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Thursday, May 31, 2007 |
Steve Rubel, an agency guy, responds to Guy Kawasaki's latest PR blog. There are valid points in all of these views, of course, since it all depends upon which PR agency you hire (or which client you allow to hire you). Then, some agencies are control freaks and others are advisors--just all depends. Editors have opinions, too, and we know what we prefer in PR relationships. I've voiced a few of those opinions in the past. Just shows that as in all relationships, developing one with your agency (or the other way around) requires developing trust in each other and assuring compatibility of points of view.
11:38:12 AM 
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And finally, as I catch up on reporting all my blog reading, here's another from Webware on a pen that records what you write digitally. I may be in the market for this one.
7:01:03 AM
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And speaking of social networks, here's TechCrunch's take on one for all you Deadheads out there. I guess we all need to get social.
6:59:05 AM
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I stay away from commenting on marketing campaigns--one post and I'll be deluged by marketing people wanting theirs hyped. But this one from Opto 22 is unique--get customers to video applications and send in to bolster the content of the Opto 22 Website. It's not social networking (Web 2.0) exactly, but close. It's something other companies could do to get closer to their customers.
6:56:57 AM
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Jason Calacanis founded Weblogs Inc., sold it to AOL, then recently resigned as a vice president there to look for a new enterprise to start. I appreciated his comments during the last months of the Gillmor Gang and follow his blog. His new venture has been announced--Mahalo, a new search site. This is one with editors that will filter out the crap you get with a typical Google search.
Here's Webware's take. And here's Calacanis's announcement. Interesting.
6:53:16 AM
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Guy Kawasaki posted a conversation with a PR pro who pointed out the problems that clients often provide, then he received a rebuttal from the client side. Glen Kelman of Redfin sheds some thoughts about agency problems. In my experience, there are a few agencies who are so cautious and so overly script clients that it's useless trying to interview executives. I'll just get the party line over and over and nothing interesting.
And here Joe Wikert reviews a new book on PR and marketing. Some interesting thoughts here.
6:48:44 AM
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Today's Feed Forward features guest blogger Wes Iversen, Automation World's Managing Editor who is in Minneapolis for a Turck press conference.
Turck Inc. rolled out a couple of new products at its U.S. headquarters in
the Minneapolis suburb of Plymouth, Minn., on Wednesday before a gathering
of 14 trade press editors.
One of the products--a new RFID system for the industrial space--is likely to
find applications in one of Turck's traditional markets, namely the
automotive industry. The other new entry--a Diagnostic Power Conditioner
system for Foundation Fieldbus--underscores Turck's effort to push further
into the process automation space.
In his opening remarks, Turck Inc. President and CEO Dean McCaskill said
that process automation currently amounts to only about 5 percent of the
company's business. But given that Turck started focusing on this market
only five years ago, "we feel pretty good about that," he said. The company
has a goal of doubling its process automation business every five years, he
said. Turck's business in general is up this year, in the "good single-digit
growth" range, despite tough market conditions, McCaskill reported.
In its press release on the new Diagnostic Power Conditioner, or DPC, Turck
referred to the product as "revolutionary." And Turck managers seem to
believe that theyâo[dot accent]ve found a hole in the Foundation Fieldbus marketplace
that needs to be filled. The DPC features an integrated diagnostics module
to provide end-users with vital statistics that can ease the task of
diagnosing any problems associated with the Foundation Fieldbus physical
layer.
Problems in the physical layer have traditionally caused most of the
problems in Foundation Fieldbus deployments and take a long time to
troubleshoot, said Randy Durick, business development manager, process
automation, for Turck. "Nobody has really promoted diagnostics of whatâo[dot accent]s
between the control system and the field instruments. It's been a big black
hole," he said.
The market for this kind of product is just getting started. Besides Turck,
only a few other vendors have announced or introduced products, said Durick.
And he believes that the Turck system includes features that will make it
stand out, including the way the DPC does diagnostics and the output current
provided.
The DPC system continuously monitors Foundation Fieldbus physical layer
components to detect anomalies and long-term subtle changes that might not
otherwise be evident. The system provides complex fieldbus diagnostic data
via a diagnostics bus that is separate from the Foundation Fieldbus H1
segment. Physical layer values and parameters are independently displayed
via the DTM (device type manager) that can be integrated in any FDT (field
device tool) application, or accessed via a Foundation Fieldbus device
descriptor.
A DPC system can supply up to 16 segments, each with a maximum of 800 mA of
output current and 30 VDC output voltage, maximizing the availability to
individual segments. The system can be connected via standard Ethernet
components, allowing an existing Ethernet structure to be used for segment
diagnostics, enabling the length of the system and the number of high-speed
Ethernet field devices to be virtually unlimited.
Beyond expected application for the DPC in the oil and gas industry, Turck
is seeing early interest in the system by end-users in the biofuels and
pharmaceutical industries. The company currently has one beta installation
in place at a customer site, and expects to have "50 to 60 segments
installed on an ethanol plant by the end of summer," Durick said.
Turckâo[dot accent]s other new product--called the BLident--is billed as "the first modular
RFID system with built-in I/O." Built on the ISO 15693 13.56 MHz standard
for radio frequency identification, or RFID, the BLident can handle up to
eight channels of RFID on a single gateway, plus additional discrete or
analog I/O to comprise a single node on the network. By comparison,
competitive industrial RFID systems can accommodate only two channels of
RFID per gateway, said Mark DiSera, product marketing manager for Turck's
Network and Interface Division.
Other differentiators for the BLident system include cable lengths of up to
50 meters--twice as long as competitive products--as well as a ferroelectric
RAM memory option for RFID tags, which provide significantly more write
cycles than more traditional EEPROM tag memory, said DiSera.
The BLident system was actually introduced in Germany in April 2006, but is
being released now to the U.S. market with support for Profibus-DP,
DeviceNet, Modbus-TCP, Profinet and EtherNet/IP. Besides automotive, target
markets include transport/conveying and handling, OEM machine building, food
and beverage, pharmaceutical, chemical and petrochemical.
6:27:31 AM
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© Copyright 2007 Gary Mintchell.
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