Should Obama have turned down the Nobel Peace Prize?

St Barack of Obama

There has certainly been a lot of surprise, not just from the man himself, about Barack Obama winning the Nobel Peace Prize.

One of the recurring themes, which was raised to me this morning by my pal and political junkie Colin Mahoney, was this: would it have been more prudent of a PR move for Obama to have been honored to have been nominated, but then decided to turn down the award?

He – or rather, his barely pubescent (OK – I’m jealous) speech writer Jon Favreau – put together some eloquent words on the subject, saying, “I am both surprised and deeply humbled. I do not view it as a recognition of my own accomplishments. But rather as an affirmation of American leadership. … I will accept this award as a call to action.”

However, the last sentence really does mean just that. He’s essentially been pre-awarded the prize for things that he now needs to live up to. And if he fails, it will not only seriously dent his own personal credibility, but will also have a very negative impact on global sentiment to the Nobel Peace Prize.

The question is – should he have said “I appreciate the honor, and although I firmly believe my actions are on the right track towards helping with world peace, I do not believe that my actions thus far have merited such a prestigious award” or some such? That would have given him the PR boost credibility of looking like the humble, bigger man, while also allowing the Prize committee to reflect on his actions. After all, the deadline for nominations was February 1st. He’d been in power for less than two weeks at the time, so to say that this award was made on anything other than promise was somewhat far-fetched. After all, the last two sitting Presidents (Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson) to get the award had drawn up the 1905 Russia-Japan peace treaty and helped in the founding of the League of Nations. The Nobel Peace Prize should be offered as a reward, not an incentive.

BTW – the photo of Obama is actually a White House handout.  Wonder how ironic they were being.

No such thing as a free…book?

Sexy librarians. Not available online.

Google was recently in Congress to defend its right to post books online and make them searchable. Obviously one of the big talking points was about just how far Google Books can go in its indexing, and whether this is fair, even though you can actually click through to an online retailer from the site and purchase of copy of whatever you’re reading (FYI, Google is facing a ton of opposition, but that’s another story).

But there’s another issue, which addresses something completely different – if Google can track what you’re reading (and you can bet that they do), who else could be checking up on what you’re reading? Several organizations, from the ACLU to EFF are concerned about this, suggesting that it could stymie peoples’ choice of what they read.

While it’s certainly a valid point, is this necessarily a Google Books issue, and do people have the right to complain? After all, what Google Books is doing is allowing people to read for free what they would generally otherwise have to pay for. It’s the consumer’s choice – either get it for free and potentially have someone know what you’re reading (which is only probably really bad if Google is subpoenaed to hand over your book list), or pay for it and, well potentially have someone know what you’re reading.

Should you wish to get the book somewhere else, would you still be able to expect – or be able to have – such a right to privacy? Not in a library, where consumers need to sign up to get out books. Nor in brick-and-mortar store, unless you choose to pay cash and hope that there are no security cameras catching your purchase. And certainly not Amazon.com, where your purchase history is extensively used for marketing to you.

So where does that leave Google? Is the trade-off between convenience and price, and possible privacy invasions worth the risk? Time will tell, but I seem to remember that there was outcry about the targeted ads within Gmail when that was launched, and it doesn’t seem to have done too badly so far.

Blogs, Twitter and that funny thing called privacy

Elementary, my dear Watson

There seems to have been a lot of discussion of late about the right to privacy online, from fired anonymous bloggers to fired Tweeters.

I personally find it interesting how many people seem to think that the Internet is some big anonymous  forum where anyone can say what they want or do what they want with no repercussions. I mean, if I were to stand in the middle of Times Square, Piccadilly Circus or some similarly populous place and speak my mind, although I’d obviously have the right to do so, should I expect a veil of anonymity (and therefore shield from the law)? No. In fact if you do say this kind of thing and slander / libel people, you should expect to receive whatever is thrown at you.

So the question is, should a blogger expect similar? It could be argued that anonymity is critical when revealing information that is essential to the public media, but if you just use it as a platform to air other people’s dirty laundry, should the same protections be afforded? It’s obviously a difficult one, where free speech and privacy intersect with people’s right to know who is saying what about them.

