RHetoric

Today McChrystal resigned – a PR disaster. What I don’t mean is Children’s and Infant’s Tylenol pulled from shelves, Lenovo computer batteries exploding on planes and Wal-Mart fake blog controversies – PR nightmares for the companies and their PR firms: Burson-Marstellar, Ogilvy and Edelman. What I do mean literally is that poor PR in this case has generated life altering consequences for McChrystal and his team of media-naïve cronies. The lesson here: even the worst PR people can teach us something. Or, at least serve as good reminders for best practices (based on what *not* to do).  

From the beginning this plan had crisis written all over it. Ill-fated access to high level executives with no clear and strategic objective = a mess.

Then what have we learned?

• Have an idea of what you’d like to accomplish. Rolling Stone says we’d like to interview you – sexy no doubt. But if you can’t answer the question: what’s in it for me and for the U.S. Army, maybe you have no business pursuing the opportunity. What was the goal of this meeting if not suicide?
• Know your spokesperon. Perhaps better attention to McChrystal’s general tone and tenor could have helped. Someone loaded with personality problems may not be the best interviewee. Just sayin’.
• Don’t overwhelm an interview. The last thing anyone and in this case the U.S. Army needs is fraternizing and a load of testosterone to encourage foul play and take you off message. Jay-Z said it best people: “Stick 2 the Script!”
• Understand reporters have an agenda too. They aren’t your friends. They’re doing their job – and in this particular case, doing it well. Who’s a hero at Rolling Stone?  Michael Hastings.

If Duncan Boothby’s (PR representative for McChrystal) objective of this fiasco was anything other than to help Rolling Stone sell millions of copies of its magazines… it is unclear.  

With Google’s Sonal Shah and FCC counsel-turned-VC Julius Genachowski advising the president-elect on the transition, and the launch of a transition web site Change.gov, a new tech agenda is emerging. Here are some themes we will be following:

Public Sector Tech

• The new administration has been very clear that it will appoint a first-ever CTO to focus on federal agencies’ use of technology. The names being bandied about in the press, such as Larry Ellison and Steve Ballmer, are all way too high level for the job. This will not be a high profile position except within the limited circles of federal government I.T. contracting. Key areas of responsibility will be cybersecurity, transparency, and modernization.
• Continued investment in public safety technologies is likely. No one in the new White House wants to repeat the Katrina disaster on their watch. The main themes will be first responder technology, emergency communications networks, and interoperability.
• Rural areas will be a special focus for continued broadband deployment. This will include reform of the Universal Service Fund program and spectrum auctions. The emphasis will be on ubiquitous access to improve healthcare, emergency services, and general Internet access parity with urban areas.
• Expect lots of grantmaking, federal matches, and low cost federal loans for infrastructure build-out.

Health Care Tech

• The headline here is a $50 billion investment in health I.T. over five years. This seems implausible given our government’s financial situation, although it is a safe bet that Congress will approve more funding in this area.
• Emerging health IT themes are patient safety, personalized medicine, quality measurement, access to care, and efficiencies (such as  in claims processing).  The technology focus is on widespread adoption of electronic health records, standards, and decision support technologies.
• Rural areas are also expected to be addressed, primarily through the expansion of telemedicine technologies.
• Veterans medical care will be front and center in the president-elect’s first budget request. This will include more funding for an already progressive deployment of health I.T.
• John Halamka has a good round-up of more specific predictions for first year on his blog, here.
• Expect lots of demonstration projects, grantmaking, and funding for major agency-driven programs.

Education Tech

• The key themes are better teachers, No Child Left Behind reform, and more emphasis on math & science in K-12.
• Technology is not specifically addressed in the current education narrative coming out of the transition team.

It’s still very early, and the incoming Administration is in a safe harbor period of being able to make promises that it knows the Congress won’t keep. Also remember that every president submits budgets to Congress that include spending initiatives that will never see the light of day in an appropriations bill, but they throw them in there anyway to make a policy statement.

The next step in the transition process is the float. This is where the transition team begins floating names of potential cabinet and agency appointments in the press, to guage reactions. The names emerging from this process will provide more clues about the new administration’s policy proposals.

In public relations, there is nothing better than the feeling of opening up a glossy magazine, which is perfectly catered to your client’s target market, and seeing the article you co-wrote, slaved over, pitched furiously and secured.

This is perfection. This is why you are in PR. This is becoming scarce.

As more and more magazines, newsletters and newspapers are ousted in our highly digitalized world, the ability to demonstrate PR value, literally on paper, is becoming rare.

I too am guilty of being a digital snob. I can’t remember the last time I bought a newspaper and when I sign up for a new newsletter I select the email format. Saving trees is on the list of things I try to do whenever possible (along with recycling and turning the water off when I brush my teeth).

But there is something about forwarding a Web site link with embedded article text to your client that is lackluster compared with showing them the glossy spread with pictures and pull-out quotes. Are they going to print out the article and frame it in the office like that nice magazine spread? A sheet of 8 ½ X 11 with laser printing sure seems less frame-worthy, even though the actual article may not be.

So my point—and yes, I have one—is that securing an online article that receives 400,000 page views has the same value as an article in a publication with a circulation of 400,000. At least it does on paper. (Is that saying going to die too? Will it be replaced by “at least it does on spreadsheet?”)

But I’m still going to treasure those moments of perfection. And I’m still going to insist that we frame big print hits and hang them on our office walls. And as these moments hurtle towards extinction, at least I’ll have my memories to surround me.