Courtesy of Southwest Airlines, we’ve all heard their customer service is top notch.  While they have a streamlined approach to most things and affordable pricing, PLUS screaming deals every so often, it’s always my first choice for travel despite the fact they are pretty bare bones once you’re on board.

I walked away with a few takeaways on customer service I thought we could all apply in our business/agency lives which I hope will add value to the continued conversation on customer service:

1. If it’s not going to end the world, help the customer. On my flight from ALB to Vegas, I got in early enough to see that next door was a 4:10 flight to San Jose versus me waiting until the 6:10.  The counter women kindly changed my ticket and sent me on my way. Despite the fact Southwest has signs everywhere that switching could result in increased fees, and yes I had a full priced ticket, I was greeted with the same kindness the next day in San Jose when I caught the 9:00 AM instead of the 11 AM. At the end of the day, this didn’t kill Southwest’s bottomline and while they can’t do it for everyone, it was clear they could make this happen for me.  And they did. I know it might have been against policy and all, but to me it sealed my fate of being a Southwest groupie.

2. Friendly, approachable people mean friendly approachable clients. One of the big takeaways I had from my A&R Partners days was how to speak to a client.  As a young PR person, I’d get heated and upset over the tiniest changes.  Now that I’m responsible for business, you can’t be like that.  Learning the art of being friendly at all times is tough.  Southwest nails it.  Come to think of it, I’ve never seen a bitchy Southwest person. Ever. Even in Albany, they are polite, informative, and helpful wherever they can be.  Ever lose your luggage in ALB on Southwest?  THEY feel bad! Lose your baggage on Delta and it’s like pulling teeth just to get an answer.

3. Business model that works. The airline industry is merging, collapsing and going bankrupt. Well that’s not my problem and Southwest doesn’t care either.  Southwest is working and it’s working because they’re filling up planes with people and getting them to places.  They’re not playing politics in the air and on the runway.  They are on time and when they’re in trouble or grounded for a short time, the darn people apologize to you. And they get you help. A guy flying with me was grounded in Vegas because Hurricane Earl closed the airport in Norfolk.  When we arrived, a Southwest gate agent met him at the door, had texted his cell phone and already made plans for him in Vegas while he waited. Impressive.

4. First class is for suckers, reward the hungry. I’ll be the first to admit that I’d love to go First Class or have double-platinum-I’ve-never-seen-my-kids status only to be the first on the plane, but in reality I don’t nor do I have to on Southwest.  I set my alarm to get my tickets 24 hours in advance and I get an A-boarding card that guarantees me my seat of choice.  Southwest turned the tables and makes the ownership on us to make our flight arrangements happier. I think it’s great. Southwest leveled the playing field and made it’s consumers accountable. Now, this might not mean much for agencies, but here’s a note to our clients – we work harder and harder for you as you give us more to work with.  The world is your oyster to get in the headlines, we’ll make it happen with the right resources if you provide them.  We’ll be the first to over service those clients who clearly want nothing more than to make PR successful and are getting tons and tons of content to us to pitch.

5. And finally, maybe the most simple: we’re all in this together. Whether you’re talking about your internal team or your day-to-day contact at the client, working as a team makes for better PR.  Southwest understands this – you can see the dynamics in their flat organizational structure of flight attendants, in the friendly and respectable manner the pilots treat staff and guests. And most importantly, I never feel “served” in a Southwest flight, mostly because the attendants seem to like their jobs and helping out customers. I think secretly Southwest adapts a “we’re all in this together” approach and believes they’re holding up their end of the bargain by making us happy. Who really likes being on a plane? And when your competition has TVs, WiFi and outlets, you know technologically speaking you’re behind. But then there’s the fan like me who could careless.  I’m happy with my $350 ticket cross country and walked away with a great experience.

To my last point, PR is difficult. The results don’t happen over night and working together makes this a great industry.  Most teams want to get you the headlines you’re looking for, but we know what the reporters want and so we fly in accordance with their needs. If you’re helping us, we’re helping them and they help you. That’s what I learned about Southwest, customer service and applying an agency model to airline travel

Courtesy of GDGT

I am going to be completely honest. Yesterday, my idea for live blogging the highly anticipated Apple announcement came from my curiosity surrounding the next generation iPad.

