Technology

Starbucks’ Free WiFi is a Big Deal – Here’s Why

June 16, 2010 · Leave a Comment

News flash: I just moved to an office in downtown San Francisco — woohoo! I love The City, and now I have a chance to be here everyday again. I last worked in SF in 1997. One thing that has changed since 1997 — there are a LOT more Starbucks in downtown SF. No duh. There are Starbucks EVERYWHERE in the U.S. — 6,700 total locations [probably excluding franchisees, such as those in museums and Barnes & Noble]. Now there is going to be reliable, free WiFi hotspots all over urban/suburban America in Starbucks starting July 1. As soon as I heard this news, I immediately started... [Read the full story]

Fox "News"

Good Riddance, Lou Dobbs

November 12, 2009 · Leave a Comment

Buh-bye Lou: The bombastic and misguided Lou Dobbs has finally given up his perch on CNN and quit the network, more than a year before the end of his contract. For now, he will spew his anti-immigration, white-privileged perspective on his national radio show. I haven’t looked up the odds, but if I were a betting man, I’d say 5:1 he goes to Fox “News” after a respectful interregnum. I’m not a big believer in the so-called objectivity of the mainstream media, but for years Dobbs has even crossed that line and used his show, ostensibly about business and finance news,... [Read the full story]

Email Pitching

Two New Ways to Use Texting in Media Relations

July 16, 2010 · Leave a Comment

Here are two tidbit’s from yesterday’s Bulldog Reporter PR University audio conference on email/online pitching (which I moderated): Dave Satterfield of Sitrick & Co. said that he has texted reporters to answer questions and make clarifications during major announcement events, while they were all in the room together The Vatican has been send text messages to followers and the media since 2003. Kevin Dugan of the Bad Pitch Blog said one of the reasons was to reduce the possibility of Vatican-related hoaxes being picked up by the media as legit. Read More →

Spin

Tiger Should Go With His “New Hugh” Persona

December 20, 2009 · 2 Comments

Now that the stories about Tiger Woods have descended from “marital woes” to “all out sex/party maniac,” I think Tiger needs a new strategy: Tiger should go full-steam ahead and plant his flag as “the new Hugh Hefner,” or in my shorthand (trademark pending), “The New Hugh.” I’m serious here. Hugh Hefner has made a bloody fortune screwing beautiful women and leading the party life. But he’s ooollllddd. I can’t believe he’s still going strong, supposedly. Hugh ain’t gonna last forever. We need a new role model, a new Adonis... [Read the full story]

Media Training

San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom Acts Like a Complete Jerk in a Media Interview

November 24, 2009 · Leave a Comment

I’m always on the lookout for good on-camera examples of spokespeople doing a terrible job. It’s a great teaching tool — seriously. So if you’ve got any examples, by all means forward them to me. Playboy SF Mayor Gavin Newsom has made a dandy contribution to the archive with his interview on CBS 5 here in the Bay Area. Newsom dropped out of the California governors race a few weeks ago, and the conventional wisdom is that he has been pouting and avoiding the press, who he foolishly blames for his early demise. (Note to Gavin: look in the mirror for the true culprit). He... [Read the full story]

The Latest Email Marketing Tips

Keep it SHORT! Put two or three items in each newsletter, at most. Set a monthly schedule and stick to it. Keep your subject line to between five and eight words and 30 to 50 characters. And never forget the three-second rule. Those are some of the latest tips I gleaned from a great, free, email marketing seminar offered...

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Two New Ways to Use Texting in Media Relations

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Starbucks’ Free WiFi is a Big Deal – Here’s Why

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My Spinning class is a metaphor for how to market in today’s world

I’m a new Spinning enthusiast — I’ve been taking Step Aerobics for years, but I couldn’t find enough classes to go to. And that’s where this story starts. I love step aerobics — it’s very challenging, it’s a derivative of dancing, which I love, and it’s high energy. But...

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Clear is the New Clever

I love the title of this post: “clear is the new clever.” There — I said it again. I’m not a particularly “clever” PR person. I don’t come up with lame excuses, I don’t misdirect people to divert their attention. I like to help clients sort out their story, position themselves...

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Tiger Woods Swings and Misses With Scripted Apology

Tiger Woods is the best golfer on Planet Earth. I am one of the worst. So unlike Tiger, I know what it’s like to swing at a golf ball and completely miss it. After his public apology on Friday, Tiger now knows what it’s like to completely swing and miss — at least metaphorically. May he learn and...

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More! More! More ‘Question Time’ With Barack Obama!

I love love loved the Obama-Republicans debate/question time last week. That was stupendous, a brilliant way to showcase the thoughtful and thorough president trying to craft solutions and the Republicans offering platitudes and talking points. More — more! We need to see more of him using his brain and words...

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“Vitch” is the first new PR catchword of 2010

Why send a plain old written PR pitch when you can send a “vitch” — a video pitch? That’s right, the new thing is to make your pitch via video. It’s certainly simple enough to do — plan your video, shoot it with an inexpensive video camera, upload it to Youtube and spread the link. Makes...

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Free Media Database for UK Media

Here’s another free online database of journalists, covering the UK media: journalisted.com It’s pretty simple: just go to that page, type in as much of the name as you know, and get a set of matches. For instance, here’s a link to a search for Smith. And here’s a page for one of the journalists...

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