Metzger Associates' Blog

Costing Less or Just Costing

How much does it cost you to stay in touch with your colleagues? Sure, you spent $300 on the Blackberry and $50 a month for service, but how much time do you spend each day keeping up with minutiae and how much is that costing your company? If you haven't thought about it, you probably should, but be warned the numbers could be frightening -- especially when you add it up for a full year.

Here at Metzger, we recently developed a system where people can post short, non-time sensitive notes that might otherwise clog up an e-mail box or make someone do the "Buzzing Blackberry Dance" during an important meeting. I guess you could say that push e-mail forced us to create some internal "pull-messaging" capability.

How is your company handling the problem of e-mail overflow?

Who Banned the Phrase "We're Sorry?"

There's no denying that Apple has been on a roll for the last few years. Great computer products, and nothing short of a complete revolution in how we buy and listen to music.

So when something doesn't go as planned, why not just say "we're sorry," communicate your plan to make things right with your customers and move on?

Apple recently shipped some iPods with a PC virus. "Well," the company said (and we're paraphrasing here), "if the Windows OS weren't so prone to viruses, this wouldn't have happened."

What?!

Apple is clearly run by some very smart people, but sometimes smart people do stupid things (as reality TV has proved time and again). That was stupid. Sony blaming various manufacturers for the recent exploding battery debacle. Stupid. Ford and Firestone blaming one another for the tire issues a few years back. Hall of Fame Stupid.

In the end, only tort lawyers care about who's fault the problem is (actually, even they don't care... they just want to know who's standing close enough to blame that has a deep pocket!). If something goes wrong, consumers want to hear "we're sorry" followed by "here's what we're going to do to fix it."

It's a big, crazy, fast-moving world out there. Mistakes are going to happen. It's how a company deals with them that counts, and blaming the next guy in line is never the right answer.

Talk About Fragmentation

Seth Godin had another great post. In it, he notes just how shallow our echo chambers are. On the Internet? If you are, you assume everyone else is. People who go to the gym figure everyone else must as well. As he often does, Seth debunks our assumptions.

Our favorites:

• Just 1% of Internet users use Digg every day (yet they made the cover of Business Week just a few weeks ago).
• .37% of the US population reads the paper version of the New York Times daily.

Wow. Many of us remember growing up and it seemed like everyone was discussing the same television shows the day after they aired. You know what? Pretty much everyone was. Not anymore. We're becoming so fragmented that even new media phenomenons like Digg are only reaching a small portion of the population.

Be prepared to customize your message to many audiences, or be prepared to fail.

Thanks, Tom (Seriously)

15-year old Tom Vandetta recently posted a fake news release on I-Newswire telling the story (disguised as an official release from Google) of how had become the youngest person ever hired by the tech giant. In no time, the release appeared on Google News, Digg.com and a host of other sites. Tom had become -- much to his surprise and eventual regret -- a celebrity.

Ooops.

He did aplogize, but we'd actually like to thank Tom -- seriously. What started as a joke gone bad ended up shining a light on  questions we should all be asking. What is news? What sources can I trust? How do I know what I read on Google News (or any other site) is real?

Metzger Associates is working on a study to determine just what the level of awareness is regarding news releases -- which used to be almost private correspondence between PR professionals and journalists -- vs. news stories. 20 years ago, not much of anyone saw a company-issued news release but the company, it's attorneys and the journalists who received a copy of the release. Today, anyone with a browser can read nearly any publicly issued release. We're learning that many people don't clearly understand the difference between a news release and a news story.

It's always been important to receive news from more than just one source. Today, it's easy to receive news from hundreds of sources -- the key is to find the credible sources. Is that to say a company news release isn't credible? Not at all -- we work with our clients to issue truthful, well-written releases. But it is important, as a reader, to understand the source of the material. While a company news release should be factual, it's not going to tell the story of a competitor's product, for example, and a reporter covering the story should.

And one other note: we'd be happy if free news release services just went away. There's no "sniff test" for postings like you'll find with credible organizations like PR Newswire. While we often post releases on free services for the search engine optimization benefits they offer, we think the downside isn't worth it, and we'd be happy to see them join 8-track tapes.

