Back to Volume 13
	Overload By Kristie Heins Fox

Looking back only ten years, it's amazing to see how much the world has changed strictly based on the amount of information humans consume. Looking specifically at the public relations industry, the change is even more pronounced. In the late ’90s, the Internet was just starting to become mainstream. One could secure an interview with a journalist by just saying the word “e-commerce,” and the typical day consisted of reading print publications and pitching the media on the phone. There was a very finite universe of media outlets to scour, and e-mail was just kicking into gear, so faxing a media alert was rather commonplace.

Fast forward to 2008. E-mail, blogs, wikis, IM, RSS, podcasts, YouTube and Second Life are just a few creations that have had a significant impact on the amount of information individuals are required to process on a daily basis. We are no longer constrained by geographic boundaries either, so a daily newspaper in rural India is as readily available around the globe as The New York Times. And the universe of media outlets has grown exponentially, making it difficult to stay on top of all of the important publications and journalists. No longer do we just read BusinessWeek in print; we watch it on BusinessWeekTV, monitor BusinessWeek Online for breaking news, and scour several BusinessWeek blogs to make sure no stone is left unturned. And that’s just one publication.

While in many ways having instant access to information at our fingertips has helped the public relations field — think about how many fewer administrative support staff are needed and how easy it is to conduct research on the most niche topics — it has also created a challenge for even the most accomplished and organized professionals. Those who succeed will be those who embrace the changes taking place around us and figure out how to effectively manage information overload.

Close Your Inbox

We’ve become so accustomed to e-mail in our daily work lives that the thought of having to work an entire day without it is overwhelming to most people. In fact, it’s a common occurrence for an employee to send an e-mail to a colleague sitting right next to him or her instead of walking to their office or picking up the phone. 

The first thing most people do every morning is check their e-mail — work e-mail along with personal e-mail, the latter of which sometimes consists of multiple accounts. As Timothy Ferriss advised in his recent best seller, The 4-Hour Workweek, “Never check e-mail first thing in the morning. Instead, complete your most important task before 11:00 a.m. to avoid using lunch or reading e-mail as a postponement excuse.” He also calls e-mail “the greatest single interruption in the modern world.”

We’ve entered a time of passive aggressive e-mailing — using it to avoid speaking to clients and journalists. And this is having a significant impact on young PR professionals’ verbal communications skills, limiting their ability to sell a story to a journalist or counsel a client to move in a new direction if a program isn’t working. Since we’re paid to communicate to various publics, it’s crucial that we master the art of verbal communication and stop hiding behind e-mail. And those who do devote the necessary time to establish relationships with journalists and clients by picking up the phone instead of sending an e-mail are at a huge advantage. While it is true that there are some journalists who prefer to receive emails over phone calls, it’s really difficult to build a relationship with someone without ever speaking to them.

To gauge the impact of e-mail on the typical employee’s workday, I conducted an unscientific survey of Ruder Finn employees, asking how many hours per day they spend composing and responding to e-mails. The results provide an insightful glimpse into the central role of email in the lives of PR professionals.

Not surprisingly, the survey found that Ruder Finn employees feel overwhelmed by information at work at least some of the time and spend more than four hours per day responding to and composing e-mails. That leaves only three hours for phone pitching, writing, account management and any other program deliverables.

For the typical PR pro with substantial media pitching responsibilities, this poses a serious challenge. Spam filters are helping, but some still get through, and the need to use a spam filter means more time spent every day weeding through the spam filter to make sure no important e-mails got caught. What’s required are dedicated times during every day that the inbox is closed and focus is placed on media relations, industry analyst relations, thought leadership or whatever responsibilities fall on your plate for that day. Timothy Ferriss offered another great tip that works really well and alerts clients to how to reach you in an emergency: in order to better manage the daily influx of e-mail while maintaining productivity, close your inbox when you’re working on a tight deadline and set up your out-of-office alert to let everyone know to call with anything urgent. 

Embrace New Media

In the October 29, 2007, print issue of BusinessWeek, Dell founder and CEO Michael Dell stated, “These conversations are going to occur whether you like it or not, O.K.? Well, do you want to be part of that, or not? My argument is you absolutely do. You can learn from that. You can improve your reaction time. And you can be a better company by listening and being involved in that conversation.”

