We have finished up our participation in GreenBeat 2009 conference on the Smart Grid.  Vantage Communications was a strategic partner for the event, which provided me with a unique view of a major green conference that I would like to share.

1. “VentureBeat is doing its first green conference. Would Vantage be interested in participating?” Andie Rhyins, Publisher of VentureBeat

Actually, I answered yes, before Andie finished the question.  I knew if VentureBeat was putting together a show, this was a rare opportunity to be part of an important event from the beginning.  As the first GreenBeat event, we had a clean sheet of paper and the opportunity to provide a defining voice for marketing and PR that would help attract attendees, sponsors and speakers. It also was a bit scary knowing that our white board scribble and initial PowerPoints needed to be made into a conference with topics, speakers, attendees and press in very short order.

2. “Fw: Al Gore has agreed to come to GreenBeat” Matt Marshall

This was the header of a late Friday e-mail at the end of August. In less than 10 words, the bar had been raised for everybody. It also meant that we had to rethink our media outreach for the show. You may be asking why a conference run by a highly influential blog needs to do outreach to other media?  Part of the attraction of a conference for high-level speakers is the ability to reach a large number of highly influential people. Approximately 500 people attended GreenBeat in person. However, the number of people that read about the show can be in the hundreds of thousands. While VentureBeat does provide in depth coverage of the show to its readership, it is important to maximize awareness by being seen and heard on multiple channels. Media coverage for GreenBeat inlcuded the New York Times, CNET and Earth2Tech which has an aggregate audience in the millions. Immediately following the show, Techmeme  had VentureBeat ranked #5 of the sources most frequently posted to Techmeme.  This  was a higher ranking than even the New York Times.

3. “My name is Jim Rogers and I’m one of the speakers” Jim Rogers, CEO of Duke Energy

What as particularly impressive about GreenBeat is that despite the large number of high profile speakers and attendees, there was virtually no attitude or hubris. The CEO of Duke Energy attended without entourage, and the above quote is how he introduced himself. He made himself available to anyone who wanted to talk with him. Vinod Khosla was in the lobby for much of the morning available to talk to anyone. In his talk, John Doerr gave his e-mail and invited start ups to send him business plans. I attend many conferences and I never have seen a friendlier conference than GreenBeat. This is a real testament to Matt and the GreenBeat team. I look forward to seeing you at GreenBeat 2010.

It’s time for a fractured fairy tale: Spinning the Web: P.R. in Silicon Valley, courtesy of the New York Times.  Once upon a time in a Sand Hill Road conference room, an entrepreneur, a VC and a PR consultant met to discuss the launch of Wordnik, a website about language and word usage. The PR person suggests a press tour of leading tech blogs (TechCrunch, GigaOm, etc.).  This suggestion is rejected by the VC as not a good match for a language website. Instead, they decide that they would have influential Silicon Valley entrepreneurs mention Wordnik in social media.  As so it came to be.  Digg founder, Kevin Rose, twittered that Wordnik was “truly amazing.”

From there, people started madly retweeting, which led to Wordnik becoming a trending topic on Twitter. Then, everyone in the Valley was abuzz about Wordnik. People will look back on these past few months as the “Summer of Wordnik.” And they all lived happily ever after.

Except that in the real world, the launch of Wordnik went virtually unnoticed.  As Michael Arrington reported in TechCrunch, Wordnik received a small blip in traffic and then quickly returned to its previous minuscule level. Since this is a fractured fairy tale, the frog doesn’t get turned into a prince.  But there are some lessons to be learned.

Hipsters vs. Word Nerds:  Before starting a launch plan, the first imperative is to determine “who is the target audience?” Then, look for the best way to reach them.  Here the target audience was …. Wordniks. The VC was correct that word nerds really don’t follow mainstream tech blogs.  But targeting hipsters using twitter is more about making a fashion statement than a viable launch plan for a language website.  

Something Old, Something New:  Much of the debate generated by the Times article is about whether social media is replacing PR. This is based on a false premise. The rise of new technologies doesn’t mean that the old technologies are banished to a virtual thrift shop. The new supplements the established. The old technology adapts to fit in with the new. At the time of the original Fractured Fairy Tales, PR people mailed press releases to the local newspapers. Today, the number of communication tools and influencers has increased exponentially. But press releases now incorporate SEO and still remain in the mix.

