Forbes: Job-Hunting Tips from 101to87’s Kym Lino

June 24, 2010  |  Blunders  |  0 Comments

Forbes today covered some great advice from Portfolio PR Group’s Kym Lino.  Check out her advice on job hunting and how her little bit of attention landed her a job at our agency. Congrats Kym, welcome aboard.

Media Strategies for IT Companies, missing strategies

March 19, 2010  |  Blunders  |  0 Comments

Last night I went to CEG’s TechConnex panel on Media Strategies for IT Companies. The panel included Mike Hendricks from The Business Review, Mike Spain from the TU, Rosemary Armao, professor of communications at UAlbany and Beth Meurs who manages just about everything under the sun for PR and marketing at Pitney Bowes/MapInfo.

I signed up for the event last minute when @ceg_ny tweeted about it.   I wanted to see who was in the room. The event was moderated by Zone 5’s John D’Alessandro, vice president for public affairs. John maintained a good balance of keeping the panel going and promoting PR efforts at Zone 5.

Overall I left wanting to be highly critical of the event. Not because the information wasn’t good, it just wasn’t new. The major missing element was the disconnect between the title of the panel and the information that it provided. The networking event afterwards also suggests others were in my camp as well.

People wanted tactics, strategies…and they didn’t get it.

Instead, we talked a lot about the typical stuff — changing landscape in the media, importance of relationship building with the media, being accessible and open as a company and the effects of the world wide web on humanity.

Two great quotes from the night:

Rosemary Armao: “You don’t lose customers when you confront the problem with honesty.”

Mike Hendricks: “Competition for eyes is the driving force. Story judgment has changed from what readers need to know to what readers want to know.”

I also appreciated Mike Spain’s example of how conversations can start with an article.  He referenced a former GE company that was having a labor strike last year.  Nearly six months of comments totaling some 4000 shocked the Times Union, but it was indicative of what was to come.  People are engaging in conversations not just being spoon fed the news.

Here is where there was a disconnect:

1. There was talk that today all the good ole journalists are gone and it’s filled with just “young people.”

My take: Young journalists are the folks shaking things up in my opinion.  Mashable.com, anyone? Pete Cashmore has changed the way we read news. Sarah Lacy, Ben Worthen, Jennifer Leggio, Natalie del Conti. All young, all great.  My guess is that they’re referring to local and regional papers only — something I felt was too much of a focus last night.  A hit in the Times Union needs to be a part of your media, not the whole caboodle. There are copious amounts of opportunities for IT companies here to gain national attention, they just aren’t crafting the right stories.

2. Diversity in the panel: more IT-focused folks pls

My take: We hear from the same people over and over again locally.  I’d rather sponsorship dollars go to less drinks and food and more of a diverse speaking panel – SMBTV does a great job of this. The TU just held a panel on blogs a few weeks ago, but other than that, last night’s conversation really should have had a few IT reporters on it, a blogger, maybe an industry influencer.  This leads to my main point in #3:

3: Too off topic

My take: There were a lot of smaller companies there. Entrepreneurs bootstrapping to make ends meet.  Some had just been kicked out of the RPI Incubator.  They’re doing PR on their own. They came for strategies and tactics and instead they left empty handed. I kept wanting to jump in and say – “Ok, great advice, now tell them how you want to be reached, what matters to you in a story, how to craft a pitch, how to write a better release….”

I should say that we did get some examples of real-world strategies via Beth Meurs who was a breath of fresh air.  She talked about releasing MapInfo Professional and how they leaked small feature sets throughout the weeks ahead of the major launch through Twitter. She gave examples of viral buzz. She gave examples of how they court key users and give them VIP access to new entities to the product. Well played Beth, pleasure to meet you.

At the end of the panel, TechConnex Chairman and Dean of the College of Computing and Information at UAlbany Peter Bloniarz asked a question trying to prompt more strategic takeaways for the audience but he made a comment that sent chills up my spine and definitely Zone’s John D’Alessandro.  Something to the effect, “What should they focus on if they can’t afford Zone 5-like PR rates?”

