Dumb and Dumber. TechCrunch's Embargo Policy and News Embargoes

If you work in the field of marketing or public relations this story will be of interest. I first learned of the story from this San Jose Mercury News article:

Technology journalists have long grumbled about embargoes — the public relations practice of trading news for a promise not to print until a given date and time. Not only is the practice manipulative, but a lot of the news isn't really interesting. In the rare cases when the embargoed item is newsworthy, it's virtually guaranteed to be broken by a blogger who doesn't feel bound by stodgy journalistic conventions like verbal contracts. Michael Arrington, a former lawyer turned publisher of the must-read technology blog TechCrunch was an exception. Arrington said he has never broken a single embargo. "Today that ends," Arrington wrote on a blog post Wednesday in which he unilaterally declared war on the entire PR industry. "From now (on) our new policy is to break every embargo. We'll happily agree to whatever you ask of us, and then we'll do whatever we feel like right after that. We may break an embargo by one minute or three days. We'll choose at random." In an interview, Arrington said his goal is to fix the PR industry. He said he first tried keeping a blacklist of firms that offered embargoes but did nothing when they were broken. But the list soon grew to include a third of all PR firms. "It wasn't a blacklist, it was just a list," Arrington said.

When I first read this story, I had two immediate thoughts:

1. What is a news embargo? I never heard of this PR tactic (probably a good thing).
2. What a dumb debate.

The answers to my first two questions came quickly. At our core, even though our company owns one of the largest "PR" firms in the human resource industry, we are a marketing firm servicing B2B clients in the HR space. We do not operate in a PR vacuum. Hence, we've never even thought of using embargoes - or had a reason to use them.

Now, for thought #2 - what a dumb debate.

I understand where Mr. Arrington is coming from and I respect his integrity in (a) honoring the embargoes all these years and (b) being forthcoming in announcing he will no longer honor embargoes.

But the whole debate is silly. Here is why.

1. For companies that have something of great news worthiness or whose news is in great demand (Google, Microsoft, Apple, etc.) it probably doesn't matter where the news breaks or how it is released. To quote Henry David Thoreau, "If it’s important enough, it’ll reach you." These companies don't need to ask for embargoes. It can be released on PRweb or some kid's Facebook account and within minutes, it will spread like wildfire. What about PR people who say they need to give a reporter advanced notice to prepare a story that has more details than just a press release post? That's your job - use a social media press release. That's the power of the Internet and Web 2.0. And if the PR people representing these firms want to play the embargo game, they can pick their outlet and it will most likely not be the TechCrunch blog if TechCrunch cannot honor the embargo. They'll just go to a major news channel like CNN which has greater reach anyway.
   
2. For smaller unknown companies or companies whose news is not in demand they could care less if an embargo is not honored. They just want the coverage. So the TechCrunch threat is meaningless to them.
   

The only people who care about being the first to give you the news is the media. Consumers don't care where it comes from. And in the long run, it just does not matter. It may have mattered in the days when you had only CBS, NBC and ABC but with the Internet and Web 2.0 news travels quickly regardless of where it was first introduced. And PR folks have the tools to communicate news in any format they want. Good PR and marketing firms understand this - and don't need to use embargoes.

Now I'm not saying all news embargoes are useless. Sometimes they are necessary like when reporters who accompanied President George Bush on a Thanksgiving visit to Iraq were 'embargoed' from filing until the President left the country. They were told that, in the interests of security, the trip would be canceled if news broke before its conclusion. But using embargoes in B2B technology announcements?

At the end of the day, who was the winner in this debate?

TechCrunch!

Michael Arrington is getting the last laugh on this. Look at all the media visibility he has earned and as a result, the likely increase in his blog readership. And because he sells ads on his blog, he makes more money.

And what if companies no longer send news to TechCrunch?

Doesn't matter. If it's truly newsworthy, TechCrunch MUST cover the story anyway or risk becoming irrelevant (and losing ad revenue).

But at the end of the day, if you run your PR firm (or blog) with integrity and focus on building relationships and proving useful insights and information, you have nothing to worry about. Just keep doing what you are doing.

