7 Steps to Help You Get to Know Business Press in a Post Pandemic World

Posted on May 19, 2022 by Michelle McIntyre

I help a variety of business journalists with their stories on a regular basis: I enjoy seeing these people at events, which are now mostly online, chatting with them daily at Twitter, and reading the interesting things that they write.

I subscribe to a lot of daily newsletters, such as Morning Brew, and check the Twitter feed often. Reporters are often smart and funny, so I enjoy my job.

Think you know how to do media relations? If you’ve been a publicist for more than five years like me, it’s important to refresh the way that you do things in this post pandemic world. Tip: We are now in an epidemic.

The PR profession has changed quite a bit since the pandemic hit: It’s five times harder to develop relationships now because there are very few in person meetings and conferences. Previously you’d run into a reporter a conference or party, or you’d hold a mixer, like a wine tasting, with journalists. That rarely happens anymore in the technology business world.

Here are seven things to do to develop better relationships with business press in modern times:

Make the note short. I was advised in a media relations refresher class at Stanford Continuing Studies to make emailed pitches no longer than 250 words. The instructor a former San Francisco Chronicle reporter, was very good. This tip works.
Personalize the pitch. Make it friendly to their time zone, location and topics they seem to really like covering. Consider a journalist as your client, not your client as your client. Read what they tweeted in the past hour. If you pretend that a journalist is paying you, you’ll treat them with more respect and in turn get better results.
Write a compelling subject line. But don’t make it click bait. People don’t like being tricked. An example is, “The shocking news about Prince William” when it is about how he likes Nutella on his bread instead of the more appropriate and healthier avocado, not true probably, but I’m trying to make a point. Your mind jumped to, “The prince is having an affair.” Treat journalists with respect. They are people. Treat them the way you want to be treated.
Always read a journalist’s Tweet or recent story first. Looking up their stories helps because sometimes you find out that they haven’t written in a couple of years and took a corporate job. Then don’t waste the outreach time, unless you want to network with a peer.
Be brave but not annoying. A follow up by text or LinkedIn direct message might be needed. If you have hard news that you know is major, but the reporter hasn’t opened the email note yet, figure out a polite but direct way to get their attention.
Be sensitive to COVID concerns when setting up meetings. Don’t push an in-person coffee meeting on someone who is more at risk for COVID. “Read the room” as the saying goes. I set up an in-person meeting with a reporter who tweeted, “I would like to meet c-suite executives in person” recently. Note that an online tip has less of a chance of getting canceled. A reporter or executive with breakthrough COVID might still attend the meeting.
Don’t overpitch your favorite journalists. I need to keep reminding myself of this. I’ve heard two editors say that they like hearing from certain PR people no more than four times per year. This one is hard to follow if you serve a large number of clients. I typically serve between two and five PR clients at any given time.

On a final note, use these tips for trade reporters as well. Trade reporters need to be treated with respect as well. Don’t save the “weak pitch” for the trades. Give them strong spokespersons and relevant news as well. Trade press cover business topics as well. ###

Michelle McIntyre is a Silicon Valley-based PR consultant who helps startups and their VCs get valuable attention. Prior to that she was the West Coast PR manager for IBM. @fromMichelle on Twitter

3 Reasons Journalists Don’t Respond to Your Pitch

Posted on March 7, 2022 by Michelle McIntyre

As a seasoned public relations professional, I’ve shared many story ideas and spokespersons’ bios with many journalists. I’ve successfully convinced journalists to cover something, when it made sense. I’ve learned a few things along the way.

Note that a PR person’s goal is a response. We know it’s ultimately results but a response can start to build a relationship which can lead to a story later. Note that there are three response levels. Level one is the auto response that says something like, “I’m back in the office Thursday,” or “Thanks for your note. If you want to give us a guest post, send back something that’s 300 words, punchy and original with a 100-word bio.”

Level two is personal like, “Sounds good. Get back to me in a month.” Note that reporters often receive 75 -400 emails per day so they may not have time for any response. Level three response is something that creates or starts an editorial opportunity. This might mean answering a few questions or setting up an interview either by phone, video chat, in person or via email.

