Schwartz Crossroads

War Stories and Business Ideas from CES

2012-01-12T20:59:03Z

Walking through the halls of CES 2012, many people see flash and excess, maybe even view it as a signal that the economy is in recovery given that companies are spending money to share their story. What I saw was a lot of HARD WORK. Every banner that was visible to attendees was the thoughtful results of graphic designers, marketing teams, printers and who knows how many others --all before landing in the hands of someone with a forklift and support staff to dangle it from the rafters.

In our work with client SimplyHired.com, we are closely examining the trends around employment and reminded regularly that it is a tough job market out there. The effort and enthusiasm from booth and convention staff was refreshing—no one was taking for granted the opportunity to earn a living.

On the flip side, attendees were grumpy! You couldn’t go anywhere in, around or near the convention center without overhearing a personal “war story” from one of the thousands of attendees. Gripes about cab lines, food options and the outrageous cost for any fill-in-the-blank item was the main topic of discussion. Many aspects of the convention experience is perceived as broken and it made me think “Where there is a market problem, enlies a business idea!” Cab shortages?

What about bike rentals or PediCabs?

Long lines for unhealthy lunch options? The hotels should sell healthy BROWN BAG LUNCHES! It would be nice to get people thinking about active-lifestyle alternatives.

Speaking of active lifestyles, there was an admirable cluster of Digital Health and Fitness companies this year at CES. Everyone from Garmin to iHealth to Striiv, was showcasing new options for monitoring blood pressure and glucose levels or devices that keep you motivated to walk more (Striiv’s monitor, for example donates clean water to third world countries when its users hit certain milestones for daily movement).

I am anxious to see how this space shakes out from an adoption perspective. The amount of walking that was done over the course of the week makes CES attendees the perfect target for these devices. Maybe next year, someone can use the event as a test bed!

Other notable companies in the iLounge area were Mavizon, who was showcasing “Mavia” a socialization tool that ties into your car, Looxcie, a hands free camera with streaming capabilities, as well as Boost Case which won some CES award accolades for its slim cases that double battery life of your iPhone or iPod. I also enjoyed seeing the buzz around one-time client Dish Network’s launch of “Hopper”

its new DVR offering. Hopper messaging was everywhere, but this is the one I wanted to bring back to the office. It would be perfect for an office group nap!

Did you attend CES? Please send me a note at kangell at schwartzmsl dot com or comment here. I would love to hear your war stories or business ideas, maybe this time next year it will be in beta…

Tell Your Mobile Story at CTIA

2012-01-11T15:23:42Z

This May, the wireless industry will gather for one of its biggest events, CTIA Wireless. In addition to the trade show packed with vendor booths, the event will offer a variety of educational sessions. This presents an excellent opportunity for executives at forward-thinking wireless and mobile companies to position themselves as thought leaders at one of the industry’s most significant events. CTIA is currently accepting proposals for potential panelists and presenters at the event. This is an excellent way to build a reputation as a leader in wireless. Here are some of the tips we offer to our clients seeking speaking positions.

• Develop your proposal around a hot topic. The mobile industry is innovating quickly in a number of areas, from mobile payments to mobile device management, machine-to-machine communications and dozens of other areas that impact both consumers and businesses. These sweeping trends are catching the attention of CTIA attendees – your buyers. The speaking organizers at CTIA have assembled an agenda that helps explain emerging trends to attendees. In your proposal, focus on the emerging and broad trends where you can offer expertise.

• Struggling to find a topic that’s best for you? Engage in discussion with analysts in your market space and ask them what they’re hearing from the industry. Your investors can also be useful in providing a bird’s-eye view. Also comb through magazines and blogs for the hot topics that are most relevant to the industry.

• Develop relationships with decision-makers at CTIA. On a daily basis, CTIA staff and executives communicate with the industry’s leaders. Meet with influential leaders at CTIA team to share your opinions about industry trends from the front lines. You may then find yourself invited to speak on a panel.

• Propose a full panel, not an individual speaker. Executives from the leading companies in the mobile industry are chosen as keynote speakers and panelists. However, if you’re with a smaller company, you’ll need to get strategic. Think of the relationships you’ve built and leverage them. Is there a well-regarded analyst that shares your views? Do you have a customer that can provide real-world insight into your topic? How about a key partner from a highly visible wireless organization? Assemble a panel with all of these experts and offer an irresistible proposal to CTIA.

