When I was 21 I started a syndicated column, Small Business. The idea for it struck me as I was working for Texaco, a bloated bureaucracy of a place that had long forgotten it was once a small business.

Anyway, I had endless free time on my hands -no one there really worked- so I approached Newsday about the column idea, they liked it and I was off to the races. And surprise, surprise, the column worked and it was, just like that, appearing in dozens of newspapers. In a small way to the world, but an important way to me, I was THE media.
Given my column’s appearance in all of those newspapers every week, PR people circled. They wanted me to quote their clients. To highlight their products. To provide a channel for their philosophies.

And I ignored most of them. Why? Their arrows failed to hit the bull’s eye. In that case, the bulls eye what I was interested in writing about.
In learning about.

Yes, I was a representative of traditional media. But that was the only kind of media there was at the time. And surprise again, it is still the only kind of media there is. Digital journalists are still journalists.
The good ones don’t care about your agenda. They are focused on their own.

So the more things change, the more they stay the same. In digpr, the fundamental rule survives: there are too many arrows and too few bulls’ eyes. The gifted PR people put down their goals for a minute and think of the digital journalists’. What do they want? Each one individually. That’s the key.

When I wrote Small Business, of the 500 PR people who pitched me weekly, about 10 appeared in my column over and over again. The only agenda I ever saw on their parts was to land their arrows where I wanted them. And they did the research to know precisely where that was. And it was straight line to bull’s eye time. And it still is!

Mark Stevens
CEO

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I have to admit I did something a bit sketchy recently (for the first time, I swear….well maybe the second).

I met a woman at a party and the small talk turned to vocations and I (what a cliché) asked her what she does for a living.

Woman At The Party: I’m in PR.

MS: PR? (of course, I knew what she meant).

Woman: Public Relations.

MS: I have heard that term a hundred times but never really know what it means (I told you I was being sketchy, but hey, I have a blog to write).

Woman: Well, to make it simple (this is where she wanted to call me Rain Man), I place my clients’ stories in the media.

MS: stories? The media? Do you mean you spread viral messages on Facebook?

Woman: I have heard of Face Book, but what is it?

MS: It’s THE media.

Ok, so here’s the problem.

Well, I will leave the conversation now. Instead, I will tell you a brief story. A few weeks ago, USA Today ran a story about an issue I have had with the billboard ad giant Clear Channel. A big story. It was a PR dream. But in what would be a surprise to my party lady, the real dream occurred online. On http://www.usatoday.com/. That’s where a national debate ensued about the story. Where people left their real names. Where the passion lived. And the business opportunity thrived.

So, Murdoch is taking over the Wall Street Journal. And he promises he won’t change it. But he has to and he knows it and the family who used to own it knows it. Because it is yesterday’s fish. Dead and smelly and not edible. People cry about change–that it won’t be the same. That’s the point. People always say they don’t want to change, but in the end are better off for it. Civil rights in America, making Hawaii a state and yes, even changing the size of the WSJ –all were bemoaned at the outset, but made better by those changes in the end.

So party ladies and gentlemen, PR pros all, we have to know, we have to admit, what the people read. And what they will read tomorrow. And that’s the essence of digpr. Actually, soon, now, of PR.

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Ever since man invented fire, PR people have been going through a pretty standard process that seems like the wise and time-tested way. Maybe it was; maybe it was just the stuff of cookie cutter complacency: Do it the way it’s always been done because that’s the way it’s always been done. Genius?

What is that cookie cutter way? Well, you create a strategy, write pitches, and call editors, blah, blah, blah. It worked well enough, often enough, to help clients sell their products and services for generations. My firm did it that way too.

And then the Internet appeared out of thin air and many of us PR “pros” brought the standard, time-tested process to the Web. But the Web wasn’t there when the time testing was going on. So what’s my point? The real geniuses in making the Web work for them aren’t pros with a process. They are accidental geniuses that immerse themselves in the digital world, swim in its waters, and morph themselves into it. They don’t watch from the sidelines, process in hand. They have fun with it. They do the outlandish, which in the digital world, is the only way to visit the Web without looking like a tourist.

Look at the stars of YouTube and MySpace. No strategies there. No passports. They live there and throw creative hand grenades into the cyber stadium. Digital PR is not simply another medium: it is a different way of thinking and acting. Less rules, flexible structure, spontaneity.

Yesterday, I spoke to an inventor about how to take a new product to market. Her arms are full of all the standard press ammo. Releases, pitches, kits, backgrounders. But I advised she boil it all down to a silly looking vlog and YouTube video that shows straight up how dumb the current market leader is and how smart her new product is. All with an out there rather obnoxious piece of five dollar video.

As we delve into our Digital PR, we need to learn from the residents of the Web. The Accidental Geniuses.

And if you don’t get it, hire them.

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