Autumn Intent IPR 545

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Yes, it’s been a long time coming, a long time behind episodes. But we’re back with Inside PR for another year. And we’re getting back into the groove by discussing the things that we are looking at in the waning months of 2019.

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Thank you to the people behind Inside PR.

Our theme music was created by Damon de Szegheo; Roger Dey is our announcer. Inside PR is produced by Joseph Thornley.

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Autumn Intent – Inside PR 545 by Joseph Thornley, Gini Dietrich, Martin Waxman is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

Data Laundering the Facebook Way – Inside PR 535

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In late January, Facebook launched a PR initiative that, on its face, appeared intended to reframe in 2019 the issues that got away from them in 2018, AKA Facebook’s privacy offences that dominated the year since the Cambridge Analytica scandal became public. This week on Inside PR, Gini Dietrich, Martin Waxman and Joseph Thornley talk about this first phase of what by late February was unmistakably a concerted effort by Facebook to reframe the issues swirling around it.

Martin doesn’t buy Facebook’s argument that we are getting Facebook’s service for free? Not for a second. We’re paying — and the currency is our data. Gini argues that we are the product when it comes to social media. However, she accepts Facebook’s argument that they are not selling our data. Instead, she focuses on the need for each of us to make our own calculation about whether what we receive is a fair exchange for our attention and what Facebook learns about us. And Joe? Well he’s not buying Facebook’s arguments that they don’t sell our data. They do sell the intelligence and insight that comes from possessing our data. And, as far as he’s concerned that makes them “Data Launderers,” the digital equivalent of money launderers.

Martin picks up on this and says that we can see Facebook as not necessarily selling the data, but being the agent by which our data is used and obtains the value of using it. And they can do this because they are so big. Perhaps too big. And, says Martin, all you have to do is look at what Facebook is doing with WhatsApp, Facebook and Instagram — rolling up the data each has about us. Different data from what we view as different platforms gives them an even more granular portrait of us that they can draw on to the benefit of advertisers. What of the trust we established with these platforms when they gave us the reassurance of remaining discrete and protecting us from being rolled into an even bigger data bank?

Gini brings it back to a pragmatic reality. Facebook has become so effective, so pervasive, so dominant, can an advertiser ignore them? And that leads us to accept their assertions of good intent.

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Thank you to the people behind Inside PR.

Our theme music was created by Damon de Szegheo; Roger Dey is our announcer. Inside PR is produced by Joseph Thornley.

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Data Laundering the Facebook Way – Inside PR 535 by Joseph Thornley, Gini Dietrich, Martin Waxman is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

When a client stops returning your calls (Inside PR 524)

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On this week’s Inside PR podcast, we look at several developments and topics of interest to PR practitioners and agency leaders:

  • Google+ has gone away. We reflect on its demise and what it did and didn’t mean for us in its prime and at the end.
  • The retro-lovers among us may have noticed the return of the Palm brand name. It may go to show that there’s always a demand for people who turn left when the rest of us turn right.
  • There’s a new podcast for PR agency leaders, aptly named the Agency Leadership Podcast. And Gini Dietrich is co-hosting it with former Custom Scoop CEO Chip Griffin. Each week, Gini and Chip will provide insight into the challenges, skills and moves necessary to run an agency in the gig economy. This is Gini’s third podcast. She will continue to co-host Inside PR with Martin and Joe and she will also offer advice for practitioners on Spin Sucks. The era of Gini Dietrich podcasting truly has arrived. 
  • Is your boss an Algorithm? Algorithms are everywhere. They determine the content we see. They rate our performance at work. And their influence over us is expanding and growing. Is this something we should simply accept or should we become proactive in examining and shaping how and when they can be applied?
  • What do you do when clients refuse to call back? Last week, an agency owner raised the question in the Spin Sucks Community on Slack of how to handle a non-responsive client. We’ve all seen clients who get busy, who disappear for a while, or who are chronically late with feedback. And we have a good discussion of how we have dealt with that in the past.

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Please rate us on Apple Podcasts

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Thank you to the people behind Inside PR.

Our theme music was created by Damon de Szegheo; Roger Dey is our announcer. Inside PR is produced by Joseph Thornley.

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When a client stops returning your calls (Inside PR 524) by Joseph Thornley, Gini Dietrich, Martin Waxman is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

You’re in trouble if your password is “Password” – Inside PR 523

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On this week’s Inside PR podcast, Martin Waxman and Joseph Thornley discuss several topics:

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It’s your turn.

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Please rate us on Apple Podcasts

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Thank you to the people behind Inside PR.

Our theme music was created by Damon de Szegheo; Roger Dey is our announcer. Inside PR is produced by Joseph Thornley.

