Yesterday, Intel launched a new initiative in Second Life. They held a virtual "press conference" which was well attended, but which failed on a number of levels. In fact, it was so bad, that today's story isn't about the launch of a new Intel Island, but about how press and blogger relations are handled in virtual worlds.
The launch of Intel's new island was mishandled. There was no single factor that could have been corrected, but a series of small problems that in isolation may have made little difference, but in concert, produced an experience and impression for those involved that left a lot to be desired.
So what was the problem? Lets run through the main points as I see it, then conclude with some thoughts on how it could have worked better.
What News?
Firstly, the news of Intel's launch was reported last week. The fact that an invitation to the press event yesterday was sent out, with plenty of detail, was enough to run with. I heard nothing in the live conference that would make me want to cover it twice, and have not seen much mention of it on other sources. Blogs move fast, what was news on Friday has long since lost it's appeal on Tuesday, making the press conference somewhat stale.
The People Formerly Known as the Audience
There was a bad vibe in the press room. I IM'd with a couple of others in the room that also felt it. A "them and us" feel if you will. The people formerly known as the audience refers to a shift in the balance of media and public relations that many large organizations are still coming to terms with. The overriding feel I got from attending was one of "we will talk, you will listen". Indeed, one of Intel's inept handlers actually told the audience to shush, and show some respect, for daring to converse. More on that in a moment.
Though there was a very brief Q&A section at the end of the conference, the whole affair was decidedly broadcast, which in such a social medium seems somewhat to be missing the point. Just because there is a trend in Second Life to produce unreadable "virtual newspapers" that mimic all the worst qualities of old media, doesn't mean we should all regress ten years does it?
Pay Attention at the Back!
One of the amusing things about the way real life companies handle press and blogger relations in the virtual world is the protective hand holding and gatekeeping performed by the development company that built the Island. We're at what I've come to think of as the "rockstar designer" stage in Second Life, where development has yet to become a commodity, and a handful of companies that build Islands, and handle events are still regarded in awe by we, the common peasantry. Typically, press relations are handled by the builders. We learn about new builds on their blogs, are informed of events through subscribing to their inworld groups, and more traditional press releases put out on the standard wire are often done with the real life company proudly promoting the development firm as a "partner". Perhaps this is so, friends of mine familiar with web development companies have speculated that many of the better known builds are being built for peanuts by developers hungry to grab the publicity, and benefit from the association with large, well known brands.
Whatever the case, it's only amusing, until it becomes insulting. Remember I mentioned the "them and us", broadcast feel of this event? It was compounded by members of the development firm Millions of Us, inserting themselves between Intel and the assembled audience. The atmosphere took on a chilly, unfriendly feel when one of the Millions of Us (MOU) team actually told the entire room to be quiet and "show some respect", and to direct questions to the MOU staff, where they would be relayed to the Intel folks standing directly in front of us.
What?
So let me get this straight. We can come and listen to a dry monologue about a new Island opening that was news last week, provided we don't actually talk to each other, or the Intel guys, and that we "show some respect" and direct questions through people that clearly need to go back to PR 101?
Whatever were they thinking? That we'd all comply without even a bleat of complaint or squawk of indignation? One angry PR guy in the audience said to me in private "I thought this was supposed to be a conversation!". Quite right.
Rethinking Virtual Press Relations
There certainly seems to be a lot we could learn from this. The entire experience was poor for Intel, Press, Public and Developers alike, and I think companies would do well to rethink the way they launch new Islands or campaigns of any sort in virtual worlds.
I don't have all the answers, but I do have a few thoughts that I think worthy of discussion for companies, press, public and development teams as we move forward.
Lose the Shades
The "rockstar designer" era is coming to a close. Just last week I encountered my first real life company who refused to tell me who built their islands. They simply don't consider sharing the limelight with their development team an option, and why would they? We did this back when the world wide web was young, but nowadays you rarely see a big brand company bragging about who built their website. Development companies that are working on the public relations side of their client builds need to be aware that people will only tolerate so much arrogance, and that the novelty of new islands opening in Second Life is waning.
What does this mean? It means that you're going to have to work a lot harder to make these things interesting to journalists and bloggers, and that it's you that need to show some respect, not the other way around.
This actually applies equally to brands in Second Life, and professional PR firms. The honeymoon is over.