Similar is the story about the guy who got fired from California Pizza Kitchen for his Tweet “@calpizzakitchen black button ups are the lamest shit ever!!!” Again, we’ll probably never know whether this was just the tip of an iceberg, or if he was simply the victim of an over-zealous HR department. However, was it unnecessary of them to fire him? Well, although a stiff rebuke may have been necessary, the guy was obviously trying to get their attention (he could have quite easily said “My employers” or even “CPK’s, ” but starting it with “@calpizzakitchen makes” it pretty obvious what his intention was). Given that he’s now been posting a (now private) video on YouTube talking about why he got fired seems to suggest that he wasn’t just some innocent kid caught up in a the moment. Thoughts?

Some of the crowd are on the pitch…

Completely off-topic, but OH YES! You can’t beat qualifying for the World Cup with an emphatic 5-1 drubbing, be it Croatia or the old adversary, Germany.

So now we’ve qualified, it’s just a question of finding (and paying for) tickets. If I’m out in South Africa  for all four weeks (who am I kidding? Like we’ll get to the final), the plane ticket starts at $2,091 , with a 36 hour trip time. Add on to that a hotel and tickets, and it could get rather prohibitive.

Looks like I’ll be watching it with the rest of the ex-pats down at Shakespeare’s…

Paid online news – dead and buried or rising from the grave?

Few things in life are certain. Death, taxes and...free online content?

In the beginning was the Internet, and it was good and it was free (and if not, people just ripped it and made it available on a P2P network).

And then to spoil the party, more sites came along with content which was either partially or exclusively paid, such as the Wall Street Journal, the Financial Times, the New York Times, CNN and salon.com.

Over time, many of these organizations eased their restrictions on paid content, with FT cutting almost all of its paid content, and WSJ now allowing a significant amount of content to be made available online. The fairly straightforward theory behind this was that people recognized and appreciated the quality content and would keep visiting the sites, and that the increased page views could translate to higher ad rates, offsetting the subscription fees lost. For example for the New York Times, page views went up 80% after paid subscriptions were dropped.

All of that seemed fairly straightforward, and also translated quite nicely into the offline world. When I was living in London back in 1998-2001, the Tube was always littered with copies of the free Metro, which although not exactly Pulitzer Prize-winning journalism, provided a good morning read while trying to avoid your face making contact with some strap-hanger’s armpit.  Again, it was distributed so widely that it attracted premium ad rates.

Similarly, the free USA Today that was shoved under my door at hotels across the country nicely boosted its circulation, increasing ad rates quite nicely (in fact almost 50% of its distribution was free, through hotels, car rental agencies, etc).

But then the bad times hit. One the one hand, advertisers could no longer afford the high-priced insertions. One the other, hard-pressed companies needed to trim fat from their bottom lines by cutting out items such as free daily newspapers. Marriott cut free copies of USA Today in early 2009, reducing its circulation by a full 7%. Today, Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp announced it was closing down its free London Paper (cunningly called thelondonpaper), one of three free daily papers in the UK’s capital.

This decision falls hot on the heels earlier this month that News Corp will start charging for access to digital content across its stable of publications around the world, from the Journal, to the illustrious New York Post and its esteemed sister paper, The Sun.

But the question is, who will pay for it? While premium business-oriented content can still command serious subscription revenues – after all, it’s mainly paid for by corporate accounts, I would imagine – would someone really want to shell out for gossip and scandal that can be found online on myriad other sites, blogs and so on?

On top of this, as a culture in general, have we not all got so accustomed to consuming free stuff (from Hulu to Pandora and beyond) that the idea of paying for online content has become so alien that it would dismissed out of hand? It will be interesting to see how well Murdoch can pull this off, and if he can, who will be the next on the bandwagon. After all, we all thought he was crazy paying half a billion dollars for a money-losing Web site, but that seemed to work out quite nicely.

Lies, damn lies and the healthcare debate

Protesting the right to be wrong?

The healthcare debate has certainly reached fever pitch of late, with packed Town Halls across the country full of people screaming and yelling thoughtfully discussing the future of the country’s healthcare. But listening to NPR this morning, a lot of the attendees were quoting all sorts of things about higher taxes and death panels and so on.