Informal learning; the silky finery of Learning Management Systems (the latest HRchitect Beauty Pageant)

Once again I attended the latest HRchitect Beauty Pageant last Friday – this time it was all about learning management systems, an older, more established part of the HR space as compared with talent acquisition systems and talent management in general.

According to HRchitect, learning management systems:

• deliver and manage training and training resources
  
• manage training resources (trainers and materials)
  
• schedule training
  
• track and report on training progress (ties into integrated talent management strategy)
  
• record and report on training performance
  

LMS is important to career development, succession planning and performance management, and so it makes sense that better integration with talent management suites will continue to be a growing trend (as it already is throughout talent management products and related services).

Some of the players from the first pageants were in this one as well: SumTotal, Cornerstone OnDemand, Plateau Systems, GeoLearning and OutStart.

As I did during the first two pageants, I listened to each presentation with primarily a marketing ear, but also as a potential buyer. Unfortunately the overall presentations were still static, dry, and chock full of insider baseball, confusing diagrams and industry jargon.

Although there weren't any softballs for me this time like globalability or smartify, does "open activity architecture" really mean all that much to the executive management team (with the exception of the CTO and IT of course)? And enough with "synchronous" and "asynchronous" and "best-in-breed technology" – just please tell me how you can help me improve my workforce you're your learning system. On the lighter side, Cornerstone and GeoLearning did have a little more fun with the pageant theme with comments like "we'll now show you some of silky finery" and "we're wearing Donna Karan".

It was still nice to see that all the vendors delivered via SaaS, even though a few still have onsite deployment. SaaS isn't going anywhere and will continue to proliferate software delivery across industries, particularly in the human capital space.

One differentiator that only a few of the pageant participants pulled off nicely was the customer success story. If you can't show customer return, and if your customers aren't willing to go on the record, just saying you're best-in-breed doesn't mean squat.

The winners for me were the vendors who talked about the differences between formal learning and informal learning, and how social networking and workplace communities will play important roles in training and development. These are the realities that organizations are facing today and informal learning will continue to play ever-growing role in the lives of employees around the world. The reference of Jay Cross's work on informal learning was a nice touch as well.

The winner for me was Cornerstone OnDemand with GeoLearning coming in a close second. The rest of the voting audience just got it backwards (wink).

Don't forget to sign up for the next beauty pageant in the new year, January 9 – mid-market applicant tracking systems.

Happy Holidays!

Post by Kevin Grossman

Let it Stop. Let it Stop. Let it Stop. Excessive CEO Pay.

Few topics in human resources management - and the general public - inspire more emotion than executive pay.

The CEOs of large US companies in 2007 averaged about $11 million each in total compensation. That's 344 times the pay of the average US worker. And several CEOs made hundreds of millions in compensation - and their businesses failed.

Think about that for a moment.

For comparison, in the early 1980s, CEOs of the largest US companies were paid around 45 times the average worker’s salary. In 1965, about 24 times.

Has the average CEO become that much more productive, that much smarter and that much more effective relative to the rest of of the working population? Trust me, I know some of these guys and nothing can be further from the truth.

The Boards of the firms that employ these CEOs, their compensation committees and external consultants defend these pay packages by saying this is the amount of money required to attract the kind of talent needed to effectively manage these businesses. Essentially, we are told that these guys are such geniuses that we have to pay them this kind of money or these companies will collapse.

Apparently, the wrong talent was attracted because under the leadership of most of these executives, their companies performed terribly. And some of these CEOs bankrupted their firms or in the case with the automotive industry, destroyed entire industries and caused millions of people to lose their jobs. And lets not even discuss financial services firms.

And their punishment?

Well, a very few went to prison, some were terminated (and walked away with millions and in some cases hundreds of millions in severance packages and other "retirement" benefits.). But most of the CEOs still have their jobs, in spite of their poor performance.

What's wrong?

Debate over excessive compensation for the heads of companies has been a fringe topic for some time and I don't claim to have the answer. In fact, other than drastically changing the tax code, which has it's own drawbacks, I don't think executive pay can be regulated - nor should it be. There have been many approaches to executive pay reform including changes to securities laws and regulations in an attempt to strengthen the bargaining position of shareholders and attempts by Congress to restrain the growth of executive pay by eliminating the tax deduction for compensation paid in excess of specific caps.

