Brass Tacks

The Sights and Sounds of Internet Week NY

A host of us at Horn are attending Internet Week NY this week. Here's a quick snapshot of what we've experienced on-site at the main area.

Need oxygen? Demand Media (client) has the set-up for that. It's great for hangovers, I hear.

Want some time in the spotlight? Yahoo is making that happen, as Horn's own Brynn (in the pic) takes her turn.

Yahoo and Big Data... interesting.

Another photo booth. Seems like a popular idea for conferences.

Makeup station to prep for the nightly Internet Week parties? Genius!!!

Brian Stelter and David Carr of the NY Times take the stage. My favorite quote -- David Carr (referencing someone else): "'I'm blowing up on Twitter.' So what? You and your friends like what you did." Second favorite quote -- David Carr (on his relationship with Brian Stelter: "It's like a buddy movie where the young stud kills the master." I'm probably butchering the last one. But you get the idea.

I hungry. This counts as breakfast.

My car is here. It runs on Rocket Fuel.

More recaps from Internet Week to come from me and the Horn team.

Cyborgs and Crossroads: Lessons from SXSW

Having spent 4 days at SXSW in soggy Austin earlier this month, I wanted to share some overall takeaways.

We Are All Cyborgs
Dictionary.com defines a cyborg as "a person whose physiological functioning is aided by or dependent upon a mechanical or electronic device." A common theme to Amber Case and Ray Kurzweil's keynotes was that we're already functioning cyborgs. That, even though the technology is not implanted in our bodies, the smartphones we carry around are actually extensions of our brains. Hard to argue with this, except for the fact that I'm not sure it's actually helping us. I guess that's the flipside of dependency.

Agile vs. Waterfall
This to me was the primary takeaway, and it's something I've been discussing a lot for the better part of two years. We live in a real-time world, but our processes and people aren't built for this. Traditional ad agencies/agency people and traditional marketing clients weren't schooled in real-time development. And those who were (like interactive and CRM folks) were generally not schooled in the development of a brand.

We are at an intruiging crossroads. How can we balance the need to be more nimble and reactionary with the desire to create and nurture a brand that makes an emotional impact? How can agencies and clients structure their fees and budgets to allow for real-time flexibility and not drive their CFOs crazy?

Shiv Singh brought up a point that illustrated this issue clearly. The week before the event, the KONY video basically took over the Internet. And yet, there wasn't a single panel about it, and frankly, barely a single panelist even mentioned it. Here we were at the cutting edge of tech and marketing, and even it didn't have the ability to react in real-time to transformative events.

Promise vs. Peril
The flip side of this is that we've become a very reactionary culture. There is very little research or reading done before people make a personal decision on what side they want to take on an issue, and then broadcast that stance to the world. Things go viral before people even know the whole backstory.

The Homeless Hotspots effort by BBH and KONY are both good examples. Could there have been a better way to execute the Hotspot idea, or some tweaks to have it work better? Sure. But the backlash against the idea, all the way to The Daily Show, seems very outsized given that they were simply trying to do something altruistic. The backstory behind Invisible Children and the large quantity of their donations that do not go towards helping solve the problem is another example. Everyone taking a deep breath and doing a little research seems like good advice in these times.

Make Your Own Adventure
Overall, this was a great event. Credit to the organizers of SXSW for what is truly a mammoth undertaking and pulling it off with very few hitches. I walked away from this year truly feeling that if you're in any form of marketing, be it advertising/client side/interactive/etc., you're crazy if you don't find a way to attend. There is truly such a wide range of panels and topics that no two individuals' journeys are the same. I spoke with people who purposefully avoided all panels and just focused on the networking opportunities. And those who tried to hit as much as they could logistically to soak up as much learning as possible. Both ended up winners.

7 Must-Know Marketing Takeaways from SES San Francisco

SES San Francisco is now in the books. A week later, we’ve been able to think through everything we heard – the show featured over 70 sessions and 150 speakers – and now it’s time to turn theory into action. So where do we start? 

More than anything, SES confirmed the integrated nature of marketing and digital communications. SEO, paid search, PR, design, video, social media, mobile apps – they’re all undeniably linked, and as you’ll read, the latest stats and research back that up. 

So, without further ado, let us present the 7 Must-Know Marketing Takeaways from SES San Francisco: 

1. There’ll be 50 billion connected devices worldwide by 2020. SES Producer Mike Grehan dropped this stat in the show’s welcome session, and it perfectly captures the challenge marketers are up against. Always-on and always-connected means customers can engage your brand at any time in any channel, and that makes it more important than ever to have a unified and consistent message across your entire marketing mix. You can’t choose which channel customers will come in contact with first, but you can deliver powerful, cohesive brand experiences across all mediums (digital communications anybody?).
2. “Persuasion is a sequence of emotions that take a prospect from interest to action.” A simple truth shared by keynote speaker Susan Bratton, but a good reminder for us marketers. Too often we get caught up in singular items – a catchy headline, an attention-grabbing design, a perfectly worded Tweet – forgetting that effective engagement is an ongoing process, not a one-time push.
3. The power of blogs. Technorati’s Chief Strategy Officer Charles Black shared some eye-opening stats: Consumers trust blogs more than twice as much as any other type of social media. 65% of readers say they access blogs specifically to get an opinion, while another 52% say blogs influence their purchase decisions. That’s a huge number – how does your blog (and reputation in the blogosphere) stack up?
4. Mobile is booming…but don’t be scared. A few more stats to think about: Mobile search has grown 84% in the last year. It should approach 3 billion queries PER MONTH by 2012. And it should outpace desktop search as soon as 2014. Intimidating numbers, for sure. But as Yahoo’s Senior Director of Mobile Sales Strategy Paul Cushman says: “Here’s a secret. Mobile isn’t a mystery; it’s the Internet, just smaller.” The takeaway? Use your gut – it’s still marketing.
5. Mythbusters. In terms of total queries, YouTube would rank as the world’s second largest search engine – if it actually were one. And yet, most marketers place YouTube way down on the marketing totem pole. Why? Two common excuses: 1) YouTube is only for kids and 2) YouTube doesn’t work for B2B companies. In actuality, though, the opposite is true – demographics show strong viewership across all ages (scroll to bottom of linked page), and a quick glance shows thousands of brands – from every sector – making their presence known.
6. A call to action is only a QR code away. As Sabrina Horn noted in her interview on Twitter metrics, people are naturally curious – marketers would be smart to play to that. Think about QR codes. They can be placed anywhere, branded however you want and drive any type of offer you can think of. But best of all, they play to a consumer’s inherent desire to know more: “What’s behind that barcode?”
7. Convergence is everywhere. The most popular site to visit on mobile devices? Search engines. Consumers who see a display ad and then later click a search link for the same product? 56% more likely to buy. Customer response after being exposed to an ad in the paper or on the radio? 37% turn to mobile for more info. Always-on media isn’t just a challenge – it’s an opportunity. Customers are actively looking for information, and responding to their needs in the channels most convenient to them can dramatically improve return and response.

Heading into the conference, our goal was simple: dive deeper into how discrete marketing channels overlap, interact and influence each other. We definitely came back with tactics and tips, but more surprising was the overwhelming amount of data supporting the integrated digital communications model. But then again, maybe it shouldn’t have been so surprising; after all, it’s what brand marketers are telling us too.

So then, what does it all mean? It means we have work to do. Integration – and the ability to deliver impactful, cohesive messages across all channels – isn’t just a theory or something that’d be “nice to have.” It’s the reality of the marketplace we operate in. It’s a challenge, but it’s also an opportunity, a chance to be creative, adventurous and innovative in the ways we reach customers. That’s exciting, and with the lessons from SES behind us, we’re ready to go.   

But You're Not A Search Agency: Why We're Going to SES San Francisco

“Why is a communications firm going to a search conference?”

Fair question. After all, we’re better known for our work in PR, design and social media. Search Engine Strategies (SES), on the other hand, has a reputation for all things SEO, PPC and analytics. Different areas of the marketing spectrum for sure, but in reality, areas that are more closely aligned than you might think.

At their core, search, PR, social and design are all pieces of the same digital communications puzzle (see image). They’re not siloed specialties; they’re channels that overlap, interact and influence each other in tangible ways. The world’s most fantastically designed website will fall flat if the right messaging isn’t in place (or a lack of optimization prevents users from ever finding it). And the right PPC ad won’t mean much if conversion-ready traffic comes to your site, only to bounce because of a poor user experience or convoluted story.

That’s why we’re going to SES San Francisco next week – because the integrated nature of digital communications demands that we continually build our understanding of the nuances of each channel and how they interact with one other. We’re constantly striving to learn more because, regardless of how often and how drastically our industry changes, the fundamental objective of digital communications remains the same: to bring together discrete marketing channels – search included – to deliver cohesive, impactful brand messages.

Most importantly, we’re pushing ourselves to be on top of all of these channels because of what brand marketers are saying: According to our latest study with Kelton Research, nearly 70% of CMOs say they feel behind the curve when it comes to digital/interactive media integration. Let that sink in for a second. Seventy percent. That’s huge. That’s a ton of companies missing out on prime opportunities to engage with their customers.

It’s our role, therefore, to know how each channel can work together to maximize influence and effectiveness. Whether it’s site optimization tips, the latest in paid search tactics or cool developments in social/mobile technology, it’s all knowledge that fits into our digital communications wheelhouse, and that’s why we’ll be doing all we can to unearth and share relevant insights with you throughout the conference.

Hope to see you there!

What CMOs (Don't) Want From Their Agencies

Last week at our annual company offsite in SF, we hosted a CMO panel to get right to the crux of what it’s like to be a chief marketer – what they really want from us, and what drives them nuts.  The panelists were Joelle Kaufman from Clarizen, Natalie McCullough from ServiceSource, and Carl Tsukahara from ClairMail.  Joelle and Natalie are current clients, Carl is a long time partner and past client.  

Here is what stood out the most to me, a mix of great reminders and new insights for all agencies and communicators.  With heightened engagement and the ability to measure just about anything, the opportunities to have a relationship with your prospect and your customer today are endless – and exciting.  But being a CMO today is hard.  The pressure on marketing is enormous.  Joelle from Clarizen said, “We’re all in the growth business, so if you can do something to contribute meaningfully to that growth that’s all that matters.  That’s all I spend my time doing everyday, figuring out how we’re going to grow the company today.”  

In addition to visible contributions to growth, the suggestion was made that agencies need to self-audit more and to use the language and metrics of the CMO (not the agency).  Hits, coverage and leads are almost meaningless – what would be most meaningful is a metric of awareness and reputation.  Ah…the great measurement challenge that all agencies are trying to tackle!

Our panelists’ other big challenges are time, talent and focus.  

