Airfoil Public Relations

Rage Against the Machine

In an age where we have come to rely on technology to improve so many aspects of our lives, it’s easy to become complacent and trust that what the technology is advertised to do will do just that.  And in our profession, we tend to let the programs that enable us to bang out an accurate press release or e-mail quickly have the final say in what we say.  Because who wants to re-read a 2,000 word byline article for spelling and grammar after we’ve run it through the automated checker? 

But there is something to be said for the human affect on the work we do.

While your machine might whiz through a whitepaper in less than a minute, it’s probably a good idea to take a few extra minutes and read it over with your own eyeballs.  Those computers are smart, but they (so far) lack the one advantage we, as people, retain:  common sense.

After all, who wants to win a contest that’s giving away a plague?

 

-- Brad Marley

How different these times are! How different are these times?

Pretty much lost in the media tumult over the presidential race has been the fact that 2008 marks the 50^th anniversary of America’s entry into space with unmanned satellites, first with Explorer 1 and then, a couple months later, with Vanguard 1. For those of us who remember that era of Von Braun and Van Allen Belts, it was a particularly exciting period, when our entire lives seemed to be changing because of new technology.

Two years after Explorer, Echo 1 shot into orbit as the first communications satellite, primitive as it was, and communication was never the same. In 1960, the first of the Transit satellites was being tested in orbit. The Transit devices served as the Navy’s navigation satellite system until the development of the Global Positioning System that we now carry around in our pockets and forever changed the way we navigate through the world. Contemporaneously, Tiros-1 was orbited as the first weather satellite; and since then we’ve saved millions of lives, improved agriculture and planned successful cookouts using the images and data communicated to us from satellites observing weather patterns.

Half a century ago, technology was totally reconfiguring the way we communicated, the way we entertained ourselves, the way we worked, the way we traveled. Wait—isn’t that what’s happening now? Isn’t that what we’ve said has made the 21^st century so distinctive in our history? The Internet, e-mail, cell phones, Zunes and all the other gigs we bite into these days? Maybe this isn’t such an unusual era after all.

Just for grins, I checked back 50 more years—to 1908. According to “ Timelines of History,” it turns out in that year the first passenger flight in an airplane occurred (and the Wright Brothers registered their device for a patent), the first Model T Ford was produced (on the new-fangled “assembly line”), a subway linking Brooklyn and Manhattan opened, Count Zeppelin revealed plans to carry 100 passengers in his airship, a wireless message was sent long-distance for the first time from the Eiffel Tower, and—wonder of all wonders—the ball took its first drop in Times Square on New Year’s Eve. How spectacular all this technology must have seemed to my grandparents.

So which era of technological development has impacted our lives most profoundly? Which innovations have been the most important? The airplane? The automobile? Mass transit? Communications satellites? Weather predictions? The Internet? Smartphones?

The argument is pointless. Rather, it’s important to understand that we repeatedly reinvent our lives through technology. And, as we do, we revolutionize the way we communicate—whether we travel to meet face to face, phone a colleague, or Twitter our way through the day. Each of us builds on centuries of such mini-revolutions, placing all of us on the front lines of change. Each of us communicates change across our own generation and on to the next. We can be assured that in 2058, our grandchildren will be looking back at this year and exclaiming, “Can you imagine how different life would be without those early-millennium pioneers who figured out modern communications?”

---Steve Friedman

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

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

For Those Who Love Eavesdropping: Emirates Airlines to Allow In-Flight Cell Phone Use

Emirates Airlines and AeroMobile have announced that Emirates flights will begin to offer in-flight mobile phone use. This venture will allow passengers not only to call their loved ones about the pot-roast in the oven back home but also the ability to drop a text to their buddy about the latest on the March Madness scores, all in the comfort of their middle, bathroom row airplane seat.

Emirates also announced that they have already placed the first officially mobile call at 30,000 feet from Casablanca to Dubai. According to Emirates, passengers will only be allowed a certain amount of calls per flight and the flight crew will be anointed the ability to shut off the system, if abuse is occurring. That would be a fun job! The airlines will also require the phones to be turned to silent or vibrate while on the plane and will not allow calls during night flights and other periods of the flight such as takeoff and landing.

It is very interesting to see that airlines are beginning to offer this service. I can image that business-types have a strong desire to be able flex their Blackberry fingers, and be connected at all times.

I think it would be cool if someone started a blog about the conversations they hear while flying, helplessly eavesdropping on someone’s cell phone conversation. I can only imagine the wild and crazy stories you’d overhear on a flight from Abidjan to Dubai.

-- by Allen Arnold

Twitter brings real time updates to conferences

As the benefits of Twitter remain murky at best to some, an example of its usefulness and value came to light during recent events. Aside from hearing what someone’s having for lunch, or their pet’s health problems, the instant status updates serves business-related purposes.

During the Apple SDK announcement last week, I was anxiously awaiting word on the new updates. As 10 o’clock came around, my Twitter feed started hopping. Writers attending the event started posting tweets, short updates in real time, announcing the updates and features.

This seems to be the trend for conferences. Just last week at the SXSW festival, Twittering seemed to be the preferred method for updates.