• If you are invited to speak at CTIA, pull out all the stops to make sure you ace the assignment. The CTIA staff closely monitor the success of individual speakers and panels. If your session attendees rate you highly, you have a greater chance of being invited back.

Make sure to get your speaking submission in by the deadline of January 15th. The competition for speaking opportunities is high, but the time spent in crafting a successful abstract is well worth the effort.

Need guidance in preparing a speaking submission? For further insight contact Schwartz MSL Boston at (781) 684-0770. The agency’s wireless practice represents some of the leading companies in mobile, and we can help you, too.

Have a Healthcare Play? Consider Going to HIMSS 2012

2012-01-05T16:32:25Z

by Mercedes Carrasco

Schwartz MSL’s tech clients often ask us if attending HIMSS is worth their time and investment. These technology vendors might have a significant play in the healthcare vertical, but aren’t delivering pure-play HCIT products like EMRs, clinical decision support tools or healthcare billing platforms. Although HIMSS is the largest and most well-attended show dedicated to HCIT, the answer for general tech companies isn’t so clear cut.

When discussing with clients the decision to attend or plan a larger presence through exhibiting or sponsorship at HIMSS, we pose the following questions:

What do you want to get out of the conference? In the past, even some of the largest HCIT vendors have commented that lead generation at previous HIMSS events has been moderate. Though the event attracts technology buying decision makers, the show is ‘noisy’ with hundreds of companies competing for booth traffic and general awareness. Typically, attendees are looking for specific HCIT solutions and may not yet be thinking about technology investments they should make to support a HCIT deployment.

Where HIMSS may not always deliver in leads, it does provide a fertile environment for vendor networking. Dozens of companies announce partnerships and plant seeds for many more. A trip to Vegas may be a cost-effective way for your company to get some face time with bigger HCIT players.

One constant at HIMSS is the strong media presence. For companies that are new to the healthcare industry, there is a good opportunity to schedule introductory briefings with editors and analysts, to educate them on how your technology fits into the HCIT landscape. As with any media outreach, they will be most interested in news, hearing about your company’s overarching strategy and roadmap, and customers.

How advanced is your healthcare messaging? The healthcare industry is experiencing dramatic changes in terms of payment and care delivery models. HCIT will play a big role in supporting new models, such as pay-for-performance and ACO. The industry recognizes a huge potential for support technology – particularly storage and security components that will be critical as more healthcare organizations digitize their records while working to comply with regulations, and IT consulting and integration to optimize IT investments and manage complex IT networks. Technology companies that want to succeed in the healthcare vertical must clearly articulate and illustrate their value proposition for their product and services within the healthcare market and be prepared to relay those messages to many audiences at the show, namely vendors, analysts, media and attendees. Schwartz MSL leverages our healthcare experience to help clients craft healthcare-specific messaging.

Can you tell a customer story?
One of the best ways to advance your healthcare-specific messaging is to use a healthcare customer. Inviting a customer to join you at HIMSS – whether at your booth or on the show floor – is a great draw for media. Reporters and editors want to hear firsthand how your customers use your technology to meet their needs.

Here is a strategy that worked well for Schwartz MSL client Circadence, a company that provides WAN (Wide Area Network) and network optimization solutions, at HIMSS 2011. Although they didn’t have a customer on hand, Circadence executives met with key reporters, including Jim Knaub at Radiology Today, and shared the experience of a customer, Imaging Associates of North Mississippi Magnolia (IANMM), that uses Circadence MVO to ensure rapid, reliable and secure delivery of large image transfers. The executives recounted the customer’s process from evaluation through implementation while communicating clear, quantitative ROI. The result: a follow-up conversation between the customer and editor after the show, which became a cover story. To view that story, visit Radiology Today. Since the story ran, Circadence has expanded its presence in healthcare, providing WAN and network optimization for images, electronic health records and now the ability to access critical healthcare information on any mobile device.

