LPP is keeping a finger on the pulse of top industry headlines and conversations buzzing around social media, so you don't have to. Below is this week's round-up to serve as information and inspiration for discussions around real-time trends.

Did we miss anything? What are your thoughts on what’s happening this week?

Top Stories

• Open Data: During a visit to Austin, Texas, President Obama announced that his government will be making data more available and accessible so that companies and startups may use it to help save money, energy and other resources.
• Google I/O: The conference kicks off today and TechCrunch’s Drew Olanoff has the best analysis of what to expect in the categories of utility, communications and mobile.

That time President Obama said “open data”: bit.ly/10mcgYm & media coverage of the executive order about it: bit.ly/11oMR7J

— Alex Howard (@digiphile) May 10, 2013

Top Conversations

• #BostonPRoud: More than 25 local public relations agencies will gather on May 29 to benefit The One Fund Boston in support of Boston Marathon victims.
• #ADWorldTour: Bluth’s Frozen Banana stand is on a world tour to promote the upcoming season. And here is the much-awaited trailer.

Technology

• Windows 8.1: Microsoft will roll out a preview of its upgraded operating system on June 26, a date that coincides with the Microsoft developer conference in SF.
• Immigration Bill: Hearings continue as senators debate amendments to the bill that would affect the ability of technology companies to hire technology workers from other countries, and impact current H1-B visa employees. 
• McAfee Security Suite: New LiveSafe includes anti-virus protection, a password manager and an encrypted cloud-based storage space secured by voice and facial recognition.
• Square Blocks Guns: The mobile payment company changed its terms of service to ban sales of firearms.

Public Relations

• Kitchen Nightmare: When these restaurant owners realized they couldn’t take the social media heat, they should have logged out of their Facebook page.
• Chris Hadfield: Everyone’s favorite social media-savvy astronaut returned to Earth after five months in space. Here he is singing David Bowie’s “Space Oddity.”
• A+ For Tesla: Even after Elon Musk’s PR episode, the Tesla Model S earned 99 out of 100 from Consumer Reports. The cherry on top? The company reported profits for the first time in its 10-year history.

Social Media

• Twitter: The company acquired data analysis startup Lucky Sort. Will we finally see metrics reports and insights? Please, let it be.
• Facebook: Gearing up for a massive big data play, following recent acquisitions and partnerships with database and analytics companies.
• Google+: Announced a new mobile content recommendation  powered by Google+ to allow publishers to offer content recommendations to their readers based on their media consumption or recommendations from their Google+ Circles of friends.

Hello World! My name is Alex Murray and I am the new PR/Social Media Intern at Lois Paul and Partners. I recently graduated from St. Edwards University in Austin, Texas with a degree in Digital Media Management. It seemed appropriate that my first blog post would be about a recent article from Mashable highlighting 10 digital skills new graduates shouldn’t be without. I’ve chosen the 4 skills I find most important and how I use them every day.

Backing up to the cloud. I really cannot agree with this more. Every college grad, and undergrad, should know how to set up and regularly use cloud storage. Having all my documents and media right at my fingertips on any device has saved me in a pinch quite a few times. I can save a document on my personal computer, review it on my phone, and access it right from my work computer. The user interfaces for these programs are simple and easy to pick in a matter of
minutes. Dropbox is a personal favorite of mine because of its ease of use and gigabits of free storage.

Basic photo and video editing skills. Knowing your way around Adobe Photoshop, Premiere, and Final Cut Pro can go a long way. Companies, in all industries, have whole heartedly embraced the importance of a digital presence. Many companies are choosing to enhance that presence with creative content through videos and graphics. Having the basic skills to throw together a simple brand image or short clip can help you out in a bind when your graphic designer is out of reach.

Coding. Coding is the way of the future, you’ve heard it before and you’ll hear it again. So many of the tools we use today require at least some level of coding. Coding is one skill I wish I knew better as I graduated. I run into situations daily where my limited html skills are just not enough. Luckily, the internet is full of helpful tools to teach you the basics, and even advanced skills, of coding. I use Code Academy because of its friendly interface and game like nature. Coding is increasingly important when it comes to self-branding, which leads me into the fourth and final skill.