I am in the market for an iPad, but one of my pet peeves is making a purchase only for it to go on sale or worse, having a better version released within the month of my purchasing it.

But, alas, if you followed my live blog (found at my twitter account: @kymalino), or watched the keynote speech via the live feed provided by apple, you would know that we all have to anxiously wait until November for news on the latest iPad developments.

However, all was not lost in watching Steve Jobs’ keynote speech. Amongst a bevy of Apple announcements, news, and an appearance by Chris Martin from Coldplay – there are some pretty cool and exciting developments coming soon from Apple.

Courtesy of GDGT

The first was the complete overhaul of their range of iPods. The Shuffle, Nano, and Touch will all be changing shortly both in design and software.

The Shuffle is seeing a design overhaul most notably by the re-introduction of control buttons. In his demo of the new Shuffle, Jobs commented that the feature missed the most by Shuffle users was the clickable control pad on the face of the device. Another addition will be “Voice Over,” or a feature that allows the device to announce the title and artist of which ever song you’re listening to. This development also enables the iPod to tell the user how much battery power is remaining and has 25 language capabilities.

The iPod Nano will see a smaller, lighter design overhaul with the addition of a touch screen and a clip (similar to the Shuffle).

Apple’s iPod Touch is basically being turned into an iPhone… just without the requisite cell phone carrier plan. The new Touch will come with not one, but two cameras. This will enable the device to record HD video and chat via the coveted FaceTime (presumably added because of the lack of iPhone4 users to find other iPhone4 users to chat with). The new design will also feature a higher-quality, Retina display.

Jobs’ keynote speech stayed right on cue with the music theme-pun intended-in his announcement of iTunes10 and Ping, Apple’s music social media community. Ping will enable iTunes users to follow each other and trade tips and recommendations about the media found in the iTunes store. Jobs described Ping as ‘Twitter and Facebook, meets iTunes.’

The majority of the developments announced yesterday are welcomed changes to the Apple line-up of devices. However, there was some news announced yesterday that just left me scratching my head.

• The Nano was cut down and thinned out essentially to the size of the Shuffle. In his speech, Jobs mentioned Shuffle users having missed the control buttons. My confusion is this: Why even bother having both the Shuffle and the Nano when the only thing separating them is price point and touch screen? Make a 2GB Nano or add a touch screen to the Shuffle and eliminate product and pricing disparity.
• The iPod Classic was mentioned briefly by Jobs and this model did not see any changes. Nevertheless, did you even know Apple still sells the iPod Classic? I didn’t. Now, I know there are some Apple purists out there but why would I spend $20 more on the 160GB iPod Classic than the smallest iPod Touch? Personally, the ability to carry 40,000 songs, 200 hours of video, or 25,000 pictures is unnecessary and trumped by the features and capabilities of the Touch.
• The new icon to accompany iTunes10 is ugly and cartoonish… a far cry from the sleek and minimalistic feel of Apple products.
• AppleTV. Jobs was not shy in announcing that this is his pet project. But frankly, I don’t know a single person with AppleTV, do you? Honestly, I don’t see why I even need an AppleTV if I have OnDemand features from my cable provider. Call me crazy, but I don’t anticipate spending $99 to be able to watch Netflix or Youtube on my TV… when a VGA cable is $7. In fact, when this product debuted in late 2007, Popular Mechanics announced it was in their “Top Ten Worst Gadgets” list. The effort spent on AppleTV developments could have and should have been spent else where… like on the next generation iPad.

-Kym

This morning’s session highlighted the growth and roadmap for GlobalFoundries and widely focused on innovation coming in the 32 nm sector.  Development of the infamous AMD Llano APU will bridge the gap, or as they call it, “fusion” between CPU and GPU chips.  This is the next-gen space for the semiconductor industry.

The invited keynote was provided by the SVP of Tech Group at AMD.  One of the core takeaways were AMD’s short term goals for the future:

1. More density (naturally means more performance)

2. Unlock benefits of die stacking

3. Gate-first vision

Reminders of their marketing message of AMD being a “design” company was evident in their slide deck, but most importantly it’s their core differentiators against Intel. AMD is the only chip company that does both x86 and GPU parallel computing.