After reviewing these questions, consider dipping your toe in the HIMSS pool by sending a few executives as attendees. Investment in attendee passes is much less expensive than sponsoring a booth, plus it gives executives the time to walk the show floor, and network with other vendors, potential partners and the media. Register before January 23 for the standard rate. And while you’re there, take advantage of Las Vegas in February and dip another toe in the pool at Venetian’s Tao Beach.

Schwartz MSL has had a long-standing presence at HIMSS and will have HCIT practice group members at the 2012 show. We’re less than eight weeks away, but there’s still time to plan and make a significant impact. Schwartz MSL created a Road to HIMSS 2012 Planning Guide to help you navigate the PR and marketing opportunities at the show. Download the guide for free here.

For further advice or information on how Schwartz MSL can partner with you, please contact Dave Close or Doug Russell in our Boston office at 781-684-0770, or Shannon Murphy in our San Francisco office at 415-512-0770, or send an email to healthcareIT@schwartzmsl.com.

Learning from Bissel - A Trade Show Master

2011-12-05T14:24:58Z

Over the years, I have probably been to hundreds of trade shows. My clients frequently ask me what I think of trade show/Expo X and if they should exhibit/speak there.

To me it always boils down to:

Who will be there?
Will you have a chance to engage meaningfully with prospects (and the media/bloggers)?
How crowded will it be?
What commitment is involved.
How much will it cost?

This weekend I ran across a company that deserves praise for picking an absolutely perfect trade show for them - Bissel.

I took the family to LEGO Kidsfest. A three day 140,000 sq. ft. LEGO extravaganza.

One of the exhibits was "Big Brick Pile” a 50x100' file of LEGO bricks. At the end of the pile Bissel was there demonstrating the power of its Super Sweep Turbo (it is not a vacuum) to pick up LEGO bricks of all sizes.

Kids were lining up to use the sweeper, pick up bricks and dump them out again.

This is a great example of experiential marketing where the company identified a use of its product, and provided prospects a chance to try it in a real work environment. The Bissel staff was also handing out coupons and explaining the three different stores you can purchase the product at.

What really drove this home to me was after my four year old swept up LEGO bricks for the third time and almost go into a fight with a six year old over who got to pick up the bricks next - My wife turned to me, grabbed me by the collar, looked in my eyes and told me "I don't care about the 'husband rule' that says 'thou shalt not buy your wife appliances as a gift.' I want this. I want this. Do you understand me?"

I am positive my wife was not the only person with that reaction.

So a tip of the hat to the Bissel marketing executives, and a story for all companies to think about. Does your trade show participation and display create that type of reaction from prospects? If not, what can you do to create that scenario.

National Black Public Relations Society Conference--Celebrating African American Achievements and Promoting Diversity in PR

2011-11-18T20:53:18Z

BY LAUREN PITCHER

Wyonona Redmond, president of the National Black Public Relations Society (NBPRS) speaking at the opening reception held at the Harley Davidson Museum in Milwaukee

The National Black Public Relations Society (NBPRS) held their annual conference, October 27-30, 2011 in Milwaukee and this year I had the opportunity to be there. The theme for this year’s conference was: “The Network at Work: Managing Transitions, Techniques and Technology for Business and Career Success.” Some of the most respected African Americans in the communications industry were there including former journalists who started their own boutique PR agencies, corporate communications professionals, agency PR practitioners, bloggers, PR freelancers, authors and community relations professionals.

Throughout the conference I had the opportunity to attend a variety of workshops but one that particularly stood out to me was: “Breaking In & Staying In: Realities & Strategies for Blacks in PR.” The panel highlighted the importance of building relationships with co-workers to bridge racial differences and we discussed the value of not focusing on being the only minority at the company but rather being aware of how to constantly develop new skills, think outside the box, promote integrity and stay up-to-date with the clients business.

Although only 4.7% of the marketing, advertising and PR industries are made up of ethnic minorities, conferences such as this are a huge step to help diversify the industry, recognize African Americans in the industry and showcase their achievements. Wyonna Redmond, president of NBPRS, defines PR as this: “Our job in the public relations field is to communicate ideas, evoke feelings, shape images, enhance or change perceptions and build relationships.” More diversity in the industry will mean more perspectives and different ideas being shared, which can only lead to helping grow the industry. Carol Moseley Braun, the first African American female senator, said it best in her keynote address at the conference: “When all the cream is allowed to rise to the top, the butter is bound to be better!”

