The Latest From the Schwartz Blogs

We are constantly being asked for advice on the conference and exhibition scene in Europe, and so with budgeting season coming up with alarming speed after the summer, here are a few tips on the current situation.

In general, shows related to drug discovery remain surprisingly strong, although we see growth of more niche therapeutic orientated shows with anything between 100 and 700 participants. Often these are the result of bundling by smaller organisers such as Select Biosciences (e.g. Stem Cells, Cellular Therapy and Biobanking in Edinburgh) to make economic sense, or by bigger conference groups, such as Terrapinn, striking lucky in the sector with their World Vaccine Congress in Lyon and Antibody Meeting in Geneva. Another interesting development we at Schwartz are involved with is the European Cancer Cluster Partnering Meeting bringing together biotechs, pharma, and investors in oncology.

On the device side, whilst diagnostics shows are limited, there is a bit of a resurgence. A good example of this resurgence is the recent ECIO (European Conference on Interventional Oncology) in Florence, which attracted a lot of interest despite being held in the heat of July after initially being postponed because of the dust cloud. Of course Medica still looms large, and should be your first port of call to meet potential distributors and get a feel for the market. Similarly, Analytica and Biotechnica are worth noting, but still need local German support to be worthwhile.

Moving on to biotechs, you could almost set up camp here since the calendar remains pretty full, starting with JP Morgan in January, running through Bio-Europe Spring in Milan in March, BioEquity in June in Germany/Switzerland, BPE in London in October and Bio-Europe in November (my personal favourite). The focus at all of these is on financing and partnering, and you will find it relatively easy to make contacts both the official way through the "partnering software" and unofficially through the networking over drinks/dinner etc. Another thing to remember is that organisers are constantly looking for a "fresh point of view" and so by putting yourself forward as a speaker or panel discussion member you can often offset your costs. Local meetings vary in strength across Europe, but it is worth looking at the UK again - with the ERBI (now One Nucleus) and Genesis conferences which bring together most of UK's biotech and Thistle Biotech in Scotland andBiotech Forum in Scandinavia.

Finally if you are looking to find out what's going on and just don't have the time to pop over, you can meet most of Europe at BIO or the ones in your field at the relevant major US show every year. And of course Schwartz is always willing to provide advice - I sit on various biotech and other network steering committees on a UK and European level and have plenty of contacts as does Kristina Ebenius in our Stockholm office.
 

Schwartz Crossroads Blog
What Mike Wise is Missing
09-01-2010 08:49:42 AM EST

This morning a crack member of the Schwartz Research team (Bill Bode) brought the recent Mike Wise kerfuffle to my attention. Basically, Mike Wise, a reporter for the Washington Post, was suspended for one month because he made up a story about Pittsburgh Steelers Quarterback Ben Roethlisberger and tweeted it out. Some media outlets ran the story and some people retweeted it.

According to the Huffington Post, he claimed he did it to

1. See which news outlets would pick up his report, and
2. Show the inaccuracy of social media reporting.

Wise is missing one key thing. As a proven sports columnist for the Washington Post he has both authority and experience. For years, people have believed what Mike Wise wrote. People also put their trust in the Washington Post.

What he truly showed is how if a credible source wants to spread disinformation, they can have some success the first time, but will then destroy their reputation. This isn’t limited to social media. If an analyst put out a false report, people would use the data, until the analyst was exposed.

This problem goes back to well before the dawn of social media. Remember Janet Cooke (also of the Washington Post) who had her Pulitzer Prize winning story “Jimmy’s World” exposed as fabrication?  This was also showcased on WKRP in Cincinnati with Bailey Quarters and Les Nessman in the “Dear Liar” episode in Season four.

If I tweeted about Ben Roethlisberger and cited an inside source I knew at the NFL, no one would retweet it. Why?

1. I am not a sports reporter or blogger, and
2. Schwartz has great experience with technology, healthcare and green companies, but our football experience deals primarily with luminescent paper for championship game tickets – not with NFL headquarters.

So yes, Wise showed things can spread on Twitter and some folks don’t check their sources. But he is in actuality a better poster child for how someone with respect and authority can abuse their power, be caught and damage their reputation.

