Cultural Organisations - can they now be free?

Lawrence Lessig is a Professor of Law at Stanford Law School, He notes on his blog:

The British Council and Counterpoint has a new publication, “Unbounded Freedom: A Guide to Creative Commons Thinking for Cultural Organizations,” written by Rosemary Bechler. The book will be launched Friday. There’s a discussion page on the author’s blog, which begins with a useful post addressing the question: “So why did I choose to licence my work in this way?”

What is free - and how

The Free Software Foundation has launched a public discussion on proposed changes to the Free Document License, a license designed “can be used for any textual work” but which, in the world enriched by Wikipedia, now attempts to license all creative work.

This is a discussion worth following. It is, after all, about every press release issued and article published. It is about blog posts and video and it is about social media.

It is about mixing 'free' content such as audio and video and where you copyright extends (like the licence for this work).

Can On-line PR keep up with the growth in Social Media

In a research note quoted by Reuters, RBC Capital analyst Jordan Rohan said he had come out of a meeting with Fox Interactive enthused about the site’s experienced management, "massive" global appeal and potential to become "an intellectual property distribution powerhouse".

While admitting his claim sounds “audacious”, he thinks "media investors may not fully appreciate what has already been done with MySpace or what may lie ahead."

He added: "$15bnan> in a few years? It is possible.” Remember that Fox only paid $580 m for MySpace.

>Now, lets put this alongside the Social Media activities and projections of, say WPP, Edelman or (OK they are the 'eyes and ears of the industry) CIPR. Is the PR industry, the natural profession to engage in conversation and relationship building, going to share in this value. Will PR be bigger than the scream marketing types that want to raid the MySpace users mind?

Um.....

Well, we jolly well should be thinking in these terms.

Colin Farrington - what do you want to say to the DG of CIPR?

David Brain met Colin Farrington.

Colin asked :

"...what exactly did I and we (you bloggers out there I guess) want the CIPR to do help the industry come up to speed on the issue? Fair enough. Let’s think constructively as a group on this one and see what we can suggest. Answers on a postcard to…"

Sixty Second View

professionals seen to understand strategic, tactical and operational use

Simon Wakeman makes a lot of sense in his post about the CIPR and its role in helping develop social media for the industry.

In particular this comment is valuable:

CIPR needs to take an aggressively positive stance on social media. There are many professions vying for credibility in this space, and as a respected body the institute can articulate the valid credentials for our profession.

It’s easy for anyone to get into social media, but the professionals who are seen to understand the strategic, tactical and operational use of these new channels will be those who can benefit most commercially from them.

That’s not to say a debate isn’t healthy - but a corporate stance is needed from the CIPR on social media to give a firm indication of its position - otherwise the messages on behalf of the UK PR community will continue to be mixed.

The changing nature of organisations

An article by Wyatt Kash, in GCN cought my attention.

Despite his use of 'web 2.0' it is interesting because of some of the comments he has brought together.

For example:

"If the Web 2.0 is in its infancy, then Enterprise 2.0 is a total newborn," and "

"...the days when the technologists could impose technology standards, inflicting structure on, and inside an organization" as they have over the past 10 years may be waning."


"...the outcome doesn't have to be chaos. It can be more like an ant colony."

PR speak - just rubbish

Andy Lark has this great post about the absence of thought and PR speak.

Lee Gomes on the use of the word Breakthrough in press releases. There are plenty of other common phrases. Like "leading" - if everyone is leading then who isn't? A simple and imperfect Google search on 'press release leading' resulted in 92,700,999 results...

Our laziness in crafting news releases isn't just tiresome, to Lee's point, it perverts the very language we depend on for our trade.

His full post adds more.
It is a real turn off. Why do PR people keep using these obviously nonsense words.

The PR consultancy social media portfolio

What sort of thing can your PR consultancy do beside write press releases and organise events? Can I suggest looking at how football clubs are showing you the way with the portfolio you need.

EVERTON Football Club has reappointed new media company Rippleffect as its online partner in a five-year deal worth a six-figure sum, reports Cheshire Online .

The Premier League club has long been associated with online innovation, and recently became the first UK football club to produce its own dedicated podcast.

Here we see a broad based application of new media. A plan that can be adopted for a range of PR applications.

Check out Everton Mobile, Everton RSS feeds, Everton blogs, Everton TV and lots of other applications.

The new website offers Everton's global fan base massive amounts of exclusive downloadable and interactive content - in addition to the now-established news feeds and Everton TV - and a subscription based-video on demand TV service that has seen a 250% increase in subscriptions since launch.

Comedy, Podcast and good PR idea

Comics Marek Larwood, Russell Howard and Steve Hall have recorded an exclusive Sun Podcast to mark the start of their new Edinburgh & Beyond Tour, in association with Paramount Comedy and Avalon.