Digging deeper into this topic, here are a few reasons you may not get any response:

It’s not timely. The journalist is devoted to only covering top world news event and your pitch does not relate to it. Joseph Menn just joined the Washington Post to cover digital threats. He has graciously accepted quality pitches and agreed to meet interesting smart spokespersons over the years but he typically only cares about the news making top headlines. I just checked his last several stories and they were on the Russia-Ukraine conflict cybersecurity. What you can do about it: Don’t pitch that reporter unless what you have fits what they are covering at that time. According to Meltwater, 94% of PR pros agree that 1:1 email is the best way to pitch journalists. This includes easy file sharing, a personal introduction, and quality communication tracking. My interpretation of this stat is to not use the same pitch for 50 people. One to one means it’s easier to do a better job.
The journalist does not need any more sources. Entrepreneur Editor Jason Feifer produced a podcast that included a logical tip. He says he does not need PR suggestions as to whom to interview or what to write. He has his own sources. He elaborated quite a bit on this. On the other hand, it seems to me that if you have some sort of “aha” story or unique character that you truly love for Entrepreneur, then he’s worth a shot once in a while. I appreciated his tip that if someone is a long shot, why bother them? He says when he responds, “No thanks,” many PR people say back, “I knew it was a poor fit but I had to try anyway, right?” Feifer’s attitude is that, no, you didn’t have to try. If it’s not a great fit, don’t do it. What to do about it: Pitch someone else. Move on, unless you are 100 percent sure it’s a perfect fit. By the way, I think he’s being kind of grumpy when he says, “I don’t need anything from PR people.” He likely actually does.
Your pitch is not tailored or missing an “aha.” The account leader writes a pitch that the client, a CMO or product manager, loves. It’s finalized and shared with the whole agency team. Each person shares it with 20 reporters. No editors respond except one who asks for an interview non related to that client. Maybe there’s an opportunity with another client because you have a good relationship with that editor and they remembered something you pitched them weeks prior. The problem is that the perfect PR pitch is tailored for one reporter or at least one media outlet only, or maybe at the most two to three. The more tailored it is, the higher the chance you have of it sticking. What to do about it: The solution is to edit the pitch so it’s interesting to each person you contact. It’s fine if you start with the “boring” pitch. Jazz it up some. One fix is to simplify the wording of the pitch so your 12-year-old child could understand it and say, “Aha.” Some pitches that I think are simple and effective are along the lines of: “This executive is a fifth-generation female entrepreneur and her company just went public,” “This is the first female Eagle Scout in the entire Bay Area,” and “Their AI technology taught a car to teach itself how to park.”

In summary, be aware that timing is everything. Check what a journalist has been writing very recently before you send that email or message them. You might realize what you were about to pitch doesn’t make any sense. Lastly, if you are a startup founder having trouble getting journalists to respond, hire a PR consultant or agency to help.

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Michelle McIntyre is an award-winning freelance technology public relations consultant in the Silicon Valley and IBM vet. Follow her on Twitter at @FromMichelle. She is also a member of PRSA-Silicon Valley.

I’ve Been A Remote Worker for 20 Years: Here’s A Prediction

Posted on April 3, 2020 by Michelle McIntyre

It’s interesting to hear everyone go ga ga over doing a Zoom business meeting or cocktail party. To me online meetings are no big deal and after many meetings from my home office for the past 20 years, I’d rather just make a phone call. People are inviting me to meet via Zoom as if it’s super special or a game or something. I appreciate it but it’s not special or fun to me. It’s business as usual. I’m not going to glamorize it. And be careful what you talk about using the free services. Your security may not be so good unless you pay for a pro version.

shutterstock_1684211233

However, regarding birthday celebrations, yes, it is a nice gesture to see everyone’s faces on the screen. That’s different and is nice if you live in different countries or states. I would rather see the “drive by parades” instead if your buddies are close enough to do that.

I’ve been a remote worker both for IBM and for myself for the most part since 2000 when my son was born. He is finishing up his freshman year at University of California Berkeley right now. He turns 20 this year. He’s been around as long as I’ve been a remote worker!

I say I worked from home “for the most part” because when I was West region PR manager for IBM I had a sweet office in Mountain View, which I think is now owned by Google, as well as a guest office at IBM Almaden Research Center. But I mainly worked at home. And by the way my son went to daycare while I did that. It would have been a bit dangerous for him to wander around the house as a baby or toddler during my super busy IBM days. (Remote work parents of toddlers: be careful.)

Here’s my prediction about what’s going to happen: in the next 18 months we will all need to be able to turn on and off remote work. I don’t believe everyone will “turn remote” permanently though. I think schools will still be around. Offices and work buildings will still be around. So don’t get rid of your printer-copiers, desks or chairs.

