I think there need to be a serious change in the way PR and branding companies work.
Traditional PR speaks to me of Press Releases, champagne receptions, dead tree mailshots and funny little pointless desk accessories emblazoned with our brand and logo.
Seriously. They spoke to me of this.
I can’t think of how much out of our plan that would be. Our business cards are the only dead tree products we plan to produce. We’re intending to be 100% Bedouin so desk accessories would be useless. Mailshots? For an internet company? Sure we intend to have a SyncBridge launch party but that’s more to do with being the only Mac software company in Northern Ireland and wanting to do something with the local MUG involving an all-new branch of CocoaHeads as well as my friends in Mac-Sys the only Apple Authorised Service Provider in the province. Yeah, sure, that’s closer to traditional PR but the people turning up I consider to be my friends!
I read a couple of PR blogs. One I recommend is Piaras Kelly: Public Relations from an Irish Perspective and I also read Guy Kawasaki’s Blog for extra inspiration. There’s a couple more but these ones are always worth a look.
The Scobleizer, arguably the hottest tech news this quarter, speculates Microsoft holds traditional PR in unreasonably high esteem and they should be paying more attention to the grassroots. He cites Apple and Google as companies which have ensnared the grassroots.
I think it’s deeper than that, of course.
Microsoft has lost the Alpha Geeks. In their place they have trolls like Dvorak, Thurott and Enderle who spend a lot of time thinking of ways to rile up the Mac and Linux crowds who are still not wise to their tactics.
I know some smart people who swear by Microsoft and sometimes I wonder if my faith is misplaced.