“I’ve just come to expect that my (public relations) agency can’t write,” was the astonishing admission I heard a few weeks back from a vice president at one of Ottawa’s larger technology companies who called us to see if we’d be interested in participating in an agency review process.

(I’ve promised not to name him (or her) for reasons that will be obvious as you read the rest of this post.)

I could hardly believe my ears. But yes, he said, it had long been his experience that the PR practitioners he had been dealing with from a range of different agencies and across a number of companies just weren’t very good writers, and so it fell to him to write most of the materials used in his campaigns. One of the key reasons he was approaching inmedia, he told me, was our very strong reputation in the marketplace as superb writers, a reputation he said was confirmed when he read our blog and web site.

I chalked this one up to what I assumed was just an unfortunate experience on the part of one technology marketing executive until I relayed the story to a colleague last week, a CEO at another technology company here in Ottawa and an insightful marketer in his own right. I was again utterly gobsmacked when he said he didn’t view writing as a core requirement in the PR function, that the ability to pitch the story was far more important.

“And what do you do,” I asked him, “When the pitch is initially well received and the next words out of the reporter or editor’s mouth are, ‘Sounds good, send me something about it.’?”

Here’s the thing. To work at inmedia and, I believe, to be an effective media relations practitioner anywhere, you must be able to write at an expert level and you must be able to effectively pitch what you’ve written. There is no hierarchy between these two fundamental skills. Lack one, and you’re out of the game.

And here’s why.

To believe, as these two otherwise successful technology marketers clearly do, that writing is either not terribly important or that your PR function, whether internal or an agency, can be permitted to be lousy writers, is to completely beggar the entire communications process.

In the first instance, despite all the wonderful new communications tools at our disposal, most journalists still want to see something in cold, hard black and white, even if it is delivered electronically. And even if they don’t ask for it, it’s just gotta be in your best interests to give them well-written material so they have the complete story, with all the relevant facts and accurate spellings of company, product and people’s names to which they can refer. This is just so basic I’m staggered it needs stating.

Second, how in the heck does a PR practitioner demonstrate her or his understanding of the story without writing about it? Yes, a properly written document proves the communicator can — gasp! — communicate. That is, the words run together in some sort of comprehensible order, everything is spelled correctly and the commas and periods are in the right places. But it still won’t be any good unless the person writing it actually has a thorough grasp of the subject matter.

Effective writing is not a case of cutting and pasting bits and pieces from other documents to make a different document and it needs to be more than a merely technically accurate use of words, grammar and punctuation. Effective writing is the process of distilling what has been learned — from other documents, certainly, but also, and critically, from interviews with a range of subject-matter experts — into a new piece of work. It not only communicates the story to all who read it, it also demonstrates understanding.

Bottom line: If your agency can’t write about it well, they almost certainly can’t pitch it well. And even worse, they probably don’t even understand it well.

So, did we get the business? Well, that’s another story that I cover here: The Ottawa inferiority complex theorem strikes again.

Technorati Tags: writing, pitching, media relations, business development

The Chicago Manual of Style, that is. And, believe it or not, it’s often quite the humorous journey.

Those of you who are regular readers of this blog will know that we take considerable pride in being word nerds, and that strong, effective and precise writing is the hallmark of our work here at inmedia. But even the best and most practised of us needs to refer to an unimpeachable expert every now and then. We make heavy use of dictionairies — my Pocket Oxford Dictionary has been my desk-side companion through four decades, and its missing spine and dog-eared appearance is testimony to my continued reliance on it — as well as style guides such as CP Style Book, and all the online tools we can get our cursors to.

The best of these is the Chicago Manual of Style, or simply Chicago, as its devotees call it. We regularly go to Chicago, if you will, to check the finer points of grammar and punctuation and settle the very occasional difference of opinion that might crop up here between writer and editor.

As subscribers to the online edition of this style guide, we get monthly emails listing questions that have been put to its editors by readers. They reply with a certainty and conviction that is reassuring, while maintaining a cheeky sense of humour; many of their answers are good for a chuckle.

Take this recent exchange, for example:

Q. The assistant editor of my local newspaper wrote the following sentence in a column: “My parents had my little brother and I later in life.” I said I believe it should be “my brother and me.” She remains adamant that she is correct and referred me to your book. How is this possible?