 

• Time constraints are common to all of us, especially in the frenetic tech industry.  But what can slow a chief marketer down is deciphering the signal from the noise and staying focused on the signal within their time constraints.  
• Regarding talent, the challenge is to find the great leaders underneath the CMO so they don’t have to make all of the decisions.  
• Focus is all about prioritization.  And often once you get internal or community alignment around what you choose to prioritize, the market changes!  

And what drives CMOS bananas?  Here are our panelists’ agency pet peeves:

• The bait and switch – we’ve heard this one hundreds of times, but it bites when senior people do the pitch but don’t participate long term.  
• Mediocre release drafts – if you need more time to make it a great piece of writing, just ask for it. 
• Lack of follow through on ideas – speak up when you’re getting disconnected from the client and the players who can help you make things happen.
• Playing it safe – CMOs need their agency to be edgy and out in front of the business.  Joelle said it better: “Do not kiss my ass, ever.  I don’t pay you to be nice.  Fight with me, push me, keep me accountable.”

As part of the discussion, we also previewed the initial findings from a study we just conducted with our partner Kelton Research.  The CMO Challenge – to be released in July – surveyed almost 300 senior marketers and interviewed several CMOs across industries to uncover the myths, barriers and opportunities around integrated digital communications.  Stay tuned for that study in a few weeks!

 

20 Thoughts for 20 Years

...I've actually had more than 20 thoughts in 2 decades but here are the ones that have come back the most often as friendly reminders and occasionally, to haunt me.   Enjoy.

1. If you don't have a plan, you don't know where you are going.  Have, and share a vision, make sure people can repeat it, understand it and believe it.   Have goals that resonate with your employees or clients.   And communicate your progress against them, often and through multiple means.  Remember, plans can change.  Just communicate the new plan and why a different one was necessary. 

2.  Hope is not a strategy.  Plan for the worst, hope for the best.  Have a back-up plan. Hoping for good times won’t make the bad times go away.  Be prepared to get through them.

 3.  Most business problems are like a jigsaw puzzle, you have to find the right pieces and put them in the right sequence. I used to be very emotional about things that happened in the business: an employee leaving, an unhappy client, etc.  Take the emotion out and visualize each situation as part of one big puzzle. Lastly, watch out for those puzzle pieces that look like they fit but don’t.  If it’s too good to be true, it probably is.

4.  There are always 3 sides to every story.  Yours,  theirs and some where in between.  Learn to operate in between. There are infinitely more shades of gray than just black and white.  Most things in life and business are not black and white.  Learn to live with gray.

5. Know what you don’t know. Whether you are 30 or 80, there is always something that you don’t know.  Humility is an endearing quality: if you don’t know something go research it. If you cant find the answer, ask someone, or just make it up.   

6.  It’s not about you.  It’s about everyone else. Leave your ego at the door.  When making tough decisions, you can’t think about what you want. It’s what’s the best for your team or client.  Making the right decision may be very unpopular in the short run, but may be what is right for the company in the long run.

7.  If you don’t ask, you don’t get. If you want a raise, justify it, and ask for it.  If you want to win a piece of new business, tell the client you want it.  Why not?  Most people spend their lives not saying what they really want or believe in and they end up unfulfilled.  Ask.  The worst is you get a “no” and some new-found respect for your courage.

8.  Your integrity is all you have. Life is too short to compromise your values or that of your colleagues.  Life is also too short to work with jerks.  Get rid of them.  There are plenty of fish in the sea.

9. Leadership is a lot about listening and talking about the things that people want to say but don’t. If people would just stop talking so much, they might hear what is really going on.  It’s really hard to listen to things you don’t want to hear, but if you want to be a leader, you have to learn to listen.  Then, gently, address those things others are afraid to say.

10.  It’s not over till the check clears the bank. I don’t care if it’s in the mail.  I don’t care if Joe is giving me “his word”. It’s just not over till the check clears the bank.

11.  “No.” There are some things that are just not feasible, or realistic.  Don’t feel like you have to say yes to everything to please someone.  Be honest.  Say, “No, I can’t do that now, but I can do it later…” Or give some parameters around what might be possible.

12.  Don’t look at what’s there, look for what’s missing. When devising a strategy for a client, or writing a document, assess it after you feel you have finished.  What is missing that would really make a difference?  Also called exception management, look for those things that are not present, not just the checkmarks in each box.  

13.  Take the high road, even when it REALLY hurts. You don’t need to have the last word.  You don’t need to make the other person feel bad.  Deep inside they know anyway.  Some day, you’ll meet them again. Why make it awkward?  Who knows, you might need them at some point.

14.  Positive. Energy. There are two kinds of people in this world: people with positive energy and everybody else.  Nothing will get done with a negative attitude.  If you think life sucks it will.  So join the team, and dream along.  If you don’t believe, leave.

 15. If something feels wrong, it is. Trust your gut, always, always.  There is something to that intuition. Learn to trust it, and listen to it.   

16.  Life is not about achieving balance. It is about the choices you make. You can schedule your day full of meetings, be late to all of them and come home exhausted with nothing left for your family or friends.  Remember, it’ll all be there for you tomorrow.  You’re not in a race.  And also, decide between what is important and what is urgent.  Not everything is urgent.  Take care of what is important first.

17.  Admit mistakes. Learn from them. Try hard not to make them again. Almost 50% of the time we learn by adding new information to our brains.  The other 50% we learn from making mistakes and understanding how to not make them again.  Be honest about them. 

18.  Be smart. Be kind. Be generous. Be curious.  And never, EVER, let anyone or anything get in your way. Especially for women in business– there will be obstacles in your lives and careers.  But nothing is insurmountable.  You can always find a way to work around something, or get around someone.  There is nothing that can stop you unless you let it.

19.  If you are not happy with the way things are, go out and change them. Whining is the worst.  Complaining even worse. Make your time doing any task worthwhile… and make a positive impact.

20.  Know when to put the toe tag on it. When you’ve explored all options and tried all avenues, cut your losses and move on.  You’ll never win if you try and fit a square peg in a round hole.  And you’ll lose precious time fixating on something that will never work.  

"Duck Hunting" with Tom Foremski, Silicon Valley Watcher

This week I'm pleased to share a recent video interview from our Innovator Series with Tom Foremski, Editor of Silicon Valley Watcher. http://vimeo.com/24227420

Horn Group Innovator Series - Tom Foremski, Editor of Silicon Valley Watcher from Horn Group on Vimeo.

In this clip, Tom talks about how being a CMO is the toughest job in a company because everything is so fragmented. He also talks about how Silicon Valley has evolved into a media business and his thoughts on the social distribution of mass media. Tom, like other thought leaders, feels we haven't yet fully realized the potential impact of the Internet, culturally, socially, economically and globally and that we are just scratching the surface.  Thanks Tom, for your insights and consistently excellent reflections on the heartbeat of Silicon Valley.

Social Media Infiltrates the Newsroom and Optimism Returns to Journalism According to Fourth Annual Oriella Study

This morning, we launched our annual Oriella Digital Journalism Study. This is the fourth time we have
carried out the project since launching in 2008 and this year’s study yielded the most interesting results to date. A key trend was the extent to which social media has infiltrated the newsroom.

For the first time this year, we asked about the tools journalists use to source and verify their stories. Unsurprisingly, the reliance on established sources remains strong, with 61% using the PR agency and 58% using corporate spokespeople. However, what was notable was the new use of social media. 47% used Twitter and 35% used Facebook to source their stories. The blogosphere was also highly valued with 30% using blogs they know to source new story leads. However, a surprisingly high 42% of journalists also looked to blogs they didn’t know.

For the verification stage, the results were slightly lower, but a significant amount still turned to social media, despite its tendency to spread false rumours – a third used Twitter and a quarter used Facebook.The internal use of social media has also helped to shape media outlets' output. For the first time, the number of outlets that offered a Twitter feed and journalist-authored blogs exceeded 50% (55% and 54% respectively). The use of video has also increased significantly with 48% of media outlets now offering this channel. The impact of social was just one of the topics covered in our study – aspects such as audience, revenues, quality and job satisfaction have all been covered.

All the results can be found on our sister site dedicated to the study – do check it out and let us know what you think of the findings.

Video Interview with Ann Winblad, Hummer Winblad Venture Partners

In this week's Innovator Series interview, I talked with Ann Winblad, Founder and Managing Partner of Hummer Winblad Venture Partners in San Francisco.

Horn Group Innovator Series - Ann Winblad, Co-Founder and Managing Partner of Hummer Winblad Venture Partners from Horn Group on Vimeo.

What I admire about Ann is how she, and her firm, have stayed the course over so many years, investing in interesting technology companies run by smart, hard driving executives.  In this interview, she talks about how the venture model has changed, and what gets her excited, as well as some special advice for CMOs and entrepreneurs alike.

 

Digital Communications at Its Best

I’m so honored and excited to announce that The Holmes Report today named Horn Group its Technology Agency of the Year.  The need for digital communications is bigger now than ever and PR pros must embrace a much broader spectrum of offerings, hire different people, and think differently. All companies (not just those in the tech industry) can solve their communications problems with this broader approach. Congratulations to everyone - this award epitomizes our “one team, one dream” philosophy - none of our success would be possible without all of our clients, employees, media and friends in the industry! And thanks Holmes Report for looking under the hood at what we’ve been up to.

We are having completely different conversations with our clients about how we can address their business and marketing challenges. Take online advertising verification company DoubleVerify, for example. DoubleVerify wanted to rejuvenate its brand with an overhaul to its website and corporate identify. Horn Group helped DoubleVerify establish its presence as a leader in the online ad verification space with a new website, explanatory video, new print advertising, and media coverage in the advertising trades and business press alike. In this case, the PR launch was somewhere in the mix, preceded by a new website with revised messaging, a social strategy and more, all under one roof. This is digital communications at its best.

 

Digital Communications: An Agency Model for Today's CMO

Communications today is as alive and interactive as we are ourselves: verbal and visual, connected anywhere and everywhere, and moving fast. Just look at The Daily for iPad. It’s the future of publishing, and by extension, the future of what kind of content we, as communicators, need to deliver.

Communications is a content industry. Forrester’s Sean Corcoran articulated that well in his report over a year ago on Earned, Owned and Paid Media. Since then much has been written about how agencies are adapting, with varying degrees of success, to the new realities in communications and media (Forrester’s great race to relevance).

At the same time, many CMOs prefer working with best of breed agencies – specialists in a single discipline – in PR, interactive, advertising and social media. We argue that best of breed doesn’t have to mean one-trick pony. The silos that separated these disciplines are disappearing and everything is converging into a more holistic, albeit sometimes messy, far more interesting discipline that we call Digital Communications.

