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inmedia’s “Team iPhone” triggers productivity crash

• Posted by Francis Moran
• March 11, 2008
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By Francis Moran

There’s an ongoing debate in my household, where both adults work in technology marketing, about whether I’m a geek or not. I maintain that since I don’t build technology, I merely enthusiastically embrace it, this makes me an early adopter rather than a geek. (In fact, I recently ordered the vanity license plate RLYDOPTR to trumpet my self-proclaimed reputation.) Also, I don’t play video games, I’ve never had a Second Life and I own less than a handful of little plastic figurines, all of them Tintin characters that are more souvenir of a trip to Paris than symbol of any kind of protracted adolescence.

But even as an early adopter, I embrace only the technology that I believe constitutes a genuine advance over what I’m using now. So it was that when my wife and I were in New York last October, she nearly had to physically restrain me from buying an iPhone when we visited the Apple store in Soho. At the time, there was no way I could use the phone here in Canada, but I so badly wanted one of the sleek, multipurpose devices that were taking the market by storm.

In mid-January, I got my way. I bought a hacked iPhone on eBay and was so delighted by its performance that several weeks ago, I decided to make it the standard mobile device for all inmedianauts. We’re a cool and forward-looking technology PR agency, right? So we should have some of the coolest toys. Last week, everyone else in the agency received their iPhones.

And productivity immediately plummeted.

Actually, I’m mainly joking about that. But there is so much that can be done with an iPhone, and so much fun to be had, what with Apple’s web-apps and countless third-party applications already available notwithstanding the software development kit was released only recently, that hours could be idled away enjoying it all.

A few observations, then, from our early experience.

First, and most important, being a Canadian wireless telephony customer sucks. Big time. Not only is Canada lagging nearly every other western market in having this new device available on a domestic network and so forcing us to pay a premium for a hacked one, the cost of deploying a data-intensive device here in Canada is obscene. Danny, our Glasgow-based colleague, blithely walked into an O2 store and picked up his phone for about half what we paid for ours. More to the point, though, he signed up for a monthly plan that gives him 500 minutes of talk, 600 text messages and unlimited data for a mere £35. That’s less than C$70 at today’s exchange rate. Meanwhile, we Canadian members of the inmedia team share a monthly wireless bill that usually runs well north of $400, and often tops $600.

Perhaps the current auction of new wireless spectrum in Canada will inject some badly needed competition into this disgrace. I can’t wait.

My second observation has to do with the device itself. The iPhone, simply put, is a joy to use, with an incredible user interface. It is not, however, business ready. Although key applications like voice, email and web work wonderfully, the device does not allow me to manipulate documents. I can download and clearly read any type of attachment, including documents, spreadsheets and PDFs, but I can’t work on them. I loved my Treo, which I had loaded with enterprise-grade software that meant I could travel and often leave my laptop behind, confident in the knowledge that I could do any quick job on the Treo that might be required of me.

Interestingly, on the same day last week, Apple announced more robust security so the iPhone would appeal more to corporate users while RIM, makers of that ultimate corporate tool the Blackberry, announced a partnership with a hip hop site to polish its street cred.

I fully expect the release of the iPhone’s SDK will soon usher in third-party, enterprise-grade applications, like Desktop To Go that I used on my Treo, that will fulfill my business needs.

In the meantime, productivity around here has mostly recovered. But the fun continues.

Francis Moran

Posted in:

• Random thoughts
• Technology marketing

When and how to inquire about editorial calendar opportunities

• Posted by Jill Pyle
• March 06, 2008
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By Jill Pyle

Last week, I wrote about evaluating editorial calendar opportunities. This week, I’d like to share some tips related to inquiring about editorial calendar opportunities. If you’re unfamiliar with what an editorial calendar is, you can read Linda’s editorial calendar primer.

Once you’ve evaluated the list of available editorial calendar opportunities and created a short list of those that appear to have the highest value, the next step is to investigate. The investigation process requires careful attention to timing and is necessary to develop a clear understanding of the resources you would need to gather to fulfill any one of the opportunities you’ve identified.

Before contacting any editor directly, it’s important be aware of the publications’ typical lead time. It can be very helpful to have a sense of the publication’s timeline for developing, editing and approving content, and to know how far in advance content must be finalized before being printed, or published online. For example, trade magazines tend to have lead times of as much as three months and glossy magazines may require six months or more, while daily newspapers and blogs usually have very short lead times.

