Interviews

FIR Interviews

Tuesday, January 29, 2008

FIR Interview: Sarah Dean Forrester on Crisis Communication - Jan 29, 2008

Crisis communication is a hot topic. In episode #310 of The Hobson & Holtz Report on January 14, it was a primary discussion point, addressing the different types of communication crises.

FIR co-host Shel Holtz expanded on that discussion with Crisis communication fundamentals, a post that looked at the roots of a crisis, three major categories of crisis, why crises escalate, developing strategies and response guidelines.

During the Don’t Panic Guide to Crisis Communications conference in London on January 25, FIR co-host Neville Hobson spoke with conference speaker and communications consultant Sarah Dean Forrester who offered additional insight into aspects of effective crisis communication planning and management.

About our Conversation Partner

Sarah Dean Forrester is a Senior Consultant and Associate Director at Trimedia, one of the UK’s leading full-service public relations and communications consultancies, based in Manchester, England.

Sarah has worked in public relations and corporate communications since leaving journalism more than twelve years ago, in sectors including healthcare, education and the emergency services.

Her work has included liaising with and supporting in-house communications staff; designing internal and external communications strategies; identifying opportunities to engender debate around relevant issues and key messages; stakeholder engagement; devising and testing key messages and contentious Q&As; coordinating staff newsletters and bulletins; devising and managing content for the consultation websites; building relationships with editors and reporters; providing and devising presentation and media skills training for spokespeople; and editing and managing the production of magazines and newsletters.

Sarah’s career experience also includes working as Head of Press Office at Greater Manchester Police, where she managed a team of ten people dealing with operational crime, major incidents, homicides, high profile trials and the reputation of the Force.

Download the 9:40 conversation here (MP3, 4.4MB), or sign up for the Interviews RSS feed to get it and future interviews automatically. For automatic synchronization with your iPod or other digital player, you’ll also need a podcatcher such as the free Juice, DopplerRadio or iTunes, or an RSS aggregator that supports podcasts such as FeedDemon.

To receive all For Immediate Release podcasts including the twice-weekly Hobson & Holtz Report, sign up for the full RSS feed.

Listen to this podcast now:

If you have comments or questions about this podcast, or suggestions for future interviews, email us at fircomments@gmail.com; or call the Comment Line at +1 206 222 2803 (North America) or +44 20 8133 9844 (Europe); or Skype: fircomments; or comment at Twitter: twitter.com/FIR; or at Jaiku: fir.jaiku.com. You can email your comments, questions and suggestions as MP3 file attachments, if you wish (max. 3 minutes / 5Mb attachment, please!). We’ll be happy to see how we can include your audio contribution in a show.

This FIR Interview is brought to you with Lawrence Ragan Communications, serving communicators worldwide for 35 years. Information: www.ragan.com.

Podsafe intro music - On A Podcast Instrumental Mix (MP3, 5Mb) by Cruisebox.

Posted by neville on 01/29 at 08:32 AM
Show Notes • Interviews • (2) Comments • Permalink

Wednesday, January 16, 2008

FIR Interview: Forrester Principal Analyst Erica Driver on Virtual Worlds - January 16, 2008

Virtual worlds such as Second Life are often dismissed as venues for business, but a recent study by Forrester—“Getting Real Work Done in Virtual Worlds”—paints a different picture. Instead of focusing on the marketing efforts that have occupied most media coverage of virtual worlds, the report delves into the role these three-dimensional environments can play in workplace collaboration, simulations, and other day-to-day business activities that generally require face-to-face engagement. Principal Analyst Erica Driver, the lead author of the study, joined Shel Holtz for a 30-minute discussion about the report’s findings.

About our Conversation Partner

Erica Driver (formerly Rugullies) primarily contributes to Forrester’s offerings for the Information and Knowledge Management professional. She is a leading expert on enterprise collaboration strategies and platforms and Information Workplace strategies and platforms. In the past, Erica has covered information rights management, message archiving, product information management, idea management, product life-cycle management, commerce servers, eProcurement, business-to-business (B2B) marketplaces, and electronic bill presentment and payment.

Erica came to Forrester through its acquisition of Giga Information Group. She covered a wide range of trends and technologies in her more than six years with Giga. Prior to joining Giga, Erica was a research analyst at Hurwitz Group, where she covered electronic commerce and information security. She has experience with Lotus Notes/Domino application development and administration, network administration, and project management. She has also served on the board of trustees of the Massachusetts Electronic Commerce Association.

Download the 30-minute conversation here (MP3, 14MB), or sign up for the Interviews RSS feed to get it and future interviews automatically. For automatic synchronization with your iPod or other digital player, you’ll also need a such as the free Juice, DopplerRadio or iTunes, or an RSS aggregator that supports podcasts such as FeedDemon.

