Ryan Anderson dot ca

I’m in the middle of putting together a presentation to be given to game development schools and programs around the country, both to promote my employer to some of the best and brightest in the industry, but also to give students in these disciplines a primer on what the workforce is actually expecting of them – something that is SORELY lacking in post-secondary education today.

I learned about one of my favourite ideas in finding or becoming the “ideal” candidate was when I was having breakfast in New York with fellow blogger and incredibly smart marketing strategist, Noah Brier.  We were comparing the woes of finding great talent for our respective growing companies, and I explained that in our industry we see a lot of generalists graduating from universities and colleges, but very few who are experts in a particular area.

He introduced me to the concept of the T-shaped employee, which is something that every student today should be striving to become. 

The vertical leg of the T represents an expertise – one thing that they do better than anyone, be it a highly specialized area of game development, a specific kind of writing, or a deep understanding and knowledge of social media, to bring it back to PR terms.  In and of itself, this highly specialized skill set may be useful, but in order to be an ideal employee, one also needs the horizontal experience and knowledge – the breadth of interest.

A 2005 Fast Company article describes the t-shaped person like this:

They have a principal skill that describes the vertical leg of the T — they’re mechanical engineers or industrial designers. But they are so empathetic that they can branch out into other skills, such as anthropology, and do them as well. They are able to explore insights from many different perspectives and recognize patterns of behavior that point to a universal human need.

How many people have you worked with who were like this?  My guess is a precious few, but they were likely some of the brightest and best people you ever managed, worked with or worked for.  I can count a handful of people that I know who can talk as competently about Shakespeare as they can about marketing strategy, but they have influenced me more than any others I can think of.

There’s a tendency for students (especially those in the sciences, I’ve noticed) to belittle other fields of study, but those other fields are important to creating a person of both substance and depth, who can use their broad understanding and multidisciplinary knowledge to further their core strength.

Certainly, not every game designer needs to know about 16th Century literature to get a job, but that breadth of experience inside and out of their core discipline is what is going to change them from an employable candidate to a highly sought-after commodity. 

It’s never too late to broaden your horizons. 

So, a while back, Tom Foremski declared the press release dead. Responding in kind, Todd Defren developed what he called the social media news release. The idea was that we would take the press release from its current text-only format to something that could be indexed and viewed by regular people. It was segmented into informational bullets and quotes, and included multimedia.

I adopted parts of it immediately. Todd really did make the press release much better. But, having used a bastardized version of it for a while now, and having talked to others in the biz about their perspective, my feeling is that it amounts to very little as far as the future of the industry goes.

Including multimedia – video, photos, podcasts – with a news release really is a no-brainer now that I’ve done it. It gives reporters, or anyone else that would view the release online another level of context for the news.

Including an constantly updated list of relevant links is also a fantastic idea, regardless of whether they’re hosted on del.icio.us or somewhere else. Keeping these links up-to-date and relevant can be a challenge, but if you’ve got a team behind you, it should be no problem.

As for converting narrative text into bullets, I’ve not yet been able to talk myself into doing this. Maybe it’s because I actually enjoy the process of writing releases, the fact that I work for a company that allows me to be a little creative in our corporate communications, or the fact that somewhere deep down inside, I always wanted to be a poet, but it seems to me that the narrative flow of a release can give reporters as much a sense of a company’s culture as the facts themselves. I once had a reporter call me after sending him a release to say that he wouldn’t be able to cover the story, but wanted to tell me how well-written the release was. Ego hits are less profitable, but just as rewarding.

All this said, the SMNR is far from a solution to whatever problem it is we have. To my mind, the problem is less about what format the release takes, and more about how to get information to reporters reliably, and in a way that they can use.

Dealing with the media is like having a girlfriend who won’t tell you why she’s mad at you. Some tell you never to call. Some tell you never to follow up. Others say to always follow up. Some will only respond if you call them. The problem with the media release as we know it is that journalists are not some homogeneous mass. If they were, our job would be easy.

For those who work in an industry where they can create relationships with reporters covering their beat, this is less of a problem. For PR service firms who usually will have to research a new media list and reach out to unknown reporters for every new project that comes in the door, this is a gargantuan task to manage. Every time a new reporter or editor is added to a list, we as PR people need to know what kind of angles interest them, what they write about, how they prefer to be contacted – everything.

I’ve been listening in on the SMNR discussions. I’ve heard people talking about Microformats and the like (which frankly, is completely over my head), but it seems to me that all of the energy is somewhat misplaced. What seems more pressing is deciding how we as communicators can effectively communicate with the media. For now, the media release is still one of the tools that we need to use. Todd made it better, but he didn’t make it remarkably different and I don’t think microformats will either.

We’ve crashed our car into a brick wall, and we’re buffing out a scratch. Let’s fix the communication problem before we spend thousands of man-hours polishing up the 100-year-old news release.

