InsidEPR

Speed Dating... Light Reading Style

By Whitney Sunseri

In true Valentine's Day fashion, Light Reading has found a way to help Mobile World Congress attendees capitalize on the holiday despite being away from their loved ones during the event. Their innovative idea– a “meet the editors” speed-dating reception and post-date cocktail hour. The concept that they’ve come up with revolves around the idea of traditional speed dating but entails three minutes of dedicated one-on-one time with two or three of the publication’s analysts or reporters as opposed to a potential love interest.

As much as I think that this event offers a unique opportunity for companies to get in front of the reporters and/or analysts that they may not have been able to get an in-person meeting with during the show, I also think it is just as beneficial to the publication. They will get the no-bull, three minute rundown of what the participating companies are doing in the span of a few hours, making it easier for reporters to filter out the news they want to cover from the event. All in all, as cheesy as speed dating may be for the pursuit of a significant other, I think that the folks at Light Readingmay have struck gold with this innovative idea for meeting with people at trade shows.

Want to know how their meet-and-greet concept actually pans out? Stay tuned.

iPad: When Good is Good Enough

By Ashley Paula

Since almost everyone is talking about the iPad, I thought I’d jump on board and speak my mind.  Let’s forget for a second that I’m a high-tech PR professional, dealing with technology everyday. Honestly, when I leave the office, I am an everyday consumer, who just wants to relax and enjoy the thrills in life.  I’ve been reading article after article today from skeptics, who are listing out all the items the iPad does NOT have and listing reasons why it hasn’t lived up to all the hype.

One skeptic’s article I can relate to is Eric Zeman’s blog post on InformationWeek’s Over the Air, 10 Things the Apple iPAD Doesn't Have. I do agree that having a few extra features might be nice; however, I actually like the simplicity of the iPad.  I can see how flash, a camera, multitasking and widescreen display would be nice, but I’d rather watch someone else pay more for the upgraded version (which I’m sure will come out soon).

For me the bottom line is that anything Apple creates is absolutely awesome, whether they are introducing brand new technology or not. The iPad is a combination of some of the best technology Apple has ever created, and while critics may be disappointed that they didn’t see the new features they did the day the iPhone came out, the iPad is the first of its kind and simple enough so that the everyday consumer can use it. If you look at how many consumers absolutely love the iPhone just because of the quality of touch screen, it makes sense that they’d integrate that same technology into a computer tablet.

For $499, I think the iPad is perfect the way it is and I can definitely see myself buying one.

What is The Future of Long-Form Journalism?

By Neila Matheny

Last week, I attended the PRSA/Churchill Club event “Journalism After Print.”  The panel had diverse backgrounds in blogging, traditional journalism, online news, and analysis of the publishing industry.  With these varying viewpoints, the discussion was lively, but focused and informative.  Moderated by Sam Whitmore, one of the topics the panel discussed the most was the future of long-form journalism.

Ken Doctor, a panelist and an affiliate analyst with Outsell, Inc., mentioned that he estimates there were one million less stories written in 2009 than there were in 2007. In a matter of just two years, that sort of a drop is staggering. With the emphasis on click rates, breaking news before it is all over Twitter, and having journalists balance a variety of job responsibilities, it seems long-form journalism has been impacted the most by the top in story writing.

Publications like Rolling Stone, Forbes, and Fortune still seem committed to the effort, but the flip side has seen the end of Conde Nast’s Portfolio and the shrinking of print pages all over the industry.  Is it the end of long-form journalism or is it time to re-define what it means?

Is crowd-sourced content like this New York Times piece how long-form journalism will survive in the online world?  Will epic Wikipedia posts like this page on the recent earthquake in Haiti be the new way for consumers to find in-depth information on a given subject?  How will journalism curriculum be adjusted to teach young journalists about the changes the online world has forced on their craft?

All of these questions were pondered by the panelists, but there was no clear agreement about the future long-form journalism. Even if long-form journalism is a rarity, I believe there is still a place for it in publishing. Would you like to share your thoughts on the future of long-form journalism?  Please add a comment below.

PR Predictions: What's Next for 2010?