To receive all For Immediate Release podcasts including the twice-weekly Hobson & Holtz Report, sign up for the full RSS feed.

Listen to this podcast now:

This FIR Interview is brought to you with Lawrence Ragan Communications, serving communicators worldwide for 35 years. Information: www.ragan.com.

Podsafe intro music - On A Podcast Instrumental Mix (MP3, 5Mb) by Cruisebox.

Posted by shel on 01/16 at 07:42 AM
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Wednesday, January 09, 2008

FIR Interview: John “Pat” Philbin, former FEMA Communications Director - January 9, 2008

One of the bigger PR news stories of 2007 involved a press conference staged by the Federal Emergency Management Agency in October to address the California wildfires. FEMA’s External Affairs Director John “Pat” Philbin was slated to take a new position as Public Affairs Director for the Director of National Intelligence, but in the wake of the press conference controversy, that offer was withdrawn. In this wide-ranging interview, Philbin discusses the events that occurred leading up to, and the fallout from, the press conference, and offers advice for communicators who may find themselves in a similar position.

About our Conversation Partner

Pat Philbin brought more than 20 years of experience in strategic communication, public affairs, organization management and business development within government organizations to his position at FEMA, which he began in June 2006. Before joining FEMA, Philbin worked for Anteon/General Dynamics Information Technology as a Technical Director where he served as a consultant in strategic communication to the Department of Defense’s Business Transformation Agency directing and assisting in communication efforts to Congress, the Government Accountability Office, and the general public. He also served as the Senior Vice President of Government Relations and Communications for a private security firm.

Philbin served 21 years in the U.S. Coast Guard from which he retired as Chief of Public Affairs in 2004. He holds a Doctorate in Communication from the University of Maryland, a Master of Science in Public Relations from Syracuse University, and a Bachelor of Science in Government from the U.S. Coast Guard Academy. He also holds an Accreditation in Public Relations (APR) and is a member of the Public Relations Society of America.

About our Guest Interviewer

Kami Huyse Kami Watson Huyse, APR, principal of My PR Pro, an independent agency based in San Antonio, Texas, writes about public relations and communications. She has a background in crisis communication and reputation management, executing social media campaigns, conducting focus group research, and media relations. Kami has been working in public relations since 1994. She blogs at Communication Overtones.

Download the 64-minute conversation here (MP3, 29.2MB), or sign up for the Interviews RSS feed to get it and future interviews automatically. For automatic synchronization with your iPod or other digital player, you’ll also need a such as the free Juice, DopplerRadio or iTunes, or an RSS aggregator that supports podcasts such as FeedDemon.

To receive all For Immediate Release podcasts including the twice-weekly Hobson & Holtz Report, sign up for the full RSS feed.

Listen to this podcast now:

This FIR Interview is brought to you with Lawrence Ragan Communications, serving communicators worldwide for 35 years. Information: www.ragan.com.

Podsafe intro music - On A Podcast Instrumental Mix (MP3, 5Mb) by Cruisebox.

Posted by shel on 01/09 at 06:05 AM
Interviews • (8) Comments • Permalink

Thursday, January 03, 2008

FIR Interview: The launch of GMnext - January 3, 2008

This coming September marks the 100th anniversary of the founding of General Motors Corporation. As part of engaging with broad communities during 2008, GM today launches GMnext, a global communications platform aimed at improving perceptions of GM by employees, consumers and influencers.

GMnext is about conversations: a dialogue-based initiative that will engage people globally via social media and interactive experiences to discuss critical issues concerning energy, the environment, globalization and other factors that will shape transportation in the 21st century, with GMnext.com as the hub.

GMnext starts today with the GMnext Virtual Media Forum, a global online media event where senior GM leaders from headquarters, divisions and subsidiaries around the world will engage with journalists and social media influencers in online moderated dialogue. The event kicks off with an introduction by GM Chairman and CEO, Rick Wagoner.

In this exclusive FIR Interview, Neville Hobson and Shel Holtz talked with GM’s Scot Keller and Christopher Barger about GMnext including discussion on its objectives and how the programme was developed; how GM’s leaders and employees engage in GMnext; engaging with the media and social media influencers; the roles of social networks such as Facebook; and addressing communication, organizational and regulatory challenges.

About our Conversation Partners

Scot Keller Born and raised in Southern California, Scot M. Keller is a third generation car executive whose career spans 25 years. He has broad based experience in automotive marketing, communications, motor sports, heritage, and brand management with brands including Alfa Romeo, Audi, Chrysler and Jeep.

