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Technology PR person sympathises with British farming community

Posted by putsimply on 27th September 2007

Right, I’ve heard this one too many times to ignore the hot question of the week:-

“What on God’s green earth is Bluetongue?”

It seems to have collectively bypassed the media that some people might not actually know that Bluetongue is a viral disease of sheep, cattle, goats, and wild ruminants, transmitted by biting flies of the genus ‘Culicoides’.

Or maybe it’s that it’s tricky to fit into a nice and easy sound bite.

It’s an issue that technology PRs across the globe will be very familiar with: How to explain something quite complicated – like a piece of technology – in a couple of easy to understand words. It’s why you see phrases like “black magic”, “seamless integration”, “turnkey solution” and the like creep into press releases so often.

It’s obscene.

And I’m a drama queen, but it’s not as easy as one might think writing for technology PR.

It’s not the only industry where people hide behind fancy words – it’s just that seeing as we’re in the business of communications, you’d expect people to, erm, well, communicate.

The first question that should be answered for any piece of writing is “does it make any sense?”

In tech PR, all to often, the answer is “no”.

Or, as lesser PRs might answer, “in enabling the demands of our market, we are delighted to announce that our cutting edge response is in the negative.”

putsimply