Couple key takeaways from GlobalFoundries speakers:

1. The first truly global semiconductor foundry

2. Everything from gaming to smartphone chips will come out of Fab 8

3. They are going stong, a year later with 10,000 employees and $4 billion in revenue

Photo: Kimberley White

Not one of the fortunate tech people or Apple fanboys/girls picked to attend this announcement presentation?

Don’t fret: Apple announced that they would be live streaming video of their September media event across the web. The news, however, was somewhat dulled by the fact that Apple announced that the stream will only be viewable on an OS X 10.6 Mac or an iOS device (iPhone, iPod Touch, iPad). The reason for the limitation isn’t entirely arbitrary, as Apple is using a new streaming technology called HTTP Live Streaming which was introduced alongside Snow Leopard’s QuickTime X and iOS 3.0.

Here are the major rumors heading into the event:

- Apple TV – A next generation Apple TV based on iOS, priced at only $99, as well as support for Apps.

- iPod Touch – Backside camera, mic, new shape, front facing camera, possible 3G and even a Retina display.

- iPod Nano – Smaller, square shaped design with a 3cm x 3cm touch screen. Case manufacturers have already been producing covers for the unannounced device (see above).

- Other updates to iTunes including TV show rentals and longer song previews.

Speculation

Meanwhile, here’s a collection of fun speculative content that we can’t verify, but in the run up to the event may inspire some interesting discussion:

- iPad 4.0? – We expect Apple will announce their plans for the deployment of iOS 4 for the iPad during the event. It’s unlikely Apple will be able to launch tomorrow as they still await developers to update their apps. So, hopefully we’ll get a roadmap and a developer beta of iOS 4 for iPad.

- 2.8″ iPod touch? iLounge suggests that perhaps we will see the long rumored 2.8″ iPod touch emerge to fill the gap left by the former iPod nano.

- iPhone as Apple TV Remote? iLounge’s Charles Starrett speculates that the rumored $99 Apple TV might actually require an iOS device to serve as a remote. Beyond his speculation, we’d actually heard unconfirmed whispers of the same, so it seems within the realm of possibility.

- iLife Mystery App is a Make Your Own App Tool? Rumors of iLife ‘11 suggested a brand new app would be introduced with the iLife ‘11 suite. We’ve heard an unconfirmed rumor that the new app could actually be a way for end users to create simple apps and deploy them directly (not through the App Store) to their iOS devices. Is Apple returning to their Hypercard roots? It’s hard to say how feasible this would be.

-Kym

Portfolio PR Group will be heading to San Jose today to attend the GlobalFoundries Technology Conference,  marketing event expected to reach 1,500 customers and partners.  According to the site, the company will host this annually having a line up of keynote speakers that will address the semiconductor and design communities. Topics this year include:

• Leading edge 28nm “Gate First” HKMG and other IP enabled technology platforms
• RF CMOS and other Value Added Solution process modules
• Design enablement and Design for Manufacturing
• Automated Precision Manufacturing and Yield Management
• Global Capacity Expansion
• Multi-Fab Synchronization with Customers and Common Platform Manufacturing Partners
• MEMS
• And more!

We’re familiar with the semiconductor industry as it exists today, but to fathom what will come out of this Fab in 2012, I felt like we had to be at this event.  I’ll be particularly interested in learning about the GlobalFoundries open and non-proprietary approach to design enablement. The Global Technology Conference will feature their GLOBALSOLUTIONS partners, leading companies which provide a range of differentiated products and services from EDA, IP, design services, reticles, and assembly and test.

We know the impact that is coming to Malta – thousands of direct jobs, thousands of indirect jobs and most importantly, the ancillary businesses which naturally settle around a Fab.

One thing I’ve learned after nearly 10 years of specializing in technology public relations, is that to win the business you have to understand it.  That’s why we’re going. For those who are also attending, the goal is to spread education on Saratoga County and the resources that are here for these ancillary businesses.  Both go hand in hand, predominately because one can’t survive without the other.

Saratoga County, like many of our technology clients, IS a product.  It’s filled with resources that are hard to find, and with GlobalFoundries as an anchor tenant, we have the land and construction partners who will build much of this area into another winning technology cluster.