In 1999, Scot joined General Motors Corporation where he currently holds the position of Director Communications GMnext. In this capacity, Scot directs the corporation’s day to day activities around the global centennial celebration and GMnext digital experience. He also has responsibility for GM’s Heritage Communications directing the corporation’s involvement in key events including The Amelia Island and Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegances.

Scot currently resides in Grosse Pointe Park, Michigan with his wife and two children.

Christopher Barger is Director, Global Communications Technology at General Motors, and leads the company’s social media communications efforts.

Christopher is responsible for setting General Motors’ communications strategy in the emerging social media that make up “Web 2.0” (blogs, wikis, podcasting, user-generated content, social network engagement, and others). His team coordinates and counsels authors for GM’s corporate blogs (FastLane and FYI), builds and manages GM’s relationships with influential voices from across the social media landscape, and develops new social media resources for GM content and information.

Prior to joining General Motors in mid 2007, Christopher held a similar position at IBM where he was involved in such ground-breaking work as the investor relations department’s ”IBM and the Future Of…” series of podcasts.

Download the 38-minute conversation here (MP3, 17.4MB), or sign up for the Interviews RSS feed to get it and future interviews automatically. For automatic synchronization with your iPod or other digital player, you’ll also need a such as the free Juice, DopplerRadio or iTunes, or an RSS aggregator that supports podcasts such as FeedDemon.

To receive all For Immediate Release podcasts including the twice-weekly Hobson & Holtz Report, sign up for the full RSS feed.

Listen to this podcast now:

This FIR Interview is brought to you with Lawrence Ragan Communications, serving communicators worldwide for 35 years. Information: www.ragan.com.

Podsafe intro music - On A Podcast Instrumental Mix (MP3, 5Mb) by Cruisebox.

Posted by neville on 01/03 at 05:01 AM
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Monday, December 03, 2007

FIR Interview with Microsoft’s Paolo Tosolini on Academy Mobile: Dec 4, 2007

In July 2007, Microsoft introduced Academy Mobile, an internal social computing initiative aimed at creating a knowledge sharing environment among employees through the use of videocasts and podcasts.

Academy Mobile is the latest in a series of online learning initiatives developed within the Enterprise Partner Group at Microsoft where employees can create, watch, listen and share videocasts or podcasts with peers; subscribe to specific search queries, presenters or tags; and download content onto their mobile devices.

In this FIR Interview, Neville Hobson and Shel Holtz talked with Paolo Tosolini, New Media Business Manager at Microsoft, about Academy Mobile including discussion on its objectives, how the programme was developed, aspects about the platform on which it runs, and communication and organizational challenges in rolling out such a programme globally.

About our Conversation Partner

Paolo Tosolini is a New Media Business Manager at Microsoft responsible for a new internal corporate initiative called Academy Mobile (description and video). Funded by the Microsoft Enterprise & Partner Group, Academy Mobile is a social media platform available to all Microsoft employees to share knowledge and best practices using podcasts.

Prior to this role, Paolo worked in several other groups at Microsoft, including MSN and Office, where he managed the Office 2007 partner early adoption program that resulted in more than 500 partner solutions developed at launch.

Paolo is also co-author with his wife Francesca of a blog, podcast and e-Book called Italy From The Inside, where they share travel and cultural tips about Italy using new media.

Download the 34-minute conversation here (MP3, 15.8MB), or sign up for the Interviews RSS feed to get it and future interviews automatically. For automatic synchronization with your iPod or other digital player, you’ll also need a such as the free Juice, DopplerRadio or iTunes, or an RSS aggregator that supports podcasts such as FeedDemon. To receive all For Immediate Release podcasts including the twice-weekly Hobson & Holtz Report, sign up for the full RSS feed.

Listen to this podcast now:

Podsafe intro music - On A Podcast Instrumental Mix (MP3, 5Mb) by Cruisebox.

Posted by neville on 12/03 at 12:47 PM
Show Notes • Interviews • (1) Comments • Permalink

Friday, November 16, 2007

FIR Interview - Jeremy Burton, CEO, Serena Software, on Facebook Fridays: November 16, 2007

While reports continue to flood out of the business world of companies blocking employee access to online venues—notably social media and especially social networks—Serena Software has taken the opposite approach, actively encouraging employees to network with each other on Facebook. Serena’s CEO, Jeremy Burton, has written about his philosophy for ZDNet Asia; the company even issued a press release about it.

In this exclusive FIR Interview, Shel Holtz talked with Burton about the “Facebook Fridays” program, his view of the value social networks bring to the organization, and his opinion about how other companies are handling employee time spent on social networks.