The SC Awards: How To Put Your Best Foot Forward
08-30-2010 2:11:45 PM EST

It's that time of year again, as the security industry turns its attention to the looming deadline of September 3 to submit for the prestigious 2011 SC Awards. Headed into its 14th year, the SC Awards continues to be top of mind for security professionals, as some have likened them to the Oscar's or Emmy's of the security industry.
 
This year's program is highlighted by 32 categories across the Reader Trust Awards (20), Excellence Awards (5) and Professional Awards (7).
 
Last year's SC Awards program received over 650 entries, so the competition to take home a prized trophy is fierce. So, what can you do to put your organization's best foot forward to be have a chance at being named a finalist or even better, taking home the hardware as one of the prestigious winners?
 
To help answer that question and more, we invited SC Magazine's Editor-in-Chief, Illena Armstrong to the studio at Schwartz Communications and she was gracious enough to sit down and share her thoughts about the awards and to offer some guidance on best submission tactics. Click on the video below to check out what Illena had to say...  

Key Information To Know:
 
Nomination entry fees:
Reader Trust Awards and Excellence Awards categories is $275 per entry and Professional Awards categories is $200 per entry.

Deadline for nominations:
The deadline for nominations is September 3. However, all nominations received after September 3 will incur a penalty of $115 per entry. Late entries will be accepted until September 10.
 
Finalists announced:
Finalists in each of the categories will be informed by the SC Magazine staff in the late October-early November timeframe and will be published in the January 2011 issue of SC Magazine.
 
The Awards Gala:
The winners will be announced at the 2011 SC Magazine Awards U.S. Gala, which will be held on February 15, 2011 in conjunction with the RSA Conference in San Francisco.

Schwartz Crossroads Blog
Press Release Buzzword Bingo
08-25-2010 07:54:53 AM EST

My post last week that highlighted the most overused words in a press releases was very well received. Since so many of you liked it, I decided to take it a step further and turn the top 25 buzzwords into Buzzword Bingo cards. I didn’t want to slight anyone, so I created one card based on Sherk’s recent post, and the other card based on David Meerman Scott’s post from last year.

Here they are for your viewing and reading pleasure. May you never complete a bingo!

Or download them as PDFs here:

Feel free to download, share and use as you want. Give copies to all the PR people with whom you work. Remember, only by acting together can we stop buzzword abuse.

For those that don’t know what Buzzword Bingo is, Wikipedia has a pretty good description.

Time Your Medical Device Product Launch to Maximize PR Impact
08-24-2010 1:09:11 PM EST

Schwartz EVP and Healthcare Practice Leader Lloyd Benson takes on the question of how best to time a medical device product launch for greatest public relations impact in a new white paper. We invite you to download "Medical Device Product Launches: Issues & Answers About Timing."

Lloyd's perspective on the question of "when to launch" is informed by Schwartz's work over the years with what we believe to be the PR industry's largest portfolio of medical device clients. A small sampling of our work, which has reached patients, physicians, payors, advocacy groups, hospital management and others, includes introductions of:

- Philips Medical Systems HeartStart home defibrillator
- Cyberonics VNS Therapy for pharmacoresistant epilepsy and VNS Therapy for treatment-resistant depression
- NxStage System One portable home hemodialysis machine
- CYTYC (now Hologic) ThinPrep Pap test
- Hologic Cervista HPV test

He notes that product launches are like "one-pitch softball--you only get the one pitch to swing at. It's not going to happen again in the product's lifetime. So it behooves the healthcare PR pro to closely examine all possible alternatives in terms of timing and effectiveness." Lloyd believes that the received wisdom among many medical device executives causes them to allow that singular PR opportunity to pass them by, effectively turning what could be a chance to reach tens of millions of people into just another press release that crosses the wires unnoticed.

Take a look at the white paper, or drop the Schwartz Healthcare Practice a note if you'd like to talk more about product introductions, seeding the market before regulatory approval, raising awareness of a product already on the market or revitalizing an established brand. We look forward to talking about your company's communications needs.

Intel-McAfee M&A: The Big Picture
08-20-2010 12:58:00 PM EST

We have just witnessed the largest security acquisition in history, as Intel has approved the purchase of McAfee for $7.68 billion. To provide some perspective, according to Updata Advisors, the IT security sector has drawn $25 billion in acquisitions since 2004. At first glance, it may not make sense that a hardware company is purchasing a software company. Why McAfee? Why now?