We'll be posting more on our progress on this research project. We hope you'll stay tuned and even weigh in on this important subject.

Thanks, Tom.

 

Do You Speak MySpace?

From the straightforward to the obscure to the truly bizarre -- the MySpace Generation is influencing it all.

In a recent article in Forbes, Rachel Rosmarin discusses the many aspects of what she calls "The MySpace Economy". There are a host of MySpace spin-off companies, websites and services popping up with everything from enhanced MySpace profiles to direct email campaigns to tee-shirts for sale. And they are often resulting in major money for the creators.

The one thing we can be sure of is the wide spread impact that the MySpace community is having not only on society, but on businesses as well. As the communication channels change with each generation, it is imperative for businesses of every size to learn how to communicate with their new customers. The reality is that today's teenagers will be entering the workforce over the next several years. When they do, they will bring with them a communication style that they are developing right now -- one based on technology, instant access to information and geographic dispersion. So if you future cast, wouldn't it be prudent to start learning now how to communicate with the business leaders of tomorrow?

Besides, it is not just about preparing yourself to communicate with tomorrow's employees and leaders because in the mean time they (teens and tweens) control or influence a sizeable portion of money in America. Getting the attention of the MySpace generation now may just mean sales now and loyal employees and leaders later.

So the question is, do you speak MySpace?

Borrowing from a Market Leader

It's fairly well known that the employees of Google are required to work on projects of their own choosing for a good portion of their work week. This practice is where Google News came from, and Google believes that the next great innovation of the company could very well spring from a creative mind turned loose.

We think that's a great idea, so we've decided to try a variation of that practice here at Metzger Associates.

Each week, every employee is required to spend a few hours working on a project that is not part of their account assignment group. They don't just "pitch in," they look at the company and see if they can come up with an idea to move the business forward. Maybe they find an article that gives us a fresh pitching angle with a targeted reporter, or maybe they find a business opportunity in a place no one would ever look in the day-by-day course of that client's business.

As a result, every Metzger client has a few fresh sets of eyes focused on their business each week. There's no pressure to come up with an idea each week, but we do expect every employee to be able to give an outline of what they're thinking about or working on at any time.

Once any employee thinks they've got something to move a client's business forward, they schedule time with the account director on that business and "pitch" their idea. We anticipate having an even bigger batch of fresh new approaches to take to our clients.

This is brand new for us, so we don't have a "Google News" kind of example of the success yet. But already we know that we've got a group of creative employees leaving no stone unturned for every Metzger client. In a small way, that's a success in and of itself.

We'll update the blog with some of the great ideas we're confident will come out of this.

Conflicts of Interest...with Clients

We were asked an interesting question by a possible client yesterday:

"If you get a call from a reporter and you have the chance to pitch a client to answer or pitch your own firm, what do you do?"

Great question. The answer for most conflict questions, especially in smaller or mid-sized agencies, is pretty straightforward -- it's nearly impossible to work with two competing firms. Even with open communication and full disclosure, conflicts will arise. It's almost inevitable.

But what if your firm is hired because you're an expert in a space by a client that wants you to represent them in that very space? In some cases, both your client and your firm could be a great source. Who gets the interview?

Let's ask the same basic question for a different industry. Let's say you're a talent representative and a major studio calls you to help cast a part in an upcoming big-budget blockbuster. They're looking for someone that absolutely fits the description of one of your clients, we'll call him Steve, who's six feet tall, weighs 180 pounds and has a hint of a southern accent. Someone like that would be perfect, they say. Let's now say you too are six feet tall, weigh 180 pounds, also hail from the Lone Star state and only got into the talent rep business to pay the bills while you were waiting for your acting career to take off. So, you don't take the offer to your client Steve -- you go on the audition yourself. You get the part and it launches a silver screen career.

You got the call because you represent clients, but you screened it and left your client out of an opportunity that he paid you to find for him. That's wrong -- no question about it.

Taking your client's interview -- something your client pays you to find for him -- isn't right either.