After listening to numerous interviews with medical doctors and data scientists from places including Columbia and UC Berkeley, I have a strong opinion about what might happen. I believe that almost all businesses will have both an in person and remote work option.

During the next year people will go back to school and to the office. But at some point, they will told to go back home. For example, they could go back to school and work in August but be called back home for a few months in December or February. These are made up months: the exact day will depend on what happens with the COVID-19 curve. But a UC Berkeley PhD said today during an online teleconference that COVID cases could very well start to increase again during flu season: that’s when people may be called home again.

Whether students and workers go out or go home will depend on if people are getting sick from something that isn’t very treatable. So if the COVID-19 numbers go up we go home. They go down, we go to the office. Therefore my prediction is that we’ll have this back and forth lifestyle for at least one and a half years. Then maybe there will be a vaccine and things might go back to normal again.

What problems will occur? This will put more stress on college students who go to schools far away from their parents’ homes. They have to decide, will they stay at their college apartment when they get called back to online school or move out and go to mom and dad’s? Will landlords give students a break if they move out back home for three months? One of more vocal parents from the UC Berkeley Cal Parents Discussion Group Facebook page suggested simply asking landlords to put a special clause into the leases. If you move out, maybe you can get a break that month.

Regarding K-12, poorer kids will need to get laptops and WiFi supplied to them. One school district representative from New York said just this week that around 20% of their K-12 school children don’t have technology or bandwidth at home for online learning. And they have figured out how to solve about 10 percent of this problem but are working on the rest of it. Business, schools and communities: let’s work on solving this digital divide problem as a team.

My advice is simple: go with the flow and stay flexible. Flexibility is the name of the game moving forward. But wait, there’s more.

Help someone and you will get a favor back at some point: I’ve already experienced that. I bought hand sanitizer for a stranger and got a much needed essential item literally gifted to me soon after.

Try to stay healthy because if you get sick you will recover faster.

Good luck and happy online meetings everyone. I wish you all long lives with much toilet paper. And sorry if I missed your fun Zoom party. It reminds me too much of work.

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Michelle McIntyre is the founder of Michelle McIntyre Communications LLC, a tech PR consulting firm in Saratoga, Calif. She’s an IBM vet and also a future of work influencer. Follow her @FromMichelle on Twitter.

Are You One of the 52 Million People Who Work At Home? Do It Right With These 3 Tips

Posted on August 14, 2018 by Michelle McIntyre

work at home lead photo purchased from Canva Aug 14, 2018

According to the State of the American Workplace Report, more than 40% of Americans say they spend at least part of their time working remotely, a 4% increase from 2012 to 2017. Since a whopping 52 million* people work from home it makes sense to learn how to do it right. This article provides three tips on maximizing your remote work including one that may surprise you.

Why are there so many remote workers? Remote work means more flexibility and happier employees. It also saves time and money in areas like dry cleaning, gasoline, and day care. I know these benefits well: I worked at home for IBM for a decade and for the last five years for my own PR firm.

IBM’s old rule was that you were assigned a traditional office if you could be in it at least three days per week. My managers and closest coworkers were often in Boston and New York so this Californian usually was sent home to get her work done. That was a win-win. It saved Big Blue a lot of office rent money and I scored a bunch of awards for results. All that extra sleep due to not having to drive two hours a day to and from the office paid off in more energy and awards for results.

extra sleep quote graphic

Times, however, they are a changin’. Sadly IBM Corporate reversed their position on working at home. Luckily I left the company before this happened. I still “bleed blue” by the way; I don’t regret building my career there.

The good news is that many companies are still encouraging workers to stay at home. Some established startups I’ve worked with are are mostly home-based. Executives tell me it makes it a lot easier to recruit. Worker retention is probably higher because employees don’t want to leave to change to an in-office role.

Here are three tactics I’ve used to be more productive and happier at my at-home job.

Wake up early and take a shower. Don’t work dirty! You feel peppy and professional when you are dressed and feeling your best even if the only person who will see you that day is the FedEx delivery guy or gal.
Decorate a teleconference wall. Make sure the wall behind you and above your head has attractive decor and the nice lighting. Test what it looks like before a video call with a client or prospect. One test I like is a laptop selfie. I learned this video conference tip from two under 30 CEOs, one in Austin and another Toronto, who had decorated their in-office walls. I thought, people at home should do that too!
Get outside every day. Take a walk, run, swim or hike mid-day. Exercise during the work day even if it’s packed with urgent tasks. Remote workers who take on a lot of desk work have the challenge of getting a little lonely. Get outside for a shot of Vitamin D and energy and mood-boosting exercise. Additionally, attend networking groups a minimum of two times a month and invite your favorite client to coffee. When you have a lot of work and you aren’t pitching you clients this tends to happen. When you are wooing new clients it usually doesn’t happen.

