(click here to listen to the 13 minute interview)

I suppose the governor is feeling somewhat persecuted in his home state, but that doesn’t really explain what he hopes to gain from this rather unusual strategy of ignoring a trial and instead going to the national networks. When you consider that the audience for these shows is predominantly made up of people outside of Illinois, what could possibly be the objective for this outreach strategy? It certainly isn’t endearing him to those largely responsible for deciding his fate. To use a much overused phrase in PR: he doesn’t appear to be “taking things seriously.”

This is the curious pathology of some in the public eye. When cornered (usually by actions of their own doing) they attempt to charm their way out of a situation. It rarely works.

The governor’s potty mouth, his clear and unequivocal statements concerning the matter in which he finds himself in hot water, and his apparent blatant disregard for the process going on in Springfield all contribute to what appears to me to be a total lack of understanding of the seriousness of his situation.

Taking his case to the talk-show circuit doesn’t appear to me to be helping his case–it seems more baffling than anything else. If it’s an attempt to garner more favorable press, I have to wonder if there is really much difference in coverage that implies: “the governor has done something that is likely illegal” to coverage that implies “he’s completely off his rocker.” While it does change the subject matter of the coverage, is that really an improvement? That strategy might work for off-balance Hollywood starlets, but shouldn’t we expect more serious treatment from elected officials? Or is changing the topic of the coverage sufficient in an effort to develop a more sympathetic persona while looking to the likelihood of the event of a very public criminal trial?

It is perhaps a result of our more interconnected society that a governor feels the need to go beyond the borders of the state that he represents to mitigate the damage done. As local coverage is now accessible worldwide, perhaps the damage control needs to be also.

The development of communications technology is littered with vibrations that run the engine of much of today’s new media. Here are a few examples of “been there, done that” in the communications world, which I will try to do without quoting Marshall McLuhan:

Social media democratizes communication

15th Century: The printing press spreads the power of the written word and with it education, beyond the empowered clergy and noble classes. Similarly, social media lowers the bar of entry to create and distribute content. Still, mass attention favors the few, usually the first, best and/or biggest.

Social media allows instant communications?

19th Century: the electric telegraph gives the world instant spread of news, ending tragedies such as battles that took place after wars had officially ended. Then, the telephone introduces instant communications to the home.

Social media gives us the world in our home?

1940: Three words from CBS Radio’s Edward R. Murrow: “This is London.” Live broadcasts during the blitz in World War II are probably the best representation of an innovation that has been with us for more than 70 years.

Social media entertains us?

1930s-1940s: Radio gives us the original soap operas, then television gives us moving pictures and threatens the Hollywood film industry in one stroke. Not only is mass entertainment in the home not new, but paranoia and paralysis by the entertainment industry in the face of new technology is at least 60 years old. By the way, the PC is not taking over the TV as the home entertainment hub. We want our 46-inch HDTVs for that, but that’s another topic.

More?

1990s: The Internet gave us the world we already had, but made it on-demand (Amazon! Weather! Maps! Hamster Dance!) Forums and chat? Usenet isn’t exactly new.

And… Social media will dumb down the media we consume

“People to People” (Edward R. Murrow again, in a show that could be the inspiration for “MTV Cribs,” and the general denuding of the Tiffany Network (CBS) from the gem of journalism to the purveyors of Mr. Ed, The Beverly Hillbillies and Gilligan’s Island in the 1960s. That still sets the standard for numbing our culture that no amount of Lolcats can top.

It’s all communications; shouting about shiny new tools is great, but that sort of rush is short-lived. It’s what we do with these new tools, applying the “old rules” of communications to make them work, that matters. I will use this space to point out specific ways in which new media echoes long-standing rules of communications, with historical perspective and hopefully some common sense. One last thing: I don’t know any more than you do, and I expect people to come down on me hard if I pretend that I do. You can start by telling me in the comments what I missed above.

Doug Haslam is an Account Director at Boston’s SHIFT Communications, and blogs at DougHaslam.com.

In its current incarnation, it resembles Peter Shankman’s Help A Reporter Out (HARO) email list that has blossomed quickly in popularity in recent months. Instead of email, MicroPR uses Twitter. In addition to being a different medium, it encourages brevity of requests due to the service’s 140 character limit. It also is more real-time in nature, as Shankman’s email comes out 3 times every business day. Interested PR pros can follow @micropr on Twitter to field requests, while journalists will transmit requests to that same address.