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You’re in trouble is your password is “Password” – Inside PR 523 by Joseph Thornley, Gini Dietrich, Martin Waxman is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

Crisis Communications Unrealistic Expectations? (Inside PR 522)

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On this week’s podcast, Gini, Martin and Joe talk about privacy and the continuing interest of government legislators about what the social networks and search engines are doing – and not doing – to protect it. Privacy is not just about the personally identifiable data. It’s as much about the metadata that flows from it.

We also talk about how realistic it is to expect agencies and organizations to respond to individual people during a crisis. The case is Joe’s over-two-day return to the dark ages when he and 250,000 other Hydro customers lost their power following a tornado in Ottawa. Is it good enough for organizations to simply publish general information – or should they attempt to respond to individuals and communicate information that would be useful to specific groups, such as neighbourhoods.

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We’d love to know what you think about the topics we discussed as well as your suggestions for questions you’d like answered or topics for future shows.

Please rate us on Apple Podcasts

We hope you like the podcast as much as we like making it for you. If you do, we have a favor to ask: If you like this podcast, please rate us on Apple Podcasts.

Thank you to the people behind Inside PR.

Our theme music was created by Damon de Szegheo; Roger Dey is our announcer. Inside PR is produced by Joseph Thornley.

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Inside PR 522 Unrealistic Expectations by Joseph Thornley, Gini Dietrich, Martin Waxman is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

Nike highlights the value and perils of corporate activism (Inside PR 520)

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This week on Inside PR, we discuss Nike’s recent endorsement of Colin Kaepernick as an example of corporate activism and corporate social responsibility. And we also share some things we’ve created elsewhere that we hope you will find useful.

Martin Waxman has a show? No, a LinkedIn course.

Martin Waxman’s new LinkedIn Learning course has just been released. Check out Martin’s advice for using Blogging for Your Business.

SpinSucks, but you don’t

The latest episode of the SpinSucks podcast provides a good refresher on the PESO model. If you are looking for a good overview, check it out.

Let’s go Inside P2

Joe has started a series of interviews with leaders of the public engagement community from around the world. He published the first of these on the current edition of Inside P2, an interview with the President of IAP2 Canada, Bruce Gilbert.

Nike and Colin Kaepernick

Gini and Martin see Nike’s Colin Kaepernick endorsement as a laudable example of corporate activism. Joe is not so sure.

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It’s your turn.

We’d love to know what you think about the topics we discussed as well as your suggestions for questions you’d like answered or topics for future shows.

Please rate us on Apple Podcasts

We hope you like the podcast as much as we like making it for you. If you do, we have a favor to ask: If you like this podcast, please rate us on Apple Podcasts.

Thank you to the people behind Inside PR.

Our theme music was created by Damon de Szegheo; Roger Dey is our announcer. Inside PR is produced by Joseph Thornley.

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Nike highlights the value and perils of corporate activism (Inside PR 520) by Joseph Thornley, Gini Dietrich, Martin Waxman is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

Do you see the bias? (Inside PR 519)

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We’re back after a brief summer vacation. And we have lots to talk about.

Snooze Keywords on Facebook

Facebook is working to make it easier for you to avoid those annoying spoilers about the program you’re half way through binging with a new keyword topic filter. The keyword filter has been available to some lucky users in the United States, Canada, the UK, Australia and New Zealand. Let’s hope that it becomes available to us all soon. I know I’ll be using it to hide anything to do with cats and kittens.

Rooting out bias

Facebook and Google’s role as gatekeepers of what we see is under scrutiny again. Farhad Manjou directed our attention to the built in biases that Google’s algorithms and AI can display. We’ve talked about this before. And the platforms have acknowledged that they do have problems that they are trying to fix. But when they do, their solutions are opaque to end users and citizens. Can we trust the platforms to self regulate? Can communications professionals play a more active role in calling for more transparency? Can government establish a legal or regulatory regime that will achieve a better balance between the public interest and the interest of the platforms’ shareholders?

A Lasting Reputation Hit for the New Yorker?

It seemed like a good idea at the time – invite Steve Bannon for a featured interview with David Remnick onstage at the New Yorker Festival. And then the reaction started. Other speakers pulled out. People weighed in on social media (of course!) And before you could turn around, Steve Bannon was uninvited. Some said this was the right thing to do. Others suggested that it was another example of an institution caving to the Twitter mob. So, what does the New Yorker do now? How do they avoid a permanent reputation hit?

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It’s your turn.

We’d love to know what you think about the topics we discussed as well as your suggestions for questions you’d like answered or topics for future shows.

Please rate us on Apple Podcasts

We hope you like the podcast as much as we like making it for you. If you do, we have a favor to ask: If you like this podcast, please rate us on Apple Podcasts.

