commbasics

Bootstrapping a startup generally means things take a while to complete.  We've been working on the New Tech Press design for several months and I'm happy to say... it's done.

I know I'm remiss in getting on with the series on the profession of journalism and I apologize for that.  But the discussion I started with this blog over a year ago is starting to do one of the things I hoped it would do... bring me in some business.  (Yes, Ron W, I admit the blog is an effort to increase revenue for the PR side of the business, but then that's always been the point). What is exciting about the business opportunities has been where they have come from, and it is not where I expected.  In the past three weeks I've talked to law firms, accounting firm, representatives of Consul Generals from various countries, venture capitalists, real estate developers and CEOs of chambers of commerce from different parts of the country.  All of these really interesting people are looking for ways to do communications differently. So it has sucked up a lot of time, plus I have clients that want me to do something for them from time to time... and the...

Really busy week.  Not much time for thought.  But read an article in the SF Chron about Berkeley Breathed shutting down his comic strip, Opus, this Sunday.  His primary reason, other than being disillusioned at the rancor in political discourse, is that the young people he is trying to reach with Opus don't read newspapers, and the only people that remember his previous strip , Bloom County, are not the people he wants to reach. We all know this is true, but here's the real irony: My 19-year-old son started reading the Chronicle for the Opus strip, reading the rest of the paper after he had finished it and using Breathed's perspective to put the news into context.  Opus is more responsible for my son's politics and social view point than any political leader.  Now he says without Opus, he has no desire to read the Chronicle. Breathed's reason for quitting has become a self-fufilling prophesy.

Why am I doing this?   That's a question I get a lot.   There are also people who think thy know why I doing this blog and New Tech Press and the VC communications program, etc., etc.   It occurred to me today that I haven't really stated why. Here's why. I no longer believe in the effectiveness of the public relations practices that we are all used to.   I no longer believe 99.999 percent of the news releases put out everyday have any value.   I cannot see how media and analyst relations practices that have developed over the past century can possibly bring awareness of small, innovative companies.   I believe that everything has changed, from the way information is distributed to the way it is consumed; from the way information is gathered to how that gathering is financially supported. For the past 12 months, I have not taken another client that wants to do business as usual.   I have told dozens of companies that what they want t...

Along with the furor over Cadence senior exec turnover, tiny little LogicVision also announced a shakeup.  They dropped their CFO, VP of marketing and VP of operations and replaced them with new beancounters and engineers. LogicVision has been struggling in the market for almost a decade, primarily because their competition has made a greater investment in marketing than they have.  LogicVision actually has a superior product and one that is uniquely suited to large, complex semiconductor design.  The competition has been squeezing out as much value of old technology as possible, but gets their message out much more effectively than LogicVision ever has. And every year, LogicVision decides to reduce their effort to communicate with the market, fight holding actions on their remaining market share, and ... replace marketing expertise with engineering. Can't be done, folks.  The best technology ALWAYS loses to superior marketing,

Yesterday, San Jose Magazine  came out with a glowing tribute the Cadence Design and it's leader Mike Fister.  Today, Cadence announced that Fister has resigned.  The WSJ coverage also pointed out that Cadence is lowering guidance prior to the October 22 financials. Timing is everything.

Sam Whitmore reported that Wayne Rash, the tech analyst that oversaw eWeek's Knowledge Center was lid off in connection to a site redesign.  The "center" was the place where contributed content resided.  It's still on the overall site but the tab has disappeared from the home page.  Loring Wirbel, in an email, reminded me that Wayne had been at CMP for many years before moving over to eWeek. Besides losing another good journalist the decision to downplay contributed content on the site is ominous for traditional PR.  Without sufficient editorial staff, a publicist doesn't have anyone to pitch stories to.  That leaves placing contributed articles.  But publications are backing away from that content now.  So all you have left to work with is news releases. Over at Greeley's Ghost , Brian Fuller is predicting the end of PR as we know it.  I don;t think he's far from wrong.