Our client Avnet graciously invites us to attend several business and charitable events here in Phoenix. The one that I look forward to the most every year is Arizona State University’s Walter Cronkite Award for Excellence in Journalism luncheon. Mr. Cronkite couldn’t make it this year, as he’s reached the proud age of 92 and the rigors of travel would be too difficult for him, but that didn’t lessen the quality of the 25th annual event.

This year’s Cronkite award recipients were Robert MacNeil and Jim Lehrer. The PBS news anchor team was recognized as epitomizing, “The best of thought-provoking and in-depth broadcast journalism.” They join a list of legendary journalists who have received this award, such as Bob Woodward, Bill Moyers, Tom Brokaw, Cokie Roberts, Helen Thomas, and 2007 inductee Jane Pauley.

The best part of the event is always the “remarks by honorees” section. Three years ago recipient Dave Barry had us crying we were laughing so hard at his remarks. This year’s speeches from MacNeil and Lehrer took a decidedly different tone. Lehrer, who I usually expect to be calm, composed and impartial, let loose with a rousing call to all current and future journalists, going so far as to say, “Journalists have mostly fear itself to fear,” and “I never want anyone to confuse news with entertainment, or me with the clowns.”

MacNeil, with intense gravitas that only a select few can get away with these days and seem sincere, discussed how journalism is, “A life course in semantics,” where journalists need to, “Read between the lines to determine ‘how am I being snowed, how am I being spun?’”

As a PR professional (and ex-journalist), their passion for the trade of journalism struck me as both inspiring, but also seriously “old school.” Because, you see, while MacNeil was dismissing new media by saying, “Whatever the means of delivery, the quality of information remains the same,” I was tweeting on my BlackBerry and following an NPR reporter sitting a table away from me, getting her impressions of the same scene I was witnessing. I LOLed when a few hours later I heard her report on air and discovered that the same quotes she put in her tweets were included in her broadcast. Yes, the information remains the same, but I knew what she was thinking hours before those listening to her via “old media” did. And even more amusing was that she tweeted some of the same quotes from the presenters as I did at exactly the same time – which made me feel engaged with the story as a participant, not just the audience.

There will always be a need for the thought-provoking and in-depth reporting that the likes of MacNeil, Lehrer and Mr. Cronkite have provided over the years (and that I consume in excess as a self-professed NPR junkie). However, I hope that these esteemed journalists, and those that will follow in their footsteps, are able to bridge the gap to deliver information across multiple platforms and connect with people who consume information in real time, not just audiences that passively listen and watch according to schedule.

Gordon Brown just saved the world.

He has my nomination for crisis communications Man of the Century.

Here’s a quick round up of how several publications have reported on his performance during what was arguably the world’s most dramatic crisis since the Great Depression:

Christian Science Monitor with the title “Why Britain is leading the world out of the banking crisis.”

Brown’s leading role has drawn praise from friends and enemies, at home and overseas. Labour Party rebels, once determined to unseat him, have called a truce. British opposition parties grudgingly acknowledge the merit in his plan. The French media, never too kind to leaders across the Channel, declared him a “magician,” as President Nicolas Sarkozy followed Brown’s lead.

The newly crowned Nobel economics laureate Paul Krugman wondered semi-seriously whether Brown had saved the world financial system. Brown and his treasury team had, Mr. Krugman wrote, shown clarity of thought, speed of action and a “decisiveness [that] hasn’t been matched by any other Western government.”

CBS News with the title “Just Call Him Flash“:

Brown, who just a week earlier had been fighting for his political life as he’d watched his poll numbers plummet for a year, is now having to adjust to his new status as The Man With The Answer. His template for addressing the worldwide market meltdown is now being adopted from Paris to Potsdam, Beijing to Brooklyn.

There’s a few things we can all learn about crisis communications from Prime Minister Brown’s performance.  Here are my three take-aways.

1.  Know your stuff.  If there’s one thing that Gordon Brown knows, it is finance.  He took a lot of grief over his wonkishness during a ten-year tenure as Chancellor of the Exchequer.  But that served him well.  If you’re going to handle a crisis well, the first key is to know what you’re talking about.

2.  Act quickly.  Gordon Brown went from idea to plan to execution — actually dispersing money — in five days.  The U.S. couldn’t even get consensus in Congress in five days and they’re still trying to figure out up from down.

3.  Identify, eliminate, and punish the bad actors.  The Gordon Brown plan did not include a continuation of bank management.  Indeed, past management was put to pasture quickly.  And while no one went to jail, the severence packages were … well … severed.

