Microsoft Tech.Ed 2009

There are few technology events that match the scale and prestige of Microsoft Australia’s ‘Tech.Ed’. Howorth/ Microsoft public relations team continued its proud collaboration in co-ordinating this event in 2009. It was a huge year with several key announcements coming from the software leader including:

• The largest Windows 7 test environment with 2,500 netbooks given out to conference attendees
• The Windows 7 commercial launch
• Microsoft Office 2010 technical preview

Key challenges in the public relations program included:

• Managing through a year of economic uncertainty and communicating the educational value of Tech.Ed to businesses during a time when justifying the release indispensable IT staff for three business days can be especially challenging.
• Complex logistical requirements :

1. The travel and accommodation arrangements for 21 attending media
2. Ensuring that media had access to the spokespeople they required to tell the best stories

The Howorth/ Microsoft public relations team spent many long hours ensuring the event went off without a hitch. Aside from standard media relations Howorth assisted in a number of key areas:

• Analyst relations
• Blogger outreach
• Social media monitoring

Despite the challenges, the joint team delivered a successful event that exceeded expectations of internal and external stakeholders and media.

The Great Information Glut

Information is a key asset for every organisation. But how many companies feel that they are choked with dealing with too much information and are struggling to manage this data?

To differentiate Hitachi Data Systems from its competitors and raise its profile, Howorth worked with Hitachi to develop a technology public relations campaign that would provide insights into this business issue. The result was an independent research report titled “The Great Information Glut”.

The Great Information Glut: key findings
Hitachi Data Systems commissioned an independent study conducted by Sweeney Research, which found that one in three organisations across Australia and New Zealand is struggling under the excessive growth of digital information and the management of that information. This has prompted Hitachi to call for an “information intervention”, calling on organisations to take a big picture look at existing systems and improve them to better manage growth, reduce costs, improve utilisation and enhance information governance.

Armed with these findings, Howorth was able to devise a media strategy that would maximise the reach this news. To provide a well rounded story, Howorth sourced third parties to get their perspectives on the research. This included Professor Susan Williams, Information Management Specialist, Business Information Systems at the University of Sydney as well as Hitachi Data Systems customer Austar. This approach helped journalists gain a deeper understanding of the key findings and implications for organisations across Australia and New Zealand.

As a result, significant media coverage included:

• Sky Business News (live-to-air interview)
• The Australian Financial Review
• Adelaide Advertiser
• New Zealand Herald
• BNET

Work from home, or not? Driving conversation through research

Working from home (or not) is a hot topic for the Australian workforce. With this in mind, Howorth worked on a public relations research project that aimed to drive conversation around the issue of working from home – and find out just which side of the fence Aussies sit on.

For Citrix Online – a technology company focused on enabling remote working via web services – Howorth constructed a public relations program around a research project that compared and contrasted the attitudes of workers and small business owners in Australia, the US and the UK.

Results from research polling company WomanTrend™ Inc. revealed a significant desire to work remotely. In fact, nearly one-fifth of Aussie workers would take a five per cent pay cut to work from home.

Using these findings, Howorth employed a tiered public relations strategy to position Citrix Online as a thought leader on remote working. Howorth engaged with key technology, consumer and small business media outlets to successfully:

• Seed the term ‘Web Commuting’ as an answer to ‘Telecommuting’
• Launch a comprehensive research report titled ‘Worldwide Workplace: The Web Commuting Imperative’ – which included trends relevant for the Australian media
• Used third party expert commentary from experts Joseph Sweeney, Advisor, IBRS and Bevis England, Director of Telework New Zealand

Through media outreach, Howorth successfully raised awareness around remote working trends and achieved more than 20 pieces of online, print, radio and media coverage including:

• News.com.au
• The Australian Financial Review
• Smart Company
• NOVA 96.9
• 2GB Sydney

The media outreach also drove social media coverage via blogs on local small business websites and Twitter chatter. Resulting interviews included discussion around the benefits of remote working technology including Citrix Online’s GoToMeeting, GoToMyPC, and GoToAssist.

Viocorp delivers the world’s first live webcast of Palm Sunday Mass

Viocorp, one of Australia’s leading online video and digital media specialists, engaged Howorth public relations to spread the news about a momentous customer implementation.

For the first time in history, the Archdiocese of Sydney webcasted the Palm Sunday Mass with the Holy Father and the official handover of the World Youth Day Cross and Icon from Sydney to Madrid – using Viocorp’s online video technology.

Howorth would typically liaise with technology and marketing media to communicate the news. However, considering the size of the announcement with Catholic Communications, Howorth wanted to raise the bar in spreading the word.

SBS does not generally speak with vendors, but Howorth managed to successfully secure a segment on a Sunday edition of “World News Australia”, which featured a Viocorp interview and Viocorp brand placement. The segment was aired between a breaking news story about Guantanamo Bay and SBS’s Dateline program.