In summary, if you are starting a company, don’t be afraid to encourage your workers to stay at home more. They’ll be happier. If you want the benefits of working at home like not having to sit in hellish traffic every day, consider moving to a stay-at-home job.

*How did I get this number? An August 2018 Statistica report said there were 130.64 full time U.S. workers in July. Forty percent of this is 52 million. Therefore around 52 million of us in the U.S. work at home either all or part of the time.

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Michelle McIntyre, an award winning Silicon Valley publicist runs Michelle McIntyre Communications LLC. She blogs for VLAB which brings together startups, established companies, VCs and members of academia to promote emerging tech like artificial intelligence. Follow her on Twitter @FromMichelle. Image credit: All are from Canva.

Software Experts Advise Startup CEOs to Build those Ecosystems

Posted on February 24, 2014 by Michelle McIntyre

Facebook recently announced it was buying WhatsApp for a whopping $19 billion. WhatsApp is valuable because it has 450 million users and is adding one million new ones per day according to the company.

The app allows people to send each other text and photo messages via the Internet, and will help Facebook grow stronger in the mobile market. A Time article described the deal as “epic” due to the humongous price paid.

Many billion dollar companies have blossomed recently because their apps have been adopted by a huge amount of people.

And when an app becomes very popular, it can turn into a platform. Facebook, Salesforce.com and Twitter are all platform companies. Other companies make apps that work with them, making them even more popular and innovative.

Developing, building the ecosystem for and monetizing apps and platforms were topics discussed at the SVForum event “Apps to Platforms” Thursday, February 20^th, at the McEnery Convention Center in San Jose.

About 150 people made up mostly software start-up founders and developer relations executives from large companies like Dell, IBM, Google and Microsoft, and a few consultants like me attended.

San Jose Mayor Chuck Reed gave the opening remarks, stating more than once that San Jose is the capital of the Silicon Valley. To me, the Silicon Valley is mostly the South Bay and San Jose is the largest city here so I agree with him. Sorry, San Francisco.

Here are some of the other comments from the panelist and keynote speakers.

In the first panel, Adrian Cockcroft, technical fellow, Battery Ventures and Netflix’s former cloud architect said, “There are three questions to ask when developing a killer app. They are, ‘Is it easy to use? How will it spread, and how do you monetize it?’”

Randy Heffner, vice president, Forrester Research says that the granddaddy of APIs, which are tools that help the software programs talk to eachother, Amazon.com took off because it opened its API to mom and pop and boutique websites and blogs. He emphasized the link between APIs and the concept of the internet of things, or how many automated things in our lives are connected.

However, Heidi Williams, director of platform engineering at Box, cautioned, “If you give people all the control in the world, it can lock you in later.” She added that Box’s platform strategy is to build, distribute and monetize.

Saad Khan, Partner, CMEA Capital, who started as an intern at IBM alphaWorks team in the late 90s when I was also working at Big Blue, elaborated on the importance of connecting the software dots. “We’re going to an automated world where everything is modular and connected,” said Khan.

Another keynote speaker stressed the importance of ecosystem in creating innovation. “A platform is a lot more powerful when you can get someone else to build it,” added Matt Thompson, general manager, developers and platforms, Microsoft.

John Wolport, IBM’s Seeker of Awesomeness (his actual title), and creator of its unique Extreme Blue internal incubator program says that a company like Big Blue adds integrity and helps with partner engagement.

An audience member asked him, “How can start-up founders and big company workers get along? Their situations are so different.”

Wolport said that there are a lot of entrepreneurs within IBM they are not so different after all.

John Sheehan, CEO, Runscope, stressed the importance of platforms saying simply, “They bring you an audience.” Sheehan used to work for Twilio, which started as platform which is uncommon.

SVForum is an organization that fosters networking and best practices among members of the technology startup community. The group recently moved its office to San Jose from the North Bay. Its new CEO is Ms. Adiba Barney. @SVForum on Twitter.

