DISQUS

Accountant · 1 year ago

"He’s certainly entitled to his opinion but I think Alepian is wrong to draw distinctions between the two camps given there’s more blurring of the lines every day."


Haven't you just confirmed his point by posting your personal opinion?

Mark Evans · 1 year ago

Fair point but I think you'll find plenty of opinion made by journalists as well.

Another Nortel Watcher · 1 year ago

I think Alepian is referring to reporting and reporters when he uses the overly broad term of journalism and journalists. I sense, perhaps correctly or perhaps not, a negative bias towards blogging and bloggers. If so, I can understand why. It's much more difficult for corporate communications people to maintain control over messaging.

Bo Gowan · 1 year ago

Yes there is a blurring of the lines between "journalists" and "bloggers." In fact I can say that a good deal of the influential blogs we target are maintained by "traditional journalists" (or analysts/consultants) that have a blog on the side.

But I think the point Ronald was trying to make is that you can't always pitch the same story to a blogger that you would pitch to a traditional reporter. And here's why...

As a reporter, your main goal is to write an article that your readers will find interesting. Sure there's room for some opinion, but in general the vast majority of journalists are bound by the notion of "report the news" (Mark you can correct me on anything I missed there).

Bloggers, on the other hand, have a different goal -- which is to write an article that stimulates debate and conversation. Many blogs, including Buzzboard, are seen as more attractive and successful when there's an active 2-way conversation going. And we all know that neutral, factual articles don't do that...by default a blogger has to be more opinionated, controversial, edgy.

You can see this through tools that measure "tone" of articles -- 75% of "traditional" articles are considered "neutral." Compare that with blogs, which almost by definition can't be neutral.

funny haha · 1 year ago

With so much time spent talking about blogging here, is it time to rename this blog from 'all about nortel' to 'all about bloggers who blog about nortel'? :)

many · 1 year ago

Bo,

I agree with your statement about two-way interactivity, I only wish your executives shared that feeling. One more comment on interactivity; the tone of each posting is often set by the original poster. It can be resonant or dissonant to the reader. However no response is worse in the world of blogging that challenges or disagreement. For example, when compared with Roese's early attempts, Rybchinski's postings are dissonant and do not receive much in the way of responses even though he is a much more prolific poster.

I dispute the accuracy of tools that measure "tone" in an article. Very often the spin is far too subtle. I use lightreading as an example. Further, articles are often turned on their heads by the comments, does your tool measure the comments as well?

All that said, I have to ask why is there a "pitch" at all? I mean the most trouble companies (and anyone else) seem to get in is when there is a real or perceived difference between the facts and what they are saying. Of course mistakes happen, and the best way to deal with is an immediate mea culpa with a factual accounting. Additionally, n this business it is very hard to get past the product. Telecom/Datacom is a smaller and more tightly knit community of users/operators today. We talk a lot more amongst ourselves. Word spreads quickly about who responds and who does not, what works and what does not, where there is useful documentation, why products fit and how to solve problems. We also flag bullshit and FUD when we see it, so why put it out in the first place?

I will never understand why this posture seems so difficult for Nortel to understand. Nortel has a good story, why does it need to be dressed up, twisted, spun and "pitched" to suit marketing's perception of what the audience is thinking or wants?

Another Nortel Watcher · 1 year ago

Many/Bo,

Good dialog. It amuses me to watch old-world companies attempt to use blogs as cheap marketing channels. It almost always backfires because a visible forum for opinion is created and in that kind of channel the credibility of the dialog has a lot more impact than the original posting. That's why I'm lost to understand the Roese and Edholm strategy of post-and-run. They introduce a topic for discussion and then they abandon it and leave it to the commenters to control the main messages. Makes no sense to me. Phil used to engage but lately he's as bad as Roese.

Bo Gowan · 1 year ago

Just catching up from being at Global Connect all week...

To many's comment on why the need to "pitch". I agree that being up-front and factual is best (that's hopefully our policy at Nortel and on Buzzboard). But a pitch and a spin are two different things. The same news item can be interesting to different reporters for different reasons depending on what the pub focuses on, the reporter's hot buttons, etc. All a pitch does is wrap up the story into a few sentences to get that particular reporter's interest. It doesn't necessarily mean spinning it.

Regarding Roese and Phil's blogs. Not every blog can be run like Buzzboard and AAN. Roese and Phil have "real jobs" to attend to. That said - thousands of people (including you probably) care enough about what they think to read their posts. That they don't always respond immediately to every blog comment is a reflection of their broader responsibilities, not their reluctance to engage...as they are two of the most vocal, interactive, and frequent speakers/spokespeople we have at Nortel.

many · 1 year ago

Bo,

Thanks for the response. I understand the distinction you make. I have gotten the feeling in the past that Nortel often "knee jerks" reactions to bad press, rather than 1) coming clean 2) finding humor when there is irony. It seems overly defensive and a bit paranoid sometimes.

I don't cut John Roese and Phil Edholm too much slack on their blogs. They started them and if they don't intend to stay engaged they should bow out gracefully. They have never been very engaged and it seems to me to be a random set of postings and presentations rather than discourse or conversation. To me, it shows a fundamental lack of understanding of the medium and the audience.