SimplyHired.com Helping The White House Get Veteran's Back to Work

2011-11-08T18:20:14Z

Yesterday, the White House announced a plan to help put veterans back to work with the assistance of Schwartz MSL client SimplyHired.com, which gives veterans access to more than 500,000 job listings from its “veteran-friendly companies” job search filter.

This initiative marks a huge milestone in our country’s commitment to repaying the debt of gratitude that is owed to all men and women in uniform by providing military veterans with immediate access to employers who are committed to hiring veterans.

The reality is that many veterans return home to a stark reality: high unemployment rates and rising costs of food, shelter and services in nearly every state. That’s where companies like SimpyHired.com are now stepping up to help make the transition from deployment to employment easier for our veterans and their families. So how does the plan work?

In addition to the White House’s plan to provide other new resources for veterans, Google, the U.S. Department of Veteran’s Affairs and SimplyHired.com have been working together to develop the Veteran’s Job Bank, pulling from more than 500,000 specially-tagged job postings on

SimplyHired.com that feature opportunities from veteran-committed companies all over the country. As more employers undertake to become part of the Veterans Job Bank, Google will index these new job postings to help increase the available jobs for veterans on NRD.gov.

To learn more about how to mark your company’s job postings as Veteran-committed so that you can be a part of President Obama’s commitment to put veterans back to work, please visit https://www.nationalresourcedirectory.gov/home/instructions_for_employer_participation.

Written By: Amanda Chagoya

Steve Jobs remembered

2011-10-06T12:05:55Z

Steve Jobs passed away yesterday. The news came to me last night the same way it did for many others: via a post on my Facebook news feed. I didn’t read it on my iPhone because I was at home, using my MacBook Air.

In the coming hours and days, we’ll read and hear many eulogies of Steve Jobs. For many, he was the inventor of our times. He was a creative genius who brought simplicity and elegance to high tech products. He always seemed to be one step ahead of everyone else in the high tech world, forcing others to catch up.

I never met Steve Jobs, but he changed my life. I am old enough to remember the first generation of PCs that ran DOS, an operating system that required memorizing a long list of command codes to simply type a memo. I was working in publishing, and one day, a Macintosh computer arrived on my desk. It was shaped like a child’s wooden block set on its end. It lacked an internal hard drive. Instead you saved your files to the same disk that held the MacWrite and MacPaint software.

More importantly, you didn’t need to memorize anything because the Macintosh had menus with the commands right on them and icons you could click. It was the first intuitive GUI for a PC. I fell in love. From publishing, I went to a high tech startup developing Macintosh networking equipment, and from there, eventually, to high tech PR.

Jobs referred to the Macintosh design team as artists. Their signatures were engraved inside the original Mac cases. For many years, I kept that original Mac but eventually discarded it. I wonder if their signatures were inside.

Over the years, Apple’s reputation rose, fell and then rose again. It was never the biggest PC maker, but it set the bar for user interface design because of its unique fusion of artistry and technology. Jobs changed the world again with the debut of the iPod, which transformed the music industry. Just when the mobile phone giants were coasting, Jobs brought out the iPhone and forced the entire industry to innovate to catch up.Then the iPad came along and it quickly made laptops look, well, so yesterday.

So here’s the question everyone is asking now: can Tim Cook, or anyone else for that matter, replace Jobs at Apple? Will anyone else see just far enough into the future and deeply enough into our psyches to make entire industries obsolete? Part of me hopes the answer is yes, because Apple is a great company. And part of me knows the answer is no, because there was only one Steve Jobs.

Pew Study Dissects Relative Popularity of Local News Sources

2011-09-30T14:42:25Z

The Pew Research Center's Project for Excellence in Journalism and Internet & American Life Project, along with the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, has released the results of a phone survey of more than 2,000 American adults who were asked about local news sources. The report, "How People Learn About Their Local Community," is a must-read if you run local programs or otherwise target local or regional media.

The report is the first of its kind because it parses out types of local information consumed through different types of media. The authors explain that "[c]onventional research has tended to ask people about local news and information generically with some variation of a simple question: Where do people turn most often for their news? Asked that way, the majority of people answer local TV .... And this new survey, too, finds that local TV is the most frequently used medium for news and information ...."