Howorth also secured interest from SBS’s “World News Australia” program and worked closely with their production team for several weeks to ensure that SBS was provided with the unique content they needed.

Howorth was able to coordinated a live interview between Cardinal George Pell and SBS while the Cardinal was in Rome. Howorth also coordinated an interview of  Viocorp’s CEO, Ian Gardiner, at the Viocorp offices in East Sydney to talk about the use of webcasting technology for such an important religious event.

Showcasing mission control – Telstra Enterprise and Government

On behalf of Telstra Enterprise and Government, Howorth launched the Managed Network Operations Centre (MNOC), highlighting the customer benefits of its multi-million dollar world class networking facility in Sydney’s CBD. This led to significant top tier media coverage in:

• ITNews
• Two articles on Computerworld
• Sky Business News
• Communications Day
• Voice and Data
• ZDNet

The MNOC is a mission control style ‘flight deck’ that enables Telstra’s 42 network engineers to monitor their network’s ‘health’.

The media launch of the operations centre reinforced Telstra’s dedication to delivering network reliability to its customers.

To obtain positive media coverage of the MNOC launch, Howorth invited top tier technology and business journalists to attend the event. The trade publications targeted were the most relevant media to the C level executives and IT managers of companies that Telstra Enterprise and Government’s MNOC serves.

Key components of the media interaction

• Media were educated on the importance of network performance, the technical details of the MNOC and Telstra’s Next G and Next IP networks
• A tour of the centre and a live demo of how it functions in the incident room
• One-on-one interviews with Nerida Caesar, Mark Gehan and Michael Rocca – key leaders within Telstra responsible for the creation of the centre.

The Telstra Productivity Indicator

What are the opportunities and gaps in business productivity? The Telstra Productivity Indicator sought to provide insights into this question. Howorth’s strategy of selected top tier media pre-briefs under embargo paid off in nearly 30 pieces of quality coverage for the launch of Telstra’s groundbreaking research on business productivity in Australia.

Coverage highlights included:

•    An interview on Sky News
•    A fifteen minute podcast on BNet
•    Full page article in the Australian Financial Review
•    The Australian IT section
•    iTNews
•    The Age
•    The Sydney Morning Herald online
•    Business Spectator
•    Communications Day
•    CIO

The successful strategy

Howorth’s strategic approach involved inviting senior, key media to interview lead Telstra spokespeople under embargo, one week prior to the launch:
•    David Thodey, group managing director of Telstra Enterprise and Government
•    Geoffrey Sims, chief economist.

Importantly, this helped journalists gain a deeper understanding of key Productivity Indicator drivers and implications before results were revealed to all media.

This approach facilitated Telstra’s priority journalists taking ownership of the report and covering it.

Bridging the productivity gap to reach your productivity potential

Telstra commissioned an independent study that was conducted by Sweeney Research, in an effort to find out more about business productivity in Australia. The report surveyed 300 Australian directors, senior executives and managers of medium to large organisations. It found that while 78 per cent of Australia’s largest organisations say improving productivity is a high priority, only half have any systems in place to measure improvements or set targets.

Addressing this ‘productivity gap’ and understanding Australian organisations’ productivity potential involves accurately measuring and managing productivity, as well as leveraging ICT tools to deliver benefits, according to Telstra’s report.

Summary

Howorth successfully bridged the ‘media gap’ by securing superior coverage of a landmark study into business productivity through a strategically planned campaign.

Business engagement with…chocolate! Citrix Online

To encourage businesses to transition in-person events to an online environment, Howorth worked with Citrix Online to successfully create an Online Chocolate Tasting experience, led by Australia’s most acclaimed chocolatier, Kirsten Tibballs.

The initiative brought together more than 40 of Citrix Online’s customers and prospects from Australia, the UK and USA. Several Australian journalists also participated. In addition to multiple qualified sales leads, the event resulted in coverage within traditional online and social media (including real-time comment by Twitter users).

Traditionally an in-person event, we used the latest version of Citrix Online’s GoToWebinar service to bring the tasting alive online. Each attendee received a box of tasting chocolates in advance of the webinar, then logged on from the comfort of their desk to learn about the art of chocolate tasting online.

Audio enhances the sweet experience
To enhance the tasting experience, we used the integrated audio feature of GoToWebinar to play music from various cocoa bean regions. The music gave attendees a greater appreciation for the chocolate and the region where it was produced.

Questions were put to the moderator throughout the session and snap polls were taken to ensure participation throughout the webinar.

Journalist Dan Warne of APC raved about the initiative, “The webinar was VERY impressive. I was amazed at how the software installed itself onto my Mac using the Java applet in the browser and the webinar itself was flawless in terms of sound and video quality. Truly impressive.”