A. It’s not possible; she’s flat-out wrong. (And we rarely say that anything is flat-out wrong.) Ask her if she would write “My parents had I.”

Or these two that had the word nerd in me chuckling:

Q. I’m going to have signs made for the tennis courts at my rather academic club. I want one of them to say something like this:

Tennis Players:

1. Please sign in at front desk.

2. Groom your court after play.

Thank you.

I have lots of questions! Is it fine in an application like this to omit articles to save space? How should I capitalize and punctuate? Is it awkward to have a list like that? I wanted to make it absolutely clear to the reader that he has TWO duties (that is, I don’t want him to stop reading one long sentence and not register his second duty).

A. It’s easy to answer when the writer already has everything down just fine. It’s all fine—really! Sticklers might think that having “your” would mean you have to have “the” to be parallel, but I would argue that “your” isn’t optional and that adding “the” on a sign like this isn’t necessary or even conventional. Maybe you could have another sign pointing that out, just in case.

And:

Q. In a technical proposal, would you say “400-ton-per-day scrubber” or “400-tons-per-day scrubber”? Thanks a bunch!

A. The first construction is the more usual one. (Btw, what is a 400-ton-per-day scrubber, exactly? And where can I get one?)

Who says grammar can’t be fun?

Technorati Tags: Writing, grammar, style guides, Chicago Manual of Style

As I sit here, 36 weeks pregnant and a short week from my maternity leave, my commute into work has become untenable and so I’m thrilled to be living in an age where I can reasonably work from home. I’m not the only one, it seems, according to several interesting recent stories in publications like BusinessWeek and ComputerWorld. Both of these stories talk about entire businesses dismantling their brick and mortar operations, saving substantial overheads and, according to the BusinessWeek article, boosting productivity.

Because inmedia is a global operation, we have been working with remote consultants in different countries and different time zones for several years now to great success. We communicate constantly and although it’s not quite like being in the room, we are more than able to work together as a cohesive unit and deliver high quality service to our clients. Regardless of where the consultant is, we’re quick to send a quick note or pick up the phone to hash out ideas or collaborate on getting the job done. The tools that we need to connect with our media and analyst targets are, thankfully, easily transportable. The days of the hard copy press kit are quickly receding and thus as PR consultants, we are less encumbered by reams of paper and manilla folders.

It’s my opinion that the very nature of consultantcy lends itself well to this model, but of course, it wouldn’t and doesn’t work for everyone. Consideration must be given to the individuals involved and the nature of the work. Still, with experts on telecommuting predicting its increase in popularity and with coworking spaces gaining momentum, it’s undeniable that the more connected we become to our coworkers and clients, the easier it is to disconnect from the trappings of a traditional workspace.

Technorati Tags: telecommuting, consulting, coworking

I was intrigued last week when the Marketing Profs newsletter opened my eyes to the fact that so-called “Generation Y” appears to love direct snail mail. Given how “plugged in” younger people are these days, this seems utterly counterintuitive, but it is indeed the case. One wouldn’t assume that amongst the electronics that are so prevalent in young people’s lives, they’re keeping their coupons clipped, but indeed it sounds as though this can be an effective way to reach this audience. Certainly more relevant information for those marketing a consumer play, but as entrepreneurs get younger and more skilled young people rise through the ranks in the workforce, it’s a good idea for those in the B2B space to be conscious of the habits of this age group as increasingly they are decision makers in the business world.

Marketing to different age groups has indeed been a hot topic in the marketing newsletters of late, as the Daily Dog also pointed to a piece on bridging the generational gaps with PR programs at the end of last week. It’s important, regardless of what you’re marketing, to be conscious of your audience and implement the marketing activities and methods that are most likely to bring about success. Perhaps these articles will provide you with some insight into your market and how best to reach them.

Technorati Tags: demographics, marketing

Last week was quite an extraordinary one for Ottawa’s start-up community.

Wow. When was the last time over the past six or eight or 10 years that I could make a bold statement like that and not have the guys in the white coats start measuring me for a jacket that buckles in the back?

And no, I’m not referring to a spate of product launches or company foundings or even venture capital funding announcements that would have been the basis of such enthusiasm in the past when Ottawa’s technology sector was dominated by capital-intensive efforts to invent a better telecom system or new semiconductor.

