ARcade

Norwegian-British Chamber of Commerce Member's Forum at H&K London tonight

2008-09-23T09:08:00Z

Eilert Hanoa, the CEO of one of our clients Mamut, is giving the key note at their members forum on September 23.

The subject of Eilert's talk will be "Doing Business in the UK - Mamut's Success and Experiences". Eilert is a great public speaker and a genuinely interesting man with a fascinating story to tell about his entrepreneurial background and the phenomenal success of Mamut.

The Norwegian-British Chamber of Commerce (NBCC) is an independent non-profit organisation with more than 700 members, including over 150 Young Professional Members. The NBCC was founded in 1906 and welcomes members from Norway and the United Kingdom. The chamber has played a significant role in supporting Anglo-Norwegian trade relations during the past 100 years. NBCC is funded through member subscription fees and its own activities.

Founded in 1994, Mamut is a leading European provider of complete, integrated software solutions and internet services for SMEs. Mamut offers complete and user-friendly solutions at the best value for money integrating CRM, sales force, logistics, accounting, e-commerce, domains, e-mail, web hosting and security. More than 400,000 European customers simplify their daily business with solutions from Mamut.

Click here to see the online invitation. It's late in the day, but I'm sure we can accomodate a few more people if you call us on 0207 413 3000 and ask for Dominic Pannell or Sara Jurkowsky.

The event will start at 6.30pm, with a drinks reception after the presentation at around 8pm. The address is our office in Soho Square:

Hill & Knowlton
20 Soho Square
London W1A 1PR

To view a map, click here

Nearest tube: Tottenham Court Rd

Mastering the Hype Cycle - new book by Gartner

2008-09-17T19:42:00Z

Gartner analysts Jackie Fenn and Mark Raskino have written a book on the Hype Cycle, which is the series of signature research that Gartner's clients read the most.

Jackie created the first 'Hype Cycle of Emerging Technologies' in 1995 and has been refining them in the 13 years since. In the original, the "Information Superhighway" was tumbling down towards the trough of disillusionment where handwriting recognition was already languishing and intelligent agents were at their most hyped. At H&K, we reckon Jackie was pretty much spot on.

Jackie and Mark have also started a blog around the launch of their book, which is worth reading as it already contains useful insights relating to various cycles.

Flatteringly, in their latest post Jackie references the Clean Tech Hype Cycle that Josh Reynolds published in June (and which I cross-posted here). As Jackie says, "the hype cycle really isn’t about technology, but about the human reaction to anything new – in particular the mismatch between expectations and reality" we couldn't agree more - we use hype cycles internally as a marketing planning tool in various divisions, whether or not they relate to technology.

We also debate hype cycles with clients who also subscribe to Gartner and can therefore access the reports - used carefully, this really helps both sides to understand the real business goals and to match communications objectives accordingly.

Personally, I can hardly wait to read the book, which I've had on pre-order for weeks now!

Cross-post: Clean Tech Hype Cycle

2008-07-28T09:50:00Z

As followers of H&K's tech practice will know, Joshua Reynolds was recently promoted to Global Technology Practice Director. At the start of the month, he published the following short article on the Hype Cycle that we have produced for clean technology, largely because it didn't already exist. Clean tech is an area that is extremely important to H&K and you can expect to see much more posted in the coming months as we demonstrate our credentials.

Given the attention that Carter and others have given to Hype Cycles in the not too distant past, it seems very appropriate to cross-post Josh's article on ARcade.

I plan to run an afternoon/evening session for clients and friends of H&K shortly that focuses on Hype Cycles, why they are important, what you can do with them and how you can influence them. Contact me for further information.

Clean tech is the latest boom industry. Global investments in clean energy are conservatively estimated at US$148 billion in 2007, with year-on-year growth rates of 60%. But this entrepreneurial frenzy brings with it a commensurate degree of hype. And it is hype—and how we navigate it—that determines long-term winners from losers.

Fortunately, we have a diagnostic tool that helps us predict waves of hype, separate legitimate innovation from fads, and enable us to become the voice of reason in a crowded and confused public dialogue.

