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The Greatest Compliment

I’ve worked hard for my entire career to deliver the best possible work I could for my clients, and that philosophy permeates Articulate.  This means telling clients things they don’t want to hear if it’s in their best interest.  Most importantly, it means consistently delivering results that help them and their companies meet their business objectives. 

Time and again, our clients reward us by their decisions to be a part of the Articulate family.  On our client roster today, I’m proud to say we are working with:

• Nine companies where the CEO or head of marketing worked with us in a previous life and brought us in – no questions asked – when they landed someplace new.
• Two client contacts who were introduced to Articulate by competitors who thought they were “above” working with them – these clients now combine for nearly $300,000 in annual billings.
• One client company who’s been with us since the agency was founded nearly seven years ago – through good times and bad, and through countless acquisitions, we are proud to be their agency of record.
• Two subsidiaries of the same company who competed to see which one would get to start with their Articulate team first.
• And one client who just recently returned to the Articulate fold after being lured away by a smaller competitor who promised bigger results, only to learn the hard way that really having professional integrity and personal ethics mean more than just saying you have them.

In these times, you’re likely hearing from people you haven’t heard from in ages, or getting e-mails from vendors who’ve never reached out before.  It’s called desperation.  And it rarely works in a good economy, much less times like these.  I’m humbled to see the results of hard work, longstanding relationships and honorable business practices, and I thank our clients for reminding me every day why we do what we do.

By Laura Grimmer

Stimulating Industries Across Delancey

One of the things I like most about working at Articulate is being at the crossroads of so many industries – media, technology and a plethora of vertical markets.  It has made me realize that my answer to “what do you do” has become a convoluted hodge-podge, which happens to be exactly what I advise my clients against.

In less than 12 hours this week I went from one end of the technology spectrum, Web 2.0 at Web2NewYork, to the other, financial services at Financial Technology Forum’s Electronic Trading of Futures & Options event.  I don’t think I could have found two events that were more polar opposite.

I love going to the Tech Meetups and Web2NewYork events to see the latest widgets from MixedInk’s collaborative writing tool to Switch Games video game trading marketplace.  These forums blend the business world with the social tools we use for our everyday life.

The next day I left the cheery Web 2.0 bubble and traveled from the Lower East Side to the Financial District where the gray day only served to emphasize the somber mood.  The event, full of exchanges, buy- and sell-side firms, regulators and a spattering of technology vendors, discussed the intersection of trading issues across the increasingly global market and high-performance solutions.

It’s not completely obvious when you first think about these events, but they share a common thread in that they highlight our increased cost consciousness.  Gone are the days where we were only looking for the latest and greatest widget, now everyone wants to know about the business model that supports it. And instead of throwing top-of-the-line servers to shave off a few milliseconds for a competitive edge, financial firms are re-evaluating where they can manage spend, doing more with what they’ve got.

And just as businesses are beginning to come around to the sober reality of our current times, so is our country.  As the U.S. economic stimulus plan continues to hold our attention, it’s hard not to take note of our lacking infrastructure.  U.S. broadband infrastructure is regularly compared to that of underdeveloped nations.  In fact, I was shocked to see how automated everything was in the Tokyo airport I passed through last year compared with New York where I still have cell phone signal issues. 

As we weather this difficult period, it’s nice to see we’re mimicking the themes I see at industry events, improving our infrastructure and resources with electronic health records, reliable broadband connections and a smart grid – re-evaluating where we can spend, doing more with what we’ve got and ensuring there’s a sturdy business model to support it.

By Katy Zack

The Art of the Embargo

While futzing around on the Internet this morning, I came across a headline so ridiculous I had to click on it – “11% of Internet Users are on Twitter?!?.”  Given my love-hate relationship with the microblogging service, I was proud, yet completely unable to believe such a high percentage of people were using it.  Turns out, the thing that really got my attention was a totally unrelated note from its author. 

Dubious of this number himself, Eric Krangel reached out to the Pew Institute to find out their methodology for determining the statistic.  I’m sure the last thing he expected was to be met with the possibility of Silicon Alley Insider being blacklisted by the Pew Institute if he published the story because the embargo on the report had yet to be lifted.  Especially since the story was already live on TVweek! 

This brings me to A-Rod.  I know, how does a ‘roided up baseball player fit into a story about technology and embargos?  Well, after the A-Rod story broke, reporters were clamoring for an interview with him.  ESPN’s Peter Gammons was the lucky winner, and he sat down with A-Rod for an interview airing Sunday night. 

