FIR Interview: Peter Shankman of Help A Reporter Out

Help A Reporter Out (HARO) began as a group on Facebook and is now a dedicated website with rapidly growing momentum. People sign up to receive queries from reporters looking to interview experts or people with experience for their articles.

HARO was created by Peter Shankman, who still manages the site and mailing list in his spare time, while he’s not working with clients, speaking, or is otherwise engaged in PR and social media activities.

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About our Conversation Partner

Peter ShankmanAn entrepreneur, author, speaker, and ingenious worldwide connector, Peter Shankman is recognized nationally and globally for radically new ways of thinking about Social Media, PR, Marketing, Advertising, creativity, and just about everything else, as well.

Peter is the founder and CEO of The Geek Factory, Inc., a boutique Marketing and PR Strategy firm located in New York City, with clients worldwide. His blog, which he launched in 2002, both comments on and generates news and conversation.

Peter founded AirTroductions, the world’s first social network for business travelers after a particularly brutal inter-continental flight. Launched in 2005 to instant media attention, AirTroductions was acquired in mid 2007 and relaunched in January of 2008 as TripLife, the largest social networking and connections website for all travelers.

Peter is the author of Can We Do That?! Outrageous PR Stunts That Work and Why Your Company Needs Them (Wiley and Sons 2006) and a frequent keynote speaker and workshop presenter at conferences, trade shows, and private companies, including The U.S. Department of Defense, Edelman Public Relations, The Public Relations Society of America, Saatchi and Saatchi, CTIA, CTAM, CES, PMA, Mobile Marketing Asia, Advertising Week, and the Direct Marketing Association.

Peter started his career in Vienna, VA, with America Online as a Senior News Editor, helping found the AOL Newsroom and spearheading coverage of the Democratic and Republican 1996 conventions, which marked the first time an online news service covered any major political event. Peter is also a frequent runner, with 13 completed marathons and three Olympic distance triathlons to his credit, an amateur boxer, and a ‘B’ licensed skydiver, specializing in free-flying.

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This FIR Interview is brought to you with Lawrence Ragan Communications, serving communicators worldwide for 35 years. Information: www.ragan.com.

Podsafe music – On A Podcast Instrumental Mix (MP3, 5Mb) by Cruisebox.

(Cross-posted from For Immediate Release, Shel’s and my podcast blog.)

The Hobson & Holtz Report – Podcast #357: June 26, 2008

Content summary: Neville’s at Edelman New Media Academic Summit; Shel wraps up IABC’s international conference in New York; Neville talks about the summit in Chicago and the home baseball team, the Chicago Cubs; CustomScoop’s Media Monitoring Minute; Dan York’s report; News That Fits includes a look at Facebook and Visa teaming up to create the Small Business Network, Facebook’s bans of the Top Friends app, MySpace’s launch of the API that allows outside sides to pull data, MySpace’s partnership with NBC and MSNBC to host a contest to give away journalistic credentials to the two major political conventions in the US, surveys on social media in business and bloggers in Asia-Pacific, journalists’ move to PR and Neville on his visit to the Financial Times; listener comments; music from 50 Foot Wave; and more.

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For Immediate Release: The Hobson & Holtz Report, for June 26, 2008: A 62-minute podcast recorded live from Concord, California, USA, and almost live from Chicago, Illinois, USA.

FIR Show Notes links
Links for the blogs, individuals, companies and organizations we discussed or mentioned in the show are posted to the FIR Show Links pages at The New PR Wiki. You can contribute – see the show notes home page for info.

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Share your comments or questions about this show, or suggestions for future shows, in the FIR FriendFeed Room. You can also email us at fircomments@gmail.com; call the Comment Line at +1 206 222 2803 (North America), +44 20 8133 9844 (Europe), or Skype: fircomments; comment at Twitter: twitter.com/FIR, or at Jaiku: fir.jaiku.com. You can email your comments, questions and suggestions as MP3 file attachments, if you wish (max. 3 minutes / 5Mb attachment, please!). We’ll be happy to see how we can include your audio contribution in a show.