Instead, my enthusiasm today comes from a series of events we attended last week, all of which we blogged about and all of which contributed to a subtle but undeniable sense that something very exciting is afoot.

On Monday, I joined a warm and standing-room-only crowd at DemoCampOttawa9, where developers from six companies demonstrated their applications and received scads of intelligent, creative and constructively critical feedback from their peers.

Tuesday night, several generations of Ottawa technology entrepreneurs helped Ian Graham celebrate the official opening of his novel and creative co-working and collaboration space, TheCodeFactory. A series of short speeches was book-ended by veteran Denzil Doyle and emerging company founder Scott Lake. We here at inmediaare such big fans of what Ian is doing that we’ve signed on as founding partners of TheCodeFactory and we’ll be watching with more than passing interest as he builds a facility that is much needed in this town.

Wednesday night was The Ottawa Network’s regular monthly Start-up Drop-in at LaBarge Weinstein and this was when the penny really dropped for me. As I wrote here Friday, every speaker was, among other things, sounding the consistent notes that Ottawa’s start-up community is focused on exciting new opportunities in the online world, is actively supporting its individual members and is building a broadly collaborative and globally minded ecosystem that may just yet spit out the next Facebook.

Thursday night I took a pass. But my colleague Leo Valiquette attended an event that in many ways emphasised one of the key realities of this exciting new world. In a session titled, “Buddy, keep your million, but buy my product,” The Ottawa Network in collaboration with the city’s various technology clusters came to the inevitable next stage of its now three-year-old series on how to tap into venture capital.

The first year, the title was, “Buddy, can you spare a million,” emphasizing the traditional route to building a company — beg for whatever venture capital you can lay your hands on.

The second year’s title, “Buddy why should I give you a million,” betrayed the fact that most of the begging was going wholly unanswered as VCs shut their wallets and became unyieldingly skeptical about the business plans they were seeing.

Last week’s title brought the whole thing full circle. If you can’t beg funding from VCs who either don’t have it or won’t invest it, then you have to build a company the old-fashioned way — develop a product and find someone who wants to pay you money to buy.

What a concept.

Fortunately, this reality now aligns with what Ottawa’s startups are doing anyway. Exciting and promising new ventures really can be launched on a shoestring. When a budding entrepreneur needs help, there is a wealth of events to attend, or many willing peers in the community who will contribute counsel or even hands-on support. When the venture grows a bit larger, places like TheCodeFactory will give it an affordable home. And by the time the VCs come calling, they really won’t be needed very much.

Hold the buckled jacket. It really is an exciting new day here in Ottawa.

Technorati Tags: Start ups, DemoCamp, The Ottawa Network, TheCodeFactory, entrepreneurship, venture capital, technology, business, bootstrapping

I’ve written here before about the abject failure of most technology implementations intended to assist in the delivery of customer service. And I know criticising customer service is such an easy target that it makes shooting fish in a barrel seem a highly skilled undertaking. Still, my experience last night with Rogers, one of Canada’s two major telecommunications and cable television providers, really did take the cake.

Now, Rogers is so pathetic at customer service that I used to have a Treo phone on its wireless network that consistently — and erroneously — told me the operation had failed every time I tried to perform a call-forwarding function. I lived with the problem for nearly four years rather than try to find the Rogers person who might be able to fix it.

Last night, I had to call them. Although the company has a web portal that is supposed to allow me to manage my wireless services, it almost never is able to do what I need it to do. If Rogers really cared about service, I would be able to do what I wanted to online or, at least, seamlessly switch from online self-service to an operator-assisted session, with that operator able to see what I had been trying to do, able to co-browse through the online portal with me and actually help me get what I need.

And lest you think I’m describing some kind of crazy wonderland here, let me assure you that the ability to do just that exists today in the form of our client ciboodle and its customer interaction software.

But enough of a client plug; back to my story.

I couldn’t get what I needed online so I had to call. (Insert shudder o’ loathsome horror here.) The IVR system was a little changed, and seemed to be intended to drive me to the right department within Rogers’s customer service operation so I followed it down the rabbit hole until it concluded I wanted to talk to someone about my business wireless service.