An agency that can combine aspects of PR, social media, interactive and advertising to create and coordinate branded content of all kinds is in the catbird seat with CMOs. These service offerings are no longer mutually exclusive: you really can’t have one without the other. At the end of the day, it’s all content and storytelling regardless of whether it’s paid, earned or owned. A story must be approached in all the many ways it will be delivered and consumed: through a coordinated combination of many different functions, formats and mediums. Going are the days where you got your web site from a web design firm, and your business press coverage from a PR firm. When our clients come to us and tell us they need to launch their latest new product, it’s a much bigger conversation than “Who’s going to write the press release?” We have to think more broadly. It’s about solving business problems and having a different conversation, having a bigger seat at the table. It comes down to asking, “Why?” and “What do you really want to accomplish?” It’s about applying everything in the communications wheelhouse to exploiting an opportunity or solving a problem. Our clients’ programs are rich and multi-faceted with video, microsites, community development, mobile apps, events and yes, press releases too.

There have been plenty of growing pains since we first introduced interactive design more than seven years ago. Days early on we asked, “Okay, how do we sell a website to a PR director?” But it’s never been clearer that there is real harmony – both strategic and tactical value – in the digital communications model. Some of the secrets to the model that we’ve learned along the way are to have a balance of generalists who can run a program from A to Z as well as specialty talent in areas like design, information architecture, development, project management. Many agencies fail to go deep with in-house talent in specialty or technical areas making it impossible to actual execute on great ideas. After talent, the other trick is infrastructure – setting up the best practices, tools and training that allow you to communicate openly and fluidly across disciplines and teams.

The point is, this is probably one of the most exciting times in our business because we get to be more, do more, learn more, and have more power to really be valuable. That’s what we all want, right? To be valuable and to make a difference. Now that is something worth shooting for!

One Team, One Dream: Reflecting on Twenty Years in Business

This is our 20^th year in business. I figure that deserves at least one good blog post. 

 In1991, we had one mantra: “Pride Passion and Results”.  It was our theme, our tagline.  Nothing stood in our way.  Technology was different then.  It was about the beginning of enterprise software and intelligent PCs.  Journalism was different too.  There were lots and lots of magazines and newspapers that people were happy to pay for.  PR was different.  There were 5 page press releases with long quotes from CEOs, and not much in the way of visuals except for maybe a photo of the CEO that required a “negative” or even a “transparency.”  We worked with 100s of companies and 1000s of great people.  Most of our clients made it, creating new markets and building new categories along way, changing the way we people live and work.   At the end of the day, our goal was to solve our clients’ communication problems by elevating their awareness, leveraging their customers’ testimonials, and showcasing their products’ value.

We’ve always strived to be a great place to work where people work hard during the day, and know they can go home and focus on their families.  It’s an entrepreneurial place…  “If you don’t know the answer to something, go ask somebody, and if they don’t, just make it up!”  I have a strong distaste for politics, I find it gets in the way of getting things done, and I encourage an environment of open communication, accountability and always, teamwork.  Results of course, are what have kept us in business, and we won lots awards for amazing campaigns and outcomes.  It was fulfilling, and it made us feel proud of our work.

Today, a lot of things are different, but a lot is still the same.  Technology is about a new generation of enterprise software (SaaS), and about the digital and social platforms for communication, shopping, and information sharing.  There are a lot fewer magazines and newspapers that people don’t want to pay for and the publishing industry is scrambling to reinvent itself, including the journalists who cover more beats than a Smorgasbord in Scandinavia.  The press release has been transformed into a digital medium that is alive, visual and in living color. Communication is all about transparency and two-way dialogue.  We work with lots of great companies and people who are still creating new markets and impacting our lives and places of business in meaningful ways.  Now we focus on solving our clients’ business problems through a beautiful blending of PR, social media and interactive design and even advertising services.  It’s sophisticated, it’s interesting, and it’s a lot more about marketing than just “getting the ink.”

Twenty years later, it’s still all about taking pride in our work, loving our business and delivering kick ass results.  We are after all, one team of amazing people http://www.facebook.com/pages/Horn-Group-Inc/104301055120 behind one common goal, one dream:  to be the best, make a difference, and to learn something along the way.  Nothing stands in our way.  Happy anniversary to all those who were there along the way: our friends, employees, clients, and media.  It has been my distinct pleasure to have worked with you all, and here's to many more years of making dreams come true. -- Sabrina

 

 

Discovery Is Latest Trend in our Consumer Portfolio

Considering Google alone gets 88 billion search queries per month – according to Search Engine Land – it seems we are always looking for something.  But what’s the common thread between looking online for an answer, a shopping deal, or the next best mobile app?  

Discovery.  That’s the theme that unites our latest client wins – announced earlier this week. Each has its own niche, tactics and take on discovery, but all three offer consumers exciting services.  

Answers.com is a leading answer engine, while BuyWithMe is a premier community buying site. Finally YD Online, a global online and mobile game developer, introduced Angel’s Choice, the first mobile game for app discovery.

These companies add to our growing consumer Internet practice, which spans both our New York and San Francisco offices.  We’re delighted to be working with the people in each of these companies and look forward to telling their stories and getting their message out. 

Horn Group's New iPhone App

Today Horn Group is extremely proud to announce the availability of our very own mobile application for iPhone. We're the first agency of our kind to design an iPhone application that puts important agency news, information and contacts in the hands of its clients, prospects and employees. The application, available for download in the iTunes App Store now, was designed and built entirely in-house by Horn Group ID – our award-winning interactive design team.

For current Horn Group clients as well as companies in search of the right digital agency, the launch of this app offers valuable insight into Horn Group's capabilities and offers iPhone users a new and convenient way to stay connected.  Our plans for future enhancements include features such as notifications, ID portfolio work and much more.  We're building apps for our clients too - stay tuned for more iPhone app launch announcements shortly.

As the digital landscape expands and flourishes in the mobile arena, it's critical to have a presence on the platform that is increasingly the last thing a user sees before they go to sleep, and the first thing when they wake up in the morning.  We believe companies should have the proper tools to compete for that prime real estate that is the curated selection of mobile applications chosen by each user.  

Find out more by viewing a walk-through video in our ID portfolio.

Horn Group MIXXing it Up

While Anthony spent some time this week at OMMA, I spent most of mine at the IAB's MIXX Conference & Expo. Horn Group had the exciting opportunity to experience Advertising Week from behind the scenes this year as we worked with the IAB to help support the conference and the MIXX Awards. Overall, MIXX was a wildly successful event, with rooms packed from beginning to end.

As usual, the biggest players in the industry used MIXX as a platform to announce important initiatives, like Twitter announcing its "Promoted Accounts," AOL announcing its Project Devil plan and Google promising changes to display ads. The IAB itself also unveiled several projects and research, including its industry-wide competition to develop brand-friendly ad formats, the first "Targeting Local Markets" and "Digital Audio Advertising Overview" reports and an overview of how IAB committees and councils are driving the digital marketing ecosystem.

The conference closed with the prestigious MIXX Awards Gala on Tuesday night, where our CEO Sabrina Horn had the honor of co-presenting the gold, silver and bronze awards in the Product Launch category. Big shout-out to Horn Group client PointRoll, which swept the Rich Media Display Category -- its clients won the gold, silver and bronze awards.

It was incredibly fulfilling to see so many Horn Group clients and friends there,whether as attendees, sponsors, award nominees or case studies. We work with amazing people and companies, and this was their week to shine. It has been a great MIXX (get it?) of learning, networking and, of course, celebrating. Like IAB Chairman David Moore said in his remarks on Tuesday, we work in the greatest industry in the world -- enough said.



We Are Interactive Design

We have been working toward this day for quite some time.   The day when we as an agency, and specifically we of the Interactive Design team, can proudly strut our stuff for our clients, colleagues and the general public.  But what does it mean and why should you care?

By launching ID today we’re formalizing what we’ve already had in practice – that visual communication is not only important by itself, but also augments PR activities.  Too many agencies make half-hearted efforts to offer these services via partnerships and third parties, and especially in the PR world, it shows in the quality of the final product.  Horn Group has been about giving our clients all the tools they need to compete since day one, and today we are announcing Horn Group ID because we want a broader audience to know about it too.

Horn Group’s DNA is infused with visual thinking and we’ve been working together to bring the conversation to the places where our clients’ customers spend their time.  The list of those places extends well beyond the website experience to mobile devices, social networks and other content channels.  To that end we’ve developed ourselves into skilled visual communicators with chops in all things design and web-related as well as mobile application development and motion graphics.

So why work with Horn Group ID?  Our mission is to create a unique personality for your brand and build your presence to achieve your business goals.  Usually that’s about two basic concepts.  Clarifying your message and getting noticed by your targets.  Here’s how we do that:

Create positive brand perception

A lot of what we do is about perception, and being perceived well can help generate traffic, leads, revenue and get you noticed by potential investors or even position your company for acquisition. By creating a high-quality online presence we instantly up level your brand perception.  For most businesses, and especially most start-ups, the Internet is really the main venue where most interactions take place every day.  Your corporate identity, website and accompanying collateral all need to be created as part of a concerted effort based on a thorough discovery process.  Rising to the top of the pack cannot be undervalued in a crowded, fragmented online world where competition for visitors’ attention is cutthroat.

Create fresh content

Content creation is a big job, and yet too often companies make the decision to take that task on themselves. The results are usually lackluster at best.  At a minimum, potential customers already interested in your products and services need to understand what you offer, and how it is different.  That’s why we have seen a huge increase in engagements to create video and motion graphics content to help explain the often-subtle differences between you and your competitors.  It’s not rocket science – hire experts to create engaging content and watch perception, traffic and new business leads increase.  Engaging and varied content is essential for SEO, and by mingling social integration points you open up new pathways for sharing and word of mouth autonomous networking.

Extend your brand experience across all channels

Then we extend the core visual concepts and content we created to work as a concerted campaign in places like Facebook, YouTube and Vimeo, as well as in ads, print publications, mobile apps and shareable content.  The idea is simple – if your business can communicate in a clear and concise manner, customers have an easier time making a buying decision about you.  The value of a consistent experience cannot be overemphasized – examples of what a closed system experience can do are all around us.  And that is exactly what digital communications aims to do – present a controlled environment of verbal and visual messages to keep the conversation on track to an end result.  Then with those guidelines in place, your user community can take and extend your message for you.   

Horn Group is everything you need in an agency today.  We are the new model.  We do what your ad agency and marketers can do; what your public relations teams can do; what your design firms do.  We are your one agency of record with a multidisciplinary team savvy in every area you need to address as part of your digital communications strategy.  We are built on solid experience and fundamentals and have some of the brightest minds and best talent today.  We’re agile enough to move quickly.  We’ll help you to stand out and get noticed.  

Introducing Horn Group ID

This is a big week in our history.  We are in essence relaunching our Interactive Design practice (formerly known as Interactive Services) with lots of goodies.  I’m really proud of this for a couple of reasons. 