About our Conversation Partner

Jeremy Burton brings 20 years in the high technology industry to Serena as president and CEO. Prior to joining Serena, Mr. Burton was group president of the enterprise security and data management business unit at Symantec. Mr. Burton was responsible for engineering, product management, alliances, and business development for Symantec’s endpoint security, compliance, archiving, Windows backup, security response, and managed security service offerings.

Burton joined Symantec through the company’s merger with VERITAS Software in July 2005. At VERITAS, he was executive vice president of the data management group. Previously, he served as the company’s senior vice president and chief marketing officer.

Before joining VERITAS in April 2002, Burton served as senior vice president of product and services marketing at Oracle Corporation. He also founded Oracle’s developer program, Oracle Technology Network, which today has millions of members. Before working in marketing, Mr. Burton held positions in customer support, pre-sales, product management, and engineering.

Burton graduated from the University of Surrey in Guildford, England in June 1990 with a bachelor’s degree in information systems engineering. He and his wife, Ruth, have three children.

Download the 24-minute conversation here (MP3, 11,2MB), or sign up for the Interviews RSS feed to get it and future interviews automatically. For automatic synchronization with your iPod or other digital player, you’ll also need a such as the free Juice, DopplerRadio or iTunes, or an RSS aggregator that supports podcasts such as FeedDemon. To receive all For Immediate Release podcasts including the twice-weekly Hobson & Holtz Report, sign up for the full RSS feed.

Listen to this podcast now:

Podsafe intro music - On A Podcast Instrumental Mix (MP3, 5Mb) by Cruisebox.

Posted by shel on 11/16 at 12:03 PM
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Thursday, November 01, 2007

FIR Interview - Lynn Tyson, VP Investor Relations, Dell, on Dell Shares: Nov 1, 2007

In July 2006, computer systems company Dell launched Direct2Dell (initially called ‘one2one’), its first public blog designed to be an extension of Dell’s direct business model where the company “learns and improves by listening to customers.”

During the 18 months since its launch, Direct2Dell has helped Dell credibly engage with customers, fans and critics around the globe.

Now, Dell is turning its attention to the role a blog can play in engaging with shareholders and the financial community.

In this exclusive FIR Interview, Neville Hobson and Shel Holtz talked with Lynn Tyson, Vice President Investor Relations at Dell, Inc., about Dell Shares, Dell’s new investor relations blog launching on November 1.

Our discussion focused on how Lynn sees the new blog helping investor relations at Dell expand beyond the traditional approaches to IR to being involved in direct relationships with the company’s shareholders and potential shareholders.

About our Conversation Partner

Lynn Tyson Lynn A. Tyson is responsible for Dell’s relationships with investors and financial analysts, and strategic direction of the Investor Relations function. From 2004 through 2007, Ms. Tyson was also responsible for the strategic direction and oversight of all Global Corporate Communications, including public affairs, media relations, internal communications, and industry analysts.

Prior to joining Dell in April 2000, Ms. Tyson served as vice president of Investor Relations for Tricon Global Restaurants (now YUMBrands!). Tricon encompassed the worldwide operations of Pizza Hut, KFC and Taco Bell, and was spun off from PepsiCo, Inc. in 1997. Previously, Ms. Tyson spent 12 years at PepsiCo, holding various positions in treasury, capital markets and international corporate finance – covering Latin America – as well as investor relations, where she assisted in planning and execution of the spin-off of Tricon from PepsiCo.

She is on the Board of Directors for the National Investor Relations Institute (NIRI). Her views on successful Investor Relations practices, valuing intangible assets, and defining strategic direction, have been featured in IR Update magazine, the monthly publication of NIRI, as well as IRQ magazine, NIRI’s journal of corporate value.

Ms. Tyson received a bachelor’s degree in psychology from The City College of New York and a master’s degree in finance/international business from The Stern School of Business, New York University.

Download the 21-minute conversation here (MP3, 9.6MB), or sign up for the Interviews RSS feed to get it and future interviews automatically. For automatic synchronization with your iPod or other digital player, you’ll also need a such as the free Juice, DopplerRadio or iTunes, or an RSS aggregator that supports podcasts such as FeedDemon. To receive all For Immediate Release podcasts including the twice-weekly Hobson & Holtz Report, sign up for the full RSS feed.

Listen to this podcast now:

Podsafe intro music - On A Podcast Instrumental Mix (MP3, 5Mb) by Cruisebox.

Related post:

FIR Interview - Lionel Menchaca, Direct2Dell: January 12, 2007

Posted by neville on 11/01 at 10:32 AM
Show Notes • Interviews • (1) Comments • Permalink

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