Further to Greg Michetti’s inspired invective, below, railing against the excesses of high tech PR, he forwarded a terrific email he’d received in support of the original column. With permission, I’m reproducing the entire, brilliant screed here.
This rant comes courtesy of one Adam Cunningham, a fellow PR flack, whose career to date seems curiously similar to mine – started in life as a struggling thespian before flipping into the shiny world of high tech corporate communications. I’ve not had a chance to compose a decent reply to Adam’s terrific, witty, entertaining email yet (sorry mate – I’m working on it), but I can at least hold up his message to Greg as a shining example of at least one other PR professional who, to quote Adam again, refuses to “drink the kool-aid just because they’re told to”.
Here it be:
Hi Greg:
I just stumbled onto your column, and, as a high-tech PR person, I couldn’t agree with you more. The tortuous process of producing a press release has become a flagellation ritual in the high tech environment. It’s like companies can’t help themselves. It’s the high-tech equivalent of dark-ages bloodletting - a company is feeling run down? Sales depressed? Let’s go for the jar of leeches and devote massive time, energy and political capital to a vapid announcement - that will make us look like we have momentum!
And, although I don’t exonerate PR people, for many of us add to the problem with utter abandon - you’re right again when you point the finger at client companies - they wouldn’t hear of a press release that doesn’t describe them as an industry leader or anything less than revolutionary (have you ever seen a release that began, “UUU Company, Inc., the industry laggard in providing wireless solutions to multiple-location enterprises. . .”?). They hide the slimness of their differentiation, or the arcana of their technology, or the wing-and-a-prayer that’s really their technology platform, behind a few magic phrases and shibboleths that are supposed to evoke gravitas in a company just by uttering them. It’s frankly embarrassing that an industry so supposedly grounded in the sober process of building a new economy cheerily falls prey to vanity-inspired jargon that’s as capricious and cheesy as the ever-changing fashion in hemlines.
I’ve done positioning exercises with startups younger than Britney Spears’ breasts. I ask them to describe themselves, and, invariably it’s, “we’re the premiere provider of this,” or “we’re the best-of-breed that.” Really? How did you attain this lofty perch with no customers, no products and a shaky business plan? I swear, it’s like deprogramming a life-long cult member to get these folks to part with the “my-baby-really-WILL-be-president-someday” syndrome.
It’s a product, I think, of a number of things: the industry’s love of argot, the influence of simplicity-challenged engineers, one-upmanship that borders on the hysterical, the level of noise already in the pipeline, etc., and, of course, the vanity of more Silicon Valley denizens than you can shake an end-to-end, turnkey solution at. And, yes, the journalists contribute in their own way. From the mid-nineties until the Internet bubble burst, journalists were in the catbird seat, entertaining ever-more rabid attempts on the part of companies to get even a sliver of attention, and a few key influencers knew their decision to write about a company - or not to - could have a direct effect on that company’s fate. So it’s like a classroom full of second-graders. The teacher asks a question and you finally, finally know the answer. But everyone else’s hand is also raised in the room. How are you going to get the teacher to pick you? Make sure he or she knows your answer will be thought-leading, shift the paradigm, leverage the synergies created by your knowledge base and achieve mission-critical functionality with unprecedented speed and accuracy, of course.
I often expect to see a company come to me saying, “Our product is completely different from the other 45 players in this niche. You see, they all change the way people live, work and play. We, on the other hand, change the way people work, live and play. Get it? Get it?” And they sit back and wait for the light bulb to go off in our heads.
Well, I’m waiting too. Until then, Hamlet put it best when Polonius asked him what he was reading: “Words, words, words,” he replied.
Loverly. ROTFLMAO
I’ve never met Adam, but you just know I’m going to like him.
I wrote a similar, albeit more reserved diatribe for one of the marketing magazines recently, which I'll post here when I have a moment.
This rant comes courtesy of one Adam Cunningham, a fellow PR flack, whose career to date seems curiously similar to mine – started in life as a struggling thespian before flipping into the shiny world of high tech corporate communications. I’ve not had a chance to compose a decent reply to Adam’s terrific, witty, entertaining email yet (sorry mate – I’m working on it), but I can at least hold up his message to Greg as a shining example of at least one other PR professional who, to quote Adam again, refuses to “drink the kool-aid just because they’re told to”.
Here it be:
Hi Greg:
I just stumbled onto your column, and, as a high-tech PR person, I couldn’t agree with you more. The tortuous process of producing a press release has become a flagellation ritual in the high tech environment. It’s like companies can’t help themselves. It’s the high-tech equivalent of dark-ages bloodletting - a company is feeling run down? Sales depressed? Let’s go for the jar of leeches and devote massive time, energy and political capital to a vapid announcement - that will make us look like we have momentum!
And, although I don’t exonerate PR people, for many of us add to the problem with utter abandon - you’re right again when you point the finger at client companies - they wouldn’t hear of a press release that doesn’t describe them as an industry leader or anything less than revolutionary (have you ever seen a release that began, “UUU Company, Inc., the industry laggard in providing wireless solutions to multiple-location enterprises. . .”?). They hide the slimness of their differentiation, or the arcana of their technology, or the wing-and-a-prayer that’s really their technology platform, behind a few magic phrases and shibboleths that are supposed to evoke gravitas in a company just by uttering them. It’s frankly embarrassing that an industry so supposedly grounded in the sober process of building a new economy cheerily falls prey to vanity-inspired jargon that’s as capricious and cheesy as the ever-changing fashion in hemlines.
I’ve done positioning exercises with startups younger than Britney Spears’ breasts. I ask them to describe themselves, and, invariably it’s, “we’re the premiere provider of this,” or “we’re the best-of-breed that.” Really? How did you attain this lofty perch with no customers, no products and a shaky business plan? I swear, it’s like deprogramming a life-long cult member to get these folks to part with the “my-baby-really-WILL-be-president-someday” syndrome.
It’s a product, I think, of a number of things: the industry’s love of argot, the influence of simplicity-challenged engineers, one-upmanship that borders on the hysterical, the level of noise already in the pipeline, etc., and, of course, the vanity of more Silicon Valley denizens than you can shake an end-to-end, turnkey solution at. And, yes, the journalists contribute in their own way. From the mid-nineties until the Internet bubble burst, journalists were in the catbird seat, entertaining ever-more rabid attempts on the part of companies to get even a sliver of attention, and a few key influencers knew their decision to write about a company - or not to - could have a direct effect on that company’s fate. So it’s like a classroom full of second-graders. The teacher asks a question and you finally, finally know the answer. But everyone else’s hand is also raised in the room. How are you going to get the teacher to pick you? Make sure he or she knows your answer will be thought-leading, shift the paradigm, leverage the synergies created by your knowledge base and achieve mission-critical functionality with unprecedented speed and accuracy, of course.
I often expect to see a company come to me saying, “Our product is completely different from the other 45 players in this niche. You see, they all change the way people live, work and play. We, on the other hand, change the way people work, live and play. Get it? Get it?” And they sit back and wait for the light bulb to go off in our heads.
Well, I’m waiting too. Until then, Hamlet put it best when Polonius asked him what he was reading: “Words, words, words,” he replied.
Loverly. ROTFLMAO
I’ve never met Adam, but you just know I’m going to like him.
I wrote a similar, albeit more reserved diatribe for one of the marketing magazines recently, which I'll post here when I have a moment.