We’ve booked some great meetings in San Jose, and we’re looking forward to adding news ones to the list.  I’ll be swinging by to meet some old reporter/blogger friends as well.

We’ll be live blogging from GTC 2010 – so stay tuned on the site for real-time details of the show. You can also follow me on Twitter @nmessier to get real-time updates.

Andrey: What did you do in high school?

Kym: I played soccer and I swam.

Andrey: Oh, that’s cool, I invented Chatroulette.

What started off as a cool, innocent, idea to try to meet and talk to people, quickly grew into a worldwide mecca for creeps and the socially deprived. The results of one session on Chatroulette can be so unwarranted that my 20-year old brother refuses to participate in Chatrouletting with me.

Signing into Chatroulette can yield funny and sometimes scaring results. On my last Chatroulette adventure, I kept a tally of the total amount of X-Rated content exposed during my chats. For my 30 minutes of “Chatrouletting,” my tally reached 15.

Now, Chatroulette isn’t totally a waste. Lately, there have been reports of companies using this video chatting outlet as a form of free marketing and advertising. In fact, all of Chatroulette’s revenue comes from advertisements. The most recent ad to run on Chatroulette was from Lionsgate Movie Studio.

Lionsgate is an independent film production company whose next film, The Last Exorcism, is slated to be released this Friday, August 27, 2010. For the last few weeks, Lionsgate has been surprising the chatters of Chatroulette with their latest marketing campaign.

If you encountered this advertising stroke of genius, you would have been met with a young, attractive woman smiling back at you. After some time passed and you tried to talk with said lady, she would tease you by pretending to take her top off, and then, without warning, she would transform into the demon that presumably lives inside of her.

Lionsgate tracked the responses of those chatting with this demonic chick and what they deem as the best reactions can be found on The Last Exorcism’s YouTube page.

Lionsgate Studio isn’t the only group or person using Chatroulette to gain notoriety. A man by the name of “Merton,” who looks and sounds suspiciously similar to hipster-rocker Ben Folds, has used Chatroulette as a platform to expose his uncanny capacity to preform songs on the fly accompanied by his playing the piano. In fact, Ben Folds himself has also streamed his concerts on Chatroulette to replicate videos similar to that of “Merton.”

In both of their Chatroulette endeavors, both Ben Fold and “Merton” perform improv piano songs, inspired by those they are chatting with. Not only are the songs catchy, but the fact that these two men (or one guy playing two parts in my opinion) can formulate songs about the weirdos they encounter while chatting in entertaining and enviable to say the least.

You can find a chronicle of both Ben Folds’ and “Merton’s” videos on YouTube.

Sadly, in attempting to link Chatroulette to this post I have discovered that the “Experiment #1” has ended and Chatroulette will be relaunched soon.

I wonder what the creeps and socially awkward people of the world, who find Chatroulette as a sanctuary, are doing in the meantime?

-Kym

That’s why I wanted to take a moment to step back and discuss the importance of direct media relations for the second in a series I have cleverly re-titled ‘The Case Study,’ which will run once a month here on 101to87. The first ‘How to Launch an iPhone App,’ was published last month and can be found here.

It is my hope that these case studies outline the essentialness of incorporating direct phone pitching to a comprehensive PR strategy.

The Client: TheInfoPro

The Strategy: Utilize direct media relations to achieve comprehensive media coverage

The Result: Secured briefings with eight leading technology journalists at such prominent publications as Barron’s, IDG News Service, eWeek, TechTarget, CRN, Internet.com and The Register, which resulted in 23 organic and syndicated stories.

TheInfoPro has been a client for our agency, Portfolio PR Group, for the past 12 months. In addition to securing media coverage through direct pitching and social media we also aid in the independent research company’s business development through speaking opportunities and calls to action. However to publicize the release of their somewhat ‘controversial’ study of the server industry we utilized just one – direct media pitching.

While many people, including some PR pro’s try to shy away from ‘cold-calling,’ a reputable PR agency spends very little percentage of their actual time speaking with new contacts. This is because cultivating relationships with journalists takes time, and the foundation must be set long before a pitch is ever constructed.

