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December 6, 2004
Impressionists, Blogging and North Carolina...
This is the time of year when people in the PR field are madly pitching business, hoping to retain their current clients and to win new ones. One of the side benefits of this manic period is that you get a quick snapshot of the U.S. across industry and geography. Here are a few impressions from the past week.
Chicago--I brought my family to visit my parents for Thanksgiving, certainly my favorite holiday. We walked to The Millennium Park, located in the center of the downtown district. It is a triumph for all involved, particularly Mayor Richard Daley, in transforming a former railroad yard into a true gathering place. The Frank Gehry designed open air home for the symphony, the dramatic always changing forty foot high stack of clear bricks reflecting images of Chicagoans, and the giant smooth bean, are incredibly impressive. I was also lucky enough to get a guided tour of the Art Institute led by the energetic Laura Muller. She told us that the amazing collection of Impressionist art is the result of a enterprising French art dealer, who, when faced with rejection at home, brought a sampling of Renoirs, Lautrecs and Cezannes across the ocean to New York and met with the newly wealthy industrialists from Chicago, who bought quality in quantity.
New York--I went to Professor Red Burns' Media Lab at New York University. Professor Burns is combining art, technology and entertainment with imagination in her curriculum. Her students build devices that incorporate elements of all four of these fields. As she strolls through her "campus" on Lower Broadway, Professor Burns shows you one item that looks like an old TV set--she bangs it on the side and a new photo show begins--she smacks it again and you are onto a new theme. You walk past a camera slowly and you see a nearly full side view projected on screen, but if you walk quickly, you are merely a thin line. She is into a world beyond McLuhan. Later in the week, I went to the opening of the Alvin Ailey Dance Theater season. Judith Jamison, artistic director and grande dame of the company, had the audience in hysterics with ribald comments about the honorary chairman of the evening, Derek Jeter (he's so fine...if I were twenty years old again..oh my). Both the new (Love Stories) and the old (Revelations) were wonderful melanges of pastel colored outfits, upbeat music (some hip hop, some Earth Wind and Fire) and athleticism. I also had a meeting with Tim O'Reilly, owner of O'Reilly Media, publisher of Dan Gillmor's recent book on blogging. O'Reilly believes that business can coexist with the blogworld, it just has to move beyond its usual mindset of our company and our products to figure out relevance to the general discourse and to engage in conversations not one way selling propositions. Companies must show they can contribute to conversations and find out where the discussions are happening. Companies may be better served by empowering one of their mid-level executives (Scoble at Microsoft) rather than relying on the CEO--there is more credibility and speed. Blogs are just one aspect of social networking, along with news groups and mailing lists. The biggest challenge for companies is not the technology, it is understanding the culture. Tim's point is that that not every company or CEO should blog. A quick point here from me--this is the great channel for companies because blogs are immediate, credible and dialogue-based -- basic tenets of PR and the reason why we work with our clients to engage influencers online.
North Carolina--I now better understand the phenomenon of exurbia. I was in the Charlotte area, actually about 40 miles outside of the city. The major retailers like Starbucks, Subway, Lowe's are all here. The service is first Driver has not implemented the class, the outlets clean and the product mix remarkable. There is significant tract housing development, but the homes are two generations past Levittown, with sizeable footprints and significant amenities. The exurbs are reinforcing the economic vitality of center city assets such as the metropolitan airport, sports teams and cultural attractions. There is a different symbiosis evolving.
So this was an amazing week. Hope some of this is useful.
Richard
Posted by Edelman at December 6, 2004 9:27 AM
Comments
I really enjoy your blog. You are right on about PR and blogging. You made me realize in this and your ethics blog that internal change acceleration work is just internal PR and you have to engage in two way conversations.
Posted by: Marion Vermazen at December 8, 2004 8:48 PM
One thing I admire about Sun is Scott McNealy's willingness to speak out to all audiences He is a real leader. By the way, he was my roommate in freshman year at Harvard in 1972. Small world, right?
Posted by: Richard Edelman at December 9, 2004 10:58 AM
Although weblogs (blogs) are currently used only by a small number of online consumers, they?ve received a great deal of corporate attention because their readers and writers are highly influential. Two points to take into consideration when trying to introduce blogs as PR tools:
- Companies planning to open their own blog should feel comfortable to have close, two-way relationships with their stakeholders.
- Blogs are part of a subculture and draw the intellectual clientele as they are an instrument of open debate. Can a company ever achieve this open debate w/out loosing credibility or restraining the debate?
A third point would tie in with your recent posts on ethics in PR. Would companies be comfortable with an instrument where they immediately would be held accountable for any errors and/or might become victims of slander?
Posted by: Gudrun Herrmann at December 9, 2004 11:12 PM
Gudrun,
Thanks for your posting. I do believe companies are getting the message...that the very fact of blogging, the immediacy and the dialogue...is key to credibility. Much better in some cases than a press release or prepared speech by CEO.
Posted by: Richard Edelman at December 13, 2004 11:35 AM
You roomed with McNealy? That is pretty cool. Can you get me onto the Sun sailboat?
I liked your viewpoints on the NY, Chicago and NC markets. I'd love to get your opinion on the Arizona market, and if you ever make inroads here, or even look at the landscape. Phoenix's an odd oasis, 300 miles from any other metropolitan center (or 100 miles from Tucson), and seems to be more tourism and real estate oriented.
Posted by: Jeremy Pepper at December 13, 2004 7:57 PM
Mr. Edelman, you have proven to be "up close and personal" when you replied to my email recently, me being a complete unknown entity.
I asked you why you blog, and your answer was pithy, idiosyncratic, and enlightening. You also gave me permission to use your quote in a book.
This is what corporate communications with target audiences is all about: whether it's a blog, wiki, web site, press release, brochure, etc.
Being candid, personable, gracious, good-hearted, eager to help others succeed in what they're doing.
No wonder you're the world's largest independent PR firm. Your site is now blogrolled on two of my blogs.
Keep up the great role modeling.
Posted by: Steven Streight aka Vaspers the Grate at February 3, 2005 2:59 AM