Getting Ink

"I can let you in, but can you sort of crouch down?"

One of the funniest things someone ever said about me was that when I arrived at a meeting with another tech hack we looked as though we'd "just wandered in from the garden".

It's sort of fair comment. For many journalists, not being 'suited and booted' at meetings is a deliberate move. It means we're not in any danger of suggesting through our clothes that we think your client is AT ALL important. It's also increasingly unnecessary, I feel, to wear suits to journo meetings, since you're probably meeting somewhere informal where a suit would just look, well, silly.

This week I went for a meeting with a PR and a local government executive to talk about a new child protection initiative. I was wearing a pair of dark jeans with a shirt and jacket. Which would have been fine, except the PR arranged the meeting at the IoD, a stuffy members' club in London.

Arriving in reception I got the kind of look usually reserved for door-to-door clothes peg salesmen, and a frosty: "Are you in the right place, Miss?" I replied that I was meeting Mr Local Government for lunch at the IoD's brasserie, and I thought I was in the right place, probably.  "Ah. We have a dress policy and I'm afraid I can't let you in, Miss. Could you wait here and I'll let the other guest know you're waiting in reception?"

Five minutes later the chap reappears and says Mr Local Government has moved into a secluded booth in the restaurant so that I can sit with him. 

But, could I possibly sit in the corner of the booth, and be "discreet"?

Oh and also, we'll get to the booth by walking along the edge of the dining room and it might be a good idea if I could (and this is a direct quote) "sort of crouch down and walk quite quickly so people don't see you".

So when a work chum blogged* about his experiences at the IoD (being asked to pay for a cup of tea upfront. In cash. And being asked for a £1 deposit for the privilege of charging a mobile) I had a good laugh.It's stupid - this isn't the way we do business any more, is it? How does the IoD survive when it's now competing against the likes of Home House, Soho House and Adam Street?

(*Post may now have been deleted, sorry.)   

Oy, with the poodles already

I started my day feeling a bit miserable and anxious. A client hasn't made a promised payment and my mortgage payment bounced this morning. Still, my lender is a buy-to-let provider so I'm sure they'll be totally fine about waiting a few days. Ahem.

Still, a late payment isn't that unusual for freelancers. We're regularly at the mercy of that most elusive of corporate creatures, "someone from accounts".  So why did it feel like such a big deal today? Could it be because some of us in PR and media are helping to create a cycle of hysteria with shameless, opportunistic stories about the credit crunch?

Surely not?

Like many freelance hacks, the credit crunch hasn't substantially affected me yet. I have a fixed rate mortgage and I'm not looking to buy another house any time soon. Fuel is more expensive, but I moved to a dual fuel fixed price deal, so my monthly bill has actually gone down. Diesel is also up, but I used the Internet to half my insurance bill, so it pretty much evens out. To all intents and purposes, I feel like my household finances are no better or worse than a year ago.

Until I read the papers, when it becomes apparent my laid-back attitude is obviously DENIAL. Because in fact, people, the world is ending. Capitalism is imploding, and it's taking my pitiful savings with it. Journobiz is alive with debate about whether hacks who haven't a snowball's chance in Hell of ever saving 35 grand should clear out their bank accounts, while the papers are gleefully reporting Bad Things That Might Happen at every opportunity.

Obviously, this story claiming that "Crunch Hit Brides Opt for Friday Weddings" is totally kosher, although it's based on figures from 1999 and, erm, 2005.  And I'm just as convinced by this piece, stating that the credit crunch means a "huge surge" in parents who aren't paying their kids' school fees since July 2007. In fact, the credit crunch means we're not even driving our kids to school any more! The poor little mites are walking to school, with only cheap frozen food  in their tummies - and it's all down to the credit crunch.

I'd like to tell PRs to stop with the opportunistic, self-serving credit crunch surveys already, but I'd be an idiot to tell you that when editors are still lapping it up so eagerly. But perhaps just spare a moment to think about what you're feeding in to, and whether the end result of all that hysteria is really going to be good for you, your employer and your client?

On Blogs and Trolls.

The hardest thing about blogging isn’t thinking of new stuff to write, or building an audience or any of that stuff – it’s learning to step back from the blog and not take it personally.

I’ve been blogging now for three years, more or less. It’s been on the whole a positive experience.

Of course, when you blog, people have an irritating tendency of not agreeing with everything you say. Looking back over the blog archives this weekend, I’ve had a number of impassioned debates with the likes of PJ, Wordsmith and TWL. Sometimes we’ve disagreed strongly – PJ in particular keeps me on my toes, and I still laugh when I remember the post where TWL said “I think you’re missing something, Sally – a sense of humour.”

