Monday, August 08, 2005
PR Opportunity
This story suggested a PR opportunity for companies in many industries. One can use a wiki to write "the book" on any number of subjects for which a company wants to be positioned as an authority. "The book" becomes a definitive statement of how much a company knows and by extension, makes it the lead spokesperson in an industry. This idea isn't new, but it hasn't been done online much, to my knowledge.
Where I have seen the idea done effectively is in Museums of Science and Industry. Over the years, I have seen wonderful exhibits in places like Chicago, Boston and the Liberty Science Center in Jersey City, NJ that were products of companies, which sponsored them. (In fact, at the Liberty Science Center now is an exhibit on movie making that is worth seeing, but hurry, the museum is about to close for two years while it is expanded and rebuilt.)
It takes courage to suggest a project this size but the payoff is tremendous, if done right. Most companies today build web sites as resources, but the sites tend to be pastiches of knowledge rather than disciplined, in-depth statements about a subject. Wouldn't it be wonderful to see a site done like a museum exhibit with interactive experiments, logical exposition and theory all wrapped together? Think of the merchandising possibilities.
Let me give an example to spark your thinking. Visualize an auto exploded into parts on a home page. Click on each part and you learn what it is for, where it is made, how it works and where it comes from. You can click on the part to make it work or slip it into its correct place in the car to see how it fits with other parts. You can bore into the part to find out where the steel or aluminum comes from and how the steel and aluminum were made. You can assemble the whole car and see how it is distributed to dealers, sold to customers and serviced over its life.
In other words, the exploded car on the home page becomes the authoritative book on auto manufacturing and marketing. This can be done for any industry or service.
Where I have seen the idea done effectively is in Museums of Science and Industry. Over the years, I have seen wonderful exhibits in places like Chicago, Boston and the Liberty Science Center in Jersey City, NJ that were products of companies, which sponsored them. (In fact, at the Liberty Science Center now is an exhibit on movie making that is worth seeing, but hurry, the museum is about to close for two years while it is expanded and rebuilt.)
It takes courage to suggest a project this size but the payoff is tremendous, if done right. Most companies today build web sites as resources, but the sites tend to be pastiches of knowledge rather than disciplined, in-depth statements about a subject. Wouldn't it be wonderful to see a site done like a museum exhibit with interactive experiments, logical exposition and theory all wrapped together? Think of the merchandising possibilities.
Let me give an example to spark your thinking. Visualize an auto exploded into parts on a home page. Click on each part and you learn what it is for, where it is made, how it works and where it comes from. You can click on the part to make it work or slip it into its correct place in the car to see how it fits with other parts. You can bore into the part to find out where the steel or aluminum comes from and how the steel and aluminum were made. You can assemble the whole car and see how it is distributed to dealers, sold to customers and serviced over its life.
In other words, the exploded car on the home page becomes the authoritative book on auto manufacturing and marketing. This can be done for any industry or service.
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