Back in 2003, we were among the first, maybe even the first, boutique PR agency to start an interactive practice.  We thought interactive would be an important differentiator for us, but also that it would be the future of the PR world and communications in general.  Because of the Internet, you have to have visual capabilities along with verbal communications.  They just belong together we thought, and why not have them all under one roof?!

I’m also excited because our Interactive Design practice has grown up.  We have world-class designers and programmers, an expanded leadership team, tons of case studies to show in our portfolio, and new services in popular areas like mobile application development and video production. 

Building an interactive department “from scratch” is not for the faint of heart.  There are lots of issues to sort out.  Different billing models, business models, best practices for client service... Figuring out a way to support an integrated account with both Interactive and PR requires some training and learning on the part of the PR staff.  Now, we can proudly say we have sorted through many of these issues and are ready for the next phase in our evolution.  Sabrina

Blogs, Apps and Paywalls -- Top Trends from Survey of 774 Journalists

Today the Oriella PR Network  published our third annual study looking at the impact of digital
  media on journalism internationally. It’s our biggest study yet – with almost 775 respondents in 20+ countries across Europe, the US and Latin America taking part.  We found that digital media have hit the mainstream in newsrooms – barely one eighth of the journalists we spoke to said their publications have no digital formats whatsoever.

The increasing prominence of digital channels in newsrooms mean journalists are under more pressure than ever to produce more content in a range of different forms, and continued uncertainty in advertising markets adds to the challenges reporters and editors face.  But, job satisfaction remains high – and here’s what’s really important, almost half of the journalists we spoke to found digital media improve the quality of their output.

Here are some stats from the survey,  which can also be downloaded from our microsite.

• 46 percent of respondents are expected to produce more content than before and 30 percent work longer hours
• 47 percent say their publication includes journalist-authored blogs, and 40 percent use Twitter
• Only 17 percent say they are unhappy with their jobs
• 53 per cent say they believe their ‘offline’ (i.e. print, radio or TV) format may be taken off the market at some point in the future – up from 32 percent in 2009

For the first time this year, we asked journalists about their publications’ approaches to paid online content.  We are seeing evidence of real interest in paywalls, apps and e-reader formats as proprietors determine whether paid-content could prop-up falling ad spends.   Around two-thirds of the journalists we spoke to said their publications were researching one model or another.  This means their editors will be pushing them hard to produce material of a high-enough quality to attract the revenues bosses expect.

As PR people, our call to action is to ensure that communications is coordinated across all channels – both digital and offline – and continues to address the basic requirements of news-gathering: strong news, compelling comment, and inspiring visuals.  That sounds like PR101 basics, but it's heightened in the age of digital media and page view metrics.  Tom Foremski makes this point in his recap of the Oriella study today on Silicon Valley Watcher.  

We welcome your views on our findings.  Have digital media reached a plateau?  Is the e-reader phenomenon a flash in the pan?  Are journalists spending too much time online, at the expense of more traditional, time-consuming research?  Please check out the report, share you thoughts with us or follow the discussion on Twitter at #odjs.

Social Newsroom Launched!

Today we launced a new social newsroom on horngroup.com.  It aggregates content, news and industry insights from Horn Group and our clients in a gallery format.  We included social commenting functionality on every page to encourage community response and discussion. 

We're certainly not the first to build a social newsroom -- you know the cobbler's children have no shoes.  But we expect this kind of newsroom to quickly become a replacement for the static press rooms of most vendor sites and ultimately the entire website.  Companies are starting to figure out that they have to publish and aggregate original content, and a newsroom like this is a safe way to embark on a more social form of communications and interaction with their audience.  Agencies like ours have an opportunity to be the source for that content and it's design/distribution.

The newsroom was created by our interactive design team.  Here are some details about the navigation and content:

• the main landing page combines featured content, client and agency headlines, and direct access to our team
• the Content Gallery combines video, photos and presentations that share many of our best practices with the community
• social commenting on every piece of content
• an aggregation of feeds from all Horn Group employees on Twitter -- found on the left hand vertical column -- for a quick snapshot of what's on our minds
• search by category, tags and key words
• built on a robust, open-source content management system integrated into the rest of our website that pulls content from both outside and inside the site 

This is the start of several new directions we're taking with our website in the months ahead and we're eager for feedback.  There are bound to be some bugs and glitches along the way -- drop me a note at shannon.latta @ horngroup.com if you catch anything.  We're excited about having a more social website and the potential for doing this kind of work for other companies.

VideoSchmoozing with Horn Group

This past Tuesday, Horn Group sponsored and managed PR for the second Broadband Video Leadership Evening of the year. The event, organized by VideoNuze editor and television industry expert Will Richmond, took place at the Hudson Theatre in Times Square.

Our client, Kyte, sponsored the event with free drink tickets to everyone at the show (I think our new employee Nate Hermes registered a few times if you know what I mean). 

Will organized a great panel discussion with key executives from the broadcast, cable, syndication and technology industries, including:

• Dina Kaplan, Co-founder, blip.tv
• George Kliavkoff, EVP & Deputy Group Head, Hearst Entertainment & Syndication
• Perkins Miller, SVP, Digital Media, GM/Universal Sports, NBCU Sports and Olympics
• Matt Strauss, Matt Strauss SVP New Media, Comcast

One of the main topics the panelists discussed was whether or not advertising alone can support long-from online video content.  Steve Donahue wrote a really interesting recap of the event which can be found here.

In total, the event drew nearly 250 guests including reporters from The NY Times, MediaPost, Ad Week, Contentinople, Beet.tv. 

Once the panel concluded, the “Videoschmooze” reception kicked off with lots of food, drinks and  networking. As usual, MediaPost’s Kelly Samardak wrote a great recap of the party in her Just An Online Minute column.

Thanks to Will Richmond for organizing a great event and for the good work by HGNY Videoshmoozer’s Nicole Matthews, Susan Turner and Shelly Beason. 

Toughing it Out: Tips for Any Manager and CEO

Following is copy from an article that http://www.prweekus.com/ published earlier today.  

No doubt the first six months of 2009 were some of the toughest times that many of us have ever faced. Layoffs, salary cuts, lost revenue, delinquent clients, cash flow issues, cancelled projects...the list goes on.  And if managing your business in a recession or recovery isn’t challenging enough, the very fundamentals of our industry are changing.

So how can you keep it together from a management standpoint?  There is no time like this very moment for every leader, from departmental manager to CEO, to show strength. Here are a few tips on how the leaders in your company can muddle through.

1. It doesn’t have to be “lonely at the top”.  It’s vital to have someone you can talk to and seek advice from.  It’s important to find a mentor outside your company that can be a sounding board, who’s been there before. In addition to potentially useful or creative advice, it’s a relief to be able to talk about your concerns with someone who “gets it.”  Reach out to a small and trusted group of advisors for support.

2. Don’t share your fears with staff.  It won’t do them, or you, any good.  Good leaders present their fears as challenges within their own executive staff and brainstorm potential solutions or approaches; then invite larger groups to pitch in their ideas and thoughts.  Soon you’ll have a plan of action and a strategy.

3.  But over-communicate and be transparent.  Effective leaders are very repetitive.  Talk about your plan through multiple channels several times (in person in team meetings, email, on video, in blog posts).  When people don’t hear from you they will come to their own conclusions.  Give frequent updates on progress, even if there isn’t an update, and explain why.

4. Planning is critical.  When facing an uncertain business environment even a monthly or a weekly plan provides you and your team with a sense of order and stability amidst chaos.

5. Be realistic.  If you don’t have the answer to a question, say you don’t know. Take everyone’s ideas and get back to them.  Provide everyone with a sense of reality and what you require from your team.   Let them know what it’s going to take, and that you are in it with them.

6. Make sure to maintain some semblance of a balanced life.  Pursue hobbies, go out with friends, entertain, exercise, get a massage — your personal outlets are so important to keeping professional perspective.

7. Trust your instincts.  If there’s something you think might become a problem, listen to your gut and pay attention.  No one will call you a fool for surfacing something that may or may not be the next hurdle you have to face.

Sabrina

Happy 18th Birthday Horn Group!

Today is a special day for all of us. I can’t tell you how proud I am of what we have accomplished. We are truly an agency of entrepreneurs. We have out-maneuvered and outlived many a competitor. We have one of the best reputations in the business. We have the best people in the industry. We have made lemonade out of lemons time-and-again. The power of what we do has catapulted our clients to new heights they probably never expected or realized. And we have pioneered more innovations within our field than most.

The thing that holds all of this together is our passion to do and be the best, and to never, ever, (let me say that again, EVER) give up. I have always thought that if you really believe in something, by sheer force of will alone, it will come true. Add to that a bunch of very special people who are really smart and ingenious and the sky is the limit.

I thank all of those who helped us get to 18. Its been an honor to know you and work with you: clients, employees, business partners, friends, media, pets, family, suppliers, and the take-out place down the street. In these rather interesting times, a special message of gratitude to all of you. I know you come in everyday and are fighting the good fight. I know that you are doing this sometimes under extreme pressure and that you have made personal sacrifices. If the economic climate isn't enough to keep you busy, we are also moving at warp speed to evolve our industry with new tools and services that are changing the very nature of our business, all while keeping the wheels on the bus and supporting our clients! These are only two simple words but I want to say them to you now: Thank You.

These times have tested our strength and we’ve built up some muscle. As we turn 18 and turn a corner, we should focus on those things that make this company great: finding and doing interesting work for industry-shaping clients, further establishing leadership in our industry with game-changing ideas, and doing so in a rewarding work environment where we get to play the game our way with kick ass people. What could be better, really...? The world is our oyster and yes, the sky is indeed the limit!

So long live Horn Group! Here’s to us, and to many more years...

Sab

What Do You Get Out of Attending Conferences or Webinars?

A fellow PR pro asked me the other day, "have you ever really learned anything out of any of those social media or "how to pitch" conferences/panels you’ve attended? The implication was that many of these events just re-hash all the same old stuff. "Email me, never call," says the reporter. Great, thanks, we get it.

It got me thinking about two speaking engagements I have coming up that I am really excited about and I hope that people actually will learn something new and actionable that they can bring back to their everyday work. Any time I'm speaking in front of an audience, whether on a webinar or in person at a conference, I try to put myself in the audience's shoes and offer tactical advice in addition to high level strategy discussions. For example on a recent social media and PR panel (yes, there are a lot of those these days) I asked the panel about five specific things they look at in potential job applicants. In this economic climate, I thought the audience would especially appreciate that advice coming directly from agency executives.