None have worked.

I think the answer has to do more with character and leadership and the kinds of managers we are turning out of business schools and developing within our organizations. In other words, only the CEOs and executives themselves can change this - and maybe human resources can play an important role. Or at least try.

Warren Buffet once said that when evaluating executives, you look for three qualities: (1) Integrity, (2) Intelligence (3) Energy. He then says that if you don’t have the first, the other two will kill you. Integrity. Hmmm. As for executive compensation Buffet says the average person cannot do much about it and that it would take large institutional shareholders to withhold votes and pressure a CEO about it.

Buffet also is very critical of compensation consultants. So was Carl Icahn in his recent blog post Compensation Consultants Grease the Executive Pay Casino. Buffet says the practice of setting executive pay based on what CEOs in similar industries earn (a common practice of compensation consultants) is a "All-the-other-kids-have-one" approach and it's wrong. BTW, Warren Buffet receives only a $100,000 salary with no stock options as CEO of Berkshire Hathaway (the lowest CEO salary of the Fortune 500 companies). His worth comes from the fact that (a) he owns 31% of his company's shares and (b) as CEO, he has run the company exceptionally well since founding it in 1965. In other words, he has earned it - unlike so many CEOs running businesses today.

Buffet's partner Charlie Munger says:

"I think people taking compensation have a moral duty not to take it. Moral duty to be underpaid. If generals and archibishops can do it, why can’t leaders of large enterprise take less than the last dollar?"

You can argue that some CEOs (like Buffet) have truly earned their excessive compensation. In these cases, the company is them - they founded it, they grew it and without them none of it would have happened. Some other examples include Bill Gates, Larry Ellison, Steve Jobs and Ted Turner. Ted Turner says in his new autobiography Call Me Ted ( a great read BTW) about Jack Welch:

"If it wasn't for Thomas Edison, Jack Welch would [not be Jack Welch]."

Sure Mr. Welch was a great CEO but GE is a public company that existed for 100 years before he arrived and will likely be around for another 100 years. Did Mr. Welch really earn the hundreds of millions he was paid? It's a tough question.

Someone once said that 99% of decisions that CEOs make could be made by the average manager, but the CEOs get paid for the other 1%. The problem is most CEOs today aren't doing that great of job on those other 1% of decisions - or the first 99% in some cases.

In 2009, maybe HR executives and leadership development firms can lead a change. Or better yet, maybe CEOs will lead the change. I'm hopeful but I won't bet on it.

In closing, I quote Buffet again:

"Comp committees should adopt the attitude of Hank Greenberg, the Detroit slugger and a boyhood hero of mine. Hank's son, Steve, at one time was a player's agent. Representing an outfielder in negotiations with a major league club, Steve sounded out his dad about the size of the signing bonus he should ask for. Hank, a true pay-for-performance guy, got straight to the point, "What did he hit last year?" When Steve answered ".246," Hank's comeback was immediate: "Ask for a uniform."

HRmarketer Friends On Facebook

Social networking continues to be all the rage. You can't open a newspaper, or a magazine, or turn on the television without reading, seeing, or hearing about it and how it is changing the way we communicate and keep in touch with friends.

It is becoming increasingly important in business, too. (Jonathan and Kevin tweet on Twitter every day.) There are webinars, whitepapers and conferences about how to leverage social networking to engage your customers and increase your sales.

The online sage of everything in the world - Wikipedia - provides this definition of a social network:

"A social network is a social structure made of nodes (which are generally individuals or organizations) that are tied by one or more specific types of interdependency, such as values, visions, ideas, financial exchange, friendship, kinship, dislike, conflict or trade." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_network

And defines a social network service as such:

"A social network service focuses on building online communities of people who share interests and/or activities, or who are interested in exploring the interests and activities of others." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_network_service

Here is a great explanation of social networking via YouTube. It's short (one minute, forty eight seconds), simple, and humorous. Check it out:



So all this is probably nothing very new to many of you reading this. So why are we writing a blog post about it? Well, HRmarketer has finally gotten around to joining the social networking craze ourselves. We have put up a Facebook page so we can continue to build our online community of HR vendors and HR professionals, and share our interests and activities with the community.