PR and Social Media, Better Together: Combining PR and social media into an integrated strategy can deliver great results. PR provides an efficient way to quickly gain traction with the targeted influencers and audience. Social media builds connections with these folks.  By social media, I mean participating in conversations on Twitter and Facebook, joining the blogosphere by writing and commenting on blogs rather than having Internet celebrities tweet on your behalf. You could argue it would be better to just use social media to gradually grow an audience (especially with a niche product).  But these days, VCs and board members want to see immediate results, as evidenced by Wordnik’s VC participating in the PR discussion. Though prior to launching a PR campaign, it is important that the product is ready for the attention (see: PR for Tech Start Ups – Are you ready for your close up?).

The Happy Ending: Completion of a product launch should be the first of many interactions with customers, partners, and influencers. There are many opportunities to build, even on a less than successful launch. After all, it’s more important where you end, than how you start. And this is where this post happily ends.

Nine months and two Facebook redesigns ago, Jennifer Kutz wrote a post about the Wisdom of the Crowd Goes to a Trade Show. She discussed the trend of trade shows opening the show agenda selection process to their audience.  She mentioned one proposed panel in particular: Privacy and Personalization – Oxymoron or the Perfect Match?, for the SXSW Interactive show in Austin, and invited people to vote for that panel.

As SXSWi just completed, I thought it would be fun to fill you in on how things turned out. Our efforts to get the word out about the panel was successful. Privacy and Personalization – Oxymoron or the Perfect Match? received enough support that it was selected. The Guardian featured the panel in an article: @SWSXi: The impossible balance between privacy and personalisation?, and called the topic: “one of SXSWi’s core conversations.” The picture on the top left of this post is from the panel courtesy of the Guardian.

The experience also gave us an insight into the power of blogs and social media to create conversation about key issues.  We used Facebook and Twitter to point people to Vantage Points to get the word out. Rather than asking or pitching people to vote for our client, all we did was to discuss the topic and offer people a link to vote. This was a departure from the traditional PR model. But we believed facilitating conversation was more appropriate for topic and the SXSWi show audience.

The wisdom of the crowd approach has extended to voting for awards. This year, CTIA is allowing people to vote for its Emerging Technology Awards and Best of Show.  One of  our clients, Ditech Networks is nominated for its cool mStage platform which allows people to use their voice to access web applications in the middle of a mobile phone call.  You can read more about it in Technology Review. If you would like to vote for mStage for Best of Show, follow this link and choose mStage (third from left on the third line) as one of your favorites.  Feel free to check out and vote some of the other great nominated products too. It is good to part of the crowd that leads.

The news from Mobile World Congress 2009 had a lack of  breakthrough technology announcements. Rather, the show’s focus was on upgrades, and execution (read, sales). The biggest  news was around application stores to compete with Apple’s App Store. In fact, so many companies announced application stores, that it appeared that GSMA had included in an application store press release in its Exhibitor package.  Even Billing/OSS vendor Amdocs got in on the action. Of course, announcing a store is easy. Filling it with applications that people regularly download is another story, probably one for Mobile World Congress 2010.

On the networking side, the news centered around LTE, a technology that will be used to migrate mobile carrier networks to 4G.  Verizon Wireless named Alcatel-Lucent and Ericsson as its primary vendors for its initial LTE network.  LTE is an acronym for Long Term Evolution. True to the name, its deployment is not imminent. This was underlined by key supporter, Vodafone, which announced at the show that it moved back its anticipated deployment date until 2012.

As for the show itself, attendance dropped under 50,000, which was significantly down from recent years. Still, other Telecom trade shows would be ecstatic if they attracted 47,000 official attendees. Lower attendance also meant less people hanging around stands with nothing to do but looking at their Blackberries. The no shows also meant that the number of people better matched the size of the show floor and city. Gone were the 30 minute bathroom lines and most people were able to find rooms in town.

Rather than showcasing the latest and greatest, people came to Barcelona to do business. According to GSMA, 50% of the attendees was C-level.  Accordingly, people that I spoke to unanimously felt that the quality of meetings were very high.

Still, next year will be the real test of the success of this year’s Mobile World Congress. Most companies locked in their 2009 participation in 2008 before the current financial crisis. Strong renewals will mean that the quality over quantity approach is a sustainable business model.