Self-Branding. In today’s digital world your online persona is just as important as your physical one, maybe even more so. When a client or employer searches your name on Google you want the most positive things about you to appear high on that list. Creating social network accounts on Twitter, Linkedin, and Google+ are a great place to start. A personal website can serve as an online resume, showcasing your skills and talents on your terms. I have an account with all the big social media sites and run my own music blog. When my online persona is searched in Google, my blogs and social networks appear at the top of the list. All of which showcase my skills, talents and personality.

These four skills are essential for staying relevant and literate in the technology world. What digital skills are most important to you and your team? What digital skills do you look for on a resume?

I am incredibly excited to begin working at Lois Paul and Partners. I hope this post helps you in some way and I look forward to writing more.

After training hundreds of spokespeople to get ready for their interview close-ups over many years, I’ve noticed a change in the questions and requests from workshop participants. Because of the way journalism and blogging has evolved, there are three new things that all spokespeople feel they need in their communications arsenal before they hit the interview circuit.  

Context, context, context. Content truly is king, but anyone who is trying to tell a story about their products or services or company cannot do it piecemeal or in a vacuum. They need to interconnect it tightly with their overall company messaging. And that messaging needs to be connected to important themes and issues that the influencers and the marketplace care about. We tend to work with our clients to produce and refine Storytelling Frameworks that accomplish these connections. They are a great base for effective media training sessions.

We always have provided messaging and Q&A and FAQ materials to spokespeople as part of Storytelling workshops, but more and more these sessions have included a great deal of discussion regarding how to fit the announcements for their segments into the overall corporate positioning and messages. Now more than ever, it seems, spokespeople also are concerned about not saying the wrong thing. They want to understand what is safe to impart and what they need to stay away from. Bridging techniques definitely help address this, but the safety net of a clear set of policies regarding how the company communicates externally makes even the most seasoned spokesperson much more comfortable. If you have a Storytelling session planned, make sure someone from corporate communications participates to answer questions and provide that level of context and safety net. 

Think multi-media. Content experts like CTOs and the much-sought-after CIOs are likely to have someone find them at a conference or show and ask them to do an ad hoc video or to participate in a podcast. Spokespeople need best practices on how to handle these requests and how best to fulfill them once they are accepted. They may not be the right person in their company for CNN, but they definitely may be the right person for a key publication's video series on a particular topic. Be sure to give them pointers about how to execute these, as well as the procedure they should follow to screen the requests and get PR involved. 

Up-level the discussion. If the breaking news isn't from giants like Apple and Google, influencers these days are much more interested in content that is relevant and will attract clicks to their posts or articles. Therefore, it's critical for companies to connect their messaging and their stories to issues and themes that have resonance in the market. Training a spokesperson to do an effective interview about a new product isn't enough anymore. You need to train that spokesperson to be able to weave a story that connects the announcement to an important trend or change in their market that customers and influencers will care about. This again tracks back to Storytelling Frameworks and messaging that has context and relevance to the hottest issues that are affecting buying decisions.

It's been fascinating over the years to track the evolution of spokesperson preparation. A content-rich and customized approach has never been more important. These three additions really help elevate the programs to build passionate and effective spokespeople who are confident and grounded. Our program is always evolving so I'd love to hear any other elements that people are using to give their spokespeople an edge in today's noisy markets.  

LPP is keeping a finger on the pulse of top industry headlines and conversations buzzing around social media, so you don't have to. Below is this week's round-up to serve as information and inspiration for discussions around real-time trends.

Did we miss anything? What are your thoughts on what’s happening this week?

Top Stories

• Internet Sales Tax: Senate passes the bill with overwhelming bipartisan support.

Top Conversations

• #BostonPRoud: More than 25 local public relations agencies will gather on May 29 to benefit The One Fund Boston in support of Boston Marathon victims.

  25+ local PR agencies join on May 29 to support @onefundboston bit.ly/ZBsaPp @lpp_pr is a proud sponsor of #BostonPRoud!

