Airfoil Public Relations

From tragedy to triumph

At the beginning of President Obama’s State of the Union Address on Wednesday night he reminded America about times of hardship in our nation’s history and that we prevailed because we were united:

“These were times that tested the courage of our convictions, and the strength of our union. And despite all our divisions and disagreements; our hesitations and our fears; America prevailed because we chose to move forward as one nation, and one people.”

This is a time of hardship in our nation. Here in Michigan, I see every day how my loved ones are directly impacted by the automotive industry downturn. I watch helplessly as my family, friends, neighbors and colleagues pack their bags and move out of state for job opportunities because there are none here. But I remain optimistic. I truly love this state and I have faith that the people of Michigan will join together to rebuild our great state.

On Tuesday I attended GLITR 3.0: Innovating for Michigan’s Economic Future hosted by WWJ News Radio and the Great Lakes Innovation and Technology Report (GLITR) at Automation Alley. One of the speakers, Michael Harris, provost and vice president for academic affairs at Kettering University, forecasted that Michigan will rebuild and be known for its transformation through entrepreneurship and innovation. Another speaker, Randal Charlton, executive director of TechTown at Wayne State University, believes that we will go from being known as a state of tragedy to one of triumph. These are two powerful messages, but how do we get there?

Harris said there are five ingredients for Michigan’s future success:

1.       Partnership between industry, government, non-profit and universities

2.       Sharing of exceptional technical and scientific knowledge in order to foster growth

3.       Contradictory personnel attributes (we need to be well disciplined yet challenge the process; we need to fight like a warrior but also be able to accept failure)

4.       Appropriate and supportive government infrastructure

5.       Availability of financial resources

In the end, it all depends on us. But are Michigan residents, businesses, universities, non-profit organizations, and government entities ready to work together as partners in rebuilding our state? We have so many valuable resources at our disposal - an abundance of natural resources, some of the best universities in the U.S., a talented workforce, and strong Michigan business brands. It is time to bring all of these resources together and leverage them to breed innovation for our state, whether it be in alternative energy, clean technology, automotive, or any other industry.

The overarching message from the president's speech and the GLITR presentations is simple: innovation is key to rebuilding for a better future. It will take time, but I am confident that Michigan will reinvent itself and rise from tragedy to triumph.

-- Jennifer Wilt

Developing a digital media strategy? Start with research.

There is a common thought among companies that they NEED to be on the latest social networks in order to connect or retain customers. This is simply not true.

 

Plain and simple, companies need to be where their customers are online.

 

While this has been a best practice of Airfoil for some time, Altimeter Group founders and digital researchers Charlene Li and Jeremiah Owyang were able to relay this practice in a new and easy-to-understand approach.

 

With the number of social networks today – Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, FriendFeed, etc. – companies that think a presence is required on all of them tend to use, as Jeremiah said, a carpet bombing approach.

 

In order to truly connect with an audience, companies need to understand their audience’s behavior, which Altimeter has termed as “social graphics.” To build a digital strategy and connect with your audience, Altimeter has deve loped five key questions to use to evaluate your audience’s behavior:

 

-   Where are your customers online?

o   Translation - Are they active on particular Web sites, forums and/or social networks?

-   What are your customers’ social behaviors?

o   Translation – Do they tend to just read content? Or are they active commenters/contributors?

-   What social information or people do customers rely on?

o   Translation – Do they rely on word-of-mouth from friends and family? Or do they follow particular influencers?

-   What is your customers’ social influence?

o   Translation – Do your customers influence the actions/behaviors of others?

-   How do your customers use social technologies to learn, make decisions and support your products and/or services?

o   Translation – Do social networks or particular Web sites influence your customers’ decisions or behaviors?

Listening before leaping is the best move a company can make before engaging in social media. It starts with a social media audit to determine where your customers are, what they are talking about, the competitive landscape and what types of content and interaction is preferred.

 

While this is only the first step in building a digital media strategy for your company, it can help you put many things into perspective, including your customers.

 

-- Matt Wolpin

 

 

The Value of PR – What does it all mean?

With the New Year in full swing, now is the time to evaluate and establish new goals (or resolutions) to drive our professional and business strategies.  It all really comes down to measurement and assigning value to what’s important to yourself and the business. In the client service industry, that is undeniably one of the most important questions we ask ourselves on a daily basis.

