The CAD Insider

Wine and Dine the Journalist. It's Just Smart Marketing.

It's reputed to be the best meat in the world. Jamón Ibérico de Bellota is the most famous ham of Spain. It’s the hind leg of a little black Spanish pig that eats nothing but acorns, giving it's meat the sweetest flavor and its fat...it's supposed to melt in your mouth like butter. The whole ham, displayed proudly at carving station in the finest restaurants, can fetch as much as $2500. Could this be what is on the table in front of us at a recent Microsoft event in Barcelona? I doubted it. Probably, a lesser grade of the ham. But journalists need to impress others with their perks. So, when this story is told, it will be Jamón Ibérico de Bellota.

Iberian ham over crusty bread. Jamon Iberico de Bellota is repudiated to be the finest meat in the ham in the world. Could this be it? I had to find out.

Microsoft’s reception was in the Fira Congress Hotel in Barcelona before the introduction of the HoloLens 2. Hors d'oeuvres were offered, champagne was poured. In addition to the Jamón Ibérico, there were little baby porchetta and tiny clams...with sea foam? Nope, it's "limona" gelatin. We're loving the lavish spread.

This is about as good as it gets for the press. Living the dream, I just heard from a member of the media.  

 

Edible art. You cannot afford places that serve this kind of stuff. Thanks, journalist job!

No doubt about it, being wined and dined is one big perk of being part of the media. Maybe the biggest. Definitely one the few. We don't do it for money. You really can’t get rich writing articles.

Oh, we do get “access.” That’s a perk, insist our editors. Meet movers and shakers of the industries you cover. For example, we hope to meet the CEO of Microsoft soon. Or a front row seat. Or a chance to ask a few questions. If we are called on. If he sticks around. I sometimes take a selfie with industry VIPs – if I'm able to summon the courage.

You do to get out of the office and have an excuse to be late on deadlines, away from your gruff and non-understanding editor, the rag or blog you attend to for pennies, often late into the night, no raise in sight. Sure, even going to Cleveland and Dallas can look good under those conditions.

Living the Life  

You, on your meager journalist salary, cannot afford this life. But if they’re buying, you’re eating – and drinking.  

Strange how, after you cover a big event, every press release from the company becomes important, every new product release significant, every PR person your friend, every marketing VP a star, every executive a thought leader…  

Tens of thousands of words pour out over the course of the year. It’s the best way to stay “on top of mind” so you are sure to be invited to the company's invitation only event for “selected” press. London, Amsterdam and Brussels, Belgium, Tokyo, Singapore, Paris... Shanghai may be hinted at (if you’re good).

While they're buying White Castle burgers back home, you are in Barcelona eating porchettas.

The Bottom Line  

You might be dazzled by the opulence and the attention. It's not love, though. It's business. It's simple math: ROI, or return on investment. Smart companies know all about it. There’s some smarties at Microsoft, for sure. You don’t spend a quarter million on a press event without knowing you’ll get it back. You, dedicated media professional and blogger, are going to write it up. More than once. A normal obligation is one article or post per event. But a lavish event, an overseas flight to a bucket list destination, a five-star hotel? You are going to just churn out articles. Because there’s so much you have seen and learned, right?  

The best cons leave their victim (the "mark") with no idea of being swindled.  

The cost of a sponsored post is $2500. That’s about the cost of flying and boarding a journalist on a junket. So, why would a smart company get one article when for the same price, they could get a year's supply? 

The press crowds the bar a recent event. It's what we do. If they're pouring, we're drinking. 

Editorial Ethics Pt 3--Vendor Written Articles

In a perfect world, a magazine would have sufficient editorial staff and expertise to write all of its own articles. This is certainly not the case in the CAD, CAM and CAE industry, where most publications toil with a bare bones staff and a lean editorial budget. To fill the pages, publications use contracted writers that vary from professional authors, users, and more than ever before--vendors.

When I was with CADENCE, we had one author (columnist Lynn Allen)  who worked for the company (Autodesk) that made the product (AutoCAD) she wrote about. Nowadays, the number of pages filled with vendor written articles abound.

Take the most recent issue of April 2006 issue of Desktop Engineering site:

• HPC for the Road Ahead - about computers at Ford, written by Srinivas Kodiyalam and Stan Posey, both of whom work for SGI, a workstation manufacturer
• Leveraging Data - about EDM, written by Jerry Waxler, who works for Synergis. Synergis makes EDM software
• Commentary - by Buzz Kross of Autodesk
• Beyond Backsolving - about calculation software, by Tom Lee of Maplesoft, makers of calculation software

Cadalyst runs vendor written articles, too. So does Machine Design.

The advantages of running vendor written articles are:

1. They're almost always free. Vendors don't demand cash to write like most authors do.
2. Vendor articles are usually well written and the typical vendor is very knowledgeable about the subject they are writing about (although they are likely to contain biases towards their own products)
3. Publishers love to exploit the goodwill generated from getting an article published. How can an executive turn down an advertising campaign with a magazine that was kind enough to give him/her several pages--for free--to espouse their views to thousands of potential customers?

So what's the problem? Vendor articles can be informative and interesting. Take Lynn Allen, for example. There are thousands of AutoCAD users who stay on top of their game because of Lynn. A vendor telling how to make the best use of their product in a magazine read by that products users is an example of a good vendor written article. However, I am leery of articles that suggest a solution that just happens to be what they are selling. Well meaning as they may be, I cannot bring myself to read them, much less believe them.

So before it's too late, I hope magazine editors can work to reverse the trend. Vendors are like the smart kids in the class, always with their hands up, always ready with a neat, perfect paper to turn in. It almost takes no effort for an editor to fill pages this way. It's way harder to coax an article out of a power user, many of whom don't fancy themselves as writers. And if they do labor through their Miller time scratching out an article, it's likely they'll want to be compensated for it. To top it off, the article will take more editorial scrubbing as finesse with the language has never been valued by the technically gifted. However, the end result will be a valuable rapport between real-world experts and eager readers.