  — LPP (@LPP_PR) May 6, 2013

Technology

• Fortune 500: Apple moves up to the #6 spot and Facebook makes the list for the first time. Also, did you know Google did it 16 months after public offering?
• Dell Acquisition: In a cloud move, Dell acquires Enstratius
• Targeted Ads: Sensors in anti-abuse billboards make sure children can see/hear messages if they are accompanied by an abusive adult.
• RIP Adobe Creative Suite: The company announced it would move to a subscriber-based model, delivered in the cloud.
• Dropbox DBX: The company announced its first developer conference

Public Relations

• Cleveland’s Charles Ramsey: Following the rescue of three women who had been missing for 10 years, brands including McDonald’s have rushed to reach out and align themselves with the local hero.

Social Media

• LinkedIn: New “LinkedIn Today” social news feed/page is enhanced with channels to deliver better curated content to users.
• Twitter: Advertising is now open to all. Brands can target keywords and choose to set a budget to spend every month.
• Google+: On Air Hangouts can now be processed in real-time so viewers can review and fast forward as they watch.
• Instagram: Adds photo tagging for friends and brands.
• Klout: New “Klout Experts” will get influencers to participate in short Q&As around their topics of influence.
• YouTube: Google announced it would allow select content creators to charge a monthly fee to viewers.

Boston Strong – what does that mean to me?  Working in downtown Boston it is easy for me to see the community uniting in the wake of the tragic events set forth on our beloved Marathon Monday. Later in May I will join our local PR community at a fundraiser event titled Boston PRoud to raise money for One Fund Boston. The word “Strong” has many definitions, the most appropriate for me being “of great power, firmness, or courage.” I think this description aptly describes the resiliency, perseverance and love this city has demonstrated in the few short weeks since that terrible event.  I have been told that when there is tragedy always look for the heroes, they are all around. Law enforcement, medical staff, strangers and even marathon runners came to the aid of those in need. Stories continue to emerge about people recovering and are now helping a city to heal. Nothing will make up for the loss of four innocent people and the hundreds injured, but the strength and pride that Bostonians have had during this time is nothing short of incredible.

As a testament to the strength and support from our vibrant PR community, we are all banding together to host a charitable event under the name “Boston PRoud.” The event will be held at the Back Bay Social Club on May 29 and will include more than 25 Boston PR agencies, who are putting their competitive nature aside for a greater cause. 100% of the agency contributions, cover charges, raffle money and more will go directly to the One Fund to help the people most affected by the tragic events that occurred on April 15, 2013. This show of support within our industry is unique and exciting because as a collection of competitive businesses, we rarely have the chance to come together in such a united way, and it feels great. You can believe us PR types will use our strategic communications skills to get the word out and raise as much money as we can. For more information and to register for this event please visit our Eventbrite site.

LPP is keeping a finger on the pulse of top industry headlines and conversations buzzing around social media, so you don't have to. Below is this week's round-up to serve as information and inspiration for discussions around real-time trends.

Did we miss anything? What are your thoughts on what’s happening this week?

Top Stories

• Earnings: Tech giants including Facebook announce earnings after the bell.

Top Conversations

• #WHCD: Press gathered for the 2013 White House Correspondent’s Dinner, hosted by Conan O’Brien. POTUS gets hip with jokes.

Obama at #WHCD: "I remember when Buzzfeed was just something I did in college around 2 a.m." wapo.st/13D8iOT

— Washington Post (@washingtonpost) April 28, 2013

Technology

• Netflix Purge: Nearly 2,000 titles will be pulled from Netflix as licensing agreements expire. Arrested Development might help smooth things over with users. How ironic.
• Internet of Things Standard: The protocol that powers Facebook Messenger (MQTT) has been chosen as the standard that will power the future of the Internet of Things.
• Coding is the New Black: Coding has been named among the must-have job skills for the future. Who wants to co-found “Camp Padawan,” for young hackers with me?
• Verizon Cloud: The company announced a Dropbox-like service for its Android subscribers.
• iBeetle: Apple and Volkswagen team up. Some ask, why?

Public Relations

• Jason Collins: Becomes the first openly gay professional sports athlete. Ghost Twitter handlers and real people alike share their support.

