You could say that Laura Borgstede has had her head in the cloud since about 2006. That’s when she decided that the traditional PR agency “pyramid model” at her boutique agency Calysto Communications wasn’t working. “We became a starting place for assistant account executives and account executives who then got hired away by bigger agencies,” says Borgstede, who founded Calysto in 1999.
She, and her clients, just couldn’t take the turnover. “We were niche and we were good, but we weren’t doing VP-level work all the time,” says Borgstede. So, in order to attract top talent and cut down on the overhead in an increasingly challenging economy, Borgstede decided the agency needed to be run “on the Internet”—a precursor statement for being “in the cloud.”
Today, Borgstede has assembled a team of 50 VP-level executives (each with 10 to 25-plus years of experience and located in more than 40 cities across the U.S. and covering more than 80 countries around the world). And there’s no Calysto headquarters in Atlanta anymore; everyone works in the cloud— from a home office.
Granted, in terms of PR’s link to cloud computing, Calysto’s case is extreme. You could even say Borgstede is PR’s equal to Apple’s Steve Jobs when it comes to being a “cloud visionary.”
Yet Jobs’ introduction of its iCloud services on June 6, 2011, brought this lofty platform to the forefront, and at the same time created questions as to just how communicators can benefit from working in the cloud.
WHITE CLOUDS
One benefit for communicators—traditionally an on-the-go bunch—is the availability of an office anywhere says Ray Trygstad, industry professor of information technology and management at the Illinois Institute of Technology. Today, says Trygstad, it’s less common for one person to use just one office. Working in the cloud (see Cheat Sheet for a definition), “you have full access to the normal work resources, delivered and/or administered on the Web.”
Another benefit to communicators is scalability. If there’s a new PR campaign that might draw thousands of visitors more than your (or a client’s) Web site can handle, there might be a two-month wait to get a new local server. Not in the cloud.
“When you need more space you can just order more, or many cloud systems just automatically “scale up,” says Trygstad.
Ironically, Amazon experienced this earlier this month, after pricing Lady Gaga’s latest album for download at 99 cents. The site was overwhelmed by fans and delays ensued. Ironic, because Amazon rents its unused server space to customers, and has been touting its new Cloud Player service, which offers users more storage space for buying music.
Indeed, the cloud will have an effect on the customer experience, which is closely linked to PR, says Erica Fields, senior VP at Waggener Edstrom (she’s also on the team that handles Microsoft’s cloud business). “If companies are unprepared for a high volume of traffic, there will be a negative impact on customer perception and ultimately, corporate reputation,” says Fields.
The cloud could, however, have a positive effect on the bottom line, particularly for larger PR agencies, says Fields. Many large agencies have developed proprietary tools, which could be put up for rent on the cloud.
One business example is animation studio Pixar offering rendering software to the public through a cloud platform. “It’s allowing Pixar to become a software business,” says Fields. Imagine offering PR measurement tools at a price.
Perhaps the biggest benefit for communicators everywhere is in collaboration, says Pete Petersen, executive VP and chair of Edelman’s global technology practice. “Our work is document driven, with a lot of feedback from different stakeholders all over the world,” says Petersen. This makes version control critical, and using a cloud platform solves that problem.
DARK CLOUD
There has been one major concern among businesses and IT experts: security of the cloud. Trygstad says these concerns are not much different than security within a local server. “People will try to hack into anything,” he says.
The challenge for organizations that try cloud computing is doing security due diligence with cloud vendors before signing a contract. “You have to make sure the vendor is providing the security you need,” says Trygstad.
Fields says there’s a lot of educating to do about the cloud, and PR will be one of the main teachers. The tipping point, she says, will be when organizations in healthcare and financial industries hand off their data to cloud platforms. Then, she says, we’ll see other industries fall in line.
Meanwhile Borgstede is battling a negative perception among clients of working in the cloud. “Some of our clients do freak out,” she says. “But I have been dealing with that for five years.”
It is getting easier, though. Calysto has won back two clients it had lost because of its employee turnover and traditional agency model.
As for the future, Borgstede predicts that many more agencies—as well as clients—will reach for the cloud. PRN
CONTACT:
Laura Borgstede, [email protected]; Ray Trygstad, [email protected]; Erica Fields, [email protected]; Pete Petersen, [email protected].