Let me just get it out there that for PR you have a lot of choices in the area. You have straight PR shops, you have full-service marketing communication and PR firms, you have smaller communication consultants.  Either way, you won’t find more affordable PR any where else.  You don’t have to spend a ton of money, you just have to set expectations and start small.  If you come to one of us with a story angle, a few small PR goals, we can probably work within your budget to achieve a good portion of them. Think about it — the thing we hear from clients all the time is, “Wow a win for PR, we just got another customer who came to us from that article in X, Y, Z.” Direct ROI like that is great…and you can’t not afford it.

Oscar nominations: it’s about losing in front of the right audience

February 3, 2010  |  Blunders  |  0 Comments

Courtesy of Paste Magazine

CNN wrote an article today about the potential accolades that come with just being nominated for an Oscar versus actually being the winner.  You know the scene…six beautiful actresses featured on screen in all their charm and grace.  And then the presenter only reads one name…

I’ve always wondered why more of them don’t cry? A longstanding Hollywood career just seconds away…maybe we miss the emotion because they pan to the winner. Maybe actors practice their stealth, unemotional reaction to what could have potentially been a major lift to their career.

And so the question remains – does a nomination mean anything?

As small business owners or as agency PR people, we’re often finding ourselves in competitive RFPs and/or the big boardroom flipping through a PowerPoint to a new lead.  If we don’t win the account, is there anything to be said for being invited to the dance?

As the recession loomed last year, agency battles heated up in competition mainly because there were so few opportunities out there. From Tech Valley to Silicon Valley, we’re hearing that opportunities are increasing again.

Let the games begin.

For our local PR and marketing teams, it means copious amounts of work with a gamble that you won’t get the business. On the other hand, it’s one of the few viable source of getting new business — so we grin and bear it.

But the question remains: if we lose, is all lost?

Here are a few lessons I take away with loss:

1. To present great ideas, you have to brainstorm great ideas. These ideas can be re-purposed and keeps a team fresh on their toes thinking about new ways to get results.

2. RFPs and presentations often make us evaluate the current work we’re doing and what the results are. You are forced to update case studies, pull references and update reports — something we should all take a moment to smell the roses and do.

3. Sometimes it’s a blessing in disguise. Perhaps you’re already at bandwidth, or perhaps you can more easily up-sell a current client than ramp up a new one. Either way, you’re looking at an opportunity to evaluate and direct yourself to new efforts.

4. As funny as it may sound, it also brings new business — even a reference from the company that didn’t choose you. I can’t tell you how many times you get a call about X Company who heard from Y Company that we were great. And I thought to myself — Y Company didn’t pick us! It means you made a good impression and that there were a lot of factors at the decision table. Or maybe too many cooks in the kitchen. Either way, you were given an opportunity to showcase your skills and you impressed someone.

5. I love to gauge who the competition is.  Even when you don’t get the client, you usually know who you were up against by the time you’re at final cut. Mark off the names of those who keep meeting you at the finishing line and closely monitor your competition, it’s good insight for any company.

So let’s be honest, if I was up for an Oscar and lost, I would cry. But in business development, at least in my past life, there were no tears. Like Hollywood, a nomination just means losing in front of the right audience.

Rumor: VMware to acquire Zimbra? Say what?!

January 6, 2010  |  Blunders  |  2 Comments

TechTarget as well as hundreds of Tweets report a tech rumor that VMware has bid for Yahoo’s Zimbra, an open source email and collaboration company.  I’m sure this has left VMware customers scratching their heads. According to TechTarget, “Zimbra, which sold to Yahoo Inc. in 2007 for $350 million, boasts 50 million paid seats for its email and collaboration product, both hosted and on-premise. VMware Inc. has not confirmed the deal; the Monday report by the Wall Street Journal’s “All Things Digital” said it was unclear how much VMware would pay for the company.”

I’d have to agree that with all the crap Webmail-type of interfaces out there, email software like Microsoft would be a much better fit.  Everyone is trying to compete with Google, GMAIL and Google Apps — that would make sense then to try an open source model that have real enterprise chops.

I’ve used Zimbra with a client I contract for called rPath, the Web interface is fabulous and allows for great remote capabitlities.  Stay tuned for some interesting developments.

Wow Google, way to be a late adopter; are you scared of Bing?

