The MoPR Blog

Full disclosure, James Wanless is president and COO of MoPR client Talkster, and he’s a friend. But bias aside, he still posted a very interesting piece today about the “revolution” coming in communications.

James points out that the current view of communications is based on silos. For example, most people maintain separate accounts for phone, email and instant messenging (and may have separate accounts for each of these for home and work). This siloed approach means that people maintain a distinct contact list for each service. Even though we can synch and import contacts, the systems are distinct.

This approach is about to be shattered by the needs and desires of a new generation of people who are literally being weened on social networks. James is not talking about Facebook and MySpace users (although they matter a great deal too). James is referring to people like my daughters, who years before they could write their name or had any phone etiquette were meeting their friends and making new ones on Club Penguin. Club Penguin is a social network for kids, and despite it’s video game-like appearance has many of the same attributes of the more grown-up social networks like Facebook, MySpace and LinkedIn.

James asserts that as these children become adults, their expectation of communications will change, forcing the communications platforms to likewise change. In the end what we will have is not a siloed series of communications services, but a singular platform that integrates everything we use and creates portability. Instead of using Outlook we’ll use Facebook. And Facebook will be on our mobile phone too. We’ll use Facebook (or MySpace or LinkedIn or Ning, etc.) as our conduit to communication.

Once that happens, instead of looking up a person, deciding whether to call, email or text, and then establishing the communication, we’ll simply open our friends list, click on a face and voila — we’re connected in the most convenient fashion for both parties. In this environment you have greater control on who and how you are contacted. Business contacts are able to reach you at certain times on certain devices whereas friends and family may have a different set of times and methods. You would no longer need to give out phone numbers, email addresses, etc (although you would probably still maintain them). Thus you would have a better ability to maintain your privacy while at the same time still be very public with your profile. And if you need to change any of this information, you simply update your profile and that information is updated for everyone, much like how Plaxo is building their service.

After walking the floor at CTIA with James and discussing this very subject, I think he is completely accurate. It’s an exciting development, and it’s surprising to me that the social networking Goliaths have not been more vocal about such a change. I am certain that the folks building Microsoft’s next version of Exchange are thinking about it.

One added benefit James didn’t discuss — this could spell an end to telemarketing! And for that reason alone, more resource should be devoted to making this change happen.

Oh yeah, and a sidebar note: I would be remiss in my role as a member of Talkster’s PR team if I didn’t point out that Talkster can already enable this revolution today with their communications platform.

Read James’ post “Giving Voice to the Social Revolution” at the Talkster Blog.

As a former IT magazine editor and journalist [before I found my true passion in PR] I was always amazed at how vague and convoluted some press releases could be that were sent to me.

Today, there are still many cases of completely irrelevant pitches being foisted upon editors, writers and bloggers.

Here’s a good example from my own personal experience.

In my spare time I write a blog about local Portland, Ore., history. Nothing too extravagant, mostly a scan of a kitschy postcard and then some brief commentary about said scan. It’s fun. I enjoy it. And I get to learn about my adopted city.

Recently, a PR firm pitched me that had no clue what the content of my blog covered. They didn’t even know my name. It was horribly written. And the pitch contained no more than six different fonts and typefaces [Times! Verdana! Arial! Italicized! Bold and Underlined!].

To me, this meant one of two things:

1. The sender was psychotic.
2. The sender was lazy, did one heck of a lousy cut-and-paste job and had no clue about what the message was and who should be getting the message.

I’d say the second was the case, but that’s just a guess.

This leads me to the point of the post’s title.

Just because there are newer technologies such as blogging, Social Media Releases (SMRs), and social networking tools that let us communicate easier, if the original message is convoluted, inaccurate, or just not a fit for the intended audience, it won’t matter how it’s delivered.

Whether you’re a PR professional working for a client, someone writing an email or someone writing a proposal, you need to keep your message simple, informative and relevant.

It’s definitely my own personal mantra when working for my clients at MoPR. Be genuine to their message…and let it work for you.