Sometimes, we do get calls asking for comment on an area in which we work. If they want to speak to a PR firm, that's one thing. We still work to pitch our clients. However, if the call is for an expert in the space, the client must come first. That's what they pay you for. No exceptions.

If you want to personally have first shot at all the good parts for the six feet tall, 180-pound men, don't agree to rep your competition in the first place. At the same time, if you're not interested in putting your client first in a particular space, don't take that client. If you agree to represent a client and get that client all possible media opportunities, the client comes first.

Period.

Seth Godin Nails It...Again

We try to spend some time on this blog talking about how to communicate with customers. This post on Seth Godin's blog nails it.

When your company speaks to any customer, are you maximizing the encounter? Seth's example is simply outstanding. No extra cost or effort, but truly the difference between adequate and outstanding.

PRM -- Papal Rights Management

Seems as though everyone's concerned about copyright issues and rights management these days -- even Pope Benedict XVI.

According to a story on WNYC's On the Media, several publishers in Italy were recently surprised by invoices they received from the Vatican for the use of documents written by the current or former Pope. The bills -- some as high as 15,000 Euros (about $18,000) -- were quite a surprise.

This is another great example of just how confusing rights can be. Sony is still dealing with the fallout over their rootkit DRM fiasco, and now even organizations (like the Vatican) that typically want their message to reach the broadest audience are asking for compensation and control.

On the Media presented a number of interesting questions in their story:

• How will the church balance between "the evangelical impulse of wanting to give away everything because that's the nature of grace. The other is the realistic institutional logic. They, like everybody else, have to pay a light bill," asked John Allen, Vatican correspondent for the National Catholic Reporter, who was interviewed for the story.
• Because the Pope is also the Head of State of the Vatican, does that change things? When President  Bush delivers the State of the Union speech, it can be published without any copyright liability because it belongs to all of us.
• According to the story, there is an entire industry in Italy that simply repackages and sells papal documents. Italian bookstores often have several competing editions of the Pope's new encyclical. Shouldn't the church be able to assert some control in cases like this?

Some very large and difficult questions. As information continues to become more and more valuable, companies at all levels will need to learn to address and manage intellectual property issues.

Even the Vatican.

"But what if..." Update

As of today -- thanks to an announcement by BlackBerry -- the "CrackBerry" addicts in our office were treated to a number of messages telling us everything is going to be OK. Here's part of a posting  (company removed) that was sent to one user via SMS:

Some of you have asked us about the patent litigation between Research In Motion Limited® (RIM®), manufacturer of BlackBerry devices and enabler of BlackBerry services, and NTP, and how it may affect you. In the lawsuit, NTP claims that RIM’s BlackBerry e-email system infringes various NTP patents, and NTP is seeking a court order that would prevent continued operation of certain aspects of RIM’s BlackBerry service in its current design.

RIM has announced it has designed and tested a software update that would allow its partners and customers to continue to use the BlackBerry service without interruption, and with no visible effect on the end users’ ongoing experience. According to RIM, the software update will only be necessary, and only be implemented, should the court issue an injunction in the current litigation involving the NTP patents. (Carrier) has been working with RIM on plans to implement this new software update, should it be necessary. (Carrier) has also been testing this software update in cooperation with RIM, and the results of such testing, to date, have verified its functionality.

How does this matter affect you? You should continue to use your (Carrier) BlackBerry as you normally do. There is no need for a software update at the present time. RIM will announce at a later time the process for downloading any necessary software update, which will be made available at no charge. (Carrier) also will keep you informed about any significant news or developments.

(Carrier)  is firmly committed to industry-leading customer care, and providing customers with innovative wireless products and services such as the BlackBerry. As always, thank you for being a loyal (Carrier) customer.

The same customer also received a note directly from BlackBerry (we do understand why BlackBerry was less forthcoming...it's difficult to comment on current litigation).

Overall, this was well done. Our question and suggestion, however, remains -- why not a couple of updates before this, even if it was nothing more than "we're on it, we're exploring options and we'll keep you posted."

But, we have to note the nice recovery.