Vitamin T

Getting Tiger Out of the Woods

It’s been close to a month since Tiger Woods’ unfortunate car crash but the media circus still lingers. We can’t just put the blame on the media though since we, as consumers of news, play a huge role in prolonging the interest in these sorts of scandals. But outside of all the hoopla surrounding his supposed lurid affairs and the hoards of women now stepping forward claiming their 15-minutes of fame (or shame, really), is there a PR lesson to be learned here?

In a world of Twitter, blogs, news aggregation sites, and well, TMZ, news travels faster than a Shinkansen. Releasing an official statement six days following his accident is really six days too late. Silence will not make the media go away and will only fuel more speculation. And it’s not even a matter of responding to every rumor; it’s about addressing the issue in a timely fashion.

Similar to companies, Tiger Woods is CEO of his own brand and the biggest responsibility centers on keeping that company’s name untarnished. Showing a strong front and putting the focus back to golf is especially crucial in this time of crisis. Being a no-show at his own golf tournament was not the soundest PR – or business strategy overall. Imagine the many business partners that he alienated and potential endorsements he lost. It was evident that the reason for not attending the event went far beyond “personal injuries.” He didn’t have to hold a press conference or address any personal questions during the tournament – just his attendance could’ve gone a long way.

Regardless of personal baggage, a CEO or spokesperson of any company needs to always conduct “business as usual.” And Tiger clearly failed this PR 101.

- Sylvie Tongco, Reichert Communications LLC

To Tweet or not to Tweet...

That is the question! Micro-blogging has gone Twitter-pitch (get it?) over the last few months thanks to the massive amounts of media coverage it has received from celebrities that have become Tweet freaks overnight. From actor Ashton Kutcher’s video tweet ranting about his noisy neighbor to Lance Armstrong’s mundane updates over his bike rides and training. Twitter is not limited to celebrities, however, with more and more companies, publications and politicians jumping on the micro-blogging bandwagon.

 

U.S. Republican Congressman Pete Hoekstra came under fire recently after sending a string of tweets from his Blackberry announcing his whereabouts, including brief updates about his recent visit to Iraq. Some claim that the updates revealed ‘classified information’ that endangered the safety of members of the delegation he was traveling with but his reps say that the trip was already public knowledge.

 

In an age when anyone can look up information about anything online, it’s pretty hard to draw the line between what’s private or public. One thing’s for sure, Twitter has created a unique platform for everyone to share information and communicate in real time with colleagues, customers and other constituents. Now it's just up to us to manage what to say, when and how.

 

- Sylvie Tongco, Reichert Communications, LLC

Words, words, words

A shrinking feast or a changing one?

As a lover of my luscious mother tongue, I am concerned and confused by our society's growing penchant for abbreviation. But, I am trying to adapt and understand like any good monkey. Admittedly, there are times when short code comes in handy, i.e., "yt"? standing in cryptically for "you there?" when in the IM (see?) environment. On the whole, the abbreviation syndrome or AS, feels rather like after a life of linguistic divinity in the form of an all-you-can eat buffet of attractive and healthy food that the salmon is being replaced by fish sticks, the grapes by raisins and the seed baguette by crackers as hard as house shingles. Without the caloric intake of linguistic bounty one is left light-headed, starving and dazed. What is happening?

During the quest to find more meaningful words, I came upon a short, humorous article in The Sun Magazine, titled "Fighting CIS" (creeping initial syndrome) by Sparrow. She too is concerned about our language becoming bankrupt of valuable consonants and vowels. Sparrow lays it on the line in the beginning of her mischevious little piece by saying, "In a growing trend, initials are replacing words." Are we witnessing the slow but decided death of our language or the birth of a new one?

Death or birth?

The answer is both. Seemingly, our language is a bit cluttered and encumbering for us as fast moving, super intelligent modern primates. Perhaps what is happening is the birth of a new language, one that is more suited to our forever changing society, and the death of the old one.

--Jill Swanson
Reichert Communications, LLC

Platform dominance in the music download space: a Beta/VHS battle all over again?

It appears that the French government is in the process of “forcing” technology companies such as Apple to share with its competitors the technology to enable playing iTunes downloaded songs in other MP3 players. Apple’s potential response, according to the BBC, is to pull out of the French market. Although the bill hasn’t been passed into law, the repercussions of this possible regulation is huge for companies who serve the music download industry. As I am not aware how much the French music download market is worth to Apple, there is no way I can predict whether or not Apple would actually make good on their threat. But imagine for the French music lover, the impact of not being able to download music from iTunes.

On the other hand, I also do understand the concerns Apple and similar firms have in sharing their technology with competitors. Intellectual property is probably one of the most important driving forces for any technology company. The seemingly limitless capabilities of our mobile phones, computer, and cameras are a product of millions of dollars and many years of research, and sharing that knowledge definitely comes at a price.

