RyanHoliday.net:

We're having a pretty solid discussion about Robert Greene's recent piece on the John Boyd and the OODA Loop. I'll post more about Boyd in the future, just because he's revolutionized how I think, but here are some of the thoughts I posted in the thread. I'm going to try to tie them in with a sentence or two to new media and PR.

Which you can use on more investigative or critical pieces. Remember never to drop everything you have at once. If you're calling someone or an entity out, be sure to be liberal (to them) in your calculations and conclusions. That why you eliminate semantic disagreements right off the bat. And best case scenario, you get them to challenge you on your date so you can smugly remind them that upon further consideration, things are actually worse than you first portrayed.

I don't think that needs much explanation.

Anyways, join in the discussion and read Robert Coram's book. Trust me.

Posted by Ryan Clark Holiday at 01:13 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

-Seven steps to remarkable customer service
(Seriously. This dude is 100% right.)
-George Orwell: 12 Writing Tips
(Keep it simple. Use short words over long words. Is my image trite or cliche? Good advice.)
-Explanations for 11 Important Philosophical quotations.
(I happen to disagree with a few, but this is still an interesting article. The classics are easy targets for manipulation, so beware.)
-Who will win the next high-tech jackpot?
(The web is ripe for the next "big player" to step up. Who do you think it's going to be?)
-Shelfari
(I think I might do this. You type in all your books and it creates a virtual recreation of your library. Has anyone done this?)

Rudius PR:
-The OODA Loop and You: Strategy of Allowed Chaos
(Robert's new entry is spectacular. John Boyd is huge, I posted about him last week. Read this, trust me it's good. Digg it here.)
-Tucker Max: Serious Art, Frat-guy Fun
(Solid article from the Daily Cal. Although it leans fairly heavily on the Tucker Max article I wrote a little over a year ago, which I'll post later.)

Posted by Ryan Clark Holiday at 05:13 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

History of the Peloponnesian War seems like a heavy read, but it's easier than you'd think. Just posted quotes from the book HERE

"This is the safe rule--to stand up to one's equals, to behave with deference towards one's superiors, and to treat one's inferiors with moderation."
-The Athenians
Thucydides
History of the Peloponnesian War

Posted by Ryan Clark Holiday at 05:10 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I remember reading Mark Cuban talk about how useful Google Adsense/Adwords could be as a networking tool. It would allow you to reach a potential contact in a way that's not as easily ignorable as email or phone calls--plus it proves your dedication. I think he even called it "the best sales idea [he'd] seen in a long time."

And I finally found someone who used it. John Chow, who has a pretty good blog called The Miscellaneous Ramblings of a Dot Com Mogul placed bought Google Adwords placement on Steve Olson's site proclaiming his (non-sexual) love for the man. And you can bet that if Steve ever reads his own site, he's going to notice. Obviously I don't know the extent of their relationship and it could be a joke, but the viability of this idea doesn't rest on a single example.

Think about how effective using Adwords could be to reach clients*. Let's say you want to see your company featured on TechCrunch. Arrington sells space on his personal blog, buy yourself an ad. Prove your cleverness, prove your dedication. You're just trying to get in the door, like a 1000 other people, so uniqueness--catching his attention--puts you in a rare position.

Understand that these people get hundreds of emails a day, many of which are exactly the same. How nice would it be them to see your pitch pared down to 20 words? If you can't do that, then it's probably not worth pitching anyway. Olson checks his entries for typos, to read the comments, etc, so he is going to see it. And if he doesn't, you're only down a few dollars anyway. Especially since Adwords allows you to pick specifically what sites and pages your ad will be displayed on. If "We want to interview Tucker Max" or "Ryan, Read my Book" started showing up on our Adsense boxes, you can count on the fact that I would at least investigate it. That gets you an audition, the rest is up to you.

Not much else to say, but when I see brilliant PR, I like to point it out. But, as a sidenote, THIS TACTIC WILL NOT HELP YOUR RUDIUS SUBMISSION. I repeat: It will not help your Rudius Submission.

*A note of caution however, this idea is playing off the novelty factor; if it gets overused, it will no longer be efficient.