The present offering is described as an “alpha” version. Boyd and Solis intend to continue to expand the service going forward.

(Read the complete introduction to MicroPR to learn more.)

(click here to listen to the 37 minute discussion)

• Chris Brogan’s piece about “Bob” and the follow up post have generated quite a bit of chatter. Was Bob right to continue communicating with his customers online after being instructed no to do so?
• Did Motrin and its ad agency handle the “Motrin Moms” kerfuffle correctly? And how should companies deal with monitoring and responding to social media?
• Is most publicity good publicity as long as they spell your name right? The Toyota “Saved by Zero” ads annoyed some people so much that they created a Facebook protest group — but Toyota says hey, the ad was meant to generate “floor traffic” and that’s what it is doing apparently.

(click here to listen to the 37 minute discussion)

2. You Cannot Outsource Evangelism. A tech startup needs an evangelist, preferably the CEO. Other employees may also fill that role (business development and marketing people often come to mind here), but it is not wise or effective to pass that role off to a consultant or agency. To be an effective evangelist, one must be identified with a company as a founder or employee. Hired guns don’t have the credibility, nor can they craft the requisite personal brand to be successful. It is hard to evangelize for more than one company at a time — precisely what outsiders must do to be successful in their own right.

3. Startup Public Relations is First and Foremost Networking. Most people (including many agency types) view public relations as media relations. Whether or not that’s accurate, it isn’t what most startups need when defined that narrowly. Hits in newspapers or on TV may be great, but not likely what a startup needs most. Instead, it is vital to get out and get in front of the people that the company needs relationships with. That means lots of networking at conferences, dinners, one-on-one meetings, and more. And very little of that should be with members of the working press.

4. Not Every Startup CEO Should Be a Startup CEO. The old mantra of “lead, follow, or get out of the way” applies quite clearly to startup founders. Many are not suited to leading a company. Just because you started the company with your own sweat and tears doesn’t mean you should be CEO. If you would rather stare at code than talk to strangers, step aside. Find a partner to serve as your co-founder. If all else fails, hire a CEO. But don’t put yourself at the top of the org chart just because you started the place.

5. Companies Can Get PR Too Early. It is tired but true to say that “you only get one chance to make a first impression.” Many startups grow too quickly for their own good and get crushed by their own inertia. If you are not ready for media attention, then pulling in all sorts of users or prospects may be a mistake. Your systems need to be ready to handle the influx — everything from keeping servers up and running to having enough people to deliver quality customer care.

6. A Startup Needs a PR Agency When It Can’t Meet Goals on Its Own. There’s no cut-and-dried formula for when a startup should engage public relations counsel. A company ought to set its goals and attempt to meet them internally. At some point, this may no longer be possible. That’s when it is time to find an outside firm to help.

7. Everything in a Startup is a Trade-Off. Startups have finite resources in terms of money, time, and employees. When weighing the “PR Decision,” a startup must evaluate its needs in all areas and determine if dollars spent on PR make more sense than directing those resources to an additional customer service representative, engineer, or salesperson. That may mean that there are fewer dollars to spend on a PR solution, leading to a cheaper outside firm, fewer hours contracted, or passing on PR duties part-time to an individual within the company. These can all be rational outcomes.

8. You Must Measure PR ROI. Don’t be snookered into thinking that all media is good media. As someone said on the FIR broadcast, you may get a great mention in the Wall Street Journal, but if none of your customers read it, it may as well have not happened. You need to work with whoever handles your PR — internally or externally — to establish clear measures of success that are individual to your business.

9. Not All Companies Need PR Agencies. I’ll probably get kicked out of the Public Relations Society of America for saying this, but there are some startups that will do just fine without professional PR help. Some startups seek to interface with just a handful of business partners rather than with large numbers of customers. If a company is focused on behind-the-scenes white label arrangements or has technology that they are grooming for use by a small but lucrative market, they may not need PR. In some cases even if they need to appeal to a larger audience, there may not be many — if any — attractive media targets to reach out to. In those cases, direct mail, salespeople, or other non-public approaches may serve best.

