As communications consultants we have the opportunity to meet leaders in our industry on a daily basis.  Voce Nation would like to bring the perspectives of some of these people to you.  Enjoy…

Oracle is a company that dominates the media, we thought it would be interesting to find out more about what happens behind the scenes.

Bob Wynne
VP Strategic Media Relations, Oracle

(Responsible for developing relationships, long term global strategy, participates in the planning and development of comprehensive and integrated marketing programs.)

—Question: Briefly describe your position as Vice President, Strategic Media Relations at Oracle.

Answer: I am responsible for developing relationships, long term global strategy and responding to information requests with all major media outlets, including business, news and broadcast media.

—Question: How do you stay informed and proactive for your job?

Answer: Web search engines, read, read, read, talk with colleagues in the industry as well as regular communication with other divisions within the company including product development.

—Question: How do you maintain a healthy competitive view so that you are successful for your work on a daily basis?

Answer: You have to look at coverage as a journalist might. Is it fair, is it complete, is it timely? If the coverage is all those things and you don’t like the coverage then you have to change the way you are “operating” and admit that the coverage isn’t the problem.

—Question: How has media relations evolved in your view for companies of your size in the last few years?  What are some of the biggest challenges?
Answer: Coverage has become 24/7 and nearly instantaneous. More than ever, there is little time to fashion messages when a story breaks. You must be prepared. Perhaps, the biggest challenge is the large number of media outlets — many Internet based — which can "make" news about an organization.  It is hard to develop effective relationships with the huge number of media outlets there today.

—Question: What do you think is the most important goal of strategic media relations for a company of your size?
Answer: To make sure we are telling the story we want to tell in an accurate, clear and consistent way. But, if we don’t have clear messages, we can’t expect clear stories.

—Question: How do you see your role evolving over the next few years?  What do you think will change and what will remain the same? 

Answer: The need for speed in developing messages and communications, the need for integrity in dealing with all audiences and the need for a solid understanding of what impacts the company’s bottom line will remain the same. Everything else will change. That’s just the way it is.  Get used to it.

-

John Welton

Whether it is a finger in your chili at Wendy’s or executive stock trading issues, every organization should be prepared for a crisis.

Who has time to prepare? (I know you don’t, but entertain me for a minute…)

Most corporations in the U.S., even now, do not have an adequate crisis plan.  Industry publications like PR Week have shown several surveys that demonstrate this.  During a recent PRSA-SF crisis communication breakfast, this exact need was discussed. Leaders in the industry discussed real-world scenarios on the proper measures to take during any type of corporate crisis.

As we all know, successful communications during a crisis comes from smart planning, good training and realistic rehearsal. In fact, if done well, preparation and planning may be the key to keeping your company off the evening news. (I bet Paris Hilton wishes she had one.)

Here are some quick steps that I learned when preparing for any crisis:

—Assign responsibilities (Charter a Media Response Team - MTR)

—Anticipate and analyze potential problems  (What is on the horizon in your industry?)

—Prepare a fact sheet (Identify and analyze key publics)

—Establish an internal and external communications system (Prepare contact sheets)

—Prepare for the media, anticipate their questions

—Say what you’ll do and mean what you say (No spin of the truth, save it for Hollywood)

—Write the plan, train the plan, test the plan, and refine the plan

—Update your resume just in case (Kidding of course)

As communications consultants we have to remember that there is no such thing as too much planning.  I guess it is like insurance, better safe than sorry.

It was another proud moment for
Voce Nation, with an evening out at the Ernest and Young “Entrepreneur of the
Year” mixer.  The night entailed mingling, networking and watching our
own Amy Wall present a speech on last year’s winner, Network Appliance’s, Dan Warmenhoven. 

Amy was extremely instrumental in the awards process and
our peers were looking to her for advice and guidance in this year’s nomination
process.  Overall, Voce was well represented at an evening amongst our
peers. 

– Katie Watson

As a PR person who generally doesn’t like to hang out with
other PR people (outside of Voce of course), the thought of spending an evening
with a thousand of them gave me the cold sweats. Luckily that frigid perspiration stopped when
dinner started, as an attendee I met at this year’s PRWeek awards in NYC said “I’m not going to talk about work if
that’s cool with you.” “Definitely cool with me,” I responded.

I was at the PR Weekies (I don’t think they call them
“Weekies”– probably a good thing) because one of Voce’s clients,

Network Appliance

was a finalist for the “small
corporate communications team of the year” award. Being the razor-sharp minded client that he
is, the Worldwide Director of PR for NetApp Eric Brown knew that this award was
really for both the in-house and Voce team, so he wanted to make sure that Voce
was in attendance.

While the dinner conversation was stimulating, the ceremony
itself was a bit lackluster. When I
attended in 2001, PR Week sprung for Darrell Hammond (aka Al Gore) from
Saturday Night Live. The comedian this year was a no name, and his act
explained why. “Welcome to the Puerto
Rico Week awards,” he exclaimed. Yawn.

After the opening act, the emcee began handing out statues
for the 262 award categories (actually there were only about 20, but it felt
like more. Next year they’ll add the
“best use of vowels in a pharmaceutical press release” award.)

Winner after winner, most of the same names popped up - Weber-Shandwick,
Fleishman-Hillard, Edelman etc. I was
again reminded that PR Week seems to cater to an audience of about five large
firms, which sponsor the event and buy ad space (that comedian ain’t working
for free, right?)

But I shouldn’t be too hard on PR Week. Someone has to feed
the egos of our industry with an award show, right? Also, the venue choice Tavern on the Green in
Central Park was quite poshy. And even though NetApp didn’t win this year,
I met some great people and heard even better war stories. “You haven’t done PR until you get a surprise
call from the media about a customer finding a severed finger in his salad,” a
woman from food service sector told me.

I’ll stick with tech PR for now, thanks.  — Dave Black

The tides keep turning in the world of blogging.  CNET News.com posted an interesting article today talking about how the government is “accepting” bloggers.  It basically counters last week’s ruling in the Apple case, which said that bloggers do not have the same source protection rights as journalists.  Here is the White House of all places treating a blogger as a journalist…could be quite influential for the blogging community.