Posted by Ryan Clark Holiday at 07:29 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

One of my buddies wrote that in a column a few weeks ago, and I've been meaning to write about it. His piece came from a theory we'd been talking about a lot lately, namely at 3 in the morning over carne asada fries in shady Mexican restauranta. That every great or significant life change comes from an event in which a person is thoroughly demolished, and everything they thought they knew is proven untrue--and from there they have to decide whether to get back up or stay on the ground. We call them 'Fight Club Moments,' an allusion to Jack's apartment explosion. It was the catalyst in his life change, one that he was too afraid to make himself. At the end of the book we find that Jack created Tyler out of that fear--to pull the trigger on the decision he was petrified of making.

As we discussed it, each of us could pick one, if not two or three moments, in which we had been utterly destroyed, in which our lives had fallen to ruin and disarray. Through comparison we found a few distinct similarities, 1) They almost always came at the hands of someone else. 2) They involved things we already knew about ourselves but we're too scared to admit 3) From that ruin came great progress and improvement.

I remember mine distinctly: Getting dumped on the phone from a nearly 4-year relationship. It was one I knew I needed to end, but too comfortable to leave. The one that locked me in an unproductive stasis for the majority of my teens, deluded me into mediocrity and forced me to compromise on things I shouldn't have. And so while I knew the breakup was necessary, I hated every second of it. In retrospect it's easy to sit back and act like you accepted the change on its face. I didn't at the time. I fought it every day. It was my apartment explosion, everything was taken from me--all the things I'd collected together in a perverse effort to create a 'life' for myself on someone else's terms. It's definitive and life-changing in the way that only painful things can be.

Or to bring it back to Rudius, in my first few weeks on the job, I made some idiot mistake. I opened my mouth when I shouldn't have, and I ignored my instincts. It brought this from Tucker:

And though I totally deserved it, or even knew that my ego was at times out of control, to have a hero tell you it so directly is crushing. The words threw me back slouched in my chair, speechless and dumbfounded. The shock that comes when you asked to be "punched in the face as hard as [they] can. That kind of self-awareness doesn't come naturally, it has to be forced upon you. We're too delusional to head off and acknowledge our own flaws. If we're to ever overcome them, they need them to be illuminated--brutally--by a second party. And the fact that this came just days after my first Fight Club moment...

Since I read the column, and really became conscious of the idea, it's been on my mind constantly. Then I read the biography of John Boyd by Robert Coram, where he discusses Boyd's seminal paper: Destruction and Creation. When I read this passage, it all sort of cleared up for me.

And now I see both events as two of the best things to ever happen to me. What I think you ultimately take away from this is: "it's only after we've lost everything, that we're free to do anything." Like Durden says, "it's not a goddamn seminar." Hitting bottom is as brutal as it sounds. You're not supposed to enjoy it, just realize that the difficulty pays off tenfold in freedom. But the best part, is once you acknowledge the necessity, you can see them coming.

I could be totally wrong about "Fight Club Moments," and perhaps the path to greatness isn't paved with their horror. I hope that I am. I hope that somewhere, someone made it through without ever having to hit bottom; without ever having their life torn apart and their deepest imperfections dissected before their own eyes. But I doubt it. That sort of pre-emptive self-awareness just isn't possible. And in the end--as cliche as it sounds--the only way you can appreciate the progress is to stand on the edge of the hole you've dug, look down inside it, and smile fondly at the bloody claw-prints that marked your journey up the walls.

Edit: Copy editing is not my specialty. Bart hooked me up.

Posted by Ryan Clark Holiday at 06:18 PM | Permalink | Comments (5)

I've been trying to articulate my thoughts on where I think PR is heading in both the near and distant future. I was having trouble and then I found Brian Solis' post on the matter and realized I didn't have to write it anymore. He did it for me.

"For far too long, PR has operated behind a wall, spamming media with generic emails and press releases, without taking the time to understand why their news matters to the community they're trying to reach. And now with the tools to reach communities directly at their fingertips, many will fail, while a few smart, immersed, and passionate professionals will converse transparently. But perhaps at that point, they're no longer just another PR person, they could in theory, graduate to something much more important and influential."