Thank you to the people behind Inside PR.

Our theme music was created by Damon de Szegheo; Roger Dey is our announcer. Inside PR is produced by Joseph Thornley.

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Inside PR 519: Do you see the bias? by Joseph Thornley, Gini Dietrich, Martin Waxman is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

Inside PR 484: Bag O’ Chips TV

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Farewell to Anthony Scaramucci

We received a great deal of reaction to our discussion of the appointment of a communications novice to the White House Communications Director. And the day after our discussion, Anthony Scaramucci was fired! Cause and effect? Hardly. But the right move in light of his disastrous ten days in that position. Altogether now, communications professionals: A big sigh of relief.

Facebook Watch

Facebook is rolling out a new “Watch” tab on the mobile app to feature short form, more professional videos. But what will be on it? Variety profiled several early shows, which sounded to Joe like reality TV dreck. Gini, however,  is one of the lucky people with early access – and she reports that her “Watch” tab includes the Ellen DeGeneres Show, ABC News, Good Morning America, and the Tonight Show. So, there will be dreck there. As Martin says, it sounds like something created by Chuck Barris, known for his low brow game shows. However, Gini’s first set of feeds suggests that the algorithm will give people the kind of content they consume (if not deserve). If you click on dreck in your Facebook feed, expect to see dreck in your Watch tab. If you click on more intelligent news and videos on your newsfeed, expect to see something more thought provoking in the Watch tab.

The Future of Voice Search and AI

We have entered the era of voice search. And we talk about its implications. One thing is clear: voice search will require marketers to think differently about the content they create and the placement they seek in a voice search environment. Think about the way you interact with your voice devices like Alexa and Siri right now. Do you ask a question and then go to the first result you hear? Or do you ask it a series of questions? We think that success in the era of voice search will be rely on finding a way to be useful in a conversational mode – to have the most useful content that will surface as users interact with their voice interfaces.

It’s your turn.

We’d love to know what you think about the topics we discussed as well as your suggestions for questions you’d like answered or topics for future shows. Leave a comment on the blog, send us an email or an audio comment to [email protected], leave a comment on the Inside PR Facebook group or the FIR Podcast Network Facebook group, We’re also on Twitter. We’re @inside_pr or connect directly with Gini Dietrich, Joseph Thornley, and Martin Waxman.

#IPRMustKnow

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Please rate us on Apple Podcasts

We hope you like the podcast as much as we like making it for you. If you do, we have a favor to ask: If you like this podcast, please rate us on Apple Podcasts.

Subscribe on the podcast app of your choice

We’re trying to be wherever you want us to be. So, you can subscribe to Inside PR on the most popular podcast apps.

******************************************************************

Thank you to the people behind Inside PR. Our theme music was created by Damon de Szegheo; Roger Dey is our announcer. Inside PR is produced by Joseph Thornley.

Inside PR 482: The state of political communication in Washington

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This week, Gini, Martin and Joe are doing something special – a joint episode of Inside PR and the Spin Sucks Fireside Chat. During her journeys on the speakers’ circuit, Gini met Tyler Brown, a long-time senior communicator at the Republican National Committee who has recently moved over to public affairs consulting. The confluence of political and corporate communications is a hot topic for all of us. So, Gini asked Tyler if he would share his experience and insights with us.

Tyler knows both the worlds of political and corporate communications. From 2009 through the 2016 US election season, he held a number of senior communications positions at the Republican National Committee. During that time, he served first as Northeast Regional Press Secretary, then Director of Rapid Response and Deputy Director of Communications. From 2012 through to the end of 2016, he was the Republicans’ Director of Digital Strategy. In January 2017, Tyler joined Mercury Public Affairs’ Washington office as Senior Vice President. His areas of practice at Mercury include digital, grassroots coalition building, and public affairs campaign management.

Our conversation covers a lot of ground. Join with Martin, Gini and Joe as we talk with Tyler about what he saw in eight years inside the Washington political machine and what that taught him that we all can use.

It’s your turn.

We’d love to know what you think about the topics we discussed as well as your suggestions for questions you’d like answered or topics for future shows. Leave a comment on the blog, send us an email or an audio comment to [email protected], leave a comment on the Inside PR Facebook group or the FIR Podcast Network Facebook group, We’re also on Twitter. We’re @inside_pr or connect directly with Gini Dietrich, Joseph Thornley, and Martin Waxman.

#IPRMustKnow

Our hashtag is #IPRMustKnow. If you are tweeting or posting about the podcast, please include our hashtag so that we can find your post.

Please rate us on Apple Podcasts

We hope you like the podcast as much as we like making it for you. If you do, we have a favor to ask: If you like this podcast, please rate us on Apple Podcasts.