Here is a link to our Facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/home.php#/pages/HRmarketercom/39347091877

Our hope is to create a network of like-minded people within the Human Resources field and provide a place where we can share ideas, information, and opportunities. We will share photos and videos, announce webinars and provide links to our HR Buyers' and HR Sellers' research reports, pose questions to the community and answer questions posed by the community. We genuinly hope that you will join us on Facebook and take an active part in the community - we can all learn from each other and help one another.

Friend us. We're here for you.

Posted by Andy Benkert

E-mail marketing and the journey to the center of the earth

We create and manage many direct marketing e-mail campaigns on behalf of many HR suppliers and HRmarketer.com (and very soon SeniorCareMarketer.com). We went into our list rental service this year with a lot of prior direct marketing experience and recommendations, and have learned a great deal more since. Marketing to over 70,000 HR pros and executive management while keeping up with the marketing Joneses out there doesn't hurt.

I'm going to share some of our latest best practices, but first consider that:

• According to a recent article in BtoB titled 4 predictions for e-mail marketing in 2009, e-mail marketing is going to become even more important than it's been, but companies are going to need to take e-mail relevance even further.
  
• According to our HR Buyer report series, buyers of HR products and services prefer initial supplier e-mail contact over phone calls and face-to-face selling.
  
• According to our latest HR Supplier marketing series survey (next report coming in early 2009), over 65% of respondents feel that e-mail marketing is the most important marketing and PR tactic out of a list of over 20 activities.
  

All right, chew on these Scoobie snacks. If you've got anything to add to the following, let me know.

• Less is more part 1. Keep your call-to-action singular and concise. Don't fill your campaign full of crappy long-winded jargon and too many choices for your prospects. They will pass out and never click through to where you really want them to go. If you're offering a research report download, then make that the main (and only) pitch.
  
• Less is more part 2. Take it easy on the HTML visuals. Don't fill your campaign full of images, especially large ones (file sizes), because they'll take forever to load (more than a few seconds is forever in e-mail marketing time), will get flagged as junk and/or will get caught in spam folders. And always include a text version in your campaign. Most e-mail marketing services require text versions along with your HTML.
  
• Less is more part 3. More and more business professionals are reading their e-mails on their Blackberrys and other PDA's – in text only. Always make sure your HTML images have anchor text relevant to your pitch. And read less is more parts 1 and 2.
  
• Nothing's for free. Don't use "free" ever in the copy or subject line. That'll hinder it reaching your prospects for sure. Complimentary is a much better word and safer to e-mail filters. And watch for other words and phrases as well. "As seen on The View" ain't gonna help you.
  
• Engage the lead punch. Keep your subject lines within 40-60 characters long and make them engaging with a clear call-to-action verbs – Download and Register for example.
  
• Content, content, content. We've said it before and we'll say it again – BtoB content offers like best practice white paper downloads and Webinar promos score higher on the lead-gen scale than heavily discounted products or pure play demo requests. In fact, we see click-thru rates double with content offers compared to pure play marketing campaigns. Give them something that will help them improve their businesses today, whether they buy anything thing from you or not.
  
• Open rates, schmopen rates. We don't put a lot of stock in open rates because of preview panes in e-mail programs and the fact that just because someone inadvertently opens your campaign doesn't mean anything. What means something for you is the click-thru – getting prospects to click and jump through a time portal and hit your landing page.
  
• Are we there yet? You succeeded in getting them to your website. Now you want to convert them into a warm lead. Converting that prospect into someone who will slide into your sales pipeline is contingent on whether they're interested once they hit your landing page. If you require registration, keep the required fields to a minimum; don't make them fill out a job application because they won't do it. Keep them on the landing page; don't make them click through to multiple pages to get what they came for, especially if you don't require registration and are just giving thought leadership away.
  