Security threats and vulnerabilities are constantly evolving, which makes it difficult for vendors to accurately predict where they should allocate resources in research and development. In fact, the trend over the past decade has been for many major players to ignore developing niche solutions, preferring to allow entrepreneurs and start-ups to battle over these spaces.

Eventually, emerging threats become mainstream and customers turn to the major vendors for solutions. However, as these vendors often chose to forego R&D into a solution, they must instead purchase it from another company via M&A.

Even in a down economy, we have seen how successful security companies remain. Cyber criminals are more active and increasingly sophisticated than ever before. Over the past two years, web-based attacks increased dramatically. As a result, companies have been forced to put resources into acquiring web-based security, such as Cisco’s acquisition of ScanSafe in 2009.

Today, the Intel-McAfee deal is about the future of computing, primarily cloud computing and virtualization. In this future, security will be embedded directly onto the hardware, possibly even the CPU, in order to realize the benefits of virtualization and cloud computing. When you combine multi-core chips with powerful virtualization and security software, security systems can actually run under the operating system.

As technology evolves, organizations looking to solve cloud computing and virtualization security problems will turn to major vendors. Judging from the Intel-McAfee deal, these vendors will attempt to solve these problems through M&A first and perhaps R&D second. With cloud computing and virtualization becoming ubiquitous, the trend is sure to continue. Who do you think is the next company to get acquired? Which companies need to step up to compete with Intel? Share your thoughts…

Schwartz Crossroads Blog
The NHL Scores - In Digital Media
08-20-2010 09:50:11 AM EST

By Martin Gleissner and Anna Vaverka, Stockholm, Sweden

It is no longer a question of if but rather of how companies will extend their products, their brands and their messages to the digital universe.

One prime example of this is the National Hockey League (NHL), which continually develops digital products and services with which to shorten the distance between the League and its fans.

One of the major trends right now is that of iPhone Apps. What the NHL had already successfully accomplished on the web – delivering the best content, particularly video, to consumers online − it extended to one of the world’s most highly used mobile devices through NHL Ice Time 2010, the League’s official iPhone app. The app makes content from the web readily available on iPhones and is the latest product in NHL’s rapidly expanding digital portfolio, designed to meet the content demands of the most tech-savvy fans in pro sports fans.

NHL Ice Time 2010 gives time-shifted trans-Atlantic fans (NHL games are typically played in North America while Europeans are sleeping) the ability to see live scores and statistics, video clips and highlights.

For the launch of NHL Ice Time 2010, the NHL had a highly specific business goal: to drive downloads of the app among those countries already proven to be the top consumers of NHL hockey (based on NHL.com Web traffic), including Finland, the Czech Republic, Germany, Sweden and the United Kingdom.

In order to launch NHL Ice Time 2010 in Europe, the NHL turned to Schwartz Communications. From our Stockholm office we rolled out an extensive media outreach in these European hockey hotbeds. Besides traditional media, we paid much attention to bloggers, especially covering sport and mobile technology.

Turning strategy into the message

Beyond the cool features of the app itself, Schwartz immediately identified and amplified the launch as indicative of how organizations can and must adjust to consumer demand for digital access. And the interest that we generated from media was strong in terms of volume and tone. To reach media outside of the sport and tech area, Schwartz uniquely tailored and told the story of the NHL’s efforts in leveraging digital media as a means of serving the evolving demands of fans, alongside the evolution of digital and mobile media.

The launch was highly successful and already in the first week, the app sailed into the top five most downloaded sports apps on iTunes in Europe. Additionally, the NHL experienced hundreds of thousands of downloads in just eight weeks and the end results included more than 70 media stories in more than 10 countries.

The NHL iPhone campaign is an excellent example of how companies and organizations should integrate emerging technology trends into their product development strategy marketing and communication strategy. Schwartz encourages others to embrace the diverse possibilities of digital media as the ways that we consume information are continually evolving.

We are not saying that each and every new media trend is worth investment. But to ensure that your company is at the forefront of communicating with consumers, one should evaluate which of the tools out there could be the right ones for you.

