On Rad's Radar? - PR Archives

The $14 Billion Dollar Announcement

2012-12-03T18:09:34Z

While I don't agree with everything that Bruce writes here about AT&T's $14 Billion network spend in the next 3 years, there were a few take aways.

The big one is that the ILEC's have been getting rate hikes for years to pay for fiber that most customers are not receiving. FiOS is where it is - and that's the end of that project. U-Verse is fiber to the node and that isn't deployed everywhere either.

Mike Powell, former FCC Chair and now CEO of NCTA, has often gotten in woefully wrong in presenting the state of telecom. You can talk about top speeds all day long, but that isn't what the Majority of US addresses have access to nor is it the top speed broadband even remotely affordable for consumers - and even some small businesses (at $300 per month). The average US broadband speed is 6.6 Mbps. And if you don't bundle that broadband, it costs a lot.

Despite the promises and the rate hikes, telcos have invested $249 per person on average for broadband per year. Consumers spend on average $529 on broadband annually. At a retail job at $10 per hour that is one week's pay. Unsustainable!

62% of Americans buy broadband. That is all. Period. The market is flat.

Verizon and AT&T have a plan to disconnect the copper plant. VZ has already done so in the shade of Storm Sandy at the battery Park CO. All the CLEC customers out of the CO are out of luck, time and competition.

Telcos are basically unregulated at the state level - and the FCC is useless when it comes to enforcement and competition.

The point that everyone misses is this: our economy in America is service based. It is broadband fueled too - ask Apple or Amazon or Google.

Without cheap, fast Internet everywhere, what happens to that economy?

Clipping copper is detrimental to not only the CLEC's but to the majority of small businesses in the US. Ethernet-over-copper is quick to deploy and gives a great MB for the buck. EoC is the last stand against the cableco becoming the ILEC and the ILEC becoming irrelevant. (I laugh when the stock pickers only point to the dividend as if that was somehow any indication if a telco will tank or not.)

Promises from the RBOCs - Verizon and AT&T - for rate hikes or mergers have largely gone unenforced. The $14B announcement was just PR - spin. Nothing either company does is good for the economy, it is just good for them - for now.

How will Cloud services take off if the broadband is too expensive, unreliable or unavailable?

How will the Internet-centric economy stay competitive in that same environment? How does any of that withstand broadband caps and metering? How do corporations have more tele-workers in that same scenario?

Rule 1: Respect the Audience

2012-11-06T17:48:35Z

I might be hyper-sensitive when it comes to sessions - or I have sat through too many at this point in my life. Or maybe both.

Rule 1 when presenting: Respect the Audience!

Respect their time, their Attention (which is a precious gift) and their Intelligence.

If you have 20 minutes, end it in 15 minutes so you have time for a question. Don't run over! You disrespect the event, other speakers, the audience and my attention when you run over your time limit.

Practice. At least once. That way you know how long it will take.

Short, sweet and to the point. We live in an ADD world.

If it is supposed to be a case study, present a case study, not a pitch or commercial. If you can't breakdown the sale for a case study - Who, What, Where, When, Why - I have to assume that you have no idea how you won the deal or why they bought. That's great.

Less is always more. Less slides. Less words per slide. Less talking.

There is never a time when less is not better. Ever. If you can't say what you have to in less than the allotted time, you suck. And I say that with love, because if you had prepared and practiced, you would know that (A) your message was off; (B) you were running long; (C) you were not clear and concise.

Get on twitter. Now! It teaches you to speak in 140 characters, so that you can learn to be concise.

I'm not picking on you or saying I am perfect. I will say that I am always on time, prepared, and have 1 crystal clear thought: What does my audience want to know?

It all comes back to Rule # 1: Respect the Audience. And frankly most speakers/presenters/panelists don't.

Best Practices for Webinars

2012-10-30T20:09:56Z

Just finished moderating a webinar for Kontiki on Adding Live Video to All-Hands. It seemed like a good time to go over some best practices for webinars for speakers.