It’s hard not to take disagreement personally. Although rationally it’s just a difference of opinion, I think your fight or flight reflexes kick in the moment you realise it’s one of ‘those’ comments. I try to maintain perspective, and I hope I get the balance right between taking part in debate and agreeing to differ most of the time. 

But I have to admit, I really struggle to have perspective about trolls.

Getting Ink has had a troll for over two years now. He clearly knows me personally, he’s almost always insulting, likes to imply I’m morally bankrupt, and will occasionally throw in random insulting comments. Most recently my troll has called himself I See a Darkness, but he’s also posted as “baffled” and “cunning linguist”. Before that, there was a troll called “bell end” who may or may not have been the same person (bell end used the very same IP cloaking service that ‘Richard’ used when commenting last night).

I've published most comments made by the troll. Mostly he’s innocuous, with lines like: “You couldn’t even pretend to be nice. You’re not that good an actress” or “Using a blog to wage cheap vendettas is cowardly and pathetic”. Ironic, I know. There are others I saved but didn't publish, some because they reference my daughter.

Rationally, I know not to feed trolls. Don’t engage with them and they’ll get bored. Except it’s been two years now, and my troll is still muttering away to himself under his little bridge. He visits the blog almost every day, sometimes eight or nine times in 24 hours.

I know from experience that it can be really hard to ignore a troll. Typepad automatically logs the IP addresses of everyone visiting a blog, so I knew from the start that my troll lives in Brighton – and when he started posting, I lived there too. I would wake up every morning knowing that someone who knew me and lived locally hated me with enough energy to post anonymous comments about me on a blog. Some weird, twisted individual would go to all the effort of posting on a computer at 3am just to make sure I knew that "everyone hates you" and "you're a laughing stock".

Four months later, I sold my house and moved 300 miles away. Of course, I could have stayed in Brighton and my decision to leave wasn't entirely down to the anonymous comments - but my troll definitely took a bit of the shine off the city for me. It never felt quite as friendly after he turned up. Fortunately, it's turned out for for the best and I'm very happy where I am now.

I can’t say with 100% certainty who the Getting Ink troll is. But I can say this: it ends right here.

Getting Ink will not publish any more comments from anyone sharing an IP or email address with I See a Darkness, or for that matter from anyone using an IP cloaking service. I'm knocking down the bridge and this blog is a troll free zone.

Have a great weekend, everyone.

Sally

How to be a better writer in three hours.

In a comment to last week's post on grammar, PJ says that improving someone's writing is hard work - and in his view, also "too painful".

It made me think - at the:101 we provide writing workshops lasting between three or six hours and I reckon there's a lot you can do in that time to help someone become a better writer. How?

First things first: being a better writer means knowing the common pitfalls where meaning can be lost or where you risk making the client look like an idiot. So, we look at some of the most common mistakes of spelling, grammar and punctuation - things like using commas incorrectly, particular homonyms, colons versus semi-colons, using quotation marks properly. Things that are simple to many people, but if you didn't learn this stuff at school it's easy to get it wrong.

Second, PR execs I train tell me it's a nightmare to write something interesting when your client is a bit boring challenging. So we look at six common sorts of introduction and practice practise using them with different clients and different publications. Even a dry story can be made more interesting if you use the right introduction.

Another area where PR execs often struggle is structuring copy that isn't a press release, where there's a known template.  So, we look at how to structure a feature, or case history or bylined article. This isn't rocket science - but knowing that using this 6-step structure  (say) will result in a readable feature can help enormously. Similarly, I was taught a three-step structure for a single paragraph when I was at college, and it's something I still use today.

I make a point of introducing people in writing courses to what an old news editor used to call the SFW paragraph, which often follows the intro (the "S" stands for "so" and the "W" for "what"). We discuss how to use stats and science to enlighten the reader and strengthen an argument without blinding them with numbers.

We often also spend some time looking at quotes - something it's not easy to get right because of the way PR quotes are produced. But we look at good and bad quotes, and practise making one into the other. From this, we come up with a few golden rules of things you should never do in quotes.

Depending on the size of the group, this sort of training can be done in a day, or just a morning. In a two day workshop, I'd also include some basic tips and techniques for proofing and editing, since this is a big area where good PR writing can go badly wrong.

Obviously, you can't turn anyone into Nick Hornby (or even Matthew Stibbe) in a morning, but you can certainly make them a better writer. I'd argue in a morning  you can teach someone:

• how not to make some of the most common mistakes seen in corporate writing
• how to liven up copy when you're talking about quite a dry client, and how to do this appropriately
• when to use numbers and statistics, and how to use them effectively
• using templates and structures to produce readable copy to a short deadline

It's not something you hear every day

"There's no future in media databases"

Those were the words of a chap I spoke to on a conference call earlier this week. I was a bit surprised, mind: he works at a media database company.

