and Public Information Officer for the Lincoln County Fire Protection District 1 in Troy, Missouri, for requesting I reach out to fellow PIO’s and PAO’s to find out what they carry in their “go bags” for large scale incidents.

I’m interested to see what you guys travel to incidents with. I am in the position of being both a PIO and Class A firefighter. I have to be prepared on numerous fronts to have “go to” equipment in a number of places.

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Posted by on October 18, 2010 • Filed under: Best Practices, command-leadership, Opinion, Photography, SOP's and Policy • Tagged: , , , , , , , , ,

Will Tumblr expand on Twitters Popularity?

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Just when you think you are getting a good handle on social media and how to apply it to your PIO or PAO protocols some new toy comes along to potentially add to the mix.

If Twitters 140 characters aren’t enough room for all the insightful things you have to say, then maybe you’re ready for Tumblr.

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Posted by on October 14, 2010 • Filed under: Product Reviews, Public Outreach, Social Media • Tagged: , , , , , , ,

Superb Public Information from the Chile Mine Rescue

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As of this writing the 14th miner has been rescued from the Copiapo, Chile cooper and gold mine. I like many, especially those of us in the emergency services, were up all night watching the human drama that was unfolding before our eyes. I was riveted to the raw internet feed from CNN. To this point it has been a flawless rescue effort.

I am duly impressed by the skill and professionalism of the entire rescue team. From those at the mine shaft opening to the rescue workers who went down to supervise the efforts in the mine to the EMT’s and medical staff and mine and government administrators, everything has been done in an organized and flawless manner.

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Posted by on October 13, 2010 • Filed under: major-incidents, Media Outreach, Opinion, Public Outreach • Tagged: , , , , , ,

When an Editor needs Editing

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I’m pretty lucky in Smithtown, NY where I serve as the FD PIO. Most of our day to day press initiatives are covered by the local media which consists of three weekly newspapers and two or three websites which maintain hyper local sites.

If I have a specific alarm report that I want to disseminate to the press, I send a release with photos and let the editors do their thing. In almost all instances the locals do a great job of rewriting the story to fit their papers styles. I always try to place a quote or two in the body of my release but if an editor calls for more information or quotes, I’m happy to provide.

My problem lies with one of the weeklies in that they take my releases verbatim. When I write a release I write it in “fire-ese.” I tell the facts, give the numbers of the apparatus, give hours in military time etc. I use parenthesis around the military time, or other fire jargon to better explain, but this paper prints it all, as mentioned, verbatim.

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Posted by on October 12, 2010 • Filed under: Media Outreach, News Releases • Tagged: , ,

Public Information Oversaturation

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One of the problems we face as disseminators of public information in the social media realm is the question of when is too much information actually detrimental.

A University of Denver study has found that the biggest reason behind Facebook unfriending is a very obvious one: too many unimportant posts or excessive posting. Although the survey related to personal Facebook pages it is still reflective of what the average social media user would also think of us cluttering up their walls.

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Posted by on October 8, 2010 • Filed under: news, Public Outreach, Public Scrutiny, Social Media • Tagged: , , ,

Get to Know Your Community’s Social Informants

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At one time they were called town criers. When I was a kid there was always someone in the neighborhood who took the lead on posting flyers at the library on various events or spreading news by word of mouth. You always went to people like this if you wanted to spread the word “virally,” before that phrase was actually coined. Today obviously “virally” relates to having information spread across the web. Today the phrase for the old town crier is a “social informant.”

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Posted by on October 7, 2010 • Filed under: news, Opinion, Public Outreach, Social Media • Tagged: , , , , ,

They all acted Stupidly

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Isn’t it strange that if you are late paying your electric, gas, oil or phone bill you will usually receive a grace period due to the potential problems the lack of service might present. Obviously one can freeze to death and the amount of money owed would never compensate for that death. Local government and the utility provider would look pretty foolish if a citizen couldn’t afford to pay a bill and suffered the ultimate price.

So to put things in perspective, if you owe say $500 on an outstanding electric bill but you didn’t pay $75 to protect your house from burning down, the lights can stay on while the home burns to the ground.

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Posted by on October 6, 2010 • Filed under: administration-leadership, Best Practices, news, Opinion • Tagged: , ,

How do you keep your Department Press Archives?

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At one time in public relations, scissors and glue where two mainstays of the job. You would get press, either cut the article out of the publication yourself or get it pre cut from a clipping service, glue it and place it in a scrap book with all the PR for the year. At the end of the year you would file the book with others from years gone by and have another volume of archival material. Electronic media would be obtained from a broadcasting monitoring service and also be archived in neat rows of VCR tapes. Times have obviously changed though.

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Posted by on October 5, 2010 • Filed under: Photography, Printed Materials, Social Media, SOP's and Policy • Tagged: , , , ,

Yelling Down a Black Hole

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In one of the more bizarre recent occurrences surrounding the amazing story of the 33 trapped Chilean miners it seems that need to express themselves clearly is towards the top of the agenda. It appears that PR types are yelling instructions down the shaft telling these guys the appropriate way to speak to the media upon rescue. If there ever was a way for the miners to get good nights sleep it would come as the result of some media consultant telling them what to say upon seeing the sunlight for the first time in months. Enough for anyone to go into a catatonic state!

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Posted by on October 4, 2010 • Filed under: Media Outreach, Opinion • Tagged: , , , ,

5 Tips for Better In-House Video

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While I was on the road in Texas last week I had the opportunity one night to go into my folders to review PR and marketing links and articles that I stockpile but usually put off reading. In some of my golden oldies from this past June was a video I viewed on “Tips on creating Good Web Videos.” The video was a part the Tactics Video series presented by the PRSA (Public Relations Society of America.

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Posted by on October 1, 2010 • Filed under: Public Outreach, videos • Tagged: , ,