My career in public relations is just beginning, and my managers at Mobility PR are giving me incredible opportunities to not only continually learn about our industry, but also grow as a public relations professional.

I just had the privilege of attending my first CTIA Wireless tradeshow in Las Vegas (that’s me with Jonny Brown of Kentrox). As a newbie to this trade show, I was blown away by the sheer volume of people and countless new products. While I was there supporting one of the six MoPR clients that attended the show, the team at MoPR made sure I got to walk the floor with them, and I learned a lot. Acronyms are now better understood, technologies were brought to life and I have a deeper understanding of how all the different elements of mobility work together in the large ecosystem on display at CTIA. From a professional PR perspective, one of the most important things I learned might actually be a MoPR trade secret, but I feel compelled to write about it anyway: ShowStoppers.

ShowStoppers is a press-only event where reporters, editors, bloggers and industry analysts mingle with 50 or so companies which exhibit their newest technologies and services. At CTIA, the Showstoppers exhibitors represent the future of business, consumer, lifestyle and digital technologies in the mobile space. Exhibiting companies include the most innovative new startups that have selected CTIA as their launch pad which showcase their wares right alongside major industry players.

Steve and Dave Leon (that’s right-they’re brothers!) put on an impressive event. But in truth-it felt more like a party. Hosted this year at the Wynn Hotel, ShowStoppers, with its endless supply of fancy finger-food and generous open bar, was the place to be in Vegas that Monday night.

Vendors working the show were in for a busy night dominated by efforts to grab the attention of the reporters and analysts making their way around the room and then talking-up the products and services they were there representing.

I was aware of ShowStoppers before going to CTIA. MoPR has used the event with great success in the past. When our client Talkster debuted its Free World Dialing service at Fall CTIA last year, they earned a tremendous amount of coverage. But now I know one of the MoPR secrets. Press events like ShowStoppers (there are also the Pepcom press events which I hope to attend) give companies a great opportunity to take advantage of the hundreds of registered press and analysts that come to a big trade show like CTIA. Instead of conducting 30 minute briefings held one at a time on the show floor, the news can be given to reporters in a more rapid fire environment, literally seeing dozens of reporters every hour of the three hour event.

That’s not to say that doing ShowStoppers is easy. There is a ton of prep work that we conducted on behalf of our client well in advance of the event. ShowStoppers sent us periodic updates of their attending press list so that we could give heads-up pitches to relevant media and hone our materials appropriately. Preparing for ShowStoppers was actually quite intense… but some activities must remain trade secrets!

Beyond the dozens of print media and bloggers that we chatted with at the event, our client Kentrox - who was there to launch its Optima Cell Site Solutions - was also interviewed by Dave Graveline for his
"Into Tomorrow with Dave Graveline" radio show and did an on camera interview with BNETV.

We also had the pleasure of being exhibitor neighbors with KWINGO. These folks are an online resource providing frequently needed workplace phrases in a second language. I think it’s safe to say that in our diverse world, especially the mobility space, we have all had moments where we definitely needed a Kwingo! Or as they say, Quick Lingo.

The event was practically perfect. If there was one moment of panic, it came after a consutruction worker bisected Sprint’s fiber optic cable cutting off Internet to the entire Wynn Hotel (among others) just hours before the event was to begin. I am told that a backhoe slicing fiber optic cable is a cliche, and I’m glad that my first CTIA experience included it. It could have been a complete disaster (so many of the companies exhibiting had demos that relied on Internet service), but the ShowStoppers team pulled off an incredible last (miracle?) fix. Minutes before the press walked through the door, our computers were up and running and the connectivity problem was completely resolved. Impressive to say the least. And just in time for me to makemy first UTTER!

Hats off to the ShowStoppers crew for a fantastic event. A huge thanks to all of the media for attending the event and speaking with the vendors. And many thanks to all the exhibitors- I’m really enjoying all my clicky pens, stress balls, and new notepads! The entire team at Mobility PR looks forward to the next ShowStoppers event - coming soon to a trade show near you!