Since 1999, Springboard has helped coordinate one of the largest sandcastle and sand sculpting contests in the northeast. Using the medium of sand, “artists” of all ages and levels create astonishing masterpieces. The event transforms the beach into a mosaic that includes traditional sandcastles, sea creatures, cartoon characters, shipwrecked boats, Yankee Stadium, a New York City skyline, and even a bowling lane with 10 pins and ball

Congratulations to Origin Digital on today’s acquisition from Accenture, the global management consultancy. We have been working with Origin Digital since February 2007 and supported a range of marketing, branding and public relations initiatives.

Mike Hudack, co-founder and CEO of Blip.tv presented a great keynote at the Contentinople Live! event on Content Delivery Economics this week in New York City. According to him, we are currently in an “economy of plenty” with respect to online video.

His reasoning for the explosion of online video choices is simple. Compared to traditional television programming, it is inexpensive to produce video and costs even less to distribute it (a few pennies) over the Internet to reach what Hudack and Blip.tv views as your “total potential audience.”

Blip.tv is an enabler of this new shift to online video programming. Its platform provides the capability to distribute all types of video content, allowing producers to focus on producing and consumers on consuming interesting programs.

Every company launch is different and the outcome of each can vary, depending on any number of variables. Last week we officially introduced WYDE Voice and its innovative conferencing appliances at Spring 2008 VON.x.

Earlier this week I was at a technology conference and attended several keynote presentations and panel discussions. Most of the speakers were interesting and engaging, and provided excellent content. Others were very passionate about their topics and this projected throughout their delivery.

Situated near the back of the room, I was able to take in all of the presentations just fine. But when this PowerPoint presentation was displayed, I knew the audience was in trouble, let alone the speaker. His slides were riddled with long sentences and at least ten bullets. This simply does not compute in the fast-paced, A.D.D. world we live in.

This got me thinking about the construction of a good presentation, and my reference to Guy Kawasaki’s “10/20/30 Rule of PowerPoint.” The premise is very simple: a PowerPoint presentation should have ten slides, last no more than twenty minutes, and contain no font smaller than thirty points.

This week’s CTIA show in Orlando offered an interesting look at the wireless industry and the applications and devices that are (and will be) available to business and consumer users.

The emergence of blogs, podcasts and user-generated content sites like YouTube and Digg are changing the communications hierarchy as we know it. The traditional media channels – newspapers, magazines, television and radio – while still viable, no longer wield the influence and reach they once did in disseminating information and more importantly, shaping brands. Sites like TechCrunch and GigaOm are quickly building loyal followings, and their specialized content is partly responsible for this paradigm shift that is re-shaping the media mix.

Given these dynamics, organizations must rethink their marketing and PR strategy, and identify how to harness the power of the geographically dispersed “specialist.” Why? Because they can influence the way your products and services can be promoted (or demoted).

Last week, we coordinated all PR and analyst relations activities for ARIS ProcessWorld 2007 presented by our client, IDS Scheer.

This conference started out as a typical user conference in 2002 and has emerged as one of the premier thought leadership events for business process management (BPM). In parallel with the growth of the event and concept of BPM, so too have our PR efforts scaled accordingly. In 2003, we had one reporter -- Jim Ericson who was with Line56.com at the time and now at BI Review. Jim holds the distinction of attending every ProcessWorld to date.

As an account executive for a public relations and marketing firm specializing in technology, it’s my job to clearly communicate our clients’ products and services to journalists and analysts alike. The result of this effort includes brand awareness, credibility, and favorable coverage in the form of press articles and industry research reports.

In 1948, two hamburger chains started their respective businesses in California. Almost 50 years later, one has almost 32,000 locations around the world, while the other is concentrated in California, Arizona and Nevada with 200-plus restaurants. The former is McDonald’s and the latter is In-N-Out Burger.

Citing a recent blog entry from Ginger Conlon titled “The New CRM,” on the 1to1 Blog, CRM as we know it needs to change. According to this post, the buzz from Gartner’s CRM Summit suggests that organizations must “go multi-channel or go nowhere.” But going multi-channel needs to be more than simply adding layers of disconnected technology to the CRM experience.