Nevertheless, media overturn is inevitable and a PR pro must be willing to pick up the phone. While some fear a caustic response, you must remember that any PR practitioner can drastically reduce the number of disgruntled journalists encountered along the way by making sure to pitch only the right ones. This requires research.

Week One

We knew from the outset that TheInfoPro study had potential, for its unique research methodology (surveying end-users) had yielded results which bucked contemporary group-thought surrounding the industry landscape. However, we had to make sure we not only pitched the right reporters but that we also gave them adequate time to write the story. Three weeks prior to the release of the study, we went through each of our contacts to ensure the inclusion of every journalist with a focus on the IT industry, specifically servers. As I mentioned, there is so much overturn in the media nowadays that a reporter covering a specific topic as recently as a month ago could be focusing on an entirely different subject matter – or worse – laboring away at an entirely different publication, today. This is what makes up-to-date media lists essential. For us, this meant assigning a few members of our team to spend the entire week composing a comprehensive list of server journalists at every major publication and several targeted, highly trafficked blogs.

Week Two

Two weeks prior to the release of the study we began our outreach with an initial e-mail. As with any pitch, the initial response or lack thereof allowed us to course correct. After a day, we re-engaged our targets, this time on the phone. For many of our journalists, we knew from previous conversations which times were best to contact them. For those we didn’t, we made sure to call during the early afternoons to catch them right after lunch. This is important because most journalists have editorial meetings and other engagements in the morning. And, we NEVER left messages. As many PR people know, this is next to pointless. Trade reporters are pitched on new PR firms by the hundreds each day, and it’s highly likely they won’t even listen to the message, let alone return your call.

Throughout each day, we secured briefings under NDA for the following week. You always want to give a reporter an ample window to schedule a meeting. It is too easy for a busy journalist to blow off a pitch if it is time sensitive.

By the end of the week, we had scheduled eight briefings, with journalists from the who’s who of tech trades: eWeek, IDG News Service, TechTarget and even mainstream publications such as Barron’s.

The rest of the week was spent compiling background information on the study to make sure each reporter had enough material to devise questions beforehand. If a reporter spends time prepping, you’ve won half the battle.

Week Three

The week prior to the release of the study, we completed the press release and briefed our clients on each reporter, focusing our attention on recent coverage, personal background and anything else that can help the client understand the motives of the reporter and potential angles to push. A successful briefing is one without surprises.

Our agency acted as the host of each briefing – part referee, part supervisor. We wanted to make sure both parties stayed on topic during the call. The last thing you want is a reporter asking questions outside the scope of the client’s expertise or the client inadvertently inviting them to do so.

Following each briefing, we followed up with whatever additional information the reporter requested and once again confirmed the NDA. This is essential. Everyone, even a journalist, is fallible – even forgetful. A breach of the NDA prior to the study’s release could have voided all of our success and hard work: no reporter wants to write on a ‘dead story.’

The Day of the Release

By the day of the launch, a PR pro’s work is nearly done. All that is left now is to track and follow-up. For us, the coverage rolled in quickly, with over 15 organic columns published the ensuing week after the release went over the wire. Some places that weren’t briefed, such as ars technica, quoted the study within more broad topical coverage. Other pieces, like Agam Shah’s of IDG News Service, were syndicated at NetworkWorld, PCWorld, ComputerWorld and other prominent publications.

The coverage didn’t slow down for quite sometime. Some reporters, like eWeek’s Jeff Burt mentioned the study in no less than three columns over the next few weeks. Other publications picked up on the story and either requested information or cited statistics taken directly from our press release.

It was, dare I say, a successful launch of the study and one which should serve as an example of the type of coverage possible with a little elbow grease.

If this case study proves anything, it is that media relations shouldn’t be an afterthought. Yes, social media has opened up new avenues for disseminating information and for many Facebook and Twitter are important tools in the toolkit. Yet, we shouldn’t forget that sometimes, simply having the determination to pick up the phone is all you have to do to secure your client the coverage they need and your firm the all-important PR win.

Mike Lesczinski is a Public Relations Manager at Portfolio PR Group in Saratoga Springs, NY which specializes in securing national media coverage for technology clients throughout New York’s ‘Tech Valley.’

