InsidEPR

When will Green IT Simply be a Part of Smart Business?

By Fran Lowe

We’ve been talking in a concerted way about Green IT for at least half of the last decade, and much longer if you were an early adopter of Green or a proponent of sustainable business. We’re all aware of IT industry giants like Google, IBM, GE and SAP who realized the immediate benefits of going Green by becoming more efficient in the way they operate.

Early adopters also realize that becoming more efficient - using less energy in their data centers or using recycled water in their cooling towers -  is just the fringed edge of Green IT. Going green has given these early adopters and leaders a measurable business advantage as they’ve continued to leverage a sustainable mindset and Green IT to develop and sell green technology products and services to enterprises worldwide. Their success has been spurred on by their  marketing efforts around Green, which in turn has built brand value for these companies and encouraged the adoption of Green technology by a growing number of customers. There are, of course, many "degrees" of  being green or engaging in sustainable activities. In the world of data centers, for example, obtaining a large percentage of energy from renewable or "non-coal” resources is being seen as an important next step.

Next-generation IT that brings together big data, cloud, virtualization and software-centric networking is increasingly more energy efficient by its very nature. Scale drives efficiency whether we’re talking about using the cloud to reduce the net energy usage of business computing or the fast-growing wholesale data center industry that is delivering power and cooling efficiencies that save millions of dollars for large scale customers. Leaner, more flexible and resilient computing is another way of expressing Green IT.

The interconnectedness of these technology trends is driving the ever greater need for companies of all sizes to adopt technology frameworks that are interconnected and able to measure and track results. The IT sector is more aware than ever of the environmental and financial impact of increased power consumption, data center cooling issues and e-waste from IT operations. By adopting and integrating green and sustainable targets, they will be better able to manage the environmental impacts of their computing assets and facilities from the get-go.

When Green is finally just the smart way of operating and doing business, by which I mean doing business in a way that ensures an enterprise will be able to flourish and persist over the long-term, we will likely no longer be talking about Green IT.

I’ve no idea when that is - but hope it’s sooner than I think.

 

Building Your Story for an Equity Event

By Jeannette Bitz

As my colleague noted in her blog post on July 6, the first half of 2011 has been marked by an increase in IPO and M&A activity. While many of the IPOs have been high-profile social media companies, there has also been a ramp in M&A activity among mid-range technology companies. Over the course of the last six months, three Engage PR clients were acquired by larger companies – Calix acquired Occam, RadiSys announced plans to acquire Continuous Computing and at the end of June, Dimension Data announced that it had acquired OpSource. In all cases, the larger companies acquired these companies with the goal to expand their business.

If an equity event is in your near future, there are best practices you should consider when building your communications strategy for either an IPO or acquisition. Before getting started, you should determine if your company is truly prepared for an equity event.

1. Are your short- and long-term value propositions really clear? Many companies are often focused  on the immediate sales opportunity; but, does your web and social media presence reflect how your solution solves both short- and long-term needs for your customers?
2. Are you a recognized market leader?  Potential buyers and financial analysts often look at companies that are not only innovative; but also, they consider companies that have a proven track record for execution. For companies looking at an IPO, financial analysts favor companies that either consistently demonstrate strong market share or at companies that demonstrate the potential to be a serious, long-term threats to established incumbents.
3. Is your voice heard beyond your company news? While having a steady stream of news is important, it is equally (if not more) important to ensure that your executives are engaging in broader industry stories that potential investors or C-level executives from larger companies read. 
4. What do the industry analysts say about you versus the competition? Many analysts have various outlets to share their industry perspective, whether it’s through their blog or media coverage. If you don’t know what they think, conducting an analyst audit well prior to an equity event is strongly encouraged.
5. Do you have a strong and vocal customer base? In PR, customer support and endorsements validate your company and become more critical when positioning companies for business press coverage.

There are quite a few steps and strategies that should be considered when ramping up for an equity event. The sooner you can bring in your PR agency partner to help you build a strong communications plan, the stronger your presence and value proposition will be in the market.

Facebook Privacy: Is there really such a thing?

By Suzanne Panoplos

For quite some time, Facebook has been under fire because its privacy policy is too vague, privacy settings are too complicated and let’s face it, it all seems to be changing quite frequently. There have also been people calling for Mark Zuckerberg’s resignation based on claims that Facebook has been abusing its members’ personal data. 