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Michelle McIntyre is a public relations consultant, executive member of TEDxSanJoseCA, director with the Silicon Valley International Association of Business Communicators, and an IBM vet. @FromMichelle on Twitter

The photos were taken by Michelle McIntyre. They are of, in this order, Saad Khan, Partner, CMEA Capital; John Wolport of IBM; and project managers at the uTest booth.

Tips from VC Heidi Roizen: Three Things to Never Do When Starting a Company

Posted on October 2, 2013 by Michelle McIntyre

Today Heidi Roizen spoke to 35 female company founders including myself about learning from failure at Procopio law firm in Menlo Park, Calif. The event was held by Women Startup Lab Meetup group.

Roizen is a venture capitalist with Draper Fisher Jurvetson (DFJ) who also teaches entrepreneurship at Stanford University.

In the early 80s she founded personal computer software company T/Maker and later sold it at a nice profit to the delight of her investors including VC Ann Winblad of Hummer Winblad Venture Partners.

This was an interesting time to be in software because it was before it was hot. At the time Lotus Development was getting started and Bill Gates, a friend of Roizen’s, was also a frequent co-conspirator at fledgling PC industry events.

I actually did PR for Lotus for several years long after it was bought by IBM. While I was there it had been rebranded enterprise collaboration software and social business which was definitely a smart move by Big Blue.

After selling T/Maker, Roizen became vice president of developer relations at Apple Computer and after that, a partner at another VC firm before she joined DFJ. It was interesting to hear that she works part time for DFJ now, often from her home office.

During her talk on learning from failure, Roizen emphasized the importance of knowing the numbers behind your business as well as being realistic.

She had many great tips but highlighted three main things to avoid when starting a company.

1. RIGIDITY. Instead, be flexible and open to changing your plan based timely analysis of how things are going. If you are not seeing the results, then quickly change up what you are doing in order to get them.

2. PERSONAL FINANCIAL RISK. Roizen said she has seen more than one entrepreneur declare personal bankruptcy as a result of borrowing money to exercise stock options (known as the ‘cashless exercise’) and then being required to pay that money back when the company does not live up to its early promise. She says personal financial pressure can create a hidden agenda and lead entrepreneurs to make bad decisions.

3. ASSUME A DEAL WITH A BIG COMPANY IS THE PANACEA. She once invested in a company that partnered with UPS. The company placed way too much emphasis on the deal as a key to success. Things didn’t pan out exactly as expected. In 20/20 hindsight, they realized that although it’s a hugely successful shipping company, UPS’s business reasons for doing the deal were not aligned with what would make the startup successful.

When I asked Roizen about hot technologies she immediately mentioned how mobile is ubiquitous and the importance for designing software for mobility. She also mentioned fellow DFJ VC Steve Jurvetson’s interest in the space industry pointing out the SpaceX launch that happened a few days ago.

The energy in the room during Roizen’s talk was high and I would like to thank Women Start-up Lab co-founder Ari Horie, my former coworker in IBM Storage in the late 90s, for working so hard with her team to put on such a fantastic venue.

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Final note

Here are the Twitter handles of organizations mentioned in the story: @DFJvc, @HeidiRoizen, @WS_Lab, @Humwin, and @FromMichelle.

For Women Only! 5 Tips for Launching a Start-up from the Founder of Mightybell and Ning

Posted on May 2, 2013 by Michelle McIntyre

I went to a unique women-only meet-up, or gathering of like-goaled individuals to swap ideas and network in what I call “VC country” – Menlo Park, California — the other day.

Venture capitalists like it because it’s close to both Stanford University and all of those hungry b-school grads who usually have the same three goals:

1. Change the world.

2. IPO or get acquired.

3. Make a boat load of cash.

Because VCs like the area, it’s a popular place to start a business, especially one focusing on technology due to it being on the north end of the Silicon Valley. The ecosystem here supports starting companies.

The fairly new meet-up group called Women Startup Lab (http://www.meetup.com/WomenStartupLab/) was founded by Ari Horie. Ari and I used to work at IBM together. Now we’ve both jumped into the entrepreneur pool. A whopping 300 people joined Ari’s group on-line in just 12 weeks. This shows there is a need for more groups that support women entrepreneurs.

Getting together with other women takes some of the gender-related issues away from the meeting. You don’t have to wonder, did he like or not like my idea because I’m a woman?