Surely the first words from the disgraced star were big news, so when I was punishing myself on the treadmill at 5:30 the next morning and couldn’t find a video clip on the local news, I was confused.  The WFAN radio hosts later informed me that all audio and video from the interview had been embargoed by ESPN, forcing them to lamely “reenact” the affair for their eager audience. 

Fresh off the “Death to the Embargo” brouhaha orchestrated by TechCrunch’s Michael Arrington, these incidents only compound the message he was trying to get across.  In today’s media world, breaking the news is often more important than being factually accurate.  So if we (PR professionals, that is) have a story that everyone wants, why are we so surprised when someone breaks our embargo?  And if a journalist comes to us requesting information on an embargoed story that’s already broken, how much sense does it make to threaten or punish him when he’s just trying to do his job?  The relationship between PR people and journalists can be tenuous at times, but it doesn’t have to be a battle. 

Yes, embargos help us control the message, but they also give reporters time to formulate great stories before the news actually breaks.  We’re just as reliant on them as they are on us.  Given the symbiotic relationship between journalists and PR pros, I think it’s be time to get off our high horse and take a reality pill or two about this whole embargo thing.

By Kate Reed

The Payoff for Practicing What You Preach

Every company has a vision; something it communicates as paramount to its existence.  Articulate’s vision is to build relationships with its clients, partners and each other that inspire, enlighten and motivate.  We stress true partnerships, rather than just standard vendor-client relationships.  We aren’t the type of PR firm that just pitches media – we’re a strategic communications partner that helps our clients achieve their high-level business objectives.

Yet a vision remains just a vision until it’s validated.  Words are only words when you preach them; they become actions when you practice them.  This week, I received some great validation for what we do.  While attending a client sales meeting at Structural Graphics in Essex, Conn., I gave an overview to the sales team about what we’d achieved so far.  At the end of the presentation, one of the sales reps raised her hand and said, “I don’t have a question, but I did want to say that I loved what you said.  Every time you talked about something it was ‘our project’ or ‘our launch’ or ‘our work.’  It’s like you’re a part of the team and not just some external person.”

This belief is part of everything I’ve ever done here, so I hadn’t even thought about it.  Nothing is ever what you are doing; it’s what we are doing.  We’re partners in every sense of the word and it never occurred to me to present it in any other way.  We’re in it together, and that’s the approach we take with all of our clients – our partners.

I relayed that information to the sales team, and closed by saying, “You’re right, I do feel like I’m part of the team, and truthfully, I already feel like I work here.  I just don’t have the e-mail address.”

It’s amazing what can happen when you practice what you preach.    

By Meghan Attreed

Articu-Relationships

At Articulate, we truly believe in building strong relationships and, in turn, started a program called Articu-Relationships.  The idea is for us to leverage our close industry contacts and share them with one another.  We’ve brought in analysts, clients, former clients, media, friends … you name it!  We’ll bring in anyone in the PR/marketing, journalism or technology spaces that can share his or her unique perspective. 

Last month, Ted Ladd, senior public relations manager at Microsoft, spoke to us about his role.  It was very interesting – and talk about a different perspective!  Working on PR for a huge company like Microsoft is definitely different than our roles here at Articulate. 

Yesterday, Victoria Schreiber, marcomm manager at Vhayu, talked with us.  Victoria, a two-time Articulate client, has held several in-house marketing roles at enterprise software companies.  She shared a great deal about the challenges and rewards of her job and provided us with good tips for working with clients.  One of the biggest challenges she’s experienced with PR firms (and she’s worked with 10!) is reporting.  While folks in her role typically understand the value of PR, it’s often not easy to express it to a C-level executive.  Victoria discussed different ways to slice and dice information:  “You can create a document with tons of statistics, but if you don’t show the real impact of PR it doesn’t matter.  You need to illustrate how PR impacts sales and the company’s bottom line.”

Thanks to Ted and Victoria for coming in to speak with us!  We’re looking forward to our next Articu-Relationship meeting in a few weeks.  If you’re interested in chatting with the Articulate team, please contact me at kcorcoran@articulatepr.com.
 
By Kate Corcoran

Social Media Marketing: Who’s Leading Whom?

Articulate recently chaired a roundtable discussion on Social Media at the Business Development Institute’s Real-Time Communications Conference, and I was struck by one simple observation:  For all the talk about Social Media, most large, global companies seemed completely at a loss as to how to harness the new media revolution. 