December 8, 2009  |  Blunders, Tech Worth Talking About, Today's Headlines  |  1 Comments

If you Google Obama right now, give your search results roughly 10 seconds, you’ll notice some new things in your search window.

On Monday at a media event in Mountain View, CA, Google geeks unveiled search in real-time. So for example, when you Google a topic, you’ll not only see what is on the web, but you will also be able to view what is being written about in real-time on sites like MySpace, Twitter and Facebook. [Note: Facebook's FriendFeed property and public profiles only]

This notion of real-time search isn’t anything new. Niche search sites like Collecta and Crowd Eve currently offer the same thing, minus the robust Google search results. Microsoft Bing also has a Twitter tool that does something similar.

This development of course is nothing less than Google’s attempt to grow its market share that Bing has been eating away at. Google currently owns 65 percent market share and is fighting hard to keep it after new deals like the Microsoft and Yahoo partnership that gave Microsoft control of almost 30 percent of search.

Google users can click on “Latest results” or hit “Latest” from the options menu to view a full page of live tweets, blogs, news and other content scrolling right on Google. Users can also filter results to see only “Updates” from microblogs like Twitter, FriendFeed and Jaiku. Latest results and the new search options are also accessible via the iPhone and Android phones.

The look and feel of Google search is still the same, very simple and very mathematically complex. Real-time search results appear in the middle of the search results page in a small box with a scroll bar where users can go back to any tweets or other results that streamed by too quickly to click on. There is also a pause button to hold the stream in place.

A fun spin on real-time search?

I think this was expected of Google months ago, but my guess is these partnerships took a bit of negotiation.  I will say this greatly improves my Internet stalking results.  No, just kidding. But there are implications for both the PR and HR industry.  Now you can easily check just one site to reputation check a potential hire. And in that very same way you can also reputation-manage a brand or executive. Find out what is being said in real-time. For example, imagine if you Googled “Tiger Woods” right now.

The new features will be rolling out in the next few days and will be available globally in English only.

NY ranks near last in being entrepreneur friendly

December 5, 2009  |  Blunders  |  2 Comments

This month, the Small Business & Entrepreneurship Council, based in Virginia, ranked New York as one of the least friendly states towards entrepreneurs.  Joining us at the bottom of the list is ironically California which has one of the largest populations of entrepreneurs and therefore start-up companies than any other state. The report evaluates things like taxes, various regulatory costs, government spending, property rights, health care and energy costs Рmany of which are clearly in the benefit of the state and not in the best interest of small business.

In the December 1 media release, SBE Council chief economist Raymond J. Keating, the author of the study, notes: It’s hard to find any good news at the national level for entrepreneurs, small business and their employees. The U.S. economy slipped into a recession in December 2007, with matters getting far worse late last year. Congress and the White House have not offered positive solutions to help the job-creating sector. In fact, most of their actions will hurt, not help, small businesses. But what about the states? The Small Business Survival Index helps business owners and investors understand the public policy burdens placed on entrepreneurship and small business, with the states ranked accordingly.

You would think that with these state’s large fees and penalties towards small business, New York and California would be in better budget situations versus, well, practically broke.

In case if you’re wondering, the top ten entrepreneur friendly states are: South Dakota, Nevada, Texas, Wyoming, Washington, Florida, South Carolina, Colorado, Alabama and Virginia.

Creating an environment that encourages business development and making it easier for individuals to strike out on their own is definitely a risk to most states. And as a small business owner, I do recognize all states have their own versions of trying to encourage affordable small business. For New York, I find their healthcare policy called Healthy NY to be ideal and I remember California having excellent maternity leave.  But it’s still not enough. So for now SMBs, it’s going to be an uphill battle, at least in these two states.