 

 With that in mind (and as a high-compliance, to-do list making and metrics driven person myself), I recently read an intriguing piece in the Fall 2009 issue of The Strategist, “What Executives Want: Connecting PR Performance with Business Opportunities” by Mark Weiner. With a strategic investment in public relations, Airfoil is committed to regularly evaluating our programs and reporting our current success towards program goals.

 

In his piece, Weiner highlighted the true value of PR ROI and how to identify the best methods present it in terms of value and ROI back to your client or boss to determine future investments in PR. As a result, he broke down best practices of establishing a measurement of value for the business or client through:

· Aligning on public relations and business objectives

· Negotiating that the establishment and measurement standards for PR are reasonable, meaningful and measureable

· Setting standards and agreement on goals and driving the program to meet or (hopefully) exceed the goals

· Getting final authorization from executives

· Reporting agreed upon results and traction towards overall goals

For demonstrating PR’s impact on ROI, Weiner pointed to three factors that can directly connect the activity to the goals:

· Increasing in revenue or attracting additional investments

· Driving efficiency by “doing more with less”

· Eliminating considerable costs by avoiding crises

A valuable point made, while unsurprising, is often overlooked when it comes to value is that public relations’ value represents PR performance in relation to the investment that the client is willing to expend.

 

It’s true -- there’s no one-size-fits-all when it comes to a solid PR plan for a company. Depending on the size of the business, scale of the audience and timeframe in which the program is to take place, the plan can make for a phenomenal PR presence with remarkable results or can be a flash in the pan.  Make sure to consider these points when developing your 2010 PR plans with your team or PR agency, not to mention when establishing overall business goals and the plans to accomplish them.

 

How do you establish and measure your PR goals? Through value, ROI or other terms? And what does it all mean to you?

-- Meg Soule

Automotive, technologies industries should communicate better, develop alternative technology

In our newly released Cleantech Point-of-View, we urge the automotive industry to adopt the flexible, fast-to-market strategies of the technology industry, and points out that tech developers have much to learn from best manufacturing practices developed by auto companies. 

 

Alternative Energy Vehicles, Clean Technologies Going Mainstream – Pipe Dream or Reality? points out that an elemental difference exists between the way the auto and technology companies reach out to the marketplace, but lays out five steps that auto and tech companies should take to communicate better with each other, raise America’s manufacturing prowess and accelerate advanced technologies, including alternative-energy vehicles.

 

We are at a major crossroads impacting where we can take this country—our manufacturing base, automotive industry and cleantech sectors. We need to re-industrialize the United States; create careers (not just jobs); cost-effectively manufacture sustainable goods; be on the leading edge of technology; and become a world leader in clean, sustainable products, including alternative energy vehicles.

 

Now is the time for all of us—Detroit, Silicon Valley and everywhere in between—all communicators, analysts, the automotive industry, entrepreneurs, venture capitalists, the U.S. government and states across the country to make the appropriate investment in our future, right here, right now.

 

-- Rich Donley

New trends, new vibes from the 2010 Consumer Electronics Show

As I jet home from a great week at CES in Las Vegas, here’s a recap of what I saw, heard, overheard and witnessed as it relates to consumer electronics in 2010.  This year’s show was incredible and incredibly different than previous years.

 

· Mobile networks - 2009 was the year of the mobile device (DROID, 3GS, Nexus One, Palm Pre) but 2010 will be the year of the mobile network.  A huge battle is brewing amongst wireless carriers and the definition of 4G.  What does it mean? When will it be commercially ready?  It was talked about at virtually every meeting that I attended: “Just wait for 4G.”  In its simplest form, it merely means a larger (faster) network for wireless devices.  It was demoed by every U.S. carrier, but purely in a “demo” environment, as its rollout is not nearly complete.  Media are chomping at the bit in excitement due to the limited capabilities of the current 3G system.  What 4G holds for the future is not completely known, but for sure it will mean faster wireless access and less choking of the current wireless system, which I was told is nearly maxed out.

 

· HTC – While RIM, Motorola, Nokia, et. al, had their normal, and identical to years past, booth presence, HTC took a different approach and sponsored virtually every sort of break area, including a new free coffee Wi-Fi station within the convention center monorail station.  This provided a lot of buzz for this formerly unknown (white-labeled) wireless device manufacturer. 