• Thank and reload. Make sure you're thanking your prospects and keeping them in your campaign loop. No matter the length of your sales cycle, you want your prospects immersed in your industry know-how.
  

One thing I didn't mention above is where you get your lists from, how you build your house list, and how targeted/segmented you should be getting with your campaign. The fact is, casting a wide net and seeing what you bring back is still a viable method, especially when you're giving content away. But what if you're targeting specific company size in specific industries with certain decision makers and influencers? How do you know which campaigns are more successful to those groups? How much detailed testing and tracking should you do?

We're going to become a much more targeted marketing shop next year with our own marketing and our clients. There are no truly successful one-size-fits-all marketing campaigns, not when you're journeying into the center of the earth with candles, a bag of granola and a canteen full of extra-sweet lime Kool Aid; 2009 and beyond will be a challenge.

We had the honor of having John Sumser stop by last week and talk with our group about the realities of global demographics, workforce populations and why niche marketing must be first priority for HR suppliers.

Bring your suits. Those lava tubes can really heat up.

Post by Kevin Grossman

Asteroids Keep Happening

Asteroids happen and they keep happening, boiling oceans and leaving craters in their wake. I read the news today, oh crap.

It's serious and there will be death in our space in 2009 – but there will be new companies sprouting up in the mid-market no matter how long the nuclear winter and consolidation will continue as well (Salary.com just bought Genesys Software Systems).

Keep your marketing and PR activities alive throughout the mayhem and focus on generating more publicity, traffic and leads. We've been evangelizing about it for years and call it the Marketing PR Lead-Gen Process(sm), a three-step process that produces measurable results focusing on:

• Infrastructure – your business strategy, messaging, website SEO and marketing website (lead capture, lead capture, lead capture)
  
• Content – white papers, research reports, case studies, surveys and webcasts
  
• Promotion – monthly media releases, search-optimized releases, blogging and direct marketing
  

And the promotion part is the fun part!

Engage in low-cost and scalable online activities with direct e-mail marketing and blogging and podcasting and vodcasting and youtubing and search-optimizing and rssing and tweeting and facebooking and linkedining and social mediaing and other made-up Web 2.0 marketing schtick.

All kidding aside, this will be tough year for many companies, and so we wish you all well. So well in fact that I'd like to thank the good marketing folk at HubSpot for this little viral diddy that will have us all rocking out and landing more leads in no time.

Post by Kevin Grossman

Mingle Bells, Mingle Bells, Mingle All The Way

Unfortunately we were behind-the-eight-ball bloggers last week when we neglected to mention that our founder, Mark Willaman, was going to be the first guest on HRchitect's WebMingle last Friday, December 5.

What's a WebMingle? Well, it's a 45-minute online conversation that features industry news and interview with industry executives, analysts, practitioners, consultants, and really anybody who has an interest and stake in the puzzling world of HR Technology.

Matt Lafata, Vice President of Sales & Marketing for HRchitect, is the host of the WebMingle and interviewer. The first show with Mark was an invaluable journey into the steel-trap mind of a marketing/PR maestro. I ain't kidding. It was really good.

According to Matt's blog post about it:

As somebody who has been involved in marketing for many years, I was particularly interested to hear Mark's position on many different areas and he provided a great deal of insight. He was certainly preaching to the choir with me in regards to many of the topics he touched on and I hope people enjoyed hearing what he had to say. One particular piece of information that I have also been a huge proponent of was when Mark re-iterated that a slow or bad economy is no time to cut marketing efforts. These efforts should stay the same or increase as others are going to panic and cut budgets and those that stay the course are more likely to weather the storm. In any event, lots of great information and I encourage you to listen to the interview at your convenience.

You can listen to the WebMingle archive here on blogtalkradio.

Up next, this Friday, December 12, at 11:00 a.m. PT, Adam Feigenbaum from iCIMS, the winner of HRchitect's Talent Acquisition Systems Beauty Pageant Webinar.

Post by Kevin Grossman

Social Media Can Improve 401k Participation Rates

Last week one of our team members attended a Webinar about the power of Web 2.0 in talent management. One of the highlights was how Best Buy increased their 401k participation by 30%.