Years ago, international technology research firm Gartner developed something they called the Hype Cycle. It plotted various technologies from various sectors along a market maturation curve that was divided into five sections:

Technology triggers were those innovations that had been invented but not yet broadly marketed—or tested.
Innovations at the peak of inflated expectations are those that are broadly publicized but often misunderstood as people rush to deploy them without first understanding their limitations.
In the trough of disillusionment, as people gradually realize that new innovations don’t live up to their over-hyped reputations, the industry goes through a period of general disappointment.
At the slope of enlightenment, wiser heads prevail and realize ways to achieve meaningful ROI from their investments with minor modifications in deployment.
And finally, a technology reaches a point where it has become so ubiquitous all the risk is gone, as is all the innovation. This is the plateau of productivity.

Originally, Gartner meant for this tool to help its clients determine levels of risk associated with buying or investing in specific technologies. And as Hill & Knowlton has discovered, this tool can be easily adapted to construct (and de-construct) marketing strategies not only for new technologies, but for other sectors, as well—including clean tech. Gartner has not yet produced an official clean tech hype cycle. But based on our own research and analysis, we have constructed a rudimentary one of our own (see illustration), which remains a work in progress.

Technology Trigger: Here we tell “next big thing” stories. Even if we don’t sell technologies in this phase, we make industry predictions about the long-term impact of new developments on mature markets. And we offer counsel on how to avoid becoming obsolete in the wake of fresh innovations. In the world of clean tech, this includes new long-life batteries and energy storage architectures for clean energy such as solar, wind and wave.

Peak of Inflated Expectations: Here we counter industry hype by running “mythbuster” campaigns that challenge commonly held misperceptions. We seed the market with the top five questions to ask your vendors, partners or senior management before investing in this area. And we offer counsel on how to mitigate risks associated with these new fads. In clean tech, commercial grade solar energy is often over -hyped. We can boost our credibility by challenging false assumptions around cost, energy storage and ease of deployment.

Trough of Disillusionment: Here we provide a counterpoint to industry skepticism. We offer counsel on how to achieve ROI from existing investments, and promulgate best practices for deployment. And we can offer expert views on “lessons learned” that position us as the wise ones in a down sector. In clean tech, people are extremely disillusioned with “greenwashing,” which involves a company trying to portray itself as environmentally conscious without accounting for the true environmental impact of its policies.

Slope of Enlightenment: Here we candidly address industry maturity and market consolidation and commoditization. We celebrate customer heroes who had the vision to see the long-term value in a new innovation. And we offer counsel on where the industry goes next. Energy efficient appliances, and intelligent power consumption in hardware and data centers, have long been promoted as good ideas. Now we can share best practices for others to follow.

And at the Plateau of Productivity, where you find things like energy-saving florescent light bulbs, it’s time to find something new to talk about.

In the coming months and years, clean technology will become an increasingly prevalent topic. The space will become crowded with visionaries, industrial giants, and general embellishment. The best way to stand apart in a space like that is to be the voice of reason, know where you are on the hype cycle, and speak accordingly. As we continue to learn more, this hype cycle will continue to evolve—and so will our marketing strategies.

Although Gartner currently only publishes hype cycles for technology, media & entertainment, supply chain and natural resource industries, this hype cycle methodology works just as well for other sectors, too. The clean tech hype cycle is just one example of a home-grown diagnostic tool used to bring immediately applicable insights to a burgeoning market. By putting our clients' communications into a broader strategic context--regardless of which sector they're in--we can enhance their thought leadership propgrams and executive profiling. But even more than that, we can anticipate the next big thing--or next big flop--and literally get them "ahead of the curve."

Pre-briefing rules of thumb for public companies

2008-07-07T00:10:00Z

It’s always a good idea to pre-brief industry analysts on company news right? Pre-briefings are one of the most powerful tools analyst relations professionals have for driving real influence. It’s an AR maxim: Tell ‘em early, tell ‘em often, make friends and get ‘em to say nice things about you – preferably to their buy-side clients.

However, some clients have demonstrated a powerful reluctance to talk to third parties about anything before the news release crosses the wire – even under a non-disclosure agreement. As executives at public companies they have been trained to be hyper-sensitive to regulations surrounding fair disclosure and rather than risk crossing their lawyers they write off the potential benefits of the pre-briefing.

