Nick Mudge’s Technology and Government Weblog

Awhile back Motorola released one of the better press releases that I've seen issued from a vendor. This one: Pennsylvania County Launching $5 Million Motorola Data Communications System.

It's written like a real story. It's got a timeline. It gives the facts that we care about -- like what is happening and what the deal is and where things are at. Though some puffiness could be cut out, it doesn't clobber you with branding and adjectives that don't mean anything.

I ran it on govtech.net and it got good web traffic.

It is also a good story because it is something that is actually being done in government. I rarely care much about press releases only about new products and services available, unless there is something particularily unique or interesting or important about them for government. Commonly it's only a story when government buys or does something with a service or product.

4:34pm | public relations | no comments

I think I want to start a list of words used in PR and press releases that should be banned.

Here's the start. These words should be banned:

Simple to use. Something being promoted should be simple to use, so no use in saying so.

Affordable Duh.

Next generation Ick.

More to come.

3:43pm | public relations | no comments

Vendors need to write better press releases. Why is it that companies write poor press releases when they are trying to get the word out about something, or just promote their company? Seems like if they wanted to get the word out or promote themselves, they'd write a good story.

With many press releases it seems like the PR writers are playing a contest of how many times they can get the name of the company or the company's products in the press releases. Sure the company wants to see their names a lot, but do readers? Do editors?

As an editor, I play the reverse contest, what's the fewest mentions I can muster. But I am happy to mention a company name and link to the company's website once, and even more if it is appropriate. Can't we get along? It would make both of our lives easier.

When I first started work as a full time online editor about 2 years 3 months ago, my boss told me that a big reason a lot of press releases aren't very good is because they have to be approved by lots of people before they are released, and so they get changed around and added to and deleted from etc. to make everybody involved happy. And if a press release involves multiple organizations then all the organizations have to have their say too, and maybe they all have to be happy about it as well. What a mess.

Things need to be written for the publications you want to pickup your stuff. But more importantly, they need to be written for the readers. Most press releases look like they are written for the companies that wrote them. You don't write things for yourself because that's not the public you are trying to reach.

I bet you could just forget about your company, forget about your products, and just write a good story about the area of expertise that your company is in, and that would be far more successful in generating interest in your company and products than some dull product-oriented press release written in terms a lot of people probably wouldn't understand. Any editor worth anything that uses the story would be happy to mention the company and link to the company's website.

3:06pm | public relations | 1 comment

If unconferences are of any interest to you, you'll probably find this post by David Berlind very interesting: Old-school conferences R.I.P.

This post expains how a recent unconference was done and how it went.

I think regular conferences are good and I enjoy them. This unconference thing though seems rather fun and exciting to me as well.

I did a little news item about this unconference that this post talks about because ChicagoCrime.org won second place for best mashup.

10:32am | government resources - technology governance - egovernment - open government - public relations | no comments

I've always really enjoyed reading Kim Cameron's Identity weblog. He posts great stuff and he's involved with a very hot, open and interesting identity and web community, and it really shows on his blog.

One of the things that really fascinates me about blogs like Kim Cameron's is that expert information and experience is right there in an easily readable format to be understood. A person could read these blogs and learn all about identity, the web, etc. right there, from experts in their fields -- can even ask them questions through comments and email. I think a lot of these bloggers are also trying to be understood well and understand more things better themselves. I think the result is that they are leaving an easily followable trail of growing understanding. All the associations, relations, connections, and conversations that lead to conclusions which are further refined, conversed, and concluded -- they are all right there in the trail of the blog.

Reminds me of a related idea, the Web documenting itself, which blogging plays a large part. I'm sure people have said the Web is self documenting. It is. It has to be because for the Web to evolve and get better people have to agree about things about the Web and so we communicate to each other about what's going to be done and establish agreement. We largely communicate on the web and the web records the communication. The recorded communication on the web holds agreements firm, and we advance from there. Our combined and recorded knowledge is the platform from which we advance -- the web is in that way a platform, besides being a programming development platform i.e. Web 2.0.

Kim has a really interesting piece up by Eric Norlin about the Web as a platform. Very good reading. I love it!

Kim recently wrote about a couple of Govtech.net stories: Authenticating Candidate Websites and Government Technology on Outsourcing Intelligence.

I put the candidate website one together last week. Outsourcing Intelligence is an excellent feature story by Jim McKay, Government Technology magazine's justice and public safety writer.

Kim also wrote some really nice things about Government Technology and my blog. One of the things he wrote about was relations established through the Web:

Nick Mudge is clearly interested in identity issues. In one piece, where he is really talking about how bloggers affect perception, he says:

Personally, I started liking Microsoft a lot more after I found and started reading Robert Scoble's blog and Kim Cameron's blog. (Kim Cameron, Microsoft's identity architect.)

As long as Kim is in control of how identity systems are developed, deployed and managed, I'll be okay with what Microsoft wants to do with identity. I got that confidence through reading Kim's blog. If you don't trust Microsoft with identity, go read Kim's blog for awhile. Send me an email about what you think afterwards.

