Industry Watch: Technology Communications PR Agency
January 2006

Q&A with Christine A. Boehlke, CEO, Connecting Point Communications

Q: What is Connecting Point Communications' primary focus?
We work with technology companies - during that critical time period from product launch to IPO -- or at a time in their lifecycle when they need a "breakout strategy" as the environment changes around them. So our primary focus is on "doing the heavy lifting". PR is almost always our clients' most important marketing tool. We often lead the positioning and creative work of an integrated marketing program and our plans include tactics for increasing client web traffic, lead generation and customer loyalty

I have a marketing background as well as a PR one and I use each discipline about equally. For many technical innovations, the benefits aren't intrinsically obvious because the customer doesn't know how to think about them. We provide the linkage from "familiar" to "new". And we must create visibility and momentum from a cold start to something that can quickly gain understanding, endorsement, acceptance and critical mass, among a field of many other new technical offerings, in a very short period of time.

Q. How did the company start?
I spent five years in Edelman's Chicago headquarters - learning directly from Dan Edelman himself, and another five working with Burson-Marsteller, eventually running its Western Region. Then I decided I wanted to try my hand at having my own firm where I could have a very direct cause and effect on my clients' outcomes. My firm handled all types of business at first, which was reflective of my background. But being in the Bay Area, I soon decided to zero in on information technology because I knew that it was going to affect every single thing we do in life, which it has, and will continue to do.

Q. Is communications in the technology world more proactive or reactive?
Technology PR is almost all proactive. Most technology is breaking new ground - driving new standards and ways of doing things. When something hasn't been done before there is nothing in place to react to. Rather, we continually attempt to proactively tie technology to new and better ways of solving old problems. "Gas prices up? Turn some of those personal meetings into web conferencing ones. Vacation travel? Mix tune-out with tune-in time, taking a Wi-Fi Finder along for the nearest Internet connection. How many words does your company's IT system have for 'customer'? You probably could use some semantic integration".



Q. Your clients are both Business to Business and Consumer-oriented. How does your approach differ? Or for that matter, how do the assignments differ?
Consumer technology programs seek product and brand awareness in the mass media and often require consumer education on how to do something different and more effectively, including "how to's" and "when to's". But we also must win over an educated reviewer and recommender infrastructure, similar to what the movie or pharmaceutical people must do. A Business to Business technology PR program aimed at IT professionals is very focused and targeted to the influencer infrastructure, since customers will be "betting the house" on the infrastructure IT chooses. While general media coverage is helpful, a successful B2B program must win over and make evangelists of the industry analysts who counsel companies on what to buy, the product reviewers who do sophisticated shoot outs and the handful of trade editors and Bloggers in any one field whose opinions have established expert status. A B2B program targeted to end user buyers within companies deploys a combination of consumer and B2B tactics.

Q. Based on your experience, what is the single-most important issue facing technology today?
All the ramifications of making the transition to a network-based world. We're moving ourselves onto the Web - literally - putting our entire identities there to be had. For better or worse, our younger generations are forsaking traditional learning disciplines for peer to peer information sharing. Our industries - from banks through retail - have dismantled the majority of their bricks and mortar structures and there's no going back for them. Yet under the hood, many of the companies we depend on the most are embroiled in a mess as they try to serve up the sophisticated web services needed to make virtual environments perform the way the physical ones did. In technology things happen fast and often are based on innovation breakthroughs that say - "because we can" rather than studied thought that says, "because we should." The more sweeping the changes, the greater the issues that come along with them.

Q: Please share a little personal history with us. What made you choose communications as a career and how did you end up in High Tech?
While working for a newspaper, I was on the scriptwriting committee for a political roast. At the cast party, I met a man who, no matter what anyone said to him, he had "been there, done that". I followed him around all evening and eventually said, "what do you do for a living that you have done and know so much about so many things?" He said, "I own a PR firm." I said, "What's PR?" I went to work for him several months later and never looked back.

I spent my big agency years doing all types of PR, but once I had my own firm and was in full control of my destiny, I quickly realized that technology PR was the most exciting place to be in my lifetime. It's the fastest moving and most competitive environment in the world. And it's become so pervasive that I've actually come full circle, communicating technology-based advances within almost every business and consumer sector. Now when I go to parties people say, "what do you do for a living that you know so much about so many things?"

