Getting Ink

It ain't over till it's over

Blogs are funny things. When you start them they’re all exciting and you spend ages thinking of desperately relevant things you can write about. Then you go through a bit of a phase where they’re an obligation, and you have to force yourself to update them, although you’d rather be hanging out on Facebook or Twitter.

Then there comes a point where you suddenly realise the blog is where you turn to make sense of things. It’s where you solicit advice on whether your instincts are right or wildly off the mark, or where you go to vent because your Mum’s great but she doesn’t really understand about the potential conflict between good writing and SEO guidelines. 

So I haven’t blogged for a little while. And the reason is there’s an issue I really, really want to blog about, but I’m not sure it’s wise (yeah, I know, like that’s ever stopped me before).

While I still feel it wouldn’t be appropriate to blog about this specific situation, I thought I’d blog about some general lessons that I’ve learned about ending a client relationship. Here goes:

• Always keep emails. Use Outlook/Entourage over webmail so you have a local copy of emails on your computer, which you can regularly back-up to an archive. One day, when you can’t agree on what was agreed, you’ll be glad you’ve got an archive. Especially if they haven’t got one.
• Submit detailed invoices. Often my invoices used to just say things like “news - £400”. I’ve learned now when it comes to invoices, more is more. Make sure your invoice spells out which news stories, how long they were, when they were published or submitted. If you’re charging day rate, make sure your email with the invoice says “This covers X, Y and Z projects”. Or use timesheets.
• Don’t do favours for free. The moment a client says, “Would you do it for free as a friend?” they’re not your client. (And if they say it a lot, they're not really a friend, either. They're just cheap) So either do a friend a favour, in which case you’re never getting paid, or be their supplier, in which case you charge for everything. Anything in between is just a recipe for disaster.
• If you agree something over the phone, send an email afterwards saying “just to confirm what we agreed…”
• Be very clear about what is your intellectual property and what you’re selling. Are these First British Rights?  Online rights? Can the client sell on your work? Who owns the words, the design, the website?
• Finally, just a tip. Back up everything. Think about what information and access you need to do business – and protect it. A disgruntled client could potentially have a website, online account or blog shut down for days or even weeks by disputing its contents so it’s always as well to have a Plan B.

The reality is that in business, most people don’t want to screw anyone over. I remember reading once that most people consider their actions are completely rational and I sometimes have to remind myself of that – no matter how stupidly you think someone is behaving, their actions probably make perfect sense to them. You just don't have the benefit of their perspective.

Given that most people aren’t morons, it stands to reason that most disagreements at the end of a contract come from people having different recollections, different perspectives or just old-fashioned miscommunication. So a little clarity and preparation? Goes a long way.

I've not just let you down, I've let myself down.

Inspired by this article in the Times, Dom over at PR-otagonism has looked into the ways in which he is a failed ethical consumer.

He's created a meme called  "the three brands that you use/consume most regularly, which you would loathe to admit in civil company". Never one to let a small matter like not being asked stop me from joining in the conversation, I thought I'd share my own dark secrets here.

Pressed for Time: I haven't owned an iron or ironing board since I accidentally left them behind in Finsbury Park when I moved house. That was in, er, 1999. Mostly, it's not a problem since I wear a lot of jeans. However, since acquiring a fantastic pair of cord jeans and a new pink shirt that goes great with my favourite bracelet, I need ironed clothes. However, I can't bring myself to buy an iron, so I pay the nice people at Pressed for Time to do it for me. And they will also be ironing Flea's brand new pre-school uniform this week, once my mother has finished making the alterations. (No, I don't sew either. I'm that bad a mother)

Confused.com: I sneer with the best of them when those stupid, stupid TV ads come on. I would cheerfully punch the bloke who pretended to be so sad he couldn't enter the stupid, stupid competition. And I'd very much like to burn all the stupid, crappy cardboard props in the ads. But it saved me £250 on my car insurance this year, so I used the site. Except I wrote off my car a month later, so that's karmic justice for you.

Domestos: Like Dom, I know I should be using eco-friendly brands of cleaner, and mostly, I do. But I find when life gets chaotic, freakish tidyness and order give me an illusion of control that I find comforting. For anyone who shares this tendency and has equally shaky environmental credentials, I highly recommend the Flylady's weekly sink cleaning ritual.

I now feel thoroughly ashamed of myself. But I bet I'm not the only one with dark secrets in the cupboard under the sink - so I'm tagging Amber, Linda and Louise.

Information: how much is too much?

I’ve spent the last week or two researching potential new recruits for our expanding training business. What’s interesting is that the journalists I’ve researched seem to fall into one of two definite camps.

