Jeremy has put together a list of 10 tips for PR people that are working with bloggers, and it’s a great read. Here’s one of his tips:

“Do your homework.  Most blogs have an ‘about’ page, in which you’ll discover the blogger’s full-time job (assuming it isn’t blogging), region of the country/world where they live, topics they prefer to cover, how they’d like to be contacted (bonus tip: IM or email is almost always the answer, not the phone), etc.  Read this and understand it.  Furthermore, doing a little background research will quickly tell you whether or not the blogger is good at keeping secrets/embargos (some do, some don’t - learn the difference).”

I’ve received probably 100+ press releases from PR firms in the past 30 days leading up to CTIA, and it’s stunning how completely random and un-targeted they are. I can tell that 99.9% of the people sending them to me have never visited any of my sites, and know absolutely nothing about me or what kinds of things I cover. It’s no surprise then that I delete 99.9% of them without wasting my time reading them.

Jeremy also has a great post covering 10 tips for bloggers working with PR people, and it’s also a good read. Having a background in PR myself, I tend to know what the PR people want and don’t want - but if I’m honest with myself I have to admit that #10 (Setting Expectations) is my biggest problem. I have a real struggle finding the discipline to write reviews in a timely, consistent manner - and more often than not I find myself apologizing to PR people for taking so damn long to write my reviews. It’s something I really wanted to improve upon in 2007, but I have to admit it’s proving to be harder than I thought. I’ll keep at it though!

It figures that the week I’m on a contract writing gig my laptop decides to flake out on me: for some bizarre reason the “e” key is partially sticking and not responding to key presses properly. I was wondering why, when I was writing an article on the airplane, I kept missing the letter “e” when typing. As a touch-typist, you get used to hitting every key with the same amount of force - not too much, not too little - and it’s hard to change the muscle memory in just one finger on one key. I don’t quite know what the problem is, but I can’t risk opening the laptop here (nor do I have the proper tools) so I’ll just suffer through it and try to remember to pound the “e” key whenever I need that all-too-often used vowel.

I’m looking at getting a Sony TX series laptop, largely because the Fujitsu P7230 (the upgrade of my laptop) isn’t all that impressive. I’m holding back though because I generally loathe Sony as a company, and most of their products. I wish Samsung sold their laptops in North America!

I’m down in Florida doing a blog project for Microsoft, and I had to pack up and leave on my birthday (yesterday, the 25th). I wish I could say that I had a great birthday day, but I woke up pretty early (when I think it should be mandatory that you get to sleep in until whenever you want on your birthday), packed my bags, then got on a plane for Orlando. After a very looooong five hour flight sitting next to a family that brought greasy fast food with them onto the plane, I made it to Orlando. I did a poor advance planning job and didn’t prepare any ripped DVDs or TV shows to watch (one of my favourite activities to do on a flight), so I ended up reading a lot of my book, iCon.

Then I had to wait 30 minutes for my bag to show up on the luggage belt. After waiting another 20 minutes in line for a taxi, I got onto a taxi shuttle that went to almost every other hotel before mine first, finally made it to my hotel, waited another 10 minutes in line as the single desk clerk checked in the three people in front of me with Japanese names that he couldn’t spell, stumbled exhausted into my room, then waited an hour for a greasy pizza to show up because I was too tired to be bothered with going out to find food myself. Quite the adventure. I already wish I was back home, but work is work, so once more unto the breech I go!