If France is able to pass this into a law, what other countries will follow suit? And should other countries follow France’s footsteps, what will these firms end up doing? Will they keep pulling away from every country who threatens to force them to share proprietary technologies with competition?

What would be ideal for music consumers is to find a way for companies to collaborate and agree on one platform. But then again, even if there was, would the companies be willing? For emerging technologies, fighting platform dominance is a necessary evolution; consider Beta vs. VHS in the eighties. Sony’s Betamax technology, although viewed by some as the more superior format died in the heels of its later rival, the VHS due to what I think was mostly an IP issue. In the end, VHS hung on to the market, mostly thanks to slick marketing on the part of VHS manufacturers, until the laser disc, and eventually DVD player, came about, while the Beta circa 1987 was probably only present in two out of 10 homes in Southeast Asia or somewhere thereabouts (statistic not scientific).

In cases like these, who decides the winner? Is it truly the consumer or other firms who are savvy enough to capitalize on the market even with what might be perceived as lesser quality technology? By no means am I underestimating the power of Apple, though. I’m sure they have something cooking up their sleeves. Any predictions?

- Sylvie Tongco, Reichert Communications, LLC

Placeshifting Is Here to Stay

A few months ago, my husband couldn’t stop talking about something called the ‘Slingbox.’ He said that this cool new gear would allow him to watch live television on a mobile phone.  For weeks he talked about this new invention as if it would change his life!  He said we would be able to watch all the cable programs that we received on our home television – also on a mobile phone.

In order for it to work, he needed a phone that used the Microsoft's Windows Mobile Pocket PC operating system and the Slingbox Mobile.  Within days he had bought a new phone.  I decided that if you can’t fight it, embrace it – and a week later I bought the Slingbox Mobile for his birthday.

I was skeptical that the video quality would be too poor to watch, but I was curious to see how well the technology has evolved and whether watching TV on a tiny device is practical once the novice wears off.

I have been pleasantly surprised with the video quality.  It’s definitely watchable and not so jerky that it’s distracting.  But the audio quality could be better.  If you’re at the airport or in a restaurant with background noise, it’s difficult to hear every word.

But the coolest thing to me was that it was free!  Well, sort of.  Once you buy a Windows phone ($500), the Slingbox ($250) and if you have an unlimited mobile data plan, there is no additional cost to watch television 24x7 – wherever you are.

This is exactly how it should work!  I should only pay for television service once…and if I choose to watch it with different devices, it shouldn’t cost more.  I recently found out that this capability is called ‘placeshifting.’

(Pretty Sci-Fi, huh?)

But not everyone agrees with the ‘pay once’ philosophy – especially the carriers.  And it’s unknown if the wireless infrastructure can handle a significant amount of simultaneous Slingbox use. This year’s World Cup Soccer tournament is expected to test the Slingbox’s effects on wireless carriers in the UK.

The Slingbox has not changed my husband’s life and it can be annoying at times.  But it is handy to have access to live television programming wherever you are.  My bet is that placeshifting is here to stay.

-Barbara Reichert, Reichert Communications, LLC

Potholes of the Superhighway

In many ways, planning a vacation in the information age has become more difficult.  Before, escaping from the monotonous demands of daily life was as easy as going down the road to the local travel agent.  Sure, you had to pay for her services, but what was the alternative?

Today, the travel agent is supposed to be largely irrelevant.  You know you can get a better deal and have more control over your own plans by using the Internet to book your trip.  Using an agent is just downright foolish, as you now have access to the same tools she does—and you usually don’t have to pay service fees over the Net.

And so it was that I too was recently lured to travel-planner’s promised land.  Armed with only my keen sense of bargain-hunting and technophile idealism, I hit the Internet to begin planning my upcoming vacation to Europe. Four people, three countries, six hotels, six train routes, three day trips, and a mountain of guidebooks and brochures.

After having gone through this process, I now have greater respect for the lost art of travel agenting.  First came the plane tickets.  I had to search a handful of sites for two different flight routes (as half the party was flying from a different destination), then go through a completely separate credit card website for one of the flights in order to redeem mileage points.  And just when I thought everything had been timed to perfection at a reasonable rate, one of the two airlines changed departure times, sending me through a quagmire of confusing email notifications.  Eventually, I had to pick up the telephone—something the Internet is supposed to enable you to avoid—in order to confirm flight times.

Then there were the train reservations.  I could buy the Eurail tickets from the Eurail site, but I had to make reservations through a separate site.  The Eurail people sent me a schedule of all trains, but the reservation site’s schedule seemed to be missing trains.  The trains I wanted and had planned on now seemed not to exist.  Grudgingly, I again picked up the phone to seek resolution.

Finally, there was the hotel search.  This went off without a hitch.  I maneuvered around Hotels.com like a giant among men.  Quick, simple and cost-effective.  The Internet had redeemed itself in my eyes.  But, alas, my celebration didn’t last long—I soon read that my credit card information may very well have been stolen.  Apparently, a single auditor’s laptop containing information on thousands of Hotels.com customers was abducted.