First there are the journalists with blogs, websites, Facebook profiles and LinkedIn accounts. There are even a small number of hacks who Tweet (vb, to send messages via Twitter, apparently). With these guys, it’s easy to find out where they live, what they write, who they work for and even check out their kids, houses and skiing outfits. For a compulsive nosy parker like me, putting together all the jigsaw pieces and forming a picture of a person is incredibly compelling – but sometimes it feels just a bit, well, invasive.

Then there are other journalists where I struggled to find a single mention of them online, apart from their bylines in various newspapers and magazines. So, no website profiles, no blogs with rants about terrible editors, not even a solitary Facebook fish tank. They existed as journalists in a newspaper, and that’s it. Very frustrating.

Reading Richard Millington’s latest blog post, I’m inclined to agree with him that most people still don’t get involved in creating or posting online content. Even when our jobs might involve creating content, day in, day out.

So here’s what I wonder: is there a benefit to having the vastly greater access to professional contacts that you get through having a blog or website? Or is this eradicating the distinction between private and personal life, and thereby eroding our privacy? 

At Heather says here, knowing someone’s father is gravely ill or that a much-loved pet has died helps you to transmit a message more effectively, but is that necessarily a good thing? 

Michael Cross proposes journalist register of interests

101 trainer Mike Cross has written this article about the proposed register of interests for journalists in this month's Journalist magazine.

It's an interesting piece - I've already said I agree with Mike's arguments on transparency, but I'm interested to see how the debate progresses from here.

Do you know who I am?

There's an interesting debate over at Journobiz today about the issue of hacks receiving preferential treatment from companies when they experience problems.

If my phone service goes down, I could ring BT's customer service number and stay on hold for hours at a time, before finding someone who promises to resolve the problem but doesn't, necessitating a repeat of the whole sorry process the next week. OR I could call BT's press office, explain that I'm a journalist who regularly covers the telecoms sector, and miraculously see my problem booted to the top of the call centre's priority list.

It's a card I've played myself on occasion. When my Dell PC caught fire, the customer service department was useless but one panicked plea to the press office later, a courier was on its way to collect the smouldering remains - and a week later, my hard drive was returned, intact.

This week, my Toshiba laptop charger died, and I called GBC (Tosh's UK agency) to see if I could buy a new lead -  the original retailer wanted to collect my charger and laptop and take them both away for "about a week" for testing. As it turns out, GBC doesn't consider me worthy of special treatment - they didn't even bother to return my phone call. Tsk. It's so hard to be high and mighty when you can't even blag a power lead.

So I admit I've called and asked for information, or for help if I've got a problem I can't fix the usual way. But what I wonder after discussing the issue with some colleagues today, is how often hacks play the card of threatening to write stories about negative experiences, but quickly drop the idea when their problem is speedily resolved by the PR. Surely, if a story's worth telling, it's worth telling even if the problem eventually gets fixed?

From a PR perspective, it's worth noting that 99.9% of these threats are complete nonsense - the vast majority of editors won't touch this kind of story except from a regular columnist, and even then only if the hack can show it's a problem affecting other consumers. I also suspect if some of the outraged emails written by hacks were leaked, the issue might stop sharpish.

Obviously, though, if any editors want to hear more about my terrible, heart-rending laptop cable ordeal, I'm sure I could put something together...

More about journalism and disclosure

So, following on from my recent post about Mike Cross and his idea of a journalist register of interests, I've had a number of conversations with colleagues on the topic - some are keen to sign up, others admit they're more interested in seeing the industry address issues such as copyright.

I'm keen to point out that I don't believe  journo sidelines are unethical in any way, and i don't see a register as being a stick to beat hacks with for taking on lucrative corporate contracts. Rather, it's a positive opportunity for hacks who want to demonstrate their own transparency.

So, I've spent an hour or so today looking around to see whether the idea of disclosing commercial relationships is something that's being done outside Mike's imagination. (Fellow freelancers will recognise this type of non-urgent surfing as symptomatic of a woman on several deadlines...) I found a couple of things I think are worth sharing:

First, this great piece from BuzzMachine, first published last April. Essentially, Jeff reproduces a survey that the New York Times requires all freelance contributors to complete, asking about conflicts of interest. Jarvis argues that all freelancers should answer the same questions - and he answers them himself  here.

Obviously, this being the NYT they've opted for full disclosure, and I'm not sure all questions would be relevant to all journalists but it's certainly interesting. As Bobbie Johnson of the Guardian comments on Jeff's original post: "I don’t agree that this assumes financial interest influences or corrupts your work; I just think it makes it far harder for journalists who *do* pursue those interests through their work to get away with it."