I’m not an economist, and nor have I read the healthcare bill (if you have a second to spare, it’s here). So, I’m not going to try and figure out how much it would cost or what’s involved. But instead, I wanted to focus on some facts about just how well the current system is working (after all, I’m a firm believer in if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.)

So, I took a look at some statistics on the state of U.S. heathcare in comparison to the rest of the world and I was rather surprised.

According to the WHO rankings of international health systems ranks the U.S. 37th, way behind the UK (19th), and just two spaces above evil child-eaters, Cuba. Even more surprising, the U.S. lies beneath most Western European countries and even *gasp* Cuba when it comes to life expectancy. The U.S. is the number one developed nation when it comes to the obesity rate.  And if you really want to get depressed, take a look at the comparison between per-capita healthcare spend and life-expectancy.

So really, my question to all the people who are in favor of the sweeping reforms is why are they not focusing on the fact that we’re actually a really unhealthy country, even though we spend by far the most on health care? As all good PR people know, you can’t beat throwing some stats into a story to give it some zing. Is it just that we don’t want to compare ourselves to the rest of the world as it’s un-American to point out our failings compared to others? Or is it just that the pro-change lobby hasn’t succeeded in drowning out the “Death Panel” rhetoric with cold hard facts?

So frankly, all these “Hands off my Healthcare” people bamboozle me. I’m lucky to have a great employer who provides me with excellent coverage, but I’m sure that many people who are out there protesting aren’t in the same boat as me. Are they horribly misinformed, or is it more the case that, as Col. Nathan Jessup once said, “you can’t handle the truth.”

The résum-o-meter cranks up to 11

11? She cannae take it, captain.

Like the Hot Waitress Index or the Educated Cabbie Index, one of the many indicators of these Challenging Economic Times™ (currently at 25.8 million hits on Google – I think we’re due another hackneyed phrase) is what I call the résum-o-meter – how many résumés come into my email inbox. OK, I don’t call it that, but us PR people like nothing more than to coin a word in the hope it will become adopted and then we can tell our friends and family that was our creativity.

Digression over, for PR and many other white collar jobs that have been hit hard by the recession, now is a historical high water mark for job applications. Not only are those who have unfortunately been victims of job cuts applying for positions, but recent graduates are now looking to enter the job market. What that obviously means is that getting your résumé to the top of the pile is harder than ever before. So what can you do get yours noticed? Here are a few tips that could help you out (with me, at least).

1. Be personal. You know my email address, so therefore you must have an idea of who I am. In that case, make your email / cover letter out to “Tim,” not “To Whom it may Concern.”
2. No carpet bombing. Similar to above, just send your résumé to one person at a time. Even if you’re applying to multiple people within the same company, sending it to all of us on the same email looks like you’re just blasting it out to all and sundry. And whatever you do, don’t mail it to yourself with potential employers all in the BCC box.
3. Know your targets. Research both the company and the person you’re sending it to. I work at a PR firm, but one recent applicant was telling me how much they thought they were suitable for a job at an ad firm. See ya!
4. Don’t oversell. Obviously you need to sell yourself, but don’t oversell. Apply for a position you’re suitable for and don’t try and claim that your can do something that you can’t. You’ll get found out, sooner or later.
5. Creative ≠ wacky. Yes, PR is a creative industry, but there’s no need to showcase your creativity with some wacky choice of paper, font, haiku or suchlike.
6. No photos. Sadly, I’m not the GM of a modeling agency, so sending me your photo is really unnecessary, even if you are a total hottie.
7. No typos. Check and double check. Then get a friend to check.
8. Brevity works best. No more than two pages, please. Stick to what is relevant for what you are applying for.
9. Don’t stalk me afterwards. One follow up email or call (or even *gasp* letter) per interaction is fine (e.g. “Thanks for taking the time to interview me”) and shows eagerness. But don’t stalk me. It’s as creepy in the business world as in the real world.
10. Take an interest. Now is easier than ever to interact with people, so show an interest in the person and the company. Read the blog, follow the person on Twitter. But don’t try and Facebook friend them. That falls into the above category.