Social Media

• LinkedIn: Updates profiles, lets users add photos, videos, powerpoints, resumes, comments and likes from other users. This is just after they announced new LinkedIn Contacts, an expanded search engine, @mentions in status updates, endorsements, mobile redesigns, influencer spotlights and a new Recruiter home page. Talk about being on a ROLL.
• Vine: Adds user mentions, better sharing capabilities and front-camera support.

LPP is keeping a finger on the pulse of top industry headlines and conversations buzzing around social media, so you don't have to. Below is this week's round-up to serve as information and inspiration for discussions around real-time trends.

Did we miss anything? What are your thoughts on what’s happening this week?

Top Stories

• Boston: After a very trying week, media were scrutinized for crumbling under the pressure of reporting on breaking news of this nature, and digital media and technology played both a crucial and frustrating role in the investigation.
• Gun Control: The proposal to expand background checks on people who purchase guns failed in the Senate last week. For those of us who are tech-oriented, “smart guns” may be an alternative to  help curb gun violence.
• Apple: The company posted Q2 earnings, which beat estimates thanks to growth in China and increased iPhone and iPad sales. Gross margins fell 10 percent since the year-ago quarter and stock price continues to decline; however shareholders will benefit from Apple boosting its dividends per share and increasing its share repurchase authorization significantly. CEO Tim Cook also hinted that Apple would not announce new products until fall of 2013. 

Top Conversations

• #BostonStrong: Both sympathy and scrutiny dominated social conversations around last week’s tragic events. Sympathy for those affected and scrutiny around the value of social media in breaking news.

Technology

• TIME’s 100: Most Influential People In the World List is dominated by tech executives including Yahoo!’s Marissa Meyer, Minecraft’s Jens Bergensten and Markus Persson, Kickstarter’s Perry Chen, and Facebook’s Sheryl Sandberg.
• AP Twitter Hack: A tweet sent out from the media organization’s Twitter handle said there had been explosions at the White House and that the president was injured. The tweet sparked a sell-off of U.S. stocks.
• White House Science Fair: Kids were invited to present innovative tech projects and the President announced an initiative whereby major tech giants pledged that 20 percent of their workforce will spend at least 20 hours tutoring children by 2020.
• Pivotal and GE: GE will invest $105 million in Pivotal for data analytics and cloud platform services.

Public Relations

• Epicurious Boston Tweets: In a misguided attempt to do some real-time marketing around the Boston marathon tragedy, Epicurious tweeted about Boston-inspired recipes, social media crisis ensued.
• Nest Wins Earth Day: The company announced Nest Energy Services including programs like Rush Hour Rewards to help users change their energy consumption behavior during months of summer when residential air conditioning becomes a massive burden on the grid.
• F-Bomb Anchor: A.J. Clemente was hired and fired after gaining fame on Twitter, then going viral with a video of his dropping an F-Bomb on his very first broadcast.
• Insane Sorority Email: University of Maryland’s Greek Life was exposed after an email that likely broke the record of most expletives ever in an email was leaked to the media.

• A Career in PR: Public Relations Executive ranked #73 on the list of best jobs in the U.S. and social media community manager ranked #39.

Social Media

• Facebook: Announced design improvements to the mobile version of Facebook Business Pages. More emphasis is on friends’ activity with companies and brands. Desktop redesign said to be coming soon.
• Twitter: Announced it would give brands the ability to target their advertisements based on keywords within tweets. Twitter ads are incredibly expensive, but this might help them turn monetization around.
• Twitter: Will introduce two-factor authentication in response to the latest wave of hacks.
• Storify Business: Brands, beware of creating clutter!

It probably comes as no surprise that Lindsay Lohan is in a spot of bother with the law again. Her recent sentencing to 18 months in therapy and 30 days of community service comes as part of an agreement in which she pleaded “no contest” to misdemeanor reckless driving and providing false information to police.

This reminds me of a course I took at university on organizational communication, in which we once spent an entire lecture period pondering the greatest asset a company could possess. Several of my fellow classmates posited ‘the employees’ and ‘strong executive leadership’, yet as it turned out, the correct answer was its reputation – the intangible corporate value and faith that stakeholders place in an entity.

