Tips for PR Pros

Galen covers a wide variey of topics for publications such as CIO, InfoWorld, Daily Wireless.com, and CIOUpdate.com. He welcomes input and customer referrals from PR people, whether they represent user enterprises, consultants, analysts, or vendors. Please review the following FAQ to understand how Galen works with PR people and how to best shape your pitches and interactions. The basic principle is understanding that Galen needs to meet the needs of his clients, just as you do, so the most successful approach is to see where those needs overlap.

Q: What topics do you cover?
A: I cover a variety of topics, and therefore have no specific beats. There are several topics I cover repeatedly — SOA, IT management, application strategies, and wireless issues, for example — but these are subject to change based on my editors' needs. What is central to my coverage is a focus on the issues that IT executives at enterprises (companies, government agencies, and academic institutions) face. This means coverage on strategic issues, such as management, cost/benefit assessment, and deployment of technologies in service of real business needs. The focus is on the thinking and actions of these executives to solve their business problems via technology, as well as the ongoing management of those technologies. You can see my actual stories and what they cover using the Explore links at the top of this page.

Q: How do I know what you're working on?
A: The best way is to monitor the editorial calendars of the publications I write for, particularly CIO and InfoWorld. Go to their Web sites to get these calendars and to sign up for notifications of stories that are in the works. I often also post requests for sources at the PR Newswire ProfNet system. If you want me to include you on my e-mail blast requests when I'm working on a new story, just send me an e-mail.

Q: What information should I send you?
A: Very little. I do not cover products or industry anouncements such as new hires or partnership deals. That kind of company news should be sent directly to the publications likely to cover it; they almost never hire freelancers for that kind of story. Note that repeated sending of such announcements will cause me to flag your e-mail address as spam, which might also affect your colleagues' messages to me.
   The stories I work on are typically based on trends or business issues, so research reports, nonproduct white papers, and simple FYIs on how customers are using various technologies to solve business problems are all welcome.
   Please do not call me to confirm that I got your press release. If it didn't bounce, I got it.

Q: When I have customer references, what should I keep in mind?
A: Typically speaking, they can be in almost any industry. The key exception is that I rarely will interview tech providers as customers, as their role as vendors to our readers makes readers distrust them as how-to examples. I usually interview customers in the U.S. and Canada because that's where my publications' audiences usually are, but I'll consider contacts in other countries such as in Europe and the Caribbean if they speak English and if their business challenges are similar to those in North America.
    The key is that the customers wlll talk about their strategy, goals, results, and experience. It's fine if they plug the vendor who helped them, but note that none of these stories are promotional pieces, and if the customer crosses the line into cheerleading, you can expect the story will omit any such information. The vendor will typically be cited as the customer's provider, so readers will know who helped.
    It does matter who you suggest at a customer. CIO magazine and CIOUpdate.com, not surprisingly, want to interview CIOs, yet a substantial number of proposed customer references involve lower-level IT people or even non-IT people. I recognize that not every company uses the CIO title, but anyone without it has to have the same functional role, unless the story is explicitly looking to talk to other people (such as CFOs on an IT financing story). InfoWorld, by contrast, wants to talk to hands-on practitioners, so suggest the person with that hand's-on responsibility for the issue at hand (usually an IT department or project leader).
    Note that no one may review or approve any material before publication — if your client or client's customer expects this, the answer is automatically "no"; there's no need to ask me. If corporate PR wants to be on the call, that's fine.
    Keep in mind that I work in the Pacific time zone. When calling, keep that in mind. And when proposing interview times, please be sure to specify the time zone you mean — after all, we may not be in the same time zone and thus be talking inadvertantly about different proposed times.
    It doesn't matter to me whether I call the customer, the customer calls me, or you set up a conference line. I'm also fine if a PR person from the vendor and/or customer is on the line, but please do not jump in and "manage" the client or add product pitches; that just shuts down the conversation and usually makes the interview worthless. Obviously, correct any misstatements.
   Note that the deadlines I post for stories are real. I generally have two to four weeks to report for any story, though usually just two. So timing matters. And proposing interviews for the last day of the deadline is risky, because I schedule interviews on a first-come, first-served basis. If you found someone at the last minute, chances are others have already booked my time. Feel free to ask, but understand that there are just so many hours in the day, and the later the trigger is pulled, the greater the chances are that I can't make it happen. If it helps, give your clients an earlier deadline.

Q: How can I get you to talk to the vendor I represent?
A: It depends on the story and the publication. CIO magazine stories do not quote vendors, as they are not product- or even technology-focused (they're about strategies involving technology), so vendor interviews are not helpful. InfoWorld stories, by contrast, are more hands-on in terms of product and technology, so they involve a mix of vendor, user, consultant, and analyst sources.
    Do note that vendors who use interviews to read off marketing presentations or focus on selling their products are wasting my and their time; anything that makes it into the story will be based on what readers care about, which is not another sales pitch. Vendor clients should thus be prepared to discuss real customer needs, how the technologies work in practice (including limits of applicability), and so on. Vendors who can talk credibly about underlying technology issues and needs are the ones who get quoted, because they are bringing real value to the readers.
    Note that I almost never do vendor meetings outside of a specfic story (and even then it's infrequent), since my focus is on what users do. Vendor conversations understandably evolve around their product or service, no matter how characterized at the outset, so they should have those conversations with reporters who focus on products and industry issues (these are almost always on staff).

Q: How should I pitch you?
A: Because I work primarily on case studies, technology trends, and technology management issues, your pitch should be aligned to one of these story types. And that means truly aligned — I get a lot of pitches that claim to be in reponse to a story I am working on but are near-naked product pitches that have a tenuous connection at best. Let's not waste each other's time with off-target pitches.
    I talk to analysts and consultants as a way of getting a broad picture of what user needs, issues, and approaches are to use as context for the specific customer examples. But note that I can talk only to a few analysts and consultants for any one story; because my focus is on reporting customer experiences, so I devote the majority of my interview time to that. When I do speak with consultants, I look for those who can tell me about their customer deployments, as opposed to the services they offer.
    I try hard to respond to all pitches within a few days, though not those that are clearly off the wall or way off target. Please do not call me to confirm that I got your pitch. If it didn't bounce, I got it.

Q: What's the best way to contact you?
A: E-mail me. I can sort, store, and otherwise manage e-mail correspondence much more easily than phone calls. For example, an e-mail idea that isn't useful for a current story might be useful for a later one, and by having it in my e-mail folder I can follow up when the time is right; I can't easily do that from phone-call notes. I'm happy to discuss specifics by phone, such as explaining the story focus in more depth, but not to handle basic communications.
    If you get a busy signal when calling me, it means I'm on the phone. Just try again later. (I do not have voicemail pick up when I'm on the phone.)