Play to Second Life's Strengths, Not Weaknesses
There were fifty three people at the Intel press conference. You simply can't get any more into a sim before it crashes, or lags so badly that it becomes impossible to do anything. On the surface this may seem like a great turn out, but in reality I wonder just how effective it really was. I brought at least ten people from the Things To Do group with me, and only two of them were likely to write about the event. Besides that, as I mentioned above, the news had already broken the previous week.
A better approach, one that I think would have gained Intel better coverage, greater opportunity for meaningful engagement with press and bloggers and, helped them form better relationships with key individuals would have been this:
Instead of spending all day preparing to broadcast to 50 people, of which only a handful would have been in the target group, why not divide the day up into smaller sections and invite individuals, and small groups to talk with you? Have the PR people hand pick the people you should be talking to and then allow them to sit down and chat with you. That's right, have a conversation with you about your new project! Hell, why not go the whole hog and give them a virtual tour of the Island? Invite them to IM you with any questions they may have, ask them their opinion?
Really, how hard can this stuff be?
Second Life is about people. It's a communications platform. Unfortunately it doesn't scale well, but then neither does attention. Bloggers and journalists are far more likely to write about you if you take the time to talk to them, and Second Life is ideal for this kind of more intimate conversation.
Drop the Barriers
Dont impose a layer between press and source. On the 2D web, PR firms that do blogger relations really well understand that we're not actually interested in them, we're interested in you. We don't want to talk to someone from MOU, or Sheep, or Rivers or heaven forfend, a real PR professional. We want a conversation with the company execs responsible for the story. A good PR firm will go to extraordinary lenghths to arrange face/phone time between bloggers and the source of the story, because they know that it will get results.
If you must employ either your development firm, or a professional PR company to handle blogger outreach, then have them set up individual meetings as mentioned above. Anything less simply isn't good enough.
Hire a Professional
What makes large companies coming into Second Life think that the people responsible for building the meeting rooms, and choosing the carpeting should also be responsible for such a skilled and delicate task as press and blogger outreach is quite beyond me. There's no doubt these guys are skilled craftsfolk, but this is not their field.
The general state of public relations in the virtual world is simply atrocious. This isn't necessarily the design companies faults. I think the onus is on brands to make sensible decisions regarding PR on all levels, including the virtual. Either appoint somebody inhouse to liaise with the press, or hire a company or individual with experience in talking to bloggers to manage this side of things for you.
Join the Discussion
In conclusion, I'd like to invite the development firms, including MOU, Intel, other large brands and indeed small ones as well as PR professionals operating in Second Life to join the discussion. Im sure there will be some that think I'm insane for suggesting such things, and others that agree wholeheartedly.
Whatever your opinion, do speak up. Tell us what you think.
I really need to hear from MOU, especially. I've been experiencing increasing amounts of difficulty comprehending their builds. We really need to open a dialog.
Nice post,
I was a bit sorry that I wasn't there.. but after reading your thoughts on it - it feels as almost you disliked the whole event 57 :)
But I couldn't agree more that SL is a SOCIAL place for people to SOCIALIZE and drop these boundaries You vs US..
this is ancient approach(dinosaur era :) )...
Now when each individual counts - you just can't make these mistakes anymore..
So I totally agree with you 57.
Robbie Kiama, Meta MartMetaverseMart.com
I wasn't at this event so I can't comment on it directly but you make some good points about events like this in general. Certainly some feedback that ESC will use in upcoming events.
The one question I have and I'm not clear on from your summary. Do you fundamentally dislike the moderator process or just this implementation?
I think voice will enhance the overall experience and will be less reliant on a moderator but currently the moderator helps the presenter, talent (person with mic) deal with all of the incoming inquiry's. Even Philip uses this approach for his Town Halls.
If you've ever been the subject of presenting to 50 people in Second Life, you'll know how hard it is to answer questions while getting bombarded with tons of IM's and following general chatter in the public chat channel. This can be difficult for a seasoned resident. For someone who is new or inexperienced in SL it can be totally overwhelming. The moderation process helps smooth this experience out.
I attended the 2nd Intel press conference. As a developer in RL, I've been attending Intel's latest series of Webinars on their parallel computing tools. And I must say that they're doing a pretty good job with the webinars - better than any other vendor I'm aware of in the embedded space. But...
I attended the press conference in hopes of seeing how SL might be used to explore the capabilities of their RL developer tools, and perhaps to participate in some interactive use or demo of their solutions in world - something beyond the Webinar format. I don't think they really get the "collaboration" and "community" thing yet.
As a potential user of various Intel toolsets, there was nothing new there; I hope to see targeted interactive tutorials in the future.