“The medium is the message,” is one of McLuhan’s better known aphorisms in which he stresses that the medium itself influences the message; in fact, in McLuhan’s view, the message would be obsolete without an effective medium to transmit it.

However, this meaty phrase and corresponding media theorist would have been lost in the abyss of things I learned and subsequently forgot in college – right along side Linear Algebra and Calculus based Physics – if not for nearly daily reminder of the truth of this this basic, yet profound theorem.

As designers re-invent and tweak web sites and user platforms, it is certainly obvious that the medium used to transmit a message is not only important, but ever-evolving and changing, both to maintain the engagement of established users and lure in new consumers as illustrated just this week with several evolutions in the world’s most popular social media ‘mediums.’

***

Facebook debuted a cleaner birthday posting announcement for your news feed. Nothing is really more frustrating than having your newsfeed inundated by birthday wishes from individuals wishing someone else a happy birthday – especially if you’r not a fan of the celebrator to begin with. Well, Facebook now has a solution to this problem, and it looks like this:

***

The “Check-In” craze initiated by FourSquare has grown a bit as well. Not only can you use Foursquare to alert friends to your locations, but new applications like Meso, Philo, and GetGlue now provide users the power to tell the world what TV show you’re watching, what book you’re reading, even what wine you are drinking. And, never one to miss out an opportunity to breach privacy, just this morning Facebook released it’s iPhone check-in application entitled, “Places.”

***

Of course, Twitter is a shining example of “the medium is the message”. Most notably, this microblogging service has penetrated a country that even world leaders can’t… North Korea. Uriminzokkiri – one of the only North Korean local media outlets to syndicate in English for an international audience- has officially made a Twitter account: @uriminzok.

There is no doubt that North Korea runs one of the most secretive governments in the world, but could Uriminzokkiri’s Twitter account (and their one-month old YouTube account) be a sign for a change in North Korean Policy? Unfortunately, the answer seems to be no – one glance at the Twitter and YouTube postings and you can’t get past the latent propaganda-esque material pumping out of these state-controlled mediums. However, you can’t fault Kim Jong-Il for taking a page out of Marshall McLuhan’s book and figuring out for himself that the best way to blast his message worldwide was via the medium of social media.

-Kym

Locally, Albany County Legislator Brian Scavo is looking to tackle the issue head on, proposing a bill which would punish harassers with up to one year in jail or a one thousand dollar fine. If passed, the law would rank as the toughest in the nation, setting quite a precedent for not only the Empire State’s school yard bullies, but the rest of the country’s as well.

With election season bearing down, Saratoga County is putting the finishing touches on its transition to a new set of HAVA approved voting machines. These new booths aim to make the voting process more transparent and accessible, storing and processing paper ballots, keeping an electronic tab on votes cast, and accommodating nearly every type of handicap.

The machines, which performed flawlessly during a pilot run last year, will be demonstrated throughout the month of August at Townhalls and community centers throughout the county.

Look at your man, now back at me.  Is this the star of the best YouTube campaign in recent history?

Isaiah Mustafa, better known as the “Old Spice Guy” is quickly becoming a viral video king.

Mustafa plays “The Man Your Man Could Smell Like” in a trio of Old Spice shower gel commercials and was recently featured in a wildly popular campaign found on the Old Spice YouTube channel.

The campaign featured Mustafa reprising his character, while responding to over 100 posts left on the Old Spice Twitter, Facebook Fan Page, and YouTube channel comment section, left by prominent bloggers, celebrities, and random fans a like.

An article at BrandWeek features a Nielsen report stating Old Spice sales have increased over 55% in the last three months, correlating with the release of the first “Old Spice Guy” ad and sales have increased 11% since the beginning of the YouTube response campaign.

But how popular are these videos anyways? Well, video analytics company, Viable Measures released a report that may shed some light.

Visible Measures compared this Old Spice campaign to three other popular viral video sensations: President Obama’s victory speech, President Bush’s speech in Iraq when he dodges a shoe, and British singing sensation, Susan Boyle. Within the first 24-hours of posting, Old Spice has over one million more views than the second place Obama speech.