However, and I'm highlighting, "[t]his survey also took a new approach as well, asking people about the information sources they rely on to get material about 16 different specific local information areas. The result is a more complex portrait of how people learn and exchange information about community. The new data explodes the notion, for instance, that people have a primary or single source for most of their local news and information."

So, more people use TV to get local news and information than any other single source, but if you pull apart types of information, other sources rise to the top of the list of preferred media.

Pew offers an interactive tool that lets you examine responses based on age of the respondents and type of information. They say that age is the most important factor in determining preferred media type. "Simply put," the authors say, "one generation into the web, older consumers still rely more heavily on traditional platforms while younger consumers rely more on the internet. Among adults under age 40, the web ranks first or ties for first for 12 of the 16 local topics asked about." They move on to explain that newspapers and TV outpace the web in terms of sources for local info sources for people over the age of 40.

To me, this means that local healthcare programs that prioritize coverage with local TV affiliates and newspapers are still critical for reaching older audiences, but that communicators should be sure to look for every opportunity to secure coverage with local bloggers and other online outlets to reach younger people.

The report also points out that almost half of all adults get information on their smartphones or other mobile devices. This is terrific reminder for all marketers that their web presence should be designed with mobile users in mind.

SEO for PR Pros

2011-09-28T15:36:33Z

Yesterday I participated, along with Tom Lynch of interactive web marketing firm Astek Consulting, in a PR News webinar on SEO best practices. I'm not an SEO expert, but have developed a strong interest in search over the past several years. To me, it goes hand in hand with PR.

We all know that PR is about telling great stories. But to tell those stories, communicators have to create more content, and content of different types, than we did even a few years ago. At Schwartz MSL, our target audiences are generally online, so it makes sense to optimize that content for search to increase the likelihood that people who are looking for information on problems that our clients can solve find them online. I can't imagine running communications programs that don't take SEO into account.

If you're looking ahead to 2012 and planning your content and PR strategies, will you factor in SEO? Or do you feel that great content will be found and shared independent of optimization efforts?

SEO for PR Pros

View more presentations from Schwartz MSL

Google+ for Brands: Waiting, but Not Wondering

2011-09-20T18:43:26Z

Mitt Romney, presidential candidate and former governor of my home state of Massachusetts, was mocked a few weeks ago when he said that "corporations are people." It doesn't matter that it's not literally true, of course. It was his way of expressing the thought that every business, no matter how large, is comprised of individuals.

That's precisely the reason that B2B marketers struggle with use of social platforms such as Facebook. It's not devoted to supporting people's business personas, as LinkedIn is, and there's scant indication that anyone goes onto Facebook looking for information on B2B products. However, it's impossible to set aside the knowledge that Facebook is more frequently visited in the U.S. than Google and all those B2B buyers with their complex decision-making processes are, after all, individuals who more likely than not use it. Fortunately for those companies looking to interact with customers and potential customers on this platform, there are Facebook Pages.

Other B2B marketers are on the fence about use of Facebook. Conveniently, they haven't yet had to worry about another major social platform, Google+. Google made the decision about participation for them--it deletes profiles set up by brands--and today's announcement of nine new Google+ features doesn't include support for business profiles.

Such support is expected to be added, though, and I'd argue that business marketers shouldn't delay getting to know Google+'s features. Why? Three main reasons come to mind:

1. Most B2Bs care about search and Google+ profiles seem to top search results. My profile does, at any rate, and so do those of all of my colleagues. Check out the following chart from a 2011 Optify report (The Changing Face of SERPs: Organic Click-Through Rate). It shows how many more clicks the top search result receives than even positions two and three.

I don't think the need to understand Google+ and to potentially benefit from its favorable placement in search results can get much clearer, unless Google will force companies' Google+ profiles down in search results in a way that it's not currently doing with those of individuals. (For more on how Google+ is bringing search and social media together, check out this Brafton post.)

2. Google+ seems to be pushing other social platforms to adjust their own feature sets. I'd suggest that knowing what's up with Google+ may help marketers better understand how they can use Facebook, for example. Or, more importantly, understand how their "fans" may expect them to use Facebook.

