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.

New technologies are always evolving and changing the way we communicate. According to research from IPG’s Universal McCann and AOL, “One out of every seven minutes of media consumption today takes place via mobile devices…That’s expected to grow by 60 percent over the next two years.” Many of our clients are looking into website redesigns in order to make them more mobile-friendly. It’s interesting to see this shift. No longer is just having a blog good enough. Now it must be mobilized. And in doing so, we are finding that content must be refreshed more frequently, so as not to get lost in the shuffle

MediaPost recently reported on a new survey by Princeton Survey Research International, which found that 90 percent of Internet users between 18 – 29 use video sharing sites, up from 72 percent one year ago. But that’s not all. Online adults ages 30 – 49 also showed big gains over the past year; 67 percent now use video-sharing sites, up from 57 percent in 2008. So we now work with our clients to produce more video content and add pictures and videos to press releases.

Additionally, how we get news and information is changing on a regular (dare I say, daily?) basis. As PR professionals, we focus on people who are influencers. Traditionally, this has been the media or industry analysts. While these folks remain influential, there is a new group of influencers. There are blogs that comment on or repackage the news, some of whom have larger followings than the original content (e.g. Gawker).  People  now regularly forward news to their friends and colleagues via social networks and Twitter.

PR is also an ever-evolving game. Not so long ago, press releases went out via fax. You read that right, fax. That little machine in the corner of the copy room that the interns look at in bewilderment. That was cutting edge. Then came e-mail. Now, as how people get their news is in a state of constant change, we are continually adapting to make sure that we are getting the word out to the right people in the way they want to receive it.  I guess it is not surprising that change has come to news, which after all, is the business of reporting on change.

2009 has been coined a time of “change.” From the White House administration to the green movement, from technology to journalism and communications, change is a constant theme no matter what industry you’re in.

While new technology and online media are forcing a lot of the change in the field of public relations, the same is being done in the field of journalism. There is no denying that economic pressures are partly responsible for forcing some sort of change, but what isn’t always recognized is that these pressures can also stimulate innovation and reinvention.

What we have seen over the past few months is that some of the publications we regularly read have only taken a brief hiatus to reinvent the wheel, and come back with a new approach to getting the news out to the audience that has respected their editorial expertise for the past several years. Most recently, Network Computing has resurfaced with its first digital issue. RCR Wireless News is also on its way back, and set to re-launch come September 1, distributing its news online and via e-newsletters. Both of these are examples of publications that have reinvented the wheel in an otherwise difficult time.

So while “change” can have varying definitions depending on circumstances, in this case we see it as a welcome occurrence for these tech publications, and look forward to gathering our news from them once again.

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.

Did you know that if you drink one beer after work, then throw it in the recycling bin – that one aluminum can saves enough energy to watch television for three hours? It is amazing how much of a difference we can make together if each person began cleaning up their environmental habits. With Earth Day just around the corner, the Vantage Team is celebrating the changes we’ve made to help Mother Earth, and hosting bi-coastal networking events tomorrow to do so.

Both the San Francisco event – sponsored by Autodesk – and the Orlando event will feature giveaways and collect voluntary donations to benefit the Northern California and Central Florida chapters of the United States Green Building Council (USGBC), respectively.

The San Francisco event will also feature a speaker panel discussing “Sustainable Innovation in a Recession,” with panelists from the USGBC-NCC, San Francisco’s Green Building Program, Forbes Magazine, Autodesk, and Serious Materials.In case you can’t make it, the panel will be streamed live right here on this blog starting at approximately7:00 pm Pacific/10:00 pm Eastern – so check back! Please tell your friends and use the buttons below to share and tweet.

So whether you’re on the East Coast or West Coast, we hope you can join us! For full details, or to RSVP, check out the following links –

San Francisco

http://earthdaysanfrancisco.eventbrite.com/

Orlando

http://earthdayorlando.eventbrite.com/

Update: Tweet Up location: The Las Vegas Hilton, the Pool Area on the Third Floor. The Hilton is connected to the North Hall of the Las Vegas Convention Center.

