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Wired25 2019: A Tech F2F Event… for Kids

Perhaps you read last month about Day 1 of the Wired25 event in San Francisco. Many a newsmaker spoke, and it was an A-list event from a speaker and attendee POV. Less was written about Day 2 — “Culture & Fam” Day, Wired called it. The formula may become a brand-builder in the 2020s as the second digital generation comes of age.

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Inside IDG’s Insider Pro

This past year was tough on tech PR — no need to recount the details. But in the nick of time IDG Insider Pro has breezed into town. Though it does run product reviews that appear on other IDG sites, it’s no mere roll-up. It’s got unique analysis and contributed content and much that other sites do not have — and it’s pitchable like the old days.

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Pitch Opp: ‘Beyond Innovation’

Beyond Innovation, the tech video series produced by Toronto-based Global Live, is an earned media opp. At first it may not look like one, but it is, and it’s well worth checking out. Beyond Innovation “uncovers the world’s new and emerging technologies” through interviews with company executives.

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Protocol: ‘Tier 1’ for the 2020s

If you’ve got the right kind of story, Protocol is bound to excite you. Announced last week and built by the founders of Politico, the forthcoming tech publication will launch in Q1 of perhaps the most important Presidential election year since 1860.

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Lessons Learned from The Forbes Cloud 100 ‘Rising Star’ List

To nail that elusive company profile, make sure you’re studying the lists. Yes, one can apply for inclusion and what happens after that is something of a mystery. One can glean a lot from list results, however. For example, we recently studied a list within a list — the 20-company Rising Stars list within Forbes’s Cloud 100 — and here’s what we learned.

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Pitch Opp: Solutions Review ‘Jams’

Solutions Review has been out there seven years and few in tech PR ever ask us about it. That may change. As consolidation wreaks its havoc on earned media, Solutions Review is emerging as a “fresh-idea” B2B publisher for the 2020s. Case in point: the jams.

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Deconstructed: A Contributed Piece that Drew a Big Audience

What makes for a smart approach to contributed content? Answer: something that you know has worked. A Sept. 25 Enterprisers Project piece called “Beware the dark side of agile project management” drew more page views than anything else TEP published that month. Let’s deconstruct why.

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Analysis: Quartz on the Rocks

Few publications have innovated like Quartz. It launched in 2012 as “mobile-first” and raced to embrace native advertising. Its first news app was a chatbot. It created amazing visuals and posted the code on GitHub. It had obsessions, not beats. So why is Quartz in trouble?

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Pitch Opp: PitchBook News

Get ready to pitch PitchBook News. It won’t seek your product news. It might want your funding news. For sure, PitchBook News will sink or swim on its data and the context that editors can bring to it.

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Before Pitching a Narrative, Mock One Up

Most in-house PR pros crave lengthy Tier 1 narratives focused only on their company. Agencies want them focused on the lucrative client. Mock-ups can help. Why not write — at length — the story you envision? We did just that for a subscriber and here’s what we learned.

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FRIDGE NOTES

SWMS Predictions for 2025

No “predictions” post will appear on this site. That said, quite a number of subscribers have asked for a Zoom/MS Teams presentation on what 2025 will bring. A conversation is precisely the right tool for the job. After the election — and with AI transforming publishing and life — “2025” is best discussed among peers, not predicted. So if you’d like to have a confidential group exchange on what stands to unfold, and why, and how comms pros can come out on top in spite of it all, drop a line and we shall schedule something.

Talk About Confidentiality…

According to Adweek, Omnicom CEO John Wren and IPG CEO Philippe Krakowsky were in merger talks for eleven and a half months before the transaction was announced this week. Amazing that it didn’t leak.

Introducing ‘SWMS Sound Thinking’

Should PR pros stop visiting X, with all its lies and hate? It’s only going to get worse. Or are tidbits from targets too important to walk away from? Click here to watch tech edit vet David Strom and I disagree (at high speed) about this, as one compelling visual after another pops up on your screen. In 2025, SWMS will officially launch “SWMS Sound Thinking,” designed to be “argumentative insight in six minutes or less.” Each segment will explore a timely and controversial topic of interest to tech comms pros. This prototype runs 5:25. Hope you enjoy it — feedback vital and welcome! –Sam

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