Join the FIR Discussion Forum and extend your conversations with the FIR community. You can also join the FIR Facebook Community and become an FIR friend.

So, until Monday June 30…

(Cross-posted from For Immediate Release, Shel’s and my podcast blog.)

Feel the brand with Braille

tesco-blind Ever since I got back from Stockholm a couple of weeks ago, where I participated in the Disruptive Media conference, I’ve been dogged with a dreadful cold that doesn’t want to go away.

Earlier this week, it evolved into nasal congestion, resulting in a continuous inflow of pills and potions plus a serious investment in boxes of balm tissues.

So in my shopping for more congestion relief yesterday, I encountered a product whose packaging caught my attention.

Take a look at the photo here (or click the photo for a large-size image at Flickr) of the own-branded congestion relief capsules offered by supermarket chain Tesco.

Notice the little dots on the package? They’re Braille, the dots which form part of the universal writing system used by people who are blind.

So if you were blind, you’d be able to feel what this product is.

I looked at all the other congestion relief products on the supermarket shelf from pharmaceutical companies. A half dozen or so different brands.

Tesco’s product was the only one that included Braille.

It’s the first time I’ve noticed this on product packaging, Tesco’s or anyone else’s.

While I have no idea what the market size of blind people is (and I guess there is such a demographic), doing something like this is a great idea as it enables you to include a group of people who you probably wouldn’t reach with your brand otherwise.

And if a sighted person is doing the shopping on behalf of a blind person, he or she might choose your product simply because it includes Braille, thus enabling the blind person to ‘read’ about the product him or herself.

Smart.

I bought the product, by the way. Not because of the Braille on the packaging but because it a) contained exactly the same ingredients as the branded alternatives, and b) it was considerably cheaper.

And it seems to work.

The Hobson & Holtz Report – Podcast #306: December 31, 2007

Content summary: New FIR discussion forum launching; the next FIR episode marks this podcast’s third anniversary; a listener contest coming; FIR live in January on BlogTalk Radio; Lee Hopkins looks forward to 2008; the Media Monitoring Minute with CustomScoop; Microsoft promotes Vista on YouTube with open commenting; are email and mobile phones the real social graph?; Tesla CEO blogs explanations; who’s got what you’re looking for: ask Hoosgot; Colgate in Second Life; senior employees obligated to blog at SonyBMG UK; listeners’ comments discussion; New Year’s Eve: music from Maria Daines; and more.

[Messages from our sponsors: FIR is brought to you with Lawrence Ragan Communications, serving communicators worldwide for 35 years, www.ragan.com; Save time with the CustomScoop online clipping service: sign up for your free two-week trial, at www.customscoop.com/fir.]

Show notes for December 31, 2007

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Welcome to For Immediate Release: The Hobson & Holtz Report, a 65-minute podcast recorded live from Concord, California, USA, and Wokingham, Berkshire, England.

Download the file here (MP3, 29.2MB), or sign up for the RSS feed to get it and future shows automatically. (For automatic synchronization with your iPod, subscribe with iTunes; good podcatchers include Juice and DopplerRadio, and RSS aggregators that supports podcasts such as FeedDemon.)

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FIR Show Notes links
Links for the blogs, individuals, companies and organizations we discussed or mentioned in the show are posted to the FIR Show Links pages at The New PR Wiki. You can contribute – see the home page for info.

If you have comments or questions about this show, or suggestions for our future shows, email us at fircomments@gmail.com; or call the Comment Line at +1 206 222 2803 (North America) or +44 20 8133 9844 (Europe); or Skype: fircomments; or comment at Twitter: twitter.com/FIR; or at Jaiku: fir.jaiku.com. You can email your comments, questions and suggestions as MP3 file attachments, if you wish (max. 3 minutes / 5Mb attachment, please!). We’ll be happy to see how we can include your audio contribution in a show.

So, until Thursday January 3, 2008…

(Cross-posted from For Immediate Release, Shel’s and my podcast blog.)