Read that, print it out, and tape it to the wall in front of your desk.

Posted by Ryan Clark Holiday at 10:20 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Is it just me or is ZDNET one of the most superficial, rote tech sites on the web? For some reason they pop up in the RSS reader in my Google Sidebar and I am consistently disappointed. Not only are they regularly dead, dead wrong on almost every topic you can imagine, but they rarely break past 500 words.

Today they did a post they called: Google due for a fall? Donna Bogatin debates Danny Sullivan. I figured that as a stock holder and a guy with a ton of respect for Google innovation, I better check it out. I think I could have learned more falling out of my chair. The article makes Fox News Talking Points look like beautiful, original prose.

"Bogatin: Google's ambitions are unrealizable, but dangerous. People may "trust Google" now, but "Google 2084" is close at hand."

Supported? Of course not. It's just rhetoric from some tech dweeb who wishes she worked for Google but got stuck at along the way

Sullivan: Google's the lifeblood of many sites, sending them huge amounts of traffic at no cost. Google's an Internet billboard company, a pretty efficient one.

I'm so glad we got both sides to weigh in on the issue. Google sends traffic to websites for free? Really? Wow. Tell us more. This is exactly the kind of high quality, deeply technical analysis I read ZDNET for.

If you run a website, tech or otherwise, give ZDNET a look over and do the exact opposite. It embodies the attitude that infects most old media companies and mediocre blogs. They think that a catchy title is enough, or that an interesting concept will be all a reader needs. No. It doesn't matter how much potential your story has, if you don't deliver 100% every time, people will go elsewhere. I can't tell you how many times I've been disappointed by ZDNET, but it's pretty damn regularly. Their writers drop the ball nearly every time, and yet, they have no problem rushing it to print and forcing it on the masses. The quickest way to earn ill-will as a content producer is to promise more than you can supply. Forget headlines, forget hooks, forget pictures, focus on quality articles. Until you can do that with your eyes closed, nothing else matters.

Posted by Ryan Clark Holiday at 09:43 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Just posted some book quotes from Edmund Morris' The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt, which I read a few months ago. I am way backed up with the quotes and passages. More coming soon.

Here are the TR passages.

Posted by Ryan Clark Holiday at 09:29 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

-How to communicate strategy: Tips for Success
(Made to Stick looks at where gaps arise between plan and action. You can view the Rudius discussion here, which I'll post about later.
-Zillow's housing estimates on average within 8% of selling price
(Is it outsourcing when a computer takes jobs away from Americans?)
-The Office: Through the lens of a corporate liability lawyer
(via GorillaMask. Hilarious concept)
-YouTube shuts down Gawker's account for spam/copyrights
(Keys to success: Track whatever Gawker is doing and do the opposite)
-Wikipedia: Information Cascade
(Interesting social phenomenon crucial to PR. Why people make decisions that they know are wrong in the face of conformity of their peers)

Posted by Ryan Clark Holiday at 08:20 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Myspace's Monthly Advertising Figures

Am I the only one who is less than impressed that a site with a 150 million users is pulling a measly $25 million a month? Myspace pulls in roughly 40 billion pageviews a month and they're barely pulling in $100 million a quarter in revenue? As an advertiser that would make me worry; think about how little an impression is worth on Myspace. Think about how many of those must not even be genuine eyeballs at the screen, but error messages, glitches, landing pages, obfuscation, and poor design. Honestly, I'm surprised that an investor as disciplined and value-driven as Murdoch would accept this mediocrity.

