Wall St. Journal Validates Cord-Cutting Predictions

Seems like cable companies have noticed that that people are cord-cutting to save money from ever-increasing monthly fees -- just as we predicted back in Jan. 

Check out the article: Cable Firms Making Offers Cord-Cutters Can't Refuse.

Is Print Media Dying? Is It Still Worth Pitching?

Elections aside, there's been continuing talk about the prospects of print media. There was even a reporter for a PR trade that asked the question, "Are print outlets still worth pitching?"

And while there's still turmoil in the print world -- witness Newsweek's move to online-only and this recent headline: "Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia to Lay Off Staff and Reduce Magazines" -- the online-only media isn't a sure bet, either.

So here are five reasons why print is worth pitching.

1. People are still reading print media. Depending on your target audience, print may be the preferred medium.
2. Most print media also publish the same content online (just under SEO-optimized headlines). Even if online-versions of the articles are hidden behind a paywall, subscribers can still access them.
3. Although you can't pin print-only coverage on Pinterest, you can still highlight print coverage on your website, blog, Twitter feed, etc.
4. Your parents -- who still may not understand what PR is -- as well as your clients' parents are more familiar with print media. If you tell them you got a client mentioned in the New York Times, they'll be able to appreciate that whereas they may not have heard of or care about getting a placement on Mashable or GigaOm.
5. You can more easily frame a terrific print hit to hang on your wall -- while online coverage doesn't always look as good hanging on your wall.

To be clear, I am not suggesting that you should only pitch print media -- just that there's really no reason to not pitch print media. You can continue to pitch online outlets and continue your social media programs. For most clients, It just doesn't make sense to not pitch print.

Let me know what you think.

Talking Politics in the Workplace

I generally don't talk about my politics in the workplace. If I do discuss politics, it's generally to discuss lessons learned that can be applied to a client.  There are campaigns that handle social media well while others are still not "getting it."

For example, there are some that embrace new platforms -- both Mitt and Ann Romney use Instagram (Mitt has 61 photos and 84,000 followers while Ann has 33 photos and 9,658 followers) while Barack Obama may not have an Instagram account.  (There is an account called Obama2012 that has 15,000 followers and 12 photos but it says, "This account for campaign Barrack (sic) Obama on 2012," so I don't think it is officially connected to the actual president.) So the question I ask is: what can we learn about the use of Instragram as part of a communications campaign?

Meanwhile, Ann Romney has 14,052 followers on Pinterest based on 175 pins and Mitt, who uses Photostream has 636 followers on Pinterest and 79 pins. By contrast, Michelle Obama has 45,345 followers on Pinterest and 80 pins while Barack Obama has 36,034 followers on Pinterest and 238 pins.

I realize some observations may not lead to lessons learned but I've always felt asking questions is an important way to learn.  (I realize that candidates wives are often viewed more favorably than their husbands but I'm not sure how to apply that insight to our B2B clients, yet.)

On Monday, a business acquaintance blasted an email out to his list explaining why he would be voting for a particular candidate. I tweeted that it's not so much his politics I minded as that I didn't ask him. I guess it comes down, for me, to having a don't ask, don't tell approach to politics.

I don't really want to know.

However, that changes if a client, colleague or business partner espoused hateful hateful ideology or said something racist, homophobic or anti-Semitic.  At that point, you have to take a stand. 

In the meantime, check out this Wall St. Journal article, Big Bet 6 Months Ago Paved Way for President. Whatever your politics, this article makes the case for defining your competition early.

Important Business Lesson from Blue Man Group

Here's a quick post based on another Fortune article: "How Blue Man Group learned to see green."

The brief article provides an interesting overview of the accidental national theater group that was generated by brought to you by the color blue, but there's at least one bit of advice worth considering, from co-founder Chris Wink:

If you can be a good collaborator, it's like having a superpower because you can connect your gifts with that of someone else. The point is to get the work done and not look out for your own celebrity or money. I stopped trying to have my own career, found some friends, and worked with them.

Since I was talking with a client last week about the power of collaboration, I thought this was worth sharing on our blog.

Another Wall St. Journal Article Validates Cyberattack Prediction

This is a trend prediction we hate to be right about, but in our set of predictions published on Feb. 2, 2012, "Ongoing stories we’ll see covered in the media," we included:

"Cyberwarfare: the act of attacking one’s enemies by hacking. It’s happening on both sides in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the US media has reported that China is using cyberwarfare against the US, including corporate espionage, so expect it to spread elsewhere."

Unfortunately, we've seen a spate of articles covering cyberwarfare, including this one from the Wall St. Journal (but the story appeared elsewhere, too): "Iran Blamed for Cyberattacks; U.S. Officials Say Iranian Hackers Behind Electronic Assaults on U.S. Banks, Foreign Energy Firms."

Here's the New York Times' take: "U.S. Suspects Iran Was Behind a Wave of

Cyberattacks: Intelligence officials believe network attacks thatcrippled computers across the Saudi oil industry and breached Americanfinancial institutions originated in Iran."

We can add Iran to the list of countries conducting cyberwarfare.

We think coverage of cyberattacks will continue because the number of cyberattacks will continue.

3 Lessons from Great Fortune Article about IBM's CEO Ginni Rometty

As compared with Forbes, which is more focused on investment opportunities, Fortune has staked out management as its focus.

Jessi Hempel wrote a terrific profile of IBM's Ginni Rometty in the current "Most Powerful Women" issue. What made the article, "IBM's Ginni Rometty looks ahead" so worth reading is that Hempel not just the insight into Rometty's personality and career achievements. It's that the article contains at least three pieces of business insight that all of us can use.

Here are the three lessons I learned from the article:

• "Whatever business you're in -- it doesn't matter -- it's going to commoditize over time. It's going to devalue. You've got to keep moving it to a higher value." We should all look at where we can improve the value of our services and products.
• "IBM's most senior executives have long served on three teams -- operating, technology, and strategy -- to help guide the company. Rometty created a fourth leadership team, the Client Experience Team, which she chairs. There are no senior executives on the team. Rather, she appointed a series of client-facing executives to meet with her once a month."
•  To open new markets, sometimes you need to find new problems to solve for new internal customers.  For Rometty growth comes not just from inventing new technologies to sell to her existing clients. "Growth at IBM's scale also means creating new markets...Now Rometty is making a similar pitch to marketing executives, promising that technology will change the way they do their jobs. It won't be an easy sell: Marketers are less apt than bureaucrats to be wowed by a charismatic CEO or statistics about petabytes. Many are accustomed to seeing computing as a tool to support their creative endeavors, not the starting point."

Some good business lessons from a terrific article.

Fortune Validates

Back in Feb., we issued the prediction that focus on mobile payments would increase.

Last month, Fortune joined the New York Times and Wall St. Journal and other top-tier media in validating our prediction. Check out the cover story: "The Death of Cash: Tech giants - and startups like Square - want you to use your phone to pay for everything from gum to train rides. Here's how they plan to achieve cash-free nirvana."

We predicted that e-wallets would be mainstream in five years but we may move that up to four years, based on the kind of media coverage we've been seeing.