Facebook privacy – to me, those two words together are an oxymoron. Facebook by its very nature is a social community. Although you are free to choose who is in your community, you do not have a lot of control about how information passes through your group of “friends”.

Take for example your own social circles – you may tell something to a friend or colleague in confidence with the expectation that they will not pass this information on. This person may in turn tell their one “trusted source” and so on and so on. In fairly short order, that secret that you have entrusted with a good friend is being communicated outside your social circle.

I view Facebook the same way – anything posted on your page or in your informational tabs will be passed on in some way. I know people that have actually called in sick to work and then posted pictures of their fabulous day at a museum or sporting event on a Facebook page. Sure, your manager may not be connected to you on Facebook or you may have restricted him/her from your updates but chances are someone will eventually see your post and pictures and potentially make a comment to your manager. I am a strong believer in the seven degrees of separation theory – we are all connected in some way.

For me it all boils down to one simple rule – if you don’t want it out there, don’t put it up there.

Tips for Telecommuting

By Becky Frost

Whether on the road or working from a home office full time, telecommuters share some common traits. For starters, we have all at one time answered the phone in a towel…probably not, but it’s possible. Now that I have your attention, I’d like to share some tips that I’ve found helpful in my experience as a telecommuter.

People working away from the office need to posses the following traits:

• Strong organizational skills
• The ability to focus and limit distractions
• The ability to motivate and manage yourself (meaning you can pressure yourself to get projects done on time)

One piece of advice I received when I began telecommuting was “stay organized.” Organizational skills can help telecommuters avoid timewasters and maintain efficiency. I am a list person, which helps me identify and prioritize my tasks – keeping me on track to accomplish work goals.  Using your online calendar to remind you of important meetings and allocate time for projects is also very useful.

Another good piece of advice that I follow when working from a hotel room while on a press tour or working from my home office is to maintain my work space as just that – work space.

When working while on tour, I immediately set up the desk portion of my hotel room as command central for work. This keeps things tidy while also enabling me to work without distractions. A dedicated home office enables the telecommuter to filter out household distractions while working and also provides the benefit of being able to close the door on the workday when it is over.

By creating and maintaining a work environment, telecommuters can feel like they are in the office, no matter the location.

So there you have it, a few things that work for me. Feel free to let me know some telecommuting tips that work for you.

Going Backward to Move Forward

By Becky Frost

In a strategic meeting this week, a client said something that – combined with something I recently read – led to this post. The client and the EPR team were discussing a few creative opportunities and then moved on to the next topic. Suddenly, the client (who usually likes to power through things) said, “Back up, I have another thought about that.” 

That same day, in my daily reading, I came across a chapter entitled, “Going backward to move forward.” It focused on giving credence to past ideas, experiences, and so forth. It also spoke about pausing and giving ourselves time to really digest and think about what we are doing – thus allowing for time for more ideas to flow and greater creativity.

So, today, take the time to go back, examine ideas that you’ve quickly pushed aside, or lost in the jumble, and see what gems you find. In the words of our great writing director here at Engage, “Too many people kill ideas. Don’t kill your ideas, execute them.”  If you don’t give your ideas a chance, you may never know if they’re good or not.

As we give ourselves time to execute plans and ideas, we allow ourselves to achieve greater success.

Measure for Change

By Megan Atiyeh

I recently attended the fourth annual TechNet (www.technet.org) Innovation Summit. Speakers included CEOs from Cisco, Sun, and Sybase, as well as senior executives from Google, Kleiner Perkins, and the Haas School of Business. Topics ranged from the role of innovation in the global economy, competition from countries such as India and China, Green technology, to how current US policy both supports and inhibits innovation in the US.

Certainly some topics were more relevant than others but it was interesting to see a few recurring themes.

The Value of Measurement – Self-awareness is a critical piece of any effort to facilitate change. There was significant discussion about the importance of transparency and measurement as it relates to a CEOs ability to institute change in their own company or technology.

For Sun CEO, Jonathan Schwartz, it was the knowledge that data centers consume 3-4 percent of the total electricity generated, and that Google’s biggest expense, next to its people, is electricity. So, rather than focusing solely on increasing speeds and feeds, as is common in the technology industry, Sun built a slower but very power efficient server to address a key pain point for its customers. That decision created a $1B dollar business for the company.