Good crisis fundamentals.  Not bad coming from a finance guy.

No, the Google boys aren’t rolling through the Valley in a 7-series BMW with some 20’s on it, though they may just be.  I’’ve never seem them.  The bling I am referring to is the new Web browser they unveiled earlier this month called Chrome.  

The Mac user in me hasn’’t had a chance to really explore it because Google hasn’’t released a version for us Windows defectors.  However, since I use Windows at work, I’ve had a chance to use it and all I can say is Bill Gates should send over a bouquet of flowers thanking them for this new browser.

Why?  Chrome will not be a threat to Microsoft for some time but will pose a more immediate threat to Firefox.  Chrome is faster, has better security options in my opinion and the tab function allows you to end a frozen tab without killing the entire window.  But the biggest threat to Firefox is the fact that it’’s an open source application, meaning developers that might have worked on Firefox to make it better may now choose Chrome.  With the stacks of money Google has, Chrome can only get better.

If the Web browsing wars are truly back all I can say is Firefox get ready because you’’re at the OK Corral gunfight and Google’’s being represented by Wyatt Earp, Morgan Earp, Virgil Earp and Doc Holiday.

With the recent release of Google’s Chrome browser, most web developers I know had the same reaction: “Oh (insert expletive).”

I feel your pain. The majority of books on my shelves and favorite places I have online consist of CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) hacks so the pages I build in Internet Exloperer 7 (IE7), Safari and Firefox maintain a desired layout.  Thankfully, Chrome was built using WebKit, a do-it-yourself open-source browser. If you want a preview of how your CSS will compile, simply view your webpage in Safari. Yup, Safari uses WebKit too.

As a web developer, I’m constantly trying to keep up to speed with new or updated web technologies. In fact, sometimes releases are so frequent that I feel keeping up to speed is ALL I do. I know I’m not alone. The fact of the matter is we work so hard to be as innovative and current as possible that we may be creating usability issues for our most valuable clients or customers.

At Brodeur, we’ve built information-based blogs with a purpose to raise awareness of various topics and establish a sophisticated dialogue with visitors. About 80% of our visitors use either IE or Firefox. More than 16% of our visitors use a browser that is IE6 or older. Up until December of 2007, more than 55% of all businesses were still running on IE6, and up until this Summer, Windows XP SP2 was still on the market with IE6 as a default browser.

Think about your users. Think about your target audience.  Think about the technologies they use.

It’s a tough task. In his book Landing Page Optimization: The Definitive Guide to Testing and Tuning for Conversions, Tim Ash explains that our most intelectual visitors may have JavaScript disabled for security purposes, allowing for things like inaccurate or empty form submissions. Have you ever been so caught up in the presentation of your site that you forgot about creating an RSS feed?  You may have just created a Meatball Sundae, omitting the opinion leaders most important to your online strategy.

Have you been mindful of your user’s technologies? When was the last time you tested your website for IE6? Stop worrying about how your JavaScript-fired popups like facebox/lightbox look on Playstation 3 and start testing in the technologies reported used.

Do you comment on your favorite blog posts? Do you need to register? I work for Brodeur as a developer/designer building many of our clients’ blogs. I am constantly plagued by the decision of whether to leave comments open and unregistered or to require a simple login to avoid spam.

As a user, I would obviously rather not sign up and would contribute more on a topic where I didn’t have to register first.

As a developer, and a person who hates spammers, I would prefer to require a simple login while making spamming punishable by death (ok life in jail).

The real question is – What works best for attaining contribution from your audience. Are you as a user, unlikely to comment on blogs that require registration?

Something to think about – Techcrunch recently removed the login process as requirement for their users and now gets 10,000 spam comments a day.

As part of our “open” theme here at Brodeur, and the fact that our readers (that’s you) are not participating in the conversation as much as we had anticipated, open comments will be coming soon to the Brodeur blog. 

Let us know what you think.

Many thanks to Steve Hodgdon (CHECKMATE – the beaupre blog) for pushing me in the right direction!

With the growth of Web2.0 and the social media, press release companies are leaning toward the web and SEO for every release that hits the wire. What do you do for releases that aren’t a good fit for a social media release? They should still go on the web, right?

Companies should be making a SEO friendly PDF available on their website for every release that hits the wire. While many people have been doing this for years, I notice that they are regularly doing it incorrectly. If you are one of them, good thing that you’re here!

There are a few rules that you need to follow to make a PDF SEO friendly. Below is my checklist for every PDF I create that will live on the web.