As for MOU, their recent events have been similar, and disappointing (Scion). They need to go beyond the scripted press conference, and deliver some true content. Several break-out sessions following the conference - targeting the press, developers, etc. would have been great.
To me it seems more that companies are using their entry into Second Life as a PR item. As you mentioned, this entry is somewhat newsworthy for the moment but rapidly becoming a "me too" press event and not so unique. The real use that I think companies should be focusing on is using all of their SL assets as their PR medium. Too many open an island and leave little after their "grand opening". After that there is no business as usual, and seldom updates. If instead, companies were to use it, as you describe, and even take it a step further and follow comments I've seen from everyone including ESC and Phillip to create something that has new information very often. Maybe daily updates are too much, and having live people there 24/7 might be costly, but there are people with small SL sales shops doing this so why couldn't the larger companies? In fact, I think that they should go beyond splitting the day into sections and actually STAFF THEIR ISLAND for a whole week and send invitations to drop by anytime that week and chat. You don't need the CEO to do the press release if the conversations are personal. In fact I'll bet the journalists will feel even more special and more likely to write about the news. When my company is as big as Intel, IBM, AMD, Dell, or any of the others, I'll be expecting this just as much as I'll expect to have a receptionist in the lobby of my office building.<br>
The nature of most live corporate events necessitates this "mediated" kind of event.
The corporate speaker is talking into a headset or a mic that is piped in-world. They are typically not controlling an avatar, sometimes not even looking at SL.
Someone from the SL marketing firm is receiving the IMed questions and relaying verbally to the speaker what those questions are (either in the same space or via telephone). Then the speaker responds by voice.
There are notable exceptions, but I believe this is how most corporate in-world events are managed. It creates a nicely packaged, efficient event that gets out the principal message with the least fuss. The audience is primarily real world press who will either try and attend or hear about it later.
For corporations to break out of this mold, they would have to see some incentive to cater to the SL in-world press. I don't see them holding all-day, small group chat sessions anytime soon though. Not with the kind of paltry numbers and reach that most SL press generate.
FYI, every time I have stopped by IBM, there has been a friendly staffer to help me find what I was looking for. At all hours of the day and night.
This is an insightful post. Thanks for taking the time to voice your opinions and reflect on the event. I also appreciate that you offer some suggestions for improvements in press relations rather than just taking the opportunity to lambaste corporations for “not getting it.” I attended the event and agree that based upon the content, it really should have been a community driven experience.
That said, I think there are a couple of lessons we’re learning:
1. The SL Audience is Maturing: As the population grows, people are expecting more engaging events and more professional facilitation of these large scale events. In part, I credit the excellent work that many SL businesses and clubs are doing in hosting their events, which raises the bar for everyone. Since this particular presentation was all audio, I don’t think it was unreasonable for the participants to try and chat about the content of the presentation among ourselves. This is one of the most dynamic ways that communities are able to come together and exchange ideas in this space, and so asking everyone to remain quiet as the messaging is pushed out seems counterproductive and also, counter-intuitive. To Satchmo’s point, I actually think that even if the event is text based, you should still encourage chat among the participants. You just have to set the expectation on how questions are being handled.
2. There are professional services available: There are companies out there that specialize in virtual world public relations (yes, I work for one of them :-)) in much the same way as MOU or Electric Sheep specialize in building and sim development. Events like this signal that companies need to ensure they are utilizing the appropriate resources for the job. Companies that focus on events and community building can counsel clients on how to best achieve those objectives within the confines of an event. This type of press conference was probably not the best way to speak directly to the developer community, as you suggest.
3. There is an opportunity to do better: It’s also important to remember that at this time last year, there was only one or two corporate sims in SL. While the building has accelerated, few companies have attempted more than a handful of events. As time passes and companies are willing to rely less on the traditional RL press event style and structure, I think we’ll begin to see more corporate events that leverage the possibilities of the platform. Motorati Island and the L Word (neither of which my company had a role in) are just two examples of that potential. It’s difficult to move people from their comfort zones, but that’s where new media is forcing them to go.
Again, you have some great ideas here, and I expect you will see more events along these lines in the coming year as companies find their sea legs.
- Aaron Uhrmacher, Text 100 Public Relations
Yes, Satchmo it was more a problem of implementation.
I've been to quite a few press events in SL, as well as conventions and conferences and often but not always, there is a level of mediation as you put it Rik. This doens't normally bother me, as I understand it, and it's usually done without causing offence.