I promised lots of reporting from the show. Accordingly, I have two other Mobile World Congress posts coming up. One will be about social media at Mobile World Congress. The other will be about the difference in mobile phone ownership between the United States and the rest of the world.

At last week’s IT Expo in Miami, John Frederiksen, General Manager of Microsoft’s Response Point gave the keynote address.  Response Point is Microsoft’s small business phone system software also known as an IP PBX for small to medium-sized businesses.

Using one of the most over-used phrases since “is that your final answer?” Frederiksen noted that “in this economy” companies are particularly interested in saving time and money while increasing productivity and growing one’s business.  With these goals in mind, these businesses need to resolve issues such as prioritizing the myriad messages received in order to avoid communications overload and make sense of inputs.

To meet these challenges, they are turning to unified communications, which bring its own challenges related to device and network suitability, price/value and availability. There are many unified communications solutions available including a great one from our client, Objectworld. While any of the above could be fodder for a blog, I’d like to focus on communication that goes beyond features and functions.

In the telecom industry, we also hear the phrase, “SMBs are in whatever business they’re in—manufacturing, professional services, finance, etc.—and not in the business of running phone systems or communications.” They may not have an IT department and dedicated staff that can do moves, adds, changes and so forth.

True, but isn’t communications part of  every business? No company lives in a vacuum, but must communicate among employees and with customers and suppliers. What is the message your company is conveying? Are staff easily accessible to customers? How difficult is it to reach people on the phone? Do people answer their phones or do the majority of calls land in voice mail necessitating time lost to return phone calls? Is the problem the phone system, the employees or the corporate culture?

At the conference, I spoke on customer service and the importance of treating customers as though they are king and not an intrusion. If customers cannot reach your company, they’ll go elsewhere-plain and simple. If your company is not making a good impression, customers will go elsewhere. Communication extends beyond mobile phones, emails, IP PBX and unified services. It extends beyond press releases and contributed articles. Bottom line—never think that your company is not in the business of communication whether it’s the phone system, outbound marketing or call centers.

Brianna Schweitzer and I just left the Florida Venture Forum’s Capital Conference in Naples.  It was a fabulous event, and did an excellent job of connecting investors from all over the world with emerging companies throughout the state of Florida.  As you may guess, the buzz was all about the economy.

The keynote was Martin Schaffel from AVI-SPL.  He told a compelling story of true entrepreneurship and how he grew from a University of Florida graduate without a dollar to his name, to running a $400 million a year company.  For thirty minutes, we were captivated with a story that was lighthearted, interesting and inspiring, then ended abruptly with the message that things will be hard for a couple more years.

Even with the down economy, the people at the conference who were most inspiring were those with a positive outlook.  It was said more than once that the greatest economic times in our country were born out of the very worst times.  It was refreshing to be at a conference and see hopes high, business flourishing and deals being made.  The overall feel was uplifting, and reminded me of one of my favorite quotes that has gotten me through many times and has rung true everytime:

“When you get into a tight place and everything goes against you, till it seems as though you could not hang on a minute longer, never give up then, for that is just the place and time that the tide will turn.”  -Harriet Beecher Stowe

My key takeaway from this show is the importance of staying positive and keeping focused on putting yourself in position to succeed.

Prime time television is full of makeover shows which feature people who are totally clueless about how they appear to others. Yet, businesses also do not take a sober look in the mirror and see how their customers perceive them.

Rich Tehrani of TMCNet.com recently wrote a brilliant blog post that is built around a very simple question: “In This Recession, Would You Buy From Your Company?”  According to Tehrani, businesses need to “put yourself in the customer’s position. Do you think they want to buy from companies they aren’t familiar with and those who do not invest in their customers? No – they don’t… If you think just wining and dining decision-makers is enough to win the business, you are wrong.”

On the makeover shows, before the intervention,  people think that others somehow will see the  ”inner beauty” that lies beneath a slovenly mess. Similarly,  in tough times, tech companies think that their products will sell themselves because customers will  see their underlying engineering brilliance. So when money gets tight, they cut their marketing, and stop communicating their successes to their customers. The result is that these companies are not making their best cases at the time when their customers are making decisions about what needs to be to cut.