So until a purple elephant crosses the road, (in other words, never gonna happen), here’s what we can learn from Entrepreneur.com’s list of Effective Ways for Entrepreneur’s to Save Money:

Insurance Intelligence

1. Save by association. When looking for insurance, check with your trade association. Many associations offer competitive group insurance.
2. Be prepared. Buying appropriate insurance upfront saves money in the long run, says Jeanne Salvatore of the Insurance Information Institute, a nonprofit organization in New York City. Consider what situations would be catastrophic to your business and protect yourself with adequate insurance. “Disaster recovery,” says Salvatore, “is one area where business owners shouldn’t scrimp.”
3. Make a foul-weather friend. By arranging for an alternative place to run your business in case of a major disaster, you may be able to save on business interruption insurance, advises the Insurance Information Institute. For instance, you could arrange with a firm in the same industry to use their facilities in case of damage, and vice versa.
4. Check up on your medical insurance. Before choosing a medical insurance carrier, ask for information on past claims and the loss ratio of paid claims to premiums, advises the Council of Better Business Bureaus in Arlington, Virginia.
5. Raise your deductible. Raising the deductible on your insurance usually lowers your premiums. Even if you end up having to pay the deductible, it’s likely to be less than the amount you save.

Employee Economics

1. Aim to lease. Employee leasing-in which you turn over your work force to a professional employer organization that leases your employees back to you-can save you substantial cash on employee benefits, says Bruce Steinberg at the American Staffing Association (ASA). For referral to a leasing company near you, visit the ASA online at www.staffingtoday.net.
2. Go with the flow. Rather than paying for employees who sit idle when business is slow, consider hiring temporary employees to handle surges in business.
3. Make experience count. Get free or low-cost help-and give local college students a chance to learn the ropes-by hiring interns.
4. Use independent contractors. Employers generally don’t have to withhold or pay any taxes on payments to independent contractors. But be very careful that your independent contractors fit the definition provided by the IRS or you could face penalties.
5. Commission your sales force. Overhead, salaries, incentives, training costs, fringe benefits and expenses add up when you’re hiring your own sales representatives. Contracting independent manufacturers’ sales reps, paid on commission only, is less expensive-and often equally effective.

Shipping Savings

1. Clean up your mailing list. The U.S. Postal Service will clean up your mailing list for free, correcting addresses, noting incomplete addresses and adding ZIP+4 numbers so you’ll be eligible for bar-code discounts.
2. Prune that mailing list even more. The Direct Marketing Association offers this checklist of cost-cutting ideas. Eliminate non-responders and marginal prospects; print “Address Correction Requested” on the face of your mail; investigate co-mingling your mail with that of other small mailers to take advantage of discounts available mainly to large mailers; and stockpile mail to build up larger volumes.
3. Be an early bird. Send mail early in the day, and you can usually expect to get one- to two-day delivery for the price of a first-class stamp.
4. Shop around for an overnight courier. Overnight delivery rates for the major couriers are competitive; however, if you’re willing to wait a few hours-or even an extra day-you could save.

Tax Tactics

1. Mind some petty pointers. Don’t get careless about your petty cash account. “Though you don’t need receipts for expenses under $75, you should still track these expenses since they can add up,” advises Holmes Crouch, author of 18 tax books.
2. Hire your children. If your children are at least 14 years old and pay their own taxes, it pays to take advantage of their lower tax bracket. “You can essentially transfer income from your business to them [to save money],” says David L. Scott, author of The Guide to Saving Money (The Globe Pequot Press).
3. Take a stand on taxes. If your business is new in the neighborhood, you may be at a higher tax rate than those who have been there longer. “Go to city hall to determine what your neighbors are paying, and use this to negotiate a better rate,” says Pete Collins of New York City-based PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP. “Expanding businesses can often negotiate with community authorities, who want them to stay in town rather than move and take jobs elsewhere.”
4. Homebased? Don’t overlook crucial tax deductions. In addition to being able to deduct a portion of your rent or mortgage interest and utilities as a business expense, you can also deduct a percentage of various home maintenance expenses, along with a portion of the cost of services such as house cleaning and lawn care. Check out the IRS’s Web site, or check with a knowledgeable tax advisor for more information.
5. Get out on the town. If much of your business is conducted at restaurants or you find yourself driving to clients’ offices, make sure you take those deductions. If you entertain clients or potential clients to discuss a current or future project, you can deduct a portion of your entertainment costs. To qualify for this deduction, you must maintain a log of entertainment-related expenses you plan to deduct. For mileage, you can deduct 37.5 cents per mile in 2004. This figure usually changes annually, so check with your accountant at the beginning of each year.