What I found problematic at the MOU/Intel event was the tone. It was not an isolated incident either. The entire thing had a decidedly unfriendly feel, one I'm certain neither MOU of Intel wanted, but which nevertheless was there.
As for the "paltry figures" the SL press generate, well, hhh... lets just say that some of the native 'publications' dont ring my bell eh? What I'm really getting at is PR/blogs/press in general, it's up to the individuals responsible for PR to decide which areas to focus on, and which to ignore.
Great conversation here. I hope others continue to weigh in. I wanted to respond to some comments:
Anthony Reisman:
I totally agree with you about fresh content. I think both television and blogs (two opposite ends of the media spectrum) do this extremely well. You wouldn't be a repeat visitor to either if it was not refreshed with new content.
I was watching the NY Mets pre-game show the other day. There are 162 games and therefore 162 pre-game shows about the same team, yet they are all new fresh and exciting!
Chatting Amongst Participants:
Holy cow, this is what I love about SL! I wasn't advocating against it. This is what separates SL from the web... meeting people interested in the same things as you, in real-time! I prefer attending conference sessions in SL than RL because I can watch the keynote and here the interesting cross-chatter amongst people who don't have the social pressures to nod and be polite.
People have complained at movie events. 4 Eyed Monsters was an event that people complained about the chatter. I still loved the chatter but thought it might be better next time to show the movie in 2 theaters. 1 social theater and 1 quiet theater.
Personal Anecdote... I met Forseti Svarog at a Lawrence Lessig event about year and a half ago. Today he is one of my most valued colleagues and a great friend. That is the power of SL.
PR:
I'm not so keen on SL for strict PR and try to advise clients against it. Truthfully its hard to get above the noise now, so most of the companies I talk with aren't thinking PR only.
The exception here is a project like Smokin' Aces. It was a game to promote a movie and it was fun! A lot of people participated, not because it was NBC Universal, but because it was an engaging game. As a result a lot more SL'ers heard about the movie than maybe otherwise would have.
Experimentation:
Totally derailed now from the above comments but do people realize many of these companies coming into SL are experimenting? We so often here the world "failure" but the companies involved don't see their projects as failures but as experiments they can tweak and use to learn more about virtual worlds. How many brands were a total successes on the web in 1993? How many brands wish they were experimenting with the web in 1993 so they weren't so late to game and beat to the punch by the Yahoo's, Amazons and Ebay's of the world.
Satchmo, point taken. Glad we agree on the importance of chat, and I think the idea of two separate theaters might make sense in that particular scenario.
However, I guess we have different definitions of PUBLIC RELATIONS. As I see it, the chief role of public relations in virtual worlds is to develop and create communities (a broad definition of ‘communities’ meaning any group that share an interest in something). If that’s the case, and if Second Life is primarily about community building and engagement, then public relations should play an INTEGRAL ROLE in every corporate virtual worlds strategy.
Public relations is not limited to media. It includes reaching out to people that share comments interests on every level, which is why you need a strategy to get it right. You need to understand why these networks come together and how they work. To that end, some classic ways to encourage participation include holding events and gatherings, providing the interpersonal interactions that we all agree really make the SL experience meaningful.
Smokin’ Aces, in my opinion, was not a public relations play but rather a well executed marketing campaign. It might have been promoted using PR tactics, but it was a contest with prizes, which I wouldn’t classify as community building, and that’s where the difference lies.
This is all interesting, thanks for keeping it going!
Good points Smiddy. I lumped PR with the whole category of players who are just doing a second life project for main stream press. The one hit wonders... my bad, you are right in the true meaning of the term, public relations is often the correct goal.
Hi 57 Miles,
This is Rodica from Millions of Us. I was helping with
yesterday's event and obviously we're sorry that you thought it was
"chilly" in tone.
We're warm enough to welcome feedback from all quarters, and there are important lessons for us in every event we conduct. We hear varied feedback about all our events and do our best to take it all into account, although obviously individual preferences vary, and we need to balance those preferences with client objectives for a given campaign. I hope over time you'll see that with Intel Software College, the objective is to candidly and frankly engage all comers.
Short-term PR value is great, but as some others have noted here, what we're really interested in is how SL residents, particularly developers and IT professionals, want to engage with Intel over the long-term. We're still
experimenting. At any rate, thanks for the feedback and we'll try to incorporate it in our future events.
Thanks for dropping in Rodica, I appreciate politically you're in a hard space here, but it would be good to hear responses to specific points raised in the post as well as the obligatory "we heard you" comment.