I don't mean to get into some design digression, but I don't even remember the last time I looked at someone's profile. I check my messages, friend requests, bulletins and leave. Which I think serves as a warning to designers, webmasters and owners out there: Value quality over quantity. All we ever hear about Myspace is how many users it has, about it's stellar growth rate and apparently manifest destiny to rule the Internet. But when you look at the numbers, the site is abysmally dysfunctional. I remember reading somewhere that Weblogs Inc does a million plus in revenue a month, and you know their traffic is nothing compared to the big social networks. But they've figured out their audience, and how to market it to them. They ooze efficiency and maximize profits. I think Myspace almost has that old media mindset of believing that hugeness is the only avenue to profit. We all know that The Long Tail disproves that in a very real way. And Myspace is and will pay the price--hits are becoming less and less rational, and all the harder to come by. Like Hollywood they seem to think that a blockbuster is the only reasonable goal, wholly ignoring the fact that perhaps a series of smaller, niche successes might be a better route. I think you need to start looking at the opportunity costs of trying to be THE site on the Internet. The real dilemma that webmasters are faced with are: Is it better to have a plethora of fickle, peripheral users or a core audience of dedicated niche?

I think the answer is the latter. And as Chris Anderson said, the money of the future is then in the aggregation thereof.

Posted by Ryan Clark Holiday at 10:21 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

The new Rudius Media Message Board launched yesterday, and along with it came the Rudius Media Writing Forum which Ben Corman is running. It's going to be sort of workshop for writers looking to grow, readers looking to learn, editors looking for new projects, and so on. One of the first threads up was the Recommended Reading thread, and though I'm too tired to post more on the topic right now, here are some books I put up that have been especially influential as of late...

The Meditations - Marcus Aurelius

I would call this the greatest book ever written. I've probably read it a solid 6 times in 3 months, and have a large passage that I printed out and posted above my desk to look at before I start my day. It is the definitive text on self-discipline, personal ethics, humility, self-actualization and strength. If you read it and aren't profoundly changed by it, it's probably because, like Aurelius says "what doesn't transmit light creates its own darkness." Get the Gregory Hays translation, I've read 2 or 3 others and it's the best.

The War of Art - Steven Pressfield

This is from the guy who wrote Gates of Fire and it's probably the closest thing I've seen to a modern version of The Mediations. He breaks down what he calls "The Resistance" or the force within us that we allow to hold us back from success. It's split up like The Meditations or any other philosophical dialog, but intended specifically to help artists make the transition from amateur to professional.

History of the Peloponnesian War - Thucydides

Tucker has this on his list, but he recommends reading it in a classroom setting. Wikipedia makes it possible to do it on your own, just read in front of the computer. Consider it the first history book ever written (Herodotus doesn't count because it's partially fantasy) perhaps the greatest war book as well. Every tactic, every strategy, every war the world has ever fought is essentially a microcosm of the nearly 30 year war between Athens and Sparta. Seriously, read it, and then reread the 48 Laws of Power and you'll understand it on an entirely new level.

The Origins of Consciousness and the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind - Julian Jaynes

The theory put forth in the book--that man's consciousness didn't evolve until roughly 5,000 BC and that our notion of God comes from our pre-conscious mind--isn't widely accepted, but I believe it. Even if you don't, it's probably one of the most fascinating books I've ever read. It asserts that in the time before man could consciously decide to do something, his right brain communicated to his left through auditory and visual hallucinations, and thus, the concept of God. Richard Dawkins talks extensively about this theory in his book The God Delusion as well. The subject might seem daunting, but in reality the book is very easy to read and well supported.

Sex on the Brain - Deborah Blum

One of the better books on evolutionary biology that focuses almost entirely on the biological and psychological differences between men and women. It's written by a journalist (who cites scientists) so it's easy to read if you're not studied in the field. If you want to get into evolutionary psychology--which you totally should--this is a good starting point because it covers all the basics. Essentially, it discusses how men and women have benefited evolutionarily through different behaviors and strengths so it would only make sense that they would have developed into two very different entities.

My Bondage and My Freedom - Frederick Douglass

I like this better than the Malcolm X biography, just because I found him to be a more inspiring and ultimately more accomplished figure. You don't have to be a slave, or oppressed to appreciate the fortitude it took to literally rise from the depths of hell to the pinnacle of the world intellectual community. The prose is beautiful and his iron will makes you feel like a pussy for whining and dicking around. Plus the guy was the first recorded escaped slave to write a letter to his former master which is really cool.

