Midnight Oil Writing

Scheduling posts is tempting.  You can write a month’s worth of blog posts and just queue them up and forget about it.  Oh, so tempting.

But what if something happens between the scheduling and going live.  Say, for example, in early January 2009, you wrote a piece about the improbability of birds getting sucked in to both the engines of a plane.  Then comes the Miracle on the Hudson, and you have egg on your face.

Or maybe you had a nice, post-Thanksgiving blog on the greatness of Tiger Woods.  Hanging out in your turkey coma, you think…. now when is that post supposed to run?  Did it go live yesterday?

Recently, I had a night of fitful sleep.  Strange dreams.  Not very restful.  I was awake — trying to get back to sleep — at 5am.  OMG!  I realized I had a post scheduled for sometime that day.  And, due to some external events having nothing to do with me, but related to my content, the timing of that post could napalm some business relationships I’d been building.

I doubt I’ve ever bolted out of bed so fast.  Yup, the post was scheduled to go live at 11am that morning.

Don’t have a 5am panic attack.  Don’t schedule your posts.  Draft and save, but don’t schedule.  You’ll enjoy a solid night’s sleep.

I’d heard consumer PR is different from B2B PR.  Now I know “Hollywood” PR is very different from technology PR. 

Through a perfect storm (sorry, had to) of coincidences and personal contacts, a friend, Jamie Marshall of Gloucester, asked me to donate some PR services to a fundraiser in Gloucester.  Jamie and the apparently indefatigable Kristin Michel pulled together a sell-out fundraiser for the Gloucester Little League.  Community fundraisers aren’t always a sell-out, but they are when you get guest stars from Discovery Channel’s Deadliest Catch! (more…)

Last week we wrote about public relations transitioning into storytelling.   Storytelling as a career/industry is on the rise, but is the art of storytelling coming through, or getting lost.  (more…)

Public relations is going through a massive transition.  The reasons are many, and frankly, I’m not going to delve into them here.  As the public relations industry, and its practitioners, evolve, they are starting to use different terms to describe what they do and who they are.  (more…)

OK, it’s pretty clear Tiger Woods is a womanizer and a serial cheater.  In my opinion, he’s not husband material, and Elin should cut him loose.  As someone once said to me, if they cheat once, they’ll cheat again.

Truth is, lots of guys and gals cheat on their partners.  Few lose their jobs over it.  Few have the public outing Tiger did.  Most just keep on doing what they do. (more…)

Most public relations, marketing and advertising professionals have been there; pitching a great client prospect, only to realize you’ve revealed too much too soon.  And then maybe the next new business pitch results in you holding back too much.

Where’s the balance? (more…)

Sometimes developing blogging topics is difficult; writer’s block sets in, or, frankly, the topic has been opined to death.  Other times topics scream out for a post.  But often those topics create a dilemma for the blogger. (more…)

Some people (and companies) think marketing is like a great four star meal: pricey, and hopefully you get your money’s worth. 

I disagree.  Marketing is like pizza: there’s an option for everyone. (more…)

Traditional media relations is dead.  Traditional media relations is really a vanity project.  It’s all about getting that big media hit to frame and put up on the wall (the client’s wall and/or the agency’s wall).  After all, if [insert publication name] wrote about your product, service or company, you must be delivering value. (more…)

Several months ago I searched for WordPress classes in the greater Boston area.  No luck.  So when I stumbled upon a Tweet from the Globe’s Scott Kirsner saying WordCamp Boston had sold out, I looked into the event. (more…)