infOpinions?

Amy Gahran, whom I’ve written favorably about in this blog, has begun what Kevin Dugan calls a game of Red Rover.

Problem is, Amy has started the game too soon. Like about five years too soon. That may be the length of time it will take for everyone to ‘come on over’. Maybe longer?

Amy thinks that the ‘baby’ is press releases. She thinks the ‘bath water’ is bad practices and an unwillingness to try new tactics. She’s ready to toss them all.

The more I think about this, perhaps Amy has been trying to take a cue from Russell Beattie and Jeremy Zawodny. Be the gadfly. Over the top rants are great phishing bait. Amy does fancy herself as a “Content Strategist, Info Provocateur” of the online age.

Meet Amy Bond. “A secret agent who incites suspected persons to commit illegal acts” out in the blogosphere. I’m not trying to be cute there. That illegal aspect might have merit. Think EDGAR and Sarbanes-Oxley.

Now, all three of them (Beattie, Zawodny & Gahran) have raised some interesting questions. None, however, were original. It is too easy to make grand calls to action (without an offer of new ideas) and then blame the audience for the silence (or the problem). This adaptation to blogs and new media is a work in progress. Truly great thinkers offer something new – beyond the known ideas – to spark a revolution. Not being one of the truly great thinkers, I’ll offer this evaluation, instead.

I bit. Why? Because this is like shooting phish in a barrel.

Amy, on Steve Rubel’s Micropersuasion blog, calls PR pros “fearful, uncreative (in) reaction to my challenge so far.”

First of all, Amy, as I responded to you in Steve’s blog, that ball has been getting bounced around for a long time in the 200+ PR blogs. Your 7/13/2005 post is fine recitation of ideas raised long ago in those blogs.

But you seem so certain that there are more answers, so please – teach us. What are your unique, innovative and new ideas about how to accomplish this feat?

To propose going ‘cold turkey’ on press releases neglects the key starting point of all communication. Know your audience. Not all audiences will be reached through your proposal. And, not all of them will be reached by the ideas you recited on 7/13/2005.

Even my students are experimenting with these solutions. This semester they are preparing online newsrooms, media tracking sites/software and internal/external blogs for three clients. Those clients are: a city school system, a state education department and an international therapeutic recreation facility. All three have a variety of primary and secondary publics. All three interact with widely diverse media outlets. To go ‘cold turkey’ on press releases would be folly for any one of them.

To offer clients alternative options to “push” information (even if not in typical ‘release’ form) to their audiences are all incorporated into the projects they will present in two weeks. Even they recognize that press releases are still valuable. Even they recognize that

• (a) not all journalists and publics they seek to reach read blogs or understand RSS
• (b) there are even legal requirements that demand information be ‘released’ in a more formal manner (as in a press release)
• (c) not all publics (even journalists) use online to gather information. Most, maybe. But still, not all – yet.

The baby still has a life to live. What the longevity is, no one knows today. It may not be the brightest or most innovative child, either. But, why not teach the child to grow, adapt and mature in his/her new environment. Growth, change, adaptation, maturity – it all takes time.

Do the smart thing. Save the baby. If the blog post is the release, it is still a release.

All that being said, we are intrigued, Amy. So, what are the new ideas? I am teachable. I can learn. Help me. Hey, I’ll even offer them to the students for their client projects.

Amy, your suggestion has merit in ’some’ instances. It is, however, too myopic for a broad approach today. In five or ten years, maybe it will be viable. Today, it could be negligent.

By the way, regarding EDGAR, if you can make a blog automatically fill out and submit the form/report via this process at the SEC, well I guess you could fulfill the requirements. Has anyone done this yet? I doubt it. As we discussed above, change comes slow. There is a reason for that sometimes. Most often it is because there are many aspects to consider and fulfill before making a complete overhaul of the accepted practices.

Kevin Dugan with 12 suggestions to complement press releases, but the last one is — um, a “well-written news release.” Why? Kevin writes, “Well-Written News Release: The news release is on my list because the 11 ideas above might only work with specific types of news (Have you tapped into poetry to announce financial results?) A news release is versatile enough to announce just about anything. It isn’t sexy or groundbreaking. But it can be effective.”

John Wagner with some updates on the topic.