It is this mentality that I will bring to two speaking engagements this June that I hope you will be able to join me for:

Tues. June 9th
PRSA Theory, Tactics and Technology Conference, New York

I'll be moderating the "Blogging Tech" panel with David Kaplan, senior correspondent, paidcontent.org, Matthew Sarre, contributing editor for PC Magazine, tech/games editor and technical director for YRB Magazine, Hannah Clark Steiman,  associate editor at Inc.,Caroline McCarthy, staff writer, CNET and Peter Kafka, senior editor, AllThingsDigital. Registration for the conference is still open and more information can be found here.

Wed. June 24th, 1pm ET
PRSourceCode "Bloggers Speak Out Panel" (Webinar)
Sign up here.

Hear from top tech bloggers, as ranked in PRSourceCode's "Best of the Blogs" study, about their preferences, blogs, peeves, and more. John Siefert, senior vice president and publisher, InformationWeek, Business Technology Network Blogs; Paul McNamara, news editor, Network World; and Joe Ciarallo, editor, PRNewser, and account supervisor, Horn Group, will provide their perspectives on the study results and discuss best practices for building relationships and getting ink.

Which Agencies "Get" Social Media? According to ZDNet Readers, Horn Group Does

In a research report released today, ZDNet social media blogger Jennifer Leggio provides a snapshot of the PR agency landscape in terms of which agencies are "best attuned to social media and are developing the most beneficial social programs for their clients."

The data, collected over the past several months, includes 500+ survey responses from senior marketers mostly employed at enterprise technology, general consumer, retail and SaaS / Web 2.0 companies. That being said, Jennifer admits that her findings represent a "small yet solid data sample."

While some of the results were positive:

55% of respondents "agree" or "strongly agree" that their agency communications are informative and on time

There is clearly still a lot of work to do:

Only 20% of respondents "agree" or "strongly agree" that their agency recommends social media strategy besides tools (i.e. Twitter, Facebook) to support business endeavors

So, whether an agency “gets it” or not, we all must continue to learn, and fast:

78% of respondents believe it is "extremely important" their agency understands social media strategy

One of the things we are most proud of at Horn Group is being named as one of only six agencies "consistently named as viable considerations for clients considering an agency switch." According to Jennifer’s research, "more than 40 percent of respondents claimed that they are considering switching agencies." In addition, out of 106 agencies mentioned in the survey that "get it," Horn Group is among the top 10 most mentioned.

A client recently said to me, "I like Horn Group, because you guys do strategic marketing, not just blasting out press releases." Certainly these findings are further validation of that sentiment.

AlwaysOn and On and On and Finally Off - Horn Group Does OnMedia 2009!

Is it really over? AlwaysOn OnMedia NYC event concluded last Wednesday, but I think I’m still feeling it. Horn Group worked hard (very hard!) on this conference. Almost the entire PR team in the New York office was in attendance for at least part of it. I was actually there from the very start to the final minute, which was a blast because I got to meet a lot of cool people: journalists, the AlwaysOn team in California and passionate executives – including several of Horn Group’s clients!

OnMedia was held at the Ritz-Carlton this year, conveniently only a few blocks from our office. The location was interesting for a few reasons.

1. Through the huge windows at the Ritz, you could see the spot where Flight 1549 finally “landed” after its Hudson River layover.
2. It’s at the absolute tip of Manhattan. With the snow storm on Tuesday, all the conference attendees were such troopers for trekking out.
3. We were a few blocks away from the New York Stock Exchange where the reception took place on Tuesday night.

It was a bit strange that while President Obama, Congress and the folks at the NYSE worried over the economic stimulus package, the tone at OnMedia was overwhelmingly optimistic. CEOs introduced new ways to monetize everything from social media to computer games, for anyone, ad networks to SMBs. OnMedia attendees seemed altogether confident that the ideas and projects in discussion would create fruitful opportunities in the upcoming year.

Mobile was an especially big theme this year, with executives excitedly talking about the possibilities in targeting and consumer data collection. Not included on our guest list, but in heavy attendance at the conference, was the iPhone which every other attendee seemed to be holding or discussing. Mark Walsh of MediaPost noted that Marco Argenti, VP for media at Nokia, saw the silver lining on the iPhone cloud: "All the buzz about the App Store demonstrates that there's a very huge demand for everyone that has an advanced phone, to do more with it."

[Before feeling sorry for Nokia, note what Jessica Tsai of CRM said in her article. "Despite the gadget's deafening buzz, the 4.4 million Apple iPhones sold last year—no matter how impressive!—paled in comparison to the world leader, Nokia (113 million mobile devices sold last year)."]

A poll conducted by KPMG and AlwaysOn found that mobile phones and the decline in ad spending were the top two “disruptive forces” in media today. But thankfully everyone’s willing to put their heads together at OnMedia and determine the best practices for 2009, keeping an open mind to all the different media that are available to advertisers whether it is mobile, online or something else. (Best quote from OnMedia: "That's $20 million bucks for a banner you cannot click on." See what David J. Moore of 24/7 Real Media was referring to on ClickZ’s site.)

Unfortunately I was unable to sit in and listen to more of the panels and CEO showcases since I was manning the press registration desk, but I can give you my highlights:

1. I shook hands with Tim Westergren, founder of Pandora, as he was checking in. At OnMedia, Chris Snyder of Wired wrote that Tim said the Palm Pre is the next iPhone and that the company would put its resources in developing specifically for the Pre, rather than all the smartphones in the market.
2. I saw Chris Hughes from Facebook walking around the halls. He spoke on Tuesday morning on a panel about what businesses can learn from President Obama’s social media campaign. Chris was a heavy hitter for the Obama campaign’s online social networking site, My.BarackObama.com.
3. One of my clients, Amplify, did a CEO Showcase on Tuesday afternoon and headed out to the lobby to present their demo. One of their visitors noted that he had stopped by after having seen our Tweet: “Amplify is at Demo Station #5 by the second ballroom. Come say hi! :) #onmedia #openamplify”. Behold, the power of Twitter.

I’m already looking forward to helping out at the next event, VideoNuze's Broadband Video Leadership Evening, on March 17th. Yup, St. Pattie's Day. :)

Going Green

Okay, this is not about the environment or clean technology.  But we are going green...of another kind. 

We just added a green screen to our SF video production studio.  Having a green screen allows  us to transport subjects to any backdrop or setting imaginable in post-production.  We had fun with it while creating the video on our new website home page. 

If you want to know more, check out the announcement about our full set of video production services.  Or come by our SF office anytime to check it out -- ask for me or our art director Sean Greenfield. 

A Nod from Journalists

We got the good word a few days ago that we've been recognized a Top Tech Communicator for the third year in a row by journalists in PRSourceCode's annual survey.  Very cool!  PRSourceCode announced the survey results this morning. 

This is a great one for us since the survey captures the opinions and preferences of journalists themselves verses other industry awards that are peer reviewed.  Congrats to everyone who placed well in the survey and many thanks to the media community for your support! 

DFJ East Coast Venture Challenge 2008

On May 15th Horn Group went to Columbia University to attend the 2nd Annual East Coast Venture Challenge, hosted by DFJ Gotham Ventures and Draper Fisher Jurvetson.  Teams made up of students from Ivy League schools, NYU and Carnegie Mellon began arriving at 8:30am to present their business plans to DFJ executives during the all-day event. The event was also open to the public, attracting an eclectic mix of entrepreneurs, sponsors and investors.  This mixture made the networking breaks particularly interesting with the teams competing for the investors’ attention off-stage as fiercely as they did on. 

At 4pm the judges went to deliberate and Noah Gellman from AlwaysOn took the stage to interview Michael Dwork, founder of VerTerra.  Michael won last year’s competition with his plan to manufacture biodegradable, disposable dinnerware made from three layers leaves gathered from farms in the Pacific Islands.  During the meal breaks attendees had the chance to “field test” his plates and the results were positive.  Most of the diners admired the modern design and the variety of shapes available.  Others were pleased by how well the sturdy dinnerware coordinated with the silverware and cloth napkins.  In fact, the majority of the unused plates were carried out by attendees since they knew that these were something you have to see to believe (I think it’s safe to say that Michael didn’t factor this into his plan to reduce waste). 

At 5pm, the winner was announced and the Widetronix team from Cornell took the stage to collect the $250,000 grand prize.  They plan to put the money towards the manufacture of pacemaker batteries with a 25 year life-span.  Batteries currently in use only last about 4-7 years. 

The judges had a very tough call to make; the ideas presented by the students during the course of the day were highly sophisticated, which is rather surprising when you consider that most came out of school projects.  It will be interesting to see how many of these plans will actually grow into full-fledged companies. 

If you’d like to find out more, stories on the event appeared in VentureBeat, Earth2Tech, Silicon Alley Insider, College Mogul, Innonate and Web2NewYork.

Horn Group Sponsors mediabistro.com PR Party in NYC

How can you get a large group of PR, media and marketing pros together? A few free drinks can't hurt.  Despite the chilly weather, 150 or so people gathered last night at Katra on the Bowery for mediabistro.com's monthly PR party, which this month was sponsored by Horn Group.

For more pictures, check out this PRNewser post. 

Horn Group East Kicks Off 2008

Horn Group East kicked off 2008 today amid the Rolling Stones "Let it Bleed" exhibit at the beautiful Morrison Hotel Gallery in Soho.  Among the topics discussed throughout the day long session were hot growth areas in 2008, including renewable energy and green technology, how PR and marketing budgets will fare in a recession and the changing metrics of a successful communications campaign. 

One of the exercises we conducted, and that we also conduct with many of our clients, was looking at a set of pictures and applying a "yes" or "no" to those pictures to determine whether or not they align with Horn Group values.  We then added words or values to those pictures to develop our core attributes as an agency.  Bridging this gap between the visual and the copy is a crucial element to communications and something we deal with every day. 

The two core values in everything we do at Horn Group are performance and passion. Performance along the lines of what we have to do and passion in how we do it. No matter what your role is at Horn Group, whether you're a developer, PR person or a designer, you know how to solve business problems.

As the communications world continues its rapid transformation, Horn Group is primed and ready for the business issues we will face in 2008 and to bring creative solutions to the table.

For some live Twittering of the kick off, check out our own Kyle Flaherty and Lisa Azizian.

 

Kick Ass Positioning

Thanks for joining us last week for the Kick Ass Positioning webinar with Bob Wright from Marketing Arts.  Several people have asked for access to a copy of the presentation -- you can find it here on our website.  I recommend listening to the audio portion to bring the presentation to life.  You can access the audio anytime by dialing:

• 1.866.803.1430
• Press "1" to indicate you want to access a recorded conference call
• Enter 9998123# for the Conference ID
• Enter 7506097# for the Playback ID

Always open to your comments...

"In a Search Driven World..."