This is an amazing example of how blogging changes things. Because of my blog, Nick understands what I'm doing, what I'm thinking, and what motivates me. Having followed my blog for a while, he has connected with the network of ideas that guide my work. The trust that has developed is based on an ongoing intellectual relationship - even though we have never met or corresponded.

And guess what? I'm going to understand a lot more about eGovernment and digital governance by having discovered Nick's site.

He describes my frame of reference and state of mind exactly. Amazing!

12:59am | web technology - blogs - identity - public relations | no comments

Public relations professional Alice Marshall wrote an interesting article about how blogs are affecting technology news. She picked out a quote about something I said.

Alice said about her article:

This topic was inspired by an article in a trade journal. The writer talked about how the combination of site statistics and blogs has changed ideas about newsworthiness.

prblogweek

9:13pm | govtech web site - blogs - public relations | no comments

Here are some quotes I like from some of the new articles:

Elizabeth Albrycht:

Over the past year I have become increasingly convinced that the primary function of corporate communications/public relations today is network building. By that I mean that all of our strategies and tactics need to be focused on building, extending and nurturing the entire universe of connections (by which I mean people) possible for an organization.

To put it in slightly more technical terms, I am relying on interpretations of Metcalfe’s Law and Reed’s Law. The former states that the value of the network is the approximately the square of the number of users. The latter states that when you enable connections between nodes on the network to take place, the value of the network grows exponentially. What that means for our subject is that you should be motivated to grow your network in terms of numbers of connections as well as to enable members of that network to communicate with each other as well as with your organization. Participatory communications tools like blogs are particularly well designed to help you do both of these things.

Matías Fernández Dutto:

Internal blogs are not a fashion or a modern practice, they are a great idea. As we have seen, it generates an excellent resource for internal communication which impacts productivity and strengthens emerging leadership. To participate, to talk and to keep conversations through internal blogs, a unique communications perspective and experience is born.

Dave Taylor:

Blogs, by themselves, have no constraints or requirements. They're just communications tools waiting to be sculpted into something useful, interesting or entertaining. And in that vein, I continue to look forward to the day when creative writers really have that moment of inspiration and start to show how story blogs can become some of the best and most engaging content in the blogosphere.

Ryan May:

When bloggers discovered that Kryptonite’s U-shaped lock could be easily picked with a Bic ballpoint pen, the company’s sales were hit hard. Kryptonite lost an estimated $10 million is just 10 days according to Fortune magazine, a pretty big hit for a $25 million dollar company. Blogs were blamed because they posted videos of how to pick the lock and Kryptonite ignored the problem.

Something often miss about blogs is that they typically get better placement within Google and other search engines, because of the number of sites they link to and that link back to them.

Stephen J. Dubner:

Blogs being so popular has to do with the advances in technology and the fact that most of them are free to develop. They aren't one-way communications vehicles. They are about building two-way relationships. They are the perfect form of true interactive communications vs. email or a website.

People blog about issues that are not addressed well in the media. Bloggers are filling in the cracks. They are illuminating information that was previously overlooked. Bloggers fill in the cracks and are adding value to what can be a puzzle reporters are piecing together. I know many journalists, who although initially critical of blogs, have now come to truly rely on them and endorse them.

John Cass:

The focus of any blog posts should be on thought leadership and responding to customer enquires, companies must also monitor and respond to any blog posts out in the community. A little like the telephone when the telephone rings its important to pick up the telephone, companies are finding that when a post online is made its important to find comments about their company and respond if needed.

Jeneane D. Sessum:

Not every high-level executive, however, has a power blogger within, just waiting for the opportunity to engage the market in debate and express himself or herself online. It takes a combination of personality and proficiency, of wit and wisdom, and the ability to write well, to make a blogger—CEO or otherwise—worth reading.

Blogging Is “Complementary To”—Not a “Replacement For”

Friend and his company have seen first hand the tangible benefits that occur when the CEO and the company’s mission, vision, business model, and value proposition are aligned. And, according to Friend, blogging can play a role in facilitating this authentic convergence.

Italo Vignoli:

When I have started my blog in early 2005, after almost one year of thinking, it was a natural choice to write in Italian. The problem was to find readers: Italy is a country where the discussion about PR has always been restricted to a minuscule group of professionals, while the rest of the industry does not seem to care at all.

prblogweek

9:28pm | public relations | no comments

This is awesome. From the Global PR Blog Week 2.0 blog:

The Global PR Blog Week 2.0 is an online event that will engage public relations, marketing and business professionals from around the globe in a discussion about how new communications technologies are changing public relations and business communication.

The event will be held online, on this weblog, from September 19 to September 23, 2005.

During this year's five-day forum, participants from Argentina, Canada, Denmark, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Netherlands, Romania, Spain, United Kingdom and the United States will publish 70 case studies, articles and interviews on new communications technologies.

3:38pm | web technology - blogs - public relations | no comments