Information travels so quickly now with the convergence of Web-enabled mobile devices and micro-blogging services such as Twitter. Years ago before blogs, if an announcement was made at a conference the press would learn about it, write the story that night, send it off and have it published the next morning - or even longer depending on the pub. With the advent of blogs, journalists could step out of conferences and update their blogs immediately following the conference. Not quite real time but closer.

With Twitter, the press can update their network of “friends” as fast as they can peck out messages on their mobiles. There are other options to blog live from your phone but I don’t see them catching on yet. Twitter provides the instant gratification of capturing a quick thought the moment it occurs. Blogging - although not necessarily formal -- still requires more thought and revision, and is best suited for QWERTY-style typing.

-- by Ron Toledo

Social media measurement continues to focus on quality, not quantity

Recently, I attended an event sponsored by the PRSA and given by the Norcal Business Marketing Association titled Measuring the Naked Conversation- The ROI of Web 2.0.

Katie Delahaye Paine, author of Measuring Public Relationships: The Data-Driven Communicator’s Guide to Success, presented a lot of insight into social media. She said PR and marketing consultants held unavailable insight and experience to clients in the past. With the proliferation of social media and the ability for people to connect and share ideas, any person - for virtually zero cost - can get the collective experience and ideas of everyone else.

An important point about social media Katie reinforced is that it’s not a place to sell and market, it a place for conversation.  Participation may or may not drive sales, but it drives awareness. 

Brand awareness is a big factor for emerging companies and social media can play a significant role. As public relations professionals, we need to continue to change the mindset that the number of impressions is not as important as the quality of those impressions by putting blog and other online mentions into context.

We also have a role in educating and counseling our clients that have not ventured into this arena yet or are just starting to research it. It may be hard to believe for those that have been active online for several years now, but Web 2.0 101 education is still necessary, too.

-- by Ron Toledo

TSA changes policy following complaints on blog

First the Library of Congress adds some photos to Flickr, and then the Transportation Security Administration starts a blog. One week later, the TSA has listened to the comments and has ended an ad hoc policy that required passengers to remove electronics from carry-on bags.

Talk about putting the users in control! This is a great example of how a blog can improve goodwill and feedback for a company or a government entity.

From Ars Technica:

In an entry posted at Evolution of Security yesterday, TSA reveals that it has put a permanent end to the highly invasive practice of requiring travelers to remove all electronics from carry-on bags—a security measure that recently inconvenienced many travelers, including several Ars staffers who were flying out of San Francisco International Airport. "After some calls to our airports, we learned that this exercise was set up by local TSA offices and was not part of any grand plan across the country," the blog entry says. "These practices were stopped on Monday afternoon and Blackberrys, cords and iPods began to flow through checkpoints like the booze was flowing on Bourbon Street Tuesday night. (Fat Tuesday of course)."

I can only wonder what would happen if the IRS had a blog.

-- Tonja Deegan

In the Web 2.0 World, What Have We Missed?

Tonja Deegan’s post about the Library of Congress’ turning to the Flickr community as a way of helping identify missing information about its photos struck me as a particularly interesting Web 2.0-ish take on the way we’ve been finding missing information for quite some time.

Photos of missing children have been posted on milk cartons now for decades.   Missing inmates can still find their pix on post office bulletin boards.   Portraits of missing pets regularly bloom on telephone poles in America’s neighborhoods. But technology now is prompting us to extend this technique to objects and opportunities that we never would have considered before.   

In 2006, for example, NASA diverted the cameras of its Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter to look for the missing Mars Global Surveyor probe that mysteriously lost touch with its human controllers after nine years of reporting from its orbit around the red planet.

If you miss any TV series—dating all the way back to the 1950s right through the current, writer-hampered season—you can see many of them these days on hulu.com.  It’s a Web site that offers “content from two leading broadcast networks (Fox and NBC), over 15 cable networks (Bravo, E! Entertainment, FX, Sci Fi, USA, and more), four of the largest studios (Fox, MGM, Sony and Universal), and a broad array of independent, web-centric content providers,” according to its launch release.

While space probes and Alfred Hitchcock Presents may be quite valuable, each in its own way, Web 2.0 also is enabling us to visualize missing items that we never really intended to look for in the first place.   Last month, NPR interviewed one Jennifer Gooch, a woman in Pittsburgh who has set up a Web site within Flickr called onecoldhand.com to help reunite people with their missing gloves that they’ve dropped along the way, all around the city.   She and her cohorts have traveled around, picking up single gloves that people have apparently lost, photographing them and then displaying the photos on the Web site.   Anyone who e-mails in a picture of the mate will receive the missing match from Ms. Gooch. It’s pretty much a match.com for mittens.   

So providing a helping hand in gathering photo-related information may not be that new, but it certainly has become entertaining, thanks to the innovative minds of the hulus, Gooches, rocket scientists and librarians who populate Web 2.0 with equal prowess and photographic memories.

--Steve Friedman

Library of Congress adds photos to Flickr

The Library of Congress has added more than 3,000 photos to a new Flickr page in the hopes that viewers will tag the photos to help the library identify and sort them for the future. Some of the photos have missing information, so librarians are hoping that the public can help with filling in those gaps.

First a blog, now a Flickr page. It’s nice to see a library intended for the people (and Congress) using the Internet as a medium to reach out and ask for hope. If the experiment goes well, it would be nice to see additional photos made available.

-- Tonja Deegan