Search and its many related topics have been front and center over here for the past few weeks.  We hosted our first webinar about week ago -- SEO4PR -- all about search engine optimization specifically for PR campaigns.  Our new friend Greg Jarboe, co-founder of SEO-PR, shared his wisdom and tips to an enthusiastic group.   We brought Greg and his team into our offices earlier this year to train our staff on SEO and the next logical step seemed to be offering all these new insights to our clients and extended network. 

For anyone who missed it, here are links to the webinar audio playback and the  presentation that Greg gave.  Greg is a master at his craft and I highly recommend taking a look to any marketing or PR person who is measured on results.

Then, late last week, we had Sam and Christy Whitmore from Media Survey back in the office.  I love spending time with these two, Sam always manages to spark a great discussion and to leave me with something new to think about.  The chat zigzagged from digital storytelling and video pitching to editorial ethics and the latest metrics on where B2B IT decision makers are hanging out online. 

But Sam said something that's relevant to search too:  "It's time to self publish!  In a search driven world, the stigma associated with self publishing content is really gone."  He's talking about the reality that we can get the facts online just by searching for them.  But that personal opinion, individual insights, custom publishing, and microsites are the new inventory.  This struck me as a great continuation of our search dialog -- we should simultaneously be optimizing our campaigns for SEO and helping people get their arms around self publishing. 

 

Going Green

Exciting times over here at Horn Group (warning, self-serving post).  For those of you who read my personal blog and for any folks who have already picked up the latest PRWeek you have already discovered the exciting news.  Horn Group has been chosen as the PR partner for World Energy Solutions.  On my blog I wrote a bit about the challenges lying ahead of all PR folks when it comes to Green PR:

The challenge is one I have not faced before in my career; establish a company within an extremely talked about market, while still avoiding the pitfalls of highly volatile political, social and economical environments AND educate people on what is real and what is perception. Eh gads!

Most of you are thinking “Stop whining, I wish we had the level of attention for our client’s industry.” And that is exactly what I thought initially. But as we did more and more research we realized how much hype and hyperbole is involved in communicating green. We’ve had to be real creative in gaining the attention of the national media and bloggers; otherwise all the attention will go to the companies who are building a car that runs strictly on the sweet tears of babies.

I also asked folks for their recommendations in this market and we have already seen some great information.  I would welcome you all to comment here as well, the more we are able to understand this market the better off we will all be; personally and professionally.

/kff

Journalists Rank Horn Group #1

Here at the Horn Group, we pride ourselves on our relationships with the media. From trade, vertical and business press, to the most widely read bloggers,  we spend time developing trusted relationships that center on mutual respect.  We've been happy to host many of the top writers and editors in our office for what we call our Media Brown Bags, open, freewheeling discussions with the ultimate goal of helping us work better together. Guests this year for the brown bags and other Horn events have included Fortune's David Kirkpatrick, Forbes's Quentin Hardy, Wall Street Journal's Pui-Wing Tam, The SF Chronicle's Dan Fost, and bloggers Robert Scoble, Tom Foremski and Om Malik, to name a few.

A couple of months ago, there was a great deal of discussion in the blogosphere on the benefits and drawbacks of PR in 2007.  I think Guy Kawasaki started it with the provacatively titled "Top 10 Reasons PR Doesn't Work", courtesy of Margie Zable Fisher of  theprsite.com.  That was followed by an argument against agencies alltogether.  Brian Solis and my colleague Kyle Flaherty weighed in on their blogs, and the discussion continues.

Well we obviously think PR does work if you do it the right way and stay current, hence our work with social media.  We're happy to report that journalists agree about us, because for the second year in a row, Horn Group has been selected as the top mid-size PR agency by 300 IT journalists.  The honor comes via PRSourcecode's "Top Tech Communicators" survey.  Those surveyed included the editorial staff from IT trades such as Computerworld, eWeek and Information Week, vertical IT trades, and IT reporters at mainstream publications such as USA Today and US News and World Report.

Reporters and editors were asked which agencies and corporate PR departments add the most value to their editorial process in terms of responsiveness, reliability, and overall recognition of their editorial needs. 

We are very proud and want to thank all the journalists who recognized us. We promise to maintain all those high standards!

Party Favors

We're all a little sleepy today after our successful industry networking party last night at Varnish Fine Arts, just a block away from our San Francisco office.

We held the bash in conjunction with the Web 2.0 Expo, and it was co-sponsored by our clients WebEx, Pageflakes and WeeWorld.  We were happy to welcome a host of Web 2.0 companies, current clients, friends and media superstars.

Our fearless leader Sabrina gave the first toast, saluting the survivors and innovators for the inspiration they lend to all of us.  WebEx Connect chief David Knight was up next, talking about the emergence of user generated content in the enterprise. Pageflakes CEO Dan Cohen wrapped up the formalities, tipping his hat to the real people out there whose contributions and collaborations bring it home for all of us.  Dan has also set up a special Web 2.0 Expo Pageflakes home page so everyone can keep up with the latest and the greatest.

What's Ahead for Us?

Greetings to all for a healthy, peaceful and prosperous 2007!

Here is an update and a look forward as Horn Group enters its 16th year. In 2006, the company grew back to pre-bubble levels and is well on its way to $10mm. In our quest to become a more full-service communications firm, I'm quite pleased that over 25% of our business came from fully integrated communications programs containing both public relations and interactive services. More and more, we see the market looking for that one-stop-shopping experience, and selecting the boutique as the provider of those services. These developments support our position as a strategic communications firm specializing in public relations and digital marketing for technology companies.

Software-as-a-Service became a category in our own portfolio with market-leading companies like BlueRoads, CollabNet, RightNow, Taleo, WebEx and Workday. We successfully expanded our portfolio by adding a healthy gathering of digital media companies including QuickPlay, RightMedia, WeeWorld and projects with ClubMom and Glam.com. And, we began work with several highly respected venture capital firms: New Venture Partners, StarVest Partners, Valhalla Partners and Venrock Associates.

Last year, the agency was awarded the Web Marketing Association's 2006 WebAward for website design and the 2006 Bell Ringer Award for media relations. Another achievement: in November, we partnered with CollabNet to sponsor "Staying Ahead in a Flat World" in New York. The exclusive panel featured distinguished author and journalist Thomas L. Friedman (The World is Flat), Tim O'Reilly (O'Reilly Media founder and Web 2.0 luminary) and was moderated by Fortune's David Kirkpatrick. We expanded internationally with the introduction of the Constella Network, co-founded with our UK partner Brands2Life. Constella is a network of 15 independent communications agencies in 20 countries throughout The Americas, Europe and Asia/Pacific. We look forward to extending this network to our clients in 2007.

Looking ahead, we see tremendous opportunity for the software industry within the venture and private equity communities. While the IPO market in the US isn't rocking the charts, there will be plenty of M&A activity, particularly within the mid-sized software market. We stand ready to help our clients and other companies at every stage of growth, be it their first go-to-market launch, their repositioning and re-branding, or expansion into new markets. We expect integrated communications to become even more fundamental to our business, both in terms of client service as well as professional development for our own people. As the blogosphere becomes mainstream this year, we will round out our Media Practice with specialists and experts in the field to better help our clients engage this audience of influencers.

Our business strategy is simple and remains the same: great client service for great companies provided by great people. We continue focus on the B2B software market as well as interesting companies in emerging technologies and digital media. In an industry where one tends to over-complicate, we intend to simplify. Often, the best brands are based on the simplest strategy, conceived and implemented at just the right time. But key to the essence of any brand is the emotional connection created among its consumers. The originality and freshness of our thinking remain paramount, the execution is a given and must be flawless. We have planted all the right seeds and they have sprouted. This year is the year they grow tall and strong. For my part, I can't wait to get up every day and make a difference for our fearless clients, our fantastic employees and our wider circle of friends. Here's to all of you and your continued success. We thank you for your business, support and friendship. And here's to Horn Group and our 16th year!

The Constella Network

I've been busy these past few weeks putting the finishing touches on the Constella Network with  my cohort and  co-founder Giles Fraser at Brands2Life.   And today we launched!  Constella is a network of 15 indepenent agencies in 20 countries around the globe.  Our pitch is that the network gives companies a fresh option for global PR that doesn't really exist out there -- intimate, real realtionships, the best local shops but with infrastrucutre of a big global network.  Check out the details in our announcement.   

With all the luke warm US sentiments Sabrina witnessed at ETRE  last month, it feels good to be rallying such a quality group of people around the world.  Plus, I'm still fresh back from living in France for the past two years, so building out our global network is close to home for me personally. 

Horn Group and Brands2Life have worked together for almost 4 years now, we've wanted to build and run this network together for more than a year.  We're working with a lot of old friends like The Jeffrey Group in Latin America and EastWei in China.  But we're also working with several great new friends, like MAVERICK PR in Canada (we had a ton of fun last month working on a big pitch together up in Seattle) and Upstream Asia, who has offices throughout Asia and Australia. 

Brands2Life, who covers the UK, brought a group of companies to the network that is just out of this world.  These really are the best local and independent PR and comms firms in each of their countries (top tech brands, great awards for their work, A+ people): Lammers Van Toorenburg in Benelux; Point Virgule in France; Fink & Fuchs Public Relations, MaCS Marketing-Communications-Services, and PR-Com in Germany; Canela in Spain; Now PR in Italy; and Westmark Information in Sweden.

Next up -- we have to add a killer partner in India. 

Agency of a 1000 faces

I'm reviewing our project plans today and I have to admit I'm a little amazed by the diversity of our work these days. For example this month we placed and designed a billboard for BlueRoads on 101 North and are in the process of designing the web UI for one of our client's flag ship products. Oh, and our development team is building an open source content management system. I can't help but wonder if we're spreading ourselves too thin. Or even worse, having an identity crisis.

Maybe we are, in that we don't really know what to call ourselves, or the labels available are close but don't really fit us completely. But does that really matter? While it may seem that user interface design and outdoor advertising are worlds apart - and a universe apart from our PR roots - really they're not. Ultimately everything we do is about communication. Media relations, branding, messaging, web design-- it's all about communicating information in a way that tells a story and resonates with a specific audience. To us, the verbal and visual brand are two equally important halves to a whole, and building software tools is about using technology to make it easier for our client's to communicate.

Summer Soiree at the Spanish Suite

The San Francisco Horn Group office usually holds its annual industry shindig in the spring, but this year decided the Summer Solstice would be the best time to celebrate the continuing resurgence of the technology industry in the Silicon Valley and beyond.