Maybe it would be useful to actually setup some discussion for those interested in such topics...
This is a really interesting discussion. I think it's worth noting that Second Life represents a real philiosophical challenge for lots of large organizations in that like other forms of social media, it changes the relationship between "company" and "customer" and results in a dialogue amongst peers within a community.
While MoU does employ some folks with traditional PR backgrounds, we've found that this new era requires a whole new set of operating principles which onlly get better with healthy feedback like yours.
It's too bad you found the tone to be chilly yesterday -- it was certainly not anyone's intent. But here's the good news. Intel Software College will be around for a long time and is devoted to healthy discussion and roundtables. So swing by over the next few days and drop me an IM -- I'll TP over and we can rez a fire and roast some digital marshmallows.. ;-)
Peretz Stine -My turn now.
Peretz Stine, RL Paul Steinberg, I'm the guy running Intel Software Network on SL. There is some great discussion and ideas here. Actually, to be honest, that was not my first reaction to the initial Blog posting ;-)
First off.
The group I belong to, Intel Software Network, is setting the pace in the company for opening up our websites and networks for discussion with developers and IT folks through blogs, pod casting, vidcasting, forums and so on. Our goal is to change our developer website from one that essentially presents content for developers to one that is created by our users as much as ourselves. That is my (and Intel’s!!) goal for our site on SL as well. Most of the people in this group are geeks themselves and that’s our audience.
Looking back, I see why 57 might have felt the opening was too controlled. I have been running Intel’s developer webcasts for a number of year’s (Thanks for the mention Scaredy Cat!). In our webcasts, we get 800-1200 live attendees and hundreds of questions. We collate the questions and try to answer those that are most relevant. Those not answered, we usually post to our forums. I instinctively used a similar format for this event, it might have been better to just have the thing wide open.
To be honest, another part of me wanted to protect our executives from whatever. Again looking back, this was not necessary, they aren’t little ducks needing the protection of Mama Duck’s wings. I see why some might have felt controlled. That was not the intent.
–enough ego abnegation -
If people felt that this was a BS, controlled event, there was nothing to stop you from taking us to task right there. I stood on my head trying to say how we want to work with the SL community. I was present for most of the day and very few came up to me with this kind of feedback. I told people to IM me and other Intel folks it was not like we are in hiding. I try to stay in world as much as possible (I’m hanging out right now) so feel free to pop over and chat anytime.
The point of the execs being present was to signal support for SL, in all of its warts and glory. This is great. This truly is an experiment for Intel. Like any big corporation, support for new things is mixed. I was involved for many years with Intel's early Java efforts, so I am an expert at corporate angst!
Intel Software Network is here to reach out to SL techies and to bring in our existing developer communities as well. This could be really great for all concerned. We have some deep engineers in our software division –people who really know threading, optimization, mobility, game development. I am hoping that this will be a chance to get into frank discussions with these people. Wheaton Shepherd who followed Nanook in our technical presentation, is one of these guys. I am going to get him back later for threading and optimization Q&As.
Another opportunity here is to talk directly with the folks who are building and planning the platforms that Second Life and other virtual environments will run on. This is about as relevant as things get. This is why I brought in Nanook Taurog. He is planning our platforms for the next decade, he is interested in virtual environments both from an engineering as well as from a philosophical perspective – Having him sit down with SL influencers, users and developers could be really cool.
Beyond that, we want to make this a site for developers to contribute to. Got something you want to teach? –we can set up a time for you in our sandbox. Found a better way to develop games for UMPC? Ping me and I’ll set something up. Want to speak on a panel to Intel people telling them they rock, they suck, they get it or they don’t. Let’s set that up -- whatever –It’s wide open now. I’m looking forward to working with you. Peretz Stine.
Oops -Here's the site for those who don't know -http://tinyurl.com/34chl9
Peretz
What thou lovest well remains, the rest is dross
Dear Perez,
I would be more than happy to visit your site as a paid member of Second Life. However, my new rather powerful Toshiba U305-S5127 running Intel 965 Chipset with Intel(R) Graphics Media Accelerator Driver, DX 10 capable, will not let me run Second Life. You may say I should have read the SL page before buying my new laptop. That's true, however, the fact that my traded Dell Inspiron with Intel 945 chipset worked fine is a bit of an excuse for not giving it a thought in upgrading. I am not alone in finding an irony in the growing presence and commitment of Intel in SL and the fact that Intel 965 just crashes SL on a good machine. Is a solution coming for us?
Thanks for any help Intel can provide.
MP LeRoy