Do not use cellphones if possible. The feedback from the phone and the poor call quality diminish the speaker's impact.
Speakerphones are not a good idea due to background noise. I have been on a lot of calls with barking dogs, TV blaring, and other noises.
Remember that it is ultimately about the content and the user experience. Be as engaging as possible. That includes being energetic on the call. Monotone speaking will bore the audience.
Use polls, chat, Q&A to keep the audience listening actively.
Practice so that speakers have an idea how it will run and what they will be speaking to / saying.
Don't use slides with many bullets points!
Don't read the slides to the audience!!!!
Login to the platform early.
Have some notes on what you are going to say.
A hard copy of the slides is a good idea.

On the webinar, we discussed testing the platform beforehand and backing up everything (speaker, voice, Internet, platform) to mitigate any problems.

At the end of the day, for the stakeholders it is about a memorable experience for the user (customer, employee, audience member).

ITEXPO West Wrap-Up

2012-10-08T16:03:35Z

I'm home from ITEXPO West in Austin. It was another great show for me. The folks at TMC did another wonderful job putting it together.

Jaime H. juggled my press room meeting schedule on Tuesday, despite my last minute schedule changes. 8x8, Hostway, snom, Centerbeam and others were all able to sit down with me. (Sometimes that isn't always joyful for the marketing/PR folks.) I'm always happy if I can have one or 2 good conversations out of these meetings - and I did.

The sessions were mainly full. I noticed a couple of things: people were not leaving the session rooms but staying for session after session - and they were not just doing that to use a power plug. Most people were not on their devices during sessions, which is unique.

In my Cloud Services Broker Panel, I asked all the attendees why they were there. All said to Learn.

I think our industry is in a lot of turmoil caused by too much cloud hype and consolidation.

The economy, the change, the cloud, and the consolidation makes everyone stressed and fearful of losing their job, when there isn't likely another available (at least immediately).

The marketing machine has ballooned the hype on cloud to ridiculous proportions. The term doesn't mean much to anyone - customers, prospects, vendors, service providers, employees.

With access revenues flat, apps and cloud services are the only way for many service providers to gain revenue. The CLEC industry HAS to be successful in selling cloud services to survive.

Every show has a lot of cloud - so many titles, headlines, banners, etc. It is worse than VoIP was a few years ago. The noise level is deafening - and boring. The industry has to fix this fast.

Startup Camp Comms was enjoyable. Watching Tampa's own startup, Phonism, pitch was exciting. RingDNA won the popular vote though.

I have to say that the keynotes were very good. I have remarked in the past about the commercialized quality of the keynotes, but this time the keynotes were interesting, tweet-worthy, and informative. Thanks to Shortel's CEO Peter Blackmore, IBM's Mike Riegel, and Siemen's CMO Chris Hummel.

Most significant sound byte: "joy of use" is an expectation not a nice to have @hummel_chris."

It is not about the technology or the marketing buzz. It is about Outcomes and UX (user experience). Without outcomes and UX, cloud is just a clumsy way to push technology on a user. That won't last. they won't use it. Then they will stop paying for it. Then you have a lot of CAPEX tied up in dust.

IBM used a Tire Store as a case study. A tire store. You can't get any less tech than that. If a tire store worries about the UX, then shouldn't tech/telecom companies???

Personal note: I either need new shoes or more exercise because my back and feet hurt from walking around the show floor, the halls, the podium and downtown Austin. The parties were mobbed, but I was in bed before midnight most nights. (It's about Outcomes :).

We go to these conferences to learn, to mingle, to network. (That's one reason I organize a dinner at each event.) This show definitely delivers on those attributes.

What did you think?

Want to learn more? Read my tweets or search #itexpo

Mobile Apps Are Not News

2012-10-03T13:44:57Z

Received yet another handful of press releases centered around mobility. Mainly it was about a new Android or iPhone app for UC. This is NOT news! Seriously. The desk phone is being replaced by mobile devices for knowledge workers and sales people. If you don't have a mobile app - that is news, because you will be extinct soon.

Really, the dude at Apple that has to approve all the iOS apps for the store must be thinking, "What? Another freaking VoIP app for the iPad? Aren't a thousand enough?"

