PR meets the WWW / Constantin Basturea’s weblog

Back in March 2006, Cymfony was announcing the launch of a survey -done in partnership with Porter-Novelli and Russell Research- on corporate blogging best practices. Now it looks like the preliminary results are in, although the survey continues to be online (hm).

With the risk of becoming a bore with my obsession on survey reporting practices, I’ll say it again:

I hope the final report is going to include a detailed explanation of the survey’s limitations (self-selection, nonprobabilistic sample, lack of control over the survey instrument, etc.), and that the conclusions will be qualified.

I hope Cymphony and Porter-Novelli are not going to pull a Guidewire or an Edelman/Technorati with this survey. (If you don’t know what I mean, please follow the links below.)

Update: Jim Nail responds in the comments.

Related postings:

• Another pseudo-survey on corporate blogging hits the Web | Guidewire Group CEO responds to criticism
• What’s missing from the Edelman/Technorati blogger study | Edelman/Technorati blogger survey - aide-memoire
• More: What are the standards for reporting blog surveys?

Dr. Andrew Cline, Rhetorica:

No blogger expends the energy to blog for no reason and for no audience. Humans do not speak for no reason. A rhetorical intention exists in every message–no matter how small or profound. Bloggers would do themselves and their causes far more good if they paid attention to kairos and accepted that what they really really want deep deep down is to move hearts and minds. Such acceptance might lead them away from an unthinking pathos to the light of reason (i.e. a proper balance of appeals).

Such realizations would allow them to sleep in, cogitate a bit more, and attack the keyboard with righteous (and proportional) anger when the time is right.

History will note the way in which the Picayune’s online coverage of Katrina has forever changed the way in which a breaking catastrophic story can be — should be — reported. It proved that many of the conventions first developed and refined by bloggers, specifically the reverse-chronological display of stories and, at times, the reassuring, compassionate and conversational human voice, are more effective online than the “above the fold” headline, inverted pyramid and 5-Ws (who, what, etc.) of the print newspaper era. — Rex Hammock

• Pulitzer.org: The Pulitzer Prize Winners 2006 | Public Service - Citation
• Nola.com: Times-Picayune wins Pulitzers for Katrina coverage

It would be really, really great — for practitioners, journalists, students, and scholars — if Euro RSCG Magnet would consider posting on its Media Room all the Middleberg/Ross media studies, instead of letting people dig through the Internet Archive for them. And maybe someone would consider buying middleberg.com (the domain of Middleberg + Associates, acquired in 2000 by Euro RSCG), and redirect it to the new page. Academic journals and books are still refering the URL as the source for the studies, and it’s dissapointing to find a domain that’s for sale (since March 22, 2006), instead of the information you need.

Useful links:

• The Middleberg/Ross media studies — documents availalbe in the Internet Archive on April 14, 2006:
  • 1996 - The Media in Cyberspace III - A National Survey (PDF, 32 pages)
  • 1997 - The Media in Cyberspace Study - Fourth Annual National Survey (PDF, 36 pages)
  • 1999 - The Sixth Annual Middleberg/Ross “Media in Cyberspace Study”: Overview | Executive Summary | PowerPoint slides
  • 2000 - The Seventh Annual Print and Broadcast “Survey of Media in the Wired World”: Overview | Executive Summary
  • 2002 - The Eighth Annual Media Survey: “Change and its Impact on Communications”: Executive Summary | PowerPoint slides | Press release
• 2006 - 11th Annual Euro RSCG Magnet and Columbia University Survey of the Media : Rebuilding Trust: Can credibility be rebuilt in the newsroom and the boardroom? (PDF, 34 pages) | Press release

Keith O’Brien, editor of PRWeek.com and author of great articles on how new technologies are changing the PR practice, is blogging at Ubiquitous Marketing. Subscribed.

Great to see that Keith has decided to open his own front porch :)

Kamy Huise writes on the Marcom Blog and on her blog about an interesting hypothesis: that as the number of PR weblogs grows, the “PR blog community” will become fragmented in small groups:

With the growth of the community well beyond the natural 150-person limit that tends to organically form, I hypothethize that the community will be ripe for further fracture and breakup into natural groupings, such the formation of the International Association of Nobodies (IAN).

Following up on a post by Allan Jenkins, she also points to AIN and the SEA-EAT Blog & Wiki as examples of spontaneous grouping.

Quick questions for those interesting in thinking -and discussing- about these topics (in the spirit of using the Internet as an idea processor):

1. What kind of relationship with a blog author is implied when we: a) read the blog without subscribing to the feed; b) subscribe to the feed; c) comment on or trackback to a blog?
2. Are we (”the PR blogosphere”) a community? By what definition?
3. Is Dunbar’s Number relevant for online communities? If it is, for what types of communities, and is the PR blogosphere such a community?
4. What are the community indicators for the PR blogosphere?
5. Is IAN a sign of fracture in the PR blogosphere?
6. Is IAN the same type of meme-storm as the SEA-EAT Blog & Wiki (*) ? What are the similarities/differences?
7. …. and feel free to add your questions :)

(*) Note: I was a member of the SEA-EAT team.

The Florida Public Relations Association starts its online conference today. Although titled “FPRA Blog Week“, the conference is not about blogging:

We want to showcase how a blog can be used as an innovative approach to mainstream practices. For this reason, we will publish only one article about blogs. The other articles will be about typical topics of interest in the public relations field. The blog is merely the channel of communication, not the center of attention.

Check the program, subscribe to the feed, and encourage your colleagues to visit the blog and add their comments.

Kudos to FPRA’s Orlando Chapter, and to Josh Hallet and Bob O’Malley for organizing this event!

[Tag: fpra]