By Neila Matheny

Looking back on 2009, it sure was an interesting year.  With the economy on the rebound, it seems like everyone is looking forward to 2010. 

We have talked to some of our favorite editors and analysts to get their opinions on what is coming next in technology.  We also heard a lively discussion from some of the tech industry’s experts about what the new year holds for Silicon Valley.

But, what is coming next for PR in 2010?  We expect 2010 to continue many of the trends that started in 2009. Here are a few trends and predictions for 2010:

Social Media– While social media is now a key element of every company’s PR program, we expect to 2010 to be a year to focus on the measurement of these programs. Outside of the quantitative measurements of number of Twitter followers or views of a YouTube video, PR will look more at measuring the qualitative impact of social media campaigns this year.

Video – Another ingredient of most company’s marketing efforts is video creation.  Many of our clients already use video for product demos, customer testimonials, and online biographies. As videos continue to proliferate through PR campaigns, PR professionals themselves will continue to develop their filming and editing skills in 2010 to better assist clients, as well as their own agencies, in producing video.

Startups – With the layoffs and consolidation that have affected both the technology and publishing industries in 2009, there are many experienced and talented entrepreneurs currently building new companies. 2010 will be an exciting year for new media companies that will be born from veteran reporters who are founding new blogs and online destinations.

Press Releases -We already mentioned video as a hot trend for 2010, but video is beginning to be a viable alternative to press releases, as we have watched the traditional release evolve in the past few years.  In 2010, press releases will turn into multimedia projects. Companies will stop paying for pricey word counts and will invest in supporting videos, charts, logos, and graphics. Some will even eliminate the written words all together and move to a video-only release formats.

As for Engage PR, we expect 2010 to be full of new opportunities. And, we are excited about continuing some of the traditions we created in 2009 like the Cool Tool of the Month blog, video newsletters, and executive video blogs. We will also be launching a new website and our new Brand Health Report service.

What are your predictions are for PR and technology this year? We would love to hear your opinion on what 2010 holds as well.

Five Cool Yule Tools

By Stephanie Park

As we head into the heart of the holiday season, most of our wish lists are full of must haves for the New Year. If Zhu Zhu pets and Twilight merchandise aren’t topping your list, here are just a few gadgets and gizmos the EPR team is hoping for this year

1. Charging Pads

Between the new Duracell myGrid charger and the Wildcharger for iPhones, we are looking forward to kissing our power cords goodbye in the New Year. Just plop the phone in its case and let it sit on the charging pad without the mess of cords and wires.

2. The Ultimate Smartphone

There seems to be several options for those looking for the ultimate in mobile devices. Whether it’s the Droid’s navigation and seamless Google integration or the endless iPhone app store, there are plenty options to please every consumer. Some of us are particularly excited by the new hydrogen-powered phones purported to make their debut in 2010.  These phones are “hybrids” that draw on conventional batteries and hydrogen fuel cells. Each fuel cell cartridge gives the equivalent of three to five recharges when compared to traditional batteries.  I guess with a hydrogen-powered phone, maybe we won’t need charging pads after all.

3. Flip Ultra™ or MinoHD™

“Do you flip?” because EPR does. It’s been a great addition to the EPR family in 2009 for on-the-fly videos such as our Halloween costume contest and holiday gift exchange. We also find more practical purposes for it as well such as client testimonials and industry chalk-talks. Here’s hoping Santa will bring us the newest model for 2010!

4. Roku

What better season than now to cozy up at home with thousands of movies at your fingertips? There are other Internet video-on-demand boxes but Roku is the manufacturer for the first Netflix streaming receiver box. It also provides unlimited access to Netflix's streaming catalog, Amazon Video on Demand, and MLB.TV.

5. Kindle  

According to Amazon, the Kindle is the #1 most wished for gift this year. With a screen advertised to read like paper, you can access books, newspapers, magazines and blogs on-the go without the annoying glare.

10 Tips for Food Donation

By Megan Atiyeh

Last week, Engage PR spent several hours at the Alameda Food Bank, a non-profit community agency that will provide over one million pounds of food to low-income families throughout Alameda.  Due to the very tough economy this year, the need is higher than ever. The Food Bank has seen double digit growth in the number of families that need help—many seeking assistance for the first time. 