Financial Focus

1. Make credit comparisons. If you tend to run unpaid balances on your credit cards at the end of the month, shop for a card with a low interest rate. If you pay in full, it’s more important to avoid an annual fee and look for a longer grace period. “Often credit card issuers waive the annual fee or reduce the interest rate if you ask,” says Scott. “Just tell your credit card company you’ve had several solicitations from other companies with more favorable interest rates or no annual fees, and ask if they will reduce yours.”
2. Avoid cash advances. “Credit card companies usually charge an upfront fee of up to 2 percent of the advance, with interest accruing immediately,” says Scott.
3. Bank on an early deposit. Make bank deposits early enough in the day so you get credit (and start earning interest) that day.
4. Get checks in the mail. Ordering your checks from a printing company often costs less than getting them from a bank. Options include Checks in the Mail and Designer Checks.
5. Form a buying alliance. Join with another business or a trade association for bulk purchasing discounts.
6. Take it with you. If you’re near your suppliers, pick up your order yourself-or perhaps have a friend or family member do it for you, suggests Sarah Williams Steinman, president of Casco Bay Herb Co., an herbal soap manufacturer in Cumberland, Maine. For example, Steinman’s husband travels throughout the Northeast. “He keeps me updated as to when he might be near one of my suppliers,” she says. “He often travels through the town where my olive oil supplier is, and he’ll pick up a few hundred pounds of oil on his way home. That saves me about $75 in shipping.” Caution: Pick up supplies yourself only when it truly saves you money. If it’s taking you away from a revenue-producing activity, you’re not really saving.
7. Be reluctant to give credit. If you do extend credit, thoroughly check the client’s credit background, says Collins. For less-than-creditworthy accounts, Collins advises considering the following actions: Collect cash in advance; send partial shipments; request letters of credit, personal guarantees and a pledge of assets; take out credit insurance; or think about factoring (see below).

Professional Policies

1. Query your consultants. The professionals you work with regularly are often easy to bargain with, thanks to the rapport you’ve developed with them. Ask your insurance agent, accountant or attorney how you can cut back on their costs. You’d be surprised at the suggestions they might offer on ways to cut your premiums, reduce billable hours or avoid huge retainers. You might also barter your services.
2. Be a legal eagle. When hiring an attorney, make sure you have a written fee agreement to prevent surprises. It should include an estimate of the time to be spent on your case and specify what’s covered in the fee-including typing or copying-and what is not.
3. Learn something new. Rather than pay a consultant to write your press releases, for example, hire one for an hour or so to show you how to do it yourself.
4. Run from the law. “Avoiding lawsuits is a big factor in business success,” says tax book author Crouch. “Even arbitration can get expensive.” The best alternative: Try to work out any problems before they grow to the point that attorneys get involved. “Don’t ignore any written or phone complaints.”

Buying Brainpower

1. Stretch your budget with barter. Swapping one product or service for another is a good way to avoid cash outlays-and unload slow-moving inventory. If you’d rather not bargain with other businesses directly, hire a commissioned barter broker (listed in the Yellow Pages under “Barter”), or join a commercial barter club or exchange. The National Association of Trade Exchanges (NATE) is a clearinghouse for member exchanges across the country, allowing business owners to swap just about anything with anyone. Participants typically receive “trade dollars” for their goods or services, which are brokered across cities nationwide with the help of NATE. Visit NATE at www.nate.org.
2. Time your payments. Ask suppliers if they give discounts for early payment. If not, it’s to your advantage to pay your bills-including utilities, taxes and suppliers-as late as possible without incurring a fee, advises Scott. “The longer funds are under your control,” he says, “the longer they’re earning a return for you rather than someone else.”
3. Join an association. Many trade and business associations have reasonable membership fees and offer discounts on everything from insurance, travel and car rental to long-distance phone service, prescriptions and even golf course fees.
4. Seek at least three bids on everything. Even mundane purchases merit shopping around. If you quote a competitor’s lower price, a supplier or vendor will often match that price to win your business.