Typical Press Release

2012-09-20T16:28:24Z

Regularly I get added to press lists. I dislike that immensely, btw. I don't want my inbox to be full of press releases. Why? 3 Big Reasons:

1) Most press releases are not news to me. Personnel changes? Your CXO is speaking somewhere? Who cares? Unless you hire an ex-President or a convicted sex offender. Although T-Mobile hiring GC's Legere was a smart move.

2) Many press releases are chock full of marketing nonsense and say nothing useful about the company. Take this one. I don't even know what the software does!

3) Releasing a mobile app or relabeling your stuff with "as-a-service" is news - it is old news, because you are just doing me-too stuff, which is unimaginative and boring.

I get that the PR firm has to blanket the world with releases to get noise going and hopefully move the Google juice meter, but TMC (and other sites) have submission engines for that stuff.

Let me give you some samples:

nGenx Unveils Its Next Generation Desktop as a Service Offering

Snom releases new phone models and an IP-PBX

There is a new cloud service provider offering hosted virtual desktops, hosted virtual servers and cloud storage.

I am waiting for the 42,000 Office 365 resellers to put out their press releases.

MegaPath serves up a set of new cloud hosted services.

While I understand the press release machine, I don't understand why a company would want to opt-in bloggers to the media list. I should be asked to opt-in. There is a lot of noise in telecom, most of it around nothing special. This PR machine is making it harder to find anything special.

I get that much of the PR is for Wall Street because if the company isn't saying the right things, then getting money gets harder and more expensive. But doesn't the C-Suite realize that being one of 42,000 is going to mean no margin business?

The VDI Trend

2012-06-22T15:21:50Z

EarthLink launched TechCare. "EarthLink TechCare is a fully managed outsourced help desk that is customizable and scalable, enabling customers to relieve their overburdened IT staffs and refocus on more strategic initiatives, " states the press release. Basically, it is a tech support hotline for companies. This follows their launch of Cloud Workspace, a hosted desktop and virtualization application service. VDI and Managed IT are the new tools in the CLEC kit.

tw telecom has rolled out a virtual desktop services as well. TWC's NaviSite signed up with Desktone to deliver a cloud-based Desktop-as-a-Service. AllCovered is an MSP that is acquiring smaller MSP's that offer VDI.

Citrix and its partners, like Ncomputing, are bringing back the thin client for use with virtualization. And these thin clients are cheap!

I'm wondering when Dell will roll out a Wyse service offering. They didn't acquire Wyse, Sonicwall and others just to let them stand by themselves.

Best Buy's Geek Squad added a Channel program to help them sell Managed IT nationally. Managed IT, remote monitoring (of desktops, laptops, and servers), and virtual desktop are all kind of in the same bucket. And all require serious bandwidth. You aren't going to be running an office on VDI on cable modem, which may be why EarthLink and other CLEC's are embracing IT. One way to combat the cablization of the small business market (sub-$750 telecom spend) is to add enough reasons - VDI, VoIP, Cloud, monitoring, etc. - to require dedicated bandwidth (or even MPLS for private WAN and cloud). Dedicated bandwidth counters the cable modem versus the T1 debate.

We'll see if the right message and value proposition pop up in the marketplace to move the needle on this set of service offerings (VDI, Managed IT, RMM) from the CLEc world. The MSP sector already delivers these services.

One tool to make the message pop in the marketplace is smarter PR. CLEC's need to craft press releases to explain what services offerings are being sold, to whom, and why. It is one avenue to get the story as concrete as possible to the marketplace.

So You Want to Speak at ITEXPO

2012-06-21T18:49:40Z

As we get ready for the conference season again, I would like to pass on some wisdom to you from Ice T's 10 rules of public speaking : "Practice. Then, practice some more." Please, just run through what you are going to say at least once before you sit in that panel chair. For IGNITE sessions, speakers typically practice 10 times for just 5 minutes!

And keynotes: Don't kill us with your presentation.

Death by PowerPoint

But also make it interesting - not a freaking commercial! I know you want to pitch your company like the shill executive with stock options you are, but remember that it is the audience's time too.

You are representing your company on that stage. If you are unprepared, tired, bored, distracted, boring, looking at your phone instead of the audience, it leaves an impression on the audience. A Brand is the sum total of experiences with your company, employees, services, etc. It has impact.

