I can’t tell if Shift Communications doesn’t get what social media and transparency are all about, or they do know but could care less as long as it helps them sell more of what they’ve always done.

In the name of social media, the firm has invented the all-new, all-purpose social-media-ready press release template. The words ‘social media’ and ‘news release’ in the same sentence expose a depth of ignorance that is breathtaking. Either they haven’t a clue what social media is all about, or they’re being shamelessly opportunistic by twisting the real meaning of it all to their traditional purpose.  Either way, it’s very bad. 

In effect, Shift is bundling a set of Web 2.0 communications technologies into a news release format at exactly the same time everyone else has realized that news releases are the antithesis of what social media represents.

Were it not for Shift’s additional and equally perplexing usurpation of the word ‘transparency,’ one might assume its ‘social media’ gaff is rooted in nothing more than a misunderstanding common in people who scan dust jackets and headlines but never actually read the source material. (You gotta actually read Thomas Freidman, ok?)

In short, the agency is saying that its position on transparency has delivered Novell to their door. Novell, Shift implies, will find redemption on Wall Street and Main Street if they just open up a little. For good measure – and to certainly optimize the key word search potential – they throw in a few words about the wisdom of crowds, exposing yet again they haven’t actually understood the point of James Surowiecki’s thesis.

Surowieki didn’t say that well informed people are wiser. Just the opposite. He said a crowd of wholly ignorant people are wiser in the aggregate more often than the experts. That’s why so many people everywhere with so little inside knowledge of Novell could still nevertheless harbor such disdain for the company. Transparency will do nothing more than merely confirm what everyone has always known until or unless Novell does something to fix its business. This is the part where traditional PR people look down at their notes to avert the clients’ eyes. Traditional PR firms don’t repair anything; they prepare stuff. 

We’ve entered an era in which ideas matter again. Novell needs a new idea, not a different open meeting style. Adding an RSS feed, a video, a podcast, and a wiki link isn’t going to disguise a bankruptcy of vision. Novell is not going to gain authenticity via new and improved news releases. They’re going to find it when they start realizing they need real conversations with real people within various communities that matter most: customers, users, partners, employees… none of which are paying any attention to news releases. 

The beauty of Surowiecki’s concept is this: crowds of corporations everywhere are getting wise to the fact that establishment PR circa 1980 made to seem contemporary with makeshift words and phrases won’t ever be anything more than a significant waste of time and money.

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