Clearly this is not a best practice and as strategic counselors it’s our job to pull them back from that position, but it’s important to note that they aren’t always wrong. Do you want to involve analysts early about the next product release? Absolutely. What about the announcement of a significant customer win or a new partnership? Yes, again. But what about M&A activity? Or a change in the company’s executive leadership? The more material the news, the more caution needs to be taken when considering who you invite into your tent, if anyone at all.

Generally speaking there are a lot of good reasons to pre-brief: on the PR side, you have an informed third-party source of comment for journalists and possibly even a quote for the press release, while the pure AR benefits include a closer relationship with analysts who are influential in your market. After all, analysts trade in knowledge. Providing them with the kind of information that will help inform their advice to clients can only help them. The closer you are, the more comfortable they are going to be about recommending and short-listing your company. Plus, they can ask questions and provide feedback that may help you position yourself most advantageously or avoid a pitfall or two when you do cross the wire.

But anytime you tell someone a secret, you run a risk leading us to another analyst relations maxim: Never disclose anything to an analyst that could cause material damage to your business. The aforementioned M&A activity, for example, is incredibly sensitive. While the overwhelming majority of analysts hold to their NDAs and vows of confidentiality like Indiana Jones does his favorite hat, there are a few exceptions out there that make the rule.

So what about those pesky NDAs? The whole subject of non-disclosure is a sensitive one, especially with your top-tier analysts at Gartner, Forrester, IDC and one or two other firms. If you’re a client, you probably have a standard NDA as part of your service level agreement, but you still need to tell the analyst you are talking confidentially and this is where you need to approach with some sensitivity. Most top tier analysts will flat out refuse to sign a special NDA and by asking you risk damaging your relationship with them. A couple of years ago one vendor tried this at an analyst day, only to have the attendees from a top firm walk out.

Exception: If you engage Gartner – or Forrester, IDC, Yankee, etc – to do a consulting project before making a material business decision (tearing the covers off an M&A target, for example) then they will expect to sign an NDA, but this is not related to a pre-briefing.

The lower tier analysts are a different crowd altogether and they won’t care about your NDA and will sign whatever you want. They are used to this and understand the reasons. But why are you pre-briefing a lower tier analyst, whose clients are most likely your competitors, on something sensitive anyway?

So where exactly is that middle ground? We asked a couple of investor relations experts here at Hill & Knowlton, for the IR perspective, talked to a couple of analysts and we came up with some general rules of thumb around pre-briefings.

Ascertain how the news relates to that second maxim – will it materially hurt your business if it becomes public knowledge prior to the embargo date? Is your CEO quitting? Are you being acquired by a competitor? If so, then keep it to yourself – though it won’t hurt to give your best friends in the analyst community a heads up to keep their eyes open for the announcement.
Pick the analysts you want to pre-brief carefully...restrict to selected Tier One influencers... people who will both act as a source of credible third-party comment to the press and people you want to get closer to because having a more intimate relationship will meet top-line AR goals of driving sales and revenue.
Limit the number of analysts you do pre-brief. In most cases, there’s no need to go beyond two or three of your closest friends.
If you are talking about a new product briefing, then you should engage the analysts early, at least three to four months before the announcement date. This will provide them with the opportunity to give feedback while you can still actually gain some benefit from it. Then come back to them again for a sanity check a couple of weeks before the announcement. For announcements that are more material, brief within 48 hours of the announcement... and preferably within 24.
Diplomatically establish the ground rules with the analyst when asking them if they are interested in the pre-briefing and setting up the call.

Remind them that the conversation will be under NDA. Are they interested in such a call?
Point out that the conversation makes them an "insider" and they can't trade the stock until the announcement is made public.
If they agree to these terms – and the overwhelming majority will – then go ahead and book the call, but don’t be surprised if some decline. Some analysts prefer not to operate under non disclosure.

Presentation best practices

Insert an NDA slide at the beginning of your presentation. You always, always need to remind analysts that the presentation is confidential and this is a ‘gentle’ way of making sure it doesn’t get forgotten.
Be clear about exactly what is and isn’t under NDA. Not everything will be. One suggestion is to use different background colours on slides that are under NDA to slides that aren’t. This creates an easy, visual reference for analysts.

Follow-up in writing to let analysts know when the material you pre-briefed them on becomes public. Specify in the email which material you are talking about – especially if you are doing multiple rounds of pre-briefings on different announcements. Pasting the announcement in the email is a good way to do this.