Subscribe on the podcast app of your choice

We’re trying to be wherever you want us to be. So, you can subscribe to Inside PR on the most popular podcast apps.

******************************************************************

Thank you to the people behind Inside PR. Our theme music was created by Damon de Szegheo; Roger Dey is our announcer. Inside PR is produced by Joseph Thornley.

Inside PR 481: Really, we’re not making this stuff up.

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Dean Baquet inadvertently makes the case for a Public Editor at the New York Times. Google supports innovation in online news, but diverts attention from the real issue. The News Media Alliance calls for an antitrust exemption. Yep, that’s right. Solve the problem of market dominance by compounding the problem. Really, we’re not making this stuff up.

Martin Waxman and Joseph Thornley tackle these issues in this episode of the Inside PR podcast. Gini Dietrich is traveling this week, but she’ll rejoin us next week.

Dean Baquet answers reader questions – and inadvertently makes the case for a Public Editor

Last month, the New York Times eliminated its public editor position. And we thought this was a bad move.

Last week, Dean Baquet published a column answering readers’ questions about the cuts to editorial staff and, in doing so, he inadvertently made the case for a Public Editor at the New York Times. The fact that Baquet had an answer for every question, and that these answers showed no self doubt or reconsideration of positions, illustrated that simply receiving and answering questions does not replace the Public Editor function. The Public Editor was a position inside the NY Times, with the perspective on what happened as the sausages were made, and the ability to comment freely from an independent perspective. That now is lost. And just like a government without checks and balances, real accountability is imperilled.

Google supports innovation in online news; but diverts attention from real issue

Google and Facebook have recently been moving to support innovation in online news publishing. Martin points to one of the most recent efforts, a US $800,00 contribution by Google’s Digital News Initiative toward the creation of RADAR, software that will generate local news stories for the The Press Association, a U.K.-based news agency. A little support for template, predictable stories. But that’s not what we need. This type of effort to support innovation only diverts attention from the real issue. We need support for the reporters who exercise judgment about sophisticated stories.

The News Media Alliance’s solution will compound the problem

Last year, the Newspaper Association of America rebranded itself as The News Media Alliance. Does new paint lead to a smarter organization? It doesn’t seem so, based on its effort to convince Congress to give news publishers antitrust exemption to enable them to negotiate with Facebook and Google. Doesn’t this remind you of the publishers negotiating with Amazon over the right to set book prices? And who was the loser? The reading public who found those $9.99 book prices replaced by $19 book prices.

The solution to the plight of news publishers isn’t to allow them to escape antitrust so that they can negotiate as a group. Instead, the real answer to the problem lies in challenging the dominance achieved in search and social by Google and Facebook respectively and the unfettered power they are allowed to exercise. If anything, Congress should focus on reining in these two dominant platforms. Then, maybe, we’ll be able to stop the erosion of competition and enable innovation by small companies. Just as Google and Facebook once innovated.

Think twice before you upload a large PDF to your Website

We offer a reminder to anyone responsible for running a Website to think about the size of documents they expect to be downloaded by the public. This came to mind with the recent increase in the price charged by Canada’s largest ISPs to people who exceed their monthly data cap. If you publish PDFs and other documents for download that will gobble up 50MB of a visitor’s monthly data allowance, they will not thank you. In fact, if they reflect on it, they may actually think that what you are doing is costing them money. And do we like people who cost us money? So, if you are in charge of a Website, please, please, please ensure that anything you publish on your site, whether it is documents for download, images or anything else, are compressed to the smallest usable size. Your visitors will appreciate you for this.

It’s your turn.

We’d love to know what you think about the topics we discussed as well as your suggestions for questions you’d like answered or topics for future shows. Leave a comment on the blog, send us an email or an audio comment to [email protected], leave a comment on the Inside PR Facebook group or the FIR Podcast Network Facebook group, We’re also on Twitter. We’re @inside_pr or connect directly with Gini Dietrich, Joseph Thornley, and Martin Waxman.

#IPRMustKnow

Our hashtag is #IPRMustKnow. If you are tweeting or posting about the podcast, please include our hashtag so that we can find your post.

Please rate us on Apple Podcasts

We hope you like the podcast as much as we like making it for you. If you do, we have a favor to ask: If you like this podcast, please rate us on Apple Podcasts.

Subscribe on the podcast app of your choice

We’re trying to be wherever you want us to be. So, you can subscribe to Inside PR on the most popular podcast apps.

******************************************************************

Thank you to the people behind Inside PR. Our theme music was created by Damon de Szegheo; Roger Dey is our announcer. Inside PR is produced by Joseph Thornley.