And because 80%+ new businesses fail, it’s wise to get as much advice as possible from successful entrepreneurs so you can increase your chances of being in the 20 percent.

This particular meet-up was pretty informal yet there was a motivational speaker. It was Gina Bianchini, founder of Ning (http://www.ning.com/) which sold for $150 million. But like any good Stanford Graduate School of Business alumnus, she’s already focused on starting her next company, Mightybell https://mightybell.com/. You can follow it on Twitter, at yes, you guessed it! @Mightybell

Bianchini had a frank discussion with about 35 women including me the other day about what it’s like for a woman to start a company. Some of her points indicated there are some challenges being a woman but they can be overcome. I left some of the more “honest” advice out of this blog post out of courtesy to Gina.

I actually thought that her general business advice was excellent and could apply to any start-up but she meant it for “women-only” due to the venue.

Here are the tips:

1. Five great contacts can help you get going. You don’t need to network or friend hundreds of people to accomplish your goal. Be careful how much time you spend networking at conferences. My friend and fellow Saratogan, Bob Karr, CEO of LinkSV (www.LinkSV.com) says it’s 10 people.

2. Keep a razor sharp focus on your goal and stick to the most important tasks only.

3. Market, market, market. If you are not spending 90 % of your time doing marketing and sales, something is wrong.

4. Take up space. When you are sitting at a table or presenting, spread out your arms and walk around the room. Women tend to cower and shrink at a table.

5. Don’t apologize so much. This tip is geared towards women and actually came from an entrepreneur from Australia during discussion time and Gina agreed with it.

It was nice to have a unique venue where women’s issues were discussed and to hear tips from a female who has already succeeded in a still predominantly male-run technology business world.

On a final note, kudos to the more forward-thinking companies like HP, IBM, and Yahoo. All three have women running the show.

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Here’s a reminder about who I am in case you don’t want to click through to another page on this website to find out:

I’m the President of Michelle McIntyre Communications LLC http://www.michellemcintyrecommunications.com, a high tech public relations consulting firm based in Saratoga, California, a director with the Silicon Valley International Association of Business Communicators, an executive board member with the Sixth District Santa Clara County PTA, and a Boy Scout merit badge counselor for communications, public speaking and journalism. I’m also on the Advisory Board of a hot start-up called Fondu Software Inc. which helps companies form more profitable relationships with their channel partners. I have won 10 awards for outstanding results during my two decade career at IBM and three other public relations firms including Global Fluency where I was employee of the year in 1992. You could follow my tweets at @FromMichelle.

TOP VCs TALK ABOUT WHAT’S NEW IN BIG DATA AND CLOUD COMPUTING

Posted on April 24, 2013 by Michelle McIntyre

SVForum Panelist Jasmin Young of PwC discusses the fast growth of SMAC at a breakfast event in Palo Alto on Tuesday.

My favorite IT acronym now is SMAC.

SMAC stands for social, mobile, analytics, and cloud computing. It’s an area of IT growing at a phenomenal rate according to the April 23^rd SVForum “Cloudy with a Chance of . . .” Panelist Jasmin Young, director of PwC’s Cloud Center of Excellence.

She quoted a 2013 IDC figure when she said SMAC is a $2.1 trillion dollar market expected to increase to $5 trillion not too long from now.

Other panelists included Serial Entrepreneur Rajan Raghaven Founder of the The Fabric, which is his sixth company, and VCs Arif Janmohamed from Lightspeed Venture Partners, and Peter Lee of Bessemer Venture Partners.

The latter two companies manage several billion dollars in funds. The companies they all have backed are an impressive who’s who list of tech firms from Netezza which was acquired by IBM, WebEx which was bought by Cisco and Fusion I/O, just to name a few.

By the way, SVForum is a non-profit organization based in the Silicon Valley that fosters innovation and community among the emerging technology community. Many start-ups, investors and IT executives participate in its many weekly panels, events and mixers. Law firm Pillsbury hosted the event at its Palo Alto office.

Here are some of the more memorable comments from panelists:

>Jasmin Young, PwC:

Fifty-one percent of CEOs say their priority is to grow the customer base. They also want to create a profitable business, transform operations and create the new IT platform.
New technologies are adopted because of how well they work, not how innovative they are.
The CIO is not the chief information officer any more. She’s now the the chief innovation officer.
Moving IT to the cloud means faster agility.