3. Google+ circles, which allow users to present content to friends that's different from what they share with relatives, for instance, may eventually be of use to B2B marketers looking to create a different experience for customers using different product mixes, or individuals at different stages of the buying process.

Do you think Google+ is worth keeping an eye on? Or is it not worth the time if marketers are already reaching people on other social platforms?

Act Two: Schwartz MSL

2011-09-15T06:00:00Z

I want to share some really exciting news about Schwartz Communications. After 20 years of independence, we’ve become part of MSLGROUP---one of the world’s largest public relations and engagement agencies.

It takes something special to change two decades of independence. And we’ve found it in an amazing organization with talented employees, terrific clients, and a shared passion for storytelling in all its mediums. Our unique and shared strengths mesh very well.

As Schwartz MSL, we’ll continue our focus on “innovation companies of all sizes” and the technologies, treatments and services that transform business, save lives and conserve our natural resources. But as part of an outstanding industry leader, we now have a new assortment of engagement and marketing services, and a network of thousands of additional experts in more than 80 MSLGROUP offices worldwide.

We’ve moved to a truly global stage, and Schwartz MSL will continue to lead the way in delivering the reach, influence and creative service offerings our clients need to create new markets or transform existing ones. We hope you’ll enjoy our next act, which you can follow here in our blogs and on Twitter at @schwartzmsl.

Social Media and B2B Buying Behavior

2011-09-12T20:49:00Z

A new survey from Base One, Report 2011: The annual survey of changing B2B buyer behaviour, takes a look at "the extent to which B2B decision-makers are using social media tools and channels to help them in the process of refining their needs and identifying suitable suppliers for major business purchases."

Base One surveyed more than 1,000 people in the UK, Germany, France, Belgium and Italy in spring 2011. If your assignment includes European communications, the report is worth a look. It examines buyers' sources of information and, importantly, which of these have the most influence.

Here's a look at information sources used by UK decision-makers and changes between 2010 and 2011. In each year, the most relied upon sources are corporate websites, searches and industry media.

The report goes on to tease out opinions on social media and whether it's trustworthy or worth the time. It doesn't end with recommendations, but leaves it to the reader to determine what to take and apply to their own marketing strategy.

I read the report because a post on Forbes.com caught my eye, "Social is Intriguing, but Search is Proven." It displays a similar bar chart to the one above and concludes, "Don't let social media detract from the focus of optimizing your corporate website and search, both organic (SEO) and paid (PPC). Social media might pay off in the future, but search is a sure bet today."

Here's what I wish the report or the Forbes.com write-up had done: point out that if search matters to your business, so does social media. The number and quality of links to a website seem to be of great importance to search engines, as do pages on a site devoted to topics that people are searching on (as opposed to just promoting a brand). Blogs are a terrific way to add those pages and keep the content fresh over time and when it comes to links, about nine months ago, Google and Bing both said that they now look at links from social sites and consider the social authority of people who do the linking.

For more info on how social media may be increasing in importance to companies that care about search results, take a look at the SEOmoz report on Search Engine Ranking Factors. SEO experts polled by SEOmoz view "social signals at page level" and "social signals at domain level" as likely growing in importance.

If social media is becoming more important to search engines and search engines and corporate websites matter more to European B2B buyers, then I'd suggest that the role of social media may be obscured or underappreciated to some degree by the report on buyer behavior. B2B decision-makers may not be turning to Facebook and blogs for information as frequently as they do webinars, for example, but all those fresh blog posts and links from social sites and consequent improvements in search rankings may be an important reason that buyers are finding companies' sites in the first place.

The Twitterverse's Response to President Obama's Speech

2011-09-09T12:43:47Z

Today there is a lot of discussion going on about President Obama's speech and issues around it. Here on the Crossroads blog we tend to not discuss politics, so I will leave the political analysis to others. But I wanted to compare and contrast what President Obama said last night to the Twitterverse's reaction to what he said - so we as professional communicators could see if his message was championed by the people who watched and engaged via social media.

The results were surprising.

The word cloud shows that President Obama clearly focused on jobs, economy, people, business, tax, and companies.