• Complete the document properties. The title, subject, category and keywords can make or break your document on the web.
• Use a text format. Don’t scan a printed version; the search engine will not be able to read it.
• Keep the file small. People don’t want to download a huge document.
• Place links to your website. Users will many times download a PDF; let’s make it easy for them to find us when they want to!
• Backwards compatibility… Save files down using a lower version of Adobe Acrobat than what you have. Consider yourself lucky to have the latest and greatest. The rest of us may not be so lucky!
• Don’t make the user search for your pressroom. Make links available on the homepage! This will also give your site a non-static feel as the content will refresh with every release.
• Optimize the language for the web. Don’t use keywords. Instead, use search phrases in a natural tone.

The August 9 issue of The Economist discusses how Microsoft through the hiring of one of the premiere ad firms is planning on striking back at Apple, who of late has been using the computer giant as a punching bag the way Mohammed Ali abused George Foreman in Africa during the memorable ‘rumble in the jungle.’

However, has Apple secretly helped Microsoft by giving the giant an icon everyone can identify with based on Apple commercials? Everyone knows Apple as the hip, trendy 20-something with ripped jeans, an unironed t-shirt and chuck taylors and Microsoft being the corporate tightwad with a suite and skinny tie.

I am part of the Apple camp… I defected from Microsoft in the late ’90s and I wrote this entry on my iPhone while listening to my ipod. I wonder - as the article in The Economist suggests - can Microsoft somehow turn this icon to their advantage?

As PR professionals we’re often confronted with counseling clients on how to deal with their competitors. Do you go after them in the press giving them coverage in some fashion or go after then silently? I guess it just goes to show that even the biggest companies struggle with these very same issues.

It will be interesting to see how the Microsoft camp strikes back.

Every day billions of internet users employ Google as their primary search engine. Whether it is for work, play, or somewhere in between, we rely on Google as a pathway into the vast internet expanse. And we don’t solely use the search engine, do we? No way. We use Google’s many other services like Gmail, Google News, Google Reader, Google Scholar, Google Calendar, and the list goes on.

Most of Google’s apps require that we enter information so that Google can get appropriate search results or store that information for our later access (e.g. Gmail, Google Calendar). Google can then use this information to specifically tailor advertisements on our screen according to what we have entered. For example, I recently g-mailed some friends about going to see the new Batman movie, The Dark Knight. I titled the message “Dark Knight tonight?” and received advertisements on the side of the screen for movie times, Batman t-shirts, Batman watches, and the soundtrack from the movie.

Social networking websites like Facebook do similar things. Enter a sports team under interests and you will get advertisements from sports gambling websites. You’re from Massachusetts? Be prepared for advertisements for apartments in Boston.

And it gets more advanced. Last year, a deal fell through that would have had Google and Earthlink providing the city of San Francisco free wireless internet in exchange for the location of users. This would have enabled Google to sell advertisements based on the users’ location in the city. Pass a movie theater and the trailer for the newest action flick flashes on your screen. Sitting at a coffee shop? Sip on the new and delicious caramel peanut butter chocolate latte supreme, venti sized!

On the one hand, this can be quite scary. Does Google know everything about me? My interests, my schedule, my personal e-mails, and soon, even my location?

The question is this: Is Google and other networks’ ability to compile huge amounts of data about internet users, and therefore consumers, a good thing or a bad thing? Like I said, this can be quite scary. On the other hand, I would much rather see advertisements for my favorite band’s new concert tour than advertisements for something I have no interest in. So, yes, internet data mining may be frightening, but, until new laws are passed on internet privacy (and who knows if that will ever happen), we must get used to it, embrace it, and perhaps use this the new age in marketing and advertising to our own advantage.

If that was the case, we’d all be burn victims.

Call 911.

Check that. Get the entire Fairfax County, Montgomery County and DC Fire and Rescue mobilized.

And do it quickly because Washington DC (my home) is about to light up like Dante’s Inferno.

Here’s something to be “open” about.

Lying. We all lie. Let me retype that. We ALL lie.

I was reminded of this in attending a recent focus group. We were testing an ad concept. All the people in the focus group said that they like the ad with a lot of text. That said they really wanted as much information as possible about the subject. They didn’t want pretty pictures or soundbites. They wanted heavy copy. They had an encyclopedic thirst for knowledge. They REALLY wanted to know more about what we were selling. They practically begged to know more.

Yeah, right.

I’m thinking … that’s absolutely BS.