>Rajan Raghaven, The Fabric — https://svforum.org/Rajan-Raghavan

Cloud adoption is real. Many organizations are moving all of their IT to the cloud.
667 exabytes of data is flowing over the internet this year. Big data is growing at 59 percent per year.
There are huge infrastructure related issues related to moving to the cloud. A huge transformation is taking place.

>Arif Janmohamed, Lightspeed Venture Partners — http://lsvp.com/

The move to cloud computing has produced big opportunities in big data, networking, software as a service and mobile.
It’s about the unboxing of the data center.
A long time ago, people moved their money from under their mattresses to banks. Banks then became centers of excellence for security. Now companies are moving their data to the cloud. Cloud centers must be like banks. They also must become centers of excellence for security.

>Peter Lee, Bessemer Venture Partners — http://www.bvp.com/

Eighteen months ago, companies said, “Let’s design with cloud first in mind.” Now it’s, “I’m a cloud-only shop.”
Now it’s how to manage apps across devices and how to maintain governance policies.

Final notes:

IBM was not on the panel but its Cloud Services VP Ric Telford discusses SMAC trends in the “Thoughts on Cloud” blog, so if you are as interested in this area as I am, you might want to check out his posts once in a while.

According to the latest IBM earnings report, Big Blue’s cloud business has grown at a nice rate. Here’s the URL for the post that mentions SMAC:

http://thoughtsoncloud.com/index.php/2013/04/the-space-between-where-is-the-real-value-in-smac/

To keep on top of emerging technology trends, follow @SVForum and @FromMichelle on Twitter.

Disclosure: I own IBM stock.

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MMC PR Blog — The Secret to Phenomenal PR Results

Posted on January 15, 2013 by Michelle McIntyre

The definition of public relations is “changing someone’s mind.” This is my specialty and it’s what we do at my new consulting firm, MMC high tech public relations.

I convince people to change their ways or think differently. The main way I do this is on a large scale, through media outlets example. This, of course, is called press, media or influencer relations.

One of my business mentors said something profound that always stuck with me. It’s that great PR is based on logic.

How do you change people’s minds? How do you get great press? You develop relationships with your audience, understand their attitudes and communicate your message in a way that they understand and that has impact.

This is just logic, right? I happen to have a journalism degree and a major in public relations with more than two decades of experience in this area, having spent 16 years at IBM and at several public relations agencies. But if you had the right mindset you could become a great PR pro without all of this experience

A journalist needs to write timely and interesting stories and is often on tight deadlines. Ask yourself. How can what I’m doing, or saying fit into what they are writing about?

For example, phablets are hot right now according to several top IT media outlets including CNET. Do you have a new solution for phablets? Can you speak intelligently about this topic so that you might be quoted in a story?

By the way, a phablet is a combo phone and tablet. You can think of it as a giant smartphone or a smaller tablet, smaller than an iPad.

One example of a PR tactic is being able to talk about how phablets are changing the workplace. They somehow need to be related to one of your offerings of course. If your solution has nothing to do with mobile computing, you probably want to try something different.

The secret to phenomenal PR is creating awesome messages and materials that contain a simple thought or idea. Announcing new “mission critical software to solve your financial business problems” isn’t newsworthy or interesting to a journalist unless it has a super interesting twist like, “Oh by the way, Apple and IBM merged and this is the first product result of the pairing.” That type of “Wow” news doesn’t need a ton of creativity to get press coverage.

The idea you tie to your PR campaign can be linked to industry trends, for example, here are two from a December 7, 2012 Forbes article by Todd Woody.

“Mobile Device Battles Mobile devices will pass PCs to be most common Web access tools. By 2015, over 80% of handsets in mature markets will be smart phones.”
“Personal Cloud: The cloud will be center of digital lives, for apps, content and preferences. Sync across devices. Services become more important; devices become less important.”

Ask yourself, what are you doing that relates to personal cloud or mobile devices surpassing PCs to be the most common web tools? Can you help a journalist with a story on cloud or mobile? There is much more to it as well but at a high level, PR isn’t that complicated.

Link what your company is doing to something that people actually care about and test it out on someone who is not in the tech business. If they find it interesting, then you are on your way to a phenomenal PR campaign.And then hire someone who can get the message out and develop relationships for you in a quality way.

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–‌–‌–‌–‌–‌–‌–‌–‌–‌––‌ MMC –‌––‌–‌––‌–‌–‌–‌–‌–‌–‌–‌ Michelle McIntyre Communications

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