Good luck out there.

This is also posted at the Allison & Partners blog.

Us old squares ruin it for the kidz. Again.

The next big thing

Not only was it recently announced that Twitter is being shunned by the 15-24 year-old demographic, but now comes the revelation that they are abandoning social media sites altogether.  While the growth of Facebook continues unabated in general, among the ever-important youth age group, it’s popularity declined 5%, according to a recent survey.

So why is this and what does it mean for marketers who use these sites to reach an audience which consumes less and less mainstream media? Well, it seems like the youth of today simply doesn’t like the fact that social networks are becoming increasingly dominated by the over-35 age group. This isn’t really that suprising. After all throughout history, once previously “exclusive” youth trends were co-opted by the general populace, they lost their cachet, and a new trend was born – from rock n’ roll to MySpace.

But in marketing terms, is this such a bad thing? After all, adults have far more disposable income than teens (well, except in a recession, anyway), so will it have that much of an impact for companies who are looking to use these platforms as a marketing tool? So I’d say not really, unless, of course your brand exclusively targets the 15-24 demographic and has bet the farm on Facebook. And also, approaches do, and must, vary – what’s good for one brand won’t necessarily work for another.

But will the tech-savvy youth population really ditch social networks once and for all? Unlikely. Chances are, a new one will emerge and become popular, and then it’s up to the marketers to find out how to reach it before the users move on again, and then the cat-and-mouse game will start again.

Or, of course, this could lead to a resugence in the ancient art of letter-writing.

This post can also be found on the Allison & Partners blog.

DDoS, CNN and its, erm, Twoggles

In other breaking news, Mrs Miggins lost her false teeth

OK, so Twitter got hit by a DDoS attack for a couple of hours. In itself, I will admit that it is kinda newsworthy. But is the state of the world really so Twittertastic that it’s of lead article status? And does there need to be quite such hysteria? CNN seems to think so, but maybe that’s because it seems to be viewing the world through Twitter goggles these days.

Of other main news sites, the Journal and the Gray Old Lady have nothing yet. Auntie Beeb is also carrying it as a front page article, while Fox News regards it as an “URGENT,” “DEVELOPING” (in red, bold, font) story.  Tinfoil hats out, folks, the terr’ists are coming to get us.

However Facebook has also been notably patchy this morning (although it seems to have been like that for me for a while, especially on Chrome), so maybe it’s part of a bigger deal. Facebook spokeswoman Brandee Barker said the company was looking into it and would have an update “as soon as possible.” We’ll soon see, I’m sure

EDIT: Turns out it was something bigger. To paraphrase a recent President, “The Internet is under attack.”

Slick Willie and the Iraqi Information Minister

Kim Jong-Il - nobody's puppet

There’s been a lot of discussion about the rights and wrongs of Bill Clinton’s trip to North Korea, if / how he was representing the U.S. government and so on. I’m sure that in time, all the details and linkage with the State Department will come out (he is, after all, married to the Secretary of State).

One of the big issues, however, is the supposed “PR value” that the North Korean Government has achieved from Clinton’s visit and the subsequent release of the two Current TV journalists, Euna Lee and Laura Ling. One of the most vocal critics of the trip is former U.S. UN Ambassador, John Bolton. In a Washington Post op-ed, he called the meeting “a significant propaganda victory for North Korea.”

But thinking about this more in PR terms, is it really a propaganda coup for Pyongyang? Isn’t it only that if people beleive what Clinton supposedly said? Surely the validity of the “victory” is based on the credibility of who is claiming it.

Although many outlets have been reporting that “Clinton expressed words of sincere apology to Kim Jong Il for the hostile acts committed by the two American journalists,” it should also be remembered that the source of this was Korean Central News Agency, which is nearer in credibility to the Iraqi Information Minister than it is the Associated Press. So is it rather remiss of news agencies to even report it, even though they have a pretty strong idea that those words were never said? Or, is it just all part of a big charade in that North Korea is like the schoolyard bully who is walking round with “kick me” taped on his back, where we’re all laughing along behind his back, but go along with him to his face so he doesn’t start getting all antsy again?