The Online Chocolate Tasting marked a world first and was so successful that Citrix Online plans to run a similar event in the UK and USA. Howorth conceived the idea, located the chocolatier and managed all invites, logistics and rehearsals to ensure that the event was a complete success.

Shrinking holiday leads to growth in brand presence – Citrix Online

To lift Citrix Online’s brand recognition amongst businesses and consumers, Howorth raised Citrix Online’s profile, and that of its GoToMyPC software, by showing thought leadership on the issue of work/life balance. The initiative generated over 130 media placements.

Media coverage appeared across a number of television programs including Channel Nine’s Nightline, National Nine News, Channel Seven’s Today Tonight, as well as featuring on prominent drive time radio programs on 3AW, 2UE and ABC radio.

Additional coverage highlights include:

• The Australian
• Courier Mail
• Daily Telegraph
• The Age
• Herald Sun

An effective approach
Howorth helped Citrix Online gain the coverage by, initially, commissioning research with an independent firm to examine the number of interruptions employees experience in their jobs whilst out of the office. This occurred in the run up to the summer holiday season, when most Australian employees take personal leave.

Called Shrinking Holiday Syndrome, the research found that nearly three out of four Australian full-time workers were interrupted or called back to office during their holidays.

Taking this insight, Howorth then launched the research, with a key message to organisations being to ‘get with the times’ and provide employees with remote working technology to alleviate Shrinking Holiday Syndrome.

Howorth coined the term Shrinking-Holiday Syndrome, defined as the encroachment of work into people’s personal life, the stress of not being able to take care of work issues remotely and the physical act of travelling into the office during holidays.

Steve Ballmer visits Sydney

Sydney was abuzz during Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer’s November 2008 visit and Howorth harnessed the excitement to secure extensive traditional and digital media coverage. The PR outreach served to bolster Microsoft’s presence in the Australian online media and underline its position as a technology visionary.

Ballmer was exclusively interviewed by Lateline Business and AFR BOSS magazine; appeared at Telstra’s Investor Day following a partnership announcement by Microsoft and Telstra; and spoke at a Committee for Economic Development of Australia (CEDA) luncheon.

A highlight was Microsoft Australia’s ‘Liberation Day’ developer event. More than 800 developers and 16 members of the media (including bloggers) flocked to the Sydney Convention Centre to hear Ballmer speak on cloud computing and Windows 7, with bloggers and Twitter enthusiasts filing directly from the auditorium.

Journalists unable to attend watched a live Webstream. Howorth also managed press interviews for Gianpaolo Carraro, Senior Director, Microsoft Corporation and Tim Sneath, Director, Microsoft Corporation.

This event alone resulted in more than 25 pieces of coverage in publications including The Australian, The Australian Financial Review, PC Authority, iTnews, iTWire, PC Authority and Sky Business News. In total, Ballmer’s two-day visit generated more than 60 pieces of coverage for Microsoft, the majority of which appeared online.

Big stunts capture Australia’s attention

To launch Microsoft’s Windows Vista, Howorth developed a series of unique Australia Day stunts entitled ‘Look up and smile’, capturing the pride and beauty of our national day. The campaign was successfully integrated into celebrations Australia wide and helped Microsoft achieve enhanced community goodwill towards its brand through:

• support from each of the State Premiers in their Australia Day speeches
• intensive media coverage that reached more than 19 million Australians.

Coverage featured 130 stories and included radio news; talkback radio, TV news, print media, including the front page of The West Australian and online news.

Stunt highlights

Australians from all walks of life were encouraged to participate in one of many aerial photographs, or in specially created events across the country.

• Sydney-siders gathered at Centennial Park to create a massive multi-coloured map of Australia. This represented Australia’s unity in freedom and democracy, as well as the diversity of our many walks of life, religions and backgrounds
• At Kirra Beach on the Gold Coast, Australians were photographed creating an image of a red and yellow lifesaver’s cap, featuring nippers to granddads to honour 100 years of surf life saving in Australia
• In New Norcia, Western Australia, a massive 100m x 90m artwork was recreated from an image painted by three artists of the Indigenous Yuat people to reflect Australia’s unity and path towards reconciliation.

Campaign key steps

• Through close partnership with the National Australia Day Council of Australia, Howorth carefully positioned Microsoft – an ‘American’ company – so that it was not was seen to be taking over Australia’s national day
• Howorth encouraged Australians to help create three enormous artworks at large scale events in NSW, QLD and WA and participate in its aerial photography
• Howorth also worked with Microsoft to assist local committees, service clubs and other community organisations to participate by hosting their own Australia Day event. By taking their own photograph and uploading images and uploading their images to www.lookupandsmile.com.au, these groups were eligible to win $5,000.

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