Ten years ago, such a statement would have been unheard of. Engaging customers directly was too risky and complicated. Today that’s the norm, and companies of all sizes are trying to figure out how to address the growing surge of new media. Gone are the days of skimming the daily newspapers and relevant magazines. In their place have sprouted a vast array of blogs to not only read but become actively engaged in. Instead of observing the conversation, PR is now a part of the conversation.

In December of last year, the Institute for Public Relations and Wieck Media conducted a survey of nearly 300 social media-savvy public relations, corporate and marketing communications professionals to gauge how social media is changing the PR profession. According to the results, 27 percent of respondents reported that social media is a core element of their communications strategy. And of those employing social media strategies, 51 percent are formally measuring the effects of their social media initiatives. As expected, the tools that respondents reported using most frequently are blogs, online video and social networks.

Keep in mind that these are PR professionals who are “experienced in social media,” not just using it occasionally. In that context, these percentages are rather low and this study validates the need for more public relations professionals to begin making social media strategies a priority.

Taking this a step further, another recent study from Kent State and BurrellesLuce found that 72 percent of PR professionals said they have no formal system for monitoring buzz in the blogosphere. Only 19 percent said they do, and of those, most are monitoring blogs using in-house resources. As PR blogger Bill Sledzik, who conducted the research, noted on his blog, “while blogging is ubiquitous in our Web-enabled world, most PR and marketing folks we contacted aren’t monitoring them, nor are they using them as communications tools.”

The two main reasons given for not monitoring or leveraging blogs are a lack of resources (e.g. budget, staff) and the lack of relevancy of blogs to getting the job done.

One of the challenges is the size of the blogosphere. Sue Ross, VP of marketing for BurrellesLuce, claims that they track around 40 million blogs for their clients. That number alone is enough to scare PR pros from even trying to engage with the blogosphere. But what is important to remember is that not every blog is important — in fact, there are probably no more than 15-20 blogs that are very important to each client. By signing up for Google Alerts, searching Technorati and setting up RSS feeds for the most important blogs, it makes monitoring and engaging with the blogosphere a lot more manageable.

While some PR professionals are incorporating Web 2.0 elements into their programs, there are still a lot who are not and, as such, they are missing out on opportunities for their clients. To be fair, part of the problem also lies on the client side, as companies are reluctant to devote the necessary resources to Web 2.0 initiatives that can’t guarantee ROI.

When it comes down to it, engaging with blogs and recording podcasts takes time and, as such, money. And like program measurement, clients love the concept but don’t want to pay for it. Measurement has always been a problem in PR, so this is not a huge surprise, but if individuals are engaging bloggers and not monitoring the buzz, they are not doing their jobs. Unlike traditional media, word spreads quickly in the blogosphere, and since the message is not controlled and anyone is free to comment, it’s imperative that blog monitoring is a core element of all PR programs.

It used to be that the business press relied on the trade press for insight into trends and issues, but both of those groups are now tapping into influential bloggers to get the scoop and stay on top of the news cycle. New media and social media are here to stay and not just a passing fad. And with the elevated role among all types of media, tapping into the blogosphere and getting involved in the conversation is no longer merely an option — it’s a must for success. Those who embrace the opportunity — and take the risk — to have that “conversation” are the ones who will reap the rewards of the new media paradigm.

Tune Out What's Not Important
Between newsletters, blogs, online publications, print publications, newswires and all
of the other sources of daily information, it's difficult to keep up and impossible to read it all. And what's becoming harder and harder every day is weeding out what matters from what doesn’t.

A great example comes from my recent attendance at the 2008 Consumer Electronics Show. The size of the show makes it overwhelming to start, but after digging into the registered media list it becomes apparent just how big the show really is. That being said, what skews the numbers here are the number of tiny blogs that now register as press. We all know and agree that blogs are here to stay and play a crucial role in successful PR campaigns, but there are hundreds of blogs out there with very few readers and, therefore, little impact.