For our quarterly community service project, we sorted food and assembled small and large holiday “boxes.” Once we adjusted to the temperature in the warehouse (think frozen meat locker) and figured out a system, we really got rolling—completing more than four pallets of holiday boxes. In the process, we learned some important dos and don’ts that we hope people will consider before donating food.

Top Five Dos

• If possible, find out in advance if the agency has specific needs. Many post this information on its website or will provide a list in advance.
• Donate healthy canned “sides” (yams, pumpkin, condensed milk, olives and cranberry sauce).
• Don’t forget stuffing, instant mashed potatoes, rice, and nuts.
• Canned fruits and vegetables are good healthy donation options.
• Frosting…frosting….frosting. The Food Bank receives quite a few cake mix donations but not as much frosting.

Top Five Don’ts

• Donation requests are not a reason to clean out your pantry of expired items
• Diet food. Just say no to Atkins and Jenny Craig or anything fat free or sugar free.
• Please do not donate anything that has already been opened (see #1).
• Avoid Ziploc bags filled with miscellaneous items (hard candy, mints, Taco Bell hot sauce packets, random seasoning packets, etc.).
• Unwanted items – chances are, if you do not want that can of mince meats or quail eggs, no one else will either!

A good general rule of thumb for donating food items – think about what you would want to eat at your dinner table.

How to Craft an Effective RFP: An interview with Francis Hopkins

By Neila Matheny

 

Heading into 2010, many technology companies will look to re-focus their public relations efforts.  Whether messaging or markets have changed, the marketing team has been re-organized, or the company is launching a PR plan for the first time, there are many questions to be answered.  Often as a part of this process, companies will evaluate bringing in a PR agency.  Constructing and reviewing agency RFPs can seem like a daunting task, but there are many ways to ease the burden of this process on a company’s marketing team.

Francis Hopkins, director of corporate communications at Sigma Systems, recently conducted an RFP process to select a new PR agency for Sigma. Now an Engage PR client, Francis sat down with InsidEPR to discuss best practices for working through this process and share tips for others who may be embarking down this path.

Francis provided insight into how to best construct an RFP by discussing the following:

• What information should be obtained before launching into the RFP?
• What is the appropriate length?
• What types of questions should be included?

 

 

In addition, Francis explained the top qualities he looks for in a new agency. His priorities ranked in order of:

• Expertise in the company’s specific market
• Relationships with the media and analyst community
• Providing candid feedback and challenge messaging when it is needed
• Embracing social media and marketing the agency

View highlights of the video interview with Francis Hopkins on Engage PR's YouTube channel.

 

Media Predicts: What's Hot in 2010?

By Jeannette Bitz

Last week’s PRSA’s annual Media Predicts 2010 event featured some of Silicon Valley’s most influential reporters sharing their predictions on what will be hot in 2010.

Panelist participants included: Brad Stone, New York Times; Byron Acohido, USA Today; Connie Guglielmo, Bloomberg; Om Malik, GigaOm and Steven Levy, Wired. Jim Goldman, CNBC’s Silicon Valley bureau chief, moderated the event. The event kicked off with master of ceremonies, Duffy Jennings, SFGate.com, who provided his commentary on where the industry was headed in 2010.

If the group of panelist are right on their predictions, (and as history indicates, they have a pretty good track record) 2010 promises to be a year with more innovation, M&A activity and the year that online publications and blogs start to charge subscribers for content. Here are just a few of the predictions:

1. Social networking companies will continue to be popular 2010. According to the panelists, Facebook, with a valuation of $9.5 billion will thrive in 2010 and could be in a position to pursue an IPO. On the other hand, Goldman speculated that Twitter would go away in 2010. Several of the panelists disagreed, arguing that Twitter’s investors have invested for the long-haul and will give the company enough of a runway so that they do not have to worry about making money for the next two years.
2. Handset sales will be strong—iPhone will take the lead but Google’s Android will be a viable competitor. Levy felt that it was possible for Android to overtake iPhone sales while Malik argued that “Apple is the only Silicon Valley company playing offense”.
3. “The free online media buffet is over,” said Stone. Stone felt that online newspapers would begin to charge for content next year, especially if they offered subscribers additional information or analysis.
4. “The industry will wake up to the rising cyber-security threats,” said Acohido. He added that the average consumer would finally realize how vulnerable their information is and would want to steer away from doing financial exchanges online.
5. “The FCC will make decisions that show that they are on the side of the Silicon Valley,” said Malik. He argued that the government is opening up the mobile phone market via its decisions on net neutrality.
6. “M&A activity will be on the rise in 2010, which will mean more layoffs,” said Guglielmo. While this could be an opportunity for an entrepreneur to raise capital for a start up, Marshall argued that VC money for new companies would be limited.
7. Five companies will make headlines in 2010: Amazon, Twitter, Comcast, Apple and Facebook.
8. The entertainment industry has been experimenting with paid content but will finally start to figure it out in 2010.
9. Applications in the cloud will continue to grow for enterprises despite the fact that this is in opposition to the Microsoft model.
10. Consumer devices like the Kindle will continue to be hot but Levy felt that there will need to be a better device that has “one format” for all books.

 

Twitter 2.0: Changes to the tweetosphere

By Frank Bauch

Its been quite a year for the micro-blogging social networking site from San Francisco. But for all the publicity that Twitter has received this year, there haven’t been a whole lot of changes to the construction of the site. The additions of “trending topics” and a change to the infamous “Fail Whale” logo could hardly be considered revolutionary.

This month, however, twitter made four notable changes to the site – some that could impact its business use, and others that are mostly cosmetic:

1. Addition of Twitter lists. One of the major complaints about twitter was the difficulty of finding certain people on Twitter. On Facebook, if you know someone’s name, and have a general sense of what they look like, you can find their profile. On Twitter, the different account names make that task difficult. Twitter lists will allow people to more easily sort through their followers to find additional contacts that are relevant. Here’s a PR example: If I was interested in finding the appropriate reporter to pitch a story at Fast Company, I could sort through their Twitter lists to see what some of their reporters have written about recently. They’ve got lists for marketing columnists, design columnists, bloggers, and their editorial staff. Other publications have similar lists, and I expect that more publications will pick up this feature shortly.
2. Twitter-LinkedIn connection. LinkedIn announced that they will partner with Twitter to connect tweets to your LinkedIn profile. This could be an excellent upgrade for LinkedIn, replacing the sparsely used LinkedIn status updates. There are plenty of folks who use Twitter for personal use, and those people will not be affected by the connection with LinkedIn. But for business users, the twitter feed will give business professionals a much deeper look into the lives of their professional connections. The biggest impact will probably be for job seekers looking to spread the word about their search, or journalists looking for sources.
3. Easier re-tweeting. This change is unlikely to have a business impact, but it makes Twitter much easier to use. Instead of copying and pasting a tweet, users can now simply click on the recycling symbol to re-issue a tweet. There has been some criticism from die-hard tweeters that you can’t add your own commentary to re-tweets with this feature, but those wishing to add to the tweet can still copy and paste as they did before.
4. Headlines. Without much fanfare, Twitter changed the headline at the top of profile homepages. Instead of asking “What are you doing?” Twitter now asks you “What’s happening?”. The previous statement implies a personal connection to your followers. The new question reflects the increasing belief that Twitter is an excellent medium to spread news. It is unlikely that many people will even notice this change, but it is a signal that we can continue to expect changes that will make the site more about your business than your breakfast.

 

To Tweet or Not to Tweet

By Suzanne Panoplos

Despite the increasing popularity of social media outlets like twitter, there are still a fair amount of people that have resisted getting on the bandwagon.  When Pear Analytics released its twitter study indicating that over 40 percent of Twitter tweets are “pointless babble”, friends, colleagues and even my own husband and others latched on to these results as vindication for their refusal to get on board. “I am just not that interested in finding out what someone had for lunch that day,” insists my husband.

And sure enough, when I conducted my own random search on twitter of the subjects “eat”, “drink” and “sleep”, there was quite a bit of people tweeting on these subjects – hundreds in fact. Yes, many of these tweets were uninteresting and did involve a laundry list of what someone had for lunch while others were just downright disturbing: “Please help me before I drink human blood.”  Okay let’s just chalk that one up to a fanatical Twilight follower.