This is a great way of using podcasts. The promoter, paper and participants all get good exposure and not far away, I guess, is the special Sun Christmas offer of an iPod or other MP3 player.

A good PR case study.

Newspapers leave young people cold

New York Times (NYT) recently appointed 'futurist-in-residence' has claimed that young readers do not have an 'emotional attachment to paper'.

This is not just a US trend. It is true too in the UK. The impact on media relations is obvious and needs to be part of campaign plan development.

Last week the NYT announced the appointment of Michael Rogers as futurist-in-residence - to keep the organisation abreast of how technological developments will affect the newspaper industry notes Journalism.co.uk.

Rogers, a former new-media executive with the Washington Post who writes the Practical Futurist column for MSNBC, told I Want Media that despite great technological advancements newspapers would not disappear, to be replaced by mobile and internet editions, for some time.

For a long time the emotional relationship between print and its readers has been well understood and is based on the research of Guy Consterdine.

At present, it is holding up the circulation of consumer magazines. I see this being in danger as mobile starts to replace such magazines. The emotional attachment to the mobile device is an area of development that needs more research but is already apparent.

Are Publishers really 'idiots'

FoxNews has made YouTube remove an interview with Bill Clinton - drawing condemnation from media blogger Jeff Jarvis, reports Journalism.co.uk.



Instead of housing the interview the YouTube now carries the message:

"This video has been removed at the request of copyright owner Fox News Network, LLC because its content was used without permission."

Media commentator Jeff Jarvis was quick to condemn the act, in a posting to Buzzmachine titled 'Idiots', he wrote:

"FoxNews takes the Bill Clinton interview down from YouTube. Fools. They would be getting a whole new audience. They'd be even more part of the conversation.

Jeff is of course just talking sense. The news from publishing over the last month is one of just pure lack of understanding.

Blog PR for Charity

A GROUP of friends who banded together to help a businessman raise cash for Isabel Hospice are charting their progress with the help of the Welwyn and Hatfield Times website.

As reported in last week's WHT, Sam Ahmed, manager at The Pavillion Indian restaurant in WGC, decided he wanted to do something for the community as a thank you for them supporting his business.

He has organised a three-course meal with wine, followed by grand charity auction at his restaurant on Thursday, October 26.

This week his team of helpers set up their own blog through the WHT website.

It will chart their progress as the event draws near.

This is a great way to use social media the link up between a blog, a restaurant and a local newspaper is a nice model.

Telegraph takes readers into darkest corners

The Telegraph has launched a political blog, Commons Confidential, to provide daily updates of goings-on at Westminster, reports Journalism UK.

The blog promises to takes readers 'into parliament's darkest corners - and reveal what the politicians don't want you to hear

Are blog comments really a measure of popularity?

Nick Farrell writing at The Enquirer reports on an Australian blogger who discovered that spam is the best way to make friends and influence people.

According to the Sydney Morning Herald, Wardle forgot to switch on a comment verification system and has had his feedback section flooded with spam. Most of his recent posts have had about 1200 and 1600 comments each. Most of them were nonsensical spam messages.

On the bonus side, because BigBlog calculates popularity of a bog on the amount of comments it gets, Wardle is considered extremely popular.

The 8 Year Google experience

When I wrote the first edition of 'Online Public Relations' in 2000, Google was one of a handful of search engines that I mentions. This week Google is eight years old and a phenomenon.

Well done Google.

Now there are issues, largely because of its success.

Our approach to content at the Google Blog explains how it works with content owners and its desire to respect their rights.

The case is well put by Danny Sullivan at Search Engine Watch. He says:

In terms of copyright, Google stresses that it generally sticks to what's known as fair use, though the post doesn't use those words. The idea is that it shows very short summaries of stories, pages, thumbnails of images but doesn't reprint this material, requiring people to clickthrough to the actual material from places like Google News.

Of course, in the case of cached pages, many including myself would argue that Google goes beyond fair use. Cached pages are an example where content can be viewed without clicking through to the original site, and the opt-out approach for that doesn't feel appropriate at all.

Google also notes there are cases when it wants to go beyond fair use, to make broader use of content where permission would be required. The deal with the Associated Press is cited as one of several examples here.

To me, this is also a way for Google to help defuse the idea that some publications have, such as the Belgian newspapers recently, that Google can be bought off to avoid lawsuits. To me, this is Google stressing that it will do content deals in some cases, but that these content deals aren't necessarily being done to avoid lawsuits, especially when it feels it is acting within fair use guidelines. That's my speculation and take on this, of course. Google didn't comment when I asked if this was the reason for raising the AP deals.