Sorry, Alice; wrong hole. The agent who answered asked me my name, pulled up a record, asked my postal code and said it didn’t match what was on his record. Of course it didn’t because, helpful IVR notwithstanding, he had pulled up my residential cable account, not my business wireless service. And then he knew almost nothing about what I wanted, which was to upgrade my data plan, and I had to tell him what his own product offerings were so he could sell them to me.

But at least I eventually got what I needed. I wasn’t even that minimally successful with Black & Decker, whose online store was also my starting point yesterday to source a new battery for my cordless grass trimmer. Unable to find the product anywhere online, I used a form to send an email asking where I might find a replacement battery. I listed my part number and the model number of the trimmer and asked where online I could find one or who here in Ottawa, Canada, might stock them.

I received a reply in suspiciously swift order and, sure enough, it had all the hallmarks of a machine-generated — and therefore nearly useless — response. Not only was it hopelessly generic, it actually directed me to click on a URL that took me to one of those advertising services that squat on like-sounding domain names, in this case www.blackanddeckertools.com.

Dear Black & Decker: Do you care so little about your brand and its reputation that you can be so careless in safeguarding it? Do you have so many customers that you can afford to send them to a wholly unaffiliated domain-name squatter? Is this maybe one reason why your stock price is languishing near its 52-week low, about two-thirds of what it was a year ago? Does lousy customer service damage the bottom line?

Just another day in customer service paradise, I guess.

Technorati Tags: technology, customer service, customer interaction, IVR, Rogers, Black&Decker, ciboodle

Wired has announced that it will be releasing a style manual exclusively for web journalism, addressing the etiquette and ownership issues that aren’t covered by traditional style guides like the Chicago Manual of Style. The line between journalism and blogging, something we have long considered a fiction, becomes even more blurred.

Today on MediaBistro, I was directed to a piece on Portfolio’s web site that talks about WashingtonPost.com’s tinkering with its links on several microsites to enable instant pop-ups of additional data on mouse rollover that doesn’t necessitate leaving the site. This is nothing new to those of us familiar with WordPress blogs as the Snap feature currently used on this site and others does the same thing. Some grumblings in the media about the glut of interactive content on online news sites fly in the face of the theory I introduced yesterday in my post about online news and the process being the product. Is this indicative of a widespread dislike for too much dynamic content or a holdover of viewing the new media with old media sensibilities, the very point of the Buzz Machine article that spawned yesterday’s post?

I’ve had some informative back and forth with one of our commentors about the requirement that a company’s online media center be dynamic, and this opinion was certainly reinforced by a story in this morning’s Daily Dog Bulldog Reporter newsletter. A survey of journalists shows they’re accessing audio and video clips in online newsrooms more than ever before. When we launched the i-LIMB Hand for Touch Bionics, we knew that video would play an important role in telling the story of the world’s first commercially available bionic hand, as it’s such a visual story. Perhaps more of our clients should incorporate this element into their PR campaigns and web sites, as our client Singletouch has done on its site.

The statistic that 97% of the more than 400 respondents surveyed highlighted the importance of accessing company background shows that even if you plan to incorporate different media elements into your site, the ultimate requirement of your online newsroom is to provide the basic materials to the media in manner that’s easy to understand and access.

Technorati Tags: public relations, PR, media relations, online newsrooms, press center

In case you missed any of these posts the first time around, here’s a roundup of everything we published this month.

Francis
India a challenging but promising market, entrepreneurs hear
inmedia’s “Team iPhone” triggers productivity crash
It’s easy building green

Danny
Do social networking sites play a role in B2B PR?
Tools are great, but they can’t do PR!
Checking out the Scottish Technology Showcase
Top business mags embrace social networking

Linda
Bulldog Reporter weighs in about online newsrooms
Best practices for your online newsroom
Providing the media with the tools they need to cover your company
Database maintenance
Components of an integrated PR program: Media monitoring

Jill
When and how to inquire about editorial calendar opportunities

inmedia
Not all journalists are angry
Major publisher of technology media titles declares bankruptcy

Peter Kemball
2008 Canadian budget a boon for entrepreneurs

Technorati Tags: public relations, PR, media relations, B2B PR, B2B public relations, online newsrooms, press center, iPhone, social networks, 2008 Canadian budget, Ziff Davis bankruptcy