It is hard to believe I will celebrate my 20th anniversary as a PR professional. Memories of 1986 are now flashing before me as I remember walking into the offices of Dorf & Stanton Communications (now Weber/Shandwick) as a shy Baruch College senior to start my one and only PR internship that eventually led to a full time job and the best jumpstart to my career.

Unless you’re marketing suntan lotion, the latest teen starlet, or back-to-school gear, the summer season is typically less hectic than the others for the PR industry, especially the B2B sector. Magazines often cut back on production, phone calls go unanswered, out-of-office email auto-replies are the norm, and Friday becomes the new Saturday. In speaking with my colleagues about this topic recently, our “against the grain” philosophy relishes this upcoming summer months, but not because we will be heading to the beach. Quite the contrary, we use the time to plan and get our clients ready for the second half of the year.

Here are some ideas on how to make the most of the summer months. To avoid slow-downs and productivity dips, I like to execute what I call my “RPM” strategy...

The convergence of telecommunications and the Internet is spawning a new breed of telephony application designed to help businesses and consumers communicate and collaborate. Our newest client, Free Conferencing Corporation of America offers a range of voice and data collaboration services such as their flagship (and free) conference calling solution. From its Simple Voice Box to hosted WebEx services, Free Conferencing Corp. makes companies of all sizes look big, and save money doing it -- all without compromising simplicity and convenience. Check them out at FreeConferenceCall.com. Happy (FREE) calling.

February was a great month to be a Springboard client. Gartner Inc. and Forrester Research published reports naming IDS Scheer, TRIRIGA and UniPress Software – our clients – as leaders in their respective market niches, which includes Business Process Analysis tools, Integrated Workplace Management Systems (IWMS) and service desk software.

We officially moved into our new office today and it is a very exciting time at Springboard. First off, the size is double the previous space. Plus, since we had the opportunity to design it from the ground up, the layout offers an extremely creative and collaborative environment. This will help us service clients more effectively and bring our deliverables to the next level.

Springboard has outgrown its space, and is having a new office built. Among the punch list of items required for our build-out was Internet connectivity - simple enough. As a current broadband cable customer, we decided to stay with the service that has been good to us. When I called the company to get the process started back in November, I was given a December 29 install date. On this day, I met two field technicians at the office and they determined that a new cable from the street to the building was required, something they were not equipped to do. I was then given some paperwork and told the construction office would dispatch another technician. Having worked with several CRM software developers over the years, I thought this process would be easy. But I was astonished at what was about to take place...

Absolutely. When you revisit the principles of rhetoric (that haven’t changed since the days of Socrates), blogs hit the mark better than any other form of mass communication. For instance, in terms of the ethos criteria (credibility), the blog writer is often a passionate observer or participant in the very subject he or she is “blogging” about. Compare this with the cub beat reporter who has just been assigned a story on the impact of wi-fi, which is just one of five articles she has to write this week. Would you believe her article findings, or the blogger who lives and breathes wi-fi? And if you combine this with the fact that the blogger is only a Google search away, while the beat reporter’s story may only appear once in a slow Tuesday edition in a two-paper town, you have a better argument for the power and reach of the blogger. Besides, blogs are inherently more fun, edgy, and human which make them more entertaining and endearing to the reader. Entertaining combined with better credibility and greater distribution…want to see the power of a single blog in action? Read this.

Yep, sounds to me like blogs really do matter.

I always enjoy reading technology predictions offered by industry pundits and perceived experts. Post CES is always the best time for such reading. Everything seems possible, and bright, flashy digital things promise to make our lives easier and more entertaining. It’s this time of year that vendors promise us it’s here, it’s finally here. Not so fast. I only need to think of last week, and doubt sinks in. I’m not making this up - in the span of one week I sent my DVD recorder back to the depot repair facility for the second time this year, I lost all my iTunes songs (also for a second time), I spent four hours removing spyware from my PC, and I dedicated over three hours trying to figure out my new camcorder. All told, I spent over 10 hours in tech purgatory, and cannot recall a single moment of digital joy during the same time period. So, it’s no wonder that, while the industry collectively patted itself on its back a couple of weeks ago at CES, the rest of us were in our homes, offices, and cars pulling our hairs out, just trying to get all this stuff to work.