Elsewhere, it seems that ZDNet's bloggers have disclosure pages, showing commercial relationships past and present. Check out these pages from Tom Foremski and Joshua Greenbaum. Online, Scoble does full disclosure on his press trip here, while I enjoyed this column from Huffington Post's Esther Dyson here about the issue of disclosure - Esther's view is that having a commercial relationship with a company needn't prevent a writer from covering that company - simply that the relationship ought to be disclosed.

Interesting stuff.

PRs working under cover?

I've been reading some interesting stuff this week on blogs, but I have started to wonder what agenda drives some people to write what they do. In my case, it's largely irritation and a desire to share some of the ridiculous things I see on a daily basis - maybe if I still worked in an office, I'd just shout 'look at this crap' to whoever was sitting next to me...

But anyway, thanks to Renaissance Chambara for the tip - The Onion has come up trumps again with this gem: I'd Love This Product Even If I Weren't A Stealth Marketer

quite marvellous.

Bad Behaviour

We received an email this morning from a former colleague who has now entered the esteemed world of analysis - that is, providing expert comment on the industry, rather than being a psychiatrist.

Our former chum was providing us with his considered thoughts on the Google/YouTube deal, and essentially inviting us to interview him. The only problem is that last time we saw him was rushing to catch a flight home from a press trip, having spent the entire previous night enjoying himself with the PR and half the annual produce of Columbia.

When journos leave our little world to go elsewhere, it's often difficult to really take them seriously as PR execs, analysts or consultants. Maybe it's because we remember the time they threw up all over a first class United air steward because they'd been up all night drinking Gimlets.

But maybe it's the old poacher turned gamekeeper argument - many hacks still see their role as exposing truth and fighting for justice (yes, even those who write about little computers or snazzy new restaurants) - and they believe a PR's job is essentially to stop them doing this, and railroad them into writing advertorial. So there's often some residual hostility to anyone who jumps the fence.

Thinking about this, we decided actually the more hacks get involved in the world of PR, the more closely the output of that industry is likely to meet our professional needs. And the same for analysts - those who are former journos are usually great to interview because they know how to 'give good quote', as it were.

Plus, as a hack, it's always great to have really good dirt on a PR exec...

Ethical Dilemma

Sally F writes: Linda's comments last night about receiving emails sent by mistake have hit a chord this morning.

I received an email from a mate who works in PR for a pretty well known organisation that works with kids. Rather strangely, it was about a meeting this morning, with a document attached. Now, I am a journo and therefore quite nosy, so I opened the attachment.

Turns out the organisation in question is meeting to discuss how to deal with the potential PR fallout that may be created by its recent problems, including a management fall-out, some resignations, a financial scandal and some experts questioning the organisation's methods. None of this information is yet in the public domain.

Now personally, I replied to my mate and told her what she'd done - which was actually to send it to the wrong 'Sally' in her address book. This doesn't necessarily imply that I'm a saint, but I don't want her to get fired for the sake of me getting one story in the Guardian. Who'd buy me beer then?

But having canvassed my journo mates, turns out I'm the only one who'd have done this. Journos: conniving people who'd sell their granny for a byline. Who'd have thought it?

Oh, and there's my expenses...

Sally F writes: I've just finished writing an article for PR Business (RIP) about the use and abuse of the Internet, which I've been ranting about on for blinkin' ages.

I genuinely thought that I was past being shocked by some of the things that go on. We've seen dozens of examples of journos pimping their media training services, asking PRs to write copy for them etc. I've seen even more PRs using the web to spam journalists, send outdated crap and generally exhibit the very worst bunny* behaviour. However, even I was shocked by the editors who told me these tales:

I was editing a B2B publication a couple of years back when I commissioned a new freelancer. A few days later, I got word that the freelancer had sent out an email to the effect that companies which were prepared to help with his 'expenses' would get priority when he was writing for us. Needless to say, I never used that freelancer again.

Whenever I receive a feature that I reckon has a touch of the canned taste about it, I copy paste the quotes into Google. It's amazing how often that turns up a previously written case study, press release or old article the writer produced. It's something I've done ever since the time a writer filed a case study and when I rang to get a photo, I found out the interviewee had retired two years previously, and the case study had just been sent out by the PR on spec following a posting. If someone uses canned comment, it's the last time they write for this paper.

[bunny disclaimer: we use the word bunny in its original sense - a junior PR executive who appears by his or her behaviour to have fluff where brains ought to be]