And as far as passages for these books go, here's a pretty large collection

Posted by Ryan Clark Holiday at 12:22 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)

-20% Borders Coupon
(Always valid, updates weekly. I've never paid full price for a book at Borders.)
-Calacanis interview with Business Week
(His take on self-sufficient advertising, Federated Media, Weblogs Inc, potential new media titans)
-The Top Ten Stupid Ways to Hinder Market Adoption
(Ben tagged this to me. Good list of horrible business strategies on the internet)
-Differentiate Your Blog or Die
(How to make your blog sticky, and how to stand out)
-Tragedy of the commons-Collective Action Problems
(Wikipedia. Ruin is the destination toward which all men rush... )

Rudius Press:
(Disclosure: I run PR for these authors)
-Jim Wirt of ColoringBookLand Interviewed by Matt Sorum/Billy Morrison
(Camp Freddy Radio--Dave Navarro's band--are huge CBL fans, so they did a segment with Jim)
-Eric Schaeffer wants to marry you
(This might be the creepiest, most disturbing interview in the history of online journalism. My soul is crying.)

Posted by Ryan Clark Holiday at 06:03 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

There is this story that Herodotus tells in The Histories about a war between Sparta and Tegea. In it, the Spartans were "so confident of reducing the men of Tegea to slavery" that they literally brought chains with them. But they lost, and ironically the prisoners were "forced to wear on their own legs the chains they had brought."

Broadly, I think this applies to where we are now, as self-recruited members in the "Army of Davids" that Glenn Reynolds coined. We, like Alexander the Great, can "smell the end of an empire." The blood is in the water, and the blogs are sharks circling. We talk about the 'new media' and how it's going to change the world. We talk about wresting control from the titans and putting in the hands of the common man. Every news story is another ring of the death knell, and we all 'know' it's only a matter of time before the balance tips--and the bower balance is permanently altered.

I'm not sure if history bears us out on this one. Tucker and I used WWII as an analogy to put this revolution in perspective. Napster, torrents, filesharing--Blitzkrieg. The music industry was Poland. It fell in days. The lawsuits--Polish Lancers charging tanks on horseback. A battle over before it even started. And so now the troops are looking towards video, towards France and ultimately Britain. This brings us to our current grandiose dreams of world domination and big money, where the user supposedly controls content.

But I think we think we need to heed the failures of the Spartans--even our own past failures. Look at the music industry now. We like to act like we accomplished something, telling ourselves that we crashed the gates and won our freedom, but did we really?

We rebelled against overpriced but tangible CDs only to replace them with restrictive, unrecoverable digital files. We walked in like the Spartans, with the chains over our shoulders, only to walk out with iTunes DRM clasped around our ankles. We told them that we were tired of records with just a few good songs only to turn around and make "Hollaback Girl" the first platinum download in history. We were angry that the industry was controlled by so few, and yet we allowed Apple to ride the trend wave all the way to a monopoly.

Cuban found these similarities on what I call the next front of the internet revolution. Youtube--the place where the user creates the content--has been invaded by movie trailers, TV show rips, and compilations. Again, what was supposed to be us enslaving 'them' turned out to be the reverse. We were supposed to revolutionize yet another medium, this time TV, and yet we're falling into the same traps as last time.

There are two explanations: 1) Amateur Content is not the answer. 2) We're essentially fighting to replace one tyrant with another.

Either the internet users radically improve the content they 'submit' or the establishment will simply make the proverbial switch from trains to airplanes. How many remakes of music videos do we really need? What does that even imply other than the idea that Youtube is nothing without professional quality work as a backbone?

It seems like we've committed ourselves to this course of action without much forethought other than a pipedream of a goal. The internet took on video like the Spartans hoped to capture slaves--and thought that was enough. It's not, nor will it ever be. When a power falls it creates a vacuum and unless a newcomer immediately ascends to the throne, everyone in the establishment just moves up one place in line.

And I think ultimately, the poor state of say television or movies, ought to stand as a challenge to all the artists out there, toiling in obscurity. You really couldn't conceive of a sketch better than SNL for half the budget? SNL videos have been blowing up the internet lately not because of any inherent hilarity, but more because a lack of quality competition.

