PR salutes “Web 2.0”: The Millionth Word in the English Language

As a public relations professional at a leading New York City-based PR firm, words are important to me. (For the record, words are also important to my boss, Ken Makovsky, who once devoted an entire entry in his “My Three Cents” blog to his distress over the challenge to the English language posed by texting shorthand.)

So I paid attention when The Global Language Monitor(GLM), announced that — on June 10 at 6:22 am EST — the English language had acquired its one millionth word: “Web 2.0” — defined as “the next generation of web products and services, coming soon to a browser near you.”

Among the finalists for the 1,000,000th word: “Jai Ho,” “N00b,” “slumdog,” cloud computing” and “carbon neutral.”

For the record, at its current rate, English generates about 14.7 words a day, or one every 98 minutes. Based in Austin, TX, GLM documents, analyzes and tracks language trends worldwide, with a particular emphasis upon Global English.

How Are the Mighty Fallen!

There have been massive changes in the practice of public relations since I first joined the PR firm of Makovsky + Company more than ten years ago. Back then, most major cities had two or three local newspapers. Today, many are down to just one, as Ken Makovsky has described in his recent “My Three Cents” blog… and it’s at risk of folding.

On March 16, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer published its last print edition, leaving the biggest city in the state of Washington, with just one daily newspaper, The Seattle Times. The 146-year-old Seattle P-I will live on in a digital version as a “news and information portal.”

The struggling U.S. newspaper industry must be waiting with bated breath. Who’s next?

Just a week, content provider 24/7 Wall St. released a list of the 10 most endangered major daily newspapers. Based on an analysis of the financial strength of their parent companies, the amount of direct competition they face in their markets and their financial losses, these are the newspapers likeliest to fold or begin publishing an online edition only … many within the next 18 months!

1. Philadelphia Daily News
2. Star Tribune
3. The Miami Herald
4. The Detroit News
5. The Boston Globe
6. San Francisco Chronicle
7. Chicago Sun-Times
8. New York Daily News
9. Fort Worth Star-Telegram
10. The Plain Dealer

I’m a big believer in consumer-generated media and the importance of citizen journalists as investigators and whistleblowers — but as a public relations consultant and a citizen, I certainly would hate to lose the professionals of the Fourth Estate.



Technorati Tags: media crisis, newspapers, journalism, 24/7 Wall St., Seattle Post-Intelligencer, Seattle Times, Philadelphia Daily News, Star Tribune, Miami Herald, Detroit News, Boston Globe,San Francisco Chronicle, Chicago Sun-Times, New York Daily News, Fort Worth Star-Telegram
Makovsky + Company, PR firm, Ken Makovsky, My Three Cents

A Question to Bankers: What’s Up with Your PR?

I recently read an interesting article in Advertising Age about the marketing challenges facing financial services industry in the post-TARP world and how banks are responding.

Some customers are asking whether Citibank is a safe place for their savings,” writes reporter Beth Snyder Bulik. “So what is Citibank doing? Running ads in the Wall Street Journal about its microfinance capabilities in Texas and India.”

It’s just one example of the tone-deaf marketing messages coming from some banks that don’t answer worried customers’ real concerns … Is my money safe? Can I trust you? Will you be here tomorrow?

According to Ad Age, the top 10 banks and credit-card companies cut their ad budgets by a more than 25% in the fourth quarter of 2008 and nearly 40% December compared with those same periods in 2007. This represents a tremendous opportunity for banks and other financial services institutions to step into the void and claim it for their brand.

As our CEO, Ken Makovsky, wrote recently, public relations “is significantly less expensive than advertising and much more credible. We’re talking about a modest investment in time and money that delivers a major return on investment.”

DST: A Sinister Plot to Toy with Our Biorhythms?

It’s almost here. The time of the year I hate most. The day on which I am robbed of a precious, precious hour of sleep … Daylight Saving Time. This year in the U.S., DST begins on Sunday, March 8, at 2:00 am, when clocks are adjusted forward one hour. Time doesn’t revert to normal again until November, when clocks are set back (and I get my hour of lost sleep back again.)

I’m a public relations consultant. I work for a leading business-to-business (B2B) PR firm based in New York City. Our unique positioning is the “power of specialized thinking” — so I have to be able to think. How can I think when, every spring, my bio-clock is being messed with by some Time Lord with a nonsensical agenda?

Here are the three top reasons I think we should do away with DST. (I’ve got more if you want them.)

1. It makes for less efficient workers. Studies estimate that that sleep deprivation costs U.S. businesses an estimated $150 billion a year in absenteeism and reduced productivity.
2. It’s not green. A 2008 study that examined billing data in Indiana before and after it adopted DST three years ago found that DST increased residential electricity consumption by 1% to 4%.

3. It takes time to change clocks. And as more high-tech devices contain clocks, more time is spent changing them. (I avoid this problem by leaving my watch on standard time all year-round. For the six months of DST, I simply add an hour in my head.)

In his My Three Cents blog, Ken Makovsky has written that “outstanding productivity in business depends on executives who are awake.” He suggests power napping as a solution. I say, put an end to Daylight Saving Time.