As such, it’s important to identify the influential blogs and publications in order to know what can be tuned out. This is one of the surefire ways to maximize personal efficiency while simultaneously letting nothing slip by. It’s not easy to do, but zoning in on what’s truly important to the business at hand will help maintain focus. This means some e-mails might slip by and not every newsletter will get read, but as long as it’s not directly relevant to a client, prospect or project, let it go. In any client service field this is tough, but it will help you focus on the most important information.

Execute Targeted Media Relations

Another crucial skill required to manage and overcome information overload is media relations. The universe of business magazines, trade publications, blogs and online media
outlets has grown exponentially, but as this has happened the number of insignificant
publications has also grown. Think about all of the blogs out there that claim to have
a voice yet have no readers. The only way to sift through the clutter is to devote the
necessary time to become familiar with the global universe of influential publications.
And once you know them, study the coverage of the journalists you're targeting and dedicate the necessary time to build relationships with them.

Gone are the days of blasting out press releases to a list of 300 journalists hoping that this rapid-fire approach will reach a few journalists who are interested in your story. Not only are there not enough hours in the day to make the necessary phone calls, but it's very unlikely that there are 30 journalists, let alone 300, who are interested in your news.

With more publications to read and pitch, and time-crunched journalists becoming fed up with irrelevant spam e-mail from PR people, conducting targeted media relations is a requirement for success.

A great example of this is WIRED magazine editor-in-chief Chris Anderson’s recent decision to publish on his blog, The Long Tail, a list of names and e-mail addresses of the PR people who have spammed him in the past and are now blacklisted: http:// www.longtail.com/the_long_tail/2007/10/ sorry-pr-people.htm. Several large and well-respected agencies are mentioned in this post, but there were no Ruder Finn employees on his list.

Looking beyond the downside of spamming, targeted media relations is also important because it is the only way to begin building relationships with journalists. With more and more publications to target, and fewer hours in the day to do so, it’s crucial that you’re not wasting your time pitching journalists who aren’t relevant or interested in your news. The key is identifying the influential blogs, newsletters, publications, podcasts, TV shows and radio shows, and doing the necessary homework to figure out what keeps them awake at night. In the long run it will save you time and allow you to reap the benefits of smart, savvy media relations.

Master Time Management

This may seem like an obvious skill required to succeed in a world of too much information, but many students graduating from college have not been taught good time management skills.

We’re all faced with the challenge of completing a set number of tasks during every work week. In order to maintain control it’s important to identify at the start of every week the big projects that must get completed, as opposed to smaller tasks that don’t have a strict deadline. As the week progresses, if the smaller tasks continue to get pushed it’s not a problem as long as the larger projects will be done. Related to this, it’s important to think about what projects are going to bring the greatest return and help meet the bigger picture business objectives. Winning a new client will, while wading through 600 e-mails likely will not.

Another key element to time management is multitasking. It’s one of those skills that managers love to talk about and job applicants throw around frequently to communicate their abilities. Multitasking used to be the end all and be all, but as the amount of information in daily life continues to escalate, there appears to be a lot more value in performing one task at a time until completed, a term Margaret Heffernan of FastCompany. com calls “single-tasking.” As she notes in a recent blog post on FC Now, “We’ve gotten so attached to multitasking that we’re in danger of forgetting how to single-task.” It’s not easy to do, and multitasking is still a big portion of the work day, but by becoming conscious of it and looking to set aside time for individual tasks, you will undoubtedly find that you are completing tasks more quickly and of better quality.

The final aspect of time management that must be addressed is the difference between being busy and being productive. To many it’s one and the same, but there is a huge difference between the two and it’s something that needs to be at the forefront on a daily basis to ensure individual, company and client goals are being met. Everyone can look busy, but to truly be productive one needs to accomplish goals. 

Conclusion

Just as it’s important to exercise one’s brain to stay young in life, one needs to stay on top of industry changes and trends in order to stay relevant in a particular field. With the rapid changes taking place in public relations in light of the emergence of blogs, wikis, IM, RSS and YouTube, learning how to manage the influx of information on a global scale is a required skill for success. The practice of public relations is changing around the globe, and by implementing some of the tips outlined above — closing your inbox, embracing new media, tuning out what’s not important, executing targeted media relations, and mastering time management — industry professionals will regain control of the amount of information they consume, making information overload a thing of the past.