Media Bridge:
Learn how to:
* Give great interviews full of media-friendly information
* Handle the situation when a reporter wants to go “off the record”
* Develop media relations plans that generate loads of valuable media placements
* Create interesting and memorable messages for the media, customers, employees or investors

DPK Public Relations:
You need to understand and master:
* How to remember your organization’s key messages and simplify them into powerful, concise sound bites;
* The art of “bridging,” getting your key messages across clearly and repeatedly no matter what questions a journalist asks;
* How to look comfortable and confident in front of the cameras;
* When it is appropriate to turn down an interview and when it is a major mistake to do so; and
* The tricks journalists use during interviews to get the juicy stuff you don’t necessarily want to discuss.

However, if you’re unable to attend the above seminars, here’s a handy exercise in press relations:

Answer Each of the Following (Bonus Points for Reworking the Quotes):

1. How clear is the following message:

“The completely browser based ways of looking into the virtual world do not provide very much in the…experientially, and so it’s difficult…you kind of have to look at use model to use model. There are people today who have used the Second Life open source code and they’ve ACTUALLY written um, for example chat-based clients.”

2. How strongly does the following communicate your product features? Is comparing to a game useful?

“In a browser you can’t render a 3D environment with sound, lighting, shadows, the actual sort of World of Warcraft like…you know uh most people have seen that…the real 3D rendered experience.”

3. Does slamming your potential clients’ current business models, as in the following, make sense?

“They’re going to figure out that they don’t need to control this from the top down. These companies will still get put together, but they’re only going to be connected at the balance sheet and at the level of finance. Information technology levels the playing field.”

4. How effective is the following use of analogy/metaphor:
“In a way, he says, Second Life can be used as “a terrarium for looking at these changes.”

5. How strongly does the following make a compelling business case?
“I guarantee you that you would remember the content of this conversation better than you would driving in your car and talking on the phone. I guarantee you would have laughed once or twice when I put on a funny hat or changed clothes with my avatar.”

6. Does slamming reality itself make a strong case for business collaboration technologies?

“You don’t have real eye contact. And meetings are significantly less threatening. The sense of threat we have in real world meetings just isn’t there in the virtual environment.”

7. Essay questions: Describe how the following is useful for positioning yourself in the media, or towards strengthening relationships with current customers:

“The early users of Second Life are simply people who have a lot of time”

8. Bonus Question: Describe the importance of body language when giving on-camera interviews:

Please submit your answers to Robin Linden at the end of class.