For me, twitter has been an invaluable outlet for me understanding the media and following trends for clients. It also gives me valuable insight into what reporters and analysts are thinking and writing about: “@nealweinberg: Looking for enterprise data center case studies.” I believe it can give us a little bit more insight into the people we want to communicate with and yes, that includes what they are doing in their personal lives. 

Twitter has become my own personal news source. I was on twitter when I found out Michael Jackson died and when Captain “Sully” Sullenberger expertly guided an airplane into the Hudson.  Twitter is where I find out about H1N1 outbreaks and vaccines and more information on net neutrality, healthcare reform and the situation in Iran.

Pointless babble or real-time news?  With Neilsen reporting that Twitter has grown 1,382% year-over-year, the impact of this microblog is undeniable. As with most things, people will have to decide for themselves whether or not to engage. But for those that do decide to tweet, I think what is true for twitter is what is true for most things in life – you get what you give.

Just a typical day at Engage PR…

By Chelsea Irwin… and the rest of the Engage PR team…

You might think these pictures are for a Halloween celebration. But you’re actually wrong. It’s not out of the ordinary that every few weeks the Engage PR team comes to work in costume. It keeps things interesting. Here’s a slideshow of a typical Wednesday at Engage.

 

Evernote: Tool of the Month

By Frank Bauch

If you're like me, you take lots of notes. All types of notes: to-do lists, lecture notes in class, phone numbers, and of course random scribbled lists of your top 10 favorite (Fill-in-the-blank)s of all time. That last one might not be as important, but if you lose the notes you took on any of the first three, or any other work-related notes, you could be in quite the dilemma.

Fear not my fellow notetakers. The fine folks at Evernote have developed a site just for us. For their efforts, they are the tool of the month for October. At evernote.com, you can create an account to save various different styles of notes. As they say on the site:

Save your ideas, things you see, and things you like. Then find them all on any computer or device you use. For free.

The user interface looks relatively friendly and easy to use, and the free account gives you a good amount of storage space. What's more, they make all of your notes searchable - if you paste in text from anywhere, you can search your notes to find that text. When you are done with a note, you can email it to yourself or share it with a friend. Evernote is also available for the iPhone and other smartphones, which means no more yellow stickies.

This won't replace your email – it’s designed to replace your spiral notebook. I could picture a journalist using this tool to gather thoughts for a big story, a comedian using it to keep track of jokes, or an author storing a picture with notes to remind him of an inspirational moment. Right now I am using the site to type this story, and later I may use it to add items to my grocery list…

Check it out at www.evernote.com

Embracing Blogging: An interview with Kevin Walsh

By Chelsea Irwin

Interview with Kevin Walsh, vice president of marketing for Zeugma Systems

A recent interview with Kevin Walsh covers the ins and outs of entering the world of blogging. According to Walsh, it was a learning experience that started with commenting on articles from writers at key publications like GigaOm and Telephony Online.

“If it’s an article that’s of importance to the company – we need to get in there quickly and comment on it and shape it,” Walsh said. “That’s where Engage PR has been very helpful, because there are dozens of media outlets where these could appear; we need to have a lot of eyeballs that are scanning for these things.”

After this “apprenticeship” with the new media world, Walsh says writers became familiar with his writing style and content, and began to accept contributed pieces from him and other Zeugma executives. Walsh says it has been important to have a broad variety of people at Zeugma blogging and commenting frequently, not just his senior management team.

One common misperception about new media and blogging, Walsh says, is that they provide minimal value to those in the telecom industry because many of their competitors have yet to enter the blogosphere. Walsh says, on the contrary, that it provides him with an excellent outlet to communicate with the investor community, and with his customers. 

“Ultimately, the value is our potential customers are becoming aware of Zeugma and our products in a favorable fashion,” Walsh said.

You can also visit the Engage PR YouTube channel to see this video along with additional client and company videos.