 

· No more wires? - Say goodbye to wired anything.  A huge theme at this year’s show was wireless everything.  Not just mobile devices but, home speakers hidden in ceiling fans, door locks powered by your BlackBerry, garage doors powered by a mere sensor in your car, even water faucets and toilets. 

 

· Recharging a new industry - Wireless everything is spawning quite the business of charging.  Lots and lots of companies touting their “we charge everything” technology. Next year, we will see this business get even larger, as it appears many of the large companies are still trying to figure out how to do it correctly, as many of the companies on display with this technology were startups.

 

· 3D – Really surprising to me was the explosion of 3D displays and chatter that I saw and heard.  From televisions, to glasses, to gaming, to even the talk of networks providing exclusive 3D channels, or movies, this was clearly a trend at this year’s show.  Look for the satellite providers (DISH, DirecTV), to be the leaders here.

 

· What personal computers? –No one was talking Netbooks, Minis, MIDs or really anything PC hardware related.  As a comparison, those were all the rage at last year’s show.

 

· M&A – Very different this year was the discussion about who might be buying whom.  Look for mergers and acquisitions to ramp up again in 2010 after being very quiet in 2009. 

 

· Targeting Women – Another trend is the direct targeting towards female purchasers.  Not only was there an entire section of CES devoted towards Mommy Tech, there were a number of other booths with technology aimed directly at women.  In a related note, there were fewer booth models than I’ve seen in the past, and I saw male booth models for the first time.

 

· Electronic ink – Get used to that term as it’s now what e-readers are being called.  One search of the CES press site found a ton of new electronic ink machines being announced or add-ons featured.  This is the same trend we heard at the PRWeek “Media Predicts” event. 

 

· Social Sharing – The Boxee Box received tons of buzz, including the “Best Gadget Standing” award at CES. The Boxee Box plugs into your TV and allows you to search and store Web content, play it on your television and share it with your friends on social networks via a keyboard in the device's remote control.  Is it the YouTube killer?  Probably not; however the trend of socially sharing content was also on the minds of many media. 

 

· Parrot’s AR.Drone – The disclaimer here is that Parrot is an Airfoil client, but just glance at a few of the hundreds of press mentions and CES awards and you’ll see that the quadricopter piloted by an iPhone was a huge hit at CES. With an open API and developers’ kits now available, look for this product to launch later this year with additional platforms and games.

 

From cab drivers to hoteliers to folks on the show floor, even the media, you could not escape how different the show felt.  Not surprisingly, last year the talk across Vegas was how attendance was down and how no one was spending any money.  This year, a different story. I hope the 2011 show continues this trend.

 

-- Adam Silber

How to manage Q&A after your presentation

While your presentation might be nerve-wracking, the question-and-answer period after you speak can be even more problematical.  You should never enter a Q&A session without having prepared for it.  Here are eight tips for managing these sessions so that you will come out on top instead of hitting bottom:

• Thoroughly understand the topic of your presentation, so that when you are asked questions on related topics, your expertise shows.
• Know your audience.  Are you speaking to novices or experts?  A homogeneous group or people from many walks of life?  This analysis can help you anticipate and prepare for the kinds of questions you may be asked.
• Understand your audience’s hot buttons, the issues that are most pertinent to them.  These topics will be the most likely subject matter on which you’ll receive questions, and being aware of them enables you to prepare more effectivey in advance.
• Always go into both the presentation and the Q&A with one or two key messages.  These are the themes, advice, or information that you want the audience to remember as the “take-aways” from your appearance.  If you are asked a question that you can’t or don’t want to answer, transition to your key message instead with a phrase like, “While that’s an important issue, I think it’s more important that we (insert key message here).”
• Anticipate the most likely–and most difficult–questions you can expect to receive.  Then develop responses to them–either a direct answer or a way to transition to a key message.  Provide colleagues with your presentations and get feedback form them on what hard questions they would ask if they were in the audience.
• Don’t over-talk your answer.  When you’ve responded to the question, stop talking before you dig yourself a deeper hole or reveal something you didn’t intend to discuss.
• If you are under assault from a member of the audience, regain control by asking a question of your own, such as: “Does anyone here feel differently about this issue?  Who has another opinion?”
• Assume that everything you say–in both the presentation and Q&A–is public.  Your audience will be Tweeting and blogging to the world while you speak and shortly thereafter, so never assume that your responses in a Q&A session are confidential, even to an internal audience.

-Steve Friedman