Q: I have worked in communications in high tech myself and have noticed that technical people have a decidedly different way of looking at things than non-technical people. (Just try reading a user manual. ;) ) Does it become a problem when suggesting a course of action? How so?
This is a classic communications challenge because it's mainly about articulation style. Technology is largely driven by engineers, who tend to be "inductive" in their thinking and expression - creating a thorough build up to their logical conclusion. But we are a society of 10 second commercials - one of my favorite phrases is "I'm so busy - I don't even have time for instant gratification." While industry analysts and product reviewers tend to appreciate the inductive approach, almost all media demand the headline quickly followed by the proof points. So you have to help clients become proficient at both.

I use traditional positioning and messaging models to help achieve "language simplification". I often use food brands as my examples because that's something everyone can relate to and achieve common understanding around. When you point out that a well known condiment producer internally expresses its core competency as "canning and jarring technologies" they immediately see the connections with their own situation. And as soon as people "get it", they immediately begin enjoying it and applying it.

Q: Since you work in a progressive-thinking industry, please use some progressive-mindedness of your own and tell us where you see the field of communications heading in the future. Will we be running technology or will technology be running us?
The new model is that wherever you are, you have complete ability to connect with anything and anyone. Space is no longer about where places are, but where YOU are. Look at people under the age of 20 and you know what the future holds … in the palms of our hands. We are back to the pre-technology days of 1:1 communication only now the "1's" touching each other can be made of one or many people, present physically or virtually in real or shift-time. People soon will touch as much or as little of the world's body of knowledge and enjoyment at any time as wished -- and add to it at will.

Clearly this requires the field of communications to change as radically as the environment we must influence. It provides us great opportunities because online venues are proving that "solid, relevant information served up at the time of need" is indeed what it's all about. The good news is we have about 500 new information channels for delivering our communications program direct to our clients' prospects, customers and influencers. As communicators, we must not only "run our technology" but leverage technology to accomplish the kinds of communications results never before imagined. There is no going back.

Q: What would you suggest to the new, or relatively new, PR professional as to the differences between working at an agency, a corporation or, for that media, a newspaper?
If you can start with a few years as a reporter it will provide an invaluable base of learning for how to investigate, how to write and how to meet deadlines. Then an agency is by far the best place to spend the next few years because that's the proving grounds of our profession and nothing will ever equal the learning curve of someone's first few years at a PR firm. After that, it's personal preference. I'm an agency "lifer" and can't imagine ever working for just one company. But certainly my client counterparts in the corporate world have a whole additional level of professional power and rewards that come with leading such an important function from the inside out.

Q: What skills are most important to add up to a consummate public relations professional?
I think there are some essential success factors. Strong sense of ethics. Insatiable curiosity. Excellent active listening skills. Natural problem solving capabilities. Strong motivation to influence. High level of stamina, resiliency, persistence and follow-through. And underscoring all these is commitment. My favorite saying: "The difference between involvement and commitment is like a ham and eggs breakfast. The chicken was involved. The pig was committed."

Q: You've won many awards. How important are awards to a professional public relations career?
In the sense that awards push the envelope on creating excellence, I think they are very important. It is not the award itself that promotes a career, but rather the level of excellence you must attain to win it in the first place that propels you forward. The Silver Anvil sets the pace for defining the role public relations plays in advancing an organization's success. I've won some and I've served as judge. Silver Anvil criteria is much more about research, measurement, cause and effect than about pure creative. It's about "how do we know what we do works?" That's the same theme of the PRSA Counselors Academy, where I've served on the executive committee.

We are continually proving PR's relevancy - of our right to sit at the table with other representatives of organizational management. While client recognition may be the #1 imperative, awards put the challenge out there and give every communications professional the opportunity to do their best to measure up, and to receive peer recognition when they do.

Q: Where would you like to see yourself or your company in 10 years?
Healthy, wealthy and wise. Both for me and for my company! Our firm has a solid reputation for helping to build technology leaders, especially those with a high level of innovation. If we can continue the performance that keeps us out there on the forefront of technology, we'll continue to be invited to play a role in making a mark on history. Technology will continue to define CPC's destiny just as it is doing for the rest of the world. But I'm talking not really about technology but about its effects on people around the world as they go about their daily lives - as they learn, work and play very differently than the generations before them.