Thanks to the contributors on this article: Jacquelyn Lynn, Ivan R. Misner, Chris Penttila, Guen Sublette and Laura Tiffan

My beef with pointless Facebook Fan Pages

December 1, 2009  |  Blunders  |  0 Comments

A recent study by a social media analytics company called Sysomos evaluated Facebook’s nearly 600,000 “Fan Pages.”¬† Fan Pages are arbitrary pages anyone can set up to try to create a fan base for a brand, themselves, a company, product, whatever you would like…and quite frankly that’s the problem I have with them.

Most of the time, Fan Pages are sold to tech companies as the fundamental step to social media. But I insist they’re not for every company.

Common sense would say your Facebook Fan Page is successful when it reaches a fan base proportional to the audience you’re trying to reach. If that audience is everybody, well then this statistic should make my point.¬† According to Sysomos, 77 percent of Facebook Fan Pages have under 1,000 fans. If you can’t get a 1,000 fans, what good are you really doing besides sucking productivity from your marketing team or agency budgets.

I recently sat down with a company that creates a small but integral step to the fabrication of semiconductor chips.¬†¬† Important, yes. Facebook worthy, what for?! When done correctly, a Facebook Fan Page can do wonders for distributing your message, like say how TechCrunch uses their page and has a 15k plus fan base. TechCrunch’s strategy is content syndication and distribution and drives traffic back to the blog’s homepage.

While mega consumer brands like Starbucks can engage customers via Facebook,  some companies might want to reconsider. Remember that social media should drive business initiatives and engage audiences, some should consider the non-Facebook approach and be more strategic with a large LinkedIn Group or targeted e-newsletter. The options of plentiful.

When setting up a Facebook Fan Page, as a tech company, do a gut check:

1. Is our entire company on board to help populate the Facebook page routinely and with a conversational tone that engages the fan base?

2. Is our entire company willing to help spread the fan base to their internal networks to increase the base?

3. Do we put out enough news and create content that will continually engage this fan base?

4. Can our marketing team support an onslaught of wall messages and customer service questions that are public facing?

5. Do we have a social media crisis communication plan and is someone monitoring our brand online?

If you can’t answer yes to these questions with certainty, think intelligently before adding a Facebook Fan Page.

BusinessWeek and the Bloomberg Effect

November 19, 2009  |  Blunders  |  1 Comments

Today the first waves came crashing down as several layoffs and departures were announced at BusinessWeek since Bloomberg won the bid to purchase the weekly business magazine. Sources report that legendary reviewer Steve Wildstrom and social media writers Steve Baker and Shirley Brady are gone as are reporters Damian Joseph and Jon Fine.

According to multiple sources within BW as told to PR guru Sam Whitmore, Bloomberg has put transition rules into effect as it weeds through the reporter list and editorial board. Here are the transition rules:

* If Bloomberg offers you a job, you must take it. If you don’t, you’re fired. No severance.
* If Bloomberg doesn’t offer you a job, you are offered severance, which we hear has been generous.

Steve Wildstrom told SWMS this morning, “Tell your folks I’m on the prowl. No reasonable offer will be refused. In fact, even unreasonable offers will at least be considered.”

Earlier in the week, Josh Tyrangiel, a young executive running Time.com was named editor of BusinessWeek and made this statement about the future of the publication: “Look, I’ve edited plenty of business stories — there are sectors that I know quite well, including technology — but I wasn’t hired to be the great business editor. There are tons of editors at BusinessWeek and tons of editors at Bloomberg,” Mr. Tyrangiel said in an interview. The important thing, he said, is for BusinessWeek to beat competitors “by being better, faster, smarter, more comprehensive.”

Bloomberg wants to use the magazine, which it expects to rename Bloomberg BusinessWeek, to write directly for consumers, rather than just subscribers to its financial terminals. It is also aiming at readership among, and interviews with, government officials and chief executives.

The same article announcing Tyrangiel’s appointment as editor mentioned that BusinessWeek writers were asked to submit essays on where they saw the magazine going ‚Äî in 250 words. Interesting tactic for a newbie.¬† Was the direction of BusinessWeek ever at the hands of the writers?¬† Probably not.

Lots to come as the layoffs continue. But BusinessWeek is not alone. AP and others will follow in the same footsteps.