I am not just making this point to carry the flag for marketing in a tough time. Fortunately,  when the economy started changing at the end of 2007, the Vantage team did take a hard look at how we were perceived by our customers. We saw room for improvement. So, we re-branded the company. To highlight our thought leadership, we started this blog. We now regularly communicate our successes with press releases on new clients and practice areas. We are becoming leaders in social media such as on Twitter and Facebook. These actions led to an extremely successful 2008, and positions us well for 2009.

At the end of the post, Tehrani provides some very important advice: “Ask yourself this question – are you spending your dollars as wisely as you can? What are your goals and are you altering them to suit a rapidly changing economy?…Yes, now is the time for prudence and now is the time to cut unnecessary expenses. But remember – be careful where you cut from – after all, your customers are trying to find a reason to cut you.”

Like on the makeover shows, your business may need some outside unbiased assistance to improve its appearance. If you need help to answer the tough questions that Rich raises at this critical time, please do not hesitate to contact me at radler [at] pr-vantage.com.  There are no obligations or strings attached. So what’s the benefit to Vantage? We get to make a connection with a group of companies that know they need a change and that are more likely to succeed over the long term.  As we have been in business for 20 years, this is the company we like to keep.

Rich Tehrani, blogger, editor and publisher of TMCnet.com wrote a great post on his Communications and Technology Blog about what companies need to do to succeed in the current economic environment. Rich has been dealing with a challenging economic environment for years. He has managed to build a thriving business by using the Internet to innovate a new business model for his publications.

Here is an excerpt from Rich’s blog:

“In fact, more than once this past week, people have told me customers today would rather buy inferior technology from a well-known company than superior technology from a company they aren’t familiar with. This marks a big change in thinking and you need to be prepared for this change by focusing on getting your name out in front of potential customers more often.

I saw this very thing happen in 2001. I believe history has a good chance of repeating itself in the next 18 months. There is one way to combat this cycle.

Come out strong. Daily press releases help and so do customer win announcements. You need deployment stories, case studies and smart but effective marketing to show strength in the market. Now, more than ever, you need to show your company is strong and will be around for the long-haul. If the news section on your website hasn’t been updated in weeks or months, potential customers could think you are about to close the doors.”

I believe that Rich is being metaphorical about the daily press releases. The main point that he is making is correct: your customers, partners, ecosystem, etc. need to see your successes. This needs to be done consistently. Even the presentation from the famous Sequoia meeting said: “In a downturn, aggressive PR and communications strategy is key.”

Apologies to anyone looking for stock market advice based on the title. But to paraphrase Bones McCoy, we’re a tech PR blog, not the Wall Street Journal. However, we are talking about money today.

In the new financial climate, sales, business development, public relations and venture capital are now intertwined. Yesterday, a VC told me that he could no longer provide venture capital funding for start ups that do not have any sales revenue. His advice is that companies need to ramp up their business development and PR efforts now, even if they are not in the process of raising money. This will ensure that when they are raising funding, they have the requisite sales track record.

We also are seeing a related trend. Start up clients now are looking at the publications that are followed by VCs and the financial community as part of the top tier publications. One more piece of evidence for the connection between your PR efforts and venture capital.

A recent article by Phil Carson of RCR Wireless News examines a new demographic for handset manufactures. While we have seen this coming over the past several years, he states that “Between 5% and 10% of five-year-olds have a mobile phone. By age 10, fully one-third of American kids have a phone. By the first teenage years, nearly 100% of America’s kids have a phone.”

Not too long ago, handsets were bulky and had minimal capabilities. Now, your mobile phone has become the ultimate communication device with texting, email capabilities, instant messaging and immediate connections to social networks. Don’t worry kids – You can easily stalk your best friend Shannon on Facebook while on the way to your next class!!

As tweens become a more prominent target market for this industry, what does this mean for handset manufacturers, carriers and mobile application developers? What exactly appeals to this demographic? Who are the decision makers? The parents? The tweens?

These are all factors to take into account when developing a successful PR campaign. First, we start with determining who makes the buying decision, and what drives their buying decision. Then we look at who the buyers look to for information when they are making their decisions. Finally, we determine the best possible outreach plan based on your target influencers. This is where some of the most powerful results come from. So, who’s your decider?