Technology agency of the year

We’re pretty proud of that, so why not make it the headline? Airfoil has been ranked as a top 10 technology agency on a few lists for the past few years, but we’re excited to be named the technology agency of the year by the Holmes Report (sub.). We’ve also moved up from No. 58 to No. 53 in PRWeek’s 2008 agency ranking (sub.).

We had a big year in 2007 by expanding our team and moving our Silicon Valley office to a larger location. We added a lot of really great clients who understand and desire our speed-process-measurement approach.

I’m really proud of our employees. We’ve assembled a stellar team here. Each and every person works hard for our clients and has a true dedication to our success as an agency.

With our agency offices situated in often-maligned Michigan and the often-hyped Silicon Valley, we’re able to provide perspectives of the ups and downs of the U.S. economy from every angle. It’s been a great ride so far and the future looks to be even more promising.

-- Janet Tyler

Technically Speaking, We’re All Better Off

A third of the year has spun by and the headlines on the news sites remain almost universally frustrating. It seems like we just aren’t making any progress in so many fields—war, the economy, global warming, poverty, the whole slate. Until we look back, say, to 10 years ago to remember how we lived then. We sometimes forget how much of an improvement technology has made in our lives in just a decade or so. From a site called The People History, here are some of the devices and developments of 1998 that changed us forever:

• Microsoft released its Windows 98 operating system
• E-commerce began to emerge, with an eruption of online stores
• With its MSN site, Microsoft launched its first online search engine
• A search engine called Google was founded
• The FDA approved Viagra
• Apple began selling a computer called the iMAC

What a different world we live in now! We take for granted our ability to go online anytime from anywhere to shop in seconds, to find out everything about anything or anyone with a few keywords, and to direct our physicians toward the pharmaceuticals we want, rather than just the ones they recommend.

Our society may be deteriorating around the edges, but I think it’s stronger at its core with the technology that has continued to expand as a foundation for our lifestyles and productivity. What inventions over the past year will mark yet more technological tipping points when we look back in, say, 2018? Here are a few nominations from 2007-08:

• Microsoft’s unified communications, tearing down the boundaries between computers and phones
• Apple’s iPhone
• Hulu.com, a site where several TV networks aggregate full episodes of their current and past TV shows for viewing on computers.
• Transformation of the “green” movement into green technology, from sustainable materials in vehicles to HFC-free, superefficient Coke machines

What innovations would you nominate? Perhaps it’s too early to be listing nominations, though; the pace of technology has sped to the point where, eight months from now, we’ll have new devices, new versions and new approaches that make April, 2008 seem “so yesterday.”

-- Steve Friedman

Helping others with environmental awareness

In honor of Earth Day, here’s a fascinating story about a Michigan couple who not only go green at home but find opportunities for their local school, too.

Kathy scours Web sites looking for state, federal and foundation grants. Her grant-writing abilities have brought Laker schools a composter; wind turbines; a science lab where kids learn how to make their own wind turbines; grants for a turbine; solar panels that track the sun's movement; a new biomass boiler for the superintendent's home; processors to make biodiesel and seed oil, and a program to use 20% biodiesel on buses and retrofit old buses with equipment to clean up their diesel emissions.

-- Tonja Deegan

Healthcare industry turns to communities and direct feedback

In the conclusion of our two-part series on “The Prognosis for What’s Next in Healthcare,” we examine the importance of building communities of interest with consumers and maximizing the healthcare provider’s presence in the online world.

Listen to part two of our discussion here or subscribe to our podcasts here. You can download the PDF version of the white paper here.

The Importance of Media Monitoring

Here’s a quick tip for all of you aspiring PR professionals out there:  Don’t pitch a company as a third-party source that has filed for bankruptcy and is shutting down in the near future.

Contrary to popular belief, a technology reporter will likely not want to write about a company that recently underwent a technology transition and saved thousands of dollars if that company has also indicated they can no longer compete due to various economic issues.

This drives home how important it is to stay current on your news – both for your client and their customers.

Thankfully, the reporter laughed along with me at the unintended irony of my pitch.  I had to admit I had not actively monitored the customers’ news since last week.  While you wouldn’t expect such a swift change in a company’s fortunes, it does happen.

If it were a less-sympathetic reporter, I may have ended up in the Bad Pitch Blog.

-- Brad Marley

The Prognosis for What’s Next in Healthcare

As social media becomes integrated in many people’s lives, we have taken control of the very institutions that once controlled us. Everything from media to brands has been seized by consumers. Now we write large portions of the news ourselves and we shop anytime from anywhere for anything we want and many times have input directly on the products themselves.

This shift is emerging in the healthcare industry. Healthcare finds itself in the throes of the same consumer-driven relentlessness that changed the way we work, play and socialize.

In this first part of our podcast on “The Prognosis for What’s Next in Healthcare,” we examines the implications for the demand by consumers for increased control over their own healthcare and the role that technology plays both as a challenge and a solution for the healthcare industry.

Listen to part one of our discussion here or subscribe to our podcasts here. You can download the PDF version of the white paper here.

Punctuation, Politics and the Public Forum

I’ve been a little tardy in updating my AP Stylebook, but I now have the current, 2007 edition on my desk. Perusing it shows that the concept of “hard and fast rules” is as ambiguous in grammar as it is in politics.

For example, expounding on when to use the abbreviation “U.S.” vs. “United States,” my trusty 2004 version of the journalist’s bible proclaimed, “Spell out when used as a noun. Use U.S. only as an adjective.” The 2007 edition has eliminated any mention of this rule.

Similarly, the guide from four years ago provided a choice of “fund raising,” “fund-raising” and “fund raiser,” depending on how the words were used in a sentence. Last year’s version, however, says that “fundraising” and “fundraiser” should be “one word in all cases.”

While AP still capitalizes “Web” and insists against all good reason that “Bachelor of Arts” must take caps as well, I think the lesson here is not to take our words for granted. They can be altered in form, meaning and impact by both events and time.

Look at the political fireworks arising from the “just words” debate over Sen. Obama’s speechifying vs. Sen. Clinton’s claims of experience.

Look at the words of Rev. Wright describing the African-American experience in the United States and the words of Sen. Clinton describing her on-the-tarmac experience in Tuzla.

Look at Sen. McCain’s subsequently retracted-and-then restated pronouncement that Shiite Iran has been training Sunni Al-Qaeda.

Words assume a rainbow of hues depending on not just how they are used in a sentence but also the context in which they are used in the public forum. When we communicate, we need to be certain, first, that our choice of words means the same thing to our audience that it does to us and, then, that they will stand up over time as our society changes and as Tim Russert pulls our video from his time vault.

When we joyously announce a major expansion into China as a way to keep our prices down, does that message actually turn customers against us as they struggle to hold onto jobs across America?

Are we surprised to discover that the criticism we leveled at a competitor eventually complicates our merger talks with that same company?

Words endure forever now, online, on screen and on air. Business leaders should strive more than ever to speak to our times in terms that will continue to ring true when those times have changed and our cultural stylebook has evolved.

--by Steve Friedman