Latest news from Twitter: Forrester hires a Senior Analyst

2008-06-27T10:32:00Z

Peter Kim tweets that Forrester Research has filled a vacant position and will soon be announcing an analyst to cover social computing. Who says Twitter is useless?

Carter's Analyst Twitter Directory currently lists 104 analyst accounts and that doesn't include the AR folks who also use the medium.

Personally, I find Twitter to be a very useful tool for my work - it allows me to loosely follow several analysts whose work is highly relevant to my clients, thus keeping an eye on their current research interests and allowing me to flag interesting developments. I'm then able to act where necessary using more traditional communications methods (is it correct to refer to the phone and email as 'traditional', I wonder?).

Yes, it's not all serious, yes I admit that I do tweet about rugby matches that I'm watching and yes, I have been known to tell my 81 followers what I'm eating. No, it's not everybody's cup of tea.

Nobody's forcing to anybody to sign up. All I'm saying is that I find it helpful.

Shake-up at Ovum

2008-04-23T14:39:00Z

Credit where it's due - my former boss David Rossiter has done a great job of detailing the recent changes at Ovum, although he's missed a couple of other leavers in Elsa Lion, former Senior Analyst in Ovum's mobile team, who has taken a market intelligence role at Orange and Carl Gressum, who used to run the ConnectedHome service, but who has moved over to Premonvision recently and is currently presenting in Korea.

At the recent IIAR meeting, Ovum SVP David Mitchell was confronted about the number of changes in the analyst teams over the past year or so, but he was apparently upbeat about the quality and number of analysts (I couldn't be there, but my colleague Agi reported back to me).

All this comes at a time when Ovum's advisory services are being re-organized to fit Datamonitor's bundled service approach as the acquisition dust begins to settle. Interesting times indeed...

IIAR "Analyst of the Year" awards

2008-04-09T13:37:00Z

We'd better join Catherine, David, Jonny and others in asking you to vote for your analyst or analyst firm of the year with the Institute for Industry Analyst Relations (IIAR). These are the inaugural "Analyst of the Year" awards run by the IIAR.

If you are an AR professional, you can vote for your 'analyst of the year' and your 'analyst firm of the year'.

There's more information - and details on how to enter - on the IIAR blog.

Exciting news

2008-04-09T13:12:00Z

H&K's global AR team has quite a lot of exciting news to announce, but while we're waiting for that, I thought I'd point out that H&K UK has a new website.

It's quite a lot zippier than the last version and I even had a new photo taken for it. A prize for the avid reader who finds it in the shortest time!

[Clue: it's only one click away from the homepage]

Flat News Earth Debate -

2008-03-07T07:09:00Z

I had an interesting evening two nights ago at the Flat Earth News Debate organised by the Press Gazette following the launch of Nick Davies' book. The topic for discussion was "Is a culture of “churnalism” destroying real journalism in the UK?"

Top marks to the Press Gazette for attracting a high profile panel that included the author, several very established journalists and editors as well as H&K's UK CEO - the book is being widely discussed within the PR industry and it's important that we take part in the discussion.

The full list of panellists was:

Nick Davies - Guardian writer, former British Press Awards reporter and feature writer of the year and author of Flat Earth News
Andrew Gilligan - the former Today Programme reporter whose investigations into the office of London Mayor Ken Livingstone have prompted a police inquiry and the suspension of one of Livingstone's closest aides
Malcolm Starbrook - editor of the East London Advertiser, a former editor of the Croydon Advertiser and member of the Press Complaints Commission
Peter Preston - Observer media columnist and former Guardian editor.
Michelle Stanistreet - President of the NUJ and a journalist with the Daily Express
Sally Costerton - UK chief executive of PR firm Hill & Knowlton
Dominic Ponsford - editor of Press Gazette

The debate did get somewhat sidetracked into a discussion of bad pay within UK journalism, but as this is part of the problem that Nick Davies describes in his book, panellists and audience-members were allowed to run with this theme.

I'll come clean and admit that I haven't finished reading Flat Earth News, so my opinions are liable to change somewhat over the coming days, but in short Davies is saying that ownership of newspapers has shifted from benevolent patriarchs who were interested in power and influence to commercial organisations driven by the profit motive.