Industry executives, venture capitalists, and media all gathered at the beautiful Spanish Suite at the historic Clift Hotel. We were 15 floors above San Francisco’s Union Square, and the tented deck let us all enjoy a gorgeous San Francisco night. We were happy to welcome almost all of our SF-Silicon Valley based clients and friends, and it was certainly a blast to shoot the breeze (as opposed to pitch) reporters and editors from such publications as Barrons, CNET, Forbes, Business 2.0 and eWeek, to name a few. Clients in attendance included ArcSight, Blue Roads, Collabnet, Glam, Good Technology, Right Now, Taleo, Transera, Vontu, WebEx and Westcon

Our fearless leader Sabrina, toasted the night by first showing off the decidedly non-technology product from one of the distinguished Horn Group alumni, Jonna Jurkovich. I wish I had a better picture, but here’s Sabrina, sitting next to Jonna, (on the left, with HG’s Jaimie Lovejoy on the right) and wearing one of Jonna’s fashion creations. Sabrina ran down the technologies we’ve seen come and go in the 15 year history of the Horn Group, remembered the tech bust, and celebrated the return of the energy, funding and rush-hour traffic. As the industry evolves, PR is evolving as well, and Sabrina says it’ll be less public relations, more marketing communications moving forward with increased roles for video and interactive services, blogging and social media in general. And as to a global view of the future, Sabrina said “As a country we find ourselves looking over our shoulders for the first time to India, to China, and Russia. Sadly, I believe, and maybe you disagree..or agree....Americans must shed their sense of entitlement to play in a new game that’s not in our own backyard. As Geoff Moore recently said, we need to get better at playing away games because those are the games we’re going to be playing a lot more of.”

Esther Dyson, editor at large at CNET and of course the woman behind PC Forum and Release 1.0, was scheduled to give a toast, but rush-hour at the airport kept her from attending. She did send these remarks: "The proper role of the PR firm, increasingly, is to explain complex truths. More and more things in our world are hard to understand, and need explanation rather than description. The public wants to know how things work. They want to know not just what is offered, but the revenue model and motivations behind it. PR is becoming increasingly challenging. From the point of the view of the PR firm's client, the job of the PR firm is not just to praise products or explain behavior, but to feed back the public viewpoint and to *improve* the client's behavior. That is, the PR firm helps the client not just to speak, but to listen. That's the value the Horn Group brings in, and I invite you to represent me in celebrating it. " Thank you Esther!

Tom Foremski of Silicon Valley Watcher, was live and in person and took the microphone for a few moments. “I come from the mainstream media side of things, there’s something really interesting happening right now that affects us all in PR, communications and in the media,” Tom mused. “Never at any point in our lives will we be at such a disruptive period of our industry, and that means we have a chance to figure out what the next 5-10 years is going to look like. And a lot of the innovation is going to come from the media and PR industry, and that is such a thrilling thing to be a part of.” Amen

Horn Group Hits 15!

This month marks Horn Group’s 15 year anniversary. Anything in business that lasts for 15 years is worth writing about. So here goes. On June 4, 1991, I borrowed an office at my father’s venture firm and set about serving my two clients: PeopleSoft, then a $5mm, 50-person company, and Rotoflex, a manufacturer of pump seals that required no lubrication. I had my copy of Bacon’s in tow and a hard-to-use PR database that I bought with my own money. My parents were worried. My father popped his head in all the time. He said my odds at making it were slim. I forged ahead. Clearly PeopleSoft made it, and we enjoyed a long 7 year run with them. We built a franchise of clients around PeopleSoft. I had this idea that the world needed a whole new class of application software and tools to help businesses work better. A hole-in-one. I was a lucky girl. But I learned that you make your own luck.

Some of the things I remember about those early days include my disregard for time tracking programs that capture everyone’s billable hours. We sure left a lot of money on the table back then. I didn’t care and I still don’t. It all comes back to you at some point. Honestly, I wasn’t interested in making a lot of money back then. I just wanted to do a great job for our clients and stay in business. I got emotional. Some times, I didn’t know what I was doing and learned that I had to develop skills in running our business, not just doing the business of our business. I learned that it begins and ends with your people. And I wanted to change the standards by which agencies treat and manage and lead their people: directly, honestly, with compassion and passion. My office used to be called the "Passion Pit" for the excitement and love of our business that I felt and told everyone about everyday. I drove people nuts.

When the Internet came along, we started a 6 year relationship with Commerce One, which marked phase two of our history. What a wild ride those times were. We went all the way up and all the way down. As wonderful as those times were, I also really didn’t care for them. We could have emptied our pockets for our employees and still not kept them. Some agencies had 80% turnover in a year. I was devastated by our 35% turnover. It was all so crazy. The sense of entitlement killed me. Someone actually asked if they could take naps downstairs in our break room. Our employees wanted to work on fun, cool "dot com" business and not the boring enterprise software business. But I had this weird feeling that it was all going to crater. In the end, I think we survived because our business slowly eroded, it didn’t just disappear overnight.

After 9/11 I got this idea that we need to be in New York. That’s probably phase three of Horn Group. It marked a new beginning, a new market, a hot place to be (and I’m not just talking in August). I wanted to be close to Wall Street when the market came back. I wanted to be close to the center of the publishing industry. And I wanted to diversify our talent pool and our portfolio. Today we are working with consumer tech and digital media companies. Everyone’s a whole lot smarter and wiser this time around. We’ve added creative and interactive services to the mix (it’s about 20% of revenues today). We even opened a satellite office in Virginia. I always thought our growth strategy was prudent geographic expansion, services extensions, and new market exploration. With a few exceptions, that’s proven to have been a good strategy.

In total we’ve employed about 250 people. We saw about 50 of them get married, and saw 30 children born into this world. We’ve worked with about 550 companies, and billed out about $85mm over the years. And we’ve billed out about 700,000 hours.

So to all the people who helped build the Horn Group over the last 15 years, and to all those who join us in the years to come, I salute you and I thank you for your passion for our business, for your ideas and for your loyalty, your honesty and conviction, and for building something that most only dream about. And to all the clients who believed in us and stuck with us through thick and through thin, I thank you. Sometimes we made mistakes and slipped. But for the most part, I am proud of the work and the results we have delivered.

They say our business is all about spin. I think that’s a four-letter word. Great PR and communication is about telling the truth. It is such a gift. What will phases four, five and six bring? Who knows! But I surely love waking up everyday and thinking about what’s next. Happy Anniversary Horn Group!

In the Wake of Blake

Reading all the posts about Blake Barbara's career plans (and the fate of the WetFeetPR blog) has given me lots of warm-and-fuzzies.  Seeing that much support for any one person just makes you feel good.  As an employer you never like to see one of the good ones go, but you've got to admire someone for pursuing a calling.   

Blake's eagerness to explore helped move our business and culture along.  Tom Foremski's comments today made me think about the impact of young staffers on company and culture.  "The future of PR is in the hands of Blake's generation and often it is these younger people...that know more about this emerging world...  They haven't yet been taught what can and cannot be done..." 

We've always said that our culture starts at the top, and while that's partly true culture is never entirely top down, it's all around.  NY blogger Tara Settembre (TaraMetBlog) is an AE here who rallied our whole office this month to raise money and do the Revlon Run/Walk for cancer.  She mobilized the team and got us out of the daily grind for a while.  This was better for our culture than any controlled team building exercise. 

Calling all wet feet, you have the power to impact and influence! 

Caring about Cancer

On May 6th Horn Group’s New York office participated in the annual Revlon Run/Walk for Women’s Cancers. Despite the bad weather predictions and being Cinco De Mayoed out from the night before, the 5k event turned out to be a great success.

Outfitted in our gray Horn Group team shirts and official racing numbers pinned to our backs, our team, which not only included employees but friends and family were up bright and early for the 9:15 a.m. start time.

It was inspiring and exciting to be among the 40,000+ people that turned up in Times Square in support for finding a cure and being amidst a sea of team signs, pink survivor hats and touching memorial signs.  Music played at the start line and confetti was released in encouragement as the run/walk began. Those of us who ran or jogged took off along the side lines dodging around the many people, but met up with our entire group at the end of the course at the top of Central Park where the closing festivities took place. 

As for the fundraising part, team Horn Group met our office fundraising goal by raising $1,500--that’s not including the entry fees even, which also go directly to the charity to support cancer research, treatment and prevention.   

Special thanks everyone who participated or donated to the worthwhile charity and for making the run/walk such a great event.

The Digital Defrost at Software 2006

We hosted a lively discussion here at Software 2006 in Santa Clara yesterday. I counted about 55 people at the afternoon session dubbed 'The Digital Defrost: How Blogging and other Social Media are Changing Marketing Communucations'. Sabrina hosted the panel that included Andy Lark, blogger and consultant with Sun PR   history; Bruce Lowry who runs global PR at Novell and writes their Open PR blog; Fred Vogelstien, formerly at Fortune; and Sarah Lacy from BusinessWeek. Andy already posted a great recap of the panel along with some thoughts it triggered for him.  Thanks to all four of you for joining us and sparking a good debate. Several people have commented to me that they wished we could have kept going!

This is an enterprise software show -- an audience that is still figuring out the relevance of the blogosphere for their paying customers. Almost every type of tech company except enterprise software (with only a few exceptions) has realized that blogging as a communications media is vital to their business. Webbie start-ups have even commented that a post on engadget is more valuable to them than a mention in The NYT or The WSJ. That comment has sparked a lot of pondering over traditional media value. It dawned on me during our panel that it's not so much about value as it is about relevance. A Web 2.0 start-up and its product are more viral in nature than an enterprise software company that has to appeal to a F500 CFO. So the engadget post for one has the same power the NYT piece has for the other. Sarah predicts that enterprise software companies won't embrace blogging. Andy sees a divide building. He guessed that for nimble start-ups that have a hard time grabbing the attention of the mainstream media, blogging can be their most important communications tactic. While larger public companies who want to retain control of their brand may not jump in, thus the divide.

My view?  Enterprise software has already caught the viral thing (look at Ray Lane's 7 Laws that he ended his keynote with yesterday) and companies will adapt at the rate their cultures and customers will allow.  I just overheard Tom Foremski in the press room here say that "enterprise software has gotten interesting all of a sudden..." and that's a terrific way to end the conference, and this post! 

Toasting Digital Defrost: A New York State of Mind

With 105 media, CEOs and VCs in attendance, this year’s annual industry party, hosted by Horn Group and dubbed The Digital Defrost, was an intellectual and social success. Our hostess Sabrina Horn gathered a group of innovators and friends who offered toasts and musings midway through the party.

Standing high on the inside steps in the fashionable bar and club Earth, the Deputy Mayor of New York City Dan Doctoroff, opened the evening toasts by discussing the future of tech and lower Manhattan. Comparing Lower Manhattan and the Tech Boom, he said that both underwent the same cycle of rapid rise and collapse, which mirrored the devistating attacks on the nearby World Trade Center.

Yet, on a more enthusiastic note, he said that within a thr ee-block circumference around Ground Zero there is already $10 billion dollars in construction and growth in progress. He went on to say that technology will play a critical role in the NY of the future and that the city has to focus on tech in order to continue to grow.

