commbasics

I appreciate the ability of the web to lower the barrier for people to publish content because it truly simplifies my work, as well. But just because you can create a website and populate it with pictures and words does not make you an effective communicator, or a journalist, or even a writer. I was once waiting for a plane whose take off had been delayed and a well-dressed but obviously annoyed fellow passenger sat down next to me grousing about the airline, so I struck up a conversation to help him take the edge off. "Going out or coming home?" "Out," he said. "Speaking at a medical conference." "Oh? What's your field?" "Neurosurgery." I thought that was fascinating and asked a few questions, like where he was educated, where he did his residency, how many years, etc. and we had an interesting discussion of his field. Then, being polite, he asked what I did. I always struggle with that question. I've used the terms journalist ...

Last week I had a brief but productive conversation with Jill Rowley about content and social selling and she said something very profound.  She pointed out that her driving force, social selling, is still in its “1.0 stage” and remains largely undefined and that content marketing , which should be entering the 2.0 stage still remains largely undefined.  that is problematic for her because sharing good content is crucial to success in social selling. That’s why I was extremely excited when I received an invitation to be an official participant, as an influencer, at Information Development World coming to San Jose, October 22-24, organized by Content Rules and the Content Wrangler .  This is the first big step toward making content development a serious profession. I have an ongoing battle with both marketers and journalists about what constitutes content development.  Both consider it to be just another arm of marketing.  In truth, that is what much of...

You may have heard of the Sports Illustrated Cover Curse: It states that any athlete featured on the cover will immediately experience a rapid decline in skill and accomplishment. What you may not have heard of is a similar curse in the electronics industry: The curse of the EE TIMES Silicon 60 .  Peter Clarke compiles the list irregularly after evaluation by the UBM Tech editorial team.  Most of the companies identified since it started in 2004 have disappeared from the earth. The curse goes beyond the list, though. There is a reason for it, and it has nothing to do with UBM or the list itself. Back when I owned a PR agency, many of my clients expressed a desire to be included on this list.  I never really quite understood why.  There are a lot of startups that seek to make the list, and all other media coverage as a validation of their business model or technology.   Companies that make the list trumpet the achievement, for several years, before they d...

 The technology world is hell-bent on serving the needs of big data in the cloud because, after all, the cloud is the place to be, right?  And one of the big benefits of the cloud is how it simplifies the marketing process. However, the technology industry (mostly semiconductor and its related industries) that support those customers generally hate marketing, don’t want to invest in it and say they already know who their customers are.  They really don't need the cloud, they think. Those industries are still using mass market techniques and a shotgun approach to marketing, blasting the marketplace with generic, repetitive messages; targeted at the people who have no authority to make purchases and very little influence on those who do.  For example, several years ago I worked with a rapidly growing semiconductor company who happen to have gotten into the iPod when it first came out.  Gave them instant credibility and massively growing sales.  They...