Maybe this is akin to a doctor saying that he hates looking in ears, but I gotta say, media relations is by far my least favourite part of my job.  I’m not talking about the ongoing relationships you cultivate along the way – that kind of thing I actually enjoy.  I’m not talking about source filing or lunchtime meetings with industry reporters, and I’m not talking about taking hard questions from reporters in times of crisis.  I’m talking about the rough, dirty media relations that starts from researching a media list, and ends with clipping articles out of a newspaper. 

Media relations is tedious.  It takes hours upon hours.  Sure, it’s all professional fees, which is great, but GOD is it boring.

Most of the people you’re pitching don’t want to talk to you.  Some are great.  Some are genuinely interested in the news you’re delivering.  Some treat you like a telemarketer or spammer.  Sometimes, the only difference is the per diem.

Media relations is unpredictable.  You might have the best news story ever, but if the President gets shot that day, your client just wasted a whole lot of money.  I never know when my best contacts are going to be on vacation for three months, and I never know when a publication is going to change its editorial policy and thwart my best-laid plans.

Clients don’t care about the rules of engagement.  This isn’t always true, but more often than not, your client isn’t interested in the length of time it takes to establish rapport with an editor.  Pitch, and if they don’t bite, pitch harder.

It’s my fault. There are a million reasons that a story won’t fly.  The problem is, if it doesn’t, it’s my fault, no matter how good a job I do of setting expectations.  Even if the client understands and wants to hire me again, *I* don’t like being a part of failure.  I’ve never worked on a project that didn’t at least get SOME coverage, but it still sucks when your clipping book is paper thin.

It’s stressful.  Every time I send out a press release, I hesitate.  To me, it’s like jumping out of an airplane.  I’m deathly afraid that I’ll call someone by the wrong name, send the wrong version of a release, or something that makes me look like an idiot.  And, as much as I love the Bad Pitch Blog, it hasn’t done anything to help my pitch-o-phobia.

I say this publicly because I know I’m not alone.  One of the most brilliant PR minds I ever worked with admitted to me the same thing years ago.  I say this in the hopes that those like me, afraid to admit that their hatred for pitching the media.  Rest assured… you’re not alone.

Friends of mine are looking for a freelance publicist to promote a professional theatre festival in the Ottawa area.  If you know of anyone who would be up to the challenge, drop me an email at my first name at ryananderson.ca, or forward this post on to them.

It mostly involves mainstream media relations, so good contacts with local media are a definite asset.

Hopefully, anyone reading this blog knows this already, but for the younger PR-lings in the crowd, here’s the best career advice you’ll ever get:

You only have one reputation, and it’s yours to ruin.

If someone gives you an opportunity, use it. Make that opportunity count. Work harder than you can. If nobody gives you an opportunity, make your own. Volunteer, intern, blog – do anything to build your skills, and build your reputation for being good at what you do.

You’re going to be paid next to nothing coming out of school. Perform like you’re making six figures. Stay late, don’t waste time, and overperform. That’s the only way you’re going to move up in the world of advertising or PR. Don’t like it? Work for the government.

More importantly, once you start to grow a reputation, don’t throw it away by disappointing someone, by overcommitting, overpromising or by trying to be an expert at something you don’t know anything about. This is the best way to ruin everything you’ve worked for.

When you have a good reputation, doors are easier to open. People are willing to recommend you, to stick their neck out for you. In some cases, if your reputation is very good, they’ve even heard of you before they meet you. The converse is equally true. A bad reputation can spread just as quickly – often moreso. Most people have a list of people they’ll never work with again, and in most cases, they’re not afraid to share it. Keep your reputation, and you stay off this list.

I’ve mentioned many times that the reason I am where I am is because I worked my ass off for nothing when I was still in school to develop a professional reputation. It wasn’t all successes, but it was drilled into my head very early that my reputation was going to be all I had once I graduated. Fancy letters after my name were a bonus, but worth nothing in comparison. I may not have gotten paid, but that time spent was the best investment I’ve ever made.

These are words to live by at any point in your career, but it’s much easier to ruin yourself early, before you’ve built up “reputation insurance.” Keep that in mind the next time you overpromise and underdeliver.

Keith O’Brien at Ubiquitous Marketing (and news editor of PRWeek) announces that starting September 28, PRWeek will be featuring free blogs on its site.

The primary blog will be populated by our entire editorial team, giving our audience a chance to get to know the reporters, editors, production and art editors in a new way. 

As someone who spends a lot of his time doing media relations, I think this is great – and I wish more publications did it. It’s a whole lot easier to know what to pitch someone, and more importantly what NOT to pitch them, when you can read them on a regular basis outside the formality of AP style.

If other major publications followed the lead of the few blogging publications, I expect there would be a lot fewer complaints about PR people pitching them stories that don’t fit with their editorial coverage.