Leveraging the Value of Video in PR

By Stephanie Look

Today, nearly every trade and business press publication has evolved to feature new media content as a part of their online sites.  Companies now have the opportunity to integrate video into more traditional PR strategies and capitalize on video sharing sites like YouTube, the third highest ranked search engine topping 100 million viewers per month (Comscore, March 2009).  But for companies looking to integrate video into their PR program, it’s important to evaluate the purpose and value the video is going to provide.

Engage PR has worked with long-standing client, Kineto Wireless, to integrate a variety of videos to support messaging around the company and its key business units. The use of video can be leveraged in a variety of ways, such as providing the media and analyst communities with hard-to-reach resources, or can help break down complex technology concepts in a visual way.

Most recently, Kineto announced the launch of their mobile VoIP application, enabling mobile operators to develop a customizable mobile VoIP service to combat the VoIP threat from services like Skype and Vonage.  To complement traditional PR efforts around the news, Engage PR also filmed and edited a video showing the media, analysts, and customer prospects how the product works, seen here:

More information on how Engage PR has leveraged the value of video to complement traditional PR efforts, check out our upcoming newsletter.  You can also visit the Engage PR YouTube channel to see more of our videos.

BubbleTweet: new tool of the month

By Frank Bauch

September’s tool of the month has taken off recently thanks to a number of celebrities who have started to use the technology regularly – most notably the cast from the recent season of American Idol.

But don’t be surprised if the business community isn’t far behind in learning to use BubbleTweet. The site allows you to record a video of up to thirty seconds that will appear on top of your twitter page, and then “pop” away like a bubble at the end of the video. The videos won’t pop up every time a follower goes to your twitter page – instead, they’ll have to go to a specific link that you could post on your twitter page or any other social media site.

The social media world is all about interacting with friends, coworkers, and fans – and BubbleTweet has the potential to help us make even more personal connections by posting videos along with our tweets. This could be a great forum for reporters to ask questions to their readers, and for businesses to ask for and receive feedback from their customers who they’ve connected with on twitter.

Check out the site at: http://www.bubbletweet.com/

Signs of recovery… a mean for technology innovation

By Jeannette Bitz
Recent economic indicators provide hope that we’re finally headed to toward a recovery.  Cisco’s CEO, John Chambers, told the Wall Street Journal last week said that the US was in a “gradual” recovery, which is a positive sign for most of Engage PR’s clients since Cisco is considered by most to be a technology bellwether. While many economists also caution that the recovery will be slow, there are some bright spots in both the telecommunications and IT technology industries.

• Robert Half International Inc. recently conducted a survey of 1, 400 CFOs from a “stratified random sample of U.S. companies with 20 or more employees.” When asked where the executives plan to invest their money once the recovery occurs, 40 percent of the CFOs who responded cited that they would invest in new or upgraded IT systems.  The telecommunications industry is also showing signs of optimism—and far beyond the promise that the broadband stimulus funds will contribute.
• Om Malik, GigaOM, noted in a blog post recently, (The Great Internet Buildout Continues) social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter are gaining in popularity, and devices like the Apple iPhone are so popular that subscribers are creating network congestion issues for AT&T.  While the popularity of social networking sites and downloadable mobile applications may grab headlines, Om notes, “what lies beneath—the Internet’s infrastructure and the grid that powers it” will need to be upgraded.  

These trends create new opportunities for technology companies at all stages of growth. As the economy recovers, we will likely see more innovation in the telecommunications and IT sectors—and thus, we will likely start to see the emergence of new start-ups entering the market. The good news is that the start-up companies entering the market are not only bringing truly innovative technologies to market, but are often founded and led by executives that have proven pedigrees and track records. What is also refreshing is that these start-ups have built strong business models with the intent to operate as viable standalone companies—and from my perspective don’t appear to be looking for short-term equity events.

Times they are a changing…

By Megan Atiyeh

Interesting article by Jay Deragon, When the Shift Hits the Fan, focused on the fact that old marketing and advertising methods will not work in today’s web world.  This is not really news.  We all know this shift is happening but this article contains some very powerful data that brings this point into laser focus.