Schwartz Crossroads Blog
The most overused buzzwords in press releases: word cloud
08-19-2010 07:32:33 AM EST

To paraphrase Tom Foremski, “Buzzwords. Die! Die! Die!”

I remember a time when everything was a robust, scalable, enterprise-wide, mission-critical, client/server, WYSIWYG, CORBA development solution with OLE.

Well, maybe not quite that bad, but there are definitely words that have been overused when it comes to press releases. In some cases, these words have been so overused, their meaning is completely devalued to the point the eye skips over them.

Recently one my clients sent me a link to a great post from Adam Sherk on The Most Overused Buzzwords and Marketing Speak in Press Releases. He did some great analysis of words overused in press releases for the past year. His post also reminded me of a David Meerman Scott post on the topic from last year.

The lists are useful, but different people learn in different ways.

I decided to take Sherk’s list and turn it into a word cloud of the most overused words in PR. I weighted everything based on the actual frequency of appearance. To me the word cloud really drives home how some words are so overused they lose their meaning completely, even more than a list of the words.

So without further ado, the word cloud of the most overused words in press releases.

View a larger image

What words do you want to see disappear forever?

The Internet Kill Switch Debate: Where Do You Stand?
08-18-2010 10:58:00 AM EST

Cybersecurity and cyber threats are part of our daily lives. Everyone has received some sort of malicious message or has (almost) clicked on a malicious site. Botnets are attacking banks and large corporations. Social engineering techniques are effectively stealing sensitive corporate information from employees who think they are doing good. It’s everywhere.

Most recently, vulnerabilities surrounding SCADA programs have played an increasing role in recognizing the potential dangers of utilizing the Internet for so many daily activities. Just think of Live Free or Die Hard…the fire sale attack. With so many things running on or controlled by the Internet, it’s no surprise people seem to lose sleep at night when they think of the panic that could be caused by someone taking advantage of core systems controlled over the Internet.

In the event of a national cybersecurity emergency, the Protecting Cyberspace as a National Asset Act (PCNAA) was proposed. This Act would enable the President to have authority over the Internet, essentially deciding which private sectors and government networks should be shut down in the event of a cyber attack. A recent amendment to the PCNAA states that the President cannot shut down a sector or network indefinitely, but rather can control it for 120 days, after which time Congressional approval is needed.

For some, this seems like a good idea in the making. For others, this could not be a worse idea.

The Good
Believe it or not, the President already has the authority to take over communications networks as needed, stated in the Communications Act, Section 706 (the Communications Act of 1934 was amended with the Telecommunications Act of 1996). Section 706, dubbed “War Emergency—Powers of the President,” enables the President to close any facility or station for wire communication and authorize the use of the facility or station by the federal government when presented with the threat of war. This can continue for up to six months after the threat expires, without Congressional approval.

With this existing authority in mind, Senator Joe Lieberman of Connecticut explained that his proposed PCNAA bill would enable the President to respond efficiently to the threat of a cyber attack in the 21st century with a precise defense. Additionally, according to a description of the PCNAA on Joe Lieberman’s website, the PCNAA would prevent the President from over-using the “broad authority” he has over communications networks in the current law.

The Bad
The initial proposal of this bill led many to believe it would enable the President to serve as some sort of “Internet overlord,” an idea that continues to cause discomfort and breed worry in the minds of many. As a post by Adam Cohen in TIME magazine points out:

“Imagine a President misusing this particular power: If the people are rising up against an unpopular Administration, the President could cool things down by shutting off a large swath of the Internet. He could target certain geographical regions (‘We’ve heard enough from New York and California for a while’). Or he could single out particular websites.”

But the biggest problem seems to be that no one really understands what the PCNAA would allow the President, and therefore the government, to do. As Cohen states, the Internet plays such an important role in our daily lives – be it expressing the freedom of speech or running a power grid – it’s a power that shouldn’t be handed over lightly.

The Poll
The Schwartz Security Practice recently conducted an informal poll across our security clients to gather their thoughts on the Internet kill switch debate. Not surprisingly, the majority of comments we received voted strongly against the existence of the Internet kill switch. Here are just a few thoughts:

Tom Kellermann, vice president of security awareness, Core Security Technologies, explained that “ISPs only currently voluntarily cooperate with shutting down malicious IP addresses and their C2s. There needs to be executive authority to thwart these technological attacks against the U.S. This is not a question of whether we should empower the government to turn off the internet, but instead, can the government civilize a hostile cyberspace?”

