We are in the worst economic situation of the past 25 years, and the tech sector in the Valley has been hit hard. I thought instead of commenting on each layoff as it happens, it would make the whole thing more tangible to look at how actual people are affected. I invited a friend of mine, Cathy Browne, to talk about her situation. I hope if you have a kind word, or better still, a lead on a career opportunity for Cathy, you will leave a comment below, or contact her by email or through Twitter. Thank you. - Joel

Guest Post by Cathy Browne

It’s hard for me to write this without tears falling onto my keyboard. Last week I gave my landlord notice to put my wonderful little cottage apartment up for rent. My savings are gone.  My visitor’s visa will expire in six weeks.  After several years in Silicon Valley, I will have to leave the U.S., my adopted family, my precious cats, my friends and the life I cherish here. This is, and will always be, home to me, and I am broken-hearted.

I’ve been a tech PR practitioner for 25 years. People tell me I’m good at it. I love my profession, working with media and analysts, start-ups and all things geeky. I’m also legally blind, but I manage to fake it until I encounter a glass door or a name tag I can’t read.  Besides, you don’t need to see much to tell a good story.

I’ve watched PCs, email, voice mail, fax machines, the Internet and cell phones emerge to become the things we take for granted.  Now I’ve embraced social media big-time, and I’m as excited about its potential as anything else I’ve ever seen. I want to help integrate SM into PR programs for tech companies who haven’t even thought of it yet.

But I’m stuck. As a Canadian, I can’t work in the US unless I have a visa – a process that many employers consider too complicated and lengthy to take on.  And who can blame them?  There are so many deserving, smart people out there who, like me, are looking – and they’re a snap to hire.

I get that. But I am aching to work. And I have to work to support myself. So I scour Web sites for opportunities, I network, I live on LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter (my new addiction) and I meet with terrific people.  I don’t intend to give up until I’m dragged kicking and screaming onto my Air Canada flight.

Why do I bother?  Why don’t I just go back?  I love it here. I love the work ethic, the energy and the attitude that pervades this Valley. I love that my time here has injected that enthusiasm, curiosity and desire to succeed into me. I feel 20 years younger.  And most of all, I feel I still have something to contribute.

If you are a VC, company or agency out there who recognizes the critical importance of PR and needs help, take a chance on me before I have to leave at the end of January. Let me work for you for a day or two – for nothing – to prove my worth.  Throw whatever you have at me, and if you like what you see, hire me. Give me an offer letter and I’ll fly up to Vancouver, go through the usual hassles at Customs, and come back legal. You’ll be happy you did.

If you’re interested, let’s talk.  You’ll find me on Twitter, @mscathybrowne, and on email at cb@cathybrowne.com.

Thanks for listening. Happy holidays.

Tags: Canada, Canadian, visa, Cathy Browne, recession, Silicon Valley, career, opportunity, Bay, Area, Tech PR

Yesterday, I jokingly suggested that December 1 be set aside as annual PR Is Dead Day. The selection of the date was totally arbitrary, but had I given it any thought I would have realized that December 1 is Aids Awareness Day and not necessarily the best day for an event celebrating death, even in a satirical way. Lloyd Grosse called me on my gaffe, and when he told me his story, I invited him to respond with a guest post here.

Lloyd’s response:

I have had HIV since 1982 - and am a very long term survivor.  In the 80s I was a pretty radical activist and was at the coalface for arguing for the rights of people with HIV. I was one of the first people to be publicly open and appeared in the HIV awareness adverts and articles.

Funny enough as a ratbag activist I saw the power of developing strong relationships with all the people who had a stake in HIV, from my mates close to death in the palliative care through to the Federal Health Minister - and of course the journos that reported on health.  This opened my eyes to PR and sharpened my activism which eventually led to me starting my own PR agency back in the 90’s called Out PR (now long gone).

My small community in Sydney had lost more mates (2961 NSW 1996) than Australia lost in the Vietnam war (521). In one week I lost 7 clients and 5 friends. We needed a miracle.

So me as the radical was now in my own PR agency and found myself recruited by a very savvy product manager in Roche and retained to manage their HIV/AIDS portfolio in Australia.  It was a time where there was a change in the air - from HIV is a death sentence - to seeing some hope that some of us might survive a lot longer.

We helped Roche launch the first of a new line of AIDS drugs (protease inhibitor) and the new diagnostic Viral Load test onto the Australian market - advances which - to be frank saved my life.   We used our position with Roche to lobby for a compassionate access program (before the drugs and test were funded) and clinical occupational therapy service which contributed to saving a load of my mates’ lives and those of people in my extended community.

So I have a very different view of PR.  PR is not nor should ever be dead.

At its best, PR saves lives – think of:

• testing for skin cancer & spf sun protection,
• 2×5 (2 fruit and 5 veg in one day) campaign to encourage better eating habits,
• and of course the condom campaign in the 80s/90s to stop the spread of AIDS.

They are just 3 PR campaigns - there are loads more which raise money for the poor, awareness of violence against women, recycling, breast screening, blood donations, fluoridation of water, (do I need to continue?).

Sure there are bad apples but there are in every profession.  Dare I say there are examples of bad apples in the blogger community.

It is upsetting to see the funeral stones and proclamations of the death of my profession.

Building relationships is what we do.  So when our constituents believe we should die – it hurts!

I wonder if the spray and pray PR people to whom you refer are members of a professional organisation and are signed onto a code of ethics.  Does anyone bother to ask these days?  Anyone can call themselves a PR professional.  Most are not.  In Australia it takes 3 years of university in an accredited degree and at least 3 full time work in PR to qualify as a Member of our professional institute.  Many journos who are losing their jobs because of contracting media markets are trying their hand at PR and they are all too often crap at it.  Strategic communication is more than a 30 second grab or a headline.

Criticising all PRs is ironically similar to what you are complaining about.  Unresearched, spray and pray comments on blogs are probably just as bad as bad PR.

In an effort to be entirely transparent - I am the National Information Officer for the Public Relations Institute of Australia and we are guardians of my profession’s reputation in Australia.

Tags: Lloyd Grosse, Public Relations Institute of Australia, Dennis Howlett, Aids Awareness Day

What I will be doing for Socialized is to go back a century. The Vandercook letterpress I will be using is the offspring of the Gutenberg press (1450).

I believe that the internet is bringing information to the public the same way Gutenberg did with his press. Like the communications media which preceded it, the best use of the Internet is that which is bespoke, or handcrafted, for a particular purpose, audience, aesthetic and objective.

Before Gutenberg, the bible was hand written and only available to the few who could afford one. Once he started printing, the bible and other books were then made available at an affordable price, and the golden age of publicly available information was born.

Now with the internet, we have the same revolution where all information is available. Bad, good, wrong, right, everything. There will be a day when there will be someone like me who will resurrect the Archaic form of the “internet” as an artform.

Tags: socialized, ophelia chong, gutenberg, vandercook, letterpress, artforms