The call was actually an opportunity to chat with the company's developers, who are working on a new platform that will provide a range of online services to journalists and PRs. 

It was a fascinating conversation and I think there's some really good ideas being discussed. At the very least, I liked that the developers were taking the time to talk to journalists about what they called our "Key business processes", and what information we wanted to provide to PRs, and receive in return.

For me, I said the ideal online service would provide me with:

• a quick way to find press contacts, so I don't waste hours every week Googling various combinations of Company Name + Press Office + UK
• a central place to store bookmarks, articles, contacts and interview details, so I'm not printing everything out or constantly flicking between Google Reader, Word, Entourage, Firefox and Excel.
• the ability to dynamically update the sort of topics I'm interested in, or a way to specify cut-off dates, like "I'm interested in HR, but only until the 25th, then I'm interested in corporate finance."

Anything else? 

I'm actually lunching with another media database company next week, so it will be interesting to see if the market generally is moving in the same direction.

Take a break, already

As regular blog readers will know, work/life balance is not always a friend of mine.

I'm guilty of working too many weekends at the moment, because things are pretty hectic. My parents have taken an extended holiday, which means I have the adorable Flea at home full-time and a to-do list that now spans five sheets of A4  (both sides).

However, one nice thing about working weekends used to be the peace and quiet. I used to know that if I went into the office on a weekend, it would be productive, since I could work without interruptions from emails, phone calls and the like. Friends, those times are gone.

Seriously, Twitter users. Take a break. Rest your weary fingers. Even God took a day off, and he created, like, an entire world.

I don't need to know RIGHT NOW that you had bacon and eggs for breakfast, I don't need to know you're watching The Wire, and I probably don't need to know you're going to visit your Mum.

I remember a few weeks back seeing a post on Twitter from someone saying: "I'm at my niece's second birthday party" and I thought to myself, "No you're not. You're sitting in a corner ignoring your niece while you tap out a slightly pointless message to a load of people who really should be doing something better with their precious free time than checking Twitter for updates."

As John Thompson points out here: Dude, it's ***Sunday***

What's a word worth?

As a PR executive, how important is it that you understand grammar and spelling?

Jo at Strive PR thinks the issue is over-emphasised and that journalists shouldn't dismiss a press release simply because of a few spelling or grammar errors. Over at Common Sense PR, meanwhile, Eric wonders whether poor grammar necessarily means you're a poor communicator? Yes, it does.

When you don't know the difference between your and you're, or their and there, I judge you. If you use like when you mean such as, I think you're slapdash. The same applies to all those people who don't understand that fewer refers to number and less than to volume.

We offer grammar and writing workshops through the:101 and I am always amazed by how rarely the bright PR executives I meet can tell me the difference between affect and effect, or the active and passive voice. I can't remember ever meeting a PR executive who could tell me why it's bad form to split an infinitive, much less what an infinitive is.

Part of the issue is professionalism. Whether you're a journalist or a PR executive, clients are paying for your skill in providing professional copy. If someone is paying you to write, you should have an impeccable command of the language. They shouldn't need to 'fix' what you've sold them. It's also an issue of pragmatism: every time you use the wrong word, or get the punctuation wrong in a sentence, it makes your copy a little bit harder to understand. You can't be an effective communicator if you can't put together the best possible words, in the best possible order.

Improving your understanding of grammar and spelling needn't be hard work. There's a lot you can do to address the most common mistakes, and quickly improve the quality of your writing. My own recommendations in this field would be:

1. English for Journalists, by Wynford Hicks: an easy read that lists the language rules that are most commonly misunderstood.
2. The Oxford Guide to Writing by Thomas Kane: has been my writing bible for years. A guide to writing clear, compelling English.
3. The Economist Style Guide. If you're ever unsure whether to use Internet or internet, this will provide good advice.
4. The BBC Style Guide. Great for checking on international, political and politically sensitive terminology
5. The AP Style Guide. Used by journalists the world over, and for $25 a year, it's a bargain.

Five reasons I deleted your press release

Lately, it seems like I’ve been added to a number of new PR agency press release distribution lists – I’d guess the average  number of emails I receive per day has doubled in the last six weeks or so. And sadly, the increase is down to press releases rather than offers of lovely press trips or fat commissions.