Attention all folks attending CTIA in Las Vegas. Our friends at Qik will be hosting a Tweet Up on Wednesday,  April 1, at 7-10 pm.  This is a great opportunity to connect with people interested in the intersection of social media and the mobile industry. This also is a great opportunity to build on the success of the Tweet Up at Mobile World Congress.

The location is still being determined. You can sign up and get more information at http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=69119667494. If you are not on Facebook, feel free to post in the comments section if you are interested in attending. I will pass the information to the folks at Qik.We will post updates here on Vantage Points and on Twitter, Facebook, etc. Check for hash tag #CTIA on Twitter.  For more information about networking events at CTIA, check out the awesome list from:

Mobileslate: http://www.mobileslate.com/blog/2009-ctia-spring-networking-events/

Look forward to meeting you there.

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.

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.

Why should the media and bloggers have a monopoly in recapping last year’s events? Though most Vantge Points posts are about thought leadership, we want to get in on the action too. So here is the very first Vantage Communications Year in Review.

Despite a very challenging economic environment, it was a year of continued success for our clients as well as for our agency. Some of the 2008 highlights are recapped below: 

1. We re-launched the company as Vantage Communications with a new website and our Vantage Points Blog. 

2. 10 new clients joined our client family. This reflected strong growth in green building PR and social media.  We are also proud that 10 of our clients have been with us for over 2 years.

3. Multiple clients received recognition as recipients of elite awards including Wall Street Journal’s 2008 Technology Innovation Award,Aspen Institute for Innovation in Energy Conservation, Deloitte & Touche Technology Fast 50, Light Reading’s Leading Lights Award, eWeek Top 10 Products of 2008 and Popular Science Best of What’s New.
4. Vantage Communications also cleaned up on awards with the Stevie Award for Best PR Campaign and finalists for Platinum PR Award, Sabre Award and Stevie Award for Best Company.
5. Our clients were consistently featured in top tier publications. Please check out our best of coverage which includes Wall Street Journal, BusinessWeek, NY Times, Fast Company, Forbes, CBS, ABC, FORTUNE, WIRED, and USA Today.
6. As an innovative communications company, we’ve truly embraced social media. Our staff is active on Facebook and Twitter and 18 people contributed to Vantage Points.
7. Vantage expanded its client services to include more new media capabilities such as video production & editing and audio podcast support, completing several client projects during the year.
8. Company-wide Vantage has added new green initiatives across its offices. It is important to walk the walk, not just talk the talk.

We are very proud of our 2008 accomplishments. We could not have achieved what we did without the support of our clients and the members of the Vantage ecosystem. For this, we are truly thankful. We have more innovations in store for 2009. But for now, here’s a toast to our clients, our team, our partners, and the new companies we’ll partner with in 2009!

On behalf of Vantage Communications, I recently attended the 5th Annual Stevie Awards for Women in Business held in New York City. Vantage was nominated as a finalist for “Best Overall Company of the Year – Service Business.” Our own “Woman in Business” CEO Ilene Adler started Vantage Communications over 18 years ago. She continues to grow the award-winning agency with an amazing and non-stop track record for assisting clients around the globe. Earlier this year, Vantage took home the “2008 Stevie for Best PR Campaign”.

For this most recent Stevie event, there were over 50 award categories presented with more than 200 women in business in attendance from all across the United States and globe including Japan, Australia and the United Kingdom. The evening represented a very diverse group of women with various backgrounds and expertise but with very similar goals – being successful and being recognized for their success and contributions to the business community by ‘Stevie’.

It was by far an inspiring and energetic evening for all the women in attendance as there were many great stories to be told, laughs to be shared, and even some tears to be shed – I’d say everyone left the evening a winner.