My initial reaction to Lindsay’s latest mishap is that, of course, she is doing irreparable damage to her reputation as a celebrity. However, at second glance, I think she might actually be very good at reputation management. Lindsay has constructed an image that is now founded almost entirely on being a rebel, a troublemaker, using her fame as a ‘get out of jail free’ card. People expect her to be a Hollywood bad girl, seamlessly moving from one fiasco to the next regardless of previous reprimands. Coupled with the knowledge that she is under the microscope of the media, the attention feeds her fan base, allowing them to live vicariously through her antics.

As PR pros we need to be aware of the duality of our responsibility around reputation management, managing the social expectations of the public on one hand, and building a unique identity of the entity on the other. We need to account for both what our clients want to be and what the people expect them to be. The good might not always be good and the bad might not always be bad, it’s a balancing act as we built the equity of a name.

What do you think? Is Lindsay a rebellious, misguided youth with an affinity for inebriated joy rides and a disdain for authority? Or a tactful manager of appearances, skillfully weaving her way through a slew of media shame to meet people’s expectations of her actress lifestyle? Food for thought. Either way, she’s come a long way down from “The Parent Trap.”

Earth Day is the largest, most celebrated environmental event worldwide. First launched as an environmental awareness event in the United States in 1970, Earth Day is now celebrated globally in over 192 countries, according to the website www.earthday.org. Additionally, more than a billion people participate in Earth Day campaigns every year!

Below are some things LPP is doing around its office to be more environmentally conscious. These tips aren't just applicable one day out of the year, but 365 days a year.

• Remember the 3 R’s: Reduce, Reuse, Recycle!
• Turn off your office lights while you attend meetings, at night and over the weekend.
• Turn off lights in restrooms, conference rooms, and so forth when the rooms are not in use.
• Put your computer and printer on energy saving settings if you'll be away for a while.
• Try to cut back on printing. Print on both sides of paper when you can.
• Use reusable coffee mugs, glasses, or water bottles instead of paper cups. Use travel mugs when you go to coffee shops and remember their paper cups are recyclable. Some coffee shops give discounts when you bring a travel mug to use!
• Use containers and/or a lunch box when you bring your lunch. Eat fruits and veggies that are in season. Check out your local farmers’ market.
• Limit your use of paper towels when drying your hands, dishes, or cleaning.

Tell us what you're doing this Earth Day.

Still not convinced in the power of social media?

Consider this. The FBI used social media on Thursday afternoon, asking people to share photos of two suspects in the Boston Marathon bombings. That a federal law enforcement agency turned to Facebook and Twitter to broadcast images and look to these mediums for new leads in the case is a testament itself to the power of new media.

But just a few hours after releasing those images, the suspects were involved in a string of incidents that lead to one of them being killed and the other going on the lam. Within 12 hours of the FBI employing social media’s power of sharing information, the investigation went into overdrive and at the time of this writing is still an ongoing manhunt for the second suspect. Some law enforcement officials are crediting social media with rooting out these individuals, driving them from their hiding spots and out into the open where they would slip up and identify themselves.

On Friday, social media was not only a vehicle for helping law enforcement identify the suspects, but also as a reporting mechanism, as Twitter beat CNN and the other major local and national news outlets on reporting that police and the suspects were engaged in a gun battle in Watertown, Mass.

MIT professor and reporter Seth Mnookin tweeted at 12:46 a.m. EST, “Shots fired at officers in Watertown.” Then later in the day Facebook and Twitter were used by people to share information, including the license plate number of two vehicles being sought in connection with the ongoing manhunt. One of the vehicles was located within an hour. Twitter was the most powerful of the two tools with hashtags #bostonbombings, #bostonstrong and #manhunt being used to focus the tweets on the particular incident for others to follow and share.

The speed and velocity of which social media fueled investigators’ efforts also led to it hindering the process, as the Boston Police Department asked people not to tweet the location of houses they were searching as they looked for the at-large suspect, fearing it would allow him the opportunity to stay one step ahead of them if he were watching his Twitter feed, which rocketed to 28,000 followers once Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was named a suspect.

The case can be made for and against social media, but it’s hard to see this incident as a negative, as social media was used as a communications mechanism that no doubt kept people informed of the unfolding situation and safe from harm.

Did you use social media to follow the manhunt?