Moving past Google saying it respects copyright, it then stresses that it allows people to opt-out, even if it feels it has fair use rights. In general, I agree with this method, which Google along with the other major search engines generally follow. Trying to get permission from each web site to index it would be an impossible task, and one that's not necessarily even legally required. Opt-out through things like robots.txt is an effective way to protect rights holders plus benefit the public as a whole. I do hope they'll change cached pages to opt-in, however.

I have commented before that blocking a search engine is a way of excluding people from finding your organisation. It reduces the digital footprint of the organisation for most people and, with the exception of the enthusiast, denies the organisation benefits available from its online asset.

Of course, whether Google caches a page or not does not mean it is not cached. It is and can be found. The Internet has a collective memory that means all content can be recovered anyway.

The 8 years Google experience has brought great benefits to us all. If some organisations want to throw it away, they will regret it.

Free online monitoring for lucky few

My friend Bill Comcowich at CyberAlert, the online media monitoring company, today announced that, for the fourth consecutive year, the company will award a minimum of 10 public relations grants to not-for-profit organisations. Each grant consists of one full year of free news monitoring / press clipping services, ranging in value from $2,700 to $3,900. The aggregate value of the grants is expected to total at least $25,000.

For a number of years I offered the CyberAlert service in the UK market which was fun but long before the PR industry realised that there are 8000 online publications publications on line that need to be monitored. Even to this day, most UK PR firms are limited to the range of publications they monitor on-line.

Time warp or moderne, the state of legal PR.

Legal Week has an article by Ronel Lehman which deals with a range of ways law firms can promote their services.

It is limited in scope and suggests that the legal profession is stuck in a 1970's promotional time warp.

This is not the case. Outlaw Radio, a weekly 10 minute podcast is an example of the use of new media and a fresher look at how the legal profession can engage with communities both local and global.

Almost all Social Media can be effectively deployed by law firms to good effect and the competitive advantage is available to the early adopters.

Retail narrowcast TV is a hit

There is a phenomena in UK stores that offers a channel for PR communication that is becoming really popular.

Narrowcast television has a proven record.

In this report, there are data to help understand what can be achieved in terms of exposure showing 85 per cent of visitors to stores equipped with Tesco TV see a screen during their visit, and that on average they see eight screens in total. The average recorded viewing time per exposure to a screen was three seconds. The group calculates viewing figures on the basis that stores have an average of fifty screens, of which 20 will be passed by any given shopper per visit.

JC Decaux group marketing director David McEvoy says. "These results prove beyond doubt that not only do consumers see the screens, but they also have a high frequency of exposure. The research provides us with real audience measurement for the very first time."

The alternatives such as the internet and electronic point of sale displays helps to remove uncertainty from communications in an era of fragmented media, according to a report into the consumer psychology aspects of digital media.

Digital Signage Networks: Theory, Psychology and Strategy has been produced by the Centre for Experimental Consumer Psychology, and by content creation group Pixel Inspiration.

In addition there is the Samsung Screen Survey (see article in Clickpress) now in its fifth edition, which offers detailed analysis of the state of the market.

The application of the communication channel to engage the consumer using relationship building content (PR) in place of just screen exposure, offers new opportunities.

This should be a PR channel and practitioners may like to explore this emerging capability.

Call Centres wreck relationships

A YouGov survey reveals just how bad the call centre experience really is. Commissioned by Callmedia and published in Net4Now, the UK’s leading developer of contact centre software reveals that only four per cent of people in the UK have had a favourable experience when dealing with a customer call centre, with 44 per cent complaining that their biggest gripe is contacting a call centre based overseas.

Commenting on this survey, Rufus Grig, managing director, Callmedia said:
“This research clearly indicates what customers do and don’t like.
Companies need to make quality customer service a priority and take steps to provide good, consistent and timely service in a bid to increase loyalty and reduce churn. The surprising find from this research is quite the strength of feeling felt by UK consumers against the outsourcing of contact centres overseas.”

The survey has revealed a number of other interesting facts:

* When a consumer wants to complain about a product or a service, 42 per cent of respondents prefer to use the phone to ensure that their point is heard

* However, 78 per cent of respondents prefer to buy products online rather than by telephone, email or post

* Respondents’ second biggest gripe is being passed from department to department until someone who can answer the specific query is found

Newspapers on paper are on the way out.

MICHAEL KINSLEY of Time asks the question and comes up with some pretty drab news.

How can the newspaper industry survive the Internet? On the one hand, newspapers are expected to supply their content free on the Web. On the other hand, their most profitable advertising--classifieds--is being lost to sites like Craigslist. And display advertising is close behind. Meanwhile, there is the blog terror: people are getting their understanding of the world from random lunatics riffing in their underwear, rather than professional journalists with standards and passports.

The full article has implications for the Public Relations industry. If newspapers are on their way out, what are the pratitioner options. Michael offers some hope.