According to Davies, commercial pressures have led to journalists having to churn out up to ten news stories a day, leading to a failure to check facts and consequently to the publication of many untrue stories.

The situation is exacerbated by a reduction in the number of journalists which results in their taking announcements from official bodies such as courts and the government at face value. To make matters worse, the Press Association, which Davies describes in his book as "the primary conveyor belt along which information reaches national media in Britain," has replaced a network of local staff reporters and freelance hacks who used to cover news around the country. Davies asserts that the Press Association is woefully understaffed and frequently resorts to passing on information unchecked, only for this to be taken as fact by journalists in the nationals.

The other main argument is that editors are faced with enormous pressures from, for example, the government to publish or not to publish stories. The example of Prince Harry's recent tour of duty in Afghanistan was cited as a powerful example of press collusion - interestingly a show of hands revealed the audience at the debate to be split down the middle as to whether the press were right or wrong to do so.

While the discussion was largely interesting, the debate was effectively snuffed out by the author himself: several of the panellists, including Peter Preston, Andrew Gilligan and Francis Ingham challenged the factual basis upon which Davies builds his Flat Earth News arguments and it was hugely ironic that he batted away these accusations of poor fact-checking by saying that it was "boring" to get bogged down with the detail. A classic case of do as I say, don't do as I do...

Hats off to Ingham for the night's best soundbite: "PR isn't that powerful, journalists are not that lazy, and the public are not that stupid." Quite.

What does all that mean for PR agencies like H&K and Influencer50? Well, here's the hard sell: any erosion of the influence of journalists means that other parties can muscle in and grab mindshare among the customers of our clients' products and services, so from a selfish perspective it's good news for PR practitioners who engage with non-media stakeholders.

While we absolutely condemn the plight of journalists and absolutely recognise their lack of numbers, it highlights the importance of identifying ALL the actors that carry weight on purchasing decisions and working to align their agenda with that of our clients for mutual benefit. In other words, less 'Media Relations' and more 'Public Relations' in its true sense (or 'influencer marketing' if you must). In short, it puts a multi-specialist like H&K in a particularly powerful position as we frequently combine our deep expertise in disciplines as diverse as Public Affairs, Change Management and Analyst Relations with sector knowledge in Financial Services, Healthcare and Technology, etc. When combined with top class media relations, the result is a truly powerful marketing communications campaign that reflects directly on clients' bottom lines.

My colleagues Guy and Niall, being more dedicated bloggers, have already posted their own takes on the debate - the latter demonstrating his note-taking skills by reproducing a good summary of the panellists' positions.

NASSCOM 2008

2008-02-16T08:19:00Z

I've spent the past few days in Mumbai, India attending the NASSCOM 2008 India Leadership Forum. The sell-out event was, without question a great success, bringing around 2000 stakeholders from the global outsourcing industry together under one roof for three days.

I have spent much of my time at NASSCOM introducing H&K client ITIDA to analysts and consultants who were attending the event. ITIDA is promoting Egypt as an outsourcing destination as part of Egypt's ICT Strategy 2007-2010. Discussions at the forum have been overwhelmingly constructive and reaction to the path of progress that Egypt has embarked upon and its stated strategy of partnering with the Indian outsourcing industry was received very positively.

The conference and the trip as a whole has been an eye-opening experience for me on a personal level - seeing this country of such contrasts for the first time and getting a sense of the optimism and ambition that is driving Indian business in the early 21st century. At the Global Leadership Awards ceremony, Shri Praful Patel, Indian Minister of State for Civil Aviation gave several examples of the tremendous leap that Indian companies have made over the past decade. He also observed that India will place aircraft orders of more than $100 billion over the next ten years.

It is undeniable that much remains to be done in order for the wealth created by those businesses to impact the country's poor meaningfully - the conference was hosted in the lavish Grand Hyatt, from whose windows the widespread poverty within Mumbai is impossible to ignore - but Indian economic success permits development in the wider country.

ITIDA's spokespeople including its CEO, Dr Hazem Abdelazim, stressed that Egypt is learning from India's success, particularly the important role that NASSCOM has played in this. They also highlighted that the policies adopted by the Egyptian Government aimed at returning some of the country's industrial wealth into improving the welfare of the people, particularly through education.