30%? How the heck did they do that?

With a contest. A video contest. They asked employees throughout the retail chain to submit motivating videos that would help increase overall 401k participation. They did just that and the winner is below.

Ah, creative employee engagement does motivate and help with retention (well the hopefully solid 401k is helping retention in this economic mudslide we're in).

These types of creative "social media" initiatives, coupled with employer financial education programs and auto-enrollment and online plan management tools, can help retain an already incredibly unsteady workforce.

According to a recent press release by the International Foundation of Employee Benefit Plans (also an HRmarketer member), 43% of U.S. respondents offer financial education/literacy programs for their workers. And this number will only increase next year as the economy is predicted to become bleaker before it improves. And Julie Stich, Senior Information/Research Specialist with the IFEBP stated that "with the economy affecting retirement plans, employees are taking a greater interest in their retirement future."

Of course we are. No more weapons of financial mass destruction.

Now, check out the winning video...

Post by Kevin Grossman

Calling all HR suppliers – the latest Trends in HR Marketing survey is ready for your valued input

It's that time of year again and we need your help!

The latest Trends in HR Marketing survey for suppliers is live and ready for your input (you may have already received an email from us). Based on your answers, we'll be analyzing where HR suppliers like you will spend their marketing and PR dollars and what's ahead in 2009 when it comes to generating more visibility, traffic and leads. You can review our entire series at HRmarketer's White Papers and Research.

Our next report will cover the latest trends and best practices for marketing to the human resource (HR) and employee benefits marketplace going into 2009. Topics covered in the next report will include:

• Patterns of adoption and use of various marketing and PR tactics by HR and employee benefits suppliers – including social networking and social media marketing (Web 2.0 activities).
  
• Marketing and PR activities most important to HR suppliers in 2008 and their budgeting plans for 2009.
  
• The marketing and PR activities that generate the most sales leads for HR suppliers, and those presenting the greatest challenges.
  
• How optimistic suppliers are about the overall health of the human capital marketplace heading into 2009.
  
• And much more!
  

If you've got a few minutes, please complete the survey. And as always, we will gladly send you a complimentary copy of the completed survey results early next year, before they're made public.

Happy Marketing and Happy Holidays!

Post by Kevin Grossman

A guy walks into a blog and says, “I’ll have a number 14, please.”

So it's post T-day early morning and I'm trying to unstuff some hopefully not-so-dried-out unwritten blog posts – one of which is why HR Suppliers of a certain size and weight, injected with VC hormones and angel antibiotics, equate big media (ego) placements with aggressive lead gen?

Frustrating. But before I can tackle that one I get sidetracked because deep dive focus is hard to come by when you've got calls to make, e-mail to check, Twitterers to tweet, Facebookers to face, LinkedInners to link to, TotSpotters to spot, diapers to change, and before I get too carried away (which is too late), many blogs to read.

Including the prolific folk over at Fistful of Talent and their latest post The Talent Management Blog Power Rankings 2.0.

This is their second round of Talent Management Blog Power Rankings where they looked at 115 Talent, HR and Recruiting-related blogs and compiled a list of the very best. You can check out FOT's entire top 25 in their post, but here's a peek at the top 14:

1. cheezhead™

2. The Recruiter Guy

3. Jim Stroud's The Recruiters Lounge

4. Compensation Force

5. Personal Branding Blog - Dan Schawbel

6. Your HR Guy

7. AmyBeth Hale - Research Goddess

8. All Things Workplace

9. Employee Evolution

10. Great Leadership

11. Learn @ Trizle

12. TalentMash by Kristin Gissarro

13. Andy Headworth's Sirona Says

14. HRmarketer.com

Did you see that? Number 14! We had an honorable mention last time, so this was a pleasant surprise. What a cool crowd to be hangin' with. We are honored. If you want to be in the know of all things talent and marketing in the HR marketplace, read these cats. Really. (Okay, so a big placement can help heat the meat thermometer. I'm just sayin'…)

Now, back to getting sidetracked – I mean – back to work. I've got to quit jet skiing.

Post by Kevin Grossman