This is like focus groups that say that they don’t like negative ads. That they’re offended by this stuff. That they are outraged. That negative ads won’t work on them. In fact, “those negative ads will just make me more inclined to vote against that nasty perpetrator.”

Yea, right.

We know that more often than not, “they” are wrong. Negative ads have all the allure of a multi-car accident. It brings brings traffic to a crawl. Drivers crane their neck to gawk. Fact is, negative ads work like nobody’s business.

That is, we lie like hell.

If you’re interested in stuff like this check out Ellen Gamerman’s recent excellent article on the subject in the Wall Street Journal. The piece is titled, “When Voters Lie.” My hat is off to the editor. Note that he/she said “when” voter lie, not why “some” voters lie. Because we all do it. The piece was prompted by recent speculation on the McCain Obama presidential contest and whether some people are lying about their support for Obama. That is, a lot of pundits have wondered whether some people are simply saying they’d vote for Obama but when time comes to make that decision they’ll end up pulling the lever for McCain out of some unspoken and perhaps even subconcious bias.

They call it the “Bradley effect” after the LA Mayor who was black and unexpectedly lost to the white candidate after leading in the polls. But there are plenty of examples. Ask Harvey Gantt.

In Gamerman’s piece there’s the following interesting insert that show’s how the simple fact of talking to a person (as opposed to responding to a computer) changes the way people respond to a question.

Gamerman also refers to another fascinating program, Project Implicit. If you think you’re free from bias, read the following thoughtfully and try to be honest with yourself (don’t worry, no one will know!) about whether you’d be in the majority of ANY of these findings:

The findings from Project Implicit’s six million participants over a decade of testing reveal lingering suspicion of minority groups: Some 75% of whites, Hispanics and Asians show a bias for whites over African-Americans. Two-thirds of all respondents feel better toward heterosexuals than gays, Jews than Muslims and thin people over the obese. Minorities appear to carry some of the same biases. As many African-Americans show a preference for whites as for blacks. A third of Arab Muslims show a bias in favor of non-Muslims, and more than a third of gays prefer straight people. The strongest biases are against the elderly. More than 80% of test-takers showed a bias for the young, and that included respondents older than 60.

If you’re reading this and either becoming depressed or indignant … don’t worry. Its ok. We all lie. It is as old as Adam and Eve, King Lear, and Little Red Hen (pick your story). According to David Livingston Smith it is simply how our mind works.

That is, how everybody’s mind works. He says it is a survival thing.

In our work we deal with people. And as we work with clients we often spend a lot of time trying to cut, dice, slice, segment, and compartmentalize target audiences. In so doing we focus on what makes one person different from another. But we too often fail to see what we all have in common. What ties them together.

That’s a hard thing to do. And it can’t be done simply by reading them a survey and jotting down their responses or herding them into a focus group and getting them all to “talk amongst themselves.”

Because too often you’ll simply hear what people think you want to hear.

That is … they’ll lie.

At Brodeur Partners we believe in work-life balance. Truth be told, we have a lot of work-o-holics.

Is it because we love our clients too much? Are we getting drunk with each winning campaign? Addicted to the adrenaline rush of the viral effort that infected just the right audience with just the right emotion at just the right time with just the right impact? The communications equivalent of crack cocaine … picking the tri-fecta … hitting the grand slam … drawing the ace card on an inside straight?

Whew. I just gave myself goose bumps.

You too? Well, watch out.

This type of stuff can kill you. Ask your Japanese friends. Blaine Harden of the Washington Post recently wrote a piece about Japan’s Killer Work Ethic where a judge ruled that a 45-year-old engineer at Toyota died of “karoshi” — too much work.

And if you have a penchant for gallows humor, read out Tom Stern’s review in Fast Company.

Dedication to work is one thing. When we confuse this with a life … then you’ve got a problem.

So here’s an idea.

Next time you get that email from a client or a colleague at 3:12 am trying to schedule three meetings before noon, do him or her a favor.

Pick up the phone. Ask them to tell you their favorite joke. Ask them about the latest movie they saw or sporting event they went to.

Ask them about the last time they hung out with their family and just did … nothing … just hang out.

And then tell them (gently) to get a life.

Send them Tim Ferriss’ book about the four hour work week.

Sure, the thrill of a new campaign can be exhilarating. And yes, getting that perfect placement, staging the once-in-a-lifetime event, developing the ideal brand strategy … all that stuff is great.

But it can’t beat spending time with family and enjoying friends.

Plus this work stuff can kill you.