• Time spent on social networks is growing at 3X the overall Internet rate, accounting for approximately 10 percent of all Internet time (Nielsen, 2009)
• 93 percent of social media users believe a company should have a presence in social media (Cone, Sept, 2008)

When clients think about New/Social Media and see data points like the ones above, there is a tendency to think only about the social aspects of sites like Twitter, Facebook and the blogosphere at large.  And for some of our technology-focused clients the business value in participating in these sites is still unclear. 

Reporter Insight: SC Magazine’s Dan Kaplan

By Chelsea Irwin

Dan Kaplan can easily be described as Carrie Bradshaw’s male counterpart. A senior reporter living in New York, Dan is sharp, sarcastic and an excellent journalist. Not to mention his passion for his work, music, films, and the excitement of New York City. Put simply, the suburbs quickly depress him, much like the Sex and the City star.

After majoring in Newspaper from Syracuse University, Dan wrote for the Asbury Park Press covering the municipal beat and all things Jersey. (Quick side note: after our interview I felt compelled to confirm that “Newspaper” was a legitimate major - like “Interior Design” or “Backpack Recreation” – but as it turns out, it is, in fact, a very prestigious degree and apparently I’m the last one to the party because everyone else seemed to be aware of this).

As a Public Relations professional, I first met Dan at the RSA conference in 2007. I quickly learned that you can’t pitch Dan – he can see through the transparency of product upgrade announcements and companies that claim to have no competitors. 

Currently, Dan is reporting on cyber security, Dan admits that some people might find what he does boring; it’s a hit or miss deal closer when it comes to the ladies, but he loves what he does and that’s all that matters right now. He did confess that even his dad finds his work slightly mind-numbing; however, when Dan uncovers a secret vulnerability with ATM machines that will allow someone to withdraw money free of charge, his dad wants to be the first to know. (I want to be the second to know - never mind the video cameras or other non-consequential security details). 
 
It was my first time interviewing a reporter, which is tricky. There really is an art to running a smooth and quick interview. What I said would only be a 5 to 10 minute call, ended up running much longer (I know, every reporters dream). I couldn’t help but ask him what effect attending security conferences (Def Con, Black Hat), or speaking with professional Hackers about vulnerabilities and network holes has on him… is he ever tempted to compromise his morals and leverage the inside education to maybe just try his hand at hacking? I got a laugh from him; but apparently, he’s not slick enough for that. I agreed and we both decided we would likely be the pathetic cyber criminals that forgot to block the IP address.

(Cool) Tool of the month: Down for everyone, or just me?

By Frank Bauch

In lieu of bringing back the immensely popular “Tool of the Month” blog, we’ve decided to switch to a different column theme with the same name. As the media world becomes increasingly complicated, a number of excellent tools are popping up all over the place – both online and offline – to help you navigate the digital landscape. We hope to offer you one or more tools per month that will truly help you out.

Here’s our inaugural inductee: Down for everyone, or just me?

Have you recently had difficulty loading a website that you need to access? Of course! Everyone has.

But most of the time, you’ll spend a few minutes waiting to see if the page will load, and you are left to wonder which problem you are facing? Could it be…

A. The internet has just gone down in your office
B. You are having trouble accessing that specific website
C. The website is down
D. All of the above….?

When you find yourself in this situation, check out downforeveryoneorjustforme.com
It’s a simple website that will tell you whether that website is loading for others or whether the problem is on your end. Definitely will save you some time on those frequent occasions when twitter shuts down for an hour.

In the new media revolution…what keeps reporters up at night?

By Stephanie Look

PRSA Silicon Valley recently hosted a panel discussion on the struggles traditional media have recently faced in efforts to reinvent their business models in order to continue distributing authentic, newsworthy content.  Moderated by Sam Whitmore, the panel members included:

• John Raess, Bureau Chief, Associated Press
• Quentin Hardy, National Editor, Forbes
• Owen Thomas, Online Editorial Director, NBC Bay Area
• Kevin A. Yen, Director of Strategic Partnerships, YouTube
• Lisa Stone, Co-Founder, BlogHer
• Louis Freedberg, Director of California Watch

I think everyone in the room could agree that the panelists sparked lively debate with one another, each providing their perspective on what the future of media will look like.  The controversy in the room was very indicative that modern day media still remains undefined.