Oh, sure.  There were a few standouts – Ray Kerins, vice president of worldwide communications for Pfizer; Morgan Johnston, corporate communications manager for JetBlue; and Paul Gennaro, senior vice president and chief communications officer for AECOM Technology Corp. all are working to bring their companies into the digital communications age.  Yet even their anecdotes spoke to real-time communications like responding to phone calls or e-mails quickly, not to the immediacy of using Twitter as a brand-building and management tool.  Here’s the general takeaways from the big brands:

• No one feels like they’re able to track and quantify the impact of Social Media on   marketing and sales

• Everyone said it requires “getting comfortable with a loss of control.”

• It forces company executives to view “real time” in a new way.

• It provides a role for new, younger employees to step up and take the reins   in leading their companies into the new virtual reality.

I walked away feeling that we in communications and high tech are well ahead of the general curve.  In the parlance of Geoffrey Moore in Inside the Tornado, we are the Early Adopters, leading the way in testing and trying new things before they reach general adoption.  It behooves us to be take responsibility in defining metrics and helping to establish the weight that Social Media should carry as part of a fully integrated marketing and communications initiative.

By Laura Grimmer

What’s Wrong with “Me”?

If you’ve been on Facebook at any point in the last two weeks (and who hasn’t?) then you’ve probably come across a trend that’s been spreading like the plague.  I’m referring to the “25 Random Things About Me” note, in which a person is tasked with devising a list of miscellaneous trivia about himself or herself and “tagging” as many people as they see fit to read their list and make a similar one of their own.  I’ll admit that I have read each and every one of these notes that’s come across my radar, and have enjoyed them immensely.  What’s more fun than learning things about a friend or acquaintance that you might not have known before? 

Yet for some reason I can’t shake the feeling, deep in my soul, that this is wrong, wrong, wrong.  Worse, it exposes one of the uglier and more narcissistic tendencies of social networking that has accompanied its great and various benefits:  the marketing of “me.” 

We live in a culture that places an inordinate amount of importance on the concept of “self.”  Self-improvement, self-help, self-healing, self-serve, self-checkout and so forth.  We dedicate entire bookstore sections to the first concept in particular (former CBS news producer Dick Meyer articulates this problem quite nicely in his wonderful 2008 book “Why We Hate Us:  American Discontent in the New Millennium”).  Very little emphasis is placed on others – it’s all about how high “I” can climb, what “I” can achieve, how “I” can reach “my” potential.  Social networking, and Facebook in particular, exemplifies another “self”-centered concept that the “25 Things” list only exacerbates:  self-promotion. 

Facebook forces one to spend time creating a personal profile – inherently self-serving, but a necessary evil – and then to promote this profile outward to a network of friends, contacts, etc., in the hopes that people will read this information and learn something about the person that created it.  Of course, one of the joys of social networking is viewing other people’s information and getting the various updates on what they’ve been doing or thinking about.  But how much time are most users spending thinking about themselves in order to keep their profiles updated and ensure that their networks are getting the latest and greatest information about them? 

The “25 Things” note takes this to an absurd level.  It requires the writer to spend enough time thinking about himself or herself so that he or she can come up with an interesting  and varied list of – 25! – things they think are interesting enough for people to want to know.  Why not make it 50, or 100?   

At its best, social networking is capable of connecting people across vast spaces in ways that were previously thought impossible.  But it’s easy to let the more self-serving aspects of it get the better of us, and this is a line I believe the “25 Things” list crosses. 

The dirty little secret is that most of us spend an unreasonable amount of our day thinking about ourselves.  It’s unavoidable.  We’re the center of our universe.  But is this something we should really be celebrating?  Shouldn’t we be spending more time thinking about how we can help others, make others’ lives easier or make others feel special? 

I don’t want make too big a deal out of this.  I’m pretty sure that not a single person who has created a “25 Things” list has done so out of any conscious narcissism or feeling of self-importance.  And as stated previously, there isn’t a single one of these lists that I’ve read that I haven’t enjoyed thoroughly. 

But I won’t do it.  I’ve got to draw the line somewhere.  If you’re really interested in finding out some interesting miscellaneous trivia about me, give me a call and ask me (you’ve got my number). 

Or, better yet, how about I buy you a beer and ask you all about yourself instead?  Yeah, let’s do that.  That works better for me.  

By Mark Van Hook