Had coffee today with Elke Heiss, VP of Sterling Communications and head of their SF office. I know Elke from doing a media training program for one of her clients, ShoreTel Inc., last year.First of all, Elke recommended that I stop calling my training programs "media training" and instead re-position them as "spokesperson training," because spokespeople need broader training than just speaking to the press. Doh! Done. Not just because Elke said so, but because positioning of services like these ought to be about the client, not about the medium or the context.
Elke was full of interesting insights about PR, media and communications. Here's a sampling:
- On the need for PR: Too many companies think they can go it alone, that in the Internet age, they don't need PR counselors because they believe that can communicate directly with bloggers and other influencers. Elke believes (and I totally agree) that companies need PR counsel even more now than ever, because social media is just another new media that will supplement, not supplant, existing media. Think radio -- it didn't go away because TV was invented, did it?
- On networking: we're social creatures and need to be in physical contact with each other -- we can't live by computer interactions alone. That's why her calendar is full of networking events such as the Dealmaker's Forum Momentum conference (which her firm is sponsoring), MediaBistro events and Bay area tech conferences.
- On Second Life: over-hyped. Who has time? And more to the point, how can companies make money on it? If they can't, she believes, it will fade away.
I'm certainly one of those who's quick to say that Second Life is often over-hyped. But there is value in it. Sure, much of that value is found by "real" people who don't care about making money and enjoy Second Life simply for what it is: a place where anything is possible.
ReplyDeleteAt the same time, if businesses are looking at Second Life (or podcasting or YouTube-ing or anything similar) as a "money-making or not" dichotomy, they're missing the point. Plenty of companies worry about customer loyalty and "user happiness" and things that aren't directly related to "did we make another sale?", and that's the sort of thing that businesses can accomplish through a platform like Second Life. It's not a silver bullet, and it might not be easy to get a business-oriented benefit from SL, but that doesn't mean it doesn't have potential.