In some cases, individual editorial calendar opportunities may have deadlines attached to them. In others, a standard lead time of three months, for example, may be applied. That being said, because editorial calendars are usually prepared by advertising departments far in advance of being issued at the beginning of each calendar year, deadlines may change without notice.

With an understanding of the lead time associated with each of the opportunities you’ve identified, you can reach out to editors at the right time. The last thing you want to do is annoy them with questions about an article they aren’t planning to write for six months. When you connect with an editor, you want to determine if the opportunity still exists and if there are any fees involved, and gain a sense of their vision for the piece. If they don’t have a vision but do know the topic, you want to help them shape the story by painting a picture of who your client is and how you can offer something of value to readers. In order to position your client in a way that makes sense for the editor, you really have to know your client, its technology and its customers inside out. You also have to know why the idea you’re pitching should be of interest to the editor or publication.

When speaking with or emailing editors, you can ask if there is any interest in featuring case studies, bylined articles, company profiles or quotes from industry experts. By making relevant suggestions, you can help simplify the decision-making process for editors. If you learn their plans include incorporating one of these or other elements, you can then make an informed decision as to whether or not it makes sense to pursue the opportunity based on available resources.

Jill Pyle

Posted in:

• Public and media relations

Major publisher of technology media titles declares bankruptcy

• Posted by inmedia
• March 06, 2008
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By inmedia

Under the banner “The Death of Print,” Gawker today reported the filing by Ziff Davis Media for bankruptcy protection. Ziff Davis is responsible for PC Magazine, among other gaming and technology titles. Upon reviewing the filing and the coverage this news has received so far, we’re relieved to see that not all the titles under the Ziff Davis Media banner, including those under the Ziff Davis Enterprise label like eWeek, Baseline and CIO Insight, are in jeopardy. A post on the Ziff Davis Enterprise web site by its CEO highlights in bold that “Ziff Davis Enterprise and Ziff Davis Media are not the same company.” Still, this leaves even fewer outlets in an ever-shrinking media universe through which our clients can communicate to their markets.

And this development is a continuation of the sad state of affairs for the struggling print industry that seems to produce a fresh corpse almost every day. As Gawker pointed out, “Print revenue for ZD fell from $215 million in 2001 to $40 million in 07. Now they owe creditors about $200 million more than they have.” The bursting of the tech bubble had repercussions from which a lot of companies, including media outlets, are still reeling.

inmedia

Posted in:

• Technology marketing

2008 Canadian budget a boon for entrepreneurs

• Posted by Peter Kemball
• March 05, 2008
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By Peter Kemball

In its 2008 budget released last week, Canada’s Conservative government proposed beneficial changes for entrepreneurs, angel investors and venture capitalists seeking to create wealth by building businesses from the foundations upward.

When laying the foundations of a business, Canada’s Scientific Research and Experimental Development Program (SR&ED) tax refunds earned by early-stage technology firms are a vital source of cash. By allowing for 10% of all wages and salaries paid to Canadian residents for work performed outside Canada to be claimed, Budget 2008 will help improve cash flow. This change eliminates the ludicrous anti-marketing result of not allowing those expenses when experimental development work is conducted on export customer premises.

Budget 2008 also raised the limit of qualified expenditures for Canadian-controlled private corporations from $2 million to $3 million. However, the budget continued the anti-growth-rate policy of reducing the qualified expenditures amount for companies with taxable income of $400,000 or more, and phasing it out for those with taxable income of $700,000 or more.

Another addition to Budget 2008 was the introduction of tax-free savings accounts (TFSA). In brief, starting next calendar year, individuals can contribute up to $5,000 annually from after-tax income to a TFSA. Funds can be withdrawn, tax-free, at any time, positioning this new savings vehicle at the opposite end of the spectrum from registered retirement savings plans. The latter lets money to be put aside to invest before taxes are paid but requires taxes to be paid upon withdrawing funds.

This new initiative has potentially eliminated the capital gains tax for entrepreneurs and angel investors. Was introduction of the TFSA brilliantly accidental, or a sound implementation in support of the role assigned to entrepreneurs in the government’s science and technology strategy? Used in this way amongst other possible purposes, it would put the returns from investing in early-stage ventures on the same footing as winning the lottery. As a U.S. ambassador once observed, a country that valued entrepreneurship would not tax capital gains while leaving lottery winnings tax-free. Introduction of the TFSA meets the National Angel Organization’s request for support, albeit in a way akin to the relationship between the RRSP and the TFSA.

