Bloomberg

Never before have we seen PR pros struggle so mightily to land security coverage in business publications. Considering that businesses will spend $76 billion on cybersecurity in 2015 and $155 billion by 2019 (say Cybersecurity Ventures and Gartner), you'd think business editors might care to address where that money might be spent. Yet they don't. "I think there are lots of reasons why, not the least of which is that security journalists have become crime reporters," says a veteran security PR pro, who asked to remain anonymous. 

It'll cost you $750, but you might want to consider attending the 3rd annual Bloomberg Businessweek Design Conference set for Apr. 28 in San Francisco. From a PR standpoint, you might be able to buttonhole journalists from Bloomberg's news and broadcast operations as they interview and report, principally for the print/tablet Bloomberg Businessweek design issue due in May.

Even before the Apple Watch arrives, "design" has come to dominate the hive mind. (The latest evidence: this week's 16,628-word New Yorker profile of Apple chief designer Jony Ive.) Wearables, car tech and IoT -- three of today's top tech trends -- all owe themselves to design. Smart VC firms are hiring designers-in-residence. Yet editorially, the rise of design is easy to miss. 

Speaker-placement opportunity is unfolding at Bloomberg and Fortune. Having scrapped its "Next Big Thing" event brand, Bloomberg is hard at work on the debut of the Bloomberg Technology Conference, set for June 15-16 in San Francisco. Steering the ship is Bloomberg LIVE editor Stephanie Mehta, a 14-year veteran of archrival Fortune and a former architect of Fortune face-to-face events.

If you want to place contributed content, be a myth buster. Search the web and you'll find page after page of headlines with the term "myth busting" (or its one-word or hyphenated variants). Myth busting is big. Forrester uses the term to hawk its webinars. The HuffPo has a standing column about them. Adam Savage and Jamie Hyneman have been busting myths on TV for 12 years; name another show that lasted that long.

In simpler times, consumer titles, business titles, trades and verticals comprised the entirety of media. Editors and publishers researched their audience and served it. Today a subtler framework is emerging that over time will change how PR shapes pitches and woos influencers. Successful publishers today produce either attention products or engagement products -- or both in tandem.

We've never seen PR pros more pressured to deliver "Tier 1" business coverage than we did this year. Not to pander, but we know how difficult this can be: clients rarely give you what you need. Often, though -- and as we see in the skyrocketing number of SWMS valet requests -- PR pros often spend too much time finding targets for an idea that's weak in the first place.

Bloomberg's Next Big Thing definitely frames today's tech trends, but the symposium is just as much a showcase for journalism itself.

It's event season. This month it's the first-ever Code Conference. In June it's Bloomberg's Next Big Thing. In July it's Fortune Brainstorm. WSJD Live debuts in October. Which one sets today's agenda?