10. Many Agencies Tell You They Do More Than Media, But Few Really Do. Really good agencies do more for you than simply get media hits for your company. They can help you with internal communications, presentation training, perfecting your elevator pitch, improving investor relations, and more. Many claim this, but few do it well. And, of course, you get what you pay for. The more that a PR agency becomes a “strategic partner,” the more it will likely cost. With everyone from your lawyer to your accountant wanting to be strategic partners also, it is important for startups to avoid getting bogged down with too much professional advice and remain nimble and responsive.

I’m not by any means arguing against startups employing public relations firms. They can provide truly useful service for many, but it is vital that every startup evaluate the question individually and with a critical view to ensure that the right firm is being hired for the right reasons.

Especially when the episode covers a medical issue.

Disney’s mystifyingly popular Hannah Montana show will air an episode in November in which one of the series’ recurring characters is diagnosed with diabetes. [Ed.: November is American Diabetes Month. Please sign the petition for a Google Doodle. Thanks!] While the show does not explicitly state where the idea came from, apparently Miley Cirus (the actress who plays ‘Hannah Montana’ in the series) used to date–are they even old enough for dating?–Nick Jonas of The Jonas Brothers ( a youth-oriented rock band). Nick Jonas has Type 1 diabetes. (Like Kerri Sparling, who tweeted this and posted about it at her blog, Six Until Me, I can’t really believe I’m writing about this stuff.)  In this situation, the show’s writers aren’t just creatives coming up with pithy one-liners for the tween set, their intent is to educate.

As I watched the three (painful–all that squealing!) segments of the episode, I found myself somewhere between being pleased that a company like Disney was trying to educate and raise awareness of a very important issue, without becoming annoyed at how they elected to go about doing it. Throughout the episode, it’s depicted that sugar is dangerous to diabetics. The truth is it is far more complex and nuanced than that.

Since Disney’s audience for this show is considerably younger than the actors/actresses in it, this is a very important point. I’ve known kids as young as six who watch the program–at that age, kids can be quite literal. So, the main problem with depicting sugar as being dangerous to diabetics (at one point, one of the characters knocks a sugary treat of some sort out of the way, and exclaims “hey I’m trying to save a life here”) is that the way you treat a low is with sugar. So a child who has a classmate with diabetes is left with the very clear message, “sugar is bad” and could very likely have the impression that their classmate will suffer ill consequences if he or she eats sugar, when in fact the exact opposite could be true.

I fully realize that diabetes is a complex chronic condition, and that the show’s creators are trying to increase awareness without getting too technical. Unfortunately, they missed the chance to do it right. If you have to oversimplify something to the point of inaccuracy, it’s best to take a step back and go a different route.

One of the many roles of PR practitioners is to take sometimes complex issues and make them understandable to the target audience they are trying to reach. There is a very important lesson buried in this Disney show (aside from raising awareness of diabetes), and that is communicators have a duty to stick with the facts, and not allow the process of translating the complex to the simple to take over. They also need to very carefully consider who is on the receiving end of these messages.

Disney, in my estimation, missed the mark on both counts.

Valeria and Doug joined me to discuss the Technorati State of the Blogosphere report, Twitter censorship in the classroom, and the PR ramifications of the country’s current political and economic crises.

Click here to download our 34-minute discussion.

Technorati State of the Blogosphere report: We discuss the implications of some of the stats of the report, including the trend towards blogs becoming less just about the blog and more about serving as an information hub for all a person’s social media activities. Doug wishes that the report was a little less “facts and figures” and a little more substance, and I wonder if the chatter about it proves that Technorati is still relevant.

Teacher Bans Classroom Blogging: An NYU student wrote a critical review of her “Gen Y” media class for Media Shift, including its teacher, and the teacher promptly banned students from blogging about the class in the future. We discuss the old guard resistance to social media, and note that in a class where having a blog is a requirement, it seems counterintuitive to ban students from discussing the class.

(Major) Crisis Communications: The unavoidable topic of the week is the current financial crisis going on in the U.S. We have a good discussion of what this means for the brands involved. The banks, insurance companies, and other institutions who need to rebuild public trust. I once again highlight John Bell’s post about it, and Valeria makes the extremely valid point that this crisis has far-reaching global implications–quite a heavy lift for crisis communicators.

Click here to download our 34-minute discussion.