Today's PRNewser interview is with the one, the only: Richard Laermer. If you work in PR and don't know Richard, well, where have you been?

The RLM PR president, author of "Punk Marketing," "Full Frontal PR" and "co-runner" of The Bad Pitch Blog, Laermer is pretty much a walking sound bite. Ok, he's much more than that, but that is just one thing that sticks out to us whenever we speak with him.

Today Richard catches up with PRNewser about Mark Penn's failures with the Hillary campaign, why Gumby is the mascot of RLM PR, and his new book, "2011: Trendspotting for the Next Decade," which he describes as, "an exploration of trends that will affect our lives and a sense of what we have to overcome just before we leap into the new about-to-be-filled space. Or, as Woody Allen once said: 'A kind of void, you know, an empty one.'"

So why another book?
This is my fourth business book. The only reason I did this book...

continued...

Jeff Julin, president of MGA Communications and chairman of the Public Relations Society of America (PRSA) was interviewed by his local paper, the Denver Post.

In the interview, writer Steve Wraabe mentioned a, "New York-based author of a PR-industry newsletter has been critical of you and the society under your leadership for not speaking out enough on PR credibility and advocacy issues." Hmm, we wonder who he is talking about there.

In response, Julin mentioned PRSA's work with FEMA after their fake press conference debacle and said, "PRSA has a very aggressive advocacy effort that promotes ethical, effective public relations by responding to various high-profile challenges and programs."

Regarding the economy, Julin stated, "Public relations professionals support a wide number of segments of an organization with programs in financial relations, employee relations, community relations, government affairs, marketing and more. All of these are critical to managing through difficult economic times and positioning your business for the future."

[Satlof with Stephen Colbert]

It doesn't take a genius to understand that the music industry game is changing. Just yesterday, Jay-Z announced he would be leaving Def-Jam, his longtime record label in favor of an unprecedented $150 million deal with concert promoter Live Nation.

If anyone can provide an inside look into this world, it's Shore Fire Media. The music focused PR and Online Marketing agency represents artists including Bruce Springsteen, Norah Jones, Elvis Costello and Paul Simon.

VP Mark Satlof recently talked to PRNewser about client Billy Bragg's Op-Ed in the New York Times, working Grammy night and changes in the music industry from a PR perspective.

continued...

[Robert Scoble at QDT in Tribeca]

Today we present to you an interview with Robert Scoble, possibly best originally known for his work as a Microsoft evangelist, where according to The Economist, he "succeeded where small armies of more conventional public-relations types have been failing abjectly for years: he has made Microsoft, with its history of monopolistic bullying, appear marginally but noticeably less evil to the outside world..."

Robert jumped from Podtech.net to Mansueto Ventures (publishers of Inc. and Fast Company magazines) this past January to head up FastCompany.tv.

At about 6:30 last night, we saw a message from Robert on Twitter welcoming everyone to a lower Manhattan bar to hang with him and the Fast Company team. PRNewser headed there for a post work drink and spoke to Robert about what technologies he is keeping a close eye on in 2008, how to best get in touch with him, and his upcoming speaking appearance at the Mediabistro Circus.

PRNewser: Hi Robert, so we're here in New York City.

RS: Yeah!

continued...

(image: wired.com)

So, we weren't there, but if the blog and Twitter response to Sarah Lacy's interview of Mark Zuckerberg is any indication of what really went down, which we believe it is, all we can say is: wow.

Apparently, people weren't too happy with Lacy's questions, which led the atmosphere of the much anticipated keynote to border on anarchy, with Sarah then opening up the rest of the interview to questions from the audience.

Steve NeSmith writes on BuzzMachine:

Considering the circumstances Zuckerberg did a great job of pulling the interview out of the ditch that Lacy drove it into - several times. Facebook's PR exec, who was sitting across the aisle from me, would be smart to limit Lacy's involvement on future public events involving the young Facebook CEO.

Zuckerberg told mediabistro's Rebecca Fox after the keynote, "I feel really bad for Sarah...Right about the time when Sarah thought it was over is when it should have ended." [by our clock, no more than 35 minutes in].

Head on over to FishbowlNY for complete coverage of this year's SXSW.

Conducting market research is a tried and true way to add legitimacy to your story, but where do you start?

PRNewser recently spoke with Annette Abell, Director of Client Development for market research giant Harris Interactive. Annette was formerly Harris Interactive's vice president of marketing from 1999-2007. She also has 10+ years of business-to-business and business-to-consumer marketing experience in both the healthcare and professional services industries.

In this interview, Annette speaks about how to ensure your market research is newsworthy, some common misconceptions people have around market research, and the top ten tips for PR people to make sure their survey or poll is a success.

continued...

In this week's PRNewser interview, we chat with Jon Swartz, technology columnist for USA Today. Jon has also written for Forbes.com, the San Francisco Chronicle, The Times-Picayune in New Orleans, the London Times, and the Chicago Tribune. He was named a top media influencer in the 2002 and 2003 newspapers category in Adweek Magazine's Technology Marketing 2003 Media Influencer's Report.

Jon talks to PRNewser about what he thinks will happen with Microsoft's Yahoo! bid, how PR people can best work with him, including giving us his IM name, and what it's like to be on "the other side," as he is currently promoting a new book, Zero Day Threat: How Banks and Credit Bureaus Help Cyber Crooks Steal Your Money and Identity," co-written with fellow USA Today reporter Byron Acohido.

What time did you wake up this morning?
6:30am

If you weren't a journalist you'd be:
I probably would be a lawyer.

What is your opinion of New York City?
I think New York City is the most incredible city in the world.

Google is:
Unstoppable. The center of the universe. It will only get bigger.

continued...

Our editor at mediabistro requested that we drum up some interesting PR folks for the popular "So What Do You Do?" series on the main site. We found a great subject for you: Ethan Riegelhaupt, head speechwriter and Vice President of internal communications at The New York Times. We won't spoil it but we will say Rigelhaupt knows a thing or two about politics.

The article goes live this Wednesday, February 13.

UPDATE: The article will go live on Wednesday, 2/20/2008.

Click through to find recent interviews our TVNewser and Fishbowl colleagues have conducted with Tiki Barber, Matt Bai from The Times, Michael Calderone from Politico.com, Andrew Morse, Executive Producer with GMA and more.

Crisis communications is no easy job. In this week's PRNewser interview, we chat with Andrew Gilman, president of CommCore Consulting Group. Andrew has been a communications strategist, crisis counselor and keynote speaker for more than twenty years.

He is Co-author of the best-selling book Get To The Point (Bantam 1990), and is also a lawyer and award-winning journalist.

As a crisis communications expert, Andrew's experience includes providing advice to the University of Virginia Medical Center in the baby-switching incident and counsel to Johnson & Johnson during Tylenol I.

He talks to PRNewser about the biggest crisis' of the last year, how social media is changing crisis communications, and whether or not Patriot's coach Bill Belichick is "media trainable."

What are some of the biggest misconceptions executives have when it comes to media training?
The biggest hurdle for an executive to understand is that they can't control the interview the way they run most of their business lives. However, with planning and preparation you can increase the quotes or positive mentions in an article.

continued...

(image cred)

Hello faithful readers. We're back with another edition of our PRNewser interview, this time with Edelman VP and PR blogger extraordinaire (our term, not his) Phil Gomes.

Phil talks to PRNewser about what he looks for in new hires, his interactions with PR critic Amanda Chapel of Strumpette and what music is in his heavy rotation list, among other topics.

What is a typical, or atypical day in the life of Phil Gomes like?

For me, there's no such thing as a "typical" day. I've had as many atypical days as I've spent in this business.

continued...