Paul Kocher, president and chief scientist, Cryptography Research, explained an Internet kill switch is not workable on either a technical or political level. He explained the equipment that drives the Internet is designed to be reliable, so creating a large-scale shut-down mechanism creates a host of problems. Some questions he proposed include:

• How would the shut-down messages be broadcast (e.g., presumably “killed” equipment would no longer be forwarding these messages)? How would you test whether it worked? What would you do about existing equipment that doesn’t implement the kill switch?
• How would you inform users about what’s happening? There isn’t any uniformly-supported method by which an ISP (or anyone else) can communicate with any network-connected device or end user. There isn’t a single language spoken by all users, and many embedded devices don’t even have a “user” in the normal sense of the word. Even if you created such a protocol, it’s not clear how you’d prevent the protocol from becoming abused or clogged with spam and advertisements.
• Focusing specifically on the political side, who would control the switch and make decisions about when to use it? I’d recommend the following experiment to anybody in government considering a kill switch mandate: Get 10 large government agencies together and let them pick one agency that will control the “kill switch” for the other nine. They’ll never agree.

Anup Ghosh, founder & chief scientist, Invincea, explained that cooperation in the wild between organized communities is much more prevalent than previously thought. “These communities and major telcos monitor botnets and DDoS attacks so that when a DDoS attack occurs, the telcos cooperate fully to push back on the ISP, registrar or Autonomous System (AS) that is providing service to the offending DDoS hosts. In many cases, they will now support botnet sinkhole efforts to completely take down botnets. In other words, the private sector, along with organizations that monitor these things, is actually working together now to address these issues. So in reality, the potential for abuse probably outweighs any perceived risk of private entities not cooperating.” This echoes thoughts Cohen shared in his TIME magazine post.

Scott Cosby, vice president of products and operations, Invincea, stated “cutting off the internet would have a devastating effect on our country’s ability to function for government, industry and individuals. It strikes me that a more effective approach would be to prepare key defense organizations to function ‘off the grid,’ essentially backup and contingency planning to handle responses to a cyber attack. Flipping that type of switch would do more harm than a targeted attack.”

So where do you stand? Leave your comments below.

Schwartz Crossroads Blog
PR Measurement: Building On Core Principles
08-18-2010 10:10:55 AM EST

Last month at the 2nd European Summit on Measurement, the 200 delegates passed the "Barcelona Declaration of Measurement Principles."

I applauded the effort, but didn't blog about it at the time, because it just seemed like common sense and the way Schwartz has been conducting public relations on behalf of our clients for years.  As the Schwartz Communications Research Group continues to grow, though, I did want take a minute to chime in.

Some of the principles have always been the essential foundation of what we do as an agency and as responsible practitioners.

• Set goals
• Measure results not activity
• Quantify business impact when you can
• Social media should be measured
• AVEs (ad value equivalencies) don't measure PR

I was a bit surprised by the ordering of some of the other Principles as I have found more clients focus on message delivery/inclusion and would put that above tone.  Typically, I would want to segment by message and then tone rather than the reverse.

These principles are essential for showing the true impact of public relations. Many practitioners talk about wanting a seat at the table. At Schwartz I have found we get our seat at the table by providing strategic counsel; showing the business impact of PR; understanding business drivers and challenges; and presenting creative ideas that support the business objectives.

I was recently speaking with a young man heading off to college to study engineering. I reminded him there are two key things every engineer needs to remember:

1)    F=ma
2)    You can’t push on a rope

I wish PR had a formula as easy as F=ma for calculating impact. But then I realized engineers don’t either.

For them impact is calculated: P=(Fimpact2L/2AE)=(m2σ2gh/LAE)=(m2gh/LAρ)=mgh

or

Just like there is no one measurement formula for impact, there is no one solution for PR measurement. What measurement is right for your company depends on your business objectives. Align measurement at the start of every engagement and measure results and you are off to a good start.

What do you think of the Barcelona Principles?

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