For years, if you wanted to know the definition of a PR nightmare, you only needed to say “Tylenol poison story” and most in the industry would nod in agreement. The company’s PR and communications responses failed on every level during the crisis. Amtrak, however, did its best over the recent holidays to join Tylenol in the PR nightmare hall of shame. It all started with the “misery” train – the 48-hour train ride passengers were forced to endure from Florida to New York City’s Penn Station. No need to go into the details, but it turned ugly fast, and passengers were literally stuck on the rails with no options but to sit and wait (seemingly forever) while conditions quickly deteriorated. Amtrak’s response to this fiasco? Complete and blatant denial of responsibility.

The beginning of the year marks a great opportunity to hit the reset button and make adjustments to your personal and professional lives. Most of us make at least one New Year’s resolution and according to yesterday’s Wall Street Journal poll, 10% actually follow through while 20% fail. The key to any resolution is setting an obtainable goal and then visualizing the specific action items required to realize it. Another important aspect is outlining a timeframe to achieve your goal.

With the proliferation of online communities and pro-company bloggers, corporate evangelism has emerged as a practical marketing discipline. For a good primer on the subject, check out James Pethokoukis’ well-written corporate evangelism feature in US News & World Report.

And so it was, Cisco scooped up one of the true tech good guys last month: Scientific-Atlanta (SA), for a modest $6.9 billion (story).

I was somewhat saddened by the news - similar to how I might feel if a friend informed me he was moving to another city. Sure, he’d be around, but it would never be the same. SA is a gem, and few outside of the cable industry know of the company’s fascinating 50-year corporate history, its unparalleled record of innovation, and vast contributions to our digital lives. To me, the $6.9 billion was a bargain, and Cisco got lucky to get the company for that price. Some SA shareholders even argue that the deal was too good for Cisco.

In a recent blog, my colleague discussed the importance of establishing rapport with media professionals. In addition to maintaining these external relationships, it is equally important to form relationships and take pride in our involvement with the local community. For example, as part of Springboard’s corporate social responsibility initiative, we regularly offer our PR services pro bono (latin for “for the public good”) to small area businesses and not-for-profit organizations. This type of service affords us the opportunity to make positive contributions to the community and stay in touch with local press and broadcast outlets.

Throughout the nearly 20 years in the marketing business, I have never had two clients share the same definition of what public relations is, and how it is measured by their company. “We need PR,” is a typical phrase that I hear from prospective clients several times a week. Yet it is interesting to learn what their expectations are of PR when I further probe them. While almost everyone will agree PR can propel their business, it is intriguing to learn the different definitions, methods, and metrics used by business executives to describe it.

I was told early in my career that I should never underestimate the power of corporate personality. Initially, I passed this advice off as puffery – something that someone who cannot describe what they do for a living in 300 words might say. But, this has turned out to be great advice. After all, purchases and consumption are emotionally-driven events, even if you’re talking lug nuts. Yet, I am still amazed that businesses fail to understand this, especially those selling commodities. A charismatic CEO, a polished and attractive sales force, a great boot-strap story, and a catchy ad campaign are good examples. SC Johnson for instance, in all of its television commercials, reminds me that “SC Johnson is a family-owned business” (I get a comfy feeling in my gut knowing this; kudos to you, purveyor of Pledge).

Being involved in public relations for nearly two years now, I have witnessed first hand the importance of building solid working relationships with media contacts in the industry. By forming relationships, you become more than just a signature in an email or a name on a caller ID. This is extremely important as you – the PR professional – want editors, writers, journalists, etc. to feel 100% comfortable when dealing with you. The more comfortable a writer feels with you, the more likely he or she will utilize you as a resource.

That’s exactly what this blog is all about. Hello my name is Domenick Cilea, President of Springboard Public Relations. We have been sharing our thoughts on various PR and marketing topics since 1995. These can be found in the Ideas & Strategies section of our Web site.

With the launch of Soundboard, we now have a forum to accelerate this process, providing more frequent perspective on all types of business and personal issues – all geared toward informing, enlightening, and amusing you the reader.

For the most part, this blog will highlight rants about the PR and marketing business, best practices and techniques, and other random thoughts (essentially things which we learned from the hundreds of successful company and product launches over the years).

So enjoy this blog, visit us often and don’t forget to comment on our posts. Perhaps you can even suggest a topic. Ultimately, this is what makes a blog a collaborative read.

Regards,
Domenick