The Twitterverse called out something different:

It is interesting to note that of the words President Obama said, only economy was used frequently. Surprisingly, job/jobs was barely discussed, users on Twitter preferred the term "work."

Also of note, there were more than 20,000 "spam" tweets using the term Obama in the past 24 hours. (Unless I missed something and Justin Bieber, Miley Cyrus and Beyonce really have something to do with the political discourse.)

GSMA's Global Mobile Awards open for entry

2011-09-06T10:32:45Z

With the Mobile World Congress call for papers closing on Thursday, it is now time to turn your attention to the Global Mobile Awards which are now open for entry. The annual awards, now in its 17th year, will be presented at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona on Tuesday 28th February 2012.

Global Mobile Awards for 2012 will be presented in the following categories:

Apps of the Year
Best Mobile Handsets and Devices
Mobile Marketing and Advertising
Mobile Innovation
Best Technology
Social and Economic Development
Best Mobile Services
Outstanding Achievement Awards

A full list of awards categories can be found here.

This year, 18 new awards have been introduced for a total of 32 awards across the eight categories. Other noteable changes to this years’ awards include:

'Apps of the Year’: the GSMA has consolidated the awards in the ‘Apps of the Year’ category. In that category, the GSMA has introduced three new awards, two of which will be based on statistical evidence of global downloads and usage, and one, the ‘Most Innovative Mobile App’ award, which is open for entry to all. This category will also include a ‘Judges’ Choice - Best Overall Mobile App’ award which will be determined by an independent panel of experts.
‘Best Mobile Handsets and Devices’: the 2012 awards will expand this category with specific awards for ‘Best Smartphone’, ‘Best Feature Phone’ and a new ‘Best Mobile Tablet’ award. In addition, a panel of judges will search for and select the best and most promising ‘Best New Mobile Handset, Device or Tablet’ on show at the Mobile World Congress 2012 event.
'Mobile Innovation’: focused on the convergence of mobile in the vertical sectors such as health, transport, automotive and utilities and education, this category will now also include specific awards aimed at expansion in mobile publishing and mobile money services.
Additional notable developments are included within the ‘Mobile Marketing and Advertising’ category to elevate and recognise innovation and creativity within this rapidly emerging sector.
New categories have also been introduced within the ‘Best Technology’ and ‘Social and Economic Development’ categories, with additions such as ‘Best Use of Mobile in Emergency or Humanitarian Situations’ and the ‘mWomen - Best Product or Service for Women in Emerging Markets’.

The Global Mobile Awards 2012 can be entered online and nominations close on Wednesday 30th November 2011.

For more advice on making the most of PR and marketing opportunities at Mobile World Congress 2012, download our free ebook, Blueprint for Barcelona.

PR Pros, Twitter and Fantasy Football

2011-09-01T17:55:18Z

One banner hangs above my desk at home. Thanks to players like Clinton Portis and Randy Moss, and my deft coaching and motivating skills, I am a fantasy football champion.

My league held its draft last night, and ahead of making my picks, I scoured the news wires for information about players' health. There is nothing more embarrassing than picking a player who blew out his knee the week before. In our league, everyone's nice. Someone typically pipes up and says the player is hurt, but still-- it's embarrassing.

Lo and behold, there was huge news in the NFL fantasy world yesterday involving star running back Arian Foster, the Houston Texans fullback who was being picked first or second in most drafts. Foster tweeted yesterday an MRI image of his hamstring, which had been injured a few days earlier. Foster noted that a "white spot" on the image, the actual injury, was "anti-awesomeness."

The Tweet has gotten Foster in a lot of trouble. As a story in the "Bleacher Reporter" notes, the Tweet provides competitive intelligence to Foster's opponents, who now have knowledge of a physical vulnerability.

He's going to get fined for violating team rules. I am hoping the rule in question relates to a sophisticated social media policy for the Texans. Twitter is firmly embedded in the culture of football, and if used properly, it can help to grow and strengthen a fan base. An appropriate social media policy for NFL players would actually encourage Twitter use, but it would clearly note content that should not be tweeted, while explaining the consequences.

Something tells me the rule Foster violated is less savvy, and is more old school, restricting communication about injuries in general. And something also tells me we won't be seeing many tweets from Foster in the future. And for Texans fans, that's a shame.