No, thank you (once again)

April 12, 2012 in Culture, Industry by Barbara Bates

 

I’m going to take a risk. It’s not the first time. I took a big one 20 years ago, when I started Eastwick, knowing that big-name PR firms held a stronghold in the Valley and that going up against them would be tough. A small team of upstarts who believed tech communications should be different than “PR as usual?” Trust me, plenty of people told me we were going out on a limb: that we wouldn’t make it, or couldn’t make it last.

But I guess the vision of disrupting the status quo was enough to make me step out onto that limb. After all, isn’t that how good things in this place almost always get started?

But back to that risk. I’m confessing that I recently turned down an acquisition offer. In other words, I said no – again – to a firm who approached me with an offer to acquire Eastwick.

It’s risky for a communications pro and CEO to share a story like this. Maybe some of you will question my business sense. Maybe you’ll think I should play it safe and accept the tradeoffs that come with increased security. But read on and you’ll see why I said no and why I believe staying independent is of value to my company, our clients, and even the Valley.

An “exit” is the named goal of many companies in Silicon Valley (and beyond). Rewarding an entrepreneur or a founding team for vision, effort, risk, and hard work, a successful exit puts money into wallets and security into futures.

I get that, and over the years I’ve sometimes been tempted by the chance to say “yes” to acquisition. Especially during lean times – when the bubble popped, or as the social-mobile-app revolution redefined the ways many of our legacy clients did business – I’ve thought about myself, my family, and above all my team and wondered if I was doing the right thing to keep Eastwick independent

I asked myself again as I pondered that recent offer. It was from an attractive big-name partner – one I’ve spoken with before – and in our conversations they emphasized how Eastwick was one of the last holdouts, a midsize, independent firm. It’s harder to go up against larger firms, they said. Most clients want the security of a known name, they asserted.

I bit my tongue (rare for me). Everything they said was true – but I didn’t bring up why more and more clients these days see our independence as an advantage.

This post is about that independence and the reasons I’ve stayed this way. I’m not naïve about the benefits of joining a larger entity, but I’m not going to do it. Following please find my reasons why.

  • I don’t want tech PR to be homogenous or undifferentiated from other PR. Tech is a unique business, faster-changing and more complex than, say, packaged goods or financial services. It can be a “star” business where proven players, big-name investors, or late-breaking visionaries shape the story alongside the innovators. I want to be close enough to this market to know who these people – and their products – are.
  • I don’t want our clients to be part of a portfolio spanning diverse industries. I want the synergies and “pattern recognition” that happens when you’re deeply woven into an ecosystem rather than more thinly spread across the surface.
  • I don’t want to follow the guidelines of a conglomerate that isn’t immersed in the culture and pulse of this valley. I want to be able to choose the companies I think will rise to the top, even if they’re not the biggest names out there. And I want to be able to work with the big names so that they move like nimble startups when they need to, especially if that means challenging “PR as usual.”
  • I want to be able to check in with trusted friends here, get the inside scoop, and know what’s around the corner when I meet with our clients. And I want this to shape my business decision more than someone else’s business plan.
  • I want to preserve our culture. I like how collaborative we are, and I like that we set our guidelines to allow time for learning, cross-training, and “free thinking” time. I’m committed to the Eastwick quality of life and I know my team values it.
  • I want to be able to challenge assumptions rather than just say “yes.” I want my place at the table as a trusted advisor, if and when my clients need it, rather than just the “PR arm.”
  • I want to hire geeks and journalists and people from non-PR backgrounds if I think they have something unique to bring to our clients. Some of the people at Eastwick wouldn’t fit the mold at traditional PR firms. Yet I see what they do to our impact and I’m proud that we’re able to bring them in.
  • I realize I’m being stubborn about this, but I want to do tech PR a different way.

Don’t get me wrong: I often see great work coming out of tech PR firms that have been acquired, and even from some of the area’s big-name agencies. And there are times when we recommend that prospective clients work with the conglomerate firms. I’m not saying that the Eastwick way is right for every business. I’m just saying that I want to offer a different path for tech companies who do want to do things a different way. Over the years I’ve seen clear value in that path – in the way we work, in the teams we hire, and even in the results we get – and the good news is some darn good businesses have seen the value, too.

But that’s why I decided, once again, to stay independent, and why I’m taking the risk to talk about it here.

What do you think? Does thinking this way change the way you think about Eastwick in any way? I’d love your thoughts and comments.

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Eastwick’s Leanse makes the Tech Top Five

April 11, 2012 in Best Practices, Culture, Industry by christina

Who are technology’s top marketing pros? According to  Silicon Valley’s PandoDaily the five to watch are Don Dodge, Danielle Morrill, Sean Ellis, Jeff Slobotski and Eastwick SVP Ellen Leanse.

Ellen, a respected authority on social media and user experience, has championed the importance of audience engagement throughout her work at Eastwick, and at her prior experiences at Google and Apple, and in strategic consulting. She and her four illustrious Pandolist colleagues were saluted for their innovation, insights, and vision for technology.

Ellen recalls her experiences as an Apple evangelist with PandoDaily reporter Amanda Schwab. You can read more and watch the video here, or roll the show:

Congrats to Ellen and all who made this impressive list.