So I see two possible solutions, both of which go hand in hand. We need to improve what we create and what we watch. And we need to realize that this revolution isn't going to happen on its own. It has to be a coordinated effort. There needs to be a cohesive strategy. The Long Tail theory implies an overall improvement in taste--but we're not seeing that. I would argue--and I don't think that many would disagree--that the quality of internet video is vastly inferior than anything the mainstream media is putting out. And resources while important, cannot explain how consistently awful the majority of YouTube content is. Videos go viral precisely because they're exceptions--exceptions in this case, that prove the Sturgeon's Rule.

I'll wrap this up before I get dreadfully lost in endless tangents. We've made a lot of progress on the tech side, and almost none on the content side. We think we're about to enslave Hollywood just as we did the music industry, but that won't happen unless we first make the conscious decision to raise our consciousness. Quality has to be the number one concern, not traffic, not Diggs, not comments. And if you're not a content creator, you still have an important job: STOP PATRONIZING CRAPPY VIDOES. Both the artists and the consumers will be crucial in this change--a change that we desperately need.

Posted by Ryan Clark Holiday at 07:08 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

- Don't Kill the Press Release, Shoot the Messenger
(Good look at why press releases are ineffective from PR 2.0)
-'Stop feminising our schools - our boys are suffering'
(I wrote a 15 paper called 'Fight Club Feminism' that looked at the same problem)
-The Mystery of Consciousness
(Intro to the neurology of consciousness and why we experience 'vertigo' when we ponder our existence)
-Sword of Damocles
(Wikipedia. 'The Sword of Damocles is a frequently used allusion to this tale, epitomizing the imminent and ever-present peril faced by those in positions of power.')
-Mediocrity Principle
(Wikipedia. 'The mediocrity principle is the notion in the philosophy of science that there is nothing special about Earth, and by implication the human race.'

Posted by Ryan Clark Holiday at 09:27 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)

I am going to copy Rubel and start doing a link dump a few times a week. I probably read a solid 100 articles a day in my RSS reader, so if you want to get in on a more serious supply of add me on del.icio.us or drop me a message.

2.2.07

-The 5 Immutable Laws of Persuasive Blogging
-23 Ideas for Finding New Readers for Your Blog
-Long Tail PR: How to promote w/out a press release
-Robert Greene Discusses Western Warfare and Military Strategy (Video, 26 min)
-Victor's Justice: Vae Victis (Wikipedia)

Posted by Ryan Clark Holiday at 09:41 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

In terms of internet PR, it doesn't get much better than Edelman. Aside from that little flare up with the Wal-Mart splogs, the company has been on the cutting edge of new media since the beginning. Which is why the email posted below was so surprising; it's from an Edelman employee, but it is absolutely the opposite of how you approach potential 'connectors' on the internet and exactly the opposite of what a good public relations guy does.

We (Tucker directly) got an email from Dan Cohen:

From: Dan Cohen [mailto: Dan.Cohen@edelman.com]
Sent: Tuesday, January 30, 2007 10:54 AM
To: Max, Tucker
Subject:  Super Hot Superfan Gets Hooked Up with Super Bowl Tickets

Wanted to shoot you a note about Sarah Spain, the die-hard Bears fan and gorgeous girl who tried to auction herself off on Ebay for a Super Bowl date and is now sifting through email submissions from guys who want to be her date. Sarah's been blowing up the last couple days and has been receiving emails from guys all over the country looking to join her and her hot friends at the game. Check out her MySpace pages at: www.myspace.com/superbowldate and www.myspace.com/spainy.

 Any interest in speaking with Sarah or entering the contest? Also, are you heading down to Miami this weekend? If so, I'd love to put you two in touch. I know she's hitting up a party or two this weekend, so if you'd like, I'm sure I can get you on a list.

Press Release

Super-Hot Super-Fan Wants To Take You To The Super Bowl!!!