The Internet was supposed to make my travel planning easier.  Instead, it swallowed enormous chunks of my valuable time, gave me intense and pulsating headaches, and may have cost me a great deal of credit card grief.  The end result of my piecemeal planning effort is a pile of receipts and disparate itineraries.  Technology may have saved me a few bucks on my trip through France, Italy and Germany, but it’ll be a miracle if we can manage to avoid mistakenly ending up in Krakow.  C’est la vie à l’âge de technologie.

-Craig Kaufman, Reichert Communications

Technology & Multi-tasking

Technology and schools, great combination right? According to some law schools that is a big NO. The Christian Science Monitor recently ran a piece about how the University of Michigan Law School is one of many graduate schools to ban the use of laptops in the classroom. The reason given is that students are too distracted by internet shopping, text messaging, or even legitimate note-taking to fully absorb classroom discussions.

The problem professors face is "continuous partial attention," an expression coined by Linda Stone, a former Microsoft executive, to describe how people check e-mail and try to listen to someone at the same time.

Following this line of reasoning to its conclusion, multi-tasking negatively impacts a person's classroom experience. If multi-tasking is a negative in the graduate school environment, doesn't it also follow that multi-tasking is a negative in business environment as well?

--Madge Miller, Reichert Communications, LLC

IM: The Next Phishing Frontier?

Early last week, I fell into the trap of some sort of phishing attempt on Yahoo! instant messenger. I received an offline message that was sent by a friend with a link to some photos on a geocities site. I usually don’t click on links sent to me through IM but for some reason I was curious to see what photos my friend wanted to share and clicked on it. I was directed to Yahoo’s log-in page but after accessing my account it did not direct me to any photos except my own “Yahoo! Photos.” I didn’t think much of it but after a few minutes, I was booted from messenger with a note saying that I logged in using a different machine. Since I am usually on “mobile” status, I checked my cell phone to be sure but was not connected from there either.

Later that day another friend messaged me asking what photos I was trying to share as she did not find anything in a link I supposedly sent. Photos? What photos? I didn’t share any photos! That’s when it hit me – it was the same fake link I received.

Security has certainly been a big issue for Internet users and corporations over the last several years. With the increasing use of IM services, IM-related threats are on the rise. According to a recent article on TechWeb, a Symantec Security Threat Report notes that the greatest IM threat right now are worms, which made up 91 percent of all malicious IM code in the second half of 2005, showing a 10 percent increase from the first half of last year. IM threats are not just limited to worms, however, as instant messaging systems are also being used to spread other malicious code and threats, including phishing attempts, viruses and spam.

In an era where Nigerian email scams are so ubiquitous we can probably spot it with our eyes closed, there’s always some new scheme that throws us off track. First it was through email, now it’s instant messaging. I am yet to find out what that Yahoo! photo-sharing hoopla was about and how it will affect me, but as a precaution I have changed my Yahoo! password. I also downloaded a free anti-virus software for Yahoo! Messenger to remove any worms that may be on my computer and to alert me to anything suspicious in the future.

-Sylvie Tongco, Reichert Communications, LLC

…and the Billy Goats Gruff

Two weeks ago I spent some time at EclipseCon.  It was great to see such an enthusiastic crowd of Open Source developers and commercial companies supporting the Eclipse Foundation.  My client Actuate is the steward of the BIRT project.

The event brought to mind the fact that this vibrant community is the exact opposite of the ongoing frenzy of Patent disputes (see my previous entry "The Insidious Patent Trolls...").  As technology mash-ups, such as AJAX, and ‘co-opertition’ communities, such as Eclipse, become the norm, perhaps companies that adopt a hybrid commercial/Open Source approach to innovation will move beyond the capital draining Patent disputes so prevalent in today’s technology industry.

Perhaps Patents will be eliminated from the technology arena altogether?  The idea being that no one would be competing at the level of the most basic technology, the things that have all been figured out, encouraging rapid standardization and leaving more room for innovation.

-Madge Miller, Reichert Communications

The Insidious Patent Troll...

I've been watching the story of NTP vs. RIM and the slightly lesser known case of MercExchange vs. eBay.  What I find curious is that Patents, which were created to drive and reward innovation, have now become a means to stifle it. 

There are many varied pro and con issues surrounding patents.  The one I’d like to address is the one that puzzles me the most—Patent Holding companies that exist solely to collect royalties on patents bought at the equivalent of ‘fire sales’ without any intention of actually producing anything with the technology.  The U.S. courts treat these patent holding companies as equal to the original inventor or a company actually using the technology it has patented.  By holding a technology advancement hostage—they aren’t using it and no one else can—these holding companies are accomplishing the opposite of the Patent's original intention.

If the spirit of the law was to spur innovation and the letter of the law now hinders it, shouldn’t we change things so that the spirit and the letter are once again the same?

-Madge Miller, Reichert Communications