Want 20% off your ITEXPO badge? Use the code "BLOG13"

A Day in My Brain

2012-05-18T14:19:54Z

I was in NYC (Tribeca) this week to spend the day at a Q&A session with Seth Godin. He is a marketing guru and author of a lot of best selling business books. Like these:

Here are some of the gems that I liked.

"A "brand" is the promise of an experience." [Boy, could I riff on that one!] Brand IS the experience. Accept that most people won't like you. Build a tribe that will.

Commit to one marketplace or two. You can't chop all the trees down in the forest with one hatchet.

"It's way easier to sell water to thirsty people than to make thirsty people. It's OK to remind people they're thirsty." The corollary to that is People buy to avoid pain more often than they buy to gain pleasure.

You can try to create demand for your service, like trying to make people thirsty. Or you can find thirsty people and sell them water.

"Define failure before you start. When you reach that point, stop, learn and move on to the next thing." [It's a concept from Seth's book, The Dip]

"The secret, I think, is in understanding what matters."

"People spend their time and attention and money in places that make them feel valued." Are you making your customers feel valued?

What is the world view of your target customer? Does your marketing line up with that?

For a brief few, Seth talked about working for a start-up versus working for Google or Apple or Facebook. A start-up is about growth If you want fast-paced; to make an impact; and to learn, join the start-up. Google, Apple, Microsoft, and Facebook are in the "keep it going" mode. You won't have an impact there. You will be a cog in the machine. In our world, working for any of the billion dollar LEC's or MSO's is like working for Facebook, only a lot less cool on your resume.

What is Important to you? Tom Peters says that he can tell what is important to you from calendar. What does your schedule say about what's important to you?

It's all about Direct Marketing and Pay for Performance. (Social media is a tool of direct marketing.)

There is no road map.

It's all about connection and association. Are you connecting people?

We have mass disruption going on today. Every industry including our own is being disrupted by the Internet. Why? The Internet is the first device that is both a Receiver and a transmitter. That's the problem.

Hopefully one of these nuggets gets you thinking.

Some notes made it to this Power Point I created.

Why PR Is Important

2012-04-20T14:51:54Z

On a call today talking about the value of different CLEC's and ILEC's and why some are trading so low and some so high. For the most part, it comes down to Wall Street's perception of the business. Actually, a large part is what the stock traders think the business is.

For example, Cincinnati Bell is an ILEC with declining wireline revenues like Frontier, Fairpoint and TDS. Like TDS, CinBell has been buying up data centers. Via acquisitions and the public relations that goes with those actions, CinBell is changing the way Wall Street looks at their firm.

Public relations plays a big part in stock price, especially when you consider that most people have very little idea about the World of Telecom. Throw in cable and cloud and you have confused not just Wall Street, but even people in our own Industry.

When I work with master agencies and service providers on their online marketing strategy, the discussion is generally around, "How do we make what you do concrete and easy to understand?" or "How do we tell a story that describes it picture perfect so that it can be repeated?"

To take that another step, PR is about who your clients are, who your employees are, and who the company is (in terms of the marketplace). With so many CLEC's, VoIP Providers and Cloud companies, PR is one way to differentiate yourself. For example, if you close a deal with a school system, a government agency, a retail chain, you want to describe that sale - who, what they bought, the benefits of the purchase, and maybe why they bought from you. Like a mini case study.

If you look at something like a softswitch manufacturer, you can tell from analyst calls that Wall Street doesn't really have a handle on what they do - mainly software licensing. And because of all the hype with Cloud, cloud stocks are doing well despite most folks not knowing what the heck the cloud is! Amazing isn't it?

One last point: PR helps telcos out because the PR machine props up the stock price which in turn lowers their debt payments which can be tied to a stock price (or other financial metric).

There are a few avenues for PR: press releases, case studies, social media, executives speaking at conferences, media interviews, and more. So many ways to get the message out and yet so few do it (well).

5 Tips for Speakers

2012-02-08T22:54:00Z

I'm not the best speaker. I'm still nervous and anxious before every talk, even when moderating. But I prepare for every talk - whether I am a moderator, panelist, keynote, trainer, or co-host. Here are some things that speakers do wrong:

1. Relying on PowerPoint. When technical difficulties occur as they often do, speakers are not prepared to talk without the slides, the crutch. Be ready to talk without a microphone and without the projector.