“The City is committed to make your [technology] industry grow, since you are a leg the economy will rest on for generations to come,” said Doctoroff addressing the crowd.

Samir Arora, CEO and Founder of Glam Media, Inc, also shared his technology view of the future. On the internet media front, he said that we’re seeing users and consumers participating directly with digital content and it has resulted in the immergence of the interactive, engaged and involved user. “The new generation is creating media and software just as much as it is being consumed,” said Arora. 

As an example of user driven content he reflected on the popularity of MySpace and YouTube. He said that understanding this value chain will help continue the growth and recovery of New York.

Ron Hovespian, President/COO of Novell gave his predictions next. He sees open source changing the rules of the tech game and forecasted that the cycle is just beginning to change how software will evolve. One example is the pricing models, which he said have already changed in order to better fit the customer.  “There are exciting things happening as a result,” said Hovespain. “Just like the on-demand model is making exciting changes on the opposite side of the spectrum.”

In a break away from predictions and toasts, Patrick Cummings, CEO of iGuitar, followed with a lively demo of his new electric guitar that connects directly to PCs or Macs through a USB cable. This allows guitarists to have the technology that keyboarders have had for years said Cummings, since the iGuitar lets you lay down tracks, create MP3s and turn your normal strikes over the strings into a synthesizer eliciting sounds from a piano, French horn, drums…you name it.

After a chorus of ‘wows’ and ‘ahs’ came the even livelier comments of Dennis Kneale from Forbes magazine, who delivered the final toast. Claiming to be another soothsayer, but one apparently with clout due to past correct predictions on his side, in a triumphant voice said to the audience that the next big thing in tech would be “video baby!” and also highlighted the popularity of YouTube.

However, instead of simply the one video uploading site, Kneale says that there will be real-time, ubiquitous video, everywhere from e-mail to websites creating profound changes in the industry. He also added with stand-up comic-like timing, that this next step also is “revolutionizing the idea of obscene phone calls.”

With the future of tech demystified, the crowd turned back to the bar for further discussion and debate, not to be captured on YouTube thankfully.

Technorati Tags: Horn Group, Events

WebEx In the House

There's a discussion string in the blogosphere right now about webinars vs. podcasts -- see BlueLine and Micro Persuasion.  There's no question in my mind that there is room for both in the digital workplace.  The one way nature of 'casting' of any kind (broad, pod, video) is perfect for conveying information but is not suited for interactive group meetings and collaboration. 

We're excited over here because WebEx selected us as their agency last week -- just a few days in we're already moving at light speed.  WedEx is the #1 web conferencing provider and, according to IDC, the market leader in on demand software.  That makes for a great story!  And we're especially jazzed about role WebEx is playing in building the workforce of the future around collaboration.

Shannon Latta, Partner, [email protected]

Shining Under the Blog-Light

Three clients in one important story – this may be a first for the agency. I can think of no better way to start the new year than to see three Horn Group clients listed in Tom Foremski’s IMHO ZDNet blog. It’s no surprise that Greg Gianforte of RightNow is noted for his willingness to go against the grain – on everything from business models to the unnecessary evil of VC funding. Geoff Moore gets a nudge from Tom to come through on his promise to refute Greg’s VC stance and our Virsa gets a nod as a Ray Lane chosen start-up. It’s the transparency and humbleness of blogging which makes it powerful and scares PR people like me. In the new media world, a PR source is both more valuable and perhaps more accountable than in the print media world. The search light effect of blogging– illuminating what’s real and what’s relevant –  makes Tom’s picks and insights all the more meaningful for us. And hey, it feels good to have hot clients.  2006 marks the year of technology-enabled journalism as mainstream. I for one, am ready for a change.  --Caroline Hacker

Room to Give to 'Room to Read'

Every year at this time we send holiday cards to our clients and contacts – we usually send real cards by snail mail.  For such a simple a gesture it is quite costly – between design, printing and postage it quickly adds up to thousands of dollars.  This year we opted to make a donation with that same money in honor of the clients and other contacts that have supported us throughout the year.   

We asked our staff to suggest non-profits close to their hearts – there were lots of requests for tsunami and hurricane relief, the well-respected Red Cross and UNICEF, cancer research and several organizations that operate locally near each of our offices.  In total we researched a dozen groups – we selected Room to Read!  Founded by John Wood during the height of his career at Microsoft, Room to Read builds schools and libraries in rural villages. The organization also donates books and establishes computer labs for young children and teachers in the developing world.   

We first saw John Wood and Room to Read a few years ago at Software 2004.  Since then, they have donated their millionth book, constructed 140 schools and 2,400 libraries, and established close to 60 computer labs.  The organization keeps its overhead low so that more than 90 percent of its contributions go directly to projects.  Since its inception, Room to Read has impacted the lives of close to 1 million children.  Ours is an industry with generous funds and it’s a pleasure to give a small slice of that back to the global community. 

Happy holidays from everyone here at Horn Group!

Consumer Tech Update

This time a year ago we decided to expand our client portfolio to include consumer tech companies.  It served us well to stay laser focused on enterprise software for the past 15 years – never getting distracted by the boom babies that pulled so many agencies down with them.  Now the time is right!  Earlier this year we hired vice president Martha Feingold to head our consumer tech efforts.  Martha’s background includes several years at Edelman on the Apple account, including the launches of iPod and iTunes. 

More recently we attended the Consumer Technology Ventures conference – Downloading the Digital Lifestyle – in early November.  It’s already been a month (we’ve been busy!) but we’ve been meaning to share some thoughts.  The event gave hot start ups a venue to pitch and shop for funding among a great group of VCs, analysts, journalists and CEOs.  We were surprised to find that we were the only agency that attended – no complaints!  More than 70 start ups pitched their hearts out – while more established MySpace and Slingbox got a lot of buzz.  Hot topics were targeted consumer outreach, social networking and portable digital music and video. 

Words from Walt…
Walt Mossberg, personal tech columnist for the Wall Street Journal – worshipped and feared by anyone launching a new consumer technology product – gave one of the keynotes.  He shared what he sees as the five leading trends and issues.

1. The device formerly known as the cell phone – Walt’s words to talk about how hot a platform the cell phone has become.  However, he thinks the software is poor and the service providers are strangling innovation. Walt refers to the carriers as “the soviet ministries” because they shouldn’t control what device you get to use.
2. Wireless everything, wi-fi, wi-max etc.  He’s worried about security problems and compatibility between systems.
3. The napsterization of digital content. Walt points to how the video iPod is revolutionizing television, as seen in decisions by ABC, CBS and NBC to sell content. The big problem here is digital rights management.  Walt calls Sony the “Ayatollah of DRM” and we saw in Rolling Stone how their latest plan backfired on them.
4. Convergence is here, but it’s too complicated.  He calls for plug and play technologies.
5. The new web apps. Walt’s especially impressed by what can be done with AJAX and Flash.  Even Microsoft has thrown in the towel with the announcement of Office Live!.

Walt’s remarks aside, there were dozens of interesting companies on stage during the two day event.  A few of our favorites are:
• Predixis – technology that automatically categorizes and catalogs your music, making it much easier to create playlists. Did you know that 50% of all MP3 players carry less then 100 songs?
• Music Gremlin – provides direct-to-device wireless content distribution. In other words, take out the PC as the source to download music, videos before you load them on your iPod. They’re coming out with a player, but really want to license their technology.
• Truveo – operates a search engine for online video using a visual crawler technology. Try to look for a news clip on Yahoo! or Google, and then try it again with Truveo. We’d be surprised if they’re not snapped up by the big guys soon.
• Peerflix – an online trading platform for goods and services, the first application is DVDs.
• Glam Media – overall consumer spending is 83% women. Online it’s just 50%. Over 80% of premium, luxury companies don’t advertise on the web. Those are the stats that drove the creation of glam.com where they create a browse-click-buy experience.
• Mobissimo – a travel search engine that searches both direct supplier and other travel websites. CEO Beatrice Tarka blew everyone away when she did a gutsy side-by-side comparison with well-funded Kayak with Kayak CEO Steve Hafner right there in the room.

Our Advisory Council

Today we announced our Advisory Council for 2006. The group’s mission is to help guide us in our quest for exceptional client service and business practices. This can mean a formal planning session or a simple phone conversation to test ideas among trusted colleagues. Since we formed the group several years ago, a number of new people have joined this remarkable team. 

Our council members also serve as extended resources to our clients and wider circle of friends. The group represents a complete cross-section of the software industry – software leaders, serial entrepreneurs, media and analyst influencers, investors and international communications experts. 

Our council members include:

• Rick Bergquist, Former Chief Technology Officer, PeopleSoft, Inc., Pleasanton, CA
• Maureen Blanc, Founder, Blanc & Otus, San Francisco, CA
• Charles Curran, Partner, Valhalla Ventures, Vienna, VA
• Giles Fraser, Co-Founder, Brands2Life, Inc., London, England
• Bill Hewitt, Chief Marketing Officer, Novell, Inc., Waltham, MA
• Judith Hurwitz, President, Hurwitz Associates, Waltham, MA
• Louise Kehoe, Media Consultant, Former Reporter, Financial Times, San Mateo, CA
• Darlene Mann, President, CEO, Siperian, Inc., San Mateo, CA
• MR Rangaswami, Founder, Sand Hill Group, San Francisco, CA
• Bruce Richardson, Executive Vice President, AMR Research, Boston, MA
• Roger Sippl, Co-Founder, Chairman, Above All Software, Redwood City, CA
• Peter Sobiloff, Managing Director, Insight Venture Partners, New York, NY
• Jeanne Sullivan, General Partner, StarVest Partners, New York, NY
• Sam Whitmore, President, SWMS MediaSurvey, Inc., Boston, MA

We’re excited to be working side by side each of these people, and we’re grateful for their support. 

Horn Group Making it Happen

Early this year, Sabrina Horn declared the company motto for 2005: “Make It Happen.”  Horn Group New York is doing just this, with the help of new local friends.

On August 31, 2005, New York Governor George Pataki signed a bill to give incentives for New York companies to move downtown as part of an effort to revitalize the city.  Among those taking advantage of these incentives is the Horn Group, which is moving the New York office downtown to 55 Broad St. to join tech-minded companies such as Cap Gemini, Nokia and Sun Microsystems.  Speaking at the press conference in the building alongside Gov. Pataki and Mayor Bloomberg, Horn Group managing director Chris Faust outlined the company’s plans for growth and expansion.  With cool aplomb, Chris leveraged the experiences he’s had over the years to become the company spokesperson, giving a brief speech about the Horn Group’s commitment to New York and our clients.

As New York Newsday states, we plan on increasing employees from 15 to 45 in the next two years.  Hey, if it appears in print, then we’ve got to make it happen.