On a slight Web 2.0 tangent (who would have thought it?) I managed to make several new contacts, thanks partly to NASSCOM Connect, which allows registered delegates to contact one another and partly through sheer serendipity. One very charming person I met is Kiruba Shankar who runs social media consultancy Business Blogging Pvt Ltd and who was part of the forum's blog team. I was very pleased to learn that blogging has taken off in India together with other social media technologies. Indeed over breakfast today I learned that the Times Of India reckons it's India's buzziest media brand and I've watched numerous TV ads proclaiming that TOI's email/SMS package is the most advanced available.

*Full disclaimer: NASSCOM and ITIDA are both clients of H&K

Gartner's got a brand new portal

2008-01-29T08:44:00Z

Apologies for the late start to 2008 - we've been busy in the London office and at least I got round to posting something in January!

The reason for breaking my silence? Well, I just tried to access my Gartner.com account and it appears to have taken me to a new portal. I still have the option of using 'classic Gartner.com' and to be honest, I will probably do just that for the time being until I find the time to explore the new site (it's taking a while to load - hopefully this is just temporary).

Peter Sondergaard, the Gartner SVP responsible for the management and direction of worldwide research, said that exciting things were in store on Gartner's website when he spoke at the IIAR just under a year ago. In fact, the timing is rather nice as Gartner will again address the IIAR on Thursday. Hopefully, we're in for a run down of the new toys they've built for us.

It's all such fun.

H&K UK Strengthens Analyst Relations Offer

2007-11-22T16:13:00Z

As I mentioned previously, we’ve been working hard in the London AR team and that’s reflected in the fact that the team is growing - we’re delighted to announce the appointment of Marc Duke and Agnieszka Augustyniak.

Marc joined the team as a senior consultant in September and has been bringing his analytical skills to bear on several accounts. With ten years AR experience gained working at both vendors and agencies, he is well-known and highly respected in the AR community, having excellent contacts and broad experience. Marc will be instrumental in continuing to build our business and is helping us to expand the AR practice into a broader influencer proposition enabling it to cross-sell into industries outside technology.

Agnieszka also joins the team as a consultant. Agnieszka joins H&K from the AR team at Tata Consultancy Services (TCS). Agnieszka will help to ensure H&K execute AR programmes across existing accounts. Moreover, her first-hand experience of working in a major outsourcing company is already proving invaluable with our current client base.

H&K UK will continue to expand the proposition and to convert business from existing PR accounts, working closely with the rest of our global team. The practice aims to hire another full-time dedicated AR consultant early next year.

Social Media Club at H&K London

2007-11-08T18:47:00Z

Given my post last week, it's rather timely that H&K will be hosting the London group of the Social Media Club at Soho Square next Thursday evening (15 November).

SMC's events are fairly informal affairs, with discussion based around a specific social media theme.

This month’s theme will be the love-hate relationship between PR and bloggers. Most of the attendees are bloggers/podcasters, so will undoubtedly have a point of view on how and if companies should be communicating with them. I'll be there to represent the AR perspective, but it would be good to have more people along from the AR and industry analyst communities.

If you fancy an evening of healthy debate in the H&K bar on Soho Square, then you can sign up for the event for free here.

Social media in AR: private melds with public

2007-10-28T23:21:00Z

I was surprised today when Carter Lusher became my ‘friend’ on Facebook.

Surprised, and slightly concerned because Carter is AR Director at HP Corporate and the main contributor to the HP’s Corporate AR blog, whereas my profile on Facebook is distinctly unprofessional – to set the scene, my profile photo has me dressed as Father Christmas and the most recent ‘stories’ are that I have been ‘cuddled’ and ‘drunk dialled’ by other friends (both of whom I have met and consider to be good friends in the real world, since you ask).

Thankfully, Carter asked me a couple of questions, which allowed me to explain myself. He asked me how I was getting on with Facebook and whether I have managed to weave social media into my work.

My answer was rather long and Carter suggested I post a version of it on ARcade, so here goes:

I’ve been a member of various online communities for about a dozen years, from when I lived in Sweden (1995-1997). I have met many of my closest friends through sites like Shortcut (Swedish language community for young professionals) and Last Thursday (an irreverent place that is currently down for maintenance).