Looking at press releases, I can’t help but think that something has to change. We may not be ready for the new-fangled social media release just yet, but the press release as it is today? Really sucks. So I looked at the releases in my deleted folder and worked out why they had been so swiftly jettisoned.

Reason One: Your sentences are too long.
The opening sentences of the last three releases I received had 30, 61 and 77 words in their opening sentences. I may be proved wrong, but I’m going to go out on a limb and say that nobody ever said anything interesting in a 77 word sentence.  As a rule of thumb, 25-30 words is about the maximum and if you can make it shorter, then do.

Reason Two: Your client descriptors make no sense. 
I’ve covered technology for almost ten years, now. But I regularly get releases where I have no clue what the issuing company actually does. Pray, what exactly is a “leading provider of on demand talent management solutions”? Or a “specialist for transport finance”? How about “a global information distribution company”? We’re not all experts in every industry and you could miss an opportunity simply because we don’t know your client is relevant.

Reason Three: Your quotes come from robots.
Take this gem: “Platform key rotation with zero downtime provides corporations with a powerful tool to ensure security of infrastructure while complying with relevant data protection regulations with zero impact on core business activities.” Two thoughts: if someone actually said these words to me, I’d laugh. And I don’t even know what it means.

Reason Four: Jargon, jargon, jargon.
It’s stunning how many products that are unique sound a bit like stuff we already have. It’s funny how many companies within a single sector are the industry leaders. It’s amazing how many companies make “solutions”. Who knew we had so many problems? On a good day, this sort of thing is just white noise. But sometimes it can actually overpower the real message.

Reason Five: You sent it to the wrong people.
I’m a pretty predictable sort of hack. I cover three or four topics 99% of the time (public sector, HR, technology, business). So why did I receive releases today about: new holiday destinations, the launch of a new drama series, a range of baby clothes and car insurance? When I worked on a B2B title, I regularly received consumer press releases. This sort of activity just encourages journalists to treat press releases as background noise, and to ignore them even more studiously.

The reality is: we still need press releases, or at least we still need to hear about your client's news in some shape or form. But why do some press releases have to be so bad? Later this week, I'll be posting examples of releases that do this stuff better. Stay tuned...

Who needs PR agencies, exactly?

I just got back from spending the day with a software company that - shock - does not employ a PR agency. Ever.

Despite this apparently odd decision, the company in question is highly successful, having acquired a string of competitors and is the leader in several of its markets. They get coverage in most of their key target publications, and seem to have good rapport with the press, analysts and other industry influencers. So, how do they do it?

The marketing people themselves write the press releases, they come up with feature pitches and ideas, they develop relationships with the key journalists in their sector.

The system seems to work pretty well. The people writing the releases know both the products and customers inside out. They're in regular contact with senior management, and have a good idea of the company's strategy and core messages. And they work with companies like the:101 (plug) to help hone their pitching skills and get tips on how to develop stories and search out opportunities. We talked a lot about blog pitching strategies, SEO, features tracking - and this is all stuff the marketing people were excited to get involved with.

This is the second company I've found that has done away with PR agencies entirely - I worked with a similar company last year where the MD (a former HP exec) was so disillusioned after years of working with PR agencies that he simply decided to train his own people to do the job instead.

And it seems from discussion on UKPress today that Emap is now getting magazine journos to do their own press releases and PR, rather than going through an agency.

So, here's my question: what do these companies miss out on by not working with a PR agency?  I must admit, as a hack, I love the idea of not needing to go through that intermediary when I'm following up a story. But I'm not an expert in what PR agencies do over and above this stuff, so I could easily be missing something.

So what does a fat monthly retainer get you?

Gizmodo: probably not invited to CES next year.

I went to a trade conference last week, my first in almost a year.

It didn't take long for me to get back into the swing of things. Working out where the TV monitors are, so you can watch the plenary sessions while getting early access to the press buffet; finding just the right spot to wear your badge so people can't quite make out your name and collar you; picking the two pieces of paper you need from the press pack and ditching the oh-so-classy conference bag.

It occurred to me  that this sort of  event is always the same. There's the introductory keynote that includes rock star/red arrows/celebrity footage, in an attempt to make enterprise software appear more "sexy". Then there's the speaker who makes some incredibly sexist analogy to prove a point. This time it was the revelation that men don't always go shopping with their wives, which is just like partnership working in local government. Right. And there's always one stall that's crowded with visitors because they have the best freebies - this time it was the stall running a wii golf competition.

It can sometimes feel just a little predictable. So thank heaven's for this, the funniest thing I've seen in ages. Gizmodo went to tech trade show CES armed with some little gadgets that use infrared to turn off TV screens. Havoc ensues. Enjoy.