Follow Ellen on Twitter or subscribe to her posts on the Eastwick blog.

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CIO Evolution: a predictor of future success?

April 9, 2012 in Best Practices, Culture, Industry by Ellen Leanse

The Evolution of the CIO? (click to view larger)

Ramón Baez stood in the spotlight near the main stage, his face shining from massive hanging screens, amplified words resonating through the packed auditorium. The audience leaned in, tweeting, taking notes; untold others followed via simultaneous webcast.

Baez echoed the still-warm words of Angela Ahrendts, CEO of Burberry, who spoke via video to the 10,000+ attendees at Salesforce’s recent Cloudforce gathering in San Francisco. Discussing the critical role of IT in accelerating the collaboration between companies and customers, Ahrendts – who has nearly quadrupled Burberry’s share price since her arrival in 2006 – said, “You have to be totally connected with anyone who touches your brand. If you don’t, I don’t know what your business model is in five years.

Watch for yourself (1:51 viewing time).

In his Cloudforce demo, Baez, CIO of Kimberly Clark, showcased his company’s take on the critical nature of the customer-enterprise connection. Scrolling through screens of tweets, texts, and comments, he pointed to the various touchpoints where customers can get “in” and information can get “out” of his organization.

A winner of the CIO Executive Council’s Leadership Award (roughly the equivalent of the CIO Oscar), Baez wasn’t the only IT lead to stake this claim. CIOs from a variety of companies also took to the stage, showcasing the ways they connected with customers: reading and responding to social posts, geolocating callers as Customer Support conversations began, talking face-to-face – even looking at the problem – over ChatTime.

The message? That companies that will thrive tomorrow need to connect directly with customers today. And IT is leading the movement to that connectivity.

This isn’t just about consumer brands. Companies that sell to enterprises – where, of course, decisions are actually made by people (increasingly young/tech savvy people at that) – are also proving that point-to-point conversations streamline sales and attract valuable input on deployment and development. Not to mention the impact on loyalty.

In past years, we’ve all heard IT professionals bemoan the challenges of enforcing controls and keeping social conversations out. Often, resistance was driven from the top, with IT being asked to maintain the moat, so to speak, that forced customers to know, and stay in, “their place.”

That “us vs. them” mentality is reflected in the web blockers, last-gen firewalls, and enforcement policies we all dealt with a few years back. But the irresistible forces of social platforms, mobile proliferation, and BYOD have moved these immovable objects. Today’s leading enterprises defined more by their willingness to open up and collaborate than by their ability to keep things safe and closed in.

Is that, as Ahrendts asserts, a key to future sustainability?

If so, can we make a connection between the companies that are increasing their openness – via active two-way communities, enterprise social networks, and collaborative business ecosystems – and these companies’ future relevance and success?

If we can, does that suggest that IT innovation might be an indicator of future value?

And if so, is the IT lead a “litmus test” of sorts that we should look to as we test what companies will succeed best over time?

I don’t have answers but I’ll tell you right now: the companies I’m banking on over time are future-proofing themselves by increasing the way they interact with – and converse with – customers. They’re equipping themselves to learn faster, communicate more openly, and shape decisions based on the wisdom of the people who matter most: the ones who buy their products.

And at the helm of all that? The CIO.

Makes me wonder. What can we learn from a CIO and his or her power to shape a company about the way that company will perform in the future?

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EW Out and About: SOCAP Soul

March 15, 2012 in Culture, Industry by peggy

Last weekend I was able to snatch up a ticket to and attend SOCAP Soul, a mini-conference put on by the greater SOCAP Markets. SOCAP Markets, in collaboration with The Hub, is an event-series organization that brings together entrepreneurs and social innovators working at the intersection of money and meaning.

 

 

The umbrella theme of SOCAP Soul was connecting your job,  finances, and community with what you value. I know – it’s crazy.

I was actually at the event tabling for a social enterprise called FeelGood. You may have heard me mention them before. I have interned with them in the past, and now head the newly invigorated alumni association, FeelGood4Life.

Eastwick’s Christina Farr popped in as well; she’s a contributor for VentureBeat. Christina was checking out the conference, doing on-the-ground reporting to add to her existing social entrepreneurship coverage.

Among educating others on FeelGood’s mission and success thus far, I met an interesting array of characters from all over the country. I met co-founders, innovators, and entrepreneurs seeking to actually do something with the resources they had, and didn’t have, to create a better, more sustainable world for everyone. I didn’t even get to pop into any of the sessions, but the passion and energy during breaks and the after-party was palpable. There is often a stigma that when the word “business” is thrown in the mix, truly impactful social change is not the end goal.  If you’re nodding your head right now, attendees at SOCAP Soul would have made you stick your foot in your mouth. There is no better avenue than business to get resources moving, people connecting, and perspectives shifting.

Working in the technology industry in Silicon Valley has certainly offered me a different perspective on social entrepreneurship. Being surrounded by the companies, technologies, and innovators that have changed how our world works forever is inspiring and a little intimidating at the same time. But looking past the big names and household brands that were built in the Valley, the common thread was the ability of a people-driven business to change how the world thinks, works, and behaves. A method with amazing history and amazing potential.

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