Knowledge is power - Because the primary goal of PR is to help clients influence sales, it’s critical that we understand customer pain points and focus our communications efforts in those areas. It’s also critical that we work closely with clients to re-evaluate the effectiveness of our campaigns on a regular basis. At EPR, we emphasize measurement as a way to identify where we are, where we want to be, and whether or not we have succeeded in getting there.

So, how important is measurement for you?

Email Explosion

By Becky Frost

When it comes to email, what’s your number? You know, the number that prompts you to clean out the old inbox. I’ve yet to meet anyone who doesn’t have a limit to how much email he or she can take.

In today’s world, email can be a convenient tool or an unwieldy beast, depending on how it is managed.

I use my email as a "to-do" list, filing away informative emails after I’ve read them, and keeping my to-do’s in the inbox until they can be filed. This system works for me, but I’ve heard at least five other approaches to managing email. Here are some email management tips from the Harvard Business School’s Working Knowledge for Business Leaders article, "Tips for Mastering Email Overload."

• Make action requests clear
• Give your reader full context at the start of your message
• Understand how people prefer to be reached, and how quickly they respond
• Use a subject line to summarize, not describe:
• Bad Subject: Deadline Discussion
• Good Subject: Recommend we ship product April 25th

There are many more suggestions in the article. Feel free to take a look and post your comments about what works for you.

Happy Birthday Engage PR: What a Ride It's Been!

By Jeannette Bitz

Engage PR officially celebrated five years in business on May 1. Those of you who were around then will recall that it was not the best time to start a new agency, especially in the networking and telecom markets.  It was difficult to envision that we’d not only survive but be thriving just five years later.  We’ve worked very hard to build up our brand, a solid client base , and a roster of smart and talented employees—and luckily the economy cooperated with us as well.

I’m very proud of all our accomplishments. Maybe one of the most satisfying  this year was receiving the prestigious “Best Places to Work in the Bay Area” award from the San Francisco Business Times, East Bay Business Times, Silicon Valley/San Jose Business Journal, and Deloitte for the third time in four years. (One year we didn’t submit for the award.)  What makes it even sweeter is that this year EPR placed third among companies with 25-50 employees—our best ranking thus far.

Start Making Sense!

By Stephanie Gallagher

As a PR professional in technology, I am always swimming in a sea of tech speak. 3GPP2, EVDO, HDSL, PDSL, SNR, TD-SCDMA, ToIP, WiBro—what does it all mean?  Over the years, I have learned to worry less about memorizing acronyms and to focus more on finding the real meaning and value of what my clients are trying to say.  The old adage “less is more” can be effectively applied to PR.

Explaining complex technologies in English can be a challenge and is one of the reasons I continue to work in high-tech.  One of my favorite exercises with clients is to ask them to describe what they do in one sentence.  The answers always vary, and oftentimes it’s painful for them to come up with a one-sentence response.  This process is important, though, to help develop that elevator pitch to the media.  When talking to reporters, every minute counts—sometimes you only have a minute to make a pitch so it better be clear and concise.  Even though a reporter may be writing about technology, it’s PR’s job to help make sense of it all.

2007 Outlook

By Molly Miller

If the last few weeks of December are any indication, 2007 is going to be a busy year for technology PR.  I can’t recall a time when we heard from more companies about 2007 plans, including start-ups preparing for their flagship launches, maturing companies wanting to increase their competitive visibility, late-stage private companies looking at the 2007 IPO market, and public companies emerging from consolidation with aggressive plans for promoting new vision.  These are exciting opportunities for us to consider, and a refreshing change from the technology doldrums we all suffered through several years ago.

Even better, it appears all of these prospects take a more pragmatic view of the execution requirements to succeed long term than did companies in headier days.  The media—and more important, their own prospects and partners—require more proofpoints of marketing claims, and it takes more due diligence to complete the sale (and to sell the article).

The blogosphere also continues to gain importance for building credibility among the “long tail” of influencers that now have more ways to express their opinions on technology adoption and market needs.  Customers also like the opportunity to interact directly with their current and potential suppliers on issues.  I expect all clients to look more carefully at integrating new media communications into their outreach plans this year.