Finally, Budget 2008 appeared to remove a long-standing barrier to investment in Canada by U.S. venture capitalists, the infamous Sec 116 requirement that each investor provide Canada Revenue Agency a certificate that taxes are not due. This effectively prevented them from being rewarded for success and beating the odds against creating significant wealth.

What could Budget 2008 have done to really reinforce its hidden subtext of rewarding entrepreneurial success? You be the judge. Go to http://www.fin.gc.ca/activty/consult/sred_e.html where submissions provided to the consultation on the SR&ED Program before November 30, 2007 are being posted. When the government meets its commitment to posting all public submissions, review them and decide for yourself whether or not the SR & ED changes are a big “Eh” or a D. Given the Tory promises in respect of the capital gains tax, would an accountability review grade the budget as an Eh!+, a gentlemen’s C, or a D from the perspective of supporting implementation of the commercialization goals of the S&T policy?

Of course all of this would not be necessary if we were to enact the Tax Lawyers, Accountants and Economists Unemployment Act. Its key provisions would be a 15% tax rate on income, coupled with a capital gains exemption on a continuously declining daily basis, reaching zero at the end of a decade. Then the only questions for debate would be the amount of the basic exemption and the GST percentage. This won’t work, of course, except it is already available in competing countries.

Peter Kemball is CEO and founder at Acorn Partners, an innovative firm that helps B2B SMEs finance their success.

Peter Kemball

Posted in:

• Startups
• Technology marketing

Components of an integrated PR program: Media monitoring

• Posted by Linda Forrest
• March 05, 2008
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By Linda Forrest

In today’s instalment of my series about the various components of an integrated PR program, I will shed some light on the reasons for media monitoring as well as different approaches and tools.

What is media monitoring? Just that – scanning media coverage for specific keywords and issues and presenting them to clients in the format that will best meet their needs. A more in-depth monitoring of the media is called content analysis, a topic that Francis will explore in detail in a future post.

How is media monitoring done? What tools are needed? At inmedia, we subscribe to a broad range of tools and have others at the ready, should specific requirements dictate a need for audio or video copies of coverage. In the main, we monitor print coverage ourselves through tools such as eWatch, Factiva, and Infomart. Should we require broadcast clippings, we use a company called Cision to provide us with copies of the footage. The print monitoring tools to which we subscribe cost a considerable amount. By having your agency do your media monitoring for you, the cost can be amortized over the entire client base that is utilizing the service, allowing clients the benefits of the tools without covering the entire cost. Consumer-grade, user-friendly search engines like Google News do allow for the search of a subset of the media, but do not cover the broad range of domestic and international or subscription-based publications like the tools that I mentioned earlier.

Why do media monitoring? The media are covering key issues that impact your business. If your company hopes to stay abreast of critical issues, competitor activities and its own image in the marketplace, media monitoring can help provide insight into these issues. By keeping up-to-date on current coverage in your space, opportunities can present themselves for your company to get involved in the dialog in the media. We can easily see if the company executives’ expert opinions differ from those of the author, or if there’s a valuable perspective to share, or perhaps an angle not covered in the original story. These timely opportunities are impossible to predict and present good chances for your company to get covered in target media and position your team as experts.

What keywords should we be using in our monitoring efforts? Obviously, the effectiveness of media monitoring can extend well beyond a simple search for your company’s name. At the outset of an ongoing program, if it is determined that media monitoring will be a component of your program, you and your team should work together to develop objectives for your media monitoring in terms of what you’re hoping to achieve. Do you want to be kept up to date on issues in your marketplace? What about regulations that impact your company or its customers? Perhaps you want to ensure that you are aware of competitor news as it happens. Once the goals have been determined, a list of relevant keywords can be programmed into these tools and then reports issued to your agency as coverage occurs, or at set intervals (for example, the start of every work day.)

How are media hits reported to the client? This really depends on the needs of the client and the resources available. Typically, we find that a biweekly report that covers the topics and issues specific to that client meets our clients’ needs, with important breaking news forwarded on an as-it-happens basis. This is variable, based on the client’s needs. With more intensive programs with extensive resources and where there’s a need for instant access to information, we have generated daily reports. At the other end of the spectrum, some of our clients do not have a specific requirement for media monitoring and therefore we only report coverage of our clients, as needed. Make sure to discuss with your agency what works best for you and will meet your requirements.

Late last year, Jill gave some tips on media monitoring in one of her posts. For more specific information than I’ve given here today, reference her tips for maximizing the value of your media monitoring efforts.

Linda Forrest

Posted in:

• Public and media relations