Page One PR Joins Twitter (finally) posted by Shelly Milam at Thursday, January 08, 2009

We've been helping our clients build and maintain their corporate Twitter accounts for so long that we pretty much just forgot about building one for ourselves. Well no longer! I would like to formally introduce you to the new Page One PR Twitter account. Here we will discuss the worlds of social media, public relations (of course), maybe some client news and probably a whole lot about the happenings at our office. And let me tell you, if that doesn't entice you, this blooper video surely will.



Enjoy! and be sure to join us on Twitter for more fun.

What's Your APE Score? Social Media Tools Vs Productivity posted by Bryan Schell at Wednesday, October 08, 2008

Working in PR, we are in the midst of the social media craze. Tweet that press release. Start that Facebook group about that issue, comment on that YouTube video/blog-post/profile. It makes sense. Our industry, just like many others, is trying to take advantage of the most popular thing on the internet: social media tools, online networks and other types of user generated content in Web 2.0. We were fighting over the last drumstick until just now, when Mom brought out a second whole new Thanksgiving turkey from the oven. With all of the perceived benefits of this new type of communication, I'd like to ask the pundits and experts one question:

How in the heck am I supposed to get anything done?



It is a growing trend for companies to let their employees use social media tools (read: screw around) at work as companies begin to see the advantages and uses of having a connected workforce.

Yeah, social networking sites like Facebook (and LinkedIn, which is growing on me) are a great way to network and extend business contacts, but after I poke/nudge that influential reporter, I'll spend the next 20 minutes looking at pictures from Marie and Tom's trip to Hawaii. Twitter, which started out as a way for me to be able to read the current climate and see what the buzz was about at all times has turned into a platform where I can share the latest funny YouTube video with every other member of the 80 million member community who is also procrastinating at work. And Wikipedia? Don't get me started on Wikipedia... it’s an invaluable resource for someone working in the tech industry, or anyone, but at what price?

When I worked at Goldman, we had personal email and Facebook blocked (for reasons other than productivity), something that can easily be done by any company. It seemed to work pretty well (although maybe if the i-bankers were on MySpace instead of investing in risky loan markets, we'd be doing a little better...). Does the added benefit of the interconnectedness of Web 2.0, where everyone gets to create content (and learn more in the process), outweigh the costs of millions of man-hours lost in procrastination?

Let's use math to find out. An Arbitrary Procrastination Equation (APE):

x = abs[ b + (p + d/p)/w - (w - 2p)^(d/p) - a] + 100

where...
b = amount of time it took you to read this post (assuming you read 200 words/min)
x = you have to figure that out for yourself! This is mathematics!
p = amount of time you spent following the links in this post
d/p = distraction quotient, your propensity to keep following more links off the main linked page
w = hours you are expected to work today
a = age of your boss

I invite the procrastination experts out there on the Interweb to post their APE scores here on the blog. If x is greater than 100, you are not being productive right now.

What's your APE score?

A Dancing Cow Increases Website Traffic by 43% in 3 Days posted by Craig Oda at Thursday, August 14, 2008

We took a recent Stanford University graduate, convinced her to wear a cow suit and increased web site traffic by 43% for a Silicon Valley startup in three days. Well, to be fair, we also had a fox, a demon, and penguin to help us.

At LinuxWorld in San Francisco last week, we walked around the show floor in costumes, recorded video, danced, sang, and convinced attendees to participate in choosing the Next Open Source idol. The results were hilarious and great for business. GroundWork Open Source saw a 43% increase in traffic to their corporate web site in three days. They also had 1,133 people go to the community portal on their main web site and interactively vote on their favorite idol. The videos generated 5,000 views from a targeted open source audience in one week.

The PR campaign also generated buzz in the IT media community, including this short blurb in NetworkWorld.

The project was viewed as a success, helping to increase the visibility of GroundWork Open Source in the technical community and driving relevant traffic to their web site. We also got to dress up in funny costumes in public a full two months ahead of Halloween.

Silicon Valley Startups Using YouTube to Build Community posted by Craig Oda at Wednesday, July 23, 2008

In the last three months, I've seen a big change in the attitude that Silicon Valley startups have toward YouTube. Every few weeks, I answer questions about what companies can do with YouTube or what is required to produce, publish, and promote YouTube videos. We've completed several projects, including one for the Linux Foundation that was our first effort at a YouTube channel.

Based on our initial experience, we decided to experiment with lavalier microphones and boom microphones. Even for YouTube videos, the internal microphone did not allow us to get decent audio quality. We followed an interview style format and kept the videos to less than five minutes. The primary goal of the project was to help people that weren't attending the show get a better understanding of who some of the key people in open source were. We didn't promote the video channel aggressively.

Shelly Milam is going up to OSCON tomorrow to do a similar project for SourceForge. She'll be using a new camera. The current plan is to stick with the internal microphone until we finish more testing with external microphones. We're going to continue to use iMovie for editing.

We're estimating that the total time for four movies, including production, editing, and distribution will be eight hours.