2. Don't read me the slides! I have been reading since I was 4. I don't need you to read me the slides. I need you to tell why that slide was included in the first place.

3. Have some emotion. Tired or hungover is no way to present. Energetic or passionate is preferable, but at least speak up and into the microphone.

4. Respect the audience's time. Yes it is your time to speak - and you have something (hopefully prepared) to say - but remember that the audience likely paid money to be there. It has to be valuable; not just your talking points.

5. Tell a story or be Engaging. This speaks for itself. If everyone is heads down on their phones, take the hint. (They aren't all tweeting about how profound you are.)

Is it tweet worthy? Have you said anything worth tweeting? Not the ultimate test, but certainly some gauge of audience reaction is social media.

In the end, would you want to listen to you?

In a previous post I mention that teaching is part entertainment. That may not be what you signed up for (to be an entertainer), and I am not saying be Jack Benny, but your points will come across better if you present them well.

AT&T Archive Video

2012-01-30T23:42:40Z

From the AT&T archives: "A fascinating animated film explaining the perspective of the Bell System made during the legal challenges of the 1970s from both the government and other phone companies. "

The MackNell Quandary from 1975 about the greatness of monopoly. I guess this was propaganda before AT&T was broken up.

4 Examples of PR for PR Sake

2012-01-30T17:23:51Z

Here are 4 examples of press releases just for the sake of press releases. That is, just to fill the online PR machine with your name and keywords to help your

EarthLink releases software to help retailers focus on core business. Nice headline but the rest of release doesn't really say how EarthLink's one-source solution for telecom helps retailers do that (specifically). A specific case study would have been better for all concerned. It would have been a spotlight on a customer for EarthLink while demonstrating how the retailer utilized the services.

Cbeyond announces a new Master Agent, CMS. There sounds like a template that could be used for any master agent or carrier.

VoIP Supply Announces Results of Customer Experience Survey. I like the guys at VoIP Supply but a press release about how your customers like you? That's just humorous.

Verizon's Bad Month

2011-12-30T20:54:45Z

VZW has had three outages this month. The third outage on its LTE network today (12/28/11). There was another LTE outage on 12/21 and VZ Long Distance in Florida was down on 12/8/11.

Then yesterday VZW announced that it would charge a convenience fee of $2 for not having auto-pay. Just a few minutes ago, it rescinded that idea. The power of social media and a slow news cycle means that VZW will have to wait to implement that one. Even this guy agrees.

There was also some scam that Phone Plus reported with VZW and revenue reported by Verizon Comm. Inc.

Not a good month for the giant's PR department at all.

Overheard in Vegas

2011-03-16T21:16:56Z

Telesphere hired Andy Abramson's PR firm, Communicano.

AireSpring rolled out Meshed MPLS. What's that? It's how you connect the MPLS networks of four carriers to be able to cost effectively deliver MPLS service to anywhere in the US.

TCA now has over 400 members and 100 agents registered for the Certified Telecom Professional program. Agencies - like RAD-INFO INC, Transit Broker, One Point of Contact, ATC - are certifying everyone to get a leg up on the competition. Are you certifiable?

Alteva rolled out a UC Certification program for its agents. (You could have worked with TCA).

TBI launched a wireless division on top of its nationwide ADTRAN contract.

RSS is dead. Blogs are dead. The web is dead.

"Will video go the way of voice mail?", Larry Lisser asks.

Tele-Pacific is now offering EoX - Ethernet over Everything, meaning copper, fiber and fixed wireless.

Event calendar from VAR Guy.

XO launched a Cloud Security Service.

Sprint declares that it's wireline business has been thriving. It has - to the tune of $5B in revenue according to Rob Powell. Sprint wants its agents to sell wireline (think MPLS and Internet Access, not LD), but the contract isn't ready yet - and admittedly some agents are nervous about pitching a company that can only talk about wireline for a few minutes a month - like they had a limited voice and data plan in that division.

Gary Vee explaining Social Media to reporters.

How to pick a small business IP-PBX by Tom Keating.