Those of you among our clients who had Linda Forrest working on your account have been missing her outstanding services these past several weeks because she booked off on maternity leave at the end of July. We’re delighted to announce that her latest project, a joint venture with husband Jack Forrest, has now been successfully launched. Little Parker Simon Edward Forrest came tumbling into the world, healthy if a touch late, on Wednesday of last week.

Linda, who is well used to clients who set, and then never meet, deadlines, managed little Parker’s protracted arrival with the self-same aplomb and reports that he is “a very agreeable baby.”

Like many agencies, inmedia has been staffed mainly by young women over the past 10 years and yet, this is the very first birth to a full-time inmedianaut. So forgive us if we treat it as a very special occasion.

Congratulations, Linda and Jack. Now get that little guy in here so we can properly look him over!

Technorati Tags: Parker Forrest

One word: Cuil.

This supposed “Google-killer” launched to much ballyhoo earlier this week. Problem is that the product itself is not yet ready for prime time and so it has, as many media have said, “stumbled out of the gate.” In today’s fast paced tech environment, it’s a costly misstep for a company to generate so much publicity when the product itself isn’t up to par, especially when it’s something so high profile as taking on the most successful search engine in history.

I’m sure the Cuil powers that be are questioning both their branding and their launch strategy this week, with influential bloggers being unable to resist the urge to deem the offering “Totally UnCuil.” Ouch.

Technorati Tags: public relations, publicity, PR disaster, Cuil

This morning on my way into the office, I saw about 50 grown men (sad to say there wasn’t a female among them) camped out outside a Rogers store to be the first to get their hands on an iPhone 3G, available today for the first time in Canada. The long line ups and eager anticipation extend beyond Canada’s borders as the new version of the phone has some additional bells and whistles that have Mac-philes and the hoi polloi alike very excited.

When I saw the faithful gathered this morning in aim of a common goal, I was reminded of “back in the day” when, prior to the internet, I lined up for hours and hours to buy concert tickets at the local Ticketmaster outlet. That situation, like this, was a “you snooze, you lose” proposition as I’m confident in saying that it’s doubtful that the little Rogers stand in the Rideau Center has enough iPhones on hand to meet the demand and only those brave souls who were in line prior to the store’s opening are likely to be entirely unproductive today at their jobs as they play with their new toys.

My point, and I do have one, is that the buzz surrounding this product has reached a fever pitch, and that people who perhaps have never had a mobile phone, let alone a whiz-bang PDA like the iPhone, are chomping at the bit to get their hands on one. This not only increases the demand for mobile applications, but also means that a whole lot more people will be using Canada’s wireless infrastructure, not to mention entering the world of constant accessibility.

As PR practitioners, we have to be constantly available to our clients. One never knows if and when breaking news could hit and we need to respond to it immediately or switch into crisis mode at a moment’s notice. To that end, the introduction of the iPhone to our team has been wonderful - allowing each of us to have access to our email and the internet no matter when it is, no matter where we are. As Francis has said on occasion, yes, it’s a leash, but it enables us to take vacations and be out of the office, if need be, yet still be plugged in. The trick, then, becomes unplugging, not checking your email as soon as you awaken and as the last thing at night. Oh, who am I kidding - we all do that anyway, regardless of whether we’re using our computers or our iPhones to connect.

To those of you who are just getting your first iPhone today, congratulations and enjoy. I think the employers of the world must have come together to encourage this release on the last day of the workweek in the hope that the anticipated lost productivity would be limited to a sunny Friday and people will spend the weekend, off the company clock, experimenting with their new gadgets.

Technorati Tags: iPhone, connectivity

One of the first of what I like to call “Francis’s favourite fictions,” or “Everything I know that’s wrong about PR I learned from technology company executives,” was a line from the CEO of one of the very first tech companies I pitched when I originally ventured out on my own in the early 1990s. “I want to be on the front page of the Ottawa Citizen tomorrow morning,” he said.

I was a lot younger, thinner and more intemperate in those days, so I replied, “Okay. Go home and shoot your wife tonight.”

Right answer, just not terribly delicately put. However, he got the point and I got the gig.

What I was trying to say, of course, is that media relations usually doesn’t work that way and, for some companies, it never works that way. In fact, at inmedia, our objective is never Page 1 tomorrow. Rather, we try from the very outset to build the kind of foundation for an ongoing media relations effort that will generate meaningful coverage over the long haul. In the technology B2B space, where virtually all our clients are new, small and/or completely unknown, this means we first must thoroughly educate target media about the client, its story and how it will be of interest to the journalists and their audiences now and into the future. If this process delivers immediate coverage, so much the better, but that’s not the primary intent.

This first company was also the first time I tried out what has come to be known around here as a ramp up and roll out, or the media and analyst launch of a company that builds the foundation I’m talking about. The company had recorded many newsworthy successes in its history and had a market-leading presence in its space. However, as we also like to say around here, they call it the “news” business, not the “olds” business. So most of those achievements were now just so much fishwrap as far as the media were concerned.

What I did was develop a comprehensive set of materials that told the company’s complete story, including a timeline of its growth and successes and a couple of case studies that showcased its leadership position. I then sent that package out to the media I had identified, through research, as being at the intersection of Writes-about-this-subject and Influences-my-client’s-market. I followed up with each of them, had great conversations about how my client might feauture in future coverage, and even generated some really good immediate hits. Over the long run, I generated a constant stream of coverage about the client, including, eventually, a Page 1 piece in the Ottawa Citizen.

If a client today tells me the same thing — “I wanna be on Page 1 tomorrow.” — I tell him or her much the same thing. I just use a slightly more subtle approach now.

Technorati Tags: Launch, media relations, technology, B2B