                                                                 Sarah Spain Puts Herself Up For E-Auction, Gets Tickets to the Big Game, Now Looking For a Date 

HER  

STORY:          Sarah Spain wants nothing more than a Chicago Bears Super Bowl win; except maybe a chance to be there in person to do her own Super Bowl Shuffle. Sarah, unofficially crowned Miss Super Bowl XLI, recently put herself up for e-auction to snag a date to Sunday's game. AXE, the legendary guy's grooming brand known for hooking guys up with girls, has made her ploy an official reality.  AXE hooked her up with four tickets to the game, one for her, two for her friends, and to completely flip the story, a final ticket for a male date of her choice.Sarah is asking guys from around the country to email their most imaginative pitch about why they deserve to be her date to the big game.  Guys can email her at hotsuperbowldate@hotmail.com to be considered for the final ticket to join her and two of her girlfriends. Want the 411 on this Bears beauty? Come and get it...

THE HOOK  

UP:                 • Interview opportunities with Sarah Spain

                        • Photos of Sarah Spain, her Super Bowl tickets, her lucky girlfriends and more...
                        • Recent press coverage of Sarah's quest

  WHEN:          Phone Interviews: WHENEVER! Call for scheduling

There was just no effort put into this email. It was a joke. Just look at the language. Does anyone actually say "super hot super fan?"--let alone grown men? Tone is crucial. Sure, an email to Tucker is more relaxed than one to Scoble, but that doesn't mean it's ok to pretend like you two are friends. In fact, tone is another means to solidify the fact that you know your audience. An email to Mark Cuban might be more stream-of-consciousness, as his writing style implies. An email to Perez Hilton can probably be lewder than one sent to Page Six. By adjusting your diction and demeanor to each individual site, you not only increase the likelihood of them respond positively to your request, but you also avoid looking rude.

Here is what I would have done. Written a legitimate email. "Tucker, I love the site, the people here at Edelman keep a close eye on you because you're one of the hottest people on the internet. We're repping Sarah Spain as part of an account for Axe Body Spray during the SuperBowl. If you have any ideas for us, I'd like to get you on the VIP list for all the big parties in Miami this week. If it doesn't work out, maybe we can set something up in the future.

Hope to hear from you,
Dan"

That does two things: One, it's honest and clearly personalized. Two, it puts the ball in the client's court, which implies respect instead of disdain. Obviously, you're talking to Tucker because he can help you, and not vice-versa, you'll get nowhere pretending otherwise. By being open, and asking for help, you not only open yourself up to approaches you wouldn't have thought up yourself, but you make the client more willing to respond.

In Made to Stick (great book, btw) they talk about the 'gap theory' of the mind--that through allusions you can drum up curiosity. This email does none of that because all the information is right there in plain sight. If you say "Sarah Spain" like she's someone everyone knows about, then at least to some degree she becomes worth knowing about. Instead, Cohen makes it all to clear that she is just another lab-created viral shill. If he'd left out the Myspace and perhaps even the press release, he could have hooked Rudius into an investigative response, and thus, a dialogue. You need an aura of mystery, or at least the illusion of importance. If you don't have that, why bother?

I also would have apologized after being called out for my arrogance.

Tucker to Dan:

"In the future, if you want to send me a personalized email, then do it. But do not send me spam. I would think Edelman of all places would understand this."

Dan to Tucker:

"Sorry, figured you'd want to hear about this girl. I included the "spam-like" elements (media alert) just for your reference"

Let's review. Bad product. Condescension. Spam. Wasted the client's time. Won't admit you're wrong. Again, this is almost step by step, exactly what you don't want to do in internet public relations. If you screw up, or--more importantly--if someone you contacted thinks you screwed up--bend over backwards to right that wrong. Every step of the way, this was avoided. In fact, the ball is still in Cohen's court. Seriously, we'd love to have you email us back.

Edelman really is a great company. I met some of their guys on a Trojan roundtable they set up with Dr. Drew. It was a huge success, and an innovative, grassroots PR move. This, on the other hand, is typical, old-media aloofness. It's out of touch, a shot in the dark. And worse, it insults a person with a HUGE internet presence. Everyone in PR makes mistakes, ironically enough, I made one on Steve Rubel's Edelman blog not too long ago. But the point is to try and minimize them, and avoid the cardinal ones. Namely, pimping a product that isn't interesting, spamming, talking down to people, not apologizing when someone calls you out on it.

Posted by Ryan Clark Holiday at 04:47 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)