I’m a member of most of the big communities, from Bebo (started by my friend Paul Birch together with his brother Michael and Michael’s wife Xochi) and Dopplr on the fun side to Xing and LinkedIn on the professional front, but I treat them very differently. Much like my (and Carter’s) personal/professional blogs, I consider it appropriate to express myself according to the channel. You won’t find me writing about AR on Facebook, I prefer to leave that to places like ARcade and the IIAR. On Facebook and my personal blog, you’ll read about my exploits at Santacon and, at Christmas time, about volunteering for the homeless charity Crisis, both of which I’m passionate about, but there just isn’t a strong link to work (although I did persuade two colleagues to dress up as Santa last year).

Not long back, I took part in a discussion with the great and the good within H&K and argued that folk should be allowed to access Facebook, etc. on their work PCs. My position is that if we’re not on these sites, we’re lagging behind the competition and that’s professional suicide in PR. The only way to keep up to speed is to experiment. It’s also the best way to find out what’s useful and what’s not – am I the only person who can’t see the point of Me.dium?

Social media is changing business and personally I feel that companies that take policy decisions not to even comment on blogs or engage with social media are myopic and in time it will cost them dearly (even if they can be very useful – we create them for clients and for internal use – an email newsletter is like sooooo 1993!).

Conversely, I’m really pleased that Carter, already a prolific and talented blogger outside work, has started an AR blog – he’s a leading light in AR and practitioners can learn a lot from his posts. Moreover, by engaging in the online conversations, HP will benefit by understanding changes that are affecting the analyst community.

I saw how online communities transformed business life in Sweden, which is several years ahead of most other countries in this space – wait and see what happens to the US and the rest of the world now that we’re catching up.

Social media/the web will force existing unwieldy institutions to adapt or die – witness the Creative Commons, of which I’m a big fan. All mainstream IP systems are creaking at the seams and the Internet is speeding up the process.

Have I managed to weave Facebook into my work? No. My reply to Carter was the first time I’ve ever used it in anything like a professional capacity. Do I use social media in my work? All the time. From Twitter to Cogenz, I’m constantly connected, constantly scanning the web and testing new tools and it makes me and the rest of the H&K AR team better at what we do. We also have access to and use H&K's proprietary tools.

It’s not surprising that I’m such an advocate, having worked on Language Army and Friends Abroad, both of which base their successful business models on community. I have also guest lectured on social media at Warwick University.

Oh, and to prove my geeky credentials once and for all, I haven’t had a TV for years as I prefer surfing the net to goggling the box.

In short, I’m quite happy to be Carter’s friend on Facebook, as long as he doesn’t expect me to do anything sensible on there.

Top tip: If you’re ever travelling to the Bay area, ask Carter for a restaurant suggestion. I did and can guarantee you won’t be disappointed.

Disclaimer: HP is a client.

AR evolution

2007-10-21T12:58:00Z

It's been a bit quiet on ARcade in recent weeks. Apologies for that.

We've been busy handling client earnings briefings, preparing for product launches, attending client and analyst symposia... I guess there's nothing new in that and I for one am not complaining.

It's been particularly hectic in the London office over the past few months. So much so that I'm pleased to write that the AR team is expanding - I'll give details in a separate post, but we've completed a painstaking recruitment process. Part of that process involved taking a thorough look at the different tasks that our consultants undertake for clients - we came up with a list of 20 in all.

What was most interesting was that it became clear that many of our team's skills and methods can be applied to companies in sectors outside IT. Now I've been arguing this for a long time, but the exercise gave me something to back up my premise.

We're proving it, too. In September our Analyst Relations offer was part of a winning pitch to handle public relations for a global healthcare company and for the past six weeks we've been getting to grips with the key influencers in our new client's markets. It's fascinating.

The longer-term goal is to do the same for other sectors where it is possible to identify influential stakeholders and engage with them in a systematic programme on behalf of a client. I expect IT will always provide the majority of AR work, mainly because of its fast-moving nature and the maturity of the IT analyst industry, but it won't be the only source.

I'm currently speaking to colleagues who specialise in PR for two other sectors and I'm confident we'll build a credible offer to introduce AR to